Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi there! New here, so I dunno if I'm doin it alright about the thread and the way to clarify my doubts Hope so!
Anyway, my story as follows: Planning to buy a gaming laptop (can't buy a desktop because I'm moving from city every half a year) and I saw a cheap 900$ MSI GE62 2QC

I5 4210HQ 2.9Hz to 3.5Hz (Turbo I guess)
8 GB DDR3 1600
128SSD + 1Tb HDD (does it make a difference running games on SSD vs HHD?)
GTX 960M GDDR5 2Gb

Will it run these games at 3x IR?

Mario Galaxy games
Zelda games
Resident Evil games
Last story & Xeboblade

Thanks 4 ur help!

Without a doubt. Easy.

Wow! Thanks a lot! I ordered it already...I love Nintendo games...Proud owner of each of their machines!
Some great memories! I really appreciate the effort put by Dolphin developers! Cant thank enough!
Also some doubts about some options:
Per Pixel Lightning improves graphics?
Hacks like Fast Depth Calculation & Skip EFB downgrade the graphics ? (better leave them unchecked?) Less Hacks better?
My monitor is 1080p, so resolutions higher than that are useless?
Thanks for ur help again and beyond!!

Yes. I can confirm what helios747 has said. I have a similar MSI laptop (GP60 2QE) with a GT940M (much less powerful GPU) but with the same exact CPU and I'm able to run most games at 2-2.5x. The bottleneck will probably be the GPU, not the CPU.

Per-pixel lightning does make some games look a bit more realistic.

Fast depth calculation does not "downgrade the graphics"; it just speeds up the emulation but can cause issues in some games. You shouldn't need to disable it manually though, since the GameINIs will normally take care of that for you.

As for Skip EFB Access from CPU, you should generally leave it disabled since it breaks some games (partially) as indicated in the description.

You won't be able to see the difference if you use anything beyond 3x. Unless you include the slowdowns that you might get from going above 3x

One last thing. A HDD is already much faster than a DVD drive, so it does not really matter for Dolphin. However, a SSD is much faster and will provide a better experience if you install your OS on it, and also if you have large texture packs for Dolphin (it reduces loading times, but it won't make games faster).

Thanks a lot for your help!!
I get my new laptop tomorrow or after tomorrow so I can't wait!!
I will give feedback after I run some games (both GC and Wii). First time I get an MSI so I'm curious about their quality (cooling system, design, build, ...), even though I've read great reviews about them.
Really appreciate your help and advice!!

Ok, so here I am back with my new shiny computer.
First impressions are cool. Strong build, cool design (keyboard is great) and fast booting up after I installed OS on SSD (10 seconds).
Now, I tried GC games first and I gotta say I was impressed!
Most of them running 4x IR 1440p with AA and AF at max and no Hacks! (even though my monitor is 1080p, just trying to know the edge). So that's cool
Sometimes I had to go 1080p and turn on Fast Depth Calculation Hack to get the 60fps, but just some exceptions like Rogue Squadron (works slightly better on Open GL for me), Batman Vengeance, Metal Gear & Metroid Prime.
The rest of my favorite games worked flawlessly! Viewtiful Joe, REsident Evil, Zelda, Mario, F-Zero, Pikmin...easily managed 60FPS, even when they were 30fps built!
Now...the heating thing, hehe..also cool! CPU got to 65, GPU to 60..so not that bad. Just after 1 hour playing, so that's great too!
Very happy so far!
Next week I'll be testing Wii games. SO i don't really know if they will be much harder on FPS than GC games...I'll let u know. So far really pleased with MSI laptop!!

Wii games aren't necessarily more intensive than GC games. Some are, some aren't.

that'd be great news! (Wii aint being much more demanding than GC in general)
really impressed by gaming laptops so far, after hearing so many bad news about them (maybe after a couple of years it will explode or melt !?)
So far very pleased! Also curious about Ishiikura build...
Anyway, like kid with new shoes thanks to Dolphin! Hehe
I'll feedback, cause it took me some time to decide...some posts really helpfull...i hope i can help anybody out there looking for laptop...I remember doubting between Acer Nitro, Asus Fx and MSI... I guess all of them alright..but so happy with mine! hehe
Thanks again for ur help!
IT LOOKS LIKE MERRY CHRISTMAS AHEAD

Took me some more time than I thought, but her I'm back again as promised.
Laying down my feedback with my new laptop. So happy so far!

I tried a handful of Wii games these last week and I gotta say I'm impressed by the outcome.
Like Helios said, Wii can be equal or less demanding than GC games, so FPS kept almost perfect!

