Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I need help speeding Dolphin up and getting faster FPS. I'm using Dolphin on a Windows XP 32 bit. As a result, I'm using a fairly recent version of Dolphin x86. I am also using a Nvidia Geforce 8400 GS graphics card.

I've been using the GC game "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" to test the FPS rates. Everything plays, but the FPS is kind of slow. I hear people around here easily get 30-50 FPS, so I wonder why I get such lower FPS. In the Wind Waker, the main menu starts at 50 FPS but quickly dwindles down to 5 FPS. In-game, outdoors environment goes from about 11-17 FPS. Indoors environments go from 20-30 FPS. If the whole game played from 20-30 FPS, I'd be fine, but that's not the case here.

I'm just wondering, given what I have, if there is any way to speed up Dolphin's FPS on my computer. Any help would be appreciated.

In Dolphin, I enabled dual core, so I don't think that is the problem.

Here is what I got:

Windows XP MediaCenter Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 2
Dell Dimension DV051
Intel Pentium 4 Processor CPU 2.80 GHz
2.79 GHz; 1.49 GB of RAM
Nvidia Geforce 8400 GS 256MB DDR2 HDTV DVI-I HDCP

well.. ya got to turn dual core on in Config
you may or may not know that.
Since i do not own Wind Walker i do not know the setting, see if any one else can assist you.
and you never listed your cpu, that has a lot of influence on your games, make sure nothing else is running in the background.

The only people you hear getting 30 - 50 FPS easily are those with higher end processors such as a Core2duo/Core2Quad, your speeds sound similar to the frame rates I got in Dolphin when I had an AMD64 X 2 before I built my Core2Duo E8500 gaming PC.

Sounds like you got a budget or older model Core2 processor, or you have an AMD64 X 2 processor. I would try to enable dual core if you haven't already to see if that helps anything.

It would also help if you stated what processor you have rather than leaving us guessing on assumptions, then we will be able to better help you and offer advice.

he barely added it in now..

Yeah don't expect much with a Pentium 4, even those with Core2Duo's/Quads/i7 still get lag on quite a few games, I am surprised that you were even able to achieve as high of frame rates as you did on such an old processor.

You'll either have to upgrade or live with it, since a Pentium 4 isn't going to run cpu intensive emulators such as Dolphin and Pcsx2 decently without lag and slowdowns. You may have better luck with 2D games or games with a minimal amount of 3D geometry.

As development progresses system requirements can either go up or go down, but even if system requirements do go down in the future I would honestly not expect to see a huge increase in performance with such a processor.

You should also try to use the IL build if it works for you.