Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

hello. first of all, i am pretty new here.
second i am not here to say anything bad over this cool emulator.
but i just wanna say, that i dont have the money to upgrade my computer to dolphin requirements to run games on real time. and i am not asking even to run games on true HD quality or even 3D.
so my question is, why dolphin does not get more optimized rather than just fix bugs?
when i say this, i am not asking a dolphin that runs on real time any GC/WII game and use the same resources as a nintendo 64 emulator lol.
but a "lighter" version that might run games near or in real time games?
and sure for certain "old" computers. i am not asking for a pentium 4 to run games on real time.
but what about for core 2 duo processors computers?
i mean a year ago, for me that i use a core 2 duo processor computer. and digimon rumble arena 2 and super mario sunshine (for give 2 examples) did not run on real time under any configuration.
now with the latest dolphin release, i can run those games FASTER than realtime and with high resolutions!
including pokemon battle revolution, not real time but over 50-60% speed, that in the past i could not get over 25-30% of speed.
i am pretty sure one day dolphin will be bug-free and optimized so i can run any game on real time on my computer.
but i guess, dolphin team needs to focus on optimize all the games, since even i run super mario sunshine on real time or faster (insanely faster, so much as 10x faster!) why for example luigi`s mansion goes slow? i mean depending on stage but it can go as slow of 30% and faster as 70% of the real time speed.
all my games run on the same config, so why some games are faster than others?
i am sure the awnser its that every game its different. some companies uses 100% of all the resources of the console, while others uses less. the way the game runs or was created was done so the console can run it without issues, while an emulator can be a total insanity to fix.
anyone give me your opinion, do you think dolphin needs to take as a priority optimize the way it works, as to fix bugs?
i am not refering to drop the bug fixes (since yes, many many bugs slow down the games agreed) and only optimize, but to do both. if not we are going to have a 100% working dolphin free of bugs, but we are going to need a core i7 processor just to run any silly game. that its my biggest concern since at the end it would be easier to get the real consoles and forget the emulator, since you need a really new computer to have minimum enhacements, like HD video, sound or 3D gaming vision. and lets be honest here. i am not going (nor i can) to spend over 2000-3000 dollars to buy a powerful enough computer to run real time GC/WII games while for less than 300 dollars i can get a nintendo wii and save up the hussle of put thogether the hardware lol.

I couldn't bring myself to read all of what you wrote the way you've typed it, but I can say that everyone with a weak PC wonders why they can't run games fast enough. The answer is always the same, "get a faster PC". You may ask yourself why, because that's what is needed.

(09-14-2012, 01:27 PM)Starscream Wrote: [ -> ]I couldn't bring myself to read all of what you wrote the way you've typed it, but I can say that everyone with a weak PC wonders why they can't run games fast enough. The answer is always the same, "get a faster PC". You may ask yourself why, because that's what is needed.

sorry i was over an hour typing, was interrupted, distracted etc.
in a huge resume, games that 1 year ago run slower almost unplayable, now run over real time many times.
so my guess its not for having a "weak pc" but its because dolphin needs tons of bugs fixed and tons of optimizations made correct or incorrect?

Dolphin doesn't need much more optimization. It is pretty fast already in JIT and JITIL modes. It won't get much faster at this point in time.

Emulators tend to start off very slow, get faster, and then finish off their development lifespan getting slower but more compatible. Dolphin is in the last phase, where its hey day of super-fast-but-not-very-accurate computing is over, and it is working on accuracy.

You can get a computer to run all Dolphin games for way less that $2000. My computer was < $700 and it can run even the most demanding games full speed at 2x IR at least (sometimes 3x or 4x).

(09-14-2012, 02:04 PM)Axxer Wrote: [ -> ]Dolphin doesn't need much more optimization. It is pretty fast already in JIT and JITIL modes. It won't get much faster at this point in time.

Emulators tend to start off very slow, get faster, and then finish off their development lifespan getting slower but more compatible. Dolphin is in the last phase, where its hey day of super-fast-but-not-very-accurate computing is over, and it is working on accuracy.

You can get a computer to run all Dolphin games for way less that $2000. My computer was < $700 and it can run even the most demanding games full speed at 2x IR at least (sometimes 3x or 4x).

agreed on everything except, 1: in my country its over 1000 dollars, and here 1000 dollars its the same that in EEUU 100000 dollars to get of hard in my country economy, and 2: yes it will be fully compatible but slower yes.
but even on this point, optimization may be viable, like in some compilations i see "removed X patch, now its useless thanks to the fix by X" so an optimization might be a fix for a problem that uses less resources to run a game correct?

