Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

First of all let me say I've lurked these forums for longer than I can remember but never really found the need to comment/post (I almost always find most of my questions answered), but now I'm more than scratching my head over this one.

I'm planning on building a full-AMD rig very soon, I've been using Dolphin for a while now (a couple of years at the least) and was always able to run games relatively well, but alas the time has come for an upgrade. I'm mainly looking for general opinions as well as some anecdotal advice as there is one specific component I'm not entirely sure about. Anyway, here's the build I plan to do very soon:

CPU: AMD FX 8350
Motherboard: Asus M5A78l
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) 1600Mhz DDR3
Graphics Card: Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X GHz Edition

Now this what I'm unsure about: having scoured through the HD7000 DX11 Benchmarks thread (and anything else I ccould find that was HD7000-related) this DX11 Dolphin issue is the only thing giving me second thoughts about this build, even though I know it'll burn through anything else I throw at it (that's including PCSX2, which doesn't have any issues running on 7970's - as far as I'm aware), but after reading the above thread this Dolphin problem really is the only thing stopping me from buying it. if I were to buy a GTX 680 (the near equivalent game performance-wise) I'd be adding an extra £100 (and that's just a stock GTX 680 card, not an OC'd one like the 7970) and not to mention I'd be sacrificing some performance in other areas outside gaming (data mining, bitcoin, and GPGPU programming), where the 7970 is the overall better card (and its cheaper!) so I'm kind of stuck at a crossroads here... :(

What I did noticed however was that in the benchmarks thread none of them mentioned the 7970; adding to that they were done a while back. I also found this thread where someone mentions a build including a 7970, but no one really says anything about the DX11 problem. So I'm hoping that someone here who might have some experience using a HD7000 series card (better yet a 7970 user) has noticed any improvements with regards to Dolphin and this DX11 issue? Or if there are any upcoming fixes or work-arounds someone might know about?

I've listed some of the games I can currently run relatively well (with some exceptions here and there), and I'd expect to run these at some pretty extravagant settings (bar a few) on the maybe-not-soon-to-be AMD setup. I'd appreciate it if anyone who has a 7000 series card and runs these games run wouldn't mind talking about any problems (if any) they have on their system, or possible work-arounds/sacrifices they've had to make?

Also, if anyone has anything else they'd like to mention about the build you're more than welcome to. :)

For GC:

• Legend of Zelda - Wind Waker
• Twilight Princess
• Mario Kart Double Dash
• Luigi's Mansion
• Mario Sunshine
• Naruto Geiktou Ninja Taisen 4
• Capcom Vs SNK 2

For Wii:

• New Super Mario Bros. Wii
• Wario Land: Shake It!
• Mario Kart Wii
• Donkey Kong Country Returns
• Monster Hunter Tri
• Muramasa: The Demon Blade
• Pandora's Tower
• Zangeki no Reginleiv
• Legend of Zelda, The: Skyward Sword
• Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3
• Super Mario Galaxy 1&2
• Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom
• Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution EX3
• No More Heroes
• Bleach Versus Crusade

Quote:CPU: AMD FX 8350

Are you serious ? That PileDriver is 2 generations behind Ivy Bridge
Not mention that CPU is a power hungry beast (in a bad way) and does not overclock as well as 2nd gen / 3rd gen Intel CPU

Quote:Super Mario Galaxy 1&2
Zangeki no Reginleiv

SMG need LLE for the BGM . Unless you want to play game without BGM , you can use HLE
So the answer for those 2 games is nope
Multi-players are also very demanding . If that CPU single-threaded benchmark score was equivalent to i5 3570k @ 4.2GHz , i would recommend it over the i5 since the 8350 outperform i5 in multi-threaded app (Dolphin is a dual core app btw)

The best advice we can give you is to get an intel i5 3570k, and overclock it. If this means sacrificing monry you intended to use for a GPU, then it's necessary. We cannot let you buy that CPU if you intend to use dolphin or any other CPU bound application.

While I see for some reasons the AMD FX 8350 might be a bad choice (mainly for single-threaded purposes), the FX 8350 is a staple component in the build. I need this for octo-threaded applications that I am coding for an upcoming university research paper.

