Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Alright, so I should first start off by listing a bit of back story in regards to my computer:

My emulation days using Dolphin started off with using a ASRock A55 Pro, and an AMD A6-3670 processor, with the current Kingston 8 GB RAM that I have in it, my current 750W power supply (Figured I would mention it to keep a note on my max wattage, as I am not really looking to upgrade my power supply unless absolutely needed), and a small wimpy ASUS GT 610. For the most part, I could do some games, however playing something like Super Mario Sunshine was unbearable. Gaming was impossible with the current graphics card I had in it, so I invested in one that I believed would get the job done for what I needed it for, the ASUS GT 630, however, as I soon found out, it still was too weak. If I kept the resolution at about 1x, I would probably get around 15 FPS, enough to manage, but not anywhere near what anyone here would want. The same could be said with Beyblade: GT Force, however, my real issue came with playing the game I want to get working the most: Twilight Princess (Legend of Zelda, for those who may or may not know). Just entering into the cutscenes gave me around 20 FPS, and attempting to play the first five minutes of the game at around 5-10 FPS was not cutting it. I benchmarked it myself and found that my CPU was getting completely maxed out, so I decided to upgrade that.

Now we are at my current build.
At the moment, I am running an Intel Core i7-4771 inside of the ASUS Maximus VI Hero, the original Kingston 8 GB RAM that I had, my current 750W power supply, an OCZ Technology 60 GB 3rd-Gen SSD, a Western Digital Blue 1TB for my data storage, my ASUS GT 630. Working with this, I can actually get a stable 30 FPS playing Twilight Princess at about 1.5-2x. However, there are a few instances where I enter certain points in the game, and watching my GPU, that I completely max out my GPU processing power. Everything else is humming and buzzing along fine, but just something in the game or how it needs to run at a proper frame rate is just not working with my current graphics card. So, that brings me to my current issue, with upgrading my graphics card. I've done some researching on my own and was looking between the ASUS R9 270X and R9 280X. Either one of these I would imagine would hold no problem doing 4x frame rate and handling anything the game has to deal with it, and considering I wanted to use it for mining in my off time, I figured they would be great buys. I didn't want to stop my search there, and I thought you guys here might be able to give me a good idea of what kind of GPU I can look into that would be sustainable and perfect for Twilight Princess at max resolution (I figured if I can find a graphics card that can handle that, then everything else would most likely be child's play). It doesn't even really have to be a specific graphics card. I more just want an idea of what I need to look for in a graphics card to get the best settings (I'm swinging more towards AMD cards at the moment because of mining, but if I can find a great deal on an NVIDIA card that will do beautifully, I wouldn't pass up the offer either).

And eventually, after the graphics card upgrade, I want to upgrade my RAM to Kingston HyperX Beast 16 GB 2133 PC3-17000, and a Samsung 840 PRO 128/256GB SSD, just to put this next generation gaming PC build to its optimal level of performance. From most of my research (and given that I work at a computer store, watching parts come in and having to have a VERY good idea of what is good for customers for their budgets and what is top of the line for those who wallets seem to never empty), I determined these two to be the best for my budget/needs, but as with the graphics card, I am definitely open to something better.


Any and all help is sincerely appreciated, and for taking the time to read my massive wall of text is even more appreciated.

If you're going to use it for mining, I'd recommend a 290 or 290x.

Graphics card, get the Sapphire Toxic 290 if it's not ridiculously out-of-budget. It is, after all, $800 here. Otherwise, I think you should get a 280x. It'll last around 2 more years, it's lasted 3 already. Both cards can handle Dolphin pretty much completely-enhanced, though, the 280x is not actually as good for mining as retailers are putting it up to be. Consumers tend to be a little stupid, so they're riding on the fact that it's one below the newer 290 and 290x, to ham it up as being just as good as them at it. But, in truth, everything below 290 is from HD7000/HD8000, so don't have new stuff in them at all.

