Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

(08-24-2011, 05:46 AM)Runo Wrote: [ -> ]And what are your specs?

phenomII 965 @ 3.8
xfx 5850 be
msi 890FXA-GD70
8gb corsair ram @ 1333mhz

Hello ppl, jumping on this topic to ask one question: will Dolphin ever be ~100% stable and fast for every game (like SNES emulators) without need to keep tweaking configs?

I am very satisfied wiht its performance but needed some reading/searching to get to it, but it was totally worthy, the graphics gain is great! I am not a programmer but am a technology enthusiast and am most curious about what needs to evolve or to be coded to make Dolphin run faster and get more stable. It would be great to know how SNES emulators improved from version to version running on the same computer always and if Dolphin will follow a similar path.

Thanks!

Read this entire thread and maybe you will understand what you want to know, specially the big replies.

About your last sentence: Dolphin has done that, before the Final Release when it went open source, speed didn't depend only on hardware power, but mostly on how the emulator handled each game too. The thing is this hardware only dependent Dolphin is still pretty intensive.

If they stopped development today, I would imagine that would still be a yes(to games that are actually running/compatible) because hardware continues to get better. I mean snes...come on, lol.

anon443, and Runo, what are you doing to get full speed??

I haven't dumped this game, I'll try that later to confirm anyways. Anon, could you paste your specs?

Ok. Ive sifted through the thread and read all the explenations. I am STARTING to understand how this works. But I am curious now: Why can't you have 1 thread on multiple cores? Also, why can't windows see that one core isnt good enough for a particular thread and supplement the rest to other cores? Also, about using software to build the CPU of a gamecube/wii... my question goes like this.... even if the architecture of a console CPU is much different then that of a PC, dont they serve the same purpose anyway - operations??

Quote:I think the hardware does exist. I just think the emulator is not programmed to take full advantage of all the hardware we have. I am betting that if the emulator was rebuilt from the ground up for quad core support it could be done or even hex. Im not going to ask anyone to do it. I dont know how my self. I am just saying. I think it can be done. I'm not concerned about minor innaccuracies. Im sure there will be a few and thats fine. But I am saying I think our hardware can have 100% speeds.

My god you're stubborn. "You think". Well you're wrong. You have no evidence to support your claims and you openly admit to not knowing how any of this works. Every single person that does understand how emulation and dolphin works has said that no significant performance impact can be attained from further multithreaded regardless of whether the entire application is rebuilt from the ground up. IT CAN'T BE DONE, AND WE OPENLY INVITE ANYONE TO PROVE US WRONG. Not everything can be done in parallel, if you knew the first thing about computer science you would know that. The GC/Wii only has three major chips that have to be emulated and all of them require sequential processing to be emulated correctly. The source code has to be processes in order. If the source was not designed to be executed in parallel there is nothing anybody can do about that. Instead we have a list of steps that need to be done in the original order since each step depends upon the result of the previous step.

Quote:The point that I was getting at was my inability to make sense of that and that its hard to believe its still impossible after 8 years. I probably understand 1/100th of what they do. But then again Im not a complete noob. I studied programming in school and I have learned to program. I coded in mIRC (Weak, I Know... Just saying) and a little bit of VB. I never learned C

I do know what != means.

Well I suggest you keep going until you have a M.S. degree in computer science. Hopefully by then you will have learned the value of not making rediculous claims without any evidence despite total opposition from the community that is best educated in the subject.

Quote:Software is as efficient as the hardware makes it. The software will run at whatever speed the CPU architecture and the other components can run it. If the software is fast but the CPU is a piece of crap. The software will run slow. Thats why the bigger the 2 cores you have on a CPU the faster dolphin will run. Yes I know the software needs to be coded efficiently. For example: do 4 x 12 instead of 4 + 4 + 4..... I know. I think that can be done

Clearly you did not grasp what I was trying to explain. I was trying to explain why using software to perform a task instead of hardware tends to be much slower. Dolphin can be thought of as a software layer in between the game and our hardware. It emulates everything that the GC/Wii hardware does with software. Most functions coorespond with an operation or function that the native hardware can perform.

Quote:One more thing... The main point. I am not asking the Dev team to make all the games run error free. I am just saying I think the hardware exists to run it at 100% speed and that.

And that statement is false according to every person who has ever worked on the project with a credible background.

Quote:The reason I said that maybe that requires rebuilding the emulator from the ground up is because I know the project was started in 2003 when there was no dual core or quad.

That has nothing to do with anything! Any application can be made parallel at any time. Dolphin went through the transition from single threaded to dual threaded then to triple threaded. As the hardware became availible the developers started rewriting components. But now they have reached the limits of potential parallelism. If you think you're the first one to suggest this you'd be wrong. This has been suggested nearly every week by someone new for the last 2 years, and we give them the same answer every time, and half the time they fight us on it. Every person who has ever suggested further multithreaded dolphin has quickly revealed that they do not know the slightest thing about computer science as soon as we begin explaining to them why. If you're wondering why everyone in this community is so aggressive about it it's because we all all sick and tired of these idiots claiming they know better than the developers yet not offering any real suggestions other than "make it work somehow, I don't understand how this works just do it".

Quote:When it comes to hardware, I am not completely ignorant. I probably know less than half as you and the dev team but I am not completely and totally ignorant. I think it can be done. Im not going to try because I dont have a sweet clue how. I just think its doable

So if I'm understanding you correctly you have no idea how, but you "know" it's possible......wow. I'm started to get the feeling that you don't understand how multithreading works from reading your posts.

Remember. It took a decade just for the SNES to be emulated quickly. And that was in an era of extremely fast growth of single threaded throughput.

Maybe I don't know its possible because apparently it isn't. It just doesn't make sense. I understand that long message in which I was explained threading and there's 3 threads on 3 cores and you can't put 2 threads on 1 core. Hmmm.... This is all a lot to digest

Quote:I'm started to get the feeling that you don't understand how multithreading works from reading your posts.

Quote:Ok. Ive sifted through the thread and read all the explenations. I am STARTING to understand how this works. But I am curious now: Why can't you have 1 thread on multiple cores? Also, why can't windows see that one core isnt good enough for a particular thread and supplement the rest to other cores? Also, about using software to build the CPU of a gamecube/wii... my question goes like this.... even if the architecture of a console CPU is much different then that of a PC, dont they serve the same purpose anyway - operations??

Quote:Maybe I don't know its possible because apparently it isn't. It just doesn't make sense. I understand that long message in which I was explained threading and there's 3 threads on 3 cores and you can't put 2 threads on 1 core. Hmmm.... This is all a lot to digest

Yup I was right. So you claimed we should further multithread the application without knowing what a thread is......, Technically multiple threads can be processed by the same cpu core just not at the same time.

I did not initially realize that you did not understand multithreading, this explains your initial stubborness much better than my previous theories.

In case you didn't get a chance to read it:

Quote:If you think you're the first one to suggest this you'd be wrong. This has been suggested nearly every week by someone new for the last 2 years, and we give them the same answer every time, and half the time they fight us on it. Every person who has ever suggested further multithreaded dolphin has quickly revealed that they do not know the slightest thing about computer science as soon as we begin explaining to them why. If you're wondering why everyone in this community is so aggressive about it it's because we all all sick and tired of these idiots claiming they know better than the developers yet not offering any real suggestions other than "make it work somehow, I don't understand how this works just do it".