PC Specs, what to aim for?

[SkyHighGam3r]

Hey Guys,

So, now that I am almost finished with my personal project. I have some people that are wanting me to set them up with similar systems.

While I opted to just buy an over-the-top PC Rig to ensure I could play Witcher 3 on Ultra, and never worry about emulation requirements lol they just want something simple, and small, but based on Windows. (not a raspberry pi or android or anything)

So I'm trying to figure out what a recommended PC spec would be for some different builds based on the systems that need to be emulated.

I'm hoping to figure out some kind of tier for system here. For example let's say:

Build 1:) Up to SNES/GEN
Build 2:) Up to N64/PSX/SAT
Build 3:) Up to PS2/Wii/DC

Obviously that's very vague, but the idea here I want to get a feel for what specs I'd actually need.

How much RAM, CPU-Ghz, & GPU card would I need to run PCSX2 without worry?
How much for RetroArch's cores on N64/PSX?
Etc, etc, etc...

Is there a list of recommended system requirements for these levels of emulation?

[Guest]

In short - the best graphics card that can be afforded, a dual core processor with a fast clock and at least 8gb of memory.

Processor is the item that a lot of people over spend on and get wrong, for emulation at least.

PCSX2 and dolphin and the most intensive emulators - but they are coded in a way that only ever uses 2 cores. They do however want those cores to be as fast as possible in terms of clock speed. So it's better to go for a fast clock, newer architecture processor at 2 cores - as that's the better spend of the money. Newer architecture is important because they nearly always have more efficient cores than the last generation.

My setup, which runs everything I've thrown at it is:

- Intel core i3 skylake (newest architecture) at 3.7ghz

- 8GB ddr4

- nvidia 950gtx

- 256 Samsung evo ssd

- 2x 3tb hard drives

- msi board

Oh and always go SSD or even better M.2 for the Windows drive. They provide massive extra performance over spinning disks.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SkyHighGam3r]

So I'm fairly familiar with Hard Drives and RAM but I am a little stupid when it comes to CPUs and Motherboards.
GPUs I can understand for the most part on a per-card basis, but I'd have no idea where a 950gtx for example falls as far as speed, memory, and against an AMD card without doing research... and even then I'm not sure where to look precisely lol.

Regarding "Skylake" I'm not seeing that term come up on PCPartPicker.com, is there a number sequence that coincides with this architecture?

You also mention a "fast clock", would you say 3.7Ghz is the minimum? (I do not know how to overclock, yet)

As far as an MSI board, I've heard this is a good brand. Is there anything I need to avoid or ensure when looking for motherboards?

[Shermo]

Skylake = LGA 1151

[SkyHighGam3r]

Skylake = LGA 1151

Thank you, I was looking at LGA1150 lol

That pointed me right at the i3-6100 3.7Ghz, the reviews are fantastic.

Would you guys say Asus boards are good? They seem to be the only Mini-ATX board available for this socket-type.

[JayC]

Check out simplyaustins video on cheap emulator pc build. I built two of them before the video and they are great. The pentium G3258 is unlocked, cheap and easy to overclock. My builds run at 4,2-4,5GHz might not run all PS2 games but I have had no problems so far.

[SkyHighGam3r]

Check out simplyaustins video on cheap emulator pc build. I built two of them before the video and they are great. The pentium G3258 is unlocked, cheap and easy to overclock. My builds run at 4,2-4,5GHz might not run all PS2 games but I have had no problems so far.

Which PS2 games do you run into trouble with?

My i7 only runs at 4.0, but I've yet to find a game that wouldn't play.

Of course, this was running on the R9 390X... which I have to downgrade because it puts out WAY too much heat in my tiny PC.

[JayC]

Like I said, I haven't had problems at all but one of those builds are inside a NES console and only have onboard gpu so I haven't even tried ps2 on that one.