Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Random question, what would an HD 3000 do in Dolphin. (Please try not to answer nothing.)

And what would THIS do?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150553

(Not that I'm buying either of these, just interested.)

As a matter of fact, I don't care for most modern FPS's (Battlefield 3 is so real it starts to be the terrain equivalent of the uncanny valley.)
So I think that an i3 2100, z68, and gtx 550 ti would be the best option for me. (After all, Pentium 4.)
And I could upgrade to a 2500k at some point down the road.
After all, quad-cores are FAR from necessary to enjoy emulators, rom hacks, and mods. (Favorite kinds of entertainment.)
I really can't forsee needing a quad core for a good while. (Even IF a game I find cool needs it... I can wait.)
Plus Hyperthreading...

How long would an i3 be relevant?
(Keep in mind that I used a celeron 3 for 7 years of my childhood, and am currently on my 3rd year with this pentium 4.)

Or I could get the g860 and get a gtx 460.
Ain't that a charm?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116405

Quote:I'm going to assume you aren't talking the 1GB version.

http://www.hwcompare.com/9692/geforce-gt...tx-550-ti/

Please don't use that poor excuse for a comparison. Any comparison without shader throughput (the single most important spec of a graphics card) is a poor comparison at best. That page actually says the GTX 550 Ti should be faster despite the fact that everyone knows the GTX 460 is faster and priced higher (it's in the next price bracket above the 550) because of it's higher shader throughput.

@werewolfyman

Please don't double/triple post. Edit your posts with additional information instead.

Quote:This card here would be what I'd go with if can afford it.

About as close to a 460 as I can get, even minus the RAM.

Any better?

Or about the same?

Any better than what? You can't ask me to do a comparison if you don't give me two things to compare.

Quote:Or I could get the g860 and get a gtx 460.

You could but I wouldn't recommend it. This would offer you a better system for current games but inferior for everything else. And believe it or not PC games are starting to move towards quad threading, in a few years many games will require a quad core cpu to run smoothly (BF3 and a couple others already do).

Quote:Random question, what would an HD 3000 do in Dolphin. (Please try not to answer nothing.)

Poorly. And what do you mean by "Please try not to answer nothing.".

Quote:And what would THIS do?

Also poorly.

You'll never get past 1x with this or an HD 3000 without horrible lag in most games.

Quote:(Not that I'm buying either of these, just interested.)

That's good, I was starting to think you had completely lost your mind (especially after me repeatedly offering the exact same hardware advice for the last 15 pages or so, I'm beginning to wonder why you keep posting other random hardware and asking for my opinion).

Quote:As a matter of fact, I don't care for most modern FPS's (Battlefield 3 is so real it starts to be the terrain equivalent of the uncanny valley.)

Not sure what you're trying to say here.

Quote:So I think that an i3 2100, z68, and gtx 550 ti would be the best option for me. (After all, Pentium 4.)

Well I disagree (as I have been doing for 15 pages now). An i5 2400 + H61 + GTS 450 would in my opinion give you the best overall system right now.

For the record a GTX 550 Ti is only 20-25% faster than a GTS 450 on average.

Quote:And I could upgrade to a 2500k at some point down the road.

You said you didn't have the money to do that. If you CAN afford a major cpu upgrade in the future then I would wait and buy an ivy bridge compatible motherboard, they are coming out in a couple of months.

Quote:After all, quad-cores are FAR from necessary to enjoy emulators, rom hacks, and mods. (Favorite kinds of entertainment.)
I really can't forsee needing a quad core for a good while. (Even IF a game I find cool needs it... I can wait.)

For now. Quad threaded programs are the future for many major applications whether you like it or not.

Quote:Plus Hyperthreading...

Irrelevant. Hyperthreading provides a small speedup to video encoders and a few other highly threaded applications and that's it.

Quote:How long would an i3 be relevant?

Well let me find my time machine and take a look.....oh wait, damn where did I put that thing.

Quote:(Keep in mind that I used a celeron 3 for 7 years of my childhood, and am currently on my 3rd year with this pentium 4.)

Doesn't matter. If you ask for my hardware recommendations I will give them to you whether you want to follow them or not. Regardless of whether you're used to crappy hardware you should still get the best hardware you can get. To buy inferior hardware just because you're used to owning inferior hardware it is foolish.

God damn you're curious with all of these posts.

Lol, still not set on a build?

