Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey everyone, unfortunately I no longer have my previous laptop (Dell inspiron) and was looking for anything new in 2019 that will be possible of running Dolphin completely and in HD. Would love to hear what you all would recommend. Budget is not much of an issue for me. Gaming laptop that doubles as a dolphin machine would be ideal but I am not opposed to buying a laptop that maximizes dolphin's performance. Thanks.

Basically you want to look for one of the laptops sporting a 8750h or 9750h (until AMD releases a better mobile lineup, the ryzen 3750h is just not quite as good as the 8th gen intel).
For GPU something from the gtx 1070 or gtx 1660 level or better (RTX 2070 id you want to play around with ray tracing).

From there start looking at user reviews of laptops you like and see if power limiting or thermal throttling are an issue and avoid those ones. Try to get 3 or 4 you realy pike and see if they go on sale in 2 weeks or so.

(11-14-2019, 04:28 AM)TKSilver Wrote: [ -> ]Basically you want to look for one of the laptops sporting a 8750h or 9750h (until AMD releases a better mobile lineup, the ryzen 3750h is just not quite as good as the 8th gen intel).
For GPU something from the gtx 1070 or gtx 1660 level or better (RTX 2070 id you want to play around with ray tracing).

From there start looking at user reviews of laptops you like and see if power limiting or thermal throttling are an issue and avoid those ones.  Try to get 3 or 4 you realy pike and see if they go on sale in 2 weeks or so.

Thanks TKSilver. Are there any laptops in particular that you would recommend or use yourself? Not very computer savvy unfortunately otherwise I would build myself a PC for dolphin gaming. 

Well since you said budget was not much of an issue
https://store.asus.com/us/item/201910AM190000004/mothership-ROG-Mothership-GZ700-Gaming-Laptop%2C-17.3-144Hz-FHD-Display-with-G-SYNC%2C-NVidia-GeForce-RTX-2080%2C-Intel-Core-i9-9980HK%2C-1.5TB-SSD-%283x-512-in-RAID0%29%2C-64GB-DDR4-RAM%2C-Windows-10-Pro%2C-GZ700GX-XB98K

Here you go a ROG mothership
The fastest unlocked (overclockable) CPU you can get in a laptop
a GTX 2080 GPU running pretty much as fast a desktop version

Weight 10.6 lbs
price a mere $6,499.99 US

But seriously if you give me an actual budget I can give you some good places to look in that range. Though honestly a lot of it will come down to looks (something I can help you with), cooling (something the internet is a far better resource for Google "X laptop, overheating issues" or see if someone reputable has done a review), price (which I don't have yet) and what else you want to do with it. If it needs to go into a professional setting then maybe the all neon orange gamer laptop with the crazy shape is not the best choice. Maybe you also 3d model, or have other workloads that are important to you. In that case you might need certain things. What size do you need\don't mind carrying around? If you fly a lot a 17.3" 10lbs monster might be powerful, but not a good fit for you (or the poor trey table).

(11-14-2019, 08:57 AM)TKSilver Wrote: [ -> ]Well since you said budget was not much of an issue
https://store.asus.com/us/item/201910AM190000004/mothership-ROG-Mothership-GZ700-Gaming-Laptop%2C-17.3-144Hz-FHD-Display-with-G-SYNC%2C-NVidia-GeForce-RTX-2080%2C-Intel-Core-i9-9980HK%2C-1.5TB-SSD-%283x-512-in-RAID0%29%2C-64GB-DDR4-RAM%2C-Windows-10-Pro%2C-GZ700GX-XB98K

Here you go a ROG mothership
The fastest unlocked (overclockable) CPU you can get in a laptop
a GTX 2080 GPU running pretty much as fast a desktop version

Weight 10.6 lbs
price a mere $6,499.99 US

But seriously if you give me an actual budget I can give you some good places to look in that range.  Though honestly a lot of it will come down to looks (something I can help you with), cooling (something the internet is a far better resource for Google "X laptop, overheating issues" or see if someone reputable has done a review), price (which I don't have yet) and what else you want to do with it.  If it needs to go into a professional setting then maybe the all neon orange gamer laptop with the crazy shape is not the best choice.  Maybe you also 3d model, or have other workloads that are important to you.  In that case you might need certain things.  What size do you need\don't mind carrying around?  If you fly a lot a 17.3" 10lbs monster might be powerful, but not a good fit for you (or the poor trey table).

