Hello everybody!
I'm quite new to Dolphin emulation. When I'm running Dolphin build 7440 for Mac OS X it works but the CPU is going nuts. In Activity Monitor (the OS X utility) I can see Dolphin uses more than 100% of the CPU - sometime around 140% (how is that even possible?) and the fans speeds up. The graphics in Dolphin works smooth but could this overheat my computer (or be harmful in any other way)? Is my computer just too old and slow?
I have a MacBook Pro from early 2008:
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT (256 MB)
Mac OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard
In my example I've tried Resident Evil (remake)
What kind of Mac will I need then? I guess a brand new Mac Mini will not be enough as they still make use of Intel Core 2 Duo? A MacBook with Core i5? A MacBook Pro with Core i7?
Any input is greatly appreciated.
Hmm... well you asked for it so here's my input.
The truth is you don't want to have a Mac for playing games, they're not good at all.
Seriously you won't get top performance in games with a Mac, Macs of any kind belong in advertising bureaus and should be kept away as far from games as possible.
I'm surprised that they even have made games for Mac to belong with, I'm even more surprised that there isn't a law to forbids such profanity.
It doesn't matter if you get a new one, performance on it will be bad anyway.
A Mac is a Mac, that label can never be washed away.
I have a 27" i7 iMac with Bootcamp and Windows 7 and it beats my P.C of a similar spec hands down. While I use the Windows side for games, for Dolphin the Mac version runs way better than the Windows build. I get nearly 100% for all games at 720 or 1080p, the only ones that struggle are Mario Galaxy 1 and 2.
Being fairly new to the Mac scene I would have said as much as the poster above me and it may be true you won't get 'top' performance. But to say 'performance on it will be bad anyway', is, like anything, entirely dependent on the program/game you're running. But as this discussion is about Dolphin, this is simply (in my experience) not true.
Anyway to the original poster I have the latest 27" iMac released, i7 @ 2.9mhz, 8gb Ram, Radeon 5750 1gb and it runs like a dream
While I didn't get it primarily for games or emus - Dophin runs ace, PCSX2 runs almost everything (including GOW2) at 1080p 60fps.
The Mac gaming community is fairly small and pound for pound a P.C will generally be better than a Mac, but, as I have said, you can get great performance on a Mac with the correct settings. I got my Mac for a variety of reasons to do with my job as well, but as a gaming machine it's great and the aesthetic of the machine is lovely, far better looking than my now almost defunct gaming rig. Take a look at 'itunenoob's youtube channel for gaming performance of new titles on the 27" i7 iMac.
Well maybe that's true to a certain extent since you do have good hardware there, but the price you pay for a Mac isn't justified and I believe you payed a whole lot of money for that iMac 27"
And looking at the prices here in a Apple Store in Sweden, they're insane (3100$ = ~20.000SEK) this isn't even the most expensive 27" iMac
With Macs I think you always pay more for the design then anything else.
For that price I could build 2 really good rigs, it's preposterous.
(04-07-2011, 11:14 PM)Gabriel Belmont Wrote: [ -> ]Hmm... well you asked for it so here's my input.
The truth is you don't want to have a Mac for playing games, they're not good at all.
Seriously you won't get top performance in games with a Mac, Macs of any kind belong in advertising bureaus and should be kept away as far from games as possible.
I'm surprised that they even have made games for Mac to belong with, I'm even more surprised that there isn't a law to forbids such profanity.
It doesn't matter if you get a new one, performance on it will be bad anyway.
A Mac is a Mac, that label can never be washed away.
The newer iMacs with i5/i7 processors are actually adequate for dolphin and easily surpass most typical core 2 based desktop PC's.
For anything else the speed is just not there, and is too crappy for any real gaming.
I have a macbook air for travel use and it's just horrible on dolphin using the OS X build, lol. At 800x600 it's still a struggle at lowest settings.. Some older PC games play well though at the lowest settings
But then again these things are not made for gaming.. People just don't buy a Mac to play games
I think people are getting off topic, anyways yes there might be a risk to overheat, but that can be helped by buying one of the laptop cooler things, can make a pretty decent different. Also you using more then 100%. If i would guess, just means you using the equivalent to 1 core max out and another at 40%. At least that how my linux laptop would show it.