Wolf, with NaturalViolence giving you endless expertise, you should've already picked a build and just go for it.
There's no need to ask if x game will work with y videocard all the time. There's plenty of people whom you can base it off.
Also, NaturalViolence posted a nice thread here where you can find alot of information on how certain videocards should/will (probably) perform.

I would certainly invest in a quad-core cpu at the least, unless you really really plan to just use it for emulation. (Even then you should aim for a 2500k, they're cheap...)
As for the videocard, refer to the thread above.

(10-18-2011, 04:54 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]God damn you're curious with all of these posts.

I know. It's a weakness...

Would I be able to upgrade to a higher motherboard later on?

Sorry for double posting...

I could either do 2500k + GTS 450. (In case I decide on a z68 in a few years.)

Or 2300/2400 + GTX 550 ti.

(Of course, these both assume I buy the RAM by myself.)

(10-18-2011, 09:22 PM)werewolfyman Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-18-2011, 04:54 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]God damn you're curious with all of these posts.

I know. It's a weakness...

Would I be able to upgrade to a higher motherboard later on?

Sorry for double posting...

I could either do 2500k + GTS 450. (In case I decide on a z68 in a few years.)

Or 2300/2400 + GTX 550 ti.

(Of course, these both assume I buy the RAM by myself.)

What about 2500k + GTX560?

What about 2500k + GTX560?
[/quote]

Too expensive for either setup.

I would have to do H61 + i3 2100 + GTX 560, which is apparently not very future proof.

Quote:Would I be able to upgrade to a higher motherboard later on?

Sorry for double posting...

I could either do 2500k + GTS 450. (In case I decide on a z68 in a few years.)

Or 2300/2400 + GTX 550 ti.

(Of course, these both assume I buy the RAM by myself.)

If you don't know if you'll be able to afford any future upgrades then this is all pointless speculation.

Let's go back to the drawing board. We have $410 for cpu + motherboard + graphics card since you're buying the ram on your own is what you're telling me.

All of the following fit into that budget:

Option 1 (quad core K cpu, motherboard emphasis): 2500K + Z68 (replace with Z75 when it comes out), no graphics card
Option 2 (quad core K cpu, GPU emphasis): 2500k + H61 + GTS 450

Option 3 (quad core cpu, motherboard emphasis): 2400 + Z68 (replace with Z75 when it comes out) + 440
Option 4 (quad core cpu, GPU emphasis): 2400 + H61 + GTX 550 TI

Option 5 (dual core cpu, motherboard emphasis): 2100 + Z68 (replace with Z75 when it comes out) + GTX 550 TI
Option 6 (dual core cpu, GPU emphasis): 2100 + H61 + GTX 560

Option 7 (pentium cpu, motherboard emphasis): G840 + Z68 (replace with Z75 when it comes out) + GTX 560
Option 8 (pentium cpu, GPU emphasis): G840 + H61 + GTX 560 TI

Having both a Z68 and a GTX 560 TI would require a $40 cpu, the only sandy bridge cpu in that budget is the single core 1.6GHz celeron 440 so I didn't bother listing it. Having both a 2500K and a GTX 550 TI would give you only $45 for the motherboard, which is not enough.

My review and analysis of those options:

Option 1: Excellent cpu and motherboard but since you have no graphics card I would only recommend this if you will have the money to buy a good graphics card soon.
Option 2: Doesn't really make sense since having a K series cpu with a H61 board provides no benefit over a cheaper cpu. With this build you must upgrade the motherboard in the future in order to be able to overclock the cpu, and motherboards are expensive and don't experience the same kind of constant exponential improvement that graphics cards have.
Option 3: Doesn't make sense. Not having a K series cpu severaly limtis overclocking and you end up with a poor GPU. You could upgrade the gpu in the future but you still have limited cpu overclocking. And upgrading the cpu would be extremely expensive.
Option 4: Good overall build in my opinion. Turbo boost but no overclocking. Very balanced overall, decent GPU and CPU.
Option 5: Doesn't really make sense since you don't need any of the features of an i3 cpu (hyperthreading, IGP features).
Option 6: Doesn't really make sense since you don't need any of the features of an i3 cpu (hyperthreading, IGP features).
Option 7: CPU is dual core but you get a good motherboard and GPU. Doesn't make sense to have a Z68 board with a pentium CPU. A future cpu upgrade would be recommended. If you wait for the Z75 boards to come out you could upgrade to an ivy bridge cpu in the future if you get the money.
Option 8: Best possible GPU. Kickass gaming system. However you're stuck with a limited motherboard and dual core cpu and likely won't have the money to upgrade both in the future.

