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[McNum]

Hmm, this is a weird one. I changed the DSP to use DSound instead of XAudio2, and set the framelimit to "Audio". Fire Emblem requires a real DSP for its music to not stutter, which does hit performance rather hard at times, but at least it was easy to get from my own Wii. I also disabled the External Frame Buffer. Combined that might have done something. The game runs at full speed now, at least in map view. And during the intro movie which was wither 190 or 20FPS. I also changed to DX11, which should not be a boost at all in Dolphin.

In short: "What?" I don't know what I did, but the game is teetering on 57-63FPS now without audio issues, so when the game runs, I don't really notice. And that's WITH Firefox running to post this. And Firefox eats RAM like candy with all the tabs I've opened. Amusingly, the game really doesn't care about internal resolution now. Well, bonus! HD Fire Emblem? Don't mind if I do! Even if the map view models are rather blocky...

Can you save a configuration to a file? I have a feeling I might want to keep this one on hand.

Dolphin is a weird program. Very temperamental, it seems. Good, it's part of the fun, isn't it? It's still amazing it can do this...

How RAM hungry is Dolphin, anyway? Got 4GB and running the 64-bit version. I could sacrifice a USB drive to become a ReadyBoost thing if it's more hungry than that.

 

[DreadPirateRoberts]

A8-5500, 4, 3.2 GHz.

I've seen some videos of this thing running it pretty well, but I figured gaf is more reputable than a YouTube video lol

I can get about 20FPS in skyward sword at x3 native on the A8-4500m 1.9 GHz (2.8GHz boost) on stock dolphin settings. I can try some more tests if you like.

It all depends on your threshold for playable framerates really.

 

[AmaterasuOkami076]

Hi guys, I'm still pretty new to Dolphin (and PC gaming/specs in general) - but how would a system like this fare on Dolphin? I understand it's hard on the CPU, is this up to scratch?

The games I'd be playing mainly are any Mario, Zelda and JRPGs like Xenoblade/Last Story/Tales of Symphonia/Baten Kaitos. I haven't been spoiled by amazing framerates so 60FPS probably isn't a must. But locked 30 at the least would be awesome, I don't want to be reminded every few minutes that I'm playing on an emulator whilst traversing Gaur Plains. It'd just break the immersion and whatnot.

I'll probably end up building it myself but if there are any potential problems that I might run into with a build like that. It'd be awesome if you guys could let me know. Thanks!

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Hi guys, I'm still pretty new to Dolphin (and PC gaming/specs in general) - but how would a system like this fare on Dolphin? I understand it's hard on the CPU, is this up to scratch?

The games I'd be playing mainly are any Mario, Zelda and JRPGs like Xenoblade/Last Story/Tales of Symphonia/Baten Kaitos. I haven't been spoiled by amazing framerates so 60FPS probably isn't a must. But locked 30 at the least would be awesome, I don't want to be reminded every few minutes that I'm playing on an emulator whilst traversing Gaur Plains. It'd just break the immersion and whatnot.

I'll probably end up building it myself but if there are any potential problems that I might run into with a build like that. It'd be awesome if you guys could let me know. Thanks!

That should do nicely. It's a better rig than I have and I haven't had trouble with any games not running at a playable state.

 

[MvmntInGrn]

Hi guys, I'm still pretty new to Dolphin (and PC gaming/specs in general) - but how would a system like this fare on Dolphin? I understand it's hard on the CPU, is this up to scratch?

The games I'd be playing mainly are any Mario, Zelda and JRPGs like Xenoblade/Last Story/Tales of Symphonia/Baten Kaitos. I haven't been spoiled by amazing framerates so 60FPS probably isn't a must. But locked 30 at the least would be awesome, I don't want to be reminded every few minutes that I'm playing on an emulator whilst traversing Gaur Plains. It'd just break the immersion and whatnot.

I'll probably end up building it myself but if there are any potential problems that I might run into with a build like that. It'd be awesome if you guys could let me know. Thanks!

