Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I just got a new Dell XPS laptop, and I thought it would run Dolphin just fine.

Well, it does...in certain situations.
1. When I plug it into an external monitor. Everything runs mostly full speed with some slowdowns. This is on the highest settings that I know of (there may be more that are less obvious)
2. When I reduce the window on my laptop monitor. When I do this...it has to be very small, like the size of a NDS screen.

(the only games Ive played are Zelda TP and Resident Evil 1 Remake, both on GC)

When I check the CPU performance, its at 21 percent, even when the game is running very slow. Also, 3-4 of the 8 cores are always "parked" and not being used.

What do you think? Can my laptop handle Dolphin at 90-100% speed?

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Windows 7

Intel Core i7-2670QM processor 2.20 GHz

8GB,DDR3,2 DIMM

GeForce GT 550M

1 ) Check your laptop temp and CPU speed with "Realtemp" when running dolphin
2 ) i7 2670qm has 4 cores 8 threads , not 8 cores
3 ) An i7 @ 2.2GHz won't cut it since dolphin uses 2 cores. You have to rely on turbo boost to make it 2.9/3.0Ghz . Turbo boost will be disabled if your laptop overheat
4 ) Make sure dolphin use Nvidia GT 550M not Intel HD 3000 http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=20864

Okay, thanks for the info. I'll check up on it and reply back.

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Wow, thanks for the help!

I went to the NVIDia Settings and changed it like you seuggested and it runs at 80-99% now where it was dropping way down before.

jeah you used the integrated gpu...
and switched to the nvidia gpu when using an external monitor

just set for dolphin.exe (highspeed gpu)