Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I've read the rules, firstly so here's my specs :

Dell Optiplex 3040M 3040 Tiny Micro PC Desktop Computer, with Core i5 CPU at 2.5ghz

Don't know what the GPU is!

Is Dolphin suited to this spec? I want to play as many top games as I can.

Much appreciated,

D.D.

It uses plain old integrated Intel graphics found on all i-series CPUs from Intel's 6th and 10th gen which will be fine at maybe around 2x internal resolution give or take, though running Linux combined with Vulkan will help get the most out of Intel graphics as well as making sure to use two sticks of RAM (assuming it doesn't already have 2 sticks).

Speaking of RAM, the fact that said PC is one of those rare Intel 6th gen systems using DDR3 rather than DDR4 will technically hurt the integrated graphics some but, at the same time, it's also questionable just how much the integrated graphics would be bottlenecked anyway since, as I alluded to, it's not exactly the fastest iGPU in the world.


CPU-wise it's i5-6500T, and pretty much any non-Atom-based Intel CPU since 4th gen will be fine (non-Atom Celerons can be questionable though due to their reduced cache) as well as any AMD CPU using their "Zen" cores. However, the clockspeed of the i5-6500T may be a tad bit lower than usual with its 2.5GHz to 3.1Ghz clockrate... but as long as you don't have much going in the background, then you should be able to stay closer to the higher end of that clockrate range since that's a 4core/4thread CPU but Dolphin only really cares about having 2 fast CPU cores (with a 3rd taking less demanding loads).

With all of that being said, hopefully you're not thinking about buying that PC and you already have it, right? Because, unless you're getting the deal of the century (e.g. under $100 for the entire PC, RAM, power supply, and everything), then there are definitely better options, particularly in terms of the integrated graphics which will almost certainly be your bottleneck (though, again, it should technically run fine at lower resolutions), though any such better options would also likely come with a better CPU as well.

Hi Maniac,

Thanks for the info on processors, you really know your bacon. (!?)

Have you recently researched suitable mini-pcs? Perhaps you could recommend one, budget Mac is about £300.00.

Regards

DD

First off, is the following Amazon.co.uk product listing what you had originally found regarding the Dell Optiplex 3040M?:

• https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-Optiplex-D...B08SMSFV7R

Secondly, I'm not as "up" on Apple's specific SKUs so I don't suppose you have a direct link to whatever £300 Mac you were referring to?


Now with that out of the way, rather than type up a very lengthy post with every single possibility under the sun, let me ask a few questions...

1. considering that Amazon listing's £325 price-point and the roughly £300 price-point that you mentioned, does this mean that's your general price-target? Furthermore, is cheaper = better full-stop, or does it not really matter as long as it's within or around your desired price-target?

2. do you want to buy pre-assembled or are you fine with a do-it-yourself custom build? (keeping in mind that, with some mini PCs, the amount of assembly can be quite minor)

3. do you want to buy new or used? (keeping in mind that, for a do-it-yourself custom build, it'd be the individual components that are used and would be likely coming from different sources)

4. does the OS used matter? In particular, Windows will require a license key while LInux, well, doesn't (and depending on how soon a generic copy of SteamOS 3.0 is released, that could even be an option)

5. even something like the Steam Deck or similar could work; I don't suppose you have interest in such a thing, or do you specifically want a traditional game console-like mini PC?

sorry for my typo, I meant 'max' as in budget, not "Mac"

I have the Optiplex 3040M with the i5-6500T that I use as a mini server in Linux. I run Dolphin on it sometimes when I'm testing out some Linux stuff, and it plays fine for the games I've tried at 1x and 2x.
If there's a specific game (or games) you have in mind, I can check if I have it in my library and give it a test run for you.

(08-29-2022, 08:33 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]I have the Optiplex 3040M with the i5-6500T that I use as a mini server in Linux. I run Dolphin on it sometimes when I'm testing out some Linux stuff, and it plays fine for the games I've tried at 1x and 2x.

Psst, I don't suppose you could quickly run the (unofficial) Dolphin CPU benchmark on that so we have a better baseline? (see my signature)

Though you may need to run luabench through a newer version of Dolphin (which, as a bonus, now works with the Dolphin's default settings, though make sure to set the emulation "speed limit" to unlimited), but that's OK as long as you don't submit your result and just make note of which version of Dolphin you used (I personally have a strong preference for 5.0-16380 as I was thinking about using that specific version for an updated CPU benchmark thread, but it's not that big of a deal)

EDIT: Actually I just realized that Anandtech has previously tested the i5-6500T in the Dolphin 5.0 bench:

• https://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU-2020/2752

CPU-wise it was pretty similar to the 2400G and 3400G... but the 3400G would obviously crush it in iGPU performance. On the surface of it, that level of CPU performance would seem pretty good but honestly I think it's actually kind of sad since, for Zen1 and Zen+, emulation (specifically Dolphin) is actually one of that architecture's weak points - case in point, the 4350G is like 25% faster in the very same Dolphin 5.0 benchmark, but plain old Cinebench R20 single-threaded by comparison is "only" 14% faster between the 3400G and 4350G. Also consider that even the Haswell i3-4360 (a CPU that goes for 15 bucks on ebay, not a typo) was performing better in the Dolphin 5.0 benchmark than all of the aforementioned CPUs save for the 4350G.


Anyway, my main concern was less of whether it'd be fine and more about "why spend money on that when better options are available for a similar price?" e.g. I was just concerned about maximizing performance-per-dollar.