Though, even for the Sapphire Toxic 290, you will still need a well-ventilated case. In a well-ventilated case, it loads at the same temps that my 5770 loaded when I still had my CPU cooler on backwards, blowing hot air into the case.

And, don't use Dolphin as a GPU benchmark. My 5770 handles 4xIR with multiple enhancements in every game I have, INCLUDING Twilight Princess, leaving the rest to the CPU. I'll admit, though, your GPU is pretty weak. Most people say a 750 Ti is pretty damn good for Dolphin, but, since you want to do some mining and you want it to play other games as well, I keep on my assertion of 290. Unless you don't really feel like ever mining a full coin in your lifetime, then I'd say go for the 280x.

(03-17-2014, 02:55 AM)kinkinkijkin Wrote: [ -> ]If you're going to use it for mining, I'd recommend a 290 or 290x.

Graphics card, get the Sapphire Toxic 290 if it's not ridiculously out-of-budget. It is, after all, $800 here. Otherwise, I think you should get a 280x. It'll last around 2 more years, it's lasted 3 already. Both cards can handle Dolphin pretty much completely-enhanced, though, the 280x is not actually as good for mining as retailers are putting it up to be. Consumers tend to be a little stupid, so they're riding on the fact that it's one below the newer 290 and 290x, to ham it up as being just as good as them at it. But, in truth, everything below 290 is from HD7000/HD8000, so don't have new stuff in them at all.

Though, even for the Sapphire Toxic 290, you will still need a well-ventilated case. In a well-ventilated case, it loads at the same temps that my 5770 loaded when I still had my CPU cooler on backwards, blowing hot air into the case.

And, don't use Dolphin as a GPU benchmark. My 5770 handles 4xIR with multiple enhancements in every game I have, INCLUDING Twilight Princess, leaving the rest to the CPU. I'll admit, though, your GPU is pretty weak. Most people say a 750 Ti is pretty damn good for Dolphin, but, since you want to do some mining and you want it to play other games as well, I keep on my assertion of 290. Unless you don't really feel like ever mining a full coin in your lifetime, then I'd say go for the 280x.

I've seen some of the hardware comparisons for the "rates" that other miners had gotten with their cards, being the R9 280X averaged around 600 kh/s, and the R9 290X averaging around 850 kh/s, both not set up with parameters.
I should of mentioned my case too (way better ventilated than my old one). I was originally using an APEVIA case from the 2000's that a friend gave to me, but when I built my new system, I upgraded to the Rosewill Blackhawk with 2 front 120mm fans, a top 120mm fan, a side 120mm fan, and a back 120mm fan. I figured the ventilation with it wouldn't be a problem, and I haven't found one yet.
I'll keep that in mind and watch everything AMD 280X and up. I mean, not that I don't enjoy watching literally 200 coins trickle in a day, but making that 2-3k (at current difficulties) would be more than pleasing.
Thanks for the info.

OH! I forgot to mention. I wasn't using Dolphin as my benchmark. I was using as desktop widget called GPU Meter that monitor the usage of the processor on the GPU, amongst memory, fan speed, and a couple of others things. I've come to like them for the real-time (Or at least what appears to be real time) usage of my computer.

I saw you wasted a lot of money there
ASUS GT 610 is not faster than A6 3670 APU integrated GPU
i7 4771 integrated GPU : Intel HD 4600 <= Nvdia GT 630 . You waste money again
Both i7 4770 and i7 4771 are overpriced CPU and can't be overclocked . So what's the point in buying ASUS Maximus VI Hero which is known for hardcore overclocker ?
i7 4770k and i5 4670k can be clocked . However , i7 4770k is not faster than i5 4670k in Dolphin Benchmark . If you bought i7 4770k , you would waste money again
You should get a Xeon 1230v3 which is i7 4770 on steroids (Almost same performance as i7 but cost only 10$ higher than an i5) . Xeon +B85 combo should save you a lot of money but it's too late now
It's your fault that you did not ask us in the first place
Back to the topic , I vote for 280X because it seems like you really need a card for mining . If you don't , just wait for the latest higher end Nvidia Maxwell GPU (much lower power consumption -> run cooler , faster. Also cheaper : GTX 750 vs GTX 650 at launch day ) . 290 and 290X run really hot . If you do some research , you will see those card can reach 90~95C on full load !

