Game:

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2002)

Duration: 14:02

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24

What's great about the PC is that it can handle huge tasks more than any consumer device out there, granted it has sufficient hardware to do them. One of the things it could potentially handle well is console emulation. We've had emulators for the NES, SNES, MAME, PSX, N64, GBA, and so on. Now, we also have emulators for consoles from a generation or two ago. These newer ones particularly demand good hardware to run games at full speed, especially in the case of Dolphin. Dolphin recommends at least a 3rd or 4th gen higher-end Core i5 CPU and a GTX 460 or HD 5770 GPU. Lower-spec builds can still run them, of course. Only compromises must be made, like running the game at 1x native resolution or not being anywhere near the game's full speed.

So, why is it difficult to run games that use at least 8x weaker hardware than yours? It's because your PC doesn't have the correct specifications to run them in the first place. With emulation, the PC tries to reproduce a console's entire system using its own resources. Because hardware is limited in this context, most operations are being done via software, which is a lot slower -- translating into lower framerates. Most console emulation is far from perfect, too. They oft cut corners to speed up the process. However, this results in bugs or crashes. Perfect or accurate emulation is so resource-intensive that even a top-of-the-line PC rig would struggle to emulate a classic system, like the SNES (see: "bsnes" by byuu). All these being said, traditional emulation would suffice.

There are lots of great games exclusive on consoles. So, if either you've never tried them or own a console and simply curious how they look in HD (but can't afford to own a proper upscaling device, like the XRGB or DVDO) -- with a gaming PC build to boot -- emulation is the way to go. But if you're the latter I strongly suggest investing on an XRGB setup. Nothing beats the true console experience.

Okay, to get to the point (finally): how does a mid-range gaming laptop, such as the Y410p, fare on heavy emulation? Well, what does the video tell you? While the clips were recorded in 768p, this laptop can run these games at 1080p with same or higher native resolution multiplier and similar or better framerates from the video. I couldn't show that here because 1080p recording affects emulation performance a lot, and I wanted to share as close to the actual framerates I'm getting as possible.

NTSC games are being rendered at 60 fps, even if some of them have a 30-fps cap. Glad I was able to record Fraps's framecounter with Dolphin as its integrated counter is kind of small and somewhat poorly colored. PPSSPP's emulation work seems to be on the lighter side, since the framerate doesn't seem to be affected during recording. The games I've tested uses the VRAM quite modestly and I've yet to see one reach 500 MB in usage. Temps are quite acceptable. I got these playing Xenoblade:

Maximum Operating Temperatures (1 hour of gaming):
CPU - 77 to 80 °C
GPU - 75 °C

Keep in mind that these emulators are optimized for dual core configuration. Both PCSX2 and Dolphin have an extra option to use more than 2 cores. While it helped a little in PCSX2, I found enabling this in Dolphin created subtle frame skipping with no increase in framerate. Also, SLI isn't supported. It's all up to your one GPU to do the job.

## Model Configuration ##
Lenovo IdeaPad Y410p-20216
Windows 8, 64-bit
1366 x 768 Native Resolution
Intel Core i7-4700MQ "Haswell" @ 2.4 GHz (3.4 GHz turbo)
GeForce GT 750M GDDR5 2 GB VRAM, SLI ready
8 GB DDR3 Samsung RAM @ 1600 MHz (1/4 slots; 32 GB max)
1 TB Seagate HDD @ 5400 RPM
JBL Dolby-certified Home Theater v4

Notes:
OS Version - Windows 8.1 Single Language
Nvidia Driver - 335.23 WHQL
GPU - Dedicated, Single
CPU Tweaks - Underclock to 2.0 GHz; undervolt by -100 mV
GPU Tweaks - Target max temperature of 85 °C
Recording Utility - Mirillis Action!
Gamepad - Yes, DS3 Controller

Other Statistics