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TOPIC: Dolphin Performance

Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2348

Hi,

I was wondering what's the performance of Dolphin on your Mac? I wanted to share my experience.

I am now using 3.0, and running on both Mac Mini (2GHz, 1GB, Snow Leopad) and iMac (2GHz, 1GB, Lion). The performance is about the same, many GameCube games runs at close to full speed when single user, but slow down significantly when it is more than 1 user. I can't get F-Zero GX to run unless I use single core, but then it will be unplayable.

Considering that GameCube so much faster than N64, I am truly impressed by Dolphin! In fact, I am now waiting for new version of Mac Mini just to run Dolphin!

Has anyone tried Wii games on Dolphin? Can it run Wii disc inserted into Mac? If you think it works fine and the disc can work, I plan to purchase Mario Kart Wii just to have fun!

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2351

I gave my Wii disc some tests, and here's some results for Mac users that might be interested in Wii games on Mac. The ability to run Wii games anywhere on my Air is too good to be true!

There are probably 2 ways to run a game, first is to read from the DVD, and 2nd is to burn it and run from the disc image.

The main issue is that the Mac DVD drives seem to be ejecting Wii disc. You simply can't ignore it, the disc will eject! I have tried it on 2 machines - an Air and an iMac. Tested on Snow Leopard and Lion, same. If running from Dolphin, the "Change Disc..." does not read the disc, and "Boot from DVD Drive..." does not seem to have any effect.

My current conclusion is that this will only work on a PC. If any Mac users have any success story, let me know!

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2352

The following drives are the only known drives that can read Wii discs

Hitachi LG GDR-8161b (IDE)
Hitachi LG GDR-8162b (IDE)
Hitachi LG GDR-8163b (IDE)
Hitachi LG GDR-8164b (IDE)
Hitachi LG GDR-H10NBLK (SATA)
Hitachi LG GDR-8082N - USB SLIM Portable Drive

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2353

Thanks!

I assume these are all external drives? Since I am just interested in playing the games on Mac not copying, this mean it is not possible to just play Wii games on Mac?

I would really love to get the coming Sandy Bridge Mac Mini to play games though.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2354

I guess only the last one on the list, the Hitachi LG GDR-8082N - USB SLIM Portable Drive, is an external drive.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2355

Mungo wrote:
I guess only the last one on the list, the Hitachi LG GDR-8082N - USB SLIM Portable Drive, is an external drive.


Correct.

Most people don't copy Wii games this way. In fact, its super easy to soft mod an older Wii and copy games directly to an external hard drive.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2356

If you know the right sources you can download a disc image (.iso) of the game and run it from there.

I have tried out Dolphin a fair bit with mixed results.

Running it on a MacBook Pro 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of Ram I can get some newer games like Sonic Colors to run at about 16fps... jsut about playable. Donkey Kong is a glitchy no go and New Super Mario Bros is 26-28fps up until you hit the desert levels and the thing crawls to a hault.

I plan on trying some older games like Twilight Princess and some Gamecube stuff but, for the moment it seems like Dolphin is nearly there but, frustratingly not ready for prime-time usage. I'm sure a crap load of optimization in their codebase over the next year or so will turn the situation around. I hope, cause if you go to their forums there seems to be utter hatred for anything Mac related posted there. (usual PC fanboy stuff).

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2358

I'm running an i& MacBook Pro and on the whole performance is pretty good. Get full speed on GameCube games, and Wii games such as NSMB, Nights, Mario Kart works well and so does House of The Dead. Super Mario Galaxy is a bit ropey, but I would like to try Sonic Colours. Sonic 4 works great also!

I find the different revs of dolphin a bit hit and miss, its just a case of trying. I have an archive of about 4 or 5 different revisions, as some games work better thank another on some and vise versa.

Agree with the above comment regarding the dolphin forums, I tried to start a thread for mac users to post their specs, tips and experiences but you do get hounded for having a mac and are told to use windows!!
Last Edit: 12 years, 9 months ago by blueman56.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2359

Thanks! I have great source for GameCube but not Wii... I don't mind buying the disc just to play on my Mac though. If you don't mind helping me, here's my email: thyechean @ gmail dot com.