Which is why I suggested the Sapphire Toxic 290, admin89. It tends to load at ~70c. That's REALLY low, almost as low as I've modified my 5770 to load. In fact, it might actually load lower than my 5770 when subjected to the same ambient. (for comparison, my 5770 loads 60c with a room temp of ~16c while as heavily-overclocked as I can get it, while that 290 loads 70c at a room temp of 28-ish at stock)

(03-17-2014, 03:24 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]I saw you wasted a lot of money there
ASUS GT 610 is not faster than A6 3670 APU integrated GPU
i7 4771 integrated GPU : Intel HD 4600 <= Nvdia GT 630 . You waste money again
Both i7 4770 and i7 4771 are overpriced CPU and can't be overclocked . So what's the point in buying ASUS Maximus VI Hero which is known for hardcore overclocker ?
i7 4770k and i5 4670k can be clocked . However , i7 4770k is not faster than i5 4670k in Dolphin Benchmark . If you bought i7 4770k , you would waste money again
You should get a Xeon 1230v3 which is i7 4770 on steroids (Almost same performance as i7 but cost only 10$ higher than an i5) . Xeon +B85 combo should save you a lot of money but it's too late now
It's your fault that you did not ask us in the first place
Back to the topic , I vote for 280X because it seems like you really need a card for mining . If you don't , just wait for the latest higher end Nvidia Maxwell GPU (much lower power consumption -> run cooler , faster. Also cheaper : GTX 750 vs GTX 650 at launch day ) . 290 and 290X run really hot . If you do some research , you will see those card can reach 90~95C on full load !

Backtracking a bit...
The GT 610 was given to me with the A6 graphics. The problem with the AMD was that even doing the simplest task would max out the CPU, not the GPU (No matter how powerful the APUs are, with everything I have looked at, having a dedicated graphics card will ALWAYS top out a graphics card on a processor or board (Crossing off the low end of the spectrum of graphics card)). I could barely even open Eclipse and run one instance of Java without using at least 30% just to run one Java console. Taking out the dedicated graphics just slowed the machine down even worse, because it gave more work for the CPU to do.
Me and my coworkers had a good discussion about the differences between the 4770 and 4770k. The 4770k is only good for really overclocking, and at the moment, is a heavily overpriced CPU. Considering 1) I never plan on actually overclocking with this computer, because it will handle everything I need it to, and that I wasn't planning on building a computer that could overclock, 2)I bought the motherboard because of the BIOS and how well it actually worked with the chassis I was considering. I enjoy flashing a modding things and the motherboard had a CMOS flashback button on the back of the MB, allowing me to mod to my hearts desire, and 3) I built it more for virtualization and emulation rather than to have a crap ton of processing power (Because honestly, if that was what I was going for, AMD would be the choice, even with their logic of throwing a large amount of processors onto a chip makes it run faster).
Correct me if I am mistaken though, but the Intel Xeon processors, weren't they more designed for server architecture? I mean, I was talking with my coworkers the other day about turning my machine into a server, but that was halted very quickly since most applications wouldn't even run on a Server OS. It may look better, but going with a Server Processor/Motherboard combo for a Desktop OS I personally think is just asking for trouble.

(03-17-2014, 03:35 AM)kinkinkijkin Wrote: [ -> ]Which is why I suggested the Sapphire Toxic 290, admin89. It tends to load at ~70c. That's REALLY low, almost as low as I've modified my 5770 to load. In fact, it might actually load lower than my 5770 when subjected to the same ambient. (for comparison, my 5770 loads 60c with a room temp of ~16c while as heavily-overclocked as I can get it, while that 290 loads 70c at a room temp of 28-ish at stock)

I think I found the Sapphire GPU that you were talking about. If it's the same one, it's running for $550 right now on Newegg, instead of the $800 you mentioned.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...16175321:s

You will need to overclock for Twilight Princess, trust me. The i7 4771 is actually even more expensive than the i7 4770k too.