OK, when you said "dollars" I though you were referring to USD.

Optimization isn't really the goal (nor was it ever really the main goal). It might come by accident, but in almost all updates the compatibility increases will sacrifice speed. That is just how things work. More accurately emulating the hardware will almost always mean slower gameplay.

Where do you live, by the way?

(09-14-2012, 02:37 PM)Axxer Wrote: [ -> ]OK, when you said "dollars" I though you were referring to USD.

Optimization isn't really the goal (nor was it ever really the main goal). It might come by accident, but in almost all updates the compatibility increases will sacrifice speed. That is just how things work. More accurately emulating the hardware will almost always mean slower gameplay.

Where do you live, by the way?

yeah when i say dollars i mean USD, and i live on uruguay. almost 22 pesos uruguayos its = 1 USD. so 1000 USD are = 22000 pesos uruguayos.
the minimum salary here its near 7000 pesos uruguayos, and the jobs are impossible to get. we are a country of less than 5 million people (near 30% living on other countries) and we ask even to sweep a floor a university degree.
but going back on topic, even that its too expensive for people on my economy to purchase a computer, optimization should be a priority since all the programs ever done need optimization so they dont use more resources than they actually need to.
look on windows, compare vista with 7, sure its an os not a program, but without a HUGE optimization we would be all using still windows xp or other os since vista used resources just for fun.
i am not refering to dolphin using resources just because, but in 1 year compatibility and speed has improved. why not to keep the same evolution path?

I'm willing to bet that as hardware improves, eventually even low to mid-range setups will run Dolphin quite nicely (when? I have no clue). There just might come a day when any old computer from the store will do the job. I remember how "insane" the requirements for decent N64 emulation was, and now Android smartphones can handle them. If you would have told me that some years ago, I would probably have exploded or something out of disbelief. But that's progress. I'm sure the folks at Intel (AMD too?) are out there trying their best to get the most power possible, we need only wait if we don't want to buy the most expensive kits now.

I'm not sure more can be done to optimize the techniques Dolphin uses to emulate GC and Wii games, but there might be something in optimizing the programming itself. You could, for example, remove redundant function calls and conditional statements, use binary operators (<<, >>, &, |, ^) as frequently as possible, and so on. I doubt you'll see huge speed increases with this, and I don't even know how applicable it is to Dolphin's current code-base (my guess is, not a whole lot). But I'd imagine these sorts of optimizations (which are really just good coding practices) to be more common and achievable than, say, dramtically increasing the speed of EFB Copies to RAM or something.

Dolphin uses 2 cores + 1 core with LLE on thread
If you have Core 2 duo (E6xxx,E7xxx,E8xxx...) , 3.4 -> 3.8GHz (2 cores) should be fine for most games
You'll need decent cooler & aftermarket thermal compound (Arctic MX-4) in order to overclock
If you want to upgrade , Pentium Sandy Bridge G860 @ 3.0GHz + Asrock H61 mobo + Corsair/G.Skill DDR3 Ram are cheap and much much faster than your current system

(09-14-2012, 04:04 PM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Dolphin uses 2 cores + 1 core with LLE on thread
If you have Core 2 duo (E6xxx,E7xxx,E8xxx...) , 3.4 -> 3.8GHz (2 cores) should be fine for most games
You'll need decent cooler & aftermarket thermal compound (Arctic MX-4) in order to overclock
If you want to upgrade , Pentium Sandy Bridge G860 @ 3.0GHz + Asrock H61 mobo + Corsair/G.Skill DDR3 Ram are cheap and much much faster than your current system

if i can upgrade sometime, i was thinking on a core i7 + ddr5 or higher + intel motherboard + nividia highest graphics card possible and so on.
i prefer to have HUGE resources so my computer lasts longer without the need to upgrade it to. i mean my computer its ok the only emulator it gives me speed issues its overall dolphin. and agreed 2011-2012 pc games but its normal since my pc its old nowadays.

anyways, once dolphin its 100% compatible with 100% of all the GC/WII titles, i guess a total and new code should be done, to remove anything obsolete.
since every thing obsolete might clash with new items, and cause a normal slowdown.
enhance the code, and yes enhace the emulator. i mean as previously said, i am not asking to run games in real time on a pentium 4 computer, a core 2 duo should suffice at least for GC games, agreed that WII games are pretty heavy and need more resources to run.