Haha, yeah that's definitely not in my budget. Anything say between 1500-3000 is the sweet spot. A little higher if I can get more bang for my buck. I don't mind colorful skins as I have a professional laptop for those needs, but if I could get something that wouldn't look out of place in professional settings like the Dell Inspiron that would be ideal. Weight isn't too much of an issue, but 10 lbs is not what I am looking to lug around. Thanks a lot.

Oh forgot to mention, display and performance of the gaming experience is the most important factor. Everything else said above perhaps with the exception of the budget should be an afterthought. 

The Razer blade 15
MSI GS65 stealth
Asus Zephyrus (a bit more gamer looking then the others, but can still pass as a serious laptop too)
Dell Alienware 15m (the new style) good cooling no hope of anyone thinking it is a laptop for professionals.

These are 4 models in 1500-2500 range (depending on exact configs) that have good screens, great performance (and cooling), and most are also at least semi professional looking as a bonus.

Personally I own a Asus Zephyrus S GX531GS (i7 8750h and GTX 1070 max q). I got mine from a good seller for under $1,250 and at that price it is a steal. Most games can max or get darn close (Deus Ex mankind divided locked at 60fps but I could run it at higher framerates I just don't like running hotter just to go above 60fps when I can do 60fps at 70 degrees or so). The other laptops I mentioned with a 8th or 9th gen i7 x750h CPU and a GTX 1660ti, 1070, or RTX 2070 should be able to do around the same. It will depend on the exact games.

Also honestly any of these are overkill for Dolphin (anything in your price range with a non U series CPU and a dedicated GPU is going to be overkill in dolphin assuming it does not overheat). PCSX2 should be mostly fine (it has some really oddly super demanding titles). CEMU and RCPS3 work (still not optimized so giving you performance advice on something that could change in a week is pointless).

(11-14-2019, 10:22 AM)TKSilver Wrote: [ -> ]The Razer blade 15
MSI GS65 stealth
Asus Zephyrus (a bit more gamer looking then the others, but can still pass as a serious laptop too)
Dell Alienware 15m (the new style) good cooling no hope of anyone thinking it is a laptop for professionals.

These are 4 models in 1500-2500 range (depending on exact configs) that have good screens, great performance (and cooling), and most are also at least semi professional looking as a bonus.

Personally I own a Asus Zephyrus S GX531GS (i7 8750h and GTX 1070 max q).  I got mine from a good seller for under $1,250 and at that price it is a steal.  Most games can max or get darn close (Deus Ex mankind divided locked at 60fps but I could run it at higher framerates I just don't like running hotter just to go above 60fps when I can do 60fps at 70 degrees or so).  The other laptops I mentioned with a 8th or 9th gen i7 x750h CPU and a GTX 1660ti, 1070, or RTX 2070 should be able to do around the same.  It will depend on the exact games.

Also honestly any of these are overkill for Dolphin (anything in your price range with a non U series CPU and a dedicated GPU is going to be overkill in dolphin assuming it does not overheat).  PCSX2 should be mostly fine (it has some really oddly super demanding titles).  CEMU and RCPS3 work (still not optimized so giving you performance advice on something that could change in a week is pointless).

Hey TKsilver, thanks a lot for this post. I am interested in the alienware even though as you said it's not fit for the professional workplace. 

I just wanted to check with you, but are these the laptop configurations you are mentioning?

