Dolphin on 2.4ghz haswell 13'' macbook pro

[jonisign]

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone has tried running dolphin on the stock i5 13 inch macbook pro. How are frame rates for various games? I saw a post for performance on the i7 but was wondering if the 2.4ghz i5 does fine.

 

[librarian]

my guess is it will run poorly, I get some frame rate drops with the geforce 680MX from the imac, wich is like... 10 times faster than the integrated crap you get on the 13". Then again dolphin under OSX is not fast as Windows version, and emulation speed is also tied up to the game you're playing but still the lack of proper VRAM will just kill the performance on more complex games.

 

[bushidounohana]

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone has tried running dolphin on the stock i5 13 inch macbook pro. How are frame rates for various games? I saw a post for performance on the i7 but was wondering if the 2.4ghz i5 does fine.

I presume you're referencing my post on the i7, which runs pretty non-demanding games like WiiSports and New Super Mario Bros. Wii acceptably with lowered settings. I'll tell you that Game Cube games like Metal Gear Solid don't run terribly well on the i7, and of course as I mention in my other post NBA JAM for Wii doesn't run remarkably well either.

If I had to guess, I'd probably tend to agree with librarian and say that the i5 may not be up to the task. But keep in mind that the i7 isn't blowing it away by any means, rather it's just sort of keeping up. For example, Wii Tennis runs exceptionally smooth while Wii Bowling stutters a bit from time to time at a full screen res of 1280x800 and internal res set at 1.5x.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the laptop isn't replacing my dedicated gaming rig any time soon, and that's perfectly fine with me. I bought it for other things and playing a couple Wii games while I'm away from home is just a bonus. But if one of your priorities is getting Dolphin on the go, I'd imagine the 15" with a quad core processor and dedicated graphics will give you a much much better experience.

Just my 2 cents, hope that's helpful!

 

[jonisign]

Hey, thanks so much, definitely helpful! I should have been a bit more clear, I'm curious to know the difference between the latest haswell macbook pros with the i5 at 2.4ghz or the i7 at 2.8ghz, so I was referring to your post on the i7.

It's great to hear that the i7 can keep up at all! I'm hopeful that the i5 in the haswell 13 inch macbook pro might run nicely as well–– in another thread (https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=17640180) someone is running dolphin on the haswell i5 macbook air (which runs 1.3ghz, turbo to 2.6ghz...) and is able to get games like wind waker, metal gear solid, etc. all running at full speed. This seems pretty surprising to me!


I also have a desktop computer for some more serious gaming, and I've decided on the 13 inch form factor for travel, so if I could play a few wii/gamecube games on the go it would be a nice bonus!

Out of curiosity, did you run those games on dolphin 4.0? For windows, or OS X?

Thanks again!

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Ah nevermind, I see from your previous post that you're running this on dolphin for os x! I'd be curious how this performs on the windows side if anyone has tried it

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As far as the graphics, from what I know, dolphin is more CPU limited than GPU limited... however you do need a good enough GPU or you hit a bottleneck there... so these new haswell CPUs might be more up to the task even though they have integrated graphics

 

[dxta0]

I've been able to play a few games with dolphin on the 2.4 haswell it plays well if you keep it at low settings

 

[jonisign]

I've been able to play a few games with dolphin on the 2.4 haswell it plays well if you keep it at low settings

Awesome, glad to hear it! Which games have you tried? Are you able to get them running with 1.5x native settings?

 

[dxta0]

Awesome, glad to hear it! Which games have you tried? Are you able to get them running with 1.5x native settings?

I've only tired Super Smash Bros Brawl and Star Fox Assault and yes I was able to play at 1.5x settings. Pretty smooth too with some slow downs here and there but playable.

 

[jonisign]

I've only tired Super Smash Bros Brawl and Star Fox Assault and yes I was able to play at 1.5x settings. Pretty smooth too with some slow downs here and there but playable.

That's great it's so smooth–– looking forward to see how this performs with other games as well! Anyone try twilight princess?

 

[bushidounohana]

That's great it's so smooth–– looking forward to see how this performs with other games as well! Anyone try twilight princess?

Here's a few more (again, all i7 though)--

Soul Calibur II--Runs really well! I was able to play a couple bouts smoothly ... Maybe a few FPS dropped here and there, but otherwise a solid 60 FPS.

Super Mario Sunshine--Couldn't this to run well at all ... Started at a smooth 30 FPS (max for this game), then suddenly cut down to 20 and wouldn't budge any higher after that. Pretty much unplayable for me.

Tatsunoko v. Capcom--This one jumps all over the board, between 40-60 FPS. The biggest dips are when you do the super-special moves (that's not the technical name for them, of course), but I still kind of had fun with this one. If you're a purist, then you might say it runs like garbage. But for me, it's passable with the caveat that you need a little patience for the dips now and again.

Mario Kart Double Dash--There's a lot of choppy lag on this one as well. I'm a patient guy, but when this dips down to 50 FPS it's pretty annoying. I averaged between 50 and 60 FPS in the first race, didn't have the patience to keep going. Try at your own risk.

Zelda: Twilight Princess--Given my experiences with Double Dash and Sunshine, I thought this was a lost cause. But in running through Ordon Village and herding the goats at the beginning of the game, I was kind of shocked to see the game stayed at a solid 30 FPS (max for this game). The intro before the title screen dipped between 20 and 30 FPS, so my guess is Hyrule Field (which is the slowest part of the game, to my knowledge), might run comparably to the intro (that is, Hyrule Field will probably run anywhere between 20 and 30 FPS). I have a saved game file on my gaming rig that I can transfer over and test this out with, but I'm pretty impressed with the initial result. Stay tuned!

 

[jonisign]

Nice!! Very promising. Have you tried any of these in windows? My experience with my desktop is that running in dolphin in OS X noticeably underperforms dolphin in windows... if you're getting these results in OS X then even some more demanding titles might be playable in windows!

 

[benguild]

Played all the way through Skyward Sword on a base-model 2012 rMBP 15-inch. http://benguild.com/2013/07/18/how-to-play-nintendo-wii-games-on-your-retina-macbook/

Honestly, even with the dedicated graphics chip, it still struggled. It was better on my maxed out Late 2013 rMBP 15-inch (i7 2.6, Nvidia) that I upgraded to this year... but still crawled at some points especially near the end of the game where the visual effects ramped up.

Depends on the game and your settings tweaks mostly, not specifically the resolution.

 

[jonisign]

Thanks for the feedback... yeah, I can imagine that skyward sword would be pretty taxing. CPU speed I think is pretty important for getting dolphin to run smoothly–– I actually ran skyward sword with an old ATI desktop card and a sandy bridge CPU @ 1440p... amazing experience, but probably only possible with clock speeds up past 3.5ghz. Not planning on trying this on laptop!

Anyways, decided to go with the 2.6ghz haswell model, can't really justify the 2.8ghz and the extra graphics clock boost from the 2.4ghz model can't hurt