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Which are the best spec for a new pc for emulate Dolphin?

legolas119

New member
Hi,
I would like to buy a nec pc in order to emulate all emlulators at their best. Dolphin in particular needs a lot of resources, I know.

Well, do you think that if I want to play with this emualator with maximum level of texture, effects and so on, is it enough for example a cpu i5 4690K (3.5Ghz)? Or is it better a cpu i7 4770K (4.0 Ghz)? In some forum somone says that it's necessary a i7 4770K in order to use dolphin at its maximum level; somone else says that it is not necessary a so powerful cpu...and perhaps it is enough an i5 4660K or i5 4690K...

Which is the best choice?

thank you!
 

NES_player4LIFE

Texture Pack Invader
Moderator
Let's just say the I5 is ok but the I7 will be better, personally I am an AMD user and would prefer them to Intel.
Dolphin does suggest using the I7.
 

Shonumi

EmuTalk Member
*puts on Dolphin emu expert hat*

Actually, you won't see a noticeable or appreciable difference between an i5 or i7 at the same clock and of the same microarchitecture (e.g. an i5 Haswell running at 3.5GHz in Dolphin is equal to an i7 Haswell running at 3.5GHz). The reason? Dolphin doesn't use more than three cores/threads to do a majority of its processing. After 3, you basically see no return on investment. An i7 would be beneficial if you like to record gameplay videos while compressing Blu-rays while playing Dolphin while browsing Firefox, but outside of cases where you would need the multitasking, an i5 is more than enough. Even the Pentium G2358 is seen as the 3rd best CPU for Dolphin atm. Despite being dual-core, it can overclock (without needing a new cooler too) until everything you want to play is playable.

In the Dolphin community we generally recommend Intel's products. We're not fanboys, it's just that we've done several benchmarks, and time after time, Intel's CPUs consistently have higher single-thread instructions-per-cycle. This is the single greatest performance metric for Dolphin. It's a very CPU intensive emulator, and due to the way the original GC/Wii hardware was made, there's no efficient way to just throw more cores at the problem. You need a few fast cores rather than a lot of slower cores. Intel has simply been offering better CPUs that handle Dolphin's workload; it's not as if the emulator is biased. Recent improvements last year sped up the emulator in development revisions, so it's less of an issue now. A lot of AMD users are comfortably playing games, but if you want the "best specs" Intel's hardware just runs Dolphin better. It used to be something ridiculous like a 3.2 GHz Haswell CPU was equivalent to a 4.0 GHz FX CPU in Dolphin based on community tests.

As for those specs, go with the i5-4690K. Devil's Canyon overclocks far better than the original Haswell CPUs and you'll deal with less issues because of that. Most games should run fine on stock clocks without overclocking. CPU intensive games like The Last Story and the Super Mario Galaxy games will need overclocking to consistently run at fullspeed (especially once you get to the main city in TLS), but the super-fast recent development builds have really negated most of the overclocking we used to tell people they needed to do (like for Xenoblade Chronicles). As I said, an i7 would only nominally be worth the extra cost when considering Dolphin. Granted the i7-4790K has a higher stock and turbo clock, both the i5-4690K (with an OC) and i7-4790K will hit 4.2~4.4GHz, which is enough to tackle almost anything in Dolphin (and is overkill in many cases).

You haven't mentioned a GPU, which determines how high you can raise your Internal Resolution and AA without bottlenecking your system. With Dolphin, there really are no "maximum" graphics settings (you can set the IR to anything you want, even 6K or above), so if you have a goal in mind, throw us the name of a GPU and I can probably tell you what to expect. The Intel HD 4600 should be able to handle 2x IR and 3x IR in most games, and 4x IR in a number of others, if you plan to just use what Intel gives you.
 
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legolas119

New member
thano you very much. I try to resume:

1) cpu: i7 4790K is already perfect because it has 4.0Ghz (4.4ghz in turbo boost mode). If I buy i5 4690K (3.5ghz, and 3.9 in turbo boost) I probably need to overclok it (with additional cooler..). Is it correct? Another question: what doeas it means "turbo boost mode" on those K cpu? It means that, for example, the 4790K can reach 4.4Ghz without additional cooler and without manual setting from my side (I'm not able to do oc...I haven't made it before...so I prefer a cpu which can overclock itself without my work...

2) vga: I have read a lot of suggestions.. This is the list: GTX 970 (or GTX 970 G1 gaming, it is really good...but it is out of my budget...:( ), R9 290 (or R9 290 Tri-X or R9 290X). In my opinion the GTX 970 is enough for Dolphin with maximum graphic setting (and for pc games too with Ultra settings), is it correct? I will buy a new monitor (i have to choose it after I have decided the pc :) ) but I think I will but a monitor with 1920*1080 or at last 4K monitor. Do you think that GTX 970 is enough to play in 4k for example with all others settings at max?

