What specs are you using with your PC?

[gradientpixel]

I may be a bit late to the party but here are my specs: HP Compaq Pro 6300 SFF Windows 8.1 Intel Core i3-3220 3.30 GHz 8 GB DDR3 RAM AMD Radeon R5 220 1 GB DDR3 Display is 50" LED HDTV I run a lot on PS2 with the PCSX2 emulator and I do encounter some games that may run a bit slower than normal, one being Ratchet and Clank. Now I will say without any configurations Shadow of the Colossus ran extremely low and with the help of VU Cycle Stealing I was able to speed my FPS there. So just to through it out there, if you really are on a budget the i3 cpu works with tweaking and some "bearable" result with some games; just trial and error. Also anything over basic native resolution is out of the question. That being sad, I am one to say it would definitely be more recommened with at least an i5.

[DOS76]

Any i3 I've ever tried GameCube/Wii games on have stuttered horrible but they were laptops and only using built in Intel graphics so maybe that was the difference.

[SentaiBrad]

The GPU is the difference. I'm not saying it would have ran perfectly even with a GPU, but it shouldn't have been unplayable.

[DOS76]

My I5 3330 handles some Gamecube games quiet well with the built in graphics but has issues with others it also plays PS2 games but I haven't done any extensive testing with it.

[Rabunin]

Hi guys, i'm working on a new/old pc (made with spare parts i had); this is the build: cpu Intel Q6600 cpu cooler ZEROtherm NV120 Nirvana Premium mb Gigabyte GA-G41M-COMBO (REV 2.0) ram G.Skill 4GB Kit F2-8000CL5D-4GBP gpu Asus GeForce gt 730 Silent (1GB Edition) psu Thermaltake Smart Se 630W hd an old MAXTOR sata 3 (160gb) This pc will be dedicated only to launchbox (wonderful front-end!) for emulations of old consoles and maybe some old pc game. With this spec will i be able to play ps2 games (maybe overclocking the cpu to 3ghz)? Can i improve my build changing some parts? I don't want, for now, buy a new pc...

[SentaiBrad]

Your PC is a mix of parts... but no I don't think it would be reliable in running anything more recent. It might even have some issues with a really large LaunchBox library.

[gradientpixel]

I agree on the large library. If you want to focus on PS2 games, I have around 140 and my 500 GB internal drive got ate up leaving around 40 Gigs left. Not all was due to the games, obviously, but they came around 300 GB. What I personally ended up doing is storing them on an external 500 GB drive that I have which I believe is at least USB 2.0. You might be fine with PSX games, I have not looked at the size of that collection. Also make sure you keep a decent amount of free space on the drive for misc items such as save states, memory cards, configurations for say if you use RetroArch, etc.

[SentaiBrad]

What I meant more of was that if you have a larger library, LaunchBox requires more performance from your PC, though storage is a huge question too. All my stuff takes almost 2TB.

[DOS76]

My PS2 folder is 3.5TB alone as for performance you can always turn down the cache in the Options I have a tablet with 1GB of RAM a few thousand games with the RAM cache set at default I was getting an out of memory error but once I turned that off I can run LaunchBox pretty well from it.

[Rabunin]

SentaiBrad said Your PC is a mix of parts... but no I don't think it would be reliable in running anything more recent. It might even have some issues with a really large LaunchBox library.

I'm not interested atm in a large library (i only need to emulate a few specific games). It's more important for me if those game/emulators will work well or if i'll have slowdowns and bad fps... (cpu, gpu and ram not enough powerful). Do you think this pc will be able to run ps2 emulator (PCSX2) at a decent level?

[SentaiBrad]

I said that already. "Your PC is a mix of parts... but no I don't think it would be reliable in running anything more recent." It will probably work but I don't think you'll get a reliable frame rate from PCSX2 or Dolphin.

[Rabunin]

SentaiBrad said It will probably work but I don't think you'll get a reliable frame rate from PCSX2 or Dolphin.

Overclocked CPU to 3.0ghz and PCSX2 works perfect! Now i'm gonna upgrade RAM (from 4gb ddr2 to 8gb ddr3, my mb supports all of them) and change HD to a SSD... Do you think i'll get some benefits if i change GPU? Is PCSX2 depending also on GPU or only on CPU?

[gradientpixel]

Honestly when I first started with PCSX2 I bought the AMD Radeon R5 220 which is an entry level GPU and I didn't see a performance increase with the games. Visually speaking I did with a sharper/more vivid picture since that GPU allowed me to connect my PC to my tv with HDMI and supports 4K.

