Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey!

I've been poking around mostly on Google and Reddit trying to get to the bottom of this and haven't been able to figure this out.

Within a few years, I'm hopefully going to be in either a "tiny home" or a van dwelling and the majority of my energy will come from solar. Because I'll only have a finite amount of power stored at any given time, I need to cut down on my consumption as much as I possibly can. That said, I still want to be able to play all of my favorite games from the past and Dolphin is essentially the most demanding application for that.

So, I really appreciate games being in 1080p (or nicer, but y'know) and running at 60fps. That's the performance standard I'm setting for myself but I'm also trying to use the smallest amount of power I possibly can while achieving it.

I haven't checked for every iGPU or APU, but I've tried looking into the newer and nicer ones to see if they can give me what I want. Unfortunately, I can't find much to go off of and I don't really know how to interpret Dolphin's benchmark when I do see it in reviews.

From what I can tell, the current top runner for integrated graphics is Intel's Iris Pro 6200 in the i5-5675C. And honestly the main reason I say that is because it can apparently run Street Fighter V in 720p at 60fps, which is really not a very good measurement...

The biggest headache I'm having is that it's really hard to tell at what point I should just start using a discrete GPU like the 750 Ti. And then, if I decide to go with a discrete GPU, how can I secure it if it's going to be in a system that's going in a camper van?

All that considered, am I able to get a system that can run games in Dolphin in 1080p at 60fps pulling less than 50W? 75W? 100W? The lowest power consumption possible is key because, again, I have a finite amount of power available. This is a theoretical exercise, and it might be a year or longer before I build this system so by the time I get around to it this info might be outdated. But, when I do get around to building this system, having this thread as a reference for comparison will be priceless.

(For the sake of this exercise, peripherals outside of the case of the computer are non-factors in power consumption. So, don't include the power that monitors or keyboards or controllers would pull.)

Thanks!

You might have trouble reaching 1080p with an integrated GPU in intensive games. On the other hand, a real GPU like the 750 Ti will be able to handle 1080p in every game.

Other than that, it's impossible to pull less than 50W, because a good CPU has a higher TDP than that, your GPU uses power too and power supplies are never 100% efficient. I'd even say that using less than 75W is quite hard with a powerful computer.

I would think that a G3258 with an overclock and a GTX 950 would be pretty low power and still play dolphin great

If power consumption is important what you have already picked is probably the best choice. Otherwise i would suggest getting an intel laptop with a decent gpu since they are more power efficient than desktops.

(03-07-2016, 03:09 AM)leolam Wrote: [ -> ]You might have trouble reaching 1080p with an integrated GPU in intensive games. On the other hand, a real GPU like the 750 Ti will be able to handle 1080p in every game.

Hey, yeah. I currently have a 750 Ti in my HTPC and it is always impressing me with how much muscle it's got behind it. Do you think it could still handle Dolphin at 60fps if I undervolted it some? I guess I should look into whether or not anyone's done something like that before. I've been told I should hold out for next year's integrated GPUs since manufacturers are really pushing them lately. I'm interested but not sure if they'll have the oomph I need.

(03-07-2016, 03:09 AM)leolam Wrote: [ -> ]Other than that, it's impossible to pull less than 50W, because a good CPU has a higher TDP than that, your GPU uses power too and power supplies are never 100% efficient. I'd even say that using less than 75W is quite hard with a powerful computer.

People have made some insanely low power consumption PCs! "Is it possible to build a 10W gaming PC?" (The answer was no, but in 2013 their load consumption was 23W "under gaming load.") is the main reason I'm so determined I can achieve something close to what I want.

(03-07-2016, 03:16 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]I would think that a G3258 with an overclock and a GTX 950 would be pretty low power and still play dolphin great

Is there any specific reason you suggest that processor and video card? I only ask because that's an older processor and the most common recommendation for video card is the 750 Ti.

Shield TV lol. gl getting it to play every game at full speed right now though.

Keep in mind that Dolphin is a dual core application , the faster single thread performance the better performance you will have with Dolphin
G3258 is a great overclocker as you as overclock it to 4.2GHz with just stock cooler . I pushed it to 4.6GHz with ease
If you look at Dolphin Benchmark , it's on par with i7 4790k @ 4.4GHz and only lose to i7 6700k @ 4.2GHz
But seriously , if you do care about power consumption , why not just get a gaming laptop like this one ? It has 3 heatsinks that help it run super cool , it's cheap , only $850 . Even if you built a PC with the similar components , it would cost the same (unless you already owned a keyboard , display , mouse .... )

There's not a very compelling reason not just to get a (quality) gaming laptop that has good heat management, honestly. The one you linked would probably take care of things nicely.

The main motivation for building my own system is the satisfaction involved and the possibility that I could make something really neat work. And as time passes (with the market's continued interest in HTPCs and whatnot), it's possible it'll be feasible to build an as-efficient or more-efficient desktop than a laptop.

As far as why I asked for more justification for the G3258, it looked like it was really good for dolphin but it also looked like it pulled about 120W under load (I only glanced at a chart, for the record).

I owned two "APU system" before .I must say while I was impressed with their performance in PC games , I did not have any luck im Dolphin
The first one is i5 4300M @ 3.2GHz with Intel HD 4600 . Most games run just fine with it , demanding games are out of the question . With Mario Kart Wii , I have to drop the gfx setting down to the native res of the Wii to keep game running full speed . This also happened with my second system : A10 6790k @ 4.0GHz , I had to overclock it to 5.0GHz to play most games full speed at 720p res which is not nice to me . After that , I bought a GTX 750 for my A10 system and started to realize how a fool I was ...
With the new discrete GPU , I don't have to overclock that high , most games can run full speed at 1080p or even higher res... Still , buying a GPU for an APU system is also stupid
i5-5675Cis not a bad choice as it's much faster than any APU right now but I would think twice before buying it
_First , it's not cheap
_Second , Intel HD driver is bad . You will have graphic glitches in some games for sure (yes , I'm talking about Dolphin )

I think you should go with i5 6400T (2.2-> 2.8GHz) + GTX 750 ti . GTX 750ti can handle 4xIR : 2560x2112
The CPU power consumption is only 35W and it's 60W for the GPU ...

Depends on the game.

(03-07-2016, 04:08 AM)helios747 Wrote: [ -> ]Shield TV lol. gl getting it to play every game at full speed right now though.

eg for New Super Mario Brother Wii, I'm able to play on the Shield on 1080 at full speed. And this device is limited to 10W