Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums - New, Need opinion on best settings for my laptop

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I just got a new laptop, its a i7 13700h 4070 alien ware. I've only had it for 2 and a half days so bare with me i am not pc intelligent. What would be the maximum graphics or settings I could run a game with no lag? I've experimented a bit ill share those when im on my laptop again but almost every setting near 4k or higher had a slight skip while running fzero gx. I'll update this later today.

It should run very well. Please post your Graphics settings and Dolphin version.

(12-03-2023, 03:31 AM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote: [ -> ]It should run very well. Please post your Graphics settings and Dolphin version.

Bare with me I'm not sure how to take pc screenshots so im taking pics from the phone?. With these settings the game has a consistent skip and settings near it above or below

(12-03-2023, 06:09 AM)Nicosavageyt Wrote: [ -> ]Bare with me I'm not sure how to take pc screenshots so im taking pics from the phone?. With these settings the game has a consistent skip and settings near it above or below

You can use the PrtScn button on your keyboard or Win + S

(12-03-2023, 09:56 AM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote: [ -> ]You can use the PrtScn button on your keyboard or Win + S

I'm going to go out on a limb as say that 8x native internal resolution shown in your screenshot as well as the 6x native combined with 2x SSAA from your phone photos is the problem (reminder that 2x SSAA effectively renders the image at twice the resolution)

This is particularly an issue with your GPU because, despite Nvidia's marketing, the laptop 4070 is basically a desktop 4060Ti with a bit less clockrate and slightly more shader cores, and the desktop 4060Ti was already notorious for regularly being slower than the desktop 3060Ti at higher resolutions (1440p to 4k) due to the desktop 4060Ti (and subsequently the laptop 4070) using only a 128bit memory bus which historically was used for the 50-class of GPU, e.g. the desktop 3050. This means that, if historical naming conventions were followed and laptop GPUs used the same naming convention as desktop GPUs, then your laptop 4070 is actually much more akin to what would have expected to be named a 4050Ti (that's a five, not a six).

So first, as a sanity check, I'd recommend running at a much lower native resolution with no anti-aliasing to make sure that performance is fine, though perhaps with anisotropic filtering set to the maximum of 16x since its performance impact is very minimal but provides considerable visual improvement (also even the GameCube used 4x AF, so limiting yourself to just 2x is peculiar) and then turn up the resolution and/or anti-aliasing (you can do this while the game is even running—no need to stop the emulation in order to change settings).

Also, while I've no experience with Direct3D12, I can at least say that I was experiencing some stutters with ubershaders on with the OpenGL backend that was solved by switching to the Vulkan backend, so that's always something you could also experiment with.

(12-05-2023, 10:38 AM)Nintendo Maniac 64 Wrote: [ -> ]I'm going to go out on a limb as say that 8x native internal resolution shown in your screenshot as well as the 6x native combined with 2x SSAA from your phone photos is the problem (reminder that 2x SSAA effectively renders the image at twice the resolution)

This is particularly an issue with your GPU because, despite Nvidia's marketing, the laptop 4070 is basically a desktop 4060Ti with a bit less clockrate and slightly more shader cores, and the desktop 4060Ti was already notorious for regularly being slower than the desktop 3060Ti at higher resolutions (1440p to 4k) due to the desktop 4060Ti (and subsequently the laptop 4070) using only a 128bit memory bus which historically was used for the 50-class of GPU, e.g. the desktop 3050. This means that, if historical naming conventions were followed and laptop GPUs used the same naming convention as desktop GPUs, then your laptop 4070 is actually much more akin to what would have expected to be named a 4050Ti (that's a five, not a six).

So first, as a sanity check, I'd recommend running at a much lower native resolution with no anti-aliasing to make sure that performance is fine, though perhaps with anisotropic filtering set to the maximum of 16x since its performance impact is very minimal but provides considerable visual improvement (also even the GameCube used 4x AF, so limiting yourself to just 2x is peculiar) and then turn up the resolution and/or anti-aliasing (you can do this while the game is even running—no need to stop the emulation in order to change settings).

Also, while I've no experience with Direct3D12, I can at least say that I was experiencing some stutters with ubershaders on with the OpenGL backend that was solved by switching to the Vulkan backend, so that's always something you could also experiment with.

thank you, i will respond more when i process the information. im still within the laptop return window this laptop is 1800, any reccomendations of similar power? theres a high power mode its an alienware m16. so it has a high power mode but that turns the laptop into a dusty ps4 fan aka an airplane.

(12-05-2023, 10:38 AM)Nintendo Maniac 64 Wrote: [ -> ]I'm going to go out on a limb as say that 8x native internal resolution shown in your screenshot as well as the 6x native combined with 2x SSAA from your phone photos is the problem (reminder that 2x SSAA effectively renders the image at twice the resolution)

This is particularly an issue with your GPU because, despite Nvidia's marketing, the laptop 4070 is basically a desktop 4060Ti with a bit less clockrate and slightly more shader cores, and the desktop 4060Ti was already notorious for regularly being slower than the desktop 3060Ti at higher resolutions (1440p to 4k) due to the desktop 4060Ti (and subsequently the laptop 4070) using only a 128bit memory bus which historically was used for the 50-class of GPU, e.g. the desktop 3050. This means that, if historical naming conventions were followed and laptop GPUs used the same naming convention as desktop GPUs, then your laptop 4070 is actually much more akin to what would have expected to be named a 4050Ti (that's a five, not a six).

