Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hello everyone, I'm new to these forums and just downloaded Dolphin, and I'm hoping you can help me.
I'm not very technical when it comes to PC's so forgive me if I'm a bit dumb.
I haven't got a powerful PC by any means, but I am struggling to run dolphin smoothly. My specs are:
OS: Windows 7 64 bit
Processor: Intel Core i3 CPU M370 @ 2.40 GhZ 2394 Mhz 2 Cores 4 Logical processors
RAM: 4.00GB
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650
I'm using Dolphin 3.0 (The official release)

These figures mean nothing to me, might as well be in chinese or something, so I hope I've said the right specs
I tried to play Super Smash Bros Melee but while menus were fine, during a game the sped would drop to 40-60%, and on once as low as 20%.
So with this system, what settings should I be altering? I appreciate I'll have to turn down the quality for performance. Or have I got no chance with this system?
Many thanks in advance for any assistance

Try these settings and see where you're at.

http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=23618

(10-09-2012, 10:46 AM)Starscream Wrote: [ -> ]Try these settings and see where you're at.

http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=23618

Thanks for the quick reply.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I did browse the forums before and found that. Those are the settings I'm running now.

Hey, your already one step farther than most people on the tech savvy front. At least you were able to find out your specs past "intel" (we get that a lot).

2.4 GHz on a 1st gen i3 is somewhat slow, but I don't think SSBM is that demanding.

What are your settings?

EDIT: nvm, ninja'd

Check your clock speed with Realtemp (search on the web for it).

Your CPU/GPU isn't the greatest. If you're using those settings and the speed is still not acceptable to you, your only option is to get a better PC.

Thanks for the replies.
@Axxer: I downloaded it, but I'm unsure what you mean by 'clock speed'? Sorry

Out of interest, what specs would you say are recommended to get most games running at 100%? Is it my Processor thats letting me down?

(10-09-2012, 11:02 AM)Satnav92 Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for the replies.
@Axxer: I downloaded it, but I'm unsure what you mean by 'clock speed'? Sorry

Out of interest, what specs would you say are recommended to get most games running at 100%? Is it my Processor thats letting me down?

Your CPU is definitely the issue here.

Ca you just take a screenshot of Realtemp when running Dolphin? I don't think it will indicate much tbh, I'm just curious if your CPU is actually able to run at 2.4 GHz under load or if it is throttled down to a lower speed.

Heres a shot I just took. You can see the speed dolphin is running at too.
I'm just asking for future reference really when buying my next PC. would be nice to be able to run all my Gc and Wii games

Hey, what do ya know, we may have found something.

If Realtemp is to be believed, your CPU isn't leaving idle state (it is running at .9 GHz instead of the standard 2.4). The temps aren't quite high enough for it to be a throttling issue either, so there may be a solution somewhere.

What the solution is, I don't entirely know, but at least it appears we know that there is a problem.

EDIT: you didn't pause emulation or anything did you?

Ah, you're right! I didn't notice that before.
So this is a general problem with my PC? I just checked again and even with hardly anyting running (Media Player and Safari) the CPU is exactly the same.
EDIT to reply to the edit: No, the game was in full flow when i took that. Thanks again for this help, I appreciate it.