Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi there,

Looking to build a new HTPC in the next few months.  I think I'll be running Fedora 25 x64.  I'm thinking I'll probably go with an AMD graphics card, due to better Vulkan/Wayland support than nVidia (and the rapid development progress on the RADV driver).  So I'm thinking of an RX 460 or 470.

I'd like to be able to get 1080p/60fps performance.  Games I'd like to play include the Mario Galaxy games, New SMB, Xenoblade, Brawl, and Metroid Prime Trilogy.  I'd also like to be able to play native Linux games, and some Windows games under WINE, but nothing really high-spec; Dolphin will probably be the most hardware-intensive program I'll be running.  I'd also like to be able to play 4K/HDR video, but just as a future-proofing thing; I don't actually have a 4K TV yet, but if I decide to buy one later I'd like to be ready.  (4K gaming isn't as important, though if anybody wants to make some recommendations for what I'd need to run Dolphin at 4K, I'd be interested in hearing them.)

What processor and motherboard would you guys recommend?  I was looking at the i3 7100, but I've seen recommendations here for the Pentium 4560 and 4600.  What are the benefits of each?  Is there a clear best choice?  Is there something else I should be considering?

I'm also interested in case recommendations.  I'd like something with some extra drive bays.  For comparison, my current HTPC has 2 SSDs, 5 3.5" hard drives, an optical drive, and an SD card reader (5.25").  I don't know if I need that many 3.5" bays on the new system (I think I'm probably going to consolidate a few drives), but I'd prefer to have the option in case I want to add more storage later.

I'd say minimum/preferred go like this:

Minimum: 1 5.25" bay for an optical drive, 2 2.5" bays for SSDs, and 2 3.5" bays for platter drives
Preferred: at least 2 5.25" bays, 3 2.5" bays, and 5 3.5" bays


A quiet case would be good too, if possible (I don't intend to go the water-cooling route, just quiet fans).  And I prefer that it be a boring black rectangle with no window and no LEDs except power and HD activity.  (I'm flexible on the color.)

That's it off the top of my head; I'll add more if I think of anything else.  Thanks in advance!

What's your budget? You have a pretty high range of "Just dolphin" to "Also want to do some 4k" stuff so a cookie cutter build probably won't work here.

I thought they fixed the Wayland issues for Nvidia back in November? And Nvidia cards are usually better in general for Linux users due to better overall drivers and support for OpenGL.

As for the i3-7100 vs Pentium 4560/4600, the i3 has support for AVX instructions where the Pentiums do not. Dolphin does use some AVX instructions, but most people can't tell the difference. The i3 is also clocked a little bit higher. http://ark.intel.com/compare/97453,97455

(03-22-2017, 02:17 PM)Helios Wrote: [ -> ]What's your budget? You have a pretty high range of "Just dolphin" to "Also want to do some 4k" stuff so a cookie cutter build probably won't work here.

Yeah, sorry about that; truth is, I don't know what my budget is yet. I'm looking to buy a car soon, and my computer budget's going to depend on how much I have left over.

I'm probably looking at something in the $600-$800 range, but I'm interested in hearing what my options are if I go higher, what my limitations are going to be if I don't, etc.

(03-22-2017, 04:05 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]I thought they fixed the Wayland issues for Nvidia back in November?

A little research suggests that it's working with Wayland now, yeah; thanks.

(03-22-2017, 04:05 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]And Nvidia cards are usually better in general for Linux users due to better overall drivers and support for OpenGL.

Historically that's definitely been the case; I haven't bought an AMD card in 13 years for that reason (or rather, an ATI card, since it was 13 years ago). But from what I've been reading, that appears to be changing. RADV is developing rapidly and, while it's not quite performing on par with AMD's proprietary driver yet, it's doing surprisingly well for this stage. And I've had enough headaches with proprietary drivers over the years that I'd be very, very happy to be able to get playable hardware acceleration with plain old Mesa.

