Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi guys, I'm new here and have been trying to find answers to some questions and I think I have found some answers but would like to make sure.

1. From what I've seen in the game index sticky a lot of games get speed mentioned and in another thread people were discussing how dolphin emulated games with low frame rates run slow. In other words if a game is set to run at 60fps and I'm only getting 20fps instead of just having a bad frame rate like a pc game the game is going to run at 1/3 speed and be very slow?
So is that just the way it is and theres currently no fix? Or is there a way to make the games be like a regular pc game and even though you only get 20fps the game still plays at regular speed.

2. Do you guys think my pc should be able to handle most games pretty well?
My computer consists of a Intel e2180 @ 3.2ghz, 8GB of ram, ati 4870 512MB, Vista 64bit and I have tried Dolphin 64bit builds 3404 and 3940.
Does this sound about right - Star Fox Assualt (gamecube game) gives good fps in flight missions but ground based missions go from 15-30fps (I capped it) but usually sits around 22fps. Zelda Twilight Princess (Wii version) in the opening of the game only runs 15fps. Mario Kart (Wii game) runs from 10-22fps but usually sits at 20fps.

3. Does Dolphin use a lot of cpu cache? My cpu does well in most pc games because in those games cache isn't very important but is that the case with Dolphin? I was thinking that might be a reason for the poor performance since the e2180 only has 1MB of cache.

4. How much do the settings usually effect performance?
Because I see a lot of people with similarly powerful computers claiming 40-60fps in Super Mario Galaxy but I don't get that kind of performance. When I first get control of Mario I get 15-19fps and it seems like thats all I get no matter what settings I use. I have even tried using the exact settings that someone with a e2180 @ 3ghz was using and still got low fps when he claimed to get ~40fps. I tried using game booster and that didn't even make a difference. I tried the taskkill.bat file but I must be doing something wrong because all that does is open a command prompt and repeatedly enters the first command.

5. If I want to use my xbox360 controller on wiimote games I need to use a program like xpadder or joy2key right? Theres not a way of doing it directly in Dolphin right?

6. What does VPS stand for? I assume its basically fps but its just bugging me.

I think I had some other questions but thats all I can think of right now. Thanks for any help.

1 There is no frame skipper implemented yet so 20 fps is going to play at 1/3 speed

2. Er maybe what is it... I know the e2180 but is it a pentium D or what lol it all depends on that.

3. Not aton but it does affect it.

4. Settings are probably the second most important thing for dolphin

5. correct

6. Ignore it it stands for vertexes per second(Is that right?)

1. Sigh...I was afraid of that. Is there any word on a possible update that would include it?

2. The cpu is a Intel Pentium e2180 (dual core) but its the good pentium which is basically a c2d with less cache so ghz per ghz its much faster than a pentium 4/D. I can understand having problems with some wii games but I really thought I would be able to handle gamecube games.

3. ok.

4. Its weird the settings seem to have little to no affect on my computer. Even the resolution makes almost no difference.

5. ok.

6. ok, yeah I thought it was something like visuals per second or something.

1. sorry
2. That should work pretty good with dolphin
4. Resolutio doesn't make that much of an impact but other things make a big impact like dual core and idle skipping

1. Not yet. Possible in future, yes.

2. Nice spec

3. I dont know.

4. Dolphin depends on configuration. Yes, its really really important. I even wrote "really" twice.

5. I dont know, never played with it before.

6. Thats Virtual Private Server.

*facepalm* 6. is not virtual private server on dolphin. I know what your talking about and thats not it

That's weird, the E2180 shouldn't give such awful results when clocked at 3.2ghz, mine's at 2.3ghz and GC games go from 30 -50, wii 20 - 40 fps.

Have you disabled any kind of special effects, aero, useless programs or whatever in the background?

---

Fps = frames rendered.
Vps = cpu updates.

Speed in games like Zeldas and Super Marios is limited by the FPS, in games like SSBB is limited by VPS. So the higher the better.
Most GC games will throw equal VPS and FPS though.

you do not have to configure the xbox360 controller at all.. just plug and play

On games that use a gamecube controller the 360 controller has always worked. However games that use the wiimote have never worked for me and I thought I saw (in another thread) that I had to program keyboard keys to the 360 controller with xpadder or a similar program. Is that not the correct?

(08-08-2009, 03:24 AM)CacoFFF Wrote: [ -> ]That's weird, the E2180 shouldn't give such awful results when clocked at 3.2ghz, mine's at 2.3ghz and GC games go from 30 -50, wii 20 - 40 fps.

Have you disabled any kind of special effects, aero, useless programs or whatever in the background?

---

Fps = frames rendered.
Vps = cpu updates.

Speed in games like Zeldas and Super Marios is limited by the FPS, in games like SSBB is limited by VPS. So the higher the better.
Most GC games will throw equal VPS and FPS though.

Yeah I've seen other people claiming better performance with similar computers to, so it does seem like I'm getting low performance. I usually use gamebooster to disable most things and have also turned my AV off but don't seem to get much of a gain. I haven't tried turning aero off though so I'll try that. But on this subject could anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong with the taskkill.bat file?
What I do is
1. Copy the text into a notepad file
TASKKILL /IM EXPLORER.EXE /F
TASKKILL /IM SIDEBAR.EXE /F
start /high /wait G:\emulators\gamecube-wii\dolphinx64r3940\dolphin.exe
start explorer.exe
start sidebar
2. Save that with the "all files" setting as taskkill.bat.
3. Open the new taskkill.bat file.

Now I thought that was suppose to disable a bunch of things and turn on Dolphin and then reactivate the stuff when dolphin is turned off. However when I open taskkill.bat it just opens a command window and constantly enters
G:\emulators\gamecube-wii\dolphinx64r3940>TASKKILL /IM EXPLORER.EXE /F

And when I try just opening dolphin.exe it just opens as usual. So does this not work in Vista or what is it I'm doing wrong?

And CacoFFF do you have any of these games: StarFox Assaust, Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda Twilight Princess (Wii), Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Sunshine? If you do could you tell me the settings your using on one of those? Because you're definitely getting better fps then me.

Nope, the closest thing I have is Zelda TP for GC, and I didn't even bother trying it on the pc.

You can place that .BAT file in Dolphin folder, and use these commands instead.

TASKKILL /F /IM EXPLORER.EXE
TASKKILL /F /IM SIDEBAR.EXE
start /high /wait dolphin <--- if it is in the folder it should open
start explorer.exe
start sidebar