Dolphin runs slow? Read this!

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Kraken96

New member
I had a feeling Dolphin 4.0.2 was slowing down unnecessarily. Determined, I tried many things, that is, checking and unchecking boxes, searching the interwebs, what I sometimes do when emulators seem to not be cooperating. Well, seems using the experimental video and audio plugins speeded it up around 20%. But that was still very away from optimal sound, sound was still stuttering and sounding pretty bad, video was ok. Well it happens that I stumbled upon this great outdated Dolphin guide with links to old Dolphin versions, in a last ray of hope I decided to try those ones. 3.5 worked great after a few tweaks I learned from testing Dolphin 4.0.2. And I mean great by the way, SNES emulator quality, it was that good. So here's what worked for me:

1)Dolphin 3.5
Stable version:
If you find some bugs you could try the stable one.
3.5-1124:
It's the one before Dolphin started slowing down on me, and yes, I searched the version before it slowed down(it's not that bad if you jump versions and try to guess which one it is).
2)Max Safe, not the default max Fast.
This one will take care of ugly graphical glitches like text and textures disappearing, and will also give you the feel of a SNES emulator quality.

P.D: Maybe, since I can't really tell, Dolphin new "unstable" versions are as fast as the stable 3.5 version, but can't really tell, since I don't have a x64 OS, mostly because I like to play a lot of old games on Windows XP.
 
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malloc4096

New member
thx for the info,

I haven't messed with those emu's yet, but do like to know which versions are most efficent. Iv heard of the different methods emu devs take, and realize the reasoning behind the resource intensive LLE path. But like most things in life, i also believe there is a healthy compromise that probably should not be forgotten.

if i were at a machine setup for this I'd test it myself, but if you have the where-with-all to follow the instructions in the bellow link, Id be curious to know if u havn't already... do the options in the link, point out anything that maybe allows u to run the latest version at the same speed by perhaps disabling a fancy new option ?

https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Performance_guide

32 or 64 bit shouldn't make any difference (unless its pooorly coded). What does have a Big impact tho is if your trying to run an emu on a Intel VS AMD cpu... they are usually all writen for INTEL

there's actually currently no real world logical use for 64bit for the average consumer. like everything else in life, its just lies and gimics, to sell you things you don't need. In the case of free apps tho, 64bit would be just for compatability for instruction sets of 64bit cpus, no performance difference what so ever(CPU speed remaining equal that is). however in most cases u dont even need the 64bit version of a 32bit app seeing as a single consumer level app doesn't use over 4GB of Ram single handedly, so the only thing u may loose by using 32 app on 64bit cpu is multitask friendlyness... IF your like an ADHD child and leave everything open on your computer so its always using a combined total over 4GB ram. I never looked into it, cause I don't care but If OS Devs have any sense (which they seem to be lacking these days) they would reserve the low mem address blocks specificaly for 32bit apps, so it would never matter anyway.
 
K

Kraken96

New member
malloc4096 said:
thx for the info,

I haven't messed with those emu's yet, but do like to know which versions are most efficent. Iv heard of the different methods emu devs take, and realize the reasoning behind the resource intensive LLE path. But like most things in life, i also believe there is a healthy compromise that probably should not be forgotten.

if i were at a machine setup for this I'd test it myself, but if you have the where-with-all to follow the instructions in the bellow link, Id be curious to know if u havn't already... do the options in the link, point out anything that maybe allows u to run the latest version at the same speed by perhaps disabling a fancy new option ?

https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Performance_guide

32 or 64 bit shouldn't make any difference (unless its pooorly coded). What does have a Big impact tho is if your trying to run an emu on a Intel VS AMD cpu... they are usually all writen for INTEL

there's actually currently no real world logical use for 64bit for the average consumer. like everything else in life, its just lies and gimics, to sell you things you don't need. In the case of free apps tho, 64bit would be just for compatability for instruction sets of 64bit cpus, no performance difference what so ever(CPU speed remaining equal that is). however in most cases u dont even need the 64bit version of a 32bit app seeing as a single consumer level app doesn't use over 4GB of Ram single handedly, so the only thing u may loose by using 32 app on 64bit cpu is multitask friendlyness... IF your like an ADHD child and leave everything open on your computer so its always using a combined total over 4GB ram. I never looked into it, cause I don't care but If OS Devs have any sense (which they seem to be lacking these days) they would reserve the low mem address blocks specificaly for 32bit apps, so it would never matter anyway.
Click to expand...
Well, I've heard rumors of the Dolphin x86 version crashing much more than the x64 version and therefore giving more problems for the developers. They say they want to focus their efforts on implementing the new stuff, like say, D3D12, which well, x86 does not support. That and I wanted to share with all of you guys my findings. I am sure I haven't been the only one witnessing Dolphin 4.0.2 slow down, so there you have it, the 3.5 stable version, or the version before it slowed down, 3.5-1124. I know x86 doesn't support D3D12, but hey at least I found old Dolphin versions that doesn't slow down like Dolphin 4.0.2.

Let me see, you want to know which graphics and audio settings I used to make Dolphin 4.0.2 a little bit faster? It was the JITIL Recompiler (experimental) and DSound, but XAudio2 it's ok I guess, DSound just seems to be a little bit better.
 
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