Hardware New Laptop, need help.

[Chary]

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=8786054&pid=1218893506517


Could this Laptop run PCSX2 well? And how well could it run Dolphin?

 

[Thanatos Telos]

Not really. You'll want an i3/A8 at the least.

 

[Chary]

Not really. You'll want an i3/A8 at the least.

I'd have thought it could run dolphin fairly well... It can run GC games good, right?

 

[Zerousen]

http://www.dolphin-emulator.com/system-requirements.html

 

[trumpet-205]

I'd have thought it could run dolphin fairly well... It can run GC games good, right?

Not even close to being good.

You can get away with PCSX2 on Pentium (not Celeron you have linked) with AVX support. Dolphin wise you going to need much beefy laptop.

 

[ilman]

I'd have thought it could run dolphin fairly well... It can run GC games good, right?

Nope, Celeron processors are SLOOOW! I'd be amazed if this thing ran Dreamcast emulators at full speed.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

I'd have thought it could run dolphin fairly well... It can run GC games good, right?

Save a hundred and get this.
Seriously, my A8 just barely keeps it at a playable 30/60 fps for both emus.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I used AMD Overdrive on the CPU.

 

[FAST6191]

Even for $300 that seems like a lot. Indeed I would not have thought I would have been able to get a new laptop with those specs in this day and age (DDR3 and 4 gigs of it aside I think I had laptops ship with Vista that were beefier).

As for dolphin. Unlike with a newer system I would not expect to sit down and basically have all the gamecube has to offer and have it near flawless (give or take some minor emulator settings tweaks). You could probably get quite a bit done though.

 

[PityOnU]

You need a seriously high-end i7 to use Dolphin on a laptop.

Not sure about the other you mentioned.

 

[takeshi10123]

I'd have thought it could run dolphin fairly well... It can run GC games good, right?

My Macbook mid 2010 (OS X v10.8.4) gets between 15 - 45 FPS in-game (Pokemon Colosseum) for Dolphin on a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and Nvidia GeForce 320m GPU.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

You need a seriously high-end i7 to use Dolphin on a laptop.

Not sure about the other you mentioned.

No you don't. My A8 runs Wind Waker and Sunshine on the low spec at 30fps.

 

[PityOnU]

No you don't. My A8 runs Wind Waker and Sunshine on the low spec at 30fps.

Are you talking mobile A8? I don't have those games to test, but with my i7-3520M (2 cores @ 2.90GHz) I get HUGE lag spikes in Tony Hawk's Underground 2, and can't break ~43fps.

Mind you, those are first party games, which were probably crazy optimized for the hardware. As always, results will vary from title to title.

Dolphin also does Wii games, don't forget, which are way more processor intensive than GCN games.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

Are you talking mobile A8? I don't have those games to test, but with my i7-3520M (2 cores @ 2.90GHz) I get HUGE lag spikes in Tony Hawk's Underground 2, and can't break ~43fps.

Mind you, those are first party games, which were probably crazy optimized for the hardware. As always, results will vary from title to title.

Dolphin also does Wii games, don't forget, which are way more processor intensive than GCN games.

Yeah, but those are the only two games I play on Dolphin.
And yeah, it foes Wii games too, but I got an actual Wii, so it really doesn't matter for me.

 

[The Milkman]

You need a seriously high-end i7 to use Dolphin on a laptop.

Not sure about the other you mentioned.

This, my 3rd gen i5 barely holds 30 FPS on Wind Waker. Outset and Windfall Island are frame-drop fests.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

This, my 3rd gen i5 barely holds 30 FPS on Wind Waker. Outset and Windfall Island are frame-drop fests.

That is REALLY odd. My A8 drops to around 25 fps on Outset and Windfall. (Once again, it's set so it stays at its Turbo boost speed)

 

[The Milkman]

That is REALLY odd. My A8 drops to around 25 fps on Outset and Windfall. (Once again, it's set so it stays at its Turbo boost speed)

Yeah, it hits around that. Surprising how disorienting it is when you loose 5 FPS from 30.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

Yeah, it hits around that. Surprising how disorienting it is when you loose 5 FPS from 30.

Yeah, it's like
60-55 fps= No problem.
30-25 fps= WTF is this shit?

 

[Rydian]

Uh. Guys.

GPU, too.

 

[Thanatos Telos]

Uh. Guys.

GPU, too.

In emus, the GPU isn't nearly as important.
To prove it, I hooked up my old C2D with my old HD 7770 for fun and my FX-8320 with my older HD 4650.
The 8320 creamed it. Also, there was very little of a bottleneck in the first system.
If you want me to re-enact this with fraps or something, fuck you. Going from 13.8 to 12.6 to WHQL drivers for my GTX 760 was a pain.
Really, fuck you if you ask.

 

[Rydian]

When doing realtime 3D hardware-accelerated rendering, the GPU is being used and needs to be baseline.

This is notably unlike emulation for the SNES and such, older systems.