This is quite simmilar to my PC (also have an i7 3770k and GTX 670). Haven't played much Dolphin myself but I tried Xenoblade some months ago and it ran perfectly at 3x Native Resolution at 3.4GHz at the beginning of the game at least. Resident Evil 4 has been a bit more troublesome but mostly due to settings. I've overclocked to 4.8GHz now but it hasn't improved the performance a whole lot it was mostly getting the right settings.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but its not really about running at 30 or 60 fps from what I can tell. RE4 is a 30fps game and at 100% emulation speed its 30fps. If you remove the FPS cap and run at 60 the game would just be 2x a fast. A 60fps game, like Metroid Prime, would hit 60fps at 100% emulation speed.

 

[AmaterasuOkami076]

That should do nicely. It's a better rig than I have and I haven't had trouble with any games not running at a playable state.

This is quite simmilar to my PC (also have an i7 3770k and GTX 670). Haven't played much Dolphin myself but I tried Xenoblade some months ago and it ran perfectly at 3x Native Resolution at 3.4GHz at the beginning of the game at least. Resident Evil 4 has been a bit more troublesome but mostly due to settings. I've overclocked to 4.8GHz now but it hasn't improved the performance a whole lot it was mostly getting the right settings.

Thanks! I'm probably going to get an i5 3570k @3.4GHz, since it's overclockable that re-assures me that it's future proof too. Just pricing up parts now. Thanks again guys.

 

[Garteal]

Hey fellow Gaffers,

We've been gathering data by benchmarking the CPU in The Wind Waker on the Dolphin forums.
It would be extremely helpful if you guys also contributed to the benchmark.
The thread can be found here. The OP should have all the info you need for an eligible result.

Make sure that the boat that occasionally fares is not visible and that you wait 5-10 seconds after he disappears before taking your screenshot.

 

[Alo81]

Hey fellow Gaffers,

We've been gathering data by benchmarking the CPU in The Wind Waker on the Dolphin forums.
It would be extremely helpful if you guys also contributed to the benchmark.
The thread can be found here. The OP should have all the info you need for an eligible result.

Make sure that the boat that occasionally fares is not visible and that you wait 5-10 seconds after he disappears before taking your screenshot.

What is this testing?

 

[MvmntInGrn]

I've go the typical OCD when it comes to getting my settings just right in PC games but Dolphin takes this to a new level.

Every. Single. Time. I run into a new hiccup in Resident Evil 4 I spend a lot of time trying to reproduce it and tweak settings to fix it. It's strangely enjoyable though.

HD textures result in stuttering when loading large areas and if the area is big enough it'll continue to stutter after the first few moments so I stopped using them except for Dualshock button prompts that I made. I noticed "Skip EFB Access from CPU" that fixed my hiccups earlier removes some of the lighting effects(we cannot have that) and after more fiddling it seems the overall best setup seems to be using OpenGL as the video backend (supposedly slower but thats not my experience) with ""Skip EFB Access from CPU" unchecked. All effects seem present and without the strange performance issues. Fingers crossed.

Except now I am using the latest 64bit version of the emulator and OpenGL so no SweetFx. I hear you can use a wrapper to maybe address that though (if I use the x86 Dolphin release). I'm much more worried about stability though so I'll get over it.

 

[Wanny]

Does anyone have success in using SweetFX for Dolphin 64-bit and RadeonPro on Nvidia card?

If so, how?

 

[Wanny]

nvm about my previous post I got it sorted.

I'm really starting to like Dolphin here. Running GC/Wii games in insane resolutions is a god bless. I'm gonna slowly browse that thread. Lots of pages to read!

Here's 2 wind waker shots with SweetFX (slight cartoon shader), textures, No HUD & 3520x2200 resolution (bit stretched vertically for 16:10).

 

[Alo81]

nvm about my previous post I got it sorted.

I'm really starting to like Dolphin here. Running GC/Wii games in insane resolutions is a god bless. I'm gonna slowly browse that thread. Lots of pages to read!

Here's 2 wind waker shots with SweetFX (slight cartoon shader), textures, No HUD & 3520x2200 resolution (bit stretched vertically for 16:10).

How are you disabling the HUD? I used a custom texture pack I made but it really did not work well. Any insight?

