Hello!
I registered here because I've been using Dolphin for a while and lately I've been testing it out on both Windows 7 and LinuxMint15.
I have to say that the work put into this emulator is without a doubt a well done job.
This emulator performs great on Windows 7 and i was surprised to know that it performed even better under Linux (under the same hardware).
So to anyone who's using Linux and want to use Dolphin, I would definitely recommend, no need to recommend for Windows users, we all know this emulator is the best, but i was really impressed by OpenGL performance, because it's better than DirectX under Windows.
Dolphin just keeps getting better and better.
Congrats to the devs. That's all i really wanted to say xD
fabioricardoalves Wrote:but i was really impressed by OpenGL performance, because it's worse than DirectX under Windows.
Did you mean to say "because it's
better than DirectX under Windows"? :p OpenGL manages to be the fastest backend for quite a few users now. Anyway, as Linux user too, I can relate to your experience. When I first saw how well Dolphin performed under Linux, and that the Linux version wasn't sub-par or gimped up, I was quite astonished really. It's still amazing to me how the devs put so much effort into making something that plays well on something other than just Windows.
lol yeah i meant that, already edited xD
Yes the performance is better.
I have a laptop that can handle Dolphin on on windows 7, but it lags a lot, due to the gpu GT540M, on Linux it runs at the internal laptops screen resolution which is 1366x768 under the same settings which is amazing. And not to mention that the optimus technology on linux sucks and it's community made, i can't wait for the official nvidia support, because i know it'll perform even better then.
This emulator made me use my laptop again xD
Protip: check "Vertex Streaming Hack" in Graphics > Hacks and it'll be even *faster*.
(10-13-2013, 03:45 PM)pauldacheez Wrote: [ -> ]Protip: check "Vertex Streaming Hack" in Graphics > Hacks and it'll be even *faster*.
Yes i know, but that only makes a difference if you use linux because it only works with opengl. I seriously think the lag i have in my laptop is probably because of the cpu. Since laptop cpus tend to have low clock speeds. Even though they have Hyperthreading and boosts, its not the same as the real cores/clockspeeds. So thats probably the problem. I think that if dolphin supported more than 2 cores it would boost performance on laptops forsure. Since the majority of laps you can buy, even those below 1000€ are now mostly quad core cpu powered. My cpu boosts up to 3.1ghz but it isnt the same as having really 3.1ghz per core imo.
Your laptop has to disable cores if it Turbo Boosts, so the maximum frequency is 3.1Ghz, but only one core is active. Dolphin is very unlikely to support more than three major threads at most (two for emulating the GC/Wii's CPU + GPU, and one more for emulating the DSP when using LLE Audio on a seperate thread). The FAQ on the main site explains this pretty well. Still, at least you have Dolphin running at acceptable speeds right now, and that's all that matters for some people
On windows it shows that i have 8 cores (task manager) which 4 are the real and 4 are the hyper-threading cores, i know it's not real cores since they depend on the physical ones. if dolphin can use hyper-threading then that's why i get the same CPU usage on all cores (since its HT needs to use cores, my question is, what is better? with HT on or without it?
I have no idea how Linux handles HT, i don't know if it is the same way as Windows, but it also displays that i'm using all cores on so i assume that it probably supports it the same way.
Linux has long recognized Intel's HyperThreading, and it will show you 8 logical cores in something like top or gkrellm. Dolphin does not take advantage of HyperThreading. Each physical core has two threads for software to use. Dolphin will only use 2 (3 with LLE audio on a seperate thread) major threads for the bulk of its processing, hence we call it a dual-core application often. It has many other minor threads for things like input and GUI rendering, but they don't amount to a significant percentage of processing. Still, having extra cores+threads helps with about 10~15% of misc. background tasks, so it's worth having more than 2 cores/threads.
>Your laptop has to disable cores if it Turbo Boosts, so the maximum frequency is 3.1Ghz, but only one core is active.
There are separate Turbo Boost speeds for each amount of cores in use – e.g. for a theoretical (read: I'm pulling numbers out of my ass) 2 GHz quad-core with hyperthreading, the single-core clock could be 3 GHz, while the dual-core clock could be 2.6 GHz, and the tri-core could be 2.2 GHz. Even my dual-core with hyperthreading (i5-2557M) has a dual-core turbo of 2.6 GHz (which I measured in powertop) over its default 1.7 GHz clockspeed. (The listed single-core speed is only 2.7, wtf?)
Uh, do you know you can change to OpenGL from the graphics settings dialog? 4.0 on Windows supports dx9,dx11, and gl. Linux only supports gl, as directs is microsoft-only. opengl is an open standard.