Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hello there,

First of all I'm french, then I'm sorry in advance if my vocabulary and grammar are strange.

Currently I'm playing Xenoblade Chronicles (with these textures), however I have a little problem : the sound is  jerky and consequently the game is slowed.

I don't know if it's due to my laptop setup (Intel core i3 1.70 Ghz, 4 Go of RAM, Nvidia GeForce 820M) or if it's frequent when playing an emulated game.

So are there some parameters I can change in Dolphin's options to fix the problem?
I found this thread in the FAQ thread, but I don't know if it can solve the problem (and I didn't understand how to install it).

Thank you !

Your PC is too slow. Specifically your CPU.

Thus is there a minimal PC setup which allows to have a flowing game (and sound)?

I tried to lauch the game without the HD textures, it's better but there still are some jerk... There's no way to fix the problem by changing some parameters is the graphics and sound options?

From what I understood from other posts you could try to go to config>audio and change the "audio backend" option from xaudio2 to cubeb, some games seem to work better with one option some with the other.(someone correct me if I am wrong please)

However that will only help if indeed it's just an audio issue that the game has, if on the other hand your pc is simply overall too slow for that specific game then, like Helios said, it won't help. And you'll just have to get a more powerful machine, sorry.

(02-25-2018, 08:54 PM)Angelo Wrote: [ -> ]Thus is there a minimal PC setup which allows to have a flowing game (and sound)?

I tried to lauch the game without the HD textures, it's better but there still are some jerk... There's no way to fix the problem by changing some parameters is the graphics and sound options?

First of all: I can recommend upgrading your Windows to Windows 10 as it seems to use less resources of a computer overall thus leaving more resources for Dolphin (or at least it is better optimized)
Secondly: If you have speed issues ALWAYS make sure that ALL applications are closed: NO internet browsers, no music in the background, no nothing.

Thirdly: Try the following procedure:
1. If you haven't done so already download and extract the latest development version in a NEW folder *do not overwrite an existing installation*, you can find it if you scroll down a bit on the download page
2. Download and install the latest nVidia Driver for your GPU (found here https://fr.download.nvidia.com/Windows/3...l-whql.exe)
3. Always have your laptop plugged in to a power-outlet while playing
4. Turn off Battery boost and Shadowplay in the GeForce Experience
5. Make sure that the nVidia Control Panel is set up to always use the GeForce card
6. Set the nVidia Control Panel to "Prefer Highest Performance" in the Advanced 3D settings
7. Set up the Windows Power Options to "High Performance"
8. Make sure Dolphin is running at its Default settings (by deleting or renaming the Dolphin Emulator folder in "My Documents" or by creating a portable.txt in the same folder as Dolphin.exe)
9. In Dolphin set IR to 1x (Internal Resolution)
10. Set Ubershaders to Disabled (or off) *KEEP IN MIND THAT THIS WILL INTRODUCE SHADER STUTTERING, BUT THIS WILL GO AWAY WHILE PLAYING AS THE GAME BUILDS UP THE SHADER CACHE*
11. Set Graphics Back-end to Vulkan
12. Set Anti-Aliasing to 1x (or off)
13. Set Sound back-end to CubeB and HLE
14. Turn off Cheats
15. Do not use any Texture Packs
16. Run your game, is it still slow? Then your CPU is too slow to handle this specific game. You can try setting the emulated clockspeed to 90% or 75% (or even less) but keep in mind that there is a HUGE possibility that things will break spectacularly.

The game should always be running at 25/50FPS (PAL) or 30/60FPS (NTSC) or at 100% speed otherwise you will encounter slowdowns.
If it runs at 100% you can try increasing the IR to 2x and slowly increase the IR a single step at a time, but not higher than your native resolution, which is probably 1080p or 3x IR, if it goes below 100% speed at a higher IR at any time, go back one value.
If you've found the IR that your GPU can handle, you can slowly increase the Anti-aliasing step by step, if it goes below 100% speed at any time, go back one value.
Finally you can start increasing the Anisotropic Filtering, if it goes below 100% speed at any time, go back one value.
If you've done this, you have found the ultimate quality/speed settings for your computer to run this specific game.

As a last step you could try loading the HD texture packs, but if it is too slow, there is really nothing you can do about that.

Plenty of good advice there too, but one thing I would totally disagree with mstreurman on is windows 10, never install that piece of crap on any of your systems!! Unless you want microshit to know everything you're doing(and eventually the whole world when their servers will inevitably get hacked) and you want them to install software on your pc without your knowledge, etc, etc, etc. And despite what some people will tell you no, you can't opt out of all that, even if you try to disable some of it they will renable it without your knowledge....