3) ram: 2 x Kingston DDR3 PC1866 4GB CL10 1x4GB HyperX Fury Black Series or 2 x CORSAIR DDR3 4GB (1X4GB) 1600MHz C9 Vengeance Black ? Probably Kingston if I want to oc the cpu (I don't know if i7 4790K needs oc...probably not if it is able to reach 4.4 Ghz without additonal cooler). Otherwise Corsair

4) Mother board: Asrock Z97E ITX (if I do oc) or ASRock H97M-ITX/AC (if I don't do oc). Correct?

thank you for your help!
 

Shonumi

EmuTalk Member
legolas119 said:
If I buy i5 4690K (3.5ghz, and 3.9 in turbo boost) I probably need to overclok it (with additional cooler..). Is it correct? Another question: what doeas it means "turbo boost mode" on those K cpu? It means that, for example, the 4790K can reach 4.4Ghz without additional cooler and without manual setting from my side (I'm not able to do oc...I haven't made it before...so I prefer a cpu which can overclock itself without my work...

Only a few games require overclocking with an i5-4690K. Haswell CPUs are unbelievably fast, and the recent improvements to the Dolphin emulator itself has removed the need for overclocking except in specific games (it used to be a loooooot of games that needed overclocking). If you post which games you want to play, I can tell you what to expect. Each game has different requirements, because Dolphin needs to emulate different things (some more demanding on your PC than others). 3.5GHz is more than enough for the vast majority of games. Turbo Boost is the clock rate your CPU will jump to at the maximum, by itself, with no overclocking. Think of it as a temporary OC the CPU will do under the right conditions (e.g. your temperatures are not too high, else it will throttle back down to the base clock). The only thing about Turbo Boost is that some of your CPU cores will temporarily go idle. So to reach 4.4GHz on the i7-4790K, the CPU itself basically actually acts like a dual core CPU (Intel does a poor job of explaining this, however, wikipedia has a list of each clock at Turbo Boost and how many CPU cores are active). With overclocking, you don't have to disable any cores (though you can if you choose). That's the biggest tradeoff between Turbo Boost and real overclocking.

You probably won't need an extra cooler for the 4790K to Turbo Boost to 4.4GHz, but it may not be able to Turbo Boost to 4.4GHz for long periods of time without a better cooler. Turbo Boost is temporary after all; it works dynamically and scales back if the CPU is generating too much heat. If you don't want to OC, it's your choice, but by now it's not black magic like it was in the early 2000s. You can literally just flip a few options in your BIOS (or UEFI as most motherboards have now) and you are done. I did it my first time with no issues (and I had no idea what I was doing! Total noob too), and I've been running an overclocked system for almost 2 years, no issues. If you saved yourself the cost of the i7 by going with the i5, you could use the money to buy a cooler.

If you don't plan on overclocking, and you do go with the i5, please, please don't buy the "K" model. The non-K i5-4690 is about $30 cheaper is exactly the same as the K version, just without overclocking.

legolas119 said:
I have read a lot of suggestions.. This is the list: GTX 970 (or GTX 970 G1 gaming, it is really good...but it is out of my budget... ), R9 290 (or R9 290 Tri-X or R9 290X). In my opinion the GTX 970 is enough for Dolphin with maximum graphic setting (and for pc games too with Ultra settings), is it correct? I will buy a new monitor (i have to choose it after I have decided the pc ) but I think I will but a monitor with 1920*1080 or at last 4K monitor. Do you think that GTX 970 is enough to play in 4k for example with all others settings at max?

Well, like I said, there is no such thing as maximum graphics settings in Dolphin. Literally, there is no limit. You can set the resolution to any number you want. I'm no joking. 12K, 36K, 100K (you'll crash due to lack of sufficient VRAM though by that point). So it's better to talk about a specific resolution you want, such as 1080p or 4K. Since you did mention 4K, any one of those GPUs is sufficient for 4K in most games. Some games are really GPU intensive (such as Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2) and 4K needs a beastly GPU for those. But only a handful of those games exist. Again, if you gave a list of games you want to play, I can tell you if they'll be issues with Dolphin. As for PC gaming, I dunno, I don't play PC games ;)

About RAM: Dolphin doesn't care about RAM, just make sure you have enough. The emulator itself actually runs fine on 2GB of RAM (and lower, but I don't know the precise limits). I have 4GB and have been using Dolphin for 3 years, no problem. The type of RAM and the speed is irrelevant for emulation.

legolas119 said:
Asrock Z97E ITX (if I do oc) or ASRock H97M-ITX/AC (if I don't do oc). Correct?

Both look good to me.
 