I used build 4.0.8450 and a few times the old master 5.0.34 and Ishiikura

My set up was almost default:
CONFIG
-Dual Core ON
-Idle skipping ON (some times i would turn it off for smoother play)
-Frame limit (Auto or 70)
-JIT recompiler
-Audio HLE Open Al

GRAPHICS
-Backend Open GL (worked better most of the times, 80% of my games, smoother)
-Aspect Ratio AUTO
-V-SYNC ON
-Show FPS ON
-Render to Main Window ON

HACKS
-IR 3x Native 1080p
-AA 8x (sometimes 4x)
-AF 16x
-Scaled EFB Copy ON
-Per Pixel Lightning ON

-Skip EFB access CPU OFF
-Ignore Format changes ON
-Store EFB to texture ON
-Accuracy FAST
-XFB Disabled
-Fast Depth Calc. ON

Sometimes I had to change the backend and the Idle skipping, those were the only changes.
Strange about the Idle skipping, but I felt that some games worked smoother (no hiccups), I don't know why
(maybe because the second time I loaded the game the cache and shaders had loaded, or it was the idle skipping working?)
Other than that, most of the games worked flawlessly with this settings, easy peasy


Just a couple of games gave me LOT OF TROUBLE (playable, but not a nice experience):
-Rabbids go home (45FPS out of 60, buggy as hell)
-SSX Blur (50FPS out of 60, but somewhere I read older builds work better with this game, didn't try)

Some games gave me a LITTLE TROUBLE (a few slowdowns)
-Battalion Wars 2 (35FPS on 30, both D3D and OPEN GL work)
-Conduit (30FPS, some slowdowns, didn't try Idle skipping OFF, that might work better, OPEN GL)
-Conduit 2 (55FPS on 60, some slowdowns, Idle skipping OFF, D3D better)
-De Blob (45FPS on 60, OPEN GL better, EFB to texture OFF)

Rest of the games were ALMOST PERFECT:
-A boy and his blob (60FPS, D3D)
-Dead space extraction (35FPS on 30, D3D, Idle skiping OFF also works)
-Donkey Kong jungle Beat (60FPS, OPEN GL)
-Endless Ocean 2 (35FPS on 30, D3D, some scenes are buggy, mainly cut secenes on the boat)
-Epic Mickey (35FPS on 30, OPEN GL)
-Guilty Gear XX (60FPS, D3D, din't try OPEN GL)
-007 GoldenEye (35FPS on 30, D3D, didn't try Open GL)
-Madworld (35FPS on 30, D3D, didn't try Open GL)
-Mario Kart (60FPS, OPEN GL)
-Monster Hunter Tri (35FPS on 30, D3D, didn't try OPEN GL)
-Muramasa (60FPS, OPEN GL)
-No More Hereoes 2 (35FPS on 30, both OPEN GL and D3D, some light saber glitches)
-Okami (35FPS on 30, D3D, Dolphin 5.0.34, Ishiikura too)
-Project Zero 2 (35FPS on 30, OPEN GL)
-Punch Out (40FPS on 30, OPEN GL, Idle Skipping OFF)
-Resident Evil Dark.Chron. (35FPS on 30, OPEN GL, too bright, maybe Bleach Hack needed)
-Resident Evil Umb.Chron. (34FPS on 30, OPEN GL, a bit bumpy)
-SIn & Punishment (60FPS, OPEN GL)
-Super Mario Galaxy (70FPS, D3D, V-Sync OFF)
-Super Mario Galaxy 2 (65FPS, D3D, V-Sync OFF, Skip EFB from CPU ON, both optional?)
-Super Paper Mario (60FPS, D3D, EFB to texture OFF some times even though I kept it ON)
-Zack & Wiki (35FPS on 30, OPEN GL)

That's the first half, next week I'll try to test and give feedback on my other half Wii stash's games.
Feel free to ask any doubts.
Hope it was helpful
Merry Xmas and happy new year by the way!!

It may be worth setting your laptop's power profile to high performance, making sure you're plugged in when gaming, and in nvidia's control panel > manage 3D settings > Program settings > add a profile for Dolphin.exe - In that profile, set preferred power mode or whatever it's called to "Prefer Max Performance". Dolphin sometimes has such a low GPU load in certain games that graphics drivers aren't sure what power level to run at.

Anyways, the latest development release will give you the best performance as well as bug fixes with your hardware. 5.0.34 is an old release cycle we scrapped because it was messy and not getting the job done.