Homebrew Question Improve gamecube emulation performance?

[HBubli]

I am using lakka and tried to play super smash bros melee with the dolphin emulator. I overclocked the switch to the maximum safe clock and its still lagging. Any tips or options i can change to improve performance?

 

[masagrator]

I am using lakka and tried to play super smash bros melee with the dolphin emulator. I overclocked the switch to the maximum safe clock and its still lagging. Any tips or options i can change to improve performance?

Yes, buy a phone.

 

[HBubli]

Yes, buy a phone.

Well..., thats not exactly what i meant.

 

[Osha]

That's still the most realistic solution. The Switch isn't exactly built to run GC or Wii games through pure emulation.

 

[GothicIII]

What do you expect? The Switch is from a technical standpoint a complete potato.
It needs to emulate a powerpc architecture on ARM. This is a very hard task and without insane gamespecific speedhacks it never will reach fullspeed GC emulation even on native resolution.

 

[bad361]

I am using lakka and tried to play super smash bros melee with the dolphin emulator. I overclocked the switch to the maximum safe clock and its still lagging. Any tips or options i can change to improve performance?

Tweak the Emulated CPU Clock Speed setting. Try finding the right balance between fullspeed and the playability. Lowering CPU clock speed basically makes the game run fullspeed at a lower framerate. For example Simpsons Hit and Run is not fullspeed at 100% clock speed and full OC (cause it runs at 60fps natively which is a lot for switch to handle), it has lots of slowdowns and stutters, but if you lower the cpu clock speed to 30-40% the game becomes fullspeed but at 30fps (still very playable). Same happens with a lot of games, PoP Warrior Within and Two Thrones, Crash Tag Team Racing etc. Sometimes you need to lower it down just to 80-90% to get rid of slowdowns and stutters. The only downside is that all the cutscenes will be at a lower framerate too. Iirc SSBM needs 80% cpu clock for "fullspeed".

...but yeah, if you want better GC emulation, you are better off getting some recent 150$ Android phone which will probably have more powerful cpu than Switch.

 

[HBubli]

Tweak the Emulated CPU Clock Speed setting. Try finding the right balance between fullspeed and the playability. Lowering CPU clock speed basically makes the game run fullspeed at a lower framerate. For example Simpsons Hit and Run is not fullspeed at 100% clock speed and full OC (cause it runs at 60fps natively which is a lot for switch to handle), it has lots of slowdowns and stutters, but if you lower the cpu clock speed to 30-40% the game becomes fullspeed but at 30fps (still very playable). Same happens with a lot of games, PoP Warrior Within and Two Thrones, Crash Tag Team Racing etc. Sometimes you need to lower it down just to 80-90% to get rid of slowdowns and stutters. The only downside is that all the cutscenes will be at a lower framerate too. Iirc SSBM needs 80% cpu clock for "fullspeed".

...but yeah, if you want better GC emulation, you are better off getting some recent 150$ Android phone which will probably have more powerful cpu than Switch.

Thank you!

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I am using lakka and tried to play super smash bros melee with the dolphin emulator. I overclocked the switch to the maximum safe clock and its still lagging. Any tips or options i can change to improve performance?

For the best performance usually you'll set the emulated CPU clock override to 40% and leave it there. In my testing any higher led to more audio issues (crackling, stuttering) and any less negatively impacted framerate. Some games are just nowhere near running at what I would consider playable performance even with that, and Melee is one of those games. F-Zero GX is another. And pretty much every Wii game I tried save for Super Paper Mario was also unplayably slow.