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legolas119

New member
Thank you very much. Now:

1) CPU: ok, if you says that it is not so difficult to oc a cpu, I can buy a K cpu and, if needed, I will oc it in future. I have to decide i5 4609K or i7 4790K... Ah ok, so is it easy to overclock a cpu?
2) Vga: well...probably for dolphin (but also for pc games) every vga I said is enough, but I will tell you the games I would like to play
3) is it possible to solve the issue 3491 written here: https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Tatsunoko_vs._Capcom:_Ultimate_All-Stars ? I mean, with windows 7 you already have directX11, so, how can I play Dolphin with DirectX 9 in order to solve that problem?
4) Wii games list I would like to play, with resolution 1920*1080 and, where if possibile, 2K (but 1920*1080 it's ok):

1. The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword (4*)
2. The Legend of Zelda: twilight princess (4*)
3. Castlevania Judgment (4*)
4. Donkey Kong Country Returns (4*)
5. Metroid Other M (5*)
6. Mortal Kombat Armageddon (5*)
7. Muramasa: the demon sword (4*)
8. Punch Out!! (4*)
9. Resident Evil 0 (4*)
10. Resident Evil (5*)
11. Samurai Shodown Anthology (5*)
12. Super Mario Galaxy (4*)
13. Super Mario galaxy 2 (4*)
14. Super Mario All Stars: 25th anniversary edition (4*)
15. Tatsunoko vs Capcom: ultimate All stars (5*)

5) I have seen some options, so for examples, in order to play games as Tatsunoko vs Capcom, or the 2 zelda or metroid 1,2,3 with:

IR --> 3X
AA --> 8X or 4xSSAA
AF --> 8X or 16X

Do I need a 4.0Ghz cpu? with a vga as GTX 970 or R9 290 (or R9 290 Tri-X)?

thank you very much!
 
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Shonumi

EmuTalk Member
legolas119 said:
is it possible to solve the issue 3491

It's been fixed for over a year ;) DirectX11 (called just DirectX in the latest development revisions) and OpenGL will play this game just fine. DX9 is unnecessary to solve it.

Now about that list, (assuming the CPU is an i5-4690K or i7-4790K, and the GPU is a GTX 970 or R9 290):

1. Should be fine without an OC. 1080p or 2K should run fine.
2. Needs an OC. As you progress through this game, Hyrule Field becomes incredibly demanding on the CPU. Without patches, there literally was no consumer-grade hardware that could run it. Use the latest revisions (it will auto-patch the game for you) and you should be fine. It's not demanding on the GPU, however. 1080p or 2K should run fine.
3 - 11. These should not need an OC. 1080p or 2K should run fine.
12 - 13. These will probably require a slight OC on the i5-4690K, but I imagine the i7-4790K will run it fine on stock. This game is very demanding on the GPU. 1080p is definitely doable, 2K as well. Adding anti-aliasing will change that equation, depending on what level you're playing and what's going on. See my explanation below about GPUs and Dolphin.
14 - 15. 3 - 11. These should not need an OC. 1080p or 2K should run fine.

Now, about #5, in Dolphin, the GPU is responsible for determining how high you can raise your internal resolution and how much anti-aliasing you can add without making the GPU the bottleneck of your system. The CPU plays a very, very marginal role in your graphical settings. Your CPU is busy dynamically recompiling GC/Wii PowerPC assembly into x86-64 (or ARM) assembly and running the emulated game code. The GPU is used for emulating the GC/Wii's GPU (called the Flipper), so it is the component that determines if you can render a scene at 1080p or 4K, or how much AA you can add to a scene before your system chokes. So the answer is no, you don't need a 4.0GHz CPU to run a game with those settings you posted. You just need a very good GPU, and either the GTX 970 or the R9 290 will handle 3X IR + 8X MSAA with 16X AF. In fact, I'm still running those very same settings on my GTX 550 Ti (and this thing is old!), so I'd be very surprised if more powerful GPUs couldn't handle it. I can't handle 4xSSAA though (at 3x IR, 4xSSAA is equivalent to rendering an image at 6x IR!). Any GPU made within the past 10 years can handle 16x AF without even blinking, even the crappy Intel ones found in laptops.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I'm from the Dolphin forums (3+ years :D) and I love helping out people with this emulator.
 
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legolas119

New member
Thank you very much for your perfect explanation!!!

or, so perhaps it is better a i7 4770 in order to overclock it until 4.2 - 4.3 Ghz, when it is needed.. Or, a i7 4790 normal version...

I have some other quick questions...

1) Can you confirm that every new Dolphin release that I can find here (https://it.dolphin-emu.org/download/?cr=it) included ALL the fixes and upgrades of the previuous? So, it is always better to download the latest version that I can find in that page, is it correct?

2) I have read that the Wireless Sensor DolphinBar (in the web site of www.mayflash.com) is really good and if I buy it I don't need anything else to play with dolphin (I already have a joypad for the pc and also the original nintendo Nunchuck+Wiimote that I bought with Wii console). Is it true? Can I buy it?

thanks!
 

