Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

admin89, thanks for the suggestions.

Guys, isn't the Shield TV essentially a receiver? Wouldn't I have to stream Dolphin from another computer?

No, it's an Android TV set-top box which can run Dolphin. It's probably the most powerful Android device for Dolphin, but even it will not be able to run all games at full speed (obviously, you can't expect a 10W device to run as good or better than 100W+ powerful computers).

While you may be able to find and build a "gaming" PC with <50W, I'm not sure that will run Dolphin well… Incidentally, HTPCs are only able to have a lower power consumption because they use ultra-low voltage CPUs which are often not that good for Dolphin.

It can stream games. It also has the fastest mobile GPU with the exception of Apple's A9X.

I know this doesnt directly address your question...but have you thought to perhaps increase your power supply? Maybe more solar panels or add a tiny gas-powered generator that can supply more wattage?

To answer ur question...as far as hardware available right now and considering dolphin's current performance, I cannot think of a desktop build that would satisfy a 50-75 watt limitation AND use Dolphin at a decent framerate at 1080p. No combination of Intel cpu + video card can pull it off that kind of performance within your specified power parameters.

That being said, new hardware with greater performance at lower power consumption are on their way in 2016.  Also, Dolphin's performance has increase dramatically this past year and a half...and its reasonable to expect more performance increases in the following year.  In summary, as it stands right now, the answer is flat out 'no', you cant achieve your desired performance within your given power constraints.  But who knows...maybe within 2 years, it could very well be possible and then some?

Sorry I didn't realize the Shield had it's own (impressive) hardware, guys. I looked into it and it's mostly marked as an allegory to Steam's in-home streaming from what I can tell. But that's my bad for not looking harder.

I hadn't really considered adding supplementary power but that might be what it comes to if I want a desktop, sulblazer. Even then it'd still be wise to use a minimal amount of power off of whatever alternative source I end up using.

Either way, this discussion here and all the other places I've had have been really helpful. It's possible within a year or whenever I get around to converting the van and building a solar system I can actually manage to supply ~100-200W to a computer for several hours a day without disrupting any other systems. It's just, even if it's possible, it'll come at a bigger cost to me due to the amount of panels and batteries I have to invest in.

I'm trying to look into how much power laptops use right now and am not coming up with much...

Quote:I'm trying to look into how much power laptops use right now and am not coming up with much...

Most gaming laptop have 120W adapter to power i7 6700HQ and GTX 960M (most popular hardware atm , the CPU is on par with i5 6600 , GPU is on par with GTX 750 Ti )
If you can somehow push the CPU and GPU to the max , the power consumption will be 110W but I doubt you can pull off sth like that in real life . . If you want to create a scenario like that , you will have to run Prime95 torture test and Furmark GPU stress test at the same time
Dolphin is a dual core application , that i7 has 4 cores 8 threads . So CPU usage will be like 25% . Even at 4xIR (2560x2112) , my GTX 860M only uses half of its power . Some PC games can use 100% GPU horse power when I set everything on ultra settings but CPU still use less than 50%
My laptop has a similar power consumption like the specs above , it's a used laptop that did not have its OEM adapter but a shitty alternate 60W when I bought it online . The 60W adapter is good enough to power it but when I try to run a game , the whole laptop shutdown immediately . Good thing that I have another 95W adapter lying around , it works flawlessly . So I bet the power consumption must be less than 80W but higher than 60W since my adapter's efficiency is only 90%

(03-08-2016, 01:24 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]My laptop has a similar power consumption like the specs above , it's a used laptop that did not have its OEM adapter but a shitty alternate 60W when I bought it online .  The 60W adapter is good enough to power it but when I try to run a game , the whole laptop shutdown immediately . Good thing that I have another 95W adapter lying around , it works flawlessly . So I bet the power consumption must be less than 80W but higher than 60W since my adapter's efficiency is only 90%

Huh. That's a little more than I was expecting, but still probably better than I can do with a desktop. Is it not possible to use the mobile CPU or GPU in a desktop? (Not that I'm saying it's better to do that.)

Do you suspect there are laptops that are (somehow) more conservative with their power usage, or a more efficient power brick I could use? Is it also possible there's an adequate DC adapter I could use to save losses on inversion?

Quote: Is it not possible to use the mobile CPU or GPU in a desktop?

It's possible
The Aienware Alpha barebone desktop uses a custom mobile Maxwell GPU (GTX 860M ) and a low power consumption i3 4130T @ 2.9GHz . In theory , it should use even less power than my laptop (i3 4130T max = 35W vs i7 4700QM max = 47W)
Edit : Fixed the link . I messed up the Alien Alpha with the Steam machine that don't have Windows OS
Apparently , someone bought it for Dolphin and it's pretty good
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-alienware-alpha-i3-version-1st-impressions

Quote: Do you suspect there are laptops that are (somehow) more conservative with their power usage, or a more efficient power brick I could use? Is it also possible there's an adequate DC adapter I could use to save losses on inversion?

90% ( 80 plus titanium ) is the highest efficiency atm . my adapter is aftermarket Cooler Master universal adapter USNA95 , it's quite expensive compared to OEM adapter