Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi,

I recently backed up my Brawl disc because I want to play Brawl on my HD TV with my friends and take advantage of Dolphin's capability to render the games at 1080p with antialiasing and all that.

I'm using Dolphin 4.0.1, and I posted my pc specs below. I believe I should be able to run Brawl at the default settings, but even with antialiasing off, I get these frame rate dips and cracky audio. Any sort of suggestion would be highly appreciated. I did a little research and discovered that my cpu is very important for emulation, but nonetheless I've read that brawl or melee for that matter are not demanding games so I'm surprised I'm not getting a solid 60fps.

Quote:Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130708-1532)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell
System Model: Dell XPS420
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A04
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6078MB RAM
Page File: 5092MB used, 7061MB available
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 660
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 4042 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1994 MB
Shared Memory: 2048 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (59Hz)

Your CPU is too slow for latest Dolphin version which is much more demanding than older version . Your GPU is good enough for 4x Internal Resolution (2560x2112) , no AA , 16x AF
You should upgrade your CPU to i5 4670k or overclock your CPU for the time being (3.4GHz or higher) , upgrade later .

(11-01-2013, 04:56 PM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Your CPU is too slow for latest Dolphin version which is much more demanding than older version . Your GPU is good enough for 4x Internal Resolution (2560x2112) , no AA , 16x AF
You should upgrade your CPU to i5 4670k or overclock your CPU for the time being (3.4GHz or higher) , upgrade later .

Yeah I figured as much, I'm going to test out dolphin on my friend's computer which has an 8 core 4.0ghz amd processor in it and an nvidia 780.

I'm going to make a new rig over the summer so I'll wait until then to buy a better cpu.

Since you say dolphin latest version, if I use Dolphin 3.5 do you think I may get slightly better performance?

Dolphin is a dual core application . 8 cores doesn't matter , a better GPU doesn't matter either since you're not going to max out graphic settings (like 9xSSAA + 4x IR ~ 4x3 ~ 12IR which is insanely high res compared to 4k res)
AMD current line FX-8350 is really bad at single threaded performance which Dolphin desperately requires . Therefore , 4.0GHz FX 8350 is still slower than the 2 years old i5 2500k @ 3.3GHz ,
Dolphin Benchmark

Quote:
if I use Dolphin 3.5 do you think I may get slightly better performance?

Is depends on the game but you should get slightly better performance with this game
You can try Vbeam Speed Hack with latest Dolphin (right-click the game - properties ) . Since you have Nvidia GPU , you should use OpenGL backend and Vertex Streaming Hack with Latest version , Direct3D9 backend if you use older Dolphin version

(11-01-2013, 05:42 PM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Dolphin is a dual core application . 8 cores doesn't matter , a better GPU doesn't matter either since you're not going to max out graphic settings (like 9xSSAA + 4x IR ~ 4x3 ~ 12IR which is insanely high res compared to 4k res)
AMD current line FX-8350 is really bad at single threaded performance which Dolphin desperately requires . Therefore , 4.0GHz FX 8350 is still slower than the 2 years old i5 2500k @ 3.3GHz ,
Dolphin Benchmark

Quote:
if I use Dolphin 3.5 do you think I may get slightly better performance?

Is depends on the game but you should get slightly better performance with this game
You can try Vbeam Speed Hack with latest Dolphin (right-click the game - properties ) . Since you have Nvidia GPU , you should use OpenGL backend and Vertex Streaming Hack with Latest version , Direct3D9 backend if you use older Dolphin version

Yeah I tested it out. I used Dolphin 3.5 and the performance is slightly better. I'm using direct3d9 on dolphin 3.5, but are you saying if I use opengl on dolphin 4.0.1 w/ vertex streaming hack that'll be good too? I'll have to test these things out.

As for cpu, I'll test it out on my friends computers but i won't have any high expectations then. So if I upgrade my cpu I should definitely go with an intel processor 3.4Ghz + then right? I was doing some research and saw a lot of what you're saying about AMD cpus.

OGL and vertex streaming hack should perform as well, if not better. Report your findings please.

An i5 Ivy Bridge (3xxx) or better is recommended. i7 if you want to use it for multi-threaded applications besides Dolphin. i3 will perform poorly in Dolphin. The very best is a 4670 or 4670K (unlocked). You'll have to upgrade your board too since socket 775 is defunct.

Quote:As for cpu, I'll test it out on my friends computers but i won't have any high expectations then.

FX-8350 is clearly faster than your CPU . A non-demanding game like Brawl should run fine with it . However , you shouldn't expect full speed with demanding games like Mario Galaxy , TLS , Xenoblade and so on ....
i5 4670k is future proof CPU for Dolphin

(11-02-2013, 10:26 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]i5 4670k is future proof CPU for Dolphin

Nothing is future proof