Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

To start off, here are my PC specs:
Windows 10 Pro (Version 1607) (Dell) (Latitude E6410)


Intel® Core™ i5 CPU Processor (M 560 @ OS  2.67 GHz)


4.00 GB RAM (3.80 GB usable)


64-bit operating system, x64-based processor


OS Build: 14393.222


GPU: Intel® HD Graphics (Core i5)


Available space on Local Disk (C:) at the time of this post: 130 GB free of 232 GB


Version of Dolphin: 5.0 x64 (obtained from the official site)



I am pretty new to using Dolphin, but I have recently tried to apply certain settings to the emulator in order to get games to run at 60 FPS. It only succeeded in fixing audio issues (music and sound slowdown when the framerate was slow). Most games will still usually run at 30 FPS. Are there any settings I could apply to get games to run at 60 FPS? Are my PC specs alright to run Dolphin, or should I buy a gaming PC specifically designed for Dolphin and other PC games?

Here are the games I plan on playing (mostly GameCube games), sorted by priority. There might not be every game I want to play on this list (because I don't remember ALL the games I played as a kid), but for the most part, they're here. I expect the graphics of the games to be at least just like the original games, if not a little low-resolution.

VERY HIGH

• Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
  Super Monkey Ball 2
  Super Monkey Ball
  SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab
  Animal Crossing: City Folk
  
  

HIGH

• Mario Kart Wii
  Super Paper Mario
  My Word Coach
  Wii Sports Resort
  Kirby Air Ride
  My Word Coach
  

NORMAL

• Sonic Mega Collection
  

LOW

• Ty the Tasmanian Tiger
  Sonic Heroes
  

If there's anything else I need to tell you, let me know. Thank you very much in advance for any help I recieve. These games are basically my childhood.

Your CPU is killing you. Mobile CPUs weren´t designed for high-performance tasks like Dolphin.

A gaming PC using last-gen Core i5 and i7 CPU will do the work, with a high-end GPU of course (Nvidia GTX 1060 for example).

More likely GPU issue. First gen Intel iGPU does not meet the minimum GPU requirement .
You don't need a high-end GPU like GTX 1060 to run Dolphin unless you want to play at 4k resolution . Even a low-mid range GTX 750 ti is overkill for 1080p

(10-02-2016, 09:19 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]More likely GPU issue. First gen Intel iGPU does not meet the minimum GPU requirement .
You don't need a high-end GPU like GTX 1060 to run Dolphin unless you want to play at 4k resolution . Even a low-mid range GTX 750 ti is overkill for 1080p

I just used the GTX 1060 as an example, I didn´t instruct him/her to buy it. You´ve got a point though.

Of course, the GTX 1060 is a bit of overkill for Dolphin. Well.... The GTX 1060 is at the weaker end of the NVidia 10 series. However, you might never know how it might serve you in the future, at least the Nividia 10 series is future proof for a while. 4k gaming will eventually also be common at some point, just like 1080p is. Besides, there might be more than just only using Dolphin. It is the same reason why I would recommend a Quad Core CPU. Four cores won't help Dolphin that much, but it better for gaming in General. Besides, Windows could have an easier time running in the background since Dolphin won't utilize all four cores. Don't expect Dolphin to support four cores through, it's the nature of emulation. But you get the point, it should be future proof for your system in general... Unless... You are dedicating to optimize all your hardware for only and only Dolphin.

Most games on the list are not that taxing on the hardware to emulate. Mario Kart Wii might be the most taxing game on the list.

Your CPU is the bottleneck here. It's an old, mobile CPU with a low clock speed. It also doesn't help that you don't have a real GPU.

If you have a fast CPU and a recent, semi-decent GPU, you'll be able to run everything at full speed, at 1x IR (at least).
If you have a slow CPU and a fast GPU, it won't run at full speed even at 1x IR.

Why is his CPU a bottleneck ? I have i5 4210U up to 2.7 GHz and it runs everything.

I have GTX 850m. His CPU is the same power as mine. Isn't his mediocre intel HD the bottleneck guys ?

For demanding games like The Last Story , MKW , SMG 1&2 ... that i5 is slow without a doubt
However, I'm sure light-weight games like MKDD, Zelda WW , NSMB ...will run just fine (if that i5 is paired with a dedicated GPU of course)
I also have the same i5 560M and my CPU is paired with Nvidia GT 540M

Quote:His CPU is the same power as mine.

No, his CPU is first gen Core i5 , yours is 4th gen Core i5 which is 30-50% faster than 1st gen