Therefore I conclude that:

If you plan on upgrading the cpu in the future: option 7
If you plan on buying a good gpu in the future: option 1
If you won't have the money to upgrade the cpu or gpu in the near future: option 4

And you can see my reasoning above.

There, now I've gone through every possible logical combination of hardware that you could afford (for the LGA1155 platform and nvidia graphics cards). I will be in shock and awe if you still manage to find more questions to ask me.

This is amazingly helpful...
(Probably build #4..)

Now I have another question...

Does Linux bottleneck Performance?

Or would I be better off using XP?

Does having 4 cores make software recording have more resources available? (IE: is it faster on quads?)

As a side note, I noticed that XFX's cards' quality seems to be poor, but the warranties are great. Is this why you consider them great?

I can never thank you enough for answering my endless barrage of curiosities.

Can you recommend 2-3 good games for setup #4? (PS2/ GC / PC / WII games?)

Quote:Does Linux bottleneck Performance?

Linux is any OS based on the linux kernel. So to answer your question no linux does not bottleneck anything because it's an operating system, not hardware. The concept of a bottleneck is that when you have a system based on a series of components or steps that depend on the output of each other the system will function at the speed of the slowest component/step, which is refereed to as the "bottleneck".

Now if you're asking if dolphin runs slower on linux than it does on windows, probably. I would recommend windows xp over linux for dolphin, not to mention most PC games will not run on linux. Ideally you're best off using windows 7 x64 (home premium edition or higher).

Quote:Does having 4 cores make software recording have more resources available? (IE: is it faster on quads?)

What is "software recording"? Are you referring to screen capture and video recording software?

Quote:As a side note, I noticed that XFX's cards' quality seems to be poor,

And how exactly did you reach that conclusion may I ask?

Quote: but the warranties are great. Is this why you consider them great?

They have a good reputation, good warranty, and good customer support. And as I said before:

Quote:Also just because I ranked XFX higher on my list as far as reputation is concerned does not mean you should buy exclusively from them. Brand loyalty is bad, it leads to inferior product choices. Go with the best deal from a semi-reputable manufacturer and compare all of the offerings available to you.

XFX is just one of many excellent brands that I listed. There is no "best brand".

Quote:Can you recommend 2-3 good games for setup #4? (PS2/ GC / PC / WII games?)

GC
-the legend of zelda: four sword adventures
-the legend of zelda: the twilight princess
-the legend of zelda: the wind waker
-super mario sunshine
-metroid prime
-metroid prime 2
-animal crossing
-star fox adventures
-sonic adventure
-sonic adventure 2
-pikmin 2
-luigi's mansion
-mario kart doubledash

WII
-donkey kong country returns
-metroid prime 3
-super mario galaxy
-super mario galaxy 2
-mario kart wii
-sonic colors
-goldeneye 007
-new super mario bros
-the legend of zelda: skyward sword

As a general rule of thumb on nintendo consoles anything with mario, zelda, or metroid in the title is generally good (except all of the mario spinoffs and metroid other m which I did not like).

PS2:
Don't know, don't care. Never owned one and never really cared about owning one.

PC:
Oh jesus too many to list, pick a year or developer. I'll try to limit it by sticking to recent games.

Valve
-Team fortress 2
-Portal
-Portal 2
-Left for dead
-Left for dead 2
-Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Lost coast

Bioware (one of my favorite game developers)
-dragon age
-mass effect
-mass effect 2, overlord, lair of the shadow broker, kasumi's stolen memories, zaeed the price of revenge, firewalker
-the upcoming mass effect 3
-knights of the old republic

No clue who developed it:
-Deus Ex: Human Revolution
-The witcher and the witcher 2
-red orchestra 2

Lucasarts:
-star wars republic commando

Raven
-star wars jedi knight: jedi academy
-star wars jedi knight II: jedi outcast

2K games
-bioshock

Crytek
-crysis
-crysis warhead
-crysis 2

Bethesda
-knights of the old republic 2 (install the restoration mod before playing it)
-The elder scrolls IV: oblivion, the shivering isles
-the upcoming elder scrolls V: skyrim
-fallout 3
-fallout new vegas

Relic
-company of heroes, opposing fronts, tales of valor

EA DICE
-Every battlefield game, bf2, bf2142, bfbc2, and the upcoming bf3

Mojang
-minecraft

I think I'll stop here for the time being, this is just a small fraction of the overwhelming number of amazing PC games released in the last 7-8 years.