(Phoronix has some benchmarks; I know their software/methodology has its share of flaws, but it works as a ballpark example.)

nVidia's EGL Streams approach seems like it's caused its share of headaches, though as you note that may have been smoothed over at this point.

Course, that's just me doing some reading; if anybody's got recent experience working with nVidia and AMD cards in Fedora 25, feel free to clarify or correct me. (Currently I've got a desktop running OpenSUSE with a GTX 970, so...yeah, no recent experience with AMD cards or Fedora, and no experience at all with Wayland or Vulkan.)

(03-22-2017, 04:05 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]As for the i3-7100 vs Pentium 4560/4600, the i3 has support for AVX instructions where the Pentiums do not. Dolphin does use some AVX instructions, but most people can't tell the difference. The i3 is also clocked a little bit higher. http://ark.intel.com/compare/97453,97455

Thanks!

Hmm.

I think this is tricky. Maybe we can recommend an optimal price/performance build?

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wWrZvV

Pick your case and storage.

Here's the gotcha with this build: For good performance in Dolphin, you pretty much have to use Vulkan and pray it actually works for the games you play, since you're not on Windows and can't use D3D11 (which is fast on AMD). It's still an experimental backend and we have one person fixing things for it. OpenGL will be far too slow on AMD for you. You'll also have to be aware that pretty much every other Linux game that doesn't use Vulkan will have performance issues.

If you're not set on AMD, a GTX 1060 may be a solid bet and you would get excellent performance in both OpenGL and Vulkan. I went with a higher end GPU simply because you threw "4K" in there.

Interesting, thanks.  Guess that's the problem with being right in a major transition period right now (X to Wayland, OpenGL to Vulkan, and that's before we even get started on other big changes coming like Flatpak).

Couple questions:

Can you walk me through why you'd go with that motherboard and processor?

Do you have any links that go into more detail about AMD/RADV's poor OpenGL performance?


Other thoughts:

I might keep a Windows dual-boot around in case there's anything I can't get to work in Linux (Blu-Ray playback, games that won't run in WINE, etc.) but I'd prefer not to use it much.

My current HTPC has a Pentium/5300 and a GTX 560 and is running Windows 10, and it's managed to handle most games I've thrown at it at 1080p/30fps or better.  Nothing bleeding edge; the most intensive games I've run on it are probably stuff like Arkham Origins, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Skyrim.  But I spend a lot of my time playing lower-performance stuff, like Shovel Knight, Stardew Valley, Freedom Planet, etc.  (And it sure is nice seeing most of that stuff get native support on Linux, thanks to Unity, UE, and Source.)

Thanks so much for all your help so far.

The motherboard I basically just chose the cheapest 4 RAM slot ATX motherboard to allow for reasonable expansion and value, since you're not looking to overclock (Not to mention overclocking wouldn't add *too* much value here)

The processor I chose because while it's not as cheap as the Pentium, you also mentioned 4K down the road. A Kaby i5 would let you watch 4K video without problems. I don't actually know how hard the Kaby Pentium would be pushed.

AMD and OpenGL has never been fast on both Windows and Linux. Their implementation of it has just been kind of slow with most of their efforts going into making D3D fast, as that's where all of their money is. Vulkan has proven to be perfectly fast on AMD though.

What I've read indicates that Kaby Lake supports 4K video from Pentium on up, but I can see why i5 would be a good choice just to be sure.  If Dolphin at 1080p is my priority and 4K is just a "nice to have", would you still recommend the i5, or would you change your answer?  What if I dropped the 4K guideline entirely (say, if I were thinking "Well, if I buy a 4K TV next year, I can always just buy another processor")?

Sorry to keep coming up with different hypotheticals; I'm just interested in knowing what my options are and what the advantages and drawbacks are.

I think the pentium or i3 would be perfectly fine then.

Cool, thanks. Which of those would you recommend? i3 7100, Pentium 6400, something else? Would I notice much difference across them based on the use-cases I've mentioned? What use-cases *would* I see a difference in?

Thanks again.