Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey Guys !!

I want to say that i'm so not surprised about the great progress that dolphin is going through right now, coz its the work of Really Cool Developers , i hope it gets Perfect soon !!

my 2 questions now...

1- is it possible now that i can play SMG2 with DSP LLE on thread ON without having performance issues ? what about syncing !? i have only dual-core Cpu and i can't test that !! (just asking 'coz i intend to upgrade my CPU for dolphin, worth going for a tri or a quad-core) ??

2- from users with experience with SMG and other heavy cpu games having AMD platform(or what do u expect?) ... how much FPS would i get as an average if i upgrade to a model with higher cache memory (L3 6MB) and higher clock (~OC'd to 3.8GHZ)...
(assuming i'm turning CPU->EFB Access ON / no GPU slowdowns )

Sorry for the long post ! and thnx in advance
U Guys Are Awesome

i get a low of 50 fps in smg2 with lle on thread. however, lle on thread causes dolphin to crash (for me anyway) when i have lle on thread. so, for now id recommend using lle with smg2 but not checking the lle on thread option.

as far as upgrading your cpu... id probably wait. the best cpu you could for your system that would be good with dolphin would probably be a quad phenom (assuming you have an am3 board). i would recommend maybe waiting for the next big cpu architecture to be released. sandy bridge is good but, you may still be disappointed that your 2k$ pc still cant run all games at 100%. just my 2 cents.

(02-14-2011, 03:55 AM)metalnumb Wrote: [ -> ]I want to say that i'm so not surprised about the great progress that dolphin is going through right now, coz its the work of Really Cool Developers , i hope it gets Perfect soon !!

Unfortunately, I noticed some heavy performance drops as well as frequent crashes and graphical glitches in the newer revisions, so I'm pretty sure it won't get perfect for a very long time.
Some things work better, others break. That's what happen, every time Dolphin gets a new revision.

(02-14-2011, 03:55 AM)metalnumb Wrote: [ -> ]1- is it possible now that i can play SMG2 with DSP LLE on thread ON without having performance issues ? what about syncing !? i have only dual-core Cpu and i can't test that !! (just asking 'coz i intend to upgrade my CPU for dolphin, worth going for a tri or a quad-core) ??

That's more than 1 question :p
DSP LLE on thread shouldn't cause performance issues, since the DSP (sound) will be processed on it's own core.
So either you have a vacant core for DSP (in which case performance will go up) or you haven't.

People say that the DSP LLE on thread causes sync issues, which I cannot confirm.
They also say the performance gain is minimal, which I can confirm.
To be honest, I didn't notice ANY difference with "DSP LLE on thread" on or off, so I wonder if it might have been broken, when I tested it...

Whether tri- or quadcore is worth the buy depends on you, not Dolphin.
Since Dolphin won't make use of more than 2 cores (except maybe if you use DSP LLE on thread) you won't profit from any more cores with Dolphin.
If you're considering playing other games, like GTA 4 or other such games, you might want to get more cores.
One thing worth mentioning, is that an Intel i-Core CPU will run Dolphin faster, than any comparable CPU with different architecture.

(02-14-2011, 03:55 AM)metalnumb Wrote: [ -> ]2- from users with experience with SMG and other heavy cpu games having AMD platform(or what do u expect?)

I expect to understand what you're saying here.
I think you forgot half a sentence.

(02-14-2011, 03:55 AM)metalnumb Wrote: [ -> ]how much FPS would i get as an average if i upgrade to a model with higher cache memory (L3 6MB) and higher clock (~OC'd to 3.8GHZ)...
(assuming i'm turning CPU->EFB Access ON / no GPU slowdowns )

I don't think a higher cache will make any huge difference, but frankly, I don't know.
As for a higher clock rate: most people report good framerates (40-60 FPS) when their CPU is clocked at over 4 GHz.
Personally, I get 10-40 FPS (depending on the game) with 1.7 GHz (2.4 GHz in Turbo boost)
In other words: a higher clock rate does not have a huge impact, although it's probably the only factor that'll allow you to get better performance in Dolphin.


I hope you find my post helpful.

Thanks A lot Guys That Was Pretty Helpful nfo

Sorry Guys i dont wanna make a new thread for this ... but i'm really curious .... technically why does CPU->EFB Access cause such a huge slowdown ? i mean what does it do anyway ?! and what's the feature of the cpu that it depends on !? (cache speed? cache capacity ? clock speed ?....)

Quote:technically why does CPU->EFB Access cause such a huge slowdown ?i mean what does it do anyway ?!

It does exactly what it says. It allows the cpu to access the efb copy. And it does not cause a huge slowdown unless it is actually used by the game (which is rare).

Quote:and what's the feature of the cpu that it depends on !? (cache speed? cache capacity ? clock speed ?....)

General cpu throughput.

thanx NV

What I've noticed, is that CPU -> EFB access is needed, when you need to point at an object, instead of a direction.

For example:
To shoot, you need to point to where you want to shoot.
The CPU gets the cursor position, then computes the trajectory of the bullet through your position and the cursor's position. This doesn't require the CPU to access the EFB.

When however, you have to point at a very specific object, that'll have to interact with your pointer, you'll need the access.
When you want to choose your hair colour, you'll have to point at a bar with colours inside.
The CPU will need to access the EFB in order to know, which colour you are pointing at, since the colours aren't bound to specific coordinates, but by dynamic ones (that can change, depending on which colours you can actually access)

Or so, I think it works. As I'm not part of the developing team, I can only guess.
Based upon my own observation, however, I'd say this is more or less probably a possible answer :p

dont get intel, their chips fail. j/k i think they fixed it now.

i have an amd phenom x4 965 black edition clocked at 3.4 ghz and i get a low of about 52 fps now with proper settings on super mario galaxy number 1

usually im 60 fps

and i play mario kart wii with 60 fps constant except on the 4th place of the 8th cup witch is bowsers castle witch is like 50 - 60 fps