Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I would like to buy a mini-pc and also install dolphin on it, but I would like to e sure that the games work correctly.
I think the CPU is enough performant, but I am not sure about the integrated GPU

The PC has following processor:

AMD Ryzen 3 5300U:

* max. 3.8 GHz Quad-Core
* 4 cores / 8 Threads
* 6 MB Cache (L2+L3)
* 10-25 W TDP

The integrated GPU (AMD Radeon Graphics)

* 1500 MHz
* cores 6

the laptop I am currently using is intel based with integrated graphic, so I am not sure how to compare them, maybe somehow can help me to determine if the CPU/GPU is powerful enough?

I believe the most resource-intensive game I own is Mario Kart Wwii, thus I believe that if that runs fine at 720P/1080P I am more than happy.
(Although I did not test seriously Super Mario Galaxy, other games on the laptop are not problematic)

Let's just say, your concerns are overblown. If anything, that system is actually overkill for 720p/1080p unless it has the worlds slowest RAM (and, even then, it probably would still be fine, especially if MKWii is your most demanding game since that game isn't exactly demanding).

Amusingly, the CPU can actually be more of a concern, but it being a mini desktop rather than an ultra-thin laptop should in theory mean that the CPU will keep its boost clocks up and be also a non-issue.

(I'm guessing you haven't much experience with AMD integrated graphics? Generally they're just all-around superior to Intel graphics and can be competitive with lower end semi-modern discrete GPUs)

(03-23-2023, 04:34 PM)Nintendo Maniac 64 Wrote: [ -> ]Let's just say, your concerns are overblown.  If anything, that system is actually overkill for 720p/1080p unless it has the worlds slowest RAM (and, even then, it probably would still be fine, especially if MKWii is your most demanding game since that game isn't exactly demanding).

Amusingly, the CPU can actually be more of a concern, but it being a mini desktop rather than an ultra-thin laptop should in theory mean that the CPU will keep its boost clocks up and be also a non-issue.

(I'm guessing you haven't much experience with AMD integrated graphics? Generally they're just all-around superior to Intel graphics and can be competitive with lower end semi-modern discrete GPUs)

Thank you for the reply

I am happy to know that it is overblown because the mini-pc was overbudget, I might look for something less expensive then, even if I would prefer to spend something more and be sure that it works well than less and having thrown money away.

I have generally little to no experience regarding hardware (AMD or not).
I find it extremely difficult to compare cpu, as clock speed alone seems not to be enough (cache size, number of cores, ....)
For the integrated gpus, it seems to be harder to find relevant data for comparing them.

I've currently managed to test dolphin only on two devices, both laptops.

The first one, with an "Intel® Core™ i3-2310M CPU @ 2.10GHz" and an "NVIDIA Corporation GT218M [GeForce 315M]" MKWii makes, best case 7fps at native resolution.

The second one, a laptop with "Intel® Core™ i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz" and integrated graphic (according to websites called Intel UHD Graphics 620), MKWii runs without issues, but has difficulties at 720p (unless I set inside the game 30fps, but struggles with 1080p)


Other games I own are super mario galaxy, monopoly, smash bros, mario tennis, sports, ... I believe there is no games list that can be sorted by power requirements?

OK so the first laptop with the i3 and Nvidia GPU is just all around too weak. Honestly, I almost kind of wonder if there's a GPU bottleneck since I'm pretty sure I've gotten better results using the integrated graphics on that architecture, albeit specifically on Linux where Intel's graphics drivers are waaaaaaaaay better.

The second laptop with the i7 has a pretty decent CPU but the integrated graphics can be lacking depending on the RAM configuration (if it's just a single stick of RAM then that hurts performance), and my comment about Intel Linux graphics drivers also applies if the i7 laptop is running Windows.

(now, to be clear, i3 vs i7 does not inherently explain the difference - an i7 from 2011 will be slower than an i3 from 2018, especially in emulation)


In terms of CPU, most anything made since Intel Core 4th gen and Ryzen 4000 will be fine, and anything newer is basically just gravy and extra headroom.