Asus Zephyrus: https://www.amazon.ca/Asus-GX531GS-AH76-Zephyrus-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B07KS1JF2H/ref=asc_df_B07G5Z9H8R/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292982093480&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15295351875294125316&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9000819&hvtargid=pla-570480416610&th=1

Razer Blade 15: https://www.razer.com/ca-en/gaming-laptops/razer-blade/shop

For Alienware, is it:

https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops/15/spd/alienware-m15-laptop

or I'm guessing it's the "new":

https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops/15/spd/alienware-m15-r2-laptop

And for the MSI GS65 Stealth:

https://www.amazon.ca/GS65-8RF-074CA-Stealth-Thin-i7-8750H/dp/B07BLD3PGW/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=MSI+GS65+stealth&qid=1573708049&s=electronics&sr=1-3


I am getting shafted by the Canadian dollar, but would you say even the entry level or most cheapest option for the above (with the exception of the MSI GS65 Stealth) would be capable of running Dolphin at 1920x1080 60 FPS or is there a minimum threshold for the above options that would be required for Dolphin to run at that level? Thanks a lot in advance TKSilver. I need to absolutely ensure before buying any of these laptops that they would be capable of running all Dolphin games. 

Most of the GPU recomendation was for native PC gaming. Dolphin will do 4k 60fps on most games using anything as strong as a 1050 (or even a 750ti). A i5 8300h or 9300h is also a way to save some money, but it will have less cores for games that can use them and for higher end emulators (like rcps3 and CEMU). Dolphin only really needs 2 Fast cores for itself (though I recomemd a quad core minimum so that background tasks run on the cores not being hit by Dolphin).

I will not guarentee every game Dolphin can run will run at 60FPS all of the time (there might be some edge case games) but I like to aim for 90/90 90% of the playable library running locked at native speed 90% of play time. And these should all do that.

Here is my model https://www.amazon.ca/Asus-GX531GS-AH76-Zephyrus-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B07G5Z9H8R/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3V9DH95GKDDHX&keywords=asus%2Bzephyrus%2Bs%2Bgx531&qid=1573739297&s=electronics&sprefix=asus%2Bzephyrus%2Bs%2Celectronics%2C564&sr=1-2&th=1
Should save you 600 Canadian (is that like $20 US...)

If you're *only* playing games on dolphin, anything much above a desktop geforce 750ti in performance isn't likely to be useful - that can do 4k in the vast majority of titles, which looks great if you use VSR supersampling to display on a 1080p screen. Similarly, having a faster processor than needed to run the most demanding parts of the game (or more cores, as mentioned above Dolphin itself doesn't really scale beyond 2) doesn't improve performance, FPS doesn't scale "up" like it does in most PC games, once dolphin can emulate a full-speed console it can't do any better.

If you only want 1080p and don't need lots of AA or similar enhancements, there are integrated GPUs that can pretty easily cover that (recent high-end Intel iGPUs or pretty much any AMD zen/vega APUs should probably do)

So if you plan to use your laptop as a purely dolphin-only machine, or only 'light' tasks like browsing the web and watching videos or writing documents, there's no need to stretch the budget.

One of the real questions with laptops is price range, and how much you're willing to sacrifice performance for the sake of size, heat and battery life. A good few machines boast high top-end specs, but lack the power delivery and cooling systems required to use them indefinitely, often throttling pretty hard. This likely means if you have a good looking laptop on the spec sheet, it may be worth trying to find reviews to make sure you're not going to be burned. This will likely mostly be an issue on the lower-end side of things, as the high-end likely has enough performance in the bag so that even if it throttles, there'll still have enough left to run dolphin without issues.

Pretty much any modern Intel or AMD Zen CPU in the "over 15w power" categoryshould be able to play the vast majority of games, if the cooling and power delivery can maintain that level indefinitely. Though be aware that if using the integrated GPU, the power (and heat) are shared, so you should probably bump up the bar accordingly.

Though be wary, as some very few games use features that are harder to emulate fast, so there's a few that struggle to play even on the current most expensive highest-power desktop CPUs, but the vast majority don't need anywhere near that level of performance - but be aware if one of your "must plays" happens to be one of those

Thanks a lot TK and Jonny. I think I have everything I need to know to buy what I am looking for. I might actually buy the laptop you recommended TK as it's quite affordable and does what I need. I'm also taking a hard look at the Alienware but that is definitely more expensive.