Shonumi

EmuTalk Member
legolas119 said:
so perhaps it is better a i7 4770 in order to overclock it until 4.2 - 4.3 Ghz, when it is needed.. Or, a i7 4790 normal version...

If you really don't want to overclock, I would not recommend getting an i7-4790 (the non-K version). You would be better getting the i5-4690 (the non-K version). It's almost $100 cheaper and it offers nearly the exact same level of performance in Dolphin. If you do want to overclock, I still would not recommend the i7-4790K (or any i7) over the i5-4690K. Once both the i7-4790K and i5-4690K are overclocked to the same level, the i7 is still more expensive without any real advantages in Dolphin.

legolas119 said:
1) Can you confirm that every new Dolphin release that I can find here (https://it.dolphin-emu.org/download/?cr=it) included ALL the fixes and upgrades of the previuous? So, it is always better to download the latest version that I can find in that page, is it correct?

Yes. Those builds contain the most up-to-date changes, fixes, and upgrades. The latest version can break things occasionally, but it's much faster and more stable than older builds. We don't usually recommend 4.0.2 because it is buggy and slow in comparison to the latest dolphin revisions.

legolas119 said:
2) I have read that the Wireless Sensor DolphinBar (in the web site of www.mayflash.com) is really good and if I buy it I don't need anything else to play with dolphin (I already have a joypad for the pc and also the original nintendo Nunchuck+Wiimote that I bought with Wii console). Is it true? Can I buy it?

Yes, the DolphinBar is highly recommended as a Wii sensor bar and a bluetooth adapter. I'm actually going to buy one myself this week. This let's you use a Wiimote on your PC like you would on a TV. You can use it, for example, to point the Wiimote cursor on your PC screen while running games in Dolphin. For more information see the official review here -> https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2014/08/23/dolphinbar-review/
 
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legolas119

New member
thanks!

Ok, I will buy a pc with the possibility to oc it. So, I need a K cpu. The 4690K can reach (Starting from 3.5Ghz) also 4 or 4.2Ghz, I think. Of course, i7 4790K (starting from 4.0Ghz) can reach I think also 4.5 Ghz, if needed. So he can reach, if needed, highter speed; anyway, it is not important to reach 4.4 Ghz with dolphin, ok. But, by default, it can reach 4.0Ghz and this speed is needed from dolphin: with this cpu, I can avoid to oc it immediately, but only when it will be necessary. Or am I wrong?

thanks!!!
 
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Shonumi

EmuTalk Member
So, I need a K cpu. The 4690K can reach (Starting from 3.5Ghz) also 4 or 4.2Ghz, I think. Of course, i7 4790K (starting from 4.0Ghz) can reach I think also 4.5 Ghz, if needed. So he can reach, if needed, highter speed; anyway, it is not important to reach 4.4 Ghz with dolphin, ok. But, by default, it can reach 4.0Ghz and this speed is needed from dolphin: with this cpu, I can avoid to oc it immediately, but only when it will be necessary. Or am I wrong?

That's all correct. Whatever you end up buying, have fun with Dolphin :) I'll be here or (more frequently) on the official Dolphin forums if you need any more help.
 

Clements

Active member
Moderator
I have a i5 4670K, and it can run some of the more demanding games such as Xenoblade Chronicles very decently with a recent Dolphin build without any additional overclocking over the standard boost clock. Obviously if you are going Haswell, you might as well get the updated Haswell CPUs that you have mentioned already for even better results.
 
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legolas119

New member
HI,

I have another question, about the monitor I have to buy:do you think taht it is better a 4K resolution monitor (24" for example) in order to support best resolution with Dolphin? Or is it the same result with a full HD monitor?

thank you!
 
F

Fanatic 64

Guest
For a 24" monitor (or anything close to it) 1440p is more than enough. 2160p ("4K") is only a noticeable improvement when sitting near a large screen (at least 5 feet from a 42" TV).
 

NES_player4LIFE

Texture Pack Invader
Moderator
I don't think dolphin can output to that high of resolution, 1920x1080 should be the highest. But if you can afford the display I would say go for it.
 

razius

MU-TH-UR
2160p ("4K") is only a noticeable improvement when sitting near a large screen (at least 5 feet from a 42" TV).

I don't think dolphin can output to that high of resolution, 1920x1080 should be the highest.

Actually it can, by using gameini settings for each game.
You'll find the settings in this thread, under Choosing Internal Resolution


You can also use a custom build where the dropdown menu has higher internal resolutions.
 

Shonumi

EmuTalk Member
That's why I said there are no "maximum" graphics settings in Dolphin. You're really only limited by how much VRAM your GPU has :p
 

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