Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

So, I've enabled every option for speed that I can, and have even tried bringing my processor back up to full speed (from a reduction to ~2.3 back up to 2.84 GHz) and yet dolphin still runs like an extremely hard and rather sticky turd in a bowl that is taped to the ground when used on my computer, so I decided I'd check here to see how I can speed it up more.

Specs:
AMD Athlon II X2 220 @ 2.84 GHz, two cores (I think the two cores part is already in there, though...)
6 GB DDR_* RAM **
XFX Radeon 5750 1 GB (this thing's why I had to reduce my CPU power in the first place, but... I don't need a DVD drive... anymore...)
465W "Ultimate Power Supply"

I've tried boosting the priority and playing with the affinity, by the way.

I have fog disabled and every hack that doesn't require a third core enabled, but I've tried a few other mixtures. This one was the fastest.

I am using DSP HLE, and have not ticked the option for it's own thread, mostly because I don't have a third core.

And I'm even playing only GCN games, the one I play the most limiting itself at 30(NTSC) and 25(PAL) instead of 60/50 already, yet I rarely peak (though peak goes to 60/30 respectively in most games), and spend most of my time in 45/12 FPS, the former of which is playable and largely unnoticeable in most games, but the latter of which obviously close to unplayable, even from a game that limits itself at 30.

Athlon II x2 is just average CPU for Dolphin
CPU Requirement
Overclocking can help you gain a few more FPS but still your CPU is too slow
Upgrade your CPU is only way to get much better performance

Quote:465W "Ultimate Power Supply"

It's a noname PSU which mean it provide less than 70% efficiency (as usual , a noname PSU only provide 50% efficiency)
Better buy a new PSU with good brand

What game is it?!

(05-19-2013, 11:24 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Athlon II x2 is just average CPU for Dolphin
CPU Requirement
Overclocking can help you gain a few more FPS but still your CPU is too slow
Upgrade your CPU is only way to get much better performance

Quote:465W "Ultimate Power Supply"

It's a noname PSU which mean it provide less than 70% efficiency (as usual , a noname PSU only provide 50% efficiency)
Better buy a new PSU with good brand

Thing with the latter is that I have no disposable income, and rely entirely on holiday gifts for computer upgrades, and the people around me aren't too fond of ordering things on the internet, which is also the only way I'd get something better in the first place without paying a ton for a "fashion-brand" part.

Also, I can't overclock because of this crappy PSU, plus a bit that I forgot to put in that has to do with HP only being able to take orders from consumers, and this being an upgraded prebuilt.

But, shortly after posting this, I just tried something random, and then said game that I average at 12 FPS in went up to averaging 23 FPS. I think it was OpenCL texture decoding or something like that, but it gave me a massive boost while it is noted that it is generally slower.

And this benchmark was even after enabling an enhancement that usually lays a crippling blow on my performance for whatever reason (widescreen hack), and my GPU just brushed it off like grains of sand this time.

So I think this thread is no longer useful, seeing as a single setting just boosted my FPS by 11 on average in the problem game, Twilight Princess, which seems to be infamous around here for massive performance/stability issues compared to other games.

EDIT: So I just did more than one thing that would normally give a MASSIVE hit on my performance at no performance cost at all, all within graphics, and now considering swapping out my BIOS so I can overclock, since I just realized that every game I play does this, and I am therefore bottlenecked heavily at the CPU.

I seriously don't know how I didn't notice how bad it was until now. I guess now I'm left to one question, re-useful-inating this thread.

I have the option to either find out how to switch BIOS (which I know for a fact is possible on many boards) on this board, then do so, or bribe a certain family member with a 4-core 3.2 GHz intel processor on his board to switch boards with me.

Either way, I need money I don't have, so I guess I'll let someone else pick for me which money goal I'm going for. Would it be more worth it to overclock my processor on my already unstable board to the point where it's power requirements exceed that which I can feed it with my current PSU, or con a family member and not have to worry about power, but instead about compatibility in switching to a board that requires entirely different support drivers and may in fact be entirely incompatible with the HP support drivers already infecting my installation?

I mean, might as well just throw it to a thread that'll be dead by morning anyways, right?

I think you should get a new PSU first
SeaSonic S12II 520W 80 PLus Bronze with Japanese Capacitors (65$) is cheap and you can use high-end CPU + high-end GPU with this PSU in the future