Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

hello i'm new to the forums (but certainly not new to hardware talk) and i want to buy a graphics card to emulate GC and wii games. No plans of playing pc games.

currently, my pc has a integrated gpu. what i want to know is if my current CPU will be up for the task once i get the card. Here my specs:

AMD Athlon II X2 215 2700Mhz
4GB DC DDR3 535Mhz
PCIe 2.0 x16 compatible mobo
Win7 Home Basic x64
400W PSU

And i want to buy one of the following cards (because of the low price, im on a short budget):

RHD 6780
RHD 6750
RHD 7750
RHD 7770
GTX 550 Ti

Now, im sure the first 2 cards will do just fine, but im not so sure about the others. I plan to emulate all games @1280x720, no more, and no less. And no more than: 2x internal res + 4x AA + 8x AF.
Will my athlon serve for this purposes, once i get one of the above mentioned cards?? i really dont wat to buy a new cpu.. =/

Well I'd say get a new GPU, but then after that the only way you'll get a speed up is with a new CPU (any one of the cards you listed should do, but you may also need to look in to a new PSU as well)

AMD 7750 should be ok for 2.5x IR,4x AA, 16x AF or 4x IR , no AA, 16x AF but your CPU will bottleneck that GPU . I suggest you should buy aftermarket cooler CM Hyper Evo , thermal compound Arctic MX-4 then overclock your CPU to 3.2Ghz
Make sure your motherboard support overclocking

From my personal experience, the GTX 550 Ti is easily able to handle 720p (2x Internal Resolution in Dolphin-speak) with 4x AA and 16x AF, and that's not even pushing it. It handles 4x IR, though I forget what AA I tried it on, didn't matter anyway because my LCD screen was too small. For AF, might as well go all the way to 16x. Pretty much any thoroughly modern GPU can handle it, even Intel's IGPs.

If you do get a new GPU, your CPU will then become your system's bottleneck. For your CPU, don't be surprised if you encounter a handful of games where you can't get full-speed, specifically certain demanding games or games that require LLE audio. Do try to OC like admin89 suggested, as that'll go a long way in Dolphin's performance.

save money, get a better cpu, you will be dissapointed if you buy the gpu since your cpu sucks for dolphin and other stuff

His GPU is currently the bottleneck, but his CPU will be after the GPU is replaced. Listen to what the experienced people say before contradicting it.

(04-15-2012, 08:34 PM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]His GPU is currently the bottleneck, but his CPU will be after the GPU is replaced. Listen to what the experienced people say before contradicting it.

Aww, you think I'm experienced , but yeah what he said ^^

Of course you're experienced, you've got gold, but I've got 5 stars.

Like others are saying, you need to upgrade your cpu and gpu if you want to experience good performance in dolphin.