I plan to get the coming Mac Mini to attached to play Wii games if it is workable. The only game I have in mind is the Mario Kart Wii - but is this game playable using a normal Logitec gamepad (without analog control)? And has anybody tested this on Mac?

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 9 months ago #2360

Have you tried on the final Dolphin 3.0? This is supposed to be the best and most stable version...

I really love Dolphin (except that it does not support N64... that's why I still check out Sixtyforce every month), and nice to see fellow Mac users here!

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2361

limtc wrote:
Thanks! I have great source for GameCube but not Wii... I don't mind buying the disc just to play on my Mac though. If you don't mind helping me, here's my email: thyechean @ gmail dot com.

I plan to get the coming Mac Mini to attached to play Wii games if it is workable. The only game I have in mind is the Mario Kart Wii - but is this game playable using a normal Logitec gamepad (without analog control)? And has anybody tested this on Mac?


Assuming the Mac has bluetooth capability, why wouldn't you want to use a Wiimote/wheel combo? Just curious.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2362

@limtc You should check out Mupen64+ as it is probably the best N64 emulator on the Mac presently. It is a command line emulator but there are some front-ends available. (Do a search on this forum... cant remember the users forum name but he put together a front-end that will wil with Mupen and it includes good instructions on how to use Mupen and his front-end).

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2363

limtc wrote:
The only game I have in mind is the Mario Kart Wii - but is this game playable using a normal Logitec gamepad (without analog control)?

Probably not, since on the Wii you have the option to play with a Gamecube Controller, a Classic Controller or the Wiimote+Nunchuck combination and all three of them use the analogue sticks to steer.
There's also the possibility to play with the Wiimote alone, but that uses the motion controls to steer, not the D-Pad.

limtc wrote:
I really love Dolphin (except that it does not support N64...

and why should it? it's not a N64 emulator. mupen64 plus runs great btw.
if you don't care for the command line version, there's a very good front-end from SpeedofMac, check the emulation forum.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2365

Only thing I recall disliking Mupen64 over was the lack of Mac support for rumble, like using an Adaptoid and a real N64 controller. Is the only reason I always hope for another Sixtyforce update, which seems to happen every 22 months or so

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2367

What? You mean I can buy a Wiimote and connect to a Mac directly WITHOUT drivers or anything?

And I assume it will work only with Wii games on Dolphin and nothing else? Right now I still can't get a Wii game to test (I now have a Wii disc to test but can't be read by Mac, and I can't find a good source for Wii games).

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2368

Yes, and 22 months have since passed since the last final update... I am still using beta 1.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2369

I have tried Mupen64 and Mupen64+ in the past and didn't see what's so great about it over Sixtyforce... has things changed?

For example, can it play these games perfectly: Wipeout 64 and Yoshi's Story? It has to be better than Sixtyforce for it to be the best - Sixtyforce is really great but I can't get some games (like above) to play fine. Some like F-Zero X, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64 - plays perfectly on Sixtyforce, and it is why I still use Sixtyforce now. Hopefully I can replace it by Mupen64 if it has better compatibility.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2370

limtc wrote:
For example, can it play these games perfectly: Wipeout 64 and Yoshi's Story? ... Hopefully I can replace it by Mupen64 if it has better compatibility.


Check out the Mupen64Plus game compatibility list. It looks like those two games might be playable, but you'll likely encounter some issues (e.g., screen artefacts).

I should add that Project64 works very well with Wine. It's compatible with games like Mario Golf that don't play well with Mupen64Plus.
Last Edit: 12 years, 8 months ago by ConsoleEmu. Reason: Added Project64 info

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2371

Thanks! I will give it a try again. Looks like it might be video plugin problem.

What is the best way to check out Mupen64Plus? Hopefully can find one with good front end.

Re:Dolphin Performance 12 years, 8 months ago #2372

Last Edit: 12 years, 8 months ago by menace690.

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