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Emulation - Computer Hardware and Accuracy


SentaiBrad

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What we start off emulating may not always be what you end up emulating as you get further into the hobby you want to add more systems than you sometimes even know existed so buying a slightly better CPU is setting you up for when you get to that point (if you do)

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34 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

What we start off emulating may not always be what you end up emulating as you get further into the hobby you want to add more systems than you sometimes even know existed so buying a slightly better CPU is setting you up for when you get to that point (if you do)

great point, duly noted

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  • 1 year later...

These emulators you mentioned all perform well on a Ryzen, I have a 2700X and they all run great except for the XBox 360 one but I think that is more on the emulator than the CPU though of course a higher speed CPU can out muscle it.

Demons Souls runs at full speed 30fps, BotW runs at 60 fps and 3DS games that run well like A Link Between Worlds run great as well but they also run fine on lower end hardware as well.

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  • 2 months later...

Hey @Lordmonkus, I am researching on buying one of the new Ryzen 5 chips. I am specifically looking at the Ryzen 5 3600 since it is only 65Watts and is getting great reviews. Do you know of any weaknesses with these new AMD chips when it comes to emulation.

 

Also, I have read that Nvidia is the way to go when it comes to graphics cards, when building an emulation PC. Is this still true, even with the newest AMD graphics cards? My goal is to emulate flawlessly up to Gamecube, then anything after that will be icing on the cake.

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The Ryen 3600 is a very solid CPU for emulation. It has very good single thread and multi thread performance and has a great price. It will handle all the current emulators as well as they can be expected to run in their current states. You would be more likely to run into actual emulation issues than bottlenecks with the CPU.

Yeah, Nividia is still preferred for emulation due to many emulators using OpenGL which is still AMDs weak point.

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1 minute ago, ItchyRobot said:

Thanks @Lordmonkus

What are some decent Nvidia cards for emulation that wont break the bank? I was thinking about the 1060 6gb, but I don't want to spend more than I need to if it is overkill.

I have a Ryzen 7 1700X and a GTX 1060 6GB, i can emulate up to Wii U and PS3 in some cases with the 1060.

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  • 1 year later...

Sorry to reopen an old thread, but I'd like to hear thoughts on my current setup and its ability to run emulators & games at full speed:

Could someone tell me a guesstimate of how my current specs stack up to the current emulation scene, please?

i7 990x 1st gen @3.47Ghz (stock)

GTX 980Ti FTW

24Gb DDR3

1 TB Samsung Pro SATA3 SSD

4 TB WD My Passport External HDD - my current LB, emu & game ISO/ROM collection, currently self-contained.

Windows 10 Pro x64

I know emulation is an evolving scene, but should I theoretically be able to handle at least thru Cemu & Citra with specs like these?  Xenia seems to be a no-go with my current CPU architecture, and RPCS3 seems super glitchy.  I appreciate any input!

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Your CPU is a first gen Intel as you stated, while it's clock speed is reasonable it is lacking the modern instruction sets that more recent gen CPUs have. I believe it was around gen 4 Intel really made a big leap and in recent years AMD has really picked its pace.

1 hour ago, bujinkanrn said:

I theoretically be able to handle at least thru Cemu & Citra with specs like these?

Not really, for the reasons I mentioned above.

1 hour ago, bujinkanrn said:

Xenia seems to be a no-go with my current CPU architecture, and RPCS3 seems super glitchy.

Yes, both emulators are very early in progress, are glitchy and require a modern CPU to get any kind of speed out of them.

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5 hours ago, Lordmonkus said:

Your CPU is a first gen Intel as you stated, while it's clock speed is reasonable it is lacking the modern instruction sets that more recent gen CPUs have. I believe it was around gen 4 Intel really made a big leap and in recent years AMD has really picked its pace.

Not really, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Yes, both emulators are very early in progress, are glitchy and require a modern CPU to get any kind of speed out of them.

Thanks so much for the input.  I kind of expected my CPU to be behind the 8-ball a bit. 

I'm currently looking at building a new rig with modern emulation in mind.  My experience is mainly with Intel, and relative future-proofing is something I want to keep in mind.  My impression is that AMD tends to be less expensive but tends to go obsolete more quickly.  Not sure if that's accurate, though.

