Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

How mutch ram does dolphin use? Is the 3gb enuph?
Also are amd cpus any good for emulating?

Cpu is the most important.
From what I've read, at least a sandy bridge cpu is recommended to run most game fine.

amd @4.5ghz?!
intel core 2 duo @4ghz
first i-serie generatio @3.8ghz
sandybridge @3.5ghz
and you wont ever create such thread...

windows xp 1gb
windows vista/7 2gb

snb at 3.5 will not run smg at fullspeed, you need to oc to 4.5

(01-22-2012, 01:28 AM)pwnedatdolphin Wrote: [ -> ]snb at 3.5 will not run smg at fullspeed, you need to oc to 4.5

If you're using HLE backend , Sandy Bridge @ 3.0Ghz can run SMG and most games fullspeed
OC to 4.5ghz to use LLE backend (Correct the BGM-audio , able to pass the Grand star)

(01-20-2012, 07:43 PM)Cokabear Wrote: [ -> ]How mutch ram does dolphin use? Is the 3gb enuph?
Also are amd cpus any good for emulating?

Yes 3GB of RAM is enough,as for the second question it depends for which games.I have an AMD dual core @ 3.2 Ghz and while it suffices for most games,it simply wont cut it for some of the more demanding ones.
Intel Sandy Bridge CPU would be an excellent choice for Dolphin,however its overpriced IMO.
I could build a good gaming rig for the price of just one Sandy Bridge CPU.

Sandy Bridge is not overpriced if you compare it to AMD Faildozer for the same price (like heaven and hell)
It's expensive because of the technology
Some heavy games like : Xenoblade , Pandora's Tower ....I have to use my laptop although the desktop can achieve higher FPS
Because the lag occur on my desktop make the gameplay meh...

AMD is a brand of cpu, not a specific family of microprocessors. They have been making microprocessors for 37 years. Saying AMD cpus are good/bad for emulation is like saying "IBM PCs are good/bad for emulation", it makes no sense.

Quote:Intel Sandy Bridge CPU would be an excellent choice for Dolphin,however its overpriced IMO.
I could build a good gaming rig for the price of just one Sandy Bridge CPU.

No you couldn't. Sandy bridge is a microarchitecture, there are many chips and many models based on that microarchitecture at every price point sold under different names.
Celeron sandy bridge cpus: $40-60
Pentium sandy bridge cpus: $60-90
Core i3 sandy bridge cpus: $125-150
Core i5 sandy bridge cpus: $175-225
Core i7 sandy bridge cpus: $300-1,000

And almost nobody buys i7 cpus outside of the workstation industry. If you can build me a $200 gaming pc I'll be very impressed.
Intel has sandy bridge cpus at every price point that the competition (amd) sells at ($40-300) which are superior for emulation and most software in general. Intel also sells higher end cpus at higher prices since amd has no models which are competitive with them (the >$300 range).

Quote:I have an AMD dual core @ 3.2 Ghz and while it suffices for most games,it simply wont cut it for some of the more demanding ones.

Which one? "AMD dual core" could refer to any dual core amd cpu between 2005-2012, including athlon X2, phenom, phenom II, llano, etc.

As for answering the OPs question.
1. Dolphin uses 150-450MB of memory with 32 bit builds and 200-600MB with 64 bit builds. You need at least 1GB of ram if you're running on windows xp/2000, linux, or macosx. You can run it on 1GB of ram in windows vista/7 but we would recommend having 2GB of ram.
2. Phenom II cpus (amd) are decent for dolphin but sandy bridge (intel) cpus perform much better. Bulldozer (amd) cpus perform very poorly.

Here's a shocker: The celeron g530, a $50 processor, is faster than bulldozer in dolphin.
A 50$ processor is faster than a minimum $100 processor. (at stock settings anyway.)
At anything.
Jesus Christ AMD.
(Though to be fair, the g440 is one of Intel's slowest desktop processors in a long time, but it is ONE processor as opposed to an entire goddamn LINE of fuck-ups.)

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/dis...html#sect1

(I actually can scrap together a gaming build for $275. Has to use g530's integrated graphics tho, so would be like a 800 x 600 gaming build, LOL.)

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Saddest thing about this is, once you add in bottlenecks, my Intel HD 2000 is much faster than my X1550 ever was. ( I suspect them 2.0 ghz Pentium 4 was to blame for that.)
So it is actually a decent graphics card for lower resolutions. (Basically up to 1024 x 768.)
Of course, the GTS 450 kills them both dead before the contest even begins, but that's another matter entirely.

Quote:(I actually can scrap together a gaming build for $275.

Still more expensive than any i5.

And your build still fails to provide a case or discrete graphics card. And certainly could not be considered a gaming rig. I stand by my challenge of anyone building a $200 rig worthy of being called a gaming rig without resorting to buying used parts on ebay.

Quote:(Though to be fair, the g440 is one of Intel's slowest desktop processors in a long time, but it is ONE processor as opposed to an entire goddamn LINE of fuck-ups.)

Intel (and every chip maker for that matter) always has a super cheap, but slow processor at the very bottom of their lineup. That's the whole point. It's designed to be the "minimalist option". The original celeron in 1998 was introduced for that very reason, and they have kept doing it ever since. It's not a "f*ck up" because while it is slow it's also super cheap and has insane energy efficiency.