Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hello Dolphin Forums, I'm having some problems getting my games to run at 100% speed or even close to that. I have a 2010 Macbook Pro 15 inch OS x 10.8. With an i7-620m @ 2.66 and 3.33 Turbo boost. Also I have an Nvidia GeForce 330m with video memory 512mb and 8gb of DDR3 ram. I'm running Dolphin 3.5-367.
Settings I have enabled: Dual Core (speedup), Idle Skipping (speedup), DSP HLE emulation, Native resolution, Open GL (obviously), No AA, AF 1X, EFB copies; Texture and Ram with enabled Cache, disable fog, and OpenMP texture decoder.

To date i've tired to play, Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime Corruption and Metroid other M. They all run, and look decent.. but the performance is just terrible. On average the speed is about 76% ~ 15 - 24Fps. (in small hallways the performance is good, but in open areas, it lags) I don't know if i'm missing something, but i've searched and read everything I could and my hardware seems good enough. Thanks, Any help is appreciated.

By the way, i've tired using a few older Dolphin builds (r7670 and 3.5), but I have a problem with them because the Wii controls don't work correctly, It keeps seeing my mouse as 'Axis' instead of 'cursor' even when i right click on the dialog box it doesn't give me to option to select 'cursor' therefor i'm unable to test any of the games.

Metroid series are all demanding games . Most demanding games require Quad Core i5 3570k 3.4 -> 4.5GHz
Your i7 is just a dual core CPU , not mention it's 1st gen Intel Core I series . The i5 3570k is 3rd gen

Quote:With an i7-620m @ 2.66 and 3.33 Turbo boost

3.33GHz is just single core turbo
3.0GHz (2 cores) is the real turbo clock speed
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/In...981AH.html
So your i7 performance should be identical to my i5 in Dolphin

(06-13-2013, 10:18 PM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]So your i7 performance should be identical to my i5 in Dolphin

Alright, I follow you there. Seems logical.

So you're saying that my processor isn't good enough to handle Metroid series games at full speed? Or are there some settings i can tweak to help?

Quote:my processor isn't good enough to handle Metroid series games at full speed?

Yes , not even close .

(06-13-2013, 10:25 PM)steveowashere Wrote: [ -> ]So you're saying that my processor isn't good enough to handle Metroid series games at full speed? Or are there some settings i can tweak to help?

Yes your CPU is a bit weak for Metroid Prime 1/2/3

I'm surprised, but if you guys say so. Haha.

Can you recommend any games that would run well on my setup? Or is there any guide to look at? Thanks again.

(06-13-2013, 10:32 PM)steveowashere Wrote: [ -> ]Can you recommend any games that would run well on my setup? Or is there any guide to look at?

Currently there's no guide for demanding games but it's on the way .
You can tell us which games you've been planning to play and we'll indicate you how demanding they are

Cool, can't wait until it's out.

I was thinking of playing: Wind Waker, Twilight Princess (Wii version), and Resident Evil 4 (also Wii version)

Some good games I've played
_New Super Mario Bros (with "EFB copies to texture" - for performance , "EFB...Ram" - for accuracy is out of the question)
_Muramasa the demon Blade (full speed all the time)
_Xenoblade - is a demanding game (require a specific Dolphin version for playing near full speed , latest Dolphin is out of the question)
_Mario Kart : won't run full speed , you will get more speed with Direct3D11 back end ( most games run faster with Direct3D9 , except this game and some others) . 50FPS (60FPS is full speed) with Dolphin 3.5- 145 , latest Dolphin run slower ...
_The Last Story will be playable at 18-20 FPS (30FPS is full speed) if you use Vbeam speed hack (Right-click the game - Properties) . To run TLS near full speed or full speed all the time , you need i5 3570k @ 4.5GHz or even higher
......

I'll have to pick up a copy of New Super Mario Bros, I still haven't played that yet.
I don't think i'll be able to play TLS, it's a shame because it looks so good. I'll see what i can find at my local game store here in Poland. Nintendo games are scarce here...