Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Full Version: Quad/Multi Core Support
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Will Dolphin ever utilize more than two cores? Right now I'm on a Quad-Core System, and I also have a system running on an Intel Core i7 Processor that shows up as having 8 cores in task manager. If Dolphin added support for these extra cores, maybe for having some work on sound processing and others increasing the frame rate, then games wouldn't be quite so slow. Just a suggestion, although I'd really like to get some Quad core support, as it would definitely help render the games faster (considering how much of an improvement two cores is in relation to one).

cmccmc

Dolphin couldn't use it. I forget why but it just can't.
Sad Is it because the games are originally unoptimized for multiple cores or something like that, because I'm sure it wouldn't be too complicated to simply "distribute the work" among multiple cores... somewhat like PS3 and Xbox 360 do when you play games on them.

cmccmc

no. It's partially because dual core is currently unstable still. I've also heard that it just wouldn't help for a reason which I cant remember.
I remember it was something about quad-core being technically 2 dual-core processors, and they communicate throught RAM, so for Dolphin that would be even slower that Dual-core...
Or something like that ;p
Dual core makes one core handle the emulated CPU and the other core handle the emulated GPU, video card does the rendering (they are not the same thing), and i think DSP runs on a third thread but it is hardly noticed.
(04-12-2009, 03:12 AM)PewnyPL Wrote: [ -> ]I remember it was something about quad-core being technically 2 dual-core processors, and they communicate throught RAM, so for Dolphin that would be even slower that Dual-core...
Or something like that ;p

Nope. Only the intel core 2 quad and earlier was mcm. Now they are all unified quad cores on i7 and up and all amd quads. Even then, the latency isn't that noticable.