Modding things? What are you gonna do,flash different bios versions. There is a a 1 to 1 Million chance you'll ever manage to brick your motherboard doing that. What else is there to mod? Adding random stuff using Magic?

Intel has the most processing power too. With all those false statements you make, I can't believe you're actually working at a computer store :S Sorry.


As for mining, you can't really gain anything with a single GPU anymore. With that huge Litecoin/Dogecoin boom in good ol 'Murica you're just wasting energy. People are now using like 6 GPU's on a single Mobo, thus lower the max gain everyone gets.

As for the Xeon E3-1230, it essentially is a i7 4770k/4771 except without Integrated Graphics and not overclockable, but much cheaper.

(03-17-2014, 04:21 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: [ -> ]You will need to overclock for Twilight Princess, trust me. The i7 4771 is actually even more expensive than the i7 4770k too.

Modding things? What are you gonna do,flash different bios versions. There is a a 1 to 1 Million chance you'll ever manage to brick your motherboard doing that. What else is there to mod? Adding random stuff using Magic?

Intel has the most processing power too. With all those false statements you make, I can't believe you're actually working at a computer store :S Sorry.


As for mining, you can't really gain anything with a single GPU anymore. With that huge Litecoin/Dogecoin boom in good ol 'Murica you're just wasting energy. People are now using like 6 GPU's on a single Mobo, thus lower the max gain everyone gets.

As for the Xeon E3-1230, it essentially is a i7 4770k/4771 except without Integrated Graphics and not overclockable, but much cheaper.

Processing power isn't the issue. Below is a photo of Twilight Princess running with my active CPU and GPU stats to the side. FPS and VPS is also displayed.


Going outside the realm of flashing the BIOS, the layout of the motherboard, as I stated, worked very well with my chassis. And, being so used to modding my Android phones and flashing them, I have always preferred being on the safe side.

Because of how the CPU architecture is built, Intel does have a lot more processing power. However, you misread and misquoted what I said when I mentioned a crap ton of processing power. Recently AMD holds the position for having the most "processing power", meaning in terms of calculations per second, which one can easily find out by doing (Core Speed * # of cores). The "high-end" retailer one out currently, the FX-8350, for instance, has a "processing power" of 33.6 GHz, because 8 cores * 4.0 GHz. However, a CPU comes down way more to just it's "processing power" (I'm using the word processing power for lack of a better term. In fact, I know there is a term out there that is talking about just the clock speed... Maybe that's the term, I do not know honestly. )

I'm going to have to look into the server thing some more however. I got my 4771 at a really good deal for the time (A little under $300), and it was the best price for the most quality when I purchased it. Just something to me seems off about using a server architecture with a desktop OS...

I'm not particularly interested in wading into the details of your reply, but that whole thing about the processing power of various CPUs is just way off base.

However, I would like to explain a little about what is going on in your screenshot above. You're running at about 50% realtime speed. Normally, that's a CPU bound function, but you are arbitrarily constrained by GPU in this situation because you're using 1. a Dolphin build after tev_fixes_new merge 2. OpenGL backend and 3. an Nvidia card. If you use these three things together, you'll get about a 50% reduction in FPS.

I recommend switching to D3D in that revision and re-performing your experiment with the screenshot and re-post. Or, switch to some revision before 1198 (I think). The above experiment does not reflect the capabilities of your hardware accurately.

(03-17-2014, 05:13 AM)QuentinX5 Wrote: [ -> ]The "high-end" retailer one out currently, the FX-8350, for instance, has a "processing power" of 33.6 GHz, because 8 cores * 4.0 GHz. However, a CPU comes down way more to just it's "processing power" (I'm using the word processing power for lack of a better term. )

Please tell me you are joking. Are you seriously working in a computer store? That sentence above there made me cringe really hard. You can't just multiply the frequency * number of cores, that's not how it works.