Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

hi, i want to know wich is the slow game emulated on dolphin, i think is mario galaxy , but maybe twilight princess Wii can be the one, tell me your experience please.

[GC] Resident Evil 4

[Wii] Punchout

Slowest game i tried was simpsons road rage i think it was running around 5 FPS. That im shure its an emulation issue, but like RE4 it probably really is a heavy game.
Baldurs gate on GC i got running on half speed, but i heard that even on game cube it starts lagging with to many enemies on the screen.

None of those games above are slow, and can be played at full fps with correct configs (and hardware). Mario Galaxy and Zelda are full speed too (except hyrule field), with minor music issues. Just search for their official threads to find help.

There aren't many gc/wii games left that run slow by default on dolphin. Can't even think of one that would be inherently slow no matter what configs, efb settings etc. you use. Even viewtiful joe 2 was thought to be slow by default, but disabling idle skipping fixed that too.

Remember.. A game isn't slow just because it's slow for you. It should be classified as unplayable or 'slow', if it can't be played at reasonable speed using the right configuration, plugin, and fast hardware. Otherwise, the problem is not with dolphin, but with the end user.

That's your definition of slow, but pumping all kinds of CPU power into a game does not mean that it is sill not slow or correct. Going back to the bad code issue. If my rig runs Zelda WW at full speed then there is no reason that most any other game should not run just as fast if the code for the game is right. So by that logic, and if I can run ZWW as it was intended at the correct speed with this setup, then other games are considered slow in comparison. Is it not my fault that my rig plays ZWW perfectly, but Punchout runs rather slowly in comparison. It's a code issue. All this shows it that some games are slow and that it does not take a super computer to run these games if things were more correct. ZWW being played on a 2.0 GHz dual core PC at full speed is a prime example.

Once again, how can I play such a vast 3D world such as ZWW at full speed, but Tetris, which is just a box with some blocks falling can only run at 50% speed for me? Bad coding for the game is the only explanation. The game is not getting what it needs out of the Dolphin code to run well, whereas ZWW has most of its core code in place so that a 2.0GHz PC can run it at full speed.

Starscream, generally speaking, the more gamecube/wii hardware features that a game uses, the slower it will run in Dolphin (as the game is recruiting more of the dolphin code to emulate correctly). This is true of any emulator and does not reflect the quality of the emulator's code. For example, the SNES games with a DSP in the cartridge run slower than ones without on any SNES emulator.




I am interested in what are the slowest games that (still) run on your systems. Post the game name, the fps and maybe where abouts in the game that it is slow if there are only certain sections.

Obviously, we're not interested in games that freeze (0 fps) or black screen or crash Dolphin.

(03-16-2010, 08:45 AM)userpasswordpassport Wrote: [ -> ]hi, i want to know wich is the slow game emulated on dolphin, i think is mario galaxy , but maybe twilight princess Wii can be the one, tell me your experience please.

In fact, TP runs too fast in my computer when using the dx plugin and a bit slow when using Opengl... Does anyone know what can I do to solve the problem?

(03-16-2010, 01:52 PM)skid Wrote: [ -> ]Starscream, generally speaking, the more gamecube/wii hardware features that a game uses, the slower it will run in Dolphin (as the game is recruiting more of the dolphin code to emulate correctly).

So what you're saying is that the reason ZWW runs faster is because it is not calling for as much code and does not use as many features as Tetris does? Tetris, a game that nothing moves on the screen except for some different shaped blocks? That game is calling for more features in the code than a gigantic 3D world? I find that very hard to believe.

(03-16-2010, 04:39 PM)Starscream Wrote: [ -> ]So what you're saying is that the reason ZWW runs faster is because it is not calling for as much code and does not use as many features as Tetris does? Tetris, a game that nothing moves on the screen except for some different shaped blocks? That game is calling for more features in the code than a gigantic 3D world? I find that very hard to believe.

Yes, that is correct. Dolphin is running each game as quick as it can - there are no bits of code that intentionally slow the games down (except the framelimiter/throttle). Code either raises compatibility or makes the game run faster. The decisions that the devs have made are in their mind the best trade-off's for both speed and compatibility so far.

Tetris should run faster than a 3D world like in ZWW, provided that both games run natively in Windows. However, in this case we are talking GameCube games so what you've written does not necessarily apply.

(03-16-2010, 06:48 PM)skid Wrote: [ -> ]Code either raises compatibility or makes the game run faster.

Just a few things here:

What if the game is asking for code that does not exist in the emulator or is not written correctly, but the game is still able to run? Code that basically achieves its goal but could be written in a different way or faster way? Wouldn't that slow the game down somewhat?

Here is an example of what I mean with the code.

If I give you directions on how to get to the store near my house, but I make you take some extra streets instead of telling you the easiest way to get there because I'm not really sure what the fastest way is, that is going to slow you down and make you waste a lot of extra time and energy.