So first, as a sanity check, I'd recommend running at a much lower native resolution with no anti-aliasing to make sure that performance is fine, though perhaps with anisotropic filtering set to the maximum of 16x since its performance impact is very minimal but provides considerable visual improvement (also even the GameCube used 4x AF, so limiting yourself to just 2x is peculiar) and then turn up the resolution and/or anti-aliasing (you can do this while the game is even running—no need to stop the emulation in order to change settings).

Also, while I've no experience with Direct3D12, I can at least say that I was experiencing some stutters with ubershaders on with the OpenGL backend that was solved by switching to the Vulkan backend, so that's always something you could also experiment with.

i do also want to add, i only was testing settings out, the only genuine settings i was using was 4k display . i started experimenting with other things and noticed it was a stuttering with everything i did versus a small stutter here and there on 4k it stutterss consistently on any higher settings. thank you for your knowledge

(12-06-2023, 06:32 AM)Nicosavageyt Wrote: [ -> ]i only was testing settings out, the only genuine settings i was using was 4k display . i started experimenting with other things and noticed it was a stuttering with everything i did versus a small stutter here and there on 4k it stutterss consistently on any higher settings

Can you clarify for me if it still stutters even at lower resolutions, like just only 2x internal resolution with no anti-aliasing? Because even a desktop 4090 won't help you if the issue is actually CPU-related.

I will say that I did notice that your game list shows F-Zero GX which is a game I know like the back of my hand (protip: it has a widescreen option in the in-game options which is something a lot of people miss actually, so no need for a widescreen hack). One big thing is that F-Zero GX defaults to using single core emulation mode for stability reasons.

So if you're feeling experimental, right-click on F-Zero GX in your game list and select "Properties". From there, make sure to click "Enable dual core" until it's actually checked and not just a sort of filled-in X.

(12-06-2023, 06:29 AM)Nicosavageyt Wrote: [ -> ]im still within the laptop return window this laptop is 1800, any reccomendations of similar power?

I don't have any specific recommendations since I'm in the group of "all other laptops are dead to me" once I found out about the Framework laptop, and their 16" model with it optional user-replacable/upgradable Radeon RX 7700S discrete GPU isn't yet being delivered (it's only available for preorder).

Of course, the irony is that the RX 7700S would just be a sidegrade anyway since, as the naming suggests, it's a direct competitor to the laptop 4070 as they both use a 128bit memory bus. So not only is it not shipping yet but even its initial configuration wouldn't be any better...

Regardless, one of the issues is that there's way too much focus on the CPU (e.g. i7, Ryzen 7, etc) in the pre-built space (desktop and laptops) when you really need memory bandwidth in order to hit those high resolutions. Maybe it's because a lot of gaming laptops tended to be 1080p with a high refresh rate, and it's only very recently we're seeing 1440p and higher resolutions at high refresh rates? And of course, that even coincides with Nvidia's big DLSS push and AMD's subsequent following with FSR (especially in the console space where it's common to render at lower-than-native resolutions) to upscale rather than directly render at a higher resolution.

(to clarify one thing, high refresh rates require faster CPUs and doesn't care quite as much about memory bandwidth)

And while emulation has historically been much more CPU-heavy than GPU-heavy, Dolphin is still going to be less CPU-heavy then running modern native PC games at high frame rates.

At least for specific GPU recommendations, you'd have to go with a 4080 on the Nvidia side or a 7900 on the AMD side just to get more than a 128bit memory bus, at least in terms of current-gen laptop GPUs. For previous gen, it's 3060 and higher for Nvidia or 6700 and higher for AMD which, while they may have less computational grunt, GPU compute usually isn't the bottleneck for Dolphin a ultra high resolutions (maybe unless you're using exclusive ubershaders?).

There might be a different reason. In https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-f-...sue?page=2 there was a memory leak in the vram that cause stuttering if it was going to go over the amount of vram the card had which worsen with higher ir\aa. I found that using "cull vertices on the cpu" in the advanced graphic menu fixed it for me at the time. I retested before I posted this using similar setting to op and it seem to be gone in current build even without the setting "cull vertices on the cpu" in direct 11\12, however it possible that it was a driver bug and he using a older driver than I am(546.01 for reference). It possible that a driver update might help
While it possible the difference in the desktop rtx 4070 compare to the mobile is behind this, I haven't seen a x80 class gpu in a laptop under 2000 dollars so it worth trying. in addition memory controller for my test usage was low in gpu z only around 20, maybe 30, at most. This was even with exclusive ubershaders. I did also have compile be started checked. I use the third map in the ruby cup i can't remember the name of the map but remember it to be one of the trouble maps in the past.

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