22 replies to this topic

[Anthus]

Does any one else here use the emulator Dolphin? From what I hear, it's a pretty heavy application in terms of PC resources. I dunno if anyone here can answer this, but can you tell me if, at all, how well my computer would run it by looking at the specs? If not it's cool, I just thought I'd ask here first before joining a forum specifically for Dolphin.

 

Spoiler

Processor: AMD FX™-8150 Eight-Core Processor

Manufacturer: AMD

Speed: 3.6 GHz

Number of Cores: 8

 

Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 6570

Manufacturer: ATI

Chipset: AMD Radeon HD 6570

Dedicated Memory: 1.0 GB

Total Memory: 4.0 GB

Pixel Shader: Version 5.0

Vertex Shader: Version 5.0

Hardware T & L: Yes

Vendor ID: 1002

Device ID: 6759

Plug and Play ID: VEN_1002&DEV_6759&SUBSYS_E193174B&REV_00

Driver Version: 12.100.17.0

 

Memory 8.2 GB

 

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit

BIOS Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG

 

[ShadowTiger]

My PC is a little underwhelming compared to yours, very likely, and it runs it just fine from my experience. A few minor stutters in either Smash bros game here and there, but it's really just fine.

Where you may hit a snag is how compatible the games themselves are with the current progress of the latest builds of Dolphin. So the ball isn't entirely in your court, as it were.

[Nicholas Steel]

Just give it a try, if it runs poorly then that is that. The next major release will drastically improve performance in a bunch of popular games while simultaneously fixing a ton of bugs and improving accuracy. I'm not a person that frequently uses the emulator but I do use it. I'm however not at all familiar with ATI/AMD hardware so I can't gauge how well it will operate with your hardware.

Edited by franpa, 15 November 2014 - 11:19 PM.

[Xenix]

It will run fine. I have Dolphin on my computer. The only thing you'd need to watch is that AMD CPU. AMD CPUs have terrible architecture compared to Intel. So you MIGHT hit some performance issues on some of the heavier games unless you stay at 3.6 GHz or higher. That GPU is perfectly fine and should have no issues. AMD GPUs are amazing.

[Anthus]

Thanks for the replies guys. I might as well just try to run it. I want to switch to an i5, but I'd have to get a new motherboard too, and I don't want to pay for it right now.

[Chris Miller]

That should work out just fine.

My old PC ran a quad-core Phenom II and it ran Dolphin without issue.

(Except TP for some reason).

[Xenix]

Twilight Princess had issues due to the way the game handled Hyrule Field. Then they came out with the TP Hack for the game that would make Twilight Princess play at full speed in Hyrule Field. Now they don't even need that hack anymore. So it went from "No computer today can run Twilight Princess full speed." to "These are the requirements." So you really have to hand it to the dev team. They don't mess around when it comes to perfection and fixing issues.

The AMD CPU isn't so bad it won't run anything, I'm just saying that any performance issues that happen will most likely be because of AMD's terrible CPU architecture. Your setup shouldn't have that issue though in excess. So you should be fine. Intel is always the better option in the CPU department though, but I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you start needing more speed with less work. Most games should run fine on your setup.

[Nicholas Steel]

Thanks for the replies guys. I might as well just try to run it. I want to switch to an i5, but I'd have to get a new motherboard too, and I don't want to pay for it right now.

And RAM, can't forget it! (Unless you already have DDR3 and even then I am unsure if all RAM is compatible with both AMD and Intel architecture)

Edited by franpa, 16 November 2014 - 04:58 AM.

[Ben]

Your CPU is more than fine. It's like a high-end i5 already. The problem with AMD CPUs is that they are better with multithreaded loads (all the cores working together) than single-threaded loads (one core doing one thing.) Most programs do not take advantage of multiple cores properly even today.

[Omega]

Depends on the game and compatability. If you are noticing speed problems, make sure to see if Dolphin has built in fixs for certain games like some emulators do. Probably wont need a speedhack if Dolphin has it, but that might be something to! Also like Bagel said, check if they have an option for utulizing all cores, I know the PSP emulator does!

[Xenix]

Dolphin only uses 2 cores (three if you use DSP LLE on separate thread). AMD has always been behind on the CPU market. Their GPUs are a different story and tend to be high-end. You can ask any Dolphin dev to verify it too if you want and they will say the same thing. Heck, even PC elitists prefer Intel CPUs. Also, more cores does not equal more power. The fact that AMD CPUs tend to have an abundance of cores is one of the main reasons why they excel at multithreading. But the issue I stated with the architecture is the reason why they suffer in single-core tasks. And on the subject regarding programs not using multiple threads right, sure, you can call on other cores to share the work, but then you have the issue of synchronizing all the cores in use. This can, in most cases, cause development issues and performance hits in programs like Dolphin. Now, this isn't the case in EVERY aspect. Sure, AMD CPUs can do some things better than Intel, but eventually, it all comes down to the CPU micro-architecture. The same questions are always asked over in the Dolphin forums like "I have an AMD XXXXX CPU running at 4 GHz, why is this game lagging?" and it always gets the same response from the devs who do testing and benchmarks on multiple platforms and setups. Microarchitecture is a BIG factor in many aspects of computer processing especially when it comes to emulation.
Sorry for the random nature of this post's content.

I had a page somewhere showing comparisons between a Intel Core 2 Duo vs an AMD chip clocked at the same speed, but I can't seem to find it right now.

Honestly though, that CPU should be fine. Be sure to post results when you are done.

Also, I figured I'd show this to point out what I mean as I tend to have a history of using the wrong things in my arguments.

[thepsynergist]

Just for comparison, I have a Core 2 Duo Intel processor and a GTX 660 NVidea graphics card, and I can play Smash Melee at about 30-40fps.  

[Xenix]

What's your CPU clocked at, if I may ask? Is your chip locked or can you overclock it?
Oh, and to clear something else up before people bring it up, Dolphin doesn't care how much RAM you have as it can only use 2GB of RAM.

[Omega]

What's your CPU clocked at, if I may ask? Is your chip locked or can you overclock it?
Oh, and to clear something else up before people bring it up, Dolphin doesn't care how much RAM you have as it can only use 2GB of RAM.

Is that to prevent certain problems? Or is that because they don't require as much RAM as other emulators? For example, the main PS2 emulator, which requires a bunch of RAM.

[Nicholas Steel]

It's likely because it's a 32bit program (However there are 64bit versions available).