To those of you with respectable specs on their Mac hardware wondering why they can't run Dolphin with good performance: Install Windows via Boot Camp. It makes a huge difference, particularly with certain games. It takes merely a few moments to reboot your machine into Windows to run Dolphin at much-improved frame rates and resolutions.
I started this thread after quite a bit of searching — and personal testing on my own machine. This same advice and information is buried in comments of several other threads — with lazy statements such as OS X Sux, but I had a hard time finding definitive advice searching for it via thread subjects. There weren't any subject lines that were searchable specifically for this question.
I have now done a direct comparison, and Windows via Boot Camp on a mac should be standard advice, and a relatively easy choice for those running Dolphin. It's
My late 2013 imac has a i7 3.5 quad, NVIDIA GTX 780M 4GB, and 32 GB ram
One tiny bit of confusion when first loading Dolphin on the new Windows setup was a string of missing .dll file errors. It turns out that Dev versions require the 64 bit Visual Studio 2015 — a link is provided at the top of the Downloads page, but this isn't required on macs, so when you're first switching from the Mac platform, it's not obvious.
Stop wondering, install windows via boot camp.
Thank you for this, but it would be great if you could provide concrete numbers to back up your argument.
Run a game from the same spot on a save file in both OSX and Windows with the frame limit turned off and post the FPS/VPS/Speed
I will do proper tests at some point in the near future. I'm evidentially based myself.
In the mean time, I have some early takes that were distinct. I don't have a huge game collection. I have the Metroid series, Mario Kart, Mario Galaxy, and all the Zeldas ever made. All games I bought, and ripped myself via my Home Brew Wii. I'd still love a solid way to play Majora's Mask—but now with a windows install, perhaps i have that. OpenEmu on the mac may be getting there.
—Anecdotal evidence—
Same hardware used with OS X and Windows
Dolphin 4.0.8xxx
late 2013 iMac i7 3.5 quad 32 GB ram, NVIDIA GTX 780M 4GB
Dolphin on Mac OS X 10.11.2 — it's actually perfectly fine for many games:
I've been playing zelda titles with my son on and off for about 1 year on Dolphin from within the Mac OS X environment
Wind Waker, Twilight Princess — both running quite well, at higher-than-original resolutions. Results have been completely passable — really no problems at all. I have certainly been impressed by the smoothness and quality of up-rezzed Dolphin on the Mac.
When I first loaded Skyward Sword however, I had to reduce the enhancements to get smooth frame rates. I think I had to take it down to 720p. But, this didn't make cutscenes play smoothly at all, and certain other things like selecting a saved game screen were very choppy.
Then, I tried Mario Galaxy — which turns out to be nearly unplayable, even with no enhancements whatsoever. It plays along decently for short times, but then completely dumps frames down to 21fps or so, and then seems to not recover. Wiimote speaker is off and audio on HLE. Trouble started before the gameplay, in the early screens of story, and save selection. In the initial run across the plaza to meet peach, fps might hit 60 for short times depending on where the camera was aimed, but mostly were in the 20's. The first stars, and main base hub area were slow as slow.
Dolphin on a Mac running on 64bit Windows 10 via Boot Camp: — just seems like Dolphin and Windows play nicer together
Mario Galaxy immediately jumped up to 60fps running at 1080p and was completely playable through all the initial screens, and early game play and the first few stars rarely dropped below 60fps, and if it did, it would recover. My guess is that at 2.5x or 720p, we would have very few hitches. I will test properly soon.
Zelda Skyward Sword plays smoothly through all the title and game selection screens at 1080p — which was exciting, and rather beautiful, as we plan to play that next. I will test both of these games properly and report back.
Early verdict is: If you are wondering if Boot Camp Windows on your mac will increase the performance of Dolphin, the answer I found on my machine is definitely yes. Each test I made showed the ability to both increase the resolution, and the frame rates rose as well. I figure that the people searching for this answer will have run up against some poor performance already. This Mac runs Portal 2 Co-Op on OS X at maxed-out settings and doesn't drop a frame. And for real work purposes I love using OS X. Dolphin clearly has been optimized within Windows — and OS X appears to have some inherent limits when it comes to certain types of processor request calls made by Dolphin — for which there have been compromises and workarounds, and it shows, particularly when you're able to test it on the exact machine side by side.
Just so you know, those hitches are probably the shader cache building itself. If you play through the same area on the same build twice, there should be no hitches on the second time.