Let's see how much I can elaborate on all of this.
lamentofking Wrote:So when it comes down to getting Dolphin to emulate at full speed, it comes down to the main component being the CPU (along with a minimum of 4 GB and an integrated graphics chip)
Depends.
First off admin89 overestimated the memory use of dolphin. 2GB is plenty for both the 32 bit and 64 bit dolphin builds. In fact even 1GB would be plenty depending on the OS and background applications (although windows would run painfully slow with so little memory). Last time I checked dolphin had a peak memory usage of just over 500MB in demanding games.
To answer your earlier question about memory size and performance more thoroughly the two are rarely ever related. Processing speed tends to govern performance, not memory amount. Applications need a certain amount of space to store all the information that they need in RAM. You either have enough ram to provide that space or you don't. If you don't have enough space the application will either slow to a crawl or crash. Adding more ram will remedy this. But if you already have enough space adding more ram will do absolutely nothing as the extra space that you just added will just go unused by the application. Or to use an analogy let's say you're starting a shipping company like fedex. You need a warehouse to store all of the packages coming through an area. Currently your packages occupy 30% of the warehouse floorspace. You decide for no good reason that you want to upgrade the warehouse and make it bigger because you have heard that this will help you process/ship more packages in less time. But you don't plan on increasing business and having more packages. So now you double the size of the warehouse. Now the packages only use 15% of the floorspace. You have all this empty space but you aren't processing those packages any faster as a result. Because why would adding more space help process packages faster when you already had enough space to store them to begin with? Make sense?
So assuming you have enough memory and the memory you're using isn't painfully slow that leaves the cpu and gpu as potential bottlenecks (components restricting performance). Depending on how fast your cpu and gpu are, what settings you're using, what game you're playing, and what build you're using one of those two chips will be the bottleneck. Only an upgrade to the bottleneck will improve performance. In most systems the cpu is the bottleneck. This is because most games require a fast cpu no matter the settings. But you can change the graphics settings to dramatically change the gpu requirements of a game (how fast the gpu has to be to keep up with the cpu). So by simply lowering your graphics settings you can usually get away with having a fairly slow gpu as long as your cpu is fast. Having a fast gpu in most cases just allows you to raise the graphics settings without lowering performance. But doesn't change the maximum performance you can get with optimal settings.
Like admin said some integrated graphics are fine for dolphin and some aren't. You generally need to have a high end modern IGP (integrated graphics processor) if you're using integrated graphics though. And even then you generally have to use very low graphics settings. So having a discrete (dedicated) GPU while not required is highly recommended.
I won't say OEMs (companies like dell that build the computer for you) are "overpriced crap". But they do tend to use mediocre parts and disable overclocking. You can generally get better bang for your buck by building your own system and you have a lot more room to customize your rig by doing so.
lamentofking Wrote:Would it benefit if I had 16 GB in the Flip 15A? I read somewhere that the intel graphics processor included on some machines can work with gaming at full screen if 12 GB were used but I like either 8 or 16 gb
lamentofking Wrote:Can the VAIO Flip 15A and the Edge Pro still run Dolphin games at playable speeds by changing the settings in Dolphin? I don't really care if I can play in full screen since I was looking for a mobile touch screen 2-in-1 device anyway.
Fullscreen vs. windowed won't impact performance if you set the resolution manually (which most PC games and emulators do). And it certainly won't impact memory use in any application.
lamentofking Wrote:I linked to the website as well above in case I'm missing any important specs. Now from browsing these forums, I know that "U" intel processors aren't the best way to go with Dolphin in terms of speed and performance. However, there is a youtube video showing how the razer edge pro handles the dolphin emulator HERE.
Ugh. I can't even begin to count the number of poor conclusions derived from youtube videos on these forums. "But I saw this video showing...." always seems to precede nonsense. Youtube tends to be flooded with moronic videos that lack proper context or information about anything. Please take anything you see there with a massive grain of salt. Videos about game performance on dolphin tend to be done on very old builds with inaccurate settings. As the author of the video you just linked admits to in his comments section. You can get some games to run decently on older hardware using these methods but not without introducing more bugs and/or removing useful features. They conveniently avoid showing you any problems introduced by their settings or build. And then there are the games that just will not run well on slower hardware no matter what you do.
Videos about optimizing dolphins settings are usually filled with poor conclusions and flat out lies. So don't take them to heart either.
lamentofking Wrote:Now for a "U" intel processor, the Edge Pro is handling those Wii games pretty well.
lamentofking Wrote:But the Edge Pro seems to have no problem playing Dolphin just fine.
Your evidence for that so far is pretty weak.
lamentofking Wrote:The test games I would use are SSBB, Mario Party 7 and 8, Mario Kart Wii, and Sonic Colors.
