Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I recently picked the games up at gamestop for a good 20 bucks, so I figured I'd try out the emulator.

Sorry if this is in the wrong section btw.

Well, I've downloaded Revision 6543, and I've been having slight speed problems with the two games

Here are my Specs since they're probably important:

Summary
Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 740QM @ 1.73GHz 57 °C
Clarksfield 45nm Technology
RAM
3.9GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 660MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. N61Jq (Socket 989)
Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor @ 1366x768
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730

And here are the current settings I'm using:



Smash Bros hits a decent pace of 100-90% of 60 FPS when playing with 2 characters, and drops down to around 60%, increasing randomly.

SA2 Battle runs at around 100% the entire time so far in single player, but drops to around 70-85% in 2 player.

Is there anything I can do about it, such as using other revisions, or changing any settings? I've currently tried Dolphin 2.0, and R5186. Pretty sure I tried another one, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Bumping the thread.

i don't know but try using the newest releases, dolphin 2 is pretty old compared to them. Also try changing video plugins to d3d9 or opengl. I play smash on a really weak machine 60fps with a hell of a mess simultaneusly on video.

(12-14-2010, 07:11 PM)d3stroyah Wrote: [ -> ]i don't know but try using the newest releases, dolphin 2 is pretty old compared to them. Also try changing video plugins to d3d9 or opengl. I play smash on a really weak machine 60fps with a hell of a mess simultaneusly on video.

Thanks for the input. Mind if I ask which plugin you use personally?

well your cpu is lacking a little. 1.73 is quite low to be emulating wii. id stick with gamecube games for the time being.

(12-17-2010, 12:28 AM)inteGReddy Wrote: [ -> ]well your cpu is lacking a little. 1.73 is quite low to be emulating wii. id stick with gamecube games for the time being.

Mobile i5's and i7's (his included) have turbo boost. It lets you disable some of your cores in favor of higher clock speed. Smart overclocking. This particular i7 can reach speeds of 2.4-2.6ghz with turbo boost with two cores enabled. Very rarely will the CPU be running that low. And regardless of that, i7's have superior architecture to any other mobile CPU on the market. That makes the clock speed somewhat less important than some other CPU's. I have compared my performance in identical games between my mobile i7 (same model and clock speed as TC's) with a desktop with an Athlon II x2 @3ghz. With turbo boost enabled, the laptop kicks the desktop's ass in dolphin performance (and pcsx2 AND normal gaming). That is keeping it strictly to dual core, not even using the extra 2 cores the i7 has. Dolphin and most other modern games/emulators only use two of your cores anyways.

Besides that, these two games ARE Gamecube games. I have the same CPU and GPU as the TC and can get fullspeed (or JUST slightly below) all the time in single player in both of these games. Never tried multiplayer in either game though. Make sure you have turbo boost enabled. You can either do it by enabling it in the bios, or you can do it manually with task manager by playing with the CPU core affinities.

TC should even be able to run Wii games fine. Been using Dolphin with Epic Mickey and DKC Returns, very minor slowdown in either game, they run and look great.

I should mention that i prefer to use D3D9 plugin. D3D11 is slower for me. Try choosing D3D9 instead and see if you get a speed boost.

(12-17-2010, 12:28 AM)inteGReddy Wrote: [ -> ]well your cpu is lacking a little. 1.73 is quite low to be emulating wii. id stick with gamecube games for the time being.

don't forget the turbo boost.
"Max Turbo Frequency, 3.06 GHz."

Thanks guys. Yea, I haven't had a chance to mess with any other revisions or anything at the moment. My sister's birthday was rather hectic, and so was preparing for it.

I'll try one of the later versions, and I'll mess with the d3d9/opengl plugins.

I was pretty sure I should be able to run them ok, but I hadn't really messed with some of the settings all that much. Just kinda went with d3d11 considering PCSX2 runs faster for me with that.

Thanks again for the help, and I'll probably just be back on within a few hours with an update.

Well, Just tried things out with D3D9, and it works rather well.

Except it would seem I still can't get Multiplayer in Sonic to run any faster than about 45 FPS. Game itself runs about full speed in the levels I've tried so far.

Also, certain maps in SSBM are sluggish as well, such as the Fountain of Dreams, which sits at something around 60% of normal speeds.

Apparently, I haven't noticed any changes in performance from changing core affinities either. Should I try Enabling "Lock Threads to Core" while lowering the amounts of cores used to run Dolphin?

Also, any other suggestions? I'd try out some other games, but I don't have access to any others at the moment. I'd have to get myself to my friends house seeing as he's borrowing most of mine while my Wii gets repaired.

(12-17-2010, 04:21 AM)gdbg Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-17-2010, 12:28 AM)inteGReddy Wrote: [ -> ]well your cpu is lacking a little. 1.73 is quite low to be emulating wii. id stick with gamecube games for the time being.

don't forget the turbo boost.
"Max Turbo Frequency, 3.06 GHz."

ahem, 2.93 is still kinda slow for dolphin imo.