Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey everybody. I'm pretty new to the whole dolphin scene so I hope to get some constructive criticism/help. I've got a pretty solid PC, however some components are a few years old now (I'm looking at you i5 Sandybridge CPU, mobo, and DDR3 RAM). It's been a pretty solid rig for PC gaming though at 1440p and I fought off the urge to upgrade my system core (CPU/mobo/RAM) to a newer architecture. However, now I'm playing with dolphin. I'd love to be able to play my GC/Wii library on my TV with insane visuals since using my BC Wii to play Wii/GC games on a larger LCD TV looks like garbage at best.

I know my graphics card (Strix GTX 980ti) is up to the task, but I've seen some people say anything earlier than Haswell on the CPU should be upgraded. That being said, my Sandybridge i5 is overclocked to 4.2ghz so is it really necessary?

Some games seem to run pretty solid at normal Dolphin settings, but others have some issues (ex. Rogue Squadron 2 and SSX tricky). I haven't had a chance to go through my whole library yet.

Anyway, can anybody tell me if my rig should be adequate and it's more about Dolphin configuration (or game compatibility) or if there's a possible hardware concern?

Thanks in advance.

Quote:my Sandybridge i5 is overclocked to 4.2ghz so is it really necessary?

For most games ? No , your CPU is fast enough
Rogue Squadron is just too demanding for your CPU . To run that game at full speed , you will need sth like Haswell G3258 @ 4.6GHz
Haswell is 30-35% faster than Sandy Bridge in Dolphin benchmark , i5 2500k @ 4.2GHz is equivalent to Pentium / i3 /i5 Haswell @ 3.2GHz

(07-12-2016, 12:57 PM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]For most games ? No , your CPU is fast enough
Rogue Squadron is just too demanding for your CPU . To run that game at full speed , you will need sth like Haswell G3258 @ 4.6GHz
Haswell is 30-35% faster than Sandy Bridge in Dolphin benchmark , i5 2500k @ 4.2GHz is equivalent to Pentium / i3 /i5 Haswell @ 3.2GHz

Thanks for the reply. That makes me feel a bit better. To be honest, I'd like to be pretty "unlimited" with the quality of the gameplay. So, it sounds like I may need to upgrade if I can make it happen. So, I guess I have two options:

1. Find an appropriate CPU that is compatible with my LGA 1155 mobo

2. Start over with the mobo/CPU/RAM and go straight to the Skylake platform (I have no idea how Skylake works with Dolphin though)

Quote:1. Find an appropriate CPU that is compatible with my LGA 1155 mobo

Bad idea , you will waste money and time . Even if you bought i7 2600k , you wouldn't get any improvement at all because Dolphin is a dual core application

Quote: 2. Start over with the mobo/CPU/RAM and go straight to the Skylake platform (I have no idea how Skylake works with Dolphin though)

This route is highly recommended for WiiU emulation (Cemu) , your current CPU won't cut it . For Dolphin and PCSX2 , your CPU is ok
Skylake is slightly faster than Haswell btw

(07-12-2016, 12:57 PM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]For most games ? No , your CPU is fast enough
Rogue Squadron is just too demanding for your CPU . To run that game at full speed , you will need sth like Haswell G3258 @ 4.6GHz
Haswell is 30-35% faster than Sandy Bridge in Dolphin benchmark , i5 2500k @ 4.2GHz is equivalent to Pentium / i3 /i5 Haswell @ 3.2GHz

Maybe 2 years ago. The JIT is multiple times faster now.

a 4 ghz haswell plays rogue squadron fine.

Hell. My 3.2 ghz mobile haswell (turbo boost settles to about that) plays fine for most of my play with it. The ground levels get a *little* slow though, only with explosions really.

Most desktop haswells are fine on Rogue Squadron games.

That said, their sandybridge CPU would be a bit better if they could overclock it, but yeah. Should probably upgrade to Skylake anyways if you have the funds to do so.

Just posting because I dislike seeing outdated information spread.

Thanks for the replies. After thinking about this, I googled cemU since I had no idea what it was and came across this guy's Youtube channel: Simply Austin . He's got a lot of recent videos about emulation and had some good information that reflected what was said above. All of this is actually quite fascinating. Based on what I've read here and seen in his videos, my current PC is a bit lopsided in terms of emulation requirements. Meaning, I'm heavy on the GPU side and not where I need to be on the CPU side even though my rig is pretty solid for PC gaming.

After thinking about things, it seems like my two options would be to build an emulation box that would run things very solid and just keep my existing PC as-is and use for my main PC tasks and PC gaming OR upgrade my existing PC to be solid for emulation, PC tasks, PC gaming and be future-proof for emulation. I'm heavily leaning towards making the jump to Skylake, which would require me to buy CPU, mobo and RAM. Everything else in my system is good to go. Also, if I do that, it means I could either sell off my old Sandybridge CPU/mobo/RAM for a few bucks or keep it to possibly throw together another PC for who knows what other reason.

Alright, guys... life kicked in so I'm running a little behind on my plans. I'm still looking to get this going since my "man cave" is now fully operational. Money is a small issue right now so I'm trying to decide between a Skylake i5 and i7 (unlocked either way). I would be replacing my mobo and RAM of course. The more I think about it, I'm not too interested in cemU (although I think it's cool) and not too interested in emulating other systems. Hell, I've still got my WiiU, PS3, and PS4 connected anyway. So that being said, I know the Skylake i7 beats the i5 in the benchmarks, but won't the Skylake i5 with a solid overclock destroy dolphin and run all games without issue (I'm looking at you Rouge Squadron)?

Yes, an i5 will do just fine (and pretty much should in any other emulator in case you suddenly become interested); also, the i7 may beat the i5 in the benchmarks but, IMO, the pretty much perform about the same emulating whichever game you choose to play assuming those games didn't have known performance issues to begin with