Recently having purchased an Odroid N2 for Kodi purposes, I decided to try out the retro emulation side of it... and now I'm hooked! It plays most games up to N64 / Dreamcast / PSP in 1080p, but there are a bunch of N64 and PSP titles that don't work very well. And, while I love the older retro side of gaming, my wife and our friends would be much more interested in something like Wii emulation, thus my desire to get a purpose-built emulation box with **more power!**
I'm not looking to spend huge money, but I'd like something small/console-like to play up to 4-player Wii titles smoothly at 1080p, maybe with HD texture packs. My only "spare" small PC is a 2nd generation NUC with an i3-3217U, but it scores lower than an Odroid H2 with the J4105. So no.
I started off looking at the NUC (the i3-10110U version seems good for the money), but decided I needed a better GPU. Then I started looking at the Ryzen 3400G with a DeskMini A300, but decided I maybe wanted a bit more single core power.
So, trying to be a bit future proof here, I've come up with:
CPU: Intel Core i3-9100F 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($81.00 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 33.84 CFM CPU Cooler ($39.95 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z390M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard ($133.57 @ Amazon)
Memory: Patriot Viper 4 Blackout 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($41.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket 256 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($46.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER 4 GB Gaming X Video Card ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Node 202 HTPC Case w/450 W Power Supply ($141.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $665.47
Anything here's that's overkill... or that should be upgraded for a smoother experience?
Any help appreciated!
If you plan on using high resolution texture packs, you might want to bump up to 16 GB of RAM.
Unless you need all those Display ports,
get this ASUS 1650 Super instead and get a higher boost clock for $10 less.
Also you might want
a GC adapter
You can run out of space quickly on a small SSD as you dump your GC/Wii library alongside your OS install. You might want to look into getting a 2.5" drive to expand storage. A Western Digital Blue SSD is pretty cheap, same with a 7200 RPM HHD.
(03-10-2020, 12:20 PM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]If you plan on using high resolution texture packs, you might want to bump up to 16 GB of RAM.
Unless you need all those Display ports, get this ASUS 1650 Super instead and get a higher boost clock for $10 less.
Also you might want a GC adapter
You can run out of space quickly on a small SSD as you dump your GC/Wii library alongside your OS install. You might want to look into getting a 2.5" drive to expand storage. A Western Digital Blue SSD is pretty cheap, same with a 7200 RPM HHD.
Thanks so much for your reply!
Interesting point on the RAM. I hadn't considered that. Any idea what kind of real-world memory would be used by Dolphin?
Nope on the Display Ports - just a single HDMI needed. I can't seem to find a review of the ASUS TUF 1650 Super, just the TUF 1650, but the ones I read seem to indicate that its fan is fairly noisy under load. The 2 quietest 1650 Super cards seem to be the MSI Gaming X or the ASUS ROG Strix, and at this moment I'm favoring the ASUS. Honestly, I don't really want to even spend this much on a video card, but it seems like any decent card (1650 Super, RX 5500) is about the same price, and it seems like going last generation or even 2 generations old doesn't save more than a few bucks, but the performance is way worse.
Agreed on the small SSD - I only plan on putting the OS/software on there. Otherwise I was going to host my dumps over a network share from a file server. But if I did choose to store local, the case has 2 x 2.5" bays so I'd add an inexpensive big SSD for that.
I've actually been considering bumping up the CPU from the i3-9100 to the Ryzen 5 3600. CPU performance goes from 2405 single core to 2804, and from 7226 multi-core to 18077. With a basic B450 chipset motherboard and basically the same of everything else, total cost difference seems to be about a hundred bucks, but it seems like it might last me longer / allow me to do more.
(03-10-2020, 01:18 PM)Sunfox Wrote: [ -> ]Interesting point on the RAM. I hadn't considered that. Any idea what kind of real-world memory would be used by Dolphin?
Dolphin uses about 500-600 MiB of RAM plus the size of whatever texture pack you're using (assuming the texture pack is in DDS, otherwise the texture pack will take up significantly more memory in RAM than it does on disk). So if you're not using a texture pack, Dolphin's RAM requirements aren't very high.
(03-10-2020, 08:49 PM)JosJuice Wrote: [ -> ]Dolphin uses about 500-600 MiB of RAM plus the size of whatever texture pack you're using (assuming the texture pack is in DDS, otherwise the texture pack will take up significantly more memory in RAM than it does on disk). So if you're not using a texture pack, Dolphin's RAM requirements aren't very high.
Yeah, a little more reading shows me there’s a pack that needs like 24gb, and a bunch that won’t fit in 8gb. I’m not worried about the outliars that I’ll probably never use, but it seems that 16GB might be prudent. Only 2 slots on a Mini ITX board so I can’t really just add memory later.
(03-10-2020, 01:18 PM)Sunfox Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks so much for your reply!
Interesting point on the RAM. I hadn't considered that. Any idea what kind of real-world memory would be used by Dolphin?
Nope on the Display Ports - just a single HDMI needed. I can't seem to find a review of the ASUS TUF 1650 Super, just the TUF 1650, but the ones I read seem to indicate that its fan is fairly noisy under load. The 2 quietest 1650 Super cards seem to be the MSI Gaming X or the ASUS ROG Strix, and at this moment I'm favoring the ASUS. Honestly, I don't really want to even spend this much on a video card, but it seems like any decent card (1650 Super, RX 5500) is about the same price, and it seems like going last generation or even 2 generations old doesn't save more than a few bucks, but the performance is way worse.
Agreed on the small SSD - I only plan on putting the OS/software on there. Otherwise I was going to host my dumps over a network share from a file server. But if I did choose to store local, the case has 2 x 2.5" bays so I'd add an inexpensive big SSD for that.
I've actually been considering bumping up the CPU from the i3-9100 to the Ryzen 5 3600. CPU performance goes from 2405 single core to 2804, and from 7226 multi-core to 18077. With a basic B450 chipset motherboard and basically the same of everything else, total cost difference seems to be about a hundred bucks, but it seems like it might last me longer / allow me to do more.
That Ryzen will indeed last you longer and will allow you to run other emulators easier (Eg. CEMU for Wii U/Breath of the Wild, Yuzu for Nintendo Switch , Xenia for Xbox360 and RPCS3 for PlayStation 3) as well as better fps running native pc games. If you have the budget I can also advise you to look into the 1660(TI or Super) cards and not get an AMD card as (sadly enough) A lot of emulators run worse due to the lack of up to date OpenGL drivers (which will never get updated according to AMD as they are focused on Vulkan) .
The 1660 super can be had for around 210usd. Other options you have is looking for a nice second hand 1070/1080 and get the same/better performance for potentially less money. This way you will even be able to play most recent PC games at great FPS at 1080p and be a bit more future proofed. Not that Dolphin will need more than a 750ti to run 99% of the games in 1080p