In my opinion a tiny boost in performance is not worth losing whatever privacy we have left. But hey, your choice.

(02-26-2018, 12:17 AM)VIKINGS Wrote: [ -> ]Plenty of good advice there too, but one thing I would totally disagree with mstreurman on is windows 10, never install that piece of crap on any of your systems!! Unless you want microshit to know everything you're doing(and eventually the whole world when their servers will inevitably get hacked) and you want them to install software on your pc without your knowledge, etc, etc, etc. And despite what some people will tell you no, you can't opt out of all that, even if you try to disable some of it they will renable it without your knowledge....

In my opinion a tiny boost in performance is not worth losing whatever privacy we have left. But hey, your choice.

Do you use Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter or any other social media?
Do you have Hotmail/MSN/Outlook.com, Gmail, Yahoo or other free e-mail provider?
Do you use Onedrive, iCloud, Googledrive, Dropbox or any other online/cloud storage?
Do you play any online games?
Do you have a Playstation (2 and up), XBOX (Classic and up) or Nintendo (Gamecube and up) connected to the internet?
Do you use search engines, an Internet Browser or The Internet in general?
Do you have a smartphone?
Do you have a television subscription?
Do you have a landline?
Do you use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or any wireless devices?
Do you have an ATM/Credit/Debit-card?
Do you use a cloaking device (so you that you are invisible) when you go out of the door of your house?

Sorry, but in this reality/world you are already tracked (and owned) wherever you go and whatever you do is saved by someone somewhere. So if anything gets hacked your life is on the street. I'd say one more or one less doesn't matter anymore.

Even if you decide to go "off-the-grid" and go live in the middle of the ocean, jungle or desert without any modern commodities you will still be tracked (probably even more so because "they" want to know what you're up to).

Woah, easy there mate. I'm not talking about conspiracy level "big brother knows everything you do" BS. I'm talking real use case scenarios.
Am I aware that google tracks every website I visit and youtube every video I watch in order to *sarcastic voice* "give you better recommendations"? Sure, and that's something I can live with for the most part, at least I know what I'm getting into every time I fire up the browser.
But to have my own operating system be the enemy and have to fight with it, to have it install stuff that I don't want, without my knowledge and without the ability to remove said stuff(and even if you use third party tools to remove it they just install it again); to have it use keyloggers and know everything I type including passwords and stuff... That I can't live with!!

So yes, every bit of technology you use takes away a bit of your privacy, the question is where do you draw the line, how much abuse are you willing to take and in exchange for what(if any) gains? For me that line is win 10, it's WAAAAY too invasive and offers way way way too little in exchange.

Anyway, let's not hijack the OP's topic entirely and get back to his issue. If you wanna talk more about this gimme a private message and I'll be happy to debate it further.

So Angelo to adress another part of your question that I missed, about a minimum setup. You can check this link for the system requirements recommended for dolphin. https://dolphin-emu.org/docs/faq/

However I would take those with a grain of salt because the way I see it(again, correct me if I am wrong guys) since dolphin covers such a wide range of games(and a long time spawn) some games, even emulated, might run fine even on a potato, while others might need a fairly beefy system. So I think it really depends on what exactly you plan to play on it...

(02-26-2018, 12:17 AM)VIKINGS Wrote: [ -> ]Plenty of good advice there too, but one thing I would totally disagree with mstreurman on is windows 10, never install that piece of crap on any of your systems!! Unless you want microshit to know everything you're doing(and eventually the whole world when their servers will inevitably get hacked) and you want them to install software on your pc without your knowledge, etc, etc, etc. And despite what some people will tell you no, you can't opt out of all that, even if you try to disable some of it they will renable it without your knowledge....

In my opinion a tiny boost in performance is not worth losing whatever privacy we have left. But hey, your choice.

Bear in mind Microsoft decided to limit at least one feature required for some games to windows 10, pixel logic ops, even if they still fall it DX11. Normally this is ok, as opengl and vulkan likely support that anyway, but if those drivers are poor you may get graphical corruption (like Intel often has better dx support, so you may fall into this).

Plus, many of the analytics people keep complaining about for windows 10 were introduced through windows 7 updates too - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.infowor...t.amp.html - so make sure before recommending windows 7. The horse might have already bolted.

I've been using the program ShutUp10 since 2015 to shut Windows 10's mouth up. Bye bye Cortana and Bing, telemetry and whatnot. Also being connected to Windows with a local account instead of the Microsoft is of huge help.