Mario party games run well on just about anything. Mario kart wii may struggle in some levels. Sonic colors will likely struggle. SSBB will depend on how many characters are on screen. It will probably run well.
admin89 Wrote:More Ram you will be able to do more intensive multi-tasking without memory loss (like open 32 tabs in Chrome / Firefox /IE) or run Photoshop , encoder , microsoft office at the same time
That's kind of misleading. You could easily do all of those things simultaneously on 4GB of ram and adding more ram wouldn't speed things up at all. Most of these are low memory applications. Professional 3D rendering is a good example of something that would benefit from having a lot of memory.
lamentofking Wrote:I was leaning more towards a laptop last week so I started looking for laptops and then I said, "hey I could get a touchscreen laptop" and then I came across the 2 in 1's and I was like a computer and a tablet? Heck yeah. Problem is the strongest 2 in 1 I found was the Flip 15 and apparently that isn't that strong. If anyone knows of a better 2 in 1 machine that can handle Dolphin let me know please.
We've established above that dolphins performance is mainly based around how fast your computers microprocessors (cpu and gpu) are. Microprocessor performance is based mainly around 4 things: size/cost of the chip (the two are directly related to each other), power consumption, manufacturing process, and architecture. Numbers 3 and 4 are in turn based on when the chip was made. For example a chip made in 2014 is likely going to have a newer manufacturing process and architecture than one made in 2010. Numbers 1 and 2 are somewhat related since bigger chips not only cost more they also tend to use more power too (although they use it more efficiently). Power consumption is mainly limited by two things, battery life and cooling. Mainly cooling. Cooling is primarily limited by size, weight, and cost. And all three of those are directly related to each other. So what does all this mean? Well it means we can simplify how fast a computers microprocessors will be (and therefore how fast dolphin will be) down to three things:
1. How much it costs (when introduced to the market)
2. When it was made (when the model was introduced to the market)
3. How big it is
Out of those three factors numbers 2 and 3 are the main ones. As a result big systems tend to have a massive performance advantage over smaller computers. Smaller computers can only really compete in performance with older big systems. Big systems also tend to be cheaper. Giving you much better performance per dollar. A $700 desktop for example can easily go toe to toe with a $2,000 laptop from the same year. And don't even get me started on ultrabooks or tablets which are much weaker than conventional laptops which are in turn much weaker than conventional desktops.
There is a reason for this. Physics. Almost all power consumption is lost as heat in electronic components (I could explain why but doing so would turn this post into a college essay pretty quickly so just take my word on that). So power consumption and heat are directly tied to one another. So much so that we often express heat as watts, a unit of power consumption. Assuming a given manufacturing process and microarchitecture remain constant within a given year the actual performance of a chip will be based around its size (which impacts IPC and number of cores, not going to explain those because again essay length) and clock rate. Clock rate is limited by voltage and temperature (again assuming the constants listed above). Increasing clock rate increases power consumption. Increasing voltage increases power consumption. Increasing chip size increases power consumption. Increasing power consumption increases heat. So any attempts to make the chip faster increase heat. Using a bigger chip can make the chip more efficient (more performance per watt) but at the expense of cost and chip size. Which often makes them unsuitable for smaller systems. The amount of heat our system can handle is determined by its size. Bigger systems can use larger heatsinks and fans with bigger vents. This allows them to remove more heat per second and therefore use chips that put out more heat. So we need to increase power consumption/heat to make the chip faster but the only way to handle the additional heat is to make the system bigger so that it can accommodate a bigger cooling system. This means performance is inherently linked to the size of the system no matter what. So yes "U" processors are slow because of what I listed above. They're designed to trade performance for lower power consumption so that they can be used in smaller systems.
As a result the list of fastest to slowest goes:
-supercomputer
-mainframe
-high end server
-desktop
-laptop
-ultrabook/hybrids
-tablet/netbook/nettop
-phablet/MID
-smartphone
Which is exactly the same as ranking them by size. The new two in one systems are officially called hybrids. Mobility and performance are always directly opposed to one another in computer technology. All computers exist on a line somewhere between "extremely portable" and "extremely fast". There is a growing trend in the computing industry to trade away more and more performance for greater mobility. As we've now seen with ultrabooks, netbooks, nettops ultrathins, hybrids, tablets, etc. All of which are really just smaller slower versions of either laptops or desktops. You can actually buy laptops that are as fast as midrange desktops but they cost thousands of dollars, are very big, very heavy, have extremely poor battery life, and get very hot while in use. In other words they're really desktops disguised as laptops. This is just a very elaborate way of me telling you that tablets and hybrids are very slow compared to laptops which are very slow compared to desktops. Dolphin is a very demanding application so it's highly advised that you run it on a bigger system if you can. As stated some games may run ok on a very high end tablet or hybrid. But there is only so much you can do to squeeze performance out of a device that small. So we can't really recommend a better hybrid/tablet that would match the performance of a good laptop because physics prevents them from existing. As far as whether these systems can "handle dolphin" or not that depends on the factors listed above (build, game, and settings). I would be inclined to say "no in most cases" even though there are clearly many variables to consider.
