Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi to all!

I've recently installed Dolphin in my Core i7 920 + Ati HD5850 and it works great. The problem is that I have this PC in a quite small room which is not very suitable to play Wii games comfortably. I've also got a HTPC in my dining room connected to a 32" TV, where playing would be much more fun. The problem is that the HTPC is a simple Atom + ION2 configuration, and while it works great for watching movies, listening to music and surfing the internet, it simply can't cope with the Wii emulation, no matter which the settings are.

So I was thinking about changing the configuration of my HTPC and getting something more powerful (while keeping the mini ITX format and low power consumption), and I've looked at a MSI miniITX motherboard with socket 1155 and one of the new Pentium CPUs with the Sandybridge core (probably the G620, dual core @ 2.6Ghz and 65W, or the G620T, dual core @ 2.2 Ghz and 35W). Those CPUs have Intel HD 2000 integrated GPUs.

The point is: would this configuration be powerful enough to run Dolphin at playable speeds? According to some reviews, the Pentium G620 is a bit faster than a Phenom 555 CPU (so you can get an idea). If it's not fast enough, I wouln't make the investment, because the Atom is enough for the normal uses as a HTPC. But if you think that I could be able to play Wii games at decent speeds (20-25 fps minimum), I'd make the change.

Thanks in advance!

No, buy a wii for that kind of money(or actually much cheaper) and enjoy 100% perfect gameplay. Move your other computer if you want to play on your other tv or something...that upgrade seems like it would not really help at all. You might squeak by fine on most gamecube games but wii will be harsher and with that setup it's not like you'll be pushing lots of options for picture quality if any so the console would do a much better job than a weak computer using an emulator that isn't perfectly compatible.

Thanks a lot for your reply. Of course, the best option would be getting a real Wii, but I don't like very much the idea of having another box, more cables, plugs and so on lying around near the TV, and I wouldn't get rid of the HTPC, which is a very flexible and convenient tool and now I couldn't live without it

If there are no good options for having a quite powerful, small, relatively cheap and low consumption HTPC, I think I'll simply run Dolphin in my Core i7.

If it helps... the MSI motherboard + Pentium CPU would be around 120 Euro in Spain; a real Wii is around 150 Euro. But in the case I'd buy the new hardware, I'd sell my current Atom board (Asus AT5IONT-I), and get some money back.

But it would still be inadequate at best, awful at worst, even if a bit cheaper. Some people don't seem to mind 80% speed at native resolution with 0 AA and regular compatibility issues. I however need to be playing the games -better- than a wii would or else I would just use my wii and in your case, your regular computer is obviously optimal. I mean most games don't require much if any movement anyway, atleast a lot of the ones I'm interested in, bits of waggle here and there, so you don't need a huge space to play. The only problem might be a sensor bar until you get something wireless or just use some candles or something. In my room I have everything setup so I just turn my wii on and voila, sensor bar to use with dolphin.