[SentaiBrad]

Depending on what you do with it, or certain games, a GPU can help.

[bjwest]

Hi guys, sorry to re-hash this old thread but I have been considering using my laptop as my Launch/Big Box computer and just wanted to get some feedback about the specs and whether it could handle demanding platforms such as PS2, GameCube and Dreamcast.

I have a HP Envy running Windows 10 -  i7-5500U @ 2.4GHz with 16gb memory. The Graphics are: Intel HD-Graphics 5500 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M.

Thanks

[Lordmonkus]

Gamecube probably, Dreamcast maybe if you use NullDC (Demul requires more power). PS2 is unlikely to be good, it's a fairly demanding emulator but your mileage may vary depending on the game. Something like Shadow of the Colossus will definitely be out of the question.

The weak point in your system for emulation is your CPUs clock speed, at 2.4 GHz you wouldn't even be able to get full speed in Higan / BSness Accuracy since that requires a 3 GHz CPU. You might get away with BSnes Balanced core. Snes9x will run like a champ and so would BSnes Performance but I wouldn't use that over Snes9x at all.

Go ahead and try them out though and see how things go for you.

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, I would have to agree, that CPU is your weak link so to speak. 16GB of RAM is nice, but companies just cram RAM in to drive up prices, except that RAM is not the end all be all solution. For over 2 decades everyone always says "stick more ram in it", but that's not the only thing to look at, there are a ton of factors. BUS Speed, Speed of ram, cpu speed, age of the cpu, the cpu socket, the gpu and it's bus speed, all that sort of stuff. Since you are buying a laptop, things will be limited of course. An 850M (ignore the integrated portion since you'll never want to ever use that, ever) is alright, but I believe a bit older. A 900M series would be preferable. On this machine, if it's over clockable (which I wouldn't suggest if you are not PC Savvy, nor would I suggest this for most laptops even) then maybe you can bump that up to 2.5Ghz (nothing crazy since Laptops are not known for ventilation and heat dispersal). That is a reletively newer CPU (not the newest) though, and it is an i7, not an i5 or i3 (a lot of laptops come with the former), so you do have the benefit in that area.

 

I do know that Dreamcast can run on a lot of the newer phones, but that emulator is highly optimized and being worked on daily, where the Dreamcast emulation on PC has mostly stagnated, so to make up for those shortcomings a more powerful PC is required than you would expect. I think, given the right settings combination for PCSX2 or Dolphin, that you could get those to run fairly decently actually. You might need to apply the more heavy handed speed hacks and tricks, and you wont be able to (most likely) increase their internal resolution, but they should be able to run for some games. RetroArch will be a really nice package, and most of that will be able to run, even Saturn given a bit more time. There are emulators that will take way more power than you might assume. Like Monkus said, Bnes Accuracy takes about a 3Ghz CPU, but Bsnes Balanced should be ok for the computer. You might be able to even apply some decent shaders to it.

 

What ever you decide to do, please make sure that you have 30-90 days to be able to return the computer back to where ever it is you are buying it, just in case it can't live up to what you need it to do. You didn't provide price, but given a decent amount then you might be better off building a PC and piece mealing parts for it over time, unless this is a really good deal in which case you may not be able to pass up the sale. Day one, use Driver Booster from IOBit to get all of your drivers updated, update all the software (Windows 10 updates), and run something like IOBit Advanced System Care to get the PC as lean and mean as you possibly can (I use this software daily, and it's fixed a lot of issues clients had with their PC's in the past, so it is very much well worth the time and even the money). Once you're all updated, set up and ready to go, start messing around with some of the more demanding emulators. PCSX2, Dolphin (There is a Dolphin fork that can run on weaker machines if the need were there), PPSSPP, Desmume (Or it's fork), and NullDC / Demul.

[DOS76]

I suggested trying to see what it runs and what it doesn't run on it you really have nothing to lose its not like your laptop will self destruct  it will just be slow and laggy and then mess with the settings and see what you can come up with you may be surprised but definitely limit your expectations to what the others have suggested and if you get better than that then its a win.

Edited September 20, 2016 by DOS76

[bjwest]

Thanks guys, I will see how I go but I am happy as a worst case scenario to be able to emulate up to PSX and N64 :-)

[Eirulan]

Isnt the CPU actually much more important when it comes to emulation than the GPU..?

I'm running a 980ti@1450 and a Xeon 1231v3 myself and have basically even CemU at locked 60fps, depending on the state of the emulation for the game of course.