# Dolphin Emulator 4.0 Slower Than Older Releases?



## Kirito-kun (Oct 14, 2013)

Is it just me, or does Dolphin 4.0 seem to run a lot slower than Dolphin 3.0/3.5?

With Dolphin 3.0 and 3.5, I was able to get a stable 60/30FPS on almost any Wii or GameCube game. SSBB for example previously ran at perfect 60 FPS at 1080p internal resolution with anti-aliasing. Now, it only gets 40 FPS to 50 FPS with the resolution turned down to 480p and anti-aliasing turned off. It's the same with other games too.

The only solution I found was to set the graphical backend to OpenGL. That seemed to completely restore the previous performance. But it's quite annoying that only 1 of the 3 backends actually run well now. Is anyone else encountering this?


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## the_randomizer (Oct 14, 2013)

For now, the DirectX 11 API/backend is recommended as the other APIs are deprecated. Not to mention the new HLE audio code (which also helps since LLE audio is  no longer needed) with that, using Open AL will help with skipping. What are your PC specs?


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## Kirito-kun (Oct 14, 2013)

the_randomizer said:


> For now, the DirectX 11 API/backend is recommended as the other APIs are deprecated. Not to mention the new HLE audio code (which also helps since LLE audio is no longer needed) with that, using Open AL will help with skipping. What are your PC specs?


 
DX11 may be recommended, but it seems to be way slower than OpenGL, and slower than it was in Dolphin 3.5 and older releases.

AMD Phenom II X4 960T OC @ 3.9 GHz
Nvidia GTS 450 1GB GDDR5 OCed
8GB DDR3 RAM


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## the_randomizer (Oct 14, 2013)

You do have OpenMP texture decoding and dual core as well as idle skipping enabled right? Those should give speed boosts.


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## Kirito-kun (Oct 15, 2013)

Dual-core and idle skipping were already enabled but enabling Open MP texture decoding seemed to help the framerate. On DX9 and DX11, it runs at a perfect 60FPS at 480p, but 1080p or aliasing still kills the framerate. Out of the two, DX9 seems to be slightly faster. Ironic how the slowest backend was default.

I'm probably just going to stick to OpenGL, which still seems to be the fastest backend in this release and still allows for 1080p, 60FPS, and anti-aliasing. My approach to emulation of high-end systems is to just choose the fastest graphical backend unless it causes severe graphical issues.


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## the_randomizer (Oct 15, 2013)

Kirito-kun said:


> Dual-core and idle skipping were already enabled but enabling Open MP texture decoding seemed to help the framerate. On DX9 and DX11, it runs at a perfect 60FPS at 480p, but 1080p or aliasing still kills the framerate. Out of the two, DX9 seems to be slightly faster. Ironic how the slowest backend was default.
> 
> I'm probably just going to stick to OpenGL, which still seems to be the fastest backend in this release and still allows for 1080p, 60FPS, and anti-aliasing. My approach to emulation of high-end systems is to just choose the fastest graphical backend unless it causes severe graphical issues.


 

Well, yeah, a lot of changes were made to the code, some I agree with, others I don't, but in their dev blog, over time they will improve the JIT core, which means speed will be improved at long last   Glad you got it figured out


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## PityOnU (Oct 15, 2013)

The devs have admitted that new versions run slower (I'm assuming due to more precise emulation). You can find a log of which one is actually fastest on their forums. I think it is actually one of the 3.5 builds... not certain, though.

If you want to get a HUGE increase in performance (for me it was the difference between 60fps480p and 60fps1080p) get one of the unofficial builds that leverages SSE3, SSE3.1, or AVX instruction set extensions (depending on the highest one your CPU supports).


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## Abelus (Nov 7, 2013)

PityOnU said:


> If you want to get a HUGE increase in performance (for me it was the difference between 60fps480p and 60fps1080p) get one of the unofficial builds that leverages SSE3, SSE3.1, or AVX instruction set extensions (depending on the highest one your CPU supports).