 

[Wanny]

How are you disabling the HUD? I used a custom texture pack I made but it really did not work well. Any insight?

This :
1. http://www.flickr.com/groups/deadendthrills/discuss/72157632989140133/
+
2. No Hud action replay code (already default in dolphin I think)

 

[Garteal]

I found the best way to disable the HUD in Wind Waker (might work for other games too) without using transparent textures is to:

- right-click the game in Dolphin
- check the Custom Projection Hack checkbox
- click on Settings (next to the checkbox)
- choose Skies of Arcadia as a preset
- apply the settings

You might want to create a savestate or such to load you back in the game as this will get rid of a lot of options in the startscreen, but everything (afaik) in-game.

 

[Ty4on]

Resolution doesn't seem to help much. I overclocked my CPU (i7 3770k) to 4.8(I know some people push this higher) and saw some slight improvement.

Getting Ivy to 5Ghz without delidding is very rare because it's so hard to cool. 4.8 is pretty good, most I have seen outside of reviews!

 

[Stallion Free]

I'm really starting to like Dolphin here.

I don't think any sane person could not love Dolphin. It's an insanely ambitious product that is completely free and brings a whole new life to your catalog of Wii/GCN titles. It's brings a tear to my eye just thinking about how incredible the internet because of the community development it allows for.

 

[jsnepo]

Is Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes glitch free now? I really want to play it. Also, how can I play my copy? My DVD drive does not detect it.

 

[Garteal]

Good news to all Dolphins, as of version 3.5-1031, Dolphin will be shipped with a free DSP ROM for LLE that is compatible with most games.

Is Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes glitch free now? I really want to play it. Also, how can I play my copy? My DVD drive does not detect it.

You need a special dvd-drive that's compatible with RawDump in order to dump it from your PC. (here is a list of compatible drives)
Otherwise you need a homebrew enabled Wii with a backup manager to dump it. (Or CleanRip).

 

[Wanny]

I found the best way to disable the HUD in Wind Waker (might work for other games too) without using transparent textures is to:

- right-click the game in Dolphin
- check the Custom Projection Hack checkbox
- click on Settings (next to the checkbox)
- choose Skies of Arcadia as a preset
- apply the settings

You might want to create a savestate or such to load you back in the game as this will get rid of a lot of options in the startscreen, but everything (afaik) in-game.

Geez thanks for that. That's even easier.

 

[Alo81]

I found the best way to disable the HUD in Wind Waker (might work for other games too) without using transparent textures is to:

- right-click the game in Dolphin
- check the Custom Projection Hack checkbox
- click on Settings (next to the checkbox)
- choose Skies of Arcadia as a preset
- apply the settings

You might want to create a savestate or such to load you back in the game as this will get rid of a lot of options in the startscreen, but everything (afaik) in-game.

Bookmarked*

 

[ss_lemonade]

Will an hd 4000 be able to run dolphin (if needed, without raising IR) well? If not, how about a gtx 260? I'm building a 3570k rig now but it may be a while before a get a new GPU

 

[Dereck]

It seems "Skip EFB Access from CPU" may have solved my stability problems. Says it can introduce graphical problems though. I saw a shadow snap out of view and the water looks a bit different (maybe) but overall it looks like it should work well. I've been saving each save to a new slot so I went back to a few known problems areas and the framerate is a steady 30. Cutscenes still contain some hiccups switching between views and sometimes entering a large area may have a slight hitch or two but its hard to go back to Wii after playing it on here (would help if the game had a 4:3 mode).

Here is a SweetFx shot from a bit farther in the game. Might be a bit too dark but I still think it looks great. Love the glowy lava :O

That looks incredible.

 

[KojiKnight]

Will an hd 4000 be able to run dolphin (if needed, without raising IR) well? If not, how about a gtx 260? I'm building a 3570k rig now but it may be a while before a get a new GPU

The HD4000 MAY work out fine, but I wouldn't guess beyond native resolution (480p). You really don't have any other video card? I mean, anything with a 128-bit memory address should be able to at least do 720p.

