Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey guys, I have lots of hardware questions but I'll try to keep my post focused, so here goes.

I have built a PC in the past (just 1, running Ubuntu) but it's time to upgrade. my requirements are:

1. I'd like to run dolphin at least at native resolution for at least Paper Mario: TTYD and a few other gamecube titles, like the Zelda games, Mario Kart. As far as Wii titles go, I think Resident Evil 4 (Wii Edition) and the 2 Zelda games would be my main priority. Higher resolution, e.g. 720p or 1080p would be nice, but not a deal-breaker. More demanding titles would be great too. I just don't have a good idea of which titles are demanding and which ones are easy to deal with.

2. I want to be able to use project64 to play my N64 games -- again, focused on the mario and zelda series, but I am pretty sure any build that can handle dolphin will be able to handle PJ64 with little to no issues. Please correct me if I'm wrong here. However, this means I'll need to run Windows, as PJ64 is not supported on Linux, and I can't get it running properly under Wine.

3. This will be our family PC, so we need to be able to do basic things like word processing and streaming video, etc. I'm guessing Dolphin is more intensive than these tasks, so this point may not matter much.

4. I am not really into modern gaming so much, but I might like to try Steam or other PC games. Any performance/ ability to play modern games would be considered a bonus, not a requirement.


I found a pre-built HP PC on Amazon for around $550 with:

• Ryzen 3 2200G CPU
  
• AMD Radeon™ RX 550 (4 GB GDDR5 dedicated)
  
• 8GB RAM (I can buy more RAM, and probably would eventually.)
  
• 1 TB mechanical hard drive (but I have an SSD I can clone the HDD to)
  
• Windows 10 Home
  

Would this meet my needs, and is it a good value? Could I build something myself for cheaper that would meet my needs?

Thanks for any insight!

You could build that PC for cheeper if you got all the parts yourself.

That PC should handle most dolphin games just fine and a lot of PC games as well. So the question becomes do you want to build a PC and have to deal with individual part RMAs if something fails, or do you want a unified warranty knowing that you are paying more for the name and to have someone else build it for you.

(02-10-2019, 06:57 AM)TKSilver Wrote: [ -> ]You could build that PC for cheeper if you got all the parts yourself.

That PC should handle most dolphin games just fine and a lot of PC games as well.  So the question becomes do you want to build a PC and have to deal with individual part RMAs if something fails, or do you want a unified warranty knowing that you are paying more for the name and to have someone else build it for you.

Thanks for the response. I know I can buy the parts for cheaper, especially if I reuse the case and power supply from my current rig. The problem is getting Windows on it. that adds $100+ to the cost, making it more expensive to replicate the rig, as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place for parts and software.

TKSilver put it nicely: either you deal with individual part warranties or you deal with only HP.

However, at that price you probably can't get the same parts for cheaper, especially if you want a Windows license. The computer itself will be OK for the games you mentioned, maybe not some of the more demanding games like Rogue Squadron tho.

If you want to try and see if you can build a better pc for cheaper and ditch the Windows license (and install Linux), you can always check out the site https://pcpartpicker.com/

(02-10-2019, 07:22 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]TKSilver put it nicely: either you deal with individual part warranties or you deal with only HP.

However, at that price you probably can't get the same parts for cheaper, especially if you want a Windows license. The computer itself will be OK for the games you mentioned, maybe not some of the more demanding games like Rogue Squadron tho.

If you want to try and see if you can build a better pc for cheaper and ditch the Windows license (and install Linux), you can always check out the site https://pcpartpicker.com/

As far as building a better machine for cheaper, while foregoing Windows, I am torn on that. I have been using Linux (mostly Ubuntu but also Manjaro, and even Fedora a little) exclusively on my home PC for the last 7ish years. But, I want to be able to play N64 games again, especially paper mario. Mupen64plus is not going to cut it -- it crashes early and often when I try and play Paper Mario. So, that leaves me with either not playing the game, or using PJ64. Supposedly some people have had luck getting it to run under Wine, but I can't figure it out. 

Anyway, long story short -- no windows means no paper mario, which would suck. I guess I'll probably just buy the machine in my OP. Will still install some Linux distro as a dual boot though -- I refuse to use windows exclusively.

I was even factoring in Windows 10, though the $130 is easily solved by buying a key off a 3rd party that guarantees a working key (like Kinguin) for about $30-50. This is how I get my Windows licenses when building systems for friends and family.

As far as the CPU, GPU, and Motherboard it will depend on how fast you need the new system since combo sales for MB and CPUs pop up quite often (online and in retail shops), though hunting a good deal will take time and can be location dependent. (Another tradeoff in building vs prebiilt)

As far as the project 64 goes... if you don't mind retroarch (I know some people just don't like it for reasons) I haven't found any game that won't run on MupenPlus (formerly Glupen64) or ParaLLEi cores. Though P64 is more out of the box friendly.

(02-10-2019, 11:51 AM)TKSilver Wrote: [ -> ]I was even factoring in Windows 10, though the $130 is easily solved by buying a key off a 3rd party that guarantees a working key (like Kinguin) for about $30-50.  This is how I get my Windows licenses when building systems for friends and family.

As far as the CPU, GPU, and Motherboard it will depend on how fast you need the new system since combo sales for MB and CPUs pop up quite often (online and in retail shops), though hunting a good deal will take time and can be location dependent.  (Another tradeoff in building vs prebiilt)

As far as the project 64 goes... if you don't mind retroarch (I know some people just don't like it for reasons) I haven't found any game that won't run on MupenPlus (formerly Glupen64) or ParaLLEi cores.  Though P64 is more out of the box friendly.

Thanks again for the advice. I decided to just buy the pre-built system, since I don't have much time to do the research required to build my own system right now. It should arrive tomorrow, and sometime before the weekend is over I'll test it out with Dolphin and report back. I am curious to know what the consensus is on which games are harder/easier to run. I'd like to test a few games that are easier to run, a few "mid-range" games, and a few more demanding games, all on various settings.