For integrated GPU, anything non-desktop Ryzen (ending in U, H, or even G) will also generally be more than enough while Intel basically requires Linux to get the full performance out of them, and even then the way Intel segments their GPU hardware makes it more difficult to determine for non-savvy users like yourself if they have the stronger graphics or the weaker graphics. So, for integrated graphics, AMD are generally the more guaranteed option (also, at least on desktop, AMD's weakest desktop integrated graphics are faster than Intel's fastest desktop integrated graphics...)

That being said, integrated graphics cares a lot about memory bandwidth, so you want to either have two sticks of RAM (ideally at a good speed; like 3200 or more) or using LPDDR4 or LPDDR5 memory.


I don't know what country you're from, but do you know if https://droix.co.uk or https://droix.net ships to your country? They're a site I've previously suggested to others regarding mini PCs, and I have a friend that bought a dock/stand accessory from them recently as well.

Also, in terms of budget PCs, there's always the angle of a Steam Deck since you wouldn't exactly need lots of fast storage, so even the cheaper lower-tier models could work.

Lastly, if you want to learn more about the performance of various hardware, just let me know - it's something I know extremely well and I can at least get you pointed in the right direction so that, going forward, you'll be able to get an idea of the performance of various hardware all on your own. Otherwise, if Droix ships to your country, then you can just list various ones in your budget and I can just tell you which ones would be the best.

Thanks, those are fine suggestions.

I think I forgot to mention on all systems I've tested Debian was the OS, and I plan to use it for the next machine too.

The support for that particular nvidia card is deprecated; with the official nvidia driver I had crashes, with the noveau driver it's better, but even without the drivers the FPS did no change (and I was wrong I get 15FPS, not 7).
Maybe other distros have better support, I did not check (but also assumed that it would not make a big difference)

Quote:In terms of CPU, most anything made since Intel Core 4th gen and Ryzen 4000 will be fine, and anything newer is basically just gravy and extra headroom.

Thanks I'll keep that in mind

Quote:For integrated GPU, anything non-desktop Ryzen (ending in U, H, or even G) will also generally be more than enough while Intel basically requires Linux to get the full performance out of them, and even then the way Intel segments their GPU hardware makes it more difficult to determine for non-savvy users like yourself if they have the stronger graphics or the weaker graphics. So, for integrated graphics, AMD are generally the more guaranteed option (also, at least on desktop, AMD's weakest desktop integrated graphics are faster than Intel's fastest desktop integrated graphics...)

wow, did not expect that

Quote:I don't know what country you're from, but do you know if https://droix.co.uk or https://droix.net ships to your country? They're a site I've previously suggested to others regarding mini PCs, and I have a friend that bought a dock/stand accessory from them recently as well.


Also, in terms of budget PCs, there's always the angle of a Steam Deck since you wouldn't exactly need lots of fast storage, so even the cheaper lower-tier models could work.

Those sites looks interesting (I'm in europe, germany).
I would like a "real" pc, as I want to use it not only for dolphin, but dolphin is the most resource-intensive task I am going to use it.

So (I think) the steam-deck is a non-option (missing usb, ethernet and hdmi ports).

I already looked other threads, ( like https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-a-...or-dolphin) but as mentioned previously, I did not know how to compare the characteristic of the cpu/gpu and draw a conclusion from it.

(03-25-2023, 08:00 AM)fran Wrote: [ -> ]I already looked other threads, ( like https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-a-...or-dolphin) but as mentioned previously, I did not know how to compare the characteristic of the cpu/gpu and draw a conclusion from it.

I guess I can at least give you some minor protips to get you started:

All Ryzen chips between 2000 and 5000 use the same integrated graphics architecture, so basically just pay attention to the "CU" or "compute unit" count (kind of like the GPU cores) and the GPU clockspeed whereby more = better (clockspeed linearly increases performance on Ryzen graphics; CU almost linearly increases performance up until a point whereby somewhere around 7CU you start seeing diminishing returns and especially more than 8CUs)

For CPU, you already know that clockspeed = faster and, in general, I'd advise only looking at Ryzen 4000 or newer. With a budget and Linux in mind, that probably means only Ryzen 4000 and 5000 (especially since Ryzen 6000 and newer can have some trouble booting on Linux unless you can confirm for absolute sure that the BIOS has the option to use 3rd party security certificates and/or disabling secure boot altogether).  For Dolphin, Ryzen 5000 basically performs around 15% faster per clock (so Ryzen 5000 @ 3.5GHz performs similarly to Ryzen 4000 @ 4.0GHz).