Where can I find those builds?


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## loco365 (Nov 7, 2013)

Abelus said:


> Where can I find those builds?


 
Might as well ask myself. I'd like to have the fastest build that my laptop can support.

As well, does anyone know if Dolphin will ever officially support the newer Wii MotionPlus remotes?


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## PityOnU (Nov 7, 2013)

Abelus said:


> Where can I find those builds?


 


Team Fail said:


> Might as well ask myself. I'd like to have the fastest build that my laptop can support.
> 
> As well, does anyone know if Dolphin will ever officially support the newer Wii MotionPlus remotes?


 
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-dolphin-custom-builds-directory

Seems like the latest optimized build is 3.0 

If someone will let me know how to build an optimized version of it, I have no problem with getting the latest source code, compiling it, and uploading it here.


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## Dimensional (Nov 7, 2013)

If you ever read up on Valve's work on Steam for Linux, you'll learn that OpenGL is much faster than DirectX. They actually tested L4D2 on a powerful Windows machine under both graphics. OGL was actually faster than DX, which surprised them. Now they are porting all of their games to run both under windows and linux, but also run on OGL instead of DX for their Windows versions.


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## PROTOBOY (Mar 27, 2014)

So please, I need help.

What is the last revision with direct X 9.0???


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## the_randomizer (Mar 27, 2014)

PROTOBOY said:


> So please, I need help.
> 
> What is the last revision with direct X 9.0???


 

Try these builds https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-testing-needed-dx9-final


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## ABOOZ (Sep 9, 2014)

Guys my computer specs is 
Intel core i7 cpu Q740 @ 1.73GHz
Memory 6gb
Nvidia Gt force 425 

and dolphin is tooooo slow !!!


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## the_randomizer (Sep 9, 2014)

ABOOZ said:


> Guys my computer specs is
> Intel core i7 cpu Q740 @ 1.73GHz
> Memory 6gb
> Nvidia Gt force 425
> ...


 

GHz isn't everything, you're either using an old version, you're using an mobile CPU judging from the CPU mode (Q, M, or QM are models for laptops), and you have the wrong settings. Don't use the vanilla versions (4.0 or 4.0.2), there have been strides made in the revisions for 4.0-2xxx, and beyond. If I can run most games on Dolphin on a 3rd Gen Core i5, you can sure as heck do the same on a desktop. The clock speed is too low, doesn't matter how many cores it is, it's also a mobile CPU, less power, less heat.

Sorry, but that CPU, heck a majority of laptop CPUs (barring the super high end ones) are not capable of running that well with Dolphin, as it is extremely reliant on CPU power.  

Currently use 4.0 - 2651 like a charm.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Sep 9, 2014)

ABOOZ said:


> Guys my computer specs is
> Intel core i7 cpu Q740 @ 1.73GHz
> Memory 6gb
> Nvidia Gt force 425
> ...


 
Your CPU is about 4 years old now, you won't be able to run the more CPU-intensive games. There's nothing you can do other than buying another laptop with more powerful specs. You should also tweak your settings, check the Dolphin wiki pages for the optimum settings for each game. 

randomizer, most mobile Intel chipsets are powerful enough these days to emulate GC/Wii games just fine. The problem here is his laptop appears to be quite old, for reference his Intel i7 has about the same benchmark scores as the Intel i3 sitting in my desktop (which is about 3 years old now).


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## the_randomizer (Sep 9, 2014)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> Your CPU is about 4 years old now, you won't be able to run the more CPU-intensive games. There's nothing you can do other than buying another laptop with more powerful specs. You should also tweak your settings, check the Dolphin wiki pages for the optimum settings for each game.
> 
> randomizer, most mobile Intel chipsets are powerful enough these days to emulate GC/Wii games just fine. The problem here is his laptop appears to be quite old, for reference his Intel i7 has about the same benchmark scores as the Intel i3 sitting in my desktop (which is about 3 years old now).


