DJBarry004 Wrote:But seems that you won´t handle more that 4x AA in some games.
Not really. If you're talking about MSAA, the OP will be able to max it out in many games. Geometry-only AA like MSAA is less taxing on GPU resources than something like SSAA. Even if you're talking about SSAA, that GPU will be able to do 9xSSAA technically, just not at higher Internal Resolutions. The GTX 650 will happily do 8x-16x MSAA at 4x Internal Resolution, and 4xSSAA at 3x Internal Resolution for most games.
DJBarry004 Wrote:You will have slowdowns in Last Story, but most parts of the game will be playable.
A properly overclocked i5-4670K should get at worst 27~28 FPS (assuming an NTSC-U or NTSC-J disc, meaning a max FPS of 30) and only periodically, which is barely noticeable. The thing about The Last Story is that the FPS drops on a real Wii. Dolphin will accurately emulate those drops as well. The emulated gamespeed could very well read 100%, but since Dolphin aims for accuracy, and since a real Wii slows down when it's running at 100%, the action still slows down. This usually happens during battles though, when lots of things are happening.
jessman1988 Wrote:Ah. Well, I appreciate all the info as it is. I tried to do enough research to find a semi decent computer and I'm glad it sounds like I'm picking a good one. I didn't even know that some i5s can't be overclocked so feel free to lay some info on me even if it should be common knowledge. Other forums i visit just don't seem to have a helpful attitude so I'm grateful for what I've gotten help with.
My first post here was basically the same as yours ("does this rig have what it takes" or something like that). I even went CyberPower too :p Anyway, one thing I can say about CyberPower systems is that they're very well built machines. I've been using mine for Dolphin for almost 2 years now. Although it's not necessary, you might want to see if you can buy it directly from CyberPower. You can customize just about everything on their site, and you can trim or add some items if you wish (for instance, I didn't need a 1TB HDD, I don't even have that much data to begin with, nor did I need Windows). If you have a version of Windows you can install, that's like $80 off the cost of the system itself if you order it with no OS, though be warned, $80 is approximately the cost of shipping
To be honest no computer will never be OPTIMAL for Dolphin but all i can say is you will benefit greatly with an i7 model processor because of the hyper threading it gives you and also with a GPU its really what you can afford they all do the same thing just the more expensive ones do it better. Also and this is the big part, i wouldn't think about buying a gaming computer retail for Christs Sake build it yourself; if you do you will end up with better hardware and a better computer for the same price you would have paid for the other one. The motherboards that come with pre-built machines are just a plain joke (most of the time) they offer very little in the ways of expandability and features compared to aftermarket boards. Even if you know nothing about building computers its sounds like you know about your parts, do your research and once your happy with the parts you can have it built for under 100 dollars. Overclocking on that machine will be easy but all i can say without an aftermarket cooler you will shorten the life of your PC because you will be getting temperatures that it was never designed for.
All in all build it yourself - Profit.
Hyper-Threading is nothing but an ornament in the i7s when talking about Dolphin... You may be referring to TurboBoost instead...
(11-02-2013, 11:57 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]A properly overclocked i5-4670K should get at worst 27~28 FPS (assuming an NTSC-U or NTSC-J disc, meaning a max FPS of 30) and only periodically, which is barely noticeable. The thing about The Last Story is that the FPS drops on a real Wii. Dolphin will accurately emulate those drops as well. The emulated gamespeed could very well read 100%, but since Dolphin aims for accuracy, and since a real Wii slows down when it's running at 100%, the action still slows down. This usually happens during battles though, when lots of things are happening.
The frame rate drops on the Wii happen because the Wii can't render/process whatever is happening at that point at full speed. It's not something to emulate since it's hardware related.
It's not using frame skips either from what I remember, so if you're emulating it with Dolphin and are able to maintain a constant 30FPS then the game is running at full speed and won't drop even in those frame dropping scenes on the Wii.
@Garteal - I haven't dumped this game (not worth replaying imo) so I don't know for sure, but if Dolphin accuartely emulates the Wii, the emulated GPU should "think" it's bottlenecking the emulated Wii system and cause the the emulated GPU to request less frame draws, leading to a VPS to drop. If not, Dolphin is just inaccurate in this regard, and it's something the devs should "fix" :p Other users have seen similar behavior in Dolphin where a Wii game on real hardware and Dolphin lowers the FPS (No More Heroes 2).
DJBarry004 Wrote:Hyper-Threading is nothing but an ornament in the i7s when talking about Dolphin... You may be referring to TurboBoost instead...
Both i5 and i7 cpus use the same turboboost system and settings so he couldn't have been referring to that.. He just didn't know that HT has no effect on dolphin.