If it working quite well now, you might just want to get a cooler, but if your worried or just want an excuse to get a new mac. But you won't see much performance increase from a core i5 to a core i7, dolphin really can only use 2 thread, so you'll see a small increase in performance, mostly because those 2 cores will only be working on dolphin instead of dolphin and the OS and whatever else you've got going on. But just in dolphin terms you don't need much more then the core i5 dual cores. I personally have a core i5 2420m in my dell xps, and it's pretty close to full speed all the time if i'm using HLE audio. if your like to use LLE, then the core I7 might be better because you can actually use another thread if you use LLE
(04-07-2011, 11:37 PM)Ocean Wrote: [ -> ]The newer [color=#FF0000]iMacs with i5/i7[/color] processors are actually adequate for dolphin and easily surpass most typical [color=#0000CD]core 2 based desktop PC's[/color].
how about an i5/i7 PC against an i5/i7 mac?
(04-08-2011, 04:14 PM)jonnyboyC Wrote: [ -> ]I think people are getting off topic, anyways yes there might be a risk to overheat, but that can be helped by buying one of the laptop cooler things, can make a pretty decent different. Also you using more then 100%. If i would guess, just means you using the equivalent to 1 core max out and another at 40%. At least that how my linux laptop would show it.
If it working quite well now, you might just want to get a cooler, but if your worried or just want an excuse to get a new mac. But you won't see much performance increase from a core i5 to a core i7, dolphin really can only use 2 thread, so you'll see a small increase in performance, mostly because those 2 cores will only be working on dolphin instead of dolphin and the OS and whatever else you've got going on. But just in dolphin terms you don't need much more then the core i5 dual cores. I personally have a core i5 2420m in my dell xps, and it's pretty close to full speed all the time if i'm using HLE audio. if your like to use LLE, then the core I7 might be better because you can actually use another thread if you use LLE
Aah, the two cores. Right. Makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
Yeah it runs well - almost 100% (in Dolphin) all the time during my limited testing with Resident Evil Remake. Once they update their Mac Mini line with a Core I5/I7 I think I'll get that for the living room tv - holding off any laptop cooler for now (but thanks for the idea). In the meantime I guess I just play for shorter time periods to avoid overheating - heck it's still not totally maxing out at 200%.
When running Dolphin on your Dell XPS, do you know what your CPU usage is? Hopefully it's less than 140%. The leap from Core 2 Duo to Core I5 should be bigger than from Core I5 to I7, no?
How important is the graphics card btw? I have a 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT now.
(04-07-2011, 11:22 PM)LordBarker Wrote: [ -> ]I have a 27" i7 iMac with Bootcamp and Windows 7 and it beats my P.C of a similar spec hands down. While I use the Windows side for games, for Dolphin the Mac version runs way better than the Windows build. I get nearly 100% for all games at 720 or 1080p, the only ones that struggle are Mario Galaxy 1 and 2.
Being fairly new to the Mac scene I would have said as much as the poster above me and it may be true you won't get 'top' performance. But to say 'performance on it will be bad anyway', is, like anything, entirely dependent on the program/game you're running. But as this discussion is about Dolphin, this is simply (in my experience) not true.
Anyway to the original poster I have the latest 27" iMac released, i7 @ 2.9mhz, 8gb Ram, Radeon 5750 1gb and it runs like a dream While I didn't get it primarily for games or emus - Dophin runs ace, PCSX2 runs almost everything (including GOW2) at 1080p 60fps.
The Mac gaming community is fairly small and pound for pound a P.C will generally be better than a Mac, but, as I have said, you can get great performance on a Mac with the correct settings. I got my Mac for a variety of reasons to do with my job as well, but as a gaming machine it's great and the aesthetic of the machine is lovely, far better looking than my now almost defunct gaming rig. Take a look at 'itunenoob's youtube channel for gaming performance of new titles on the 27" i7 iMac.
Thanks for the input. It would be interesting to hear what your CPU usage is (in Activity Monitor) when running Dolphin. Would you mind checking that out?
Dolphin runs smooth with my Core 2 Duo but again it's a heavy backpack for it to lift. It would be interesting to know just how big of a leap it is with Core I7.