Should I theoretically be able to get by with a current gen i7 or i9 Comet Lake setup?  I REALLY can't justify an x299 build with that kind of cost.

Once again, thanks for the input!  Any help is appreciated ?

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On 5/14/2016 at 11:01 PM, Lordmonkus said:

Yup, very good read there for people who are new to emulation. Intel is definitely the better CPU choice for emulation but AMD can do it just fine. You may need to throw some extra raw CPU power at it to make up the difference though.

Oops, sorry for creating another thread.  My search for PC and CPU recommendations didn't lead me here.  Sorry again for my oversight.

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57 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

In regards to that quote of mine at that time Intel was vastly superior but that has changed and now AMD CPUs are just as good as Intel. AMD really stepped up their game with their Ryzen chips.

Ah, I saw your posts about the newer Ryzen chips and how they're doing well.  My understanding is also that single-core performance is preferable to a high number of cores. 

As someone who isn't yet comfortable overclocking, would a Comet Lake i7 be a good move, or should I opt for something with quad channel RAM support instead?

Also, should my GTX 980ti FTW suffice for most emus thru PS3/360/Wii U, or should I look at upgrading to an RTX card?

I'm a super noob to the mechanics of emulation but you all are amazing resources!

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33 minutes ago, bujinkanrn said:

As someone who isn't yet comfortable overclocking, would a Comet Lake i7 be a good move, or should I opt for something with quad channel RAM support instead?

My opinion is that AMD is the best bang for buck period, you get great performance and you really don't need to overclock them because there is very little overclocking headroom in the chips to begin with.

34 minutes ago, bujinkanrn said:

Also, should my GTX 980ti FTW suffice for most emus thru PS3/360/Wii U, or should I look at upgrading to an RTX card?

That card is plenty for Wii U and PS3 emulation, those emulators still rely on good CPUs over GPUs as long as you have some sort of dedicated GPU and not some integrated graphics.

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Thanks for the info!  I may go with AMD, indeed, as they look promising for PCIe 4.0 support.  Not that I need it yet, but if I can get 10 years out of a build (with only a GPU upgrade), I'd be all the happier.  With Intel's Rocket Lake only on the horizon, AMD may make the most sense.  

Edited by bujinkanrn
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Original AMD fanboy here, my bartop bigbox is Intel i5-4460 with gtx1050ti mini 4gb gddr5, and im up to running wii u great, I havnt stepped into ps3yet. 

I recommend going intel for a beast great across the board emulator, your setup looks good if its an i7. Notice I have an i5, its plenty for running emulators along with a good GPU, you cant go wrong.

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6 hours ago, NNEMO said:

Original AMD fanboy here, my bartop bigbox is Intel i5-4460 with gtx1050ti mini 4gb gddr5, and im up to running wii u great, I havnt stepped into ps3yet. 

I recommend going intel for a beast great across the board emulator, your setup looks good if its an i7. Notice I have an i5, its plenty for running emulators along with a good GPU, you cant go wrong.

Wow! That's impressive to see you're running up thru Cemu with an i5.  I'm running a 1st Gen i7 990X that works just fine for most tasks.  But, I've had issues with Cemu.  BotW runs slowly.  Xenoblade X runs full speed but encounters lengthy pauses, presumably for shader loading to catch up.  Thanks for the insight!

Edited by bujinkanrn
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  • 1 month later...

Anyone else drooling at the possibilities of these new AMD Zen 3 chips dropping Nov. 5? I may need a hardware refresh if some of these benchmarks can be believed. Supposedly the "Ryzen Gap" will be a thing of the past.

My gaming PC that I built 4 years ago with an i5 6600k gently OC'd to 4.25 Ghz, Zotac 1060 6 GB, 16 GB RAM is still very capable today, but has never been quite enough to run RCPS3 satisfactorily. And Wii games in Dolphin, and even certain Gamecube games like F Zero GX and one of the Star Wars games can stutter occasionally, and show signs of strain. Definitely interested in seeing some reporters and youtubers get their hands on the 5600x and test it out for general gaming and of course, emulation. AMD has some new graphics cards coming out as well. Here's an article with some interesting tidbits, take it with a grain of salt. But I guess we'll know a lot more soon enough. https://wccftech.com/amd-zen-3-ryzen-5-5600x-the-fastest-single-threaded-cpu-in-passmark/

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