(you can technically get away with older Ryzen, but they're something like 30% slower per-clock than even Ryzen 4000 in specifically Dolphin and a whopping 50% slower per-clock than Ryzen 5000, at which point you're better off getting a used LGA1150 motherboard and a cheap used LGA1150 Xeon with a cheap used GPU)

CPU core count won't be an issue as every Ryzen CPU should have 4 cores at minimum which are more cores than Dolphin really cares about.

Well, now I am mostly looking at amd cpus because of what you've told me about the integrated graphic.

According to what you've written, even the less expensive amd mini-pc on droix.net should be more than enough for dolphin: the Beelink SER5 AMD Ryzen mini PC

with

• AMD Ryzen 5[b] 5560U @ [/b]4.0GHz; TDP 15W
  
• 16GB Dual-Channel DDR4 &  500GB NVMe SSD
  
• AMD Radeon™  Graphics – 6 cores @1600 MHz
  
• Dual Monitor, 4K@60Hz
  
• WiFi 6E & Bluetooth 5.0, USB 3.0, [b]Type-C [/b]
  

is that right?

(for approx 270€, which is even lower than my planned budget, seems to good to be true)

The same model does not seem to be there on amazon.de (as I am sure it would ship in Germany), all others models seems to costs at least twice as much.

I guess I'll just check other manufacturers, now that I have a rough idea how to compare those values, and what cpu models should be good enough for my use-cases.

Not only should that be plenty, but I'm wondering how that is actually cheaper than the one you were looking at in your first post since it has a better processor? Heck, with 6 cores it could probably emulate even newer and more powerful consoles. Also, just for reference, the 16GB (2x8GB) configuration seems to be DDR4-3200 so it's good to know that Beelink didn't cheap out on the RAM with something mediocre like DDR4-2400.

Now the 15w TDP was historically concerning with CPUs that had fewer cores, but that's 15w allocated the entire chip, and Dolphin simply does not need anywhere near 6 cores and 12 threads. And even then, its base clock is 2.3GHz which still puts it in the range of even a desktop Ryzen 3400G not constrained by thermals.

...that being said, from some internet research, it seems that the SER 5 can be configured in the BIOS to use a 25w TDP instead so it might make more sense to set that (do note that it'd increase fan noise, but it's questionable if it'll increase it to any substantial degree)::

• https://farside.link/teddit/r/MiniPCs/co...y_settings

There's also maybe a weird throttling issue where you may or may not want to disable PSS (do some testing; CPU-X on Linux could work for this):

• https://farside.link/teddit/r/MiniPCs/co...w/ixwo4nv/

Thing is though, users on other platforms haven't really reported any issues with PSS, so try it yourself:

• https://farside.link/teddit/r/overclocki...t_in_bios/

By the way, I just want to make a special mention of this one which uses a desktop CPU socket since most mini PCs use laptop parts:

• https://droix.net/product/minisforum-eli...00-ryzen-3

Lastly, just one note - beware of ubershaders in some games randomly causing performance issues at high resolutions on integrated graphics, which I believe to be something related to memory bandwidth (a key bottleneck with integrated graphics). It's possible that the games you play will not have any issues, especially if you use hybrid ubershaders instead, but it's something to just keep in mind if you run into the same weird thing I found where I could be running F-Zero GX in-game on a Ryzen 4800U at 60fps with a resolution of freakin 5k and then, literally in the middle of the same course, I have to drop the resolution all the way down to native 480p to get back to 60fps and then, after a bit while still in the same course, I can set it back to 5k and still be 60fps.

Yeah, that why I was confused.

So good thing that I asked in the forum.

I guess the other website I've checked does not have competitive prices, or they might provide better support, or the mini-pc has some other feature I've missed (and hopefully it is not relevant for me)

Thank you again for all the suggestion, I can definitively do a more informed research now.