Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey guys, new to the thread and community. I was excited when I found out you don't need a super computer to run a Gamecube emulator anymore. So I loaded up Dolphin onto my desktop, but it turns out my old pc doesn't have the processing power to run any games smoothly. So I've decided to build a new "budget" computer around the Pentium G3258. After doing a some research I've come to these parts

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258
Motherboard: Asrock Z97 Pro4
Ram: Kingston Hyperx 8gb (2x4)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1tb HDD
Power Supply: Corsair 450w 80+ Bronze
Video Card: Undecided
Case: Undecided

Now I'm not looking for a super computer, but I want it to do more than the bare minimum, which is why I opted for the 8gb of ram. Now my questions are how well will this hold up? Is it overkill? Will it even run dolphin smoothly? Are there any cheaper alternatives?

As for the graphics card and case goes I've hit a wall. I'm not planning on running 4k. 720p is the minimum I'm looking for when running most games, but I do need the computer to be able to view and edit 1440p videos. So if you guys could recommend anything, that doesn't cost too much money I'd greatly appreciate it. As for the case, Is it just buyer's choice are there any mandatory specs I would need?

Finally the PC I have now is the HP Pavilion Slimline S5414Y. Am I better off upgrading this current PC? As far as I could tell upgrading the cpu and ram won't make it that much better. Also s there anything from this PC I can salvage (besides the hard drive) to put into a my new build?
Thank you guys very much.

I wouldn't even salvage the hard drive from that computer, since you can get a 1TB drive for like $50 nowadays.

Yes, that system will run Dolphin just fine. You may want to look at getting a G4600 and compatible motherboard, since it has 2 cores 4 threads thanks to hyperthreading. This means it'll be faster in video editing.
You may want to also look into getting an i5 to have 4 physical cores, but that'll be a lot more expensive.

As for a GPU, a GTX 1050/1050 Ti is a good choice for 1080p Dolphin gaming.

Oh, ok. Thanks for the advice. I'll prob order a graphics card with that chipset. What are the setbacks for trying to edit with less cores and without hyperthreading? Sorry the newb questions.

(04-19-2017, 05:43 AM)gurunail Wrote: [ -> ]Oh, ok. Thanks for the advice. I'll prob order a graphics card with that chipset. What are the setbacks for trying to edit with less cores and without hyperthreading? Sorry the newb questions.

No real setbacks except that it will be a lot slower, video editing (mainly the rendering) benefits from more cores (and hyperthreading) and scales very close to 100% per core, but this also depends on the application and codec used to render the video's.

(04-18-2017, 01:44 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]I wouldn't even salvage the hard drive from that computer, since you can get a 1TB drive for like $50 nowadays.

Yes, that system will run Dolphin just fine. You may want to look at getting a G4600 and compatible motherboard, since it has 2 cores 4 threads thanks to hyperthreading. This means it'll be faster in video editing.
You may want to also look into getting an i5 to have 4 physical cores, but that'll be a lot more expensive.

As for a GPU, a GTX 1050/1050 Ti is a good choice for 1080p Dolphin gaming.

I'm a bit new to computer hardware, but isn't the G4600 just the G4560 with 100 more Mhz? Does that make much of a difference in Dolphin? Since the topic's brought up - how well would a G4560 fare in Dolphin?

(04-22-2017, 12:18 PM)Static Wrote: [ -> ]I'm a bit new to computer hardware, but isn't the G4600 just the G4560 with 100 more Mhz? Does that make much of a difference in Dolphin? Since the topic's brought up - how well would a G4560 fare in Dolphin?

It is, and it has a different integratedGPU 630 instead of a 610 which has an avg. of 25% more FPS in most (PC)games (on 720p low/medium) and has a lower TDP of 51W instead of 54W (yes even though it is faster).

(04-22-2017, 05:51 PM)mstreurman Wrote: [ -> ]It is, and it has a different integratedGPU 630 instead of a 610 which has an avg. of 25% more FPS in most (PC)games (on 720p low/medium) and has a lower TDP of 51W instead of 54W (yes even though it is faster).

Oh! Sorry - I didn't see that OP wasn't including a GPU. Yeah - the HD 630 is significantly better than the HD 610. Thanks!