 

Shows what I know  Either way, his laptop's gonna have a hard time and will need to upgrade if he wishes to play games at a playable speed.  Games like The Last Story however, will need a very beefy CPU to run at full speed, even I can't run it on my machine very well in large areas


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## SickPuppy (Sep 9, 2014)

I just tried dolphin on my PC, the few games I did try loaded, but I have no controller for my PC. Maybe somebody can check my computer specs and advise me if I can pursue this any further. I don't even want to invest any time in this if there will only be a couple of games that will run.

Windows 7 32 bit
Pentium E2200 @ 2.2GHz with 2 cores
3GB ram
nvidia 8400 GS

I did a quick look at the dolphin website and didn't see any mention of Pentium processors.


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## the_randomizer (Sep 9, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> I just tried dolphin on my PC, the few games I did try loaded, but I have no controller for my PC. Maybe somebody can check my computer specs and advise me if I can pursue this any further. I don't even want to invest any time in this if there will only be a couple of games that will run.
> 
> Windows 7 32 bit
> Pentium E2200 @ 2.2GHz with 2 cores
> ...


 

That's a bit on the low side, anything Core i3-equivalent (i5 preferred) is highly recommended. You don't need a super high-end GPU, as Dolphin is heavily dependent on the CPU you use, that particular CPU won't get that far to be brutally honest. So a Core i3 or i5 will run most games just fine, but for stuff like Metroid Prime 3, The Last Story, Super Mario Galaxy, yeah, even I can't run those games, but most should be fine with a newer CPU. Pentiums, unfortunately, won't work well. I've an Ivy Bridge Core i5 3570 and 8 GB of RAM, and it runs pretty well, but again, some games pushed the Wii and are a pain to run.


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## SickPuppy (Sep 10, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> That's a bit on the low side, anything Core i3-equivalent (i5 preferred) is highly recommended. You don't need a super high-end GPU, as Dolphin is heavily dependent on the CPU you use, that particular CPU won't get that far to be brutally honest. So a Core i3 or i5 will run most games just fine, but for stuff like Metroid Prime 3, The Last Story, Super Mario Galaxy, yeah, even I can't run those games, but most should be fine with a newer CPU. Pentiums, unfortunately, won't work well. I've an Ivy Bridge Core i5 3570 and 8 GB of RAM, and it runs pretty well, but again, some games pushed the Wii and are a pain to run.



I think your right. The first few games I tried were gamecube games an they seems to load fine, but when I tried to load a few wii games they didn't work so well. I was going to get a computer with an AMD A10 processor and 12GB of ram but I got my overtime at work cut so it will have to wait.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Sep 10, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> I think your right. The first few games I tried were gamecube games an they seems to load fine, but when I tried to load a few wii games they didn't work so well. I was going to get a computer with an AMD A10 processor and 12GB of ram but I got my overtime at work cut so it will have to wait.


 
If you want to use your PC for emulation, then don't bother with APU's or AMD CPUs in general. Both Dolphin and PCSX2 run miles better on Intel CPUs, mostly due to Intel's higher IPC compared to any AMD CPUs. 

And APUs are practically garbage emulation-wise in general, as the combined CPU/GPU is much weaker than a standalone CPU. For example, I have an AMD A10-4600M in my laptop, and I can hardly emulate any Wii games, and the more intensive GC games struggle as well.


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## the_randomizer (Sep 10, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> I think your right. The first few games I tried were gamecube games an they seems to load fine, but when I tried to load a few wii games they didn't work so well. I was going to get a computer with an AMD A10 processor and 12GB of ram but I got my overtime at work cut so it will have to wait.


 

Try to got for a Core i5, Intel generally performs better overall with complex emulators for some reason, due to certain instruction sets in the CPU chips I believe.