 

[ss_lemonade]

The HD4000 MAY work out fine, but I wouldn't guess beyond native resolution (480p). You really don't have any other video card? I mean, anything with a 128-bit memory address should be able to at least do 720p.

The gtx 260 is another option. I might be able to get one for like $35 if its a good enough difference

 

[KojiKnight]

The gtx 260 is another option. I might be able to get one for like $35 if its a good enough difference

Yes, it'll be a huge difference. PS2 and GCN/Wii emulation doesn't require much in the way of shaders or general processing power. Instead it's MUCH more important to worry about memory bandwidth. While GDDR3 isn't going to get you 4k resolutions, it should still net HD resolutions (720p for sure on nearly every game, with quite a few being 1080p+)

 

[Platy]

Besides DKR, is there any more game with ocarina cheats to allow Classic Controler ?

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

Besides DKR, is there any more game with ocarina cheats to allow Classic Controler ?

New Super Mario Bros.

 

[MvmntInGrn]

That looks incredible.

Stop you're making me sad Ended up finishing the game on Wii (still beautiful on an SDTV).

HD Textures cause stuttering when loading large areas and every time I ran into performance bugs I'd find a way to fix them just to have the next area cause problems. As the game goes on you end up in larger areas with more enemies and stability just because an annoying problem. Really not game-breaking stability problems but unless its an unwavering perfect 100% speed, like I get in Xenoblade, it irks me to no end. Not that Xenoblade doesn't have its own issues (random crashing, strange display error that makes it look like 480p until you alt-enter out and back) but its always 100% speed.

Might try Killer 7 on dolphin. I'll have to revisit RE4 on dolphin down the line (maybe more overclocking could help but it didn't seem like it was taxing my system fully as it was, just emulation troubles).

 

[M3d10n]

The HD4000 MAY work out fine, but I wouldn't guess beyond native resolution (480p). You really don't have any other video card? I mean, anything with a 128-bit memory address should be able to at least do 720p.

My 4850 runs Dolphin at 1080p flawlessly. No supersampling, of course.

 

[MvmntInGrn]

Here is some Killer 7. These shots have 8xAA but it seems like it creates some funky artifacts when character models are in the distance (all enemies, your model at times). I'm finding it a lot harder to aim with the DS3(via MotionJoy) than on the Gamecube. I wonder if its possible to rig some sort of mouselook in this game as you don't use the analog for movement anyway, just for shooting. Widescreen hack works well. Just a few small objects occasionally flicker on and off but not whole section of the environment or anything.

Any suggestions to get the controls feeling better? Deadzone seems too big even when its at zero. I'll give it a bit more time.

 

[StalkerUKCG]

What are people taking screenshots with. The default screenshot feature produces horrible results.

 

[xJavonta]

What are people taking screenshots with. The default screenshot feature produces horrible results.

I use RadeonPro. Used to use FRAPS. Both work well.

 

[Eyothrie]

is there a go-to guide to get Xenoblade working great? audio and video? I can't seem to find a definitive guide to setting the game up. The last time I tried, the audio sounded horrible using the NTSC US .iso. Help?

GTX 680
i7 3820 4.1
16gb RAM

 

[MvmntInGrn]

What are people taking screenshots with. The default screenshot feature produces horrible results.

Well with RE4 I used Fraps but these shots are using the default Dolphin one. Looks fine to me.

 

[Uhyve]

Any suggestions to get the controls feeling better? Deadzone seems too big even when its at zero. I'll give it a bit more time.

MotionInJoy also has a deadzone setting, you could try messing with that.

 

[Übermatik]

So does anyone actually have working settings for F-ZERO GX yet? No matter what I try it's always slow for me, like, sub 20fps.

I've got a 2.6Ghz/3.3Ghz intel core i7, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and a GT 650M 1024mb.

 

[Wanny]

Hey guys,

Are there HD textures packs available for MoHun Tri? Google wasn't of help here.

 

[MvmntInGrn]

MotionInJoy also has a deadzone setting, you could try messing with that.

Thanks I forgot about this. At some point I changed the deadzone from the default 12 to 64 (no clue why).

Much better now thanks.

