Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey Guys,

currently I discovered dolphin and gaming on my Laptop which works but now I want a bit more and build me a little Emulating-Machine.
I usually meet up with friends and we play on a Game Cube and Wii which would be fine but as I have seen that an emulator can push the Resolution to a whole new level (especially for the Game Cube) we want to try it out.
So basically my question is, if the games I want to play will run smoothly at 60 fps in 1080.

Game Cube:
- Mario Kart Double Dash
- All Mario Parties
- Super Smash Bros. Melee
- Mario Smash Football

Wii:
- Mario Kart
- All Mario Parties
- Mario Strikers Charged Football
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Hardware/Software that I have:
- GTX 550ti
- 1 TB HDD 5400
- Windows 10

Hardware that I need:

CPU
What kind of CPU is good for a smooth gaming experience? So a dual-core is needed but a quadcore is recommended to run Tasks in the Background.
As i read through the forum i always saw the i5 2500k but is there something a bit cheaper that can do what I want?
On Ebay I find cheap CPUs like:
- Core2 Quad Q9450
- Core2 Quad Q6600
- Core2Duo 4300
- Core2Duo 8400

and some are a bit more expensive:

- i5 2400
- i5 2500
- i5 3470

Ram
I thought about 4 GB of Ram. That should be enough right?

Hopefully I mentioned everything you need and you can help me out here  

Your current laptop CPU is much better than those old CPUs
Core i5 2500k is an exception... only if you overclock it (4.2GHz or higher) .
These cheap CPUs should be enough for Dolphin : 7th gen Pentium Kaby Lake G4560 ($54) , 8th Gen Pentium Gold G5400 ($70) , Ryzen 3 2200G ($94)

Another cheap CPU option is a used Pentium G3258 which can be had for only around $50 on ebay yet is unlocked for overclocking on z-series LGA1150 motherboards.

And if you're looking at non-overclockable Intel CPUs and don't need integrated graphics, then used Xeon CPUs can be considerably cheaper on the likes of ebay as well.

Thank you for your responses. Now with these tipps you gave I have some more questions:

1. Will the in-built graphics be enough if I buy a pentium G3258, a G4560, a G5600 or an i5 2500k and want to game at full speed 60 fps and 1080p or do I need a dedicated graphics card?

2. If I need a dedicated graphics card with the Intel Pentium CPUs would the 550ti be good enough?

3. The Ryzen 2200g has obviously a very good GPU inside. Would it even make sense to use a Ryzen 2200G and the GTX 550ti or is the GPU not helping at all?

4. I looked at power supplies and they are quite big. So I found this little one which in fact is not a power supply but a Module to use an external PSU: https://www.amazon.com/DC-ATX-160W-Switc...s=pico+psu

To make it clear I don't usually game on PCs and I really don't know how powerfull a combination of CPU and GPU is. In fact I just want to build a unit that can play the games i mentioned initially and that it is fairly small.

Define "big". That module won´t really be enough. Any actual CPU would take almost half capacity of that module (more when overclocking). The absence of a fan will also mean that eventually the module would overheat and get damaged.

Plus, if you do end up buying a dedicated GPU there won´t be enough headroom for it.

That is a DC adapter not a real power supply. It is made for in car systems, Is this going in a car? Also for the love of all that is electronics please do not cheep out and get a crappy power supply or every other more expensive component can be destroyed very fast.

Not glamorous not glorius but you can get the 400 or 550 Watt version for $30
https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Warranty-Pow...+watt+evga
The 550 should cover one of these CPUs and a moderate GPU like a 550Ti or something in a simular class

The 550Ti should run most games fine at native up to 720p with some running at 1080p but not all. the integrated graphics should generally handle native and a few at 720p. The Ryzen is going to be around the 550Ti with most games fine at 720p a few at native and some you can push to 1080p.

A 750ti is recomended for 1080p if you want most games at that resolution the 1030 (not the DDR4 version) would also work, or a 950 (used) or others in this performance range.

A Nvidia GTX 750 or 750 Ti would be much better suited for your task at a low price (or a GTX 950/1050). The 550 Ti is no longer officially supported by Nvidia because they dropped support for Fermi cards (the 500 series).

(05-15-2018, 12:19 AM)Dennio Wrote: [ -> ]1. Will the in-built graphics be enough if I buy a pentium G3258, a G4560, a G5600 or an i5 2500k and want to game at full speed 60 fps and 1080p or do I need a dedicated graphics card?

Keep in mind that, for any sort of integrated graphics (Intel or AMD Ryzen), you will want to use dual-channel RAM (such as 2x4GB rather than 1x8GB) as this can substantially boost the performance of your integrated graphics.


