Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hello Dolphin Forum Members, I've started work on two PCPartPicker build lists mainly for running Dolphin and was hoping I could get your opinion and tips on what to change and what's good so far.

Games I hope to play:

• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
  
• The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
  
• Super Mario Galaxy 2
  

Some others I'm thinking of playing but aren't a priority are:

• Mario Kart Wii
  
• Punch-Out!!
  
• Sonic Colors
  

I'm hoping for 1080p, and don't care about Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering, so those aren't important to me.

Here are my two build lists:

Build List 1:

• CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor
  
• Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
  
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
  
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
  
• Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card
  
• Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
  
• Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
  

Build List 2:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
  
• Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
  
• Memory: Mushkin Stealth 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
  
• Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
  
• Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 290X 4GB Double Dissipation Video Card
  
• Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case
  
• Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
  

Thanks to any kind repliers that can help me with this.

Pentium G3258 @ 4.7GHz is as fast as i7 4790k @ 4.4GHz . It's much faster than that i3 despite being cheaper
Asrock Z97 Extreme 4 is better than that cheap Asus board . Arsock Z97 E4 uses High quality "Made in Japan" gold caps and top of the line onboard realtek alc1150 which is as good as a mid range sound card

(05-25-2015, 08:27 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Pentium G3258 @ 4.7GHz is as fast as i7 4790k @ 4.4GHz . It's much faster than that i3 despite being cheaper
Asrock Z97 Extreme 4 is better than that cheap Asus board . Arsock Z97 E4 uses High quality  "Made in Japan"  gold caps and top of the line onboard realtek alc1150 which is as good as a mid range sound card

Thank you for your suggestions, do you mind if I ask you another thing? Which GPU do you say is better, GTX 970 or R9 290X?

I read that AMD cards handle Dolphin really well so I figured the R9 290X would be a better choice with roughly a $40 difference.

290 and 280 run hot like hell . If you choose 290 , make sure you get a Sapphire card with triple coolers
Gtx 970 run cool but 4gb is a lie
Choose your poison

(05-25-2015, 08:27 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Pentium G3258 @ 4.7GHz is as fast as i7 4790k @ 4.4GHz . It's much faster than that i3 despite being cheaper

But only in Dolphin and applications that require huge per-core performance and use only a couple of threads. In modern native video games, it will have problems pretty much no matter how fast you clock it.

It's not like he can't play PC game . His priority is Dolphin
Pentium G3258 @ 4.6GHz doesn't need extra cooler and it should be on par with i3 4330 which is fast enough for most PC games
Far Cry 4 is the only game that won't run on a dual core . However , it should run if you use third party tool : "Extreme Injector"

(05-25-2015, 08:21 AM)Irastris Wrote: [ -> ]I'm hoping for 1080p, and don't care about Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering, so those aren't important to me.

With those two build you're going to get a lot more than 1080p. And i mean 4K with max anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing. Maybe not in every game for the max anti-aliasing, though. But you won't need it since you can run the game at 4K (and downscaling help a lot with aliasing).

(05-25-2015, 08:21 AM)Irastris Wrote: [ -> ][*]Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard

An SLI motherboard for an AMD card? That's a waste of money. Also, why choosing a motherboard that expensive? For most of gamers, an MSI Z97 PC MATE would totally be enough.
Unless there's some specific features that you want in that motherboard, just pick an MSI Z97 PC MATE.

(05-25-2015, 08:21 AM)Irastris Wrote: [ -> ][*]Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

You do not need a 750w PSU for a 290x. A 600w PSU is enough, same for a 970 although a 500w is enough for that.

(05-25-2015, 08:21 AM)Irastris Wrote: [ -> ][*]Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

Don't pick 80+ Gold unless you really want it. It's more expensive than a 80+ Bronze and the only advantage is that it will save a bit of electricity, but it's not a good choice if electricity isn't expensive in your country or if you're not going to have 100% of utilisation of your GPU most of the time.

(05-25-2015, 10:00 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]290 and 280 run hot like hell .

No they don't. Yes, they run hotter than a 970 (although the 280 run as hot as a 980, so it's very very very very close to a 970), but they're not "hot as hell".
With a decent aftermarket cooler a 290 will run at 72° in pretty much every game max, which is a totally acceptable temp for a 290.

(05-25-2015, 10:00 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]If you choose 290 , make sure you get a Sapphire card with triple coolers

No. Yes, the Sapphire 290/280 cards are the best (Tri-X and Vapor-X), but no you don't need to make sure of that, an MSI TwinFrozr 290 would totally run fine. Same for a XFX, although i'll recommend the Sapphires over this one.

(05-25-2015, 10:00 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Gtx 970 run cool but 4gb is a lie

Technically it's not: there IS 4 GB of VRAM in the GTX 970. The problem that everyone talks about is that the last 0.5 GB of VRAM are slow as hell (28 GB/s), so when the card start using that last 0.5 GB it's decreasing the FPS a lot. But you'll never encounter that problem in a Gamecube / Wii game even running a game in 4K.