(01-16-2013, 03:19 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]SMG need LLE for the BGM . Unless you want to play game without BGM , you can use HLE
So the answer for those 2 games is nope
Multi-players are also very demanding . If that CPU single-threaded benchmark score was equivalent to i5 3570k @ 4.2GHz , i would recommend it over the i5 since the 8350 outperform i5 in multi-threaded app (Dolphin is a dual core app btw)

Does this mean that LLE is unavailable when using AMD cards or does it not function properly unless using Nvidia cards? Why is this the case?

Anonymous Wrote:Ironically our attempts to convince forum users not to buy them prevent us from acquiring the data needed to prove to them why they shouldn't buy it. I guess we could try and trick a few of them into thinking they're good for benchmarking purposes

---

Quote: Does this mean that LLE is unavailable when using AMD cards or does it not function properly unless using Nvidia cards?

You will lose 50% speed (higher or lower depending on the game) if you use LLE backend
SMG , The Last Story , Zangeki ...are the CPU & GPU intensive games
Don't hope these games would run full speed on that CPU even if you overclocked it to 5.0GHz (it's possible if you have i5 3570k 4.2GHz though)
Edit : I've seen FX-8150 that run SMG on both HLE and LLE . HLE : full speed all the time , LLE : run like sh*t (half speed - 30FPS) , even an i5 2400 double his result (60FPS)

(01-16-2013, 03:38 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]

Anonymous Wrote:Ironically our attempts to convince forum users not to buy them prevent us from acquiring the data needed to prove to them why they shouldn't buy it. I guess we could try and trick a few of them into thinking they're good for benchmarking purposes

I'd be more than happy to post some benchmarks using the fx 8350 once the rig is built (as I said before AMD fx 8350 is staple). What Im really unsure of though is the graphics card >.<

7 series cards may be effected by the idle bug. Where the gpu stays in idle state during dolphin gaming. About the lle though that has nothing to do with the gpu that's all on the CPU and so far no amd CPUs can handle it. I look forward to your results with the 8350 though.

Go ahead and buy AMD 7970 because Dirext3D9 backend is faster than Direct3D11 on most games (Dx11 is faster on a few games )
It should be like this : Dx9 > Dx11 > OpenGL
I stick Dx9 even though i have Dx11 GPU
Oops , wait a minute ! Could you please wait for the AMD 8xxx series ?(Probably January or February 2013 )

Xalphenos Wrote:7 series cards may be effected by the idle bug. Where the gpu stays in idle state during dolphin gaming. About the lle though that has nothing to do with the gpu that's all on the CPU and so far no amd CPUs can handle it. I look forward to your results with the 8350 though.

I see, that makes more sense now. Is this idle bug more of a driver problem or hardware issue only native to AMD GPU's? Do Nvidia cards experience this as well?

(01-16-2013, 04:03 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Go ahead and buy AMD 7970 because Dirext3D9 backend is faster than Direct3D11 on most games (Dx11 is faster on a few games )
It should be like this : Dx9 > Dx11 > OpenGL
I stick Dx9 even though i have Dx11 GPU
Oops , wait a minute ! Could you please wait for the AMD 8xxx series ?(Probably January or February 2013 )

That's a very good point! I might indeed wait until the 8xxx series comes out, if not for the new cards, the reduction in 7 series price will be more than handy.

I've also just read a few articles that state the 8xxx series is set to sail quite soon, so I guess I can wait a little longer.

So I suppose my rig will turn into a nice Dolphin experiment once these cards come around; an AMD FX-8350 along with an 8xxx/7xxx series card. I also have an GTX 570 lying about that I could use to test with the FX-8350 as well (and a close friend of mine has a GTX 670 that I'm sure he wouldn't mind me borrowing ). At least this way anyone considering buying an AMD CPU/GPU will know what they're getting themselves into, as right now there's not that much guidance on either, but it'll be a useful/interesting test nonetheless.

In the meantime, are there any other known/potential problems going with the FX-8350 and/or the 7970 that I should be aware of?

Quote:Do Nvidia cards experience this as well?

Yes , both Nvidia 600 series and AMD 7000 series , not all cards have this issue
But Nvidia GPU was fixed in recent Dolphin version