Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey guys, sorry for one of these threads, i'm sure you hate them.

Anyway, looking into buying a new PC soon, never really used a PC for any type of gaming, but this time i'm thinking of putting a bit more cash in to get some gaming quality hardware. One of the things i'm interested in is Dolphin, and in particular getting Xenoblade to run and look pretty, i.e better than the Wii itself. Not necessarily looking for 1080p and all the tweaks, but a nice 720 would be good.

I've looked at the Graphics Card sticky, and the Xenoblade topic but since i'm kinda ignorant on Graphics cards i don't really know how to compare what i'm looking at to the information in those topics.

Anyway, right now i'm looking at

Core i3 530 overclocked to 4GHz
GeForce GTS 450 1024MB Video Card
4GB DD3 RAM.

Supposedly this setup can achieve 30fps+ on Crysis High Settings, but i know emulation is more taxing than native games, so yeah. Help/advice please!

I don't have that specific game but I believe that your configuration is a very good choice.

If you could change that i3 to an i5 then the whole family'll be happy

Would that make a LOT of difference? I was under the impression that Dolphin only used 2 cores, so a fast i3 would do the job? I'm willing to stump for the i5 if it'll make a dramatic increase, but it's a pretty substantial increase.

An i5 2500k overclocked is required to play some heavy games at full speed, the i3 is good but if you're looking to play something like SMG2 you may need the i5

Edit : My mistake
I3 530 @ 4ghz is good for most game
But SMG2 only use HLE back end with that i3
An i5 2500k @ 4.4ghz is good enough to use LLE back end

Thanks for the help so far guys, anyone have experience running Xenoblade on something close to this setup?

you'll be running full speed most of the time, if not all the time. Just be modest with your graphic setting.

Sounds good, thanks for your help.

One last question, if i choose to upgrade to the i5 2500k later is the Asus P7H55-M/USB3 mobo compatible with the overclocking on that too?

No. An i3 530 is a clarkdale LGA1156 processor and will only work with LGA1156 boards. The i5 2500k is a sandy bridge cpu which uses LGA1155 and will only work with LGA1155 boards. They use different motherboards and sockets.

Why don't you get a sandy bridge i3 like the i3 2100 instead? They're faster and as far as I know they're about the same price. Plus you'll be able to get an LGA1155 board.

Remember not to cheap out on the power supply.