(11-03-2013, 02:22 AM)Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ]@Garteal - I haven't dumped this game (not worth replaying imo) so I don't know for sure, but if Dolphin accuartely emulates the Wii, the emulated GPU should "think" it's bottlenecking the emulated Wii system and cause the the emulated GPU to request less frame draws, leading to a VPS to drop. If not, Dolphin is just inaccurate in this regard, and it's something the devs should "fix" :p Other users have seen similar behavior in Dolphin where a Wii game on real hardware and Dolphin lowers the FPS (No More Heroes 2).
How dare you? The game was pretty good and I appreciate it more since it came for the Wii which already lacked good JRPGs.
Dolphin doesn't emulate the GPU accurately since we're able to use hacks, increase the IR, etc. Software rendering is as accurate as it'll ever get.
I'll have a look at No More Heroes 2.
If only someone could work on making a directx 11 software renderer.
Somebody pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease work on the software renderer!
(11-04-2013, 07:14 AM)Garteal Wrote: [ -> ]How dare you? The game was pretty good and I appreciate it more since it came for the Wii which already lacked good JRPGs.
It was too hyped-up and didn't deliver. I'd give it 80% and not a point more. WARNING: Off-topic spoiler/rant ahead (if you haven't played TLS, there are spoilers in here):
The story was pretty weak for a JRPG. I could scarcely care about any of the characters except for Zael and sometimes Calista. Sure their back-stories are fleshed out, but even then, it's rarely brought up or made relevant to story later on. The whole "your-best-friend-is-now-end-boss" came out of nowhere towards the end, and Dagran was never sufficiently developed into a villain at all, even if he was supposed to be acting "behind the scenes" (which bordered on retcon if you ask me). He just starts spouting off some philosophy about how he's going to rebuild the world, and then you fight him, there's no build up to the tension except for the few minutes where you and your party chase him down. The war between Lazulis Island and the Guraks was probably the highlight of the story, but everything up until that was rather dull. Zael deals with the troubles of high society, fights some enemies, and that's it. It was an average, albeit sometimes forgettable experience. Maybe it's just that I'm older now, but I definitely didn't get the impression that Zael and Calista were lovers. More so, it seems like they were "best friends" who might as well have been dating. There definitely could have been more development between the Guardians and the Outsider (the Outsider is killing the land after all) but it never went anywhere aside from Mirania's brief sidequest.
Major sticking point was that a number of chapters had to be "unlocked" by doing certain things. I gather that these chapters aren't necessary for the main story and are supplemental, but it really strikes a nerve that it's so easy to miss a lot of content on the first playthrough.
Then we get to the mechanics of the game itself. It's a shame they didn't allow Zael (or anyone else) more special attacks. Half of the time I alternate between regular hacking/guarding, then attacking with Gale and sometimes using the power of the Outsider to draw enemy attention. Aside from his crossbow, there wasn't a whole lot of variety to Zael's attacks. Occasionally I'd use that move where you stand against a wall and jump out and slash, and even less frequently (like 5 times) I'd use that run-up-the-wall move. Compare this to Xenoblade Chronicles or even Pandora's Tower, you get a lot more freedom to be creative in battle.
Exploration, outside of Lazuli City, isn't really encouraged. You can revisit various parts that you've seen in other chapters, but for the most part, you don't travel very far or very wide. Most of the areas tend to be of the same type (you're on a ship, now you're in some caves, oh look here's the sewers again, and yonder lies the same castle you've been to 20 times already). Lazuli City, while it's always changing, gets pretty boring 3/4 of the way in. At that point, it's just a pretty scene you see on the way to get from Point A to Point B in order to advance the story.
I'm not wasting 8.9GB of any HDD space for this game. XBC on the other hand, I'd happily do that (and have done that). Hey, I've played upwards of 50 RPGs over the years. I'm allowed to be picky and critical. :p I'm a connoisseur.
(11-04-2013, 07:14 AM)Garteal Wrote: [ -> ]Dolphin doesn't emulate the GPU accurately since we're able to use hacks, increase the IR, etc. Software rendering is as accurate as it'll ever get.
Doesn't mean Dolphin isn't emulating the GPU accurately enough in other regards such as real Wii-GPU bottlenecks. The thing is, when you're running Dolphin with something like Auto as you Framelimit, you're not telling Dolphin to run as fast as your computer can run it, you're telling it to run as fast as a real Wii can. If a real Wii's GPU suddenly finds itself having to process a certain amount that it can't handle, most games that cause GPU bottlenecks should be designed to lower the amount of requested frame draws so that at least the CPU and DSP can run fullspeed. I know a lot of people tend to run this game with the VBeam Speed hack, and that messes with the emulated GPU's clock, which may explain if people have noticed these kinds of slowdowns or not.
DatKid20 Wrote:If only someone could work on making a directx 11 software renderer.
Wait, what?
Make a software renderer using a hardware accelerated API? I guess you would just use d3d11 to do the final copy to screen space then? But I mean why bother when we already have a software rendering backend? There would be no advantage.