Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Another thing you may be running into is that Dolphin compiles shaders (used to emulate certain video effects) on the fly. So the first time these are encountered, there may be some stuttering. They get cached, so subsequent runs should give better performance.

But, the main issues is the one that you already took care of: fluctuating GPU clocks. Same thing happens on AMD hardware too (forcing highest clocks helps reduce stuttering).

All good to know for future reference. I just got done playing Smash Brothers with the kids and did some Monster Hunter afterwards. Everything is running really smooth now. Thanks again guys.