 

[Lime]

Been playing Muramasa with a fan-made texture pack:

 

[Lime]

And some gifs for the sake of it:

 

[KojiKnight]

What are people taking screenshots with. The default screenshot feature produces horrible results.

print screen + any image editing program

 

[Lime]

print screen + any image editing program

Are you seriously pressing print screen and then copy-pasting into an image editing program and then save the file?

MSI Afterburner is free and allows for screenshot functionality. Fraps' free version includes bmp screenshots with the press of a button.

 

[rallyart]

Been playing Muramasa with a fan-made texture pack:

Looks amazing, where can I find this mod(works with US version)?

thanks

 

[KojiKnight]

Are you seriously pressing print screen and then copy-pasting into an image editing program and then save the file?

MSI Afterburner is free and allows for screenshot functionality. Fraps' free version includes bmp screenshots with the press of a button.

If I'm looking for a glamor shot? Hell yeah I am. If I'm just dumping a bunch of quick screen shots for a website or something I used Bandicam (which I also use for video recording since it has better features than FRAPS).

Fraps and many other image recording programs sacrifice quality for speed so as to not interrupt your game too much when writing to the hard drive. Print screen puts a 1:1 copy into memory that you can then put into a decent image editing software giving you fewer artifacts.

 

[Lime]

Looks amazing, where can I find this mod(works with US version)?

thanks

Only works for PAL version, as far as I understand. Otherwise rename the texture folder to the NTSC version name: http://www.mediafire.com/?cov3o0hnydgf1jk,5g1eg5od399qbcw,edw1ihetqhi8g8v,95drt82vrj30qo5

If I'm looking for a glamor shot? Hell yeah I am. If I'm just dumping a bunch of quick screen shots for a website or something I used Bandicam (which I also use for video recording since it has better features than FRAPS).

Fraps and many other image recording programs sacrifice quality for speed so as to not interrupt your game too much when writing to the hard drive. Print screen puts a 1:1 copy into memory that you can then put into a decent image editing software giving you fewer artifacts.

I can respect that.

 

[Alo81]

Fraps and many other image recording programs sacrifice quality for speed so as to not interrupt your game too much when writing to the hard drive. Print screen puts a 1:1 copy into memory that you can then put into a decent image editing software giving you fewer artifacts.

Since when?

Take screenshots as BMP files, and force lossless RGB capture for video.

 

[Garteal]

Nice Muramasa screenshots Lime. You've inspired me to finally try out the game.
What a gorgeous game!

Here are some hudless screenshots as a thanks.
(Used Abload because Minus is very─ VERY slow right now)

5xIR, 2560x1600, downsampled to 1920x1200

Fraps and many other image recording programs sacrifice quality for speed so as to not interrupt your game too much when writing to the hard drive. Print screen puts a 1:1 copy into memory that you can then put into a decent image editing software giving you fewer artifacts.

So does FRAPS if you choose to save as a BMP or PNG.
Both of them are lossless. There are no artifacts.

As for the harddrive issue you seem to have. Get a decent harddrive then. Any 7200rpm harddrive shouldn't give you any problems saving an image to the harddrive unless you attempt to capture a game at an insane resolution.
Another harddrive will also help a lot.

Since when?

Take screenshots as BMP files, and force lossless RGB capture for video.

PNG is the better container since it compresses the data while being lossless.
BMP is uncompressed and lossless.
So unless you are forced to use BMP for compatibility reasons, use PNG.

 

[Zeliard]

Yes, use PNG. Relatively small file size and no loss of information.

... don't use the print screen function. What a hassle that must be.

 

[Dr.Acula]

If I want to add bluetooth to my PC, what's the best add-in thingy? A pci card, a USB3 dongle? How much do they run and what's a good one?

 

[FillerB]

If I want to add bluetooth to my PC, what's the best add-in thingy? A pci card, a USB3 dongle? How much do they run and what's a good one?

Just get a small dongle. Doesn't even have to be USB3. This one from DealExtreme is pretty cheap and I never had problems with it. Shipping (free!) is from Hong Kong so that might take ~3 weeks.