...also if the Amazon.co.uk listing did happen to be the one they saw, then I'd be concerned about it how the title of the listing says 16GB but the description says it only has 4GB of RAM. Yes 4GB will be fine, especially if running Linux, and DDR3 RAM is dirt-cheap on places like ebay, but... I just don't really feel like putting 300-some UK pounds into that era of hardware makes any sense.

I mean, if we're talking only 1x to 2x, then one could quite literally get a used Wii or Wii U, soft-mod it, and have everything "just work" without worry for considerably cheaper (in fact GameCube performance can be improved, and even Wii performance as well if you do the fancy method of running Wii games with the Wii U's full clockrate).

Apologies for the double-post but, basically, at this very moment in time, the Minisforum X400-4350G looks to be one of the best mini PCs around that $350 price-point in terms of specifically a pre-built solution:

• https://store.minisforum.com/collections...5853193377

The only thing I'd be concerned about is that they say that they only deliver to US and EU without clarifying if they mean specifically the European Union, mainland Europe, or all of the geographical area widely called "Europe". Also, I know that the UK power plug is different than the EU plug, but it looks like it's just using a standard 2-prong laptop style power cable that then plugs into the power brick so, in theory, one should be able to be easily plug a laptop-style two-prong UK power cord into the power brick and have it "just work".


...or a simpler solution is to just buy it directly from droix.net which is located in the UK and specializes in mini-PCs and PC handhelds; you can see from the photos in the product description that they include a UK power cord:

• https://droix.co.uk/product/minisforum-elitemini-x400-ryzen-3/

As of this post they only have 1 left but also have a coupon for 30% off (add the coupon code BTS22 in your cart) which makes the total price for the 16GB RAM + 256GB SSD model around £338 before shipping (on the product page, be sure to select the 256GB SSD model from the drop-down menu located above the item's price tag!...or select the 512GB SSD model for only £20 more).


For completion sake, here are two alternatives that are a bit more expensive that come in at around £400 before shipping for their cheapest configuration with the coupon code, the main difference vs the above model is that they use an iGPU with 16% more compute units (6 vs 7) combined with a CPU with 50% more cores (4 vs 6...which won't help Dolphin but will help emulators of more demanding systems like RPCS3); I don't know which of the following two would actually be faster than the other though since it's Zen3 H-laptop SKU with lower clocks but higher per-GHz performance vs Zen2 desktop-SKU with higher clocks but lower per-GHz performance...though the beelink looks like it'll run louder due to the type of fan it uses:

• https://droix.co.uk/product/beelink-ser-...-5-mini-pc
  
• https://droix.co.uk/product/minisforum-e...zen-5-pro/

And just for reference, here's the 6-core and 8-core desktop Ryzen 5000 mini-PC for £500 and £600 respectively before shipping for their cheapest configuration with the coupon code:

• https://droix.co.uk/product/minisforum-elitemini-x500/

That being said, with the impending launch of Ryzen 7000, I would not be surprised if AM4-socket stuff starts becoming particularly inexpensive (in particular, the 4350G is only Zen2 rather than Zen3).

Also, it's worth mentioning that the entry-level 64GB Steam Deck at $400 isn't that far removed in price point. That being said, it does have a weaker CPU due to lower clockrates (same architecture though and therefore identical per-GHz performance) but its iGPU is substantially more powerful, and it obviously provides the benefit of portability.

Thanks for the reply. I've just put a reservation in for a Steam Deck. But it's good to know there are a few decent mini pcs available too, if I cancel my order.

Do you ever just list TFLOPS, when comparing computers?

(09-03-2022, 04:00 AM)davediamond Wrote: [ -> ]I've just put a reservation in for a Steam Deck.

Just keep in mind that you'll be waiting a bit for one, though it seems not nearly as long as previously. Don't suppose it'd be rude of me to ask which model you went for?

(09-03-2022, 04:00 AM)davediamond Wrote: [ -> ]Do you ever just list TFLOPS, when comparing computers?

I do not because TFLOPS tend to not be comparable between different architectures, especially on the GPU side of things. That being said, GPU performance in emulation shouldn't really be a special case like it is with CPU performance, so one should be able to just look at normal gaming benchmarks to get an idea of emulation GPU performance from the usual places (exclusive ubershaders may be an exception to this but, in general, there really shouldn't be a practical reason to ever use exclusive ubershaders... but I guess it could make for an interesting GPU-compute benchmark?).


And for CPUs it's usually easier to just look at the Dolphin 5.0 benchmark results (whether in my signature or via Anandtech's bench) and, if a specific CPU isn't present, then to use a CPU of identical architecture and then do some relatively simple math to figure out what performance it would be at the clockrate used by your processor (e.g. a 2.5GHz 6500T will take nearly exactly twice as long as a 5.0GHz 10900K since they use the same core architecture save for cache size which impacts Intel's performance only a bit until you get to non-Atom-based Celeron CPUs which have such a major cache reduction that performance can be drastically reduced).

The one niggle is that AMD CPUs seem to gain much more from cache capacity in Dolphin than Intel CPUs, so AMD's G-series processors such as the 5600G perform considerably worse clock-for-clock than their non-G equivalents like the Ryzen 5600... at least up to a point since the V-cache models with absurd amounts of cache like the 5800X3D only seem to perform a teeny bit better clock-for-clock than the non-V-cache 5800X.