With that out of the way, if you really want to use the Intel integrated graphics included in the CPU, then make sure that it uses at least UHD 630 which can be found on the Pentium G4600 as well as the Pentium G5500 and G5600. I personally can also attest that the iGPU on the Pentium G3258 is only really usable at 1x IR, and even then it isn't always depending on the game (only hits ~40fps in Metroid Prime 3 on OpenGL in Lubuntu 18.04).

However, I would not be surprised at all if the UHD 630 is only capable of 2x IR and therefore wouldn't really be an ideal solution.

Nevertheless, the G5500 would be a wiser choice than the G4600 as it costs a similar price yet is 200MHz faster and also uses 300-series LGA1151 motherboards (which provides a better upgrade path due to compatibility with Coffee Lake).



But if we're talking upgrade paths, then the Ryzen 2200G and its AM4 socket would definitely be the king of that with support until year 2020. And yes, the integrated graphics on the Ryzen 2200G would be considerably better as well.

(05-15-2018, 03:18 AM)TKSilver Wrote: [ -> ]The Ryzen is going to be around the 550Ti with most games fine at 720p a few at native and some you can push to 1080p.

You underestimate the power of Ryzen; behold - 3x IR with asynchronous ubershaders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik3zLdM25E0

...ok yes that's the 2400G, but the 2200G isn't really all that much slower considering that overclocking the iGPU of the 2200G results in performance comparable to a stock 2400G, and Rogue Leader is notoriously difficult to run anyway (and looking as the OSD, it looked more like a CPU bottleneck than a GPU one for that specific game).

(05-15-2018, 12:19 AM)Dennio Wrote: [ -> ]4. I looked at power supplies and they are quite big. So I found this little one which in fact is not a power supply but a Module to use an external PSU: https://www.amazon.com/DC-ATX-160W-Switc...s=pico+psu

I'm not sure what the people above are going on about (will eventually overheat? meant for car systems? all of my wat), but the use of Pico PSU adapters are extremely popular in low-power small form-factor builds such as a NAS, HTPC, or the like. However, you obviously need to provide your own external power supply that then has enough wattage to power your PC, and at that point it may actually just make more sense to get a standard ATX PSU.

(05-15-2018, 03:18 AM)TKSilver Wrote: [ -> ]Not glamorous not glorius but you can get the 400 or 550 Watt version for $30
https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Warranty-Pow...+watt+evga

In terms of ATX PSUs on a budget, there's a deal for an EVGA 500B for only $35 shipped on B&H Photo Video, but the sale only lasts until the end of today - this is an extremely popular budget PSU with 80+ bronze and a 3 year warranty (the above-quoted PSU only has a 2 year warranty and isn't even rated plain old 80+ let alone 80+ bronze): https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1...power.html

Graphic card requirement for Dolphin has increased over the last 3 or 4 years
Don't even bother with Intel HD , even Nvidia GTX 660 which is like 10~20 times more powerful yet it barely can handle Ubershaders ? (No idea , I'm not saying this but i can agree that Intel HD sucks , all of them)

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comme...tion_cemu/

Quite an interesting topic there . Basically , spend your money on a proper graphic card , you won't regret that .

(05-15-2018, 10:14 PM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Graphic card requirement for Dolphin has increased over the last 3 or 4 years
Don't even bother with Intel HD , even Nvidia GTX 660 which is like 10~20 times more powerful yet it barely can handle Ubershaders ? (No idea , I'm not saying this but i can agree that Intel HD sucks , all of them)

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comme...tion_cemu/

Quite an interesting topic there . Basically , spend your money on a proper graphic card , you won't regret that .

1. The link is not really relevant. Different EMU, different requirements
2. My Intel HD 4600 in my i7 4800MQ runs most games at 1x IR without any issue, the Intel HD 610 in my Pentium G4560 can even do 720p in a lot of games.

If you don't want to spend too much money, I personally would go for something like this:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hLYY9J
which is about 475 dollar US for a full system with Hard drive and case included.

If you overclock your parts some, you would be able to run most games (in Dolphin) reliably at 1080p, and even run a lot of PC games on lower settings at 720p/1080p as well. It will also give you some longevity as you will be able to add a discrete GPU at any time, and as it is the latest and greatest chipset you should be able to (in the future) upgrade to a different AMD CPU easily as well as well as add another 2x4GB's of RAM when you might need it. (you could probably go about 50 dollar US cheaper if you go with the "older" b250 chipset on a microATX board) and you can take off about 50 dollar US if you already have a case and HD you want to use.

If you really want to go cheap you could go for something like this:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/TsgyKB
Which is about 320 dollar US including case and harddrive.