it's general discussion because it's not CPU specific
getting an FX 8320
I know dolphin only uses a max of 3 cores , AMD isn't really compatible, it's better to get an i3 3330 blah blah blah. At least, last I checked, all of that's true.
but I have a better question...
Are there any efforts to make dolphin more compatible with AMD cards or is it all intel love here?
I can understand an easy explanation, computer having to read and translate discs, acting like a Wii instead of normal PC processes
but I'm still sitting here like ??? is it really so impossible to make AMD compatibility?
Dolphin is fully compatible with AMD cpus. Compatibility has nothing to do with speed or performance. Compatibility just means "it works". If you're asking about multithreading (which is not exclusive to AMD cpus at all) then no, it's not possible for dolphin to use more than 3 cores at once and receive a speedup. Dolphin emulates the GC/Wii. Which have a system architecture that contains 3 major microprocessors that need to be emulated. A microprocessor thread cannot be emulated with more than one thread on the host system without implementing alternating thread synchronization. Which would reduce performance rather than increasing it. In other words you can't have multiple emulator threads all processing work simultaneously for one emulated thread. The dolphin devs are not part of some global conspiracy to make their software slower on AMD cpus. The software is open source so if you feel as if everyone who has worked on dolphin is lying or stupid you are free to implement the changes yourself. AMD decided to design their microarchitecture in a way that is not optimal for emulation workloads. There is nothing anyone can do about that except them.
It's not that we're Intel lovers, it's that the code that Dolphin runs needs strong single-core speeds. AMD CPUs are not built with high single-core speeds, where Intel CPUs are. The single core speeds of the FX-8320 are on the level of a first gen Intel i5/i7 at stock speeds for all.
Edit: ninja'd
Yeah, I really did think the response was going to be that it's AMD's fault, and I agree, it is. That's the first thing that crossed my mind.
I just find it strange that there isn't a work around. I dunno. I come from a background of always seeing workarounds.
i guess this is just one of those rare situations you have to 'bulldoze' through. -_- surprised honestly.
Canceled my 8320 and paying 100 bucks more for an intel just so I can hang out with you dolphin players )':
It shouldn't be that much more expensive. What Intel parts are you looking at?
Intel Core i5-4670K
I know it's not much better than an 8320 in everything else
but it is when it comes to emulation.
sure skyrim is nice but I wanna emulate too, bro
Aside from programs that utilize 8 cores(very few), the i5-4670k should beat it out in everything else.
I know, I have this super fear that all of the sudden a bunch of companies will start demanding we all use more cores. and I'll be stuck with a quad core wondering where it all went wrong. lol
In most applications the 4670K will not just win, but win by a very large margin. Even in applications that use all 8 cores the 4670K is usually faster. So even if a miracle happens and tomorrow every application is suddenly able to utilize 8 cores simultaneously and effectively you still don't have much to worry about.
But realistically there are many types of applications for which that extent of multithreading would either be useless, impractical, or impossible to implement. And for many applications that are able to effectively use that many cores (there aren't many that fall into this category at the moment) many of those scale so poorly past 4 cores that 4 faster cores are easily able to keep up with 8 slower cores. As we have seen repeatedly in benchmarks and reviews. The FX may have more cores but that's just one piece of the puzzle. CPUs have many different specs. that contribute to their overall performance and efficiency. And the 4670K is still objectively the better cpu out of the two. That's why it's priced higher. AMD knows it's better. Otherwise they would try to price the FX 8320 higher.
Intel will move to 8 core cpus when software devs make the move. Right now they're more concerned about optimizing their architecture around the applications that customers are using their cpus for now, not what people might be using in the future.