Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

My PC doesn't show 3D models (basically everything) in New Super Mario Bros Wii. It showed some sort of shader error but I dissmissed it. I don't remember what the error was, but here are some screenshots:

How do I fix this?

Does this occur on all graphics backends?

(10-24-2022, 01:30 AM)MayImilae Wrote: [ -> ]Does this occur on all graphics backends?

Only OpenGL works. (Edit: Direct3D 11 works!)

Right... I guess that would be the case for a 2007 GPU. Hmm.

Ok so, I definitely recommend some hardware upgrades. But I'm assuming you would have if you could, so, can you capture a screenshot of the shader warning you described and post a it here?

(10-24-2022, 01:42 AM)MayImilae Wrote: [ -> ]Right... I guess that would be the case for a 2007 GPU. Hmm.

Ok so, I definitely recommend some hardware upgrades. But I'm assuming you would have if you could, so, can you capture a screenshot of the shader warning you described and post a it here?

I managed to get a screenshot of it:

Your GPU only supports DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3, which are below Dolphin's minimum requirements.

By the way, older-ish lower-end AMD GPUs like the Radeon R5 240 would be considerably faster yet go for all of like $10-15 USD on Ebay...

Also, LGA1150 Haswell CPUs like the overclockable dual-core Pentium G3258 or non-overclockable quad-core Xeon E3-1220 v3 goes for like $10-15 on ebay, and they use DDR3 RAM as well which you can re-use from your current system (assuming you're not using an AM2+ motherboard with DDR2 RAM...not to mention that an LGA1150 motherboard may not be quite as dirt-cheap).

...actually the Xeon E3-1225 v3 and Xeon E3-1226 v3 include integrated graphics that would probably be faster than your current HD3400 and, at least on Linux, it'd even support Vulkan partially (at least enough for Dolphin); the G3258 also has integrated graphics but it's substantially cut down though.

(10-24-2022, 04:22 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]Your GPU only supports DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3, which are below Dolphin's minimum requirements.

Isn't it just the Windows GPU driver itself, not the GPU hardware, that is lacking OpenGL 3.3 support?

I say this because the 3D models are showing up on my "email & browsing" Phenom II PC with an integrated Radeon HD3300 running the OpenGL backend on a live session of Linux Mint 21.0 (albeit with a pretty substantial CPU bottleneck, though my fps seems similar to undefinedCat's which makes sense if they really are using an Athlon II 245):

(10-24-2022, 12:54 PM)Nintendo Maniac 64 Wrote: [ -> ]By the way, older-ish lower-end AMD GPUs like the Radeon R5 240 would be considerably faster yet go for all of like $10-15 USD on Ebay...

Also, LGA1150 Haswell CPUs like the overclockable dual-core Pentium G3258 or non-overclockable quad-core Xeon E3-1220 v3 goes for like $10-15 on ebay, and they use DDR3 RAM as well which you can re-use from your current system (assuming you're not using an AM2+ motherboard with DDR2 RAM...not to mention that an LGA1150 motherboard may not be quite as dirt-cheap).

...actually the Xeon E3-1225 v3 and Xeon E3-1226 v3 include integrated graphics that would probably be faster than your current HD3400 and, at least on Linux, it'd even support Vulkan partially (at least enough for Dolphin); the G3258 also has integrated graphics but it's substantially cut down though.



Isn't it just the Windows GPU driver itself, not the GPU hardware, that is lacking OpenGL 3.3 support?

I say this because the 3D models are showing up on my "email & browsing" Phenom II PC with an integrated Radeon HD3300 running the OpenGL backend on a live session of Linux Mint 21.0 (albeit with a pretty substantial CPU bottleneck, though my fps seems similar to undefinedCat's which makes sense if they really are using an Athlon II 245):

Somehow, the Direct3D 11 worked perfectly with more or less the same FPS (20-30 FPS) . Also, what is the fastest (by performance) Dolphin configuration for my PC?

(10-24-2022, 04:28 PM)undefinedCat Wrote: [ -> ]Somehow, the Direct3D 11 worked perfectly with more or less the same FPS (20-30 FPS)

That's probably because we're CPU bottlenecked using very similar CPUs (Phenom II and Athlon II use the same K10 architecture).

(10-24-2022, 04:28 PM)undefinedCat Wrote: [ -> ]Also, what is the fastest (by performance) Dolphin configuration for my PC?

Honestly, for a CPU bottleneck, there's not a whole lot that you can do. If you're feeling daring, you can move the "Emulated CPU Clock Override" farther to the left (the setting is located in Config -> Advanced), keeping in mind that it could very well horribly break some games.

Alternatively you could try using particularly old versions of Dolphin, e.g. v5.0, v4.0.2, v3.5, or heck even v3.0, and see if performance is any difference (keeping in mind that, the older the version, the more likely you'll run into emulation bugs).

You could also try third party drivers or making sure you have the newest drivers. I have a computer laying around with a athlon x2 250(1 step from yours) and gts 250. I didn't notice any visual issues and for the most part it was around 130 percent minus the stutter from shader because i didn't bother with ubershader or skip drawing. using 5.0.16101 and windows 7 by the way. I did have a message about buffer storage and direct 11 did also message since it was windows 7 but also work. For the record I know the gts 250 is good amount faster then the ATI Radeon HD 3450 but it feature set would be similar. For people who might think so this system isn't use for dolphin but for older windows xp games. Windows 7 is dual boot to allow for modern file sharing support since xp doesn't support 128 bit encryption that is used in windows 7 or newer and I don't want to reduce file sharing security for just a retro computer and for some game that have direct 10 support.
I'm not recommend getting a gts 250 to run dolphin either. I would recommend a new computer for the most part. This was to only compare and see if a 2007-2009 era nvida would have similar issues.