Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

My PC is slow and it can run GC/Wii games fast.I was thinking to upgrade it so it can at least play some of
the games with proper speed.

My PC's specs are:

MB:Gigabyte M61SME-S2L
CPU:AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+(2.8 GHz)
RAM: Single slot 1GB DDR2 800 MHz
Video:Onboard nVidia GeForce 6100 nForce 405
Running:Windows Vista Ultimate SP2 32 Bit

Soooo slooooow

Configuration I:

MB:Gigabyte M61SME-S2L(I will keep it.It supports AM2/AM2+ Processors)
CPU:AMD Athlon II X4 640 (3 GHz)
Ram: Dual Slot 6GB DDR2 800 MHz (The motherboard supports up to 8GB DDR2 so it should be ok)
Video:Sapphire R7 250 1GB GDDR5
Running:Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

Configuration II:

MB:Gigabyte M61SME-S2L
CPU:AMD Phenom II X4 980 (3.3 GHz)
Ram: Dual Slot 4GB DDR2 800 MHz
Video:MSI GT 630 4 GB GDDR3
Running:Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

Configuration III:

MB:Gigabyte M61SME-S2L
CPU:AMD Phenom II X3 740 (3 GHz)
RAM: Dual slot 6GB DDR2 800 MHz
Video: MSI GT 640 2GB
Running:Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit

My only problem is that I can't find neither the Phenom II X4 980 nor the Phenom II X3 740,but I will try to find at least one of them.

Sorry for the bad English,it's not my native language.

Unfortunately, you're not going to get good results with any AMD processor in Dolphin, as it heavily relies on single threaded performance, which Intel have a massive advantage on.

(05-05-2014, 11:48 PM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]Unfortunately, you're not going to get good results with any AMD processor in Dolphin, as it heavily relies on single threaded performance, which Intel have a massive advantage on.

What should I do?I don't have enough money for an Intel-based PC,plus the fact that my parents don't want me to sped money for
gaming stuff (new Gaming PC,Wii U,XBox 360 and ect.).

BTW:I know that dolphin works better on Intel PCs.

Just get a Pentium Haswell which is an i3 Haswell but no Hyperthreading and lower clockspeed
Base on our Dolphin Benchmark , i3 4130 blow FX 8350 @ 5.0GHz out of the water due to high single threaded performance (Dolphin is a dual core application btw)
Pentium G3220 (65$) + MSI H81M (49$) + Gskill Ripjaws 2x2GB DDR3 1600MHz
GPU : I recommend EVGA GTX 750 if you can afford it . However , AMD R7 240 is dust cheap , it can handle 2.5x Internal Resolution (1600x1320_ , no AA , 16xAF just fine and you can play most PC games at low-medium settings

^ This. G3220 is incredibly cheap and will perform very well all around.

I checked out how much money do I have,and I might have enough money for an i3 Haswell machine
or i5 if there is a sale .

I was thinking to get a 3rd gen or 2nd gen core i5 processor+GPU if there is a sale this or the next month,because the store makes sales almost every month to get rid of the old tech,but if there is not I have other choices.Anyways the other CPU I picked is Intel Core i3-4330.Is it good?If there is a sale I will look for 3rd gen,but if there is not a 2nd gen 2500k should be ok,right?
I still have a problem deciding the GPU.
My original choice was Radeon HD 7750,but I could not find it.
BTW:Is nVidia GTX 650 good?I have two other cards in mind that may be a bit stronger.

~Sorry for the bad English

i3 4330 and gtx 650 will work very well in dolphin.

Almost any 4th gen (4xxx) will beat any 3rd gen (3xxx) or older, with the exception of ultra-low-voltage parts (4xxxU) etc. vs overclocked 3570K/2500K etc. Haswell brought in a massive performance increase for emulation (although this is potentially because Dolphin is slow rather than Haswell being fast, as it doesn't have such a huge improvement in other single-threaded applications). At any rate, if the price is similar, it's likely the Haswell part is faster. Just check here, and we can tell you.

Ok so something like this maybe?:

MB:Asus H81M-K
CPU:Intel Core i3-4330 (3.5 GHz)
RAM: Dual-Slot 6 GB 1600 MHz(Single Kingston HyperX 4GB Black 1600 MHz+Single Kingston HyperX 2 GB Blue 1600 MHz)
Videoedicated eVGA GTX 650 1 GB GDDR5

Anyways...There are no Sandy bridge or Ivy bridge i5 processors in stock in the store so I will be getting i3 Haswell.

The difference between i3 4130 and i3 4330 :
_The later one is more expensive (+20$)
_i3 4330 has stronger integrated GPU : Intel HD 4600 vs Intel HD 4400 but what's a point of this ? You will use a graphic card anyway
_i3 4330 CPU frequency is 100MHz higher
Get i3 4130 + EVGA GTX 750 instead . losing 100MHz doesn't affect your gaming experience one bit (not even a single FPS) but a weaker GPU does