Performance Guide

Foreword

Emulation is typically quite intensive, its very hard to run perfectly, and Prime Trilogy is one of the more intensive games to emulate on Dolphin.

Ideal Hardware

The ideal CPU for Metroid Prime: Trilogy has at least 3GHz CPU clock speed.

Your CPU should be an Intel i5 or newer, or an AMD Ryzen or newer.

Single Core performance is the most important for Dolphin. Dolphin can only emulate with 2 CPU cores maximum. The majority of processing happens on your CPU, this means a good GPU helps but isn't as important.

Why is emulation so intensive?

What is the best hardware for Dolphin?

Contents

• Game Properties
• Graphics
  • General Tab
  • Enhancements Tab
  • Hacks Tab
  • Advanced Tab
  • PrimeHack GFX
• NVIDIA users

Game Properties

If you do not see your game in the list, please refer to this.

You can go to the Game Properties by right clicking your game and selecting Properties.

• Enable Dual Core allows for much better performance. This allows Dolphin to use 2 CPU cores, but can cause visual glitches. Ideally you want this on.
• Synchronize GPU thread causes a slowdown, but reduces visual glitches. Ideally you want this off.
• Speed up Disc Transfer Rate makes doors open faster. Some people prefer this to be off for the authentic slow door opening experience.

The other settings do not need to be on for Metroid Prime: Trilogy

Graphics

General

Backend

The video backend is very important for better performance.

• Direct3D12 is good for consistent high fps.
• Vulkan is good for high fps and works better than Direct3D12 on some hardware.
• Direct3D11 is good for stability and can solve some glitches.
• OpenGL is slower and sometimes has glitches.

Shader Compilation

Shader Compilation is a common cause for stuttering, especially when entering new rooms.

We recommend Asynchronous (Ubershaders).

Compile Shaders Before Starting compiles the shaders when you start the game, rather than as you play the game. Compiling shaders blocks the CPU thread, thus causing stutters and slowdowns. The first time you run the game can take between 2-10 minutes however the next time you launch the game will be much faster as it only needs to do this once.

Enhancements

• Internal Resolution the higher this is, the better the game looks and the more performance is used. If you're suffering from low framerate, lower this to 720p or native.
• Anti-Aliasing on some systems this can cause a serious performance drop. Setting this to None makes no major impact on graphics.
• Anisotropic Filtering can make the game look better with very little hit on performance. Setting this to 16x will cause no problems for most systems.
• Scaled EFB Copy makes higher resolutions look better, this slightly increases the GPU load. Systems with a dedicated GPU will probably not notice any performance decrease.

Hacks

• Store EFB Copies to Texture Only increases performance in some areas and reduces the performance drop from various events like entering water. Without Auto Toggle EFB enabled this will break Scan Visor in Prime 2 and Prime 3.
• Ignore Format Changes gives a slight performance increase.
• Fast Depth Calculation gives a performance increase on some hardware.

Advanced

• Backend Multithreading makes Vulkan run faster.

PrimeHack GFX

• Auto Toggle EFB copies to Texture disables Store EFB Copies to Texture Only while the scan visor is active in Prime 2 and Prime 3

NVIDIA users

It is rare but on some occasions users find they get better performance on Ishiiruka using the Vulkan video backend, however this is a much older version of Dolphin and can be quite buggy. I suggest you try this if you find the regular version of PrimeHack having very poor performance.