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## SickPuppy (Sep 10, 2014)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> If you want to use your PC for emulation, then don't bother with APU's or AMD CPUs in general. Both Dolphin and PCSX2 run miles better on Intel CPUs, mostly due to Intel's higher IPC compared to any AMD CPUs.
> 
> And APUs are practically garbage emulation-wise in general, as the combined CPU/GPU is much weaker than a standalone CPU. For example, I have an AMD A10-4600M in my laptop, and I can hardly emulate any Wii games, and the more intensive GC games struggle as well.



Well that sucks, I'd much rather have an AMD. Guess I'll leave Wii and GC games for  my consoles then. I always wanted to try dolphin, but never had a video card in my PC. My nephew gave me that 8400 so I thought I'd give it a try. I guess I'll be done with dolphin then.


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## the_randomizer (Sep 10, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> Well that sucks, I'd much rather have an AMD. Guess I'll leave Wii and GC games for my consoles then. I always wanted to try dolphin, but never had a video card in my PC. My nephew gave me that 8400 so I thought I'd give it a try. I guess I'll be done with dolphin then.


 

Why are you giving up so easily? There's no shame in using Intel CPUs. Newer AMD CPUs would run most games fine, the problem are the APUs in them, they usually suck, but don't take that as a sign to just give up. Intel being better for emulators isn't bias, it's simply how the Intel line of CPUs perform on them.


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## SickPuppy (Sep 10, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Why are you giving up so easily? There's no shame in using Intel CPUs. Newer AMD CPUs would run most games fine, the problem are the APUs in them, they usually suck, but don't take that as a sign to just give up. Intel being better for emulators isn't bias, it's simply how the Intel line of CPUs perform on them.




Sorry, I'm amd all the way. I've got a few PC's lying around here with intel and amd, but if I'm spending my money then it's on an amd.


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## the_randomizer (Sep 10, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> Sorry, I'm amd all the way. I've got a few PC's lying around here with intel and amd, but if I'm spending my money then it's on an amd.


 
AMD will work just fine, but you'll need a better CPU than that, nothing with an APU will be that great, but an upper-mid ranger CPU will suffice. The APUs that are on there are garbage, a dedicated GPU, also mid-range, is a must.


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## SickPuppy (Sep 10, 2014)

Sorry to go off topic.

I really don't do any gaming on my PC, I have minecraft and that's it. I tried the free demo of Diablo3, but the latest update loads to a black screen. The last time I did PC gaming was with Diablo 2. I was thrilled that somebody gave me a video card, I thought I could join the master race, boy was I wrong.


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## the_randomizer (Sep 10, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> Sorry to go off topic.
> 
> I really don't do any gaming on my PC, I have minecraft and that's it. I tried the free demo of Diablo3, but the latest update loads to a black screen. The last time I did PC gaming was with Diablo 2. I was thrilled that somebody gave me a video card, I thought I could join the master race, boy was I wrong.


 

Dude, it's fine, I don't have a super high-end gaming rig either, but I use both consoles and PC, so, no need to feel left out


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## SickPuppy (Sep 10, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Dude, it's fine, I don't have a super high-end gaming rig either, but I use both consoles and PC, so, no need to feel left out




I'm going to try that PSP emulator now, this video card must be good for something besides giving me an HDMI output socket.


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## the_randomizer (Sep 10, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> I'm going to try that PSP emulator now, this video card must be good for something besides giving me an HDMI output socket.


 
PPSSPP? It's the most compatible PSP emulator out there, easy to config, and quite fast actually http://www.ppsspp.org/

Other emulators for PSP have no advantage.


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## SickPuppy (Sep 10, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> PPSSPP? It's the most compatible PSP emulator out there, easy to config, and quite fast actually http://www.ppsspp.org/
> 
> Other emulators for PSP have no advantage.



I forgot about that emu, that works good, now I need a bluetooth dongle.


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## the_randomizer (Sep 10, 2014)

SickPuppy said:


> I forgot about that emu, that works good, now I need a bluetooth dongle.


 

It's come a very long way from it's humble beginnings, most games are playable now


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