Is this Dell model good at emulating pcsx2?

[BlackCitadel]

I think I started to understand things.
So, when I run the game on "Software", it uses only one core? and when I run it on "Hardware" mode, it uses all the cores? Am I right?
So, in the case of my i3 TOSHIBA, it is i3 @ 2.53GHz, it's dual core (2 cores each core with 2.53GHz clock speed) Right? So when running it on "Hardware" mode, it will use all the cores, sum of 5GHz?? Is that right??
If so,

What about that Dell i7 @ 1.8GHz?
How do you think running that game on "Software" mode? Will it be a bit better than this i3 one?

[gunofdis]

Hardware mode doesn't use your cpu for rendering, instead farming that off to your video card. Software mod is a last resort mode for video driver problems because it fairly accurately emulates the ps2's video hardware on your cpu (which isn't really meant to do those kinds of computations quickly).

Software mode can be multithreaded but it's still a very intense operation that will bog down the terrible dual core -U model processors. Emulating the EE and VUs is also very cpu heavy and generally single threaded unless your game doesn't have problems with the MTVU hack.

That i7 probably won't run any better than your current i3 and may very well run worse, though it's hard to be certain since you're talking about a really old i3 and performance per clock has gone up steadily on the Core product line.

If you really want to go with a Dell laptop and really want to emulate PS2 games well, get one of the Alienware 17 or Alienware 18 models, as their processors are essentially full speed desktop processors with better power management. Just don't expect the battery life to be great.

[BlackCitadel]

Well,
Strange now the game (Tsugunai Atonement) on "Software" mode runs better than it when on "Hardware" mode, on "Hardware" mode, the game lags and slows down during battles.

While the game "Dragon Quest 8" runs better when on "Hardware" mode and very very slow on "Software" mode.
What is that all about!!!??

[gunofdis]

Different games use the PS2 hardware differently and one might be stuck waiting on something that another isn't using much at all. The PS2 hardware isn't exactly straightforward and a lot of game devs were smoking some ridiculous ***** while coding their engines. Good programmers and software designers are hard enough to find in industries that don't treat their workers like ***** and pay poorly for the "privilege" of being in the industry :V

[BlackCitadel]

I see, thanks.
But I am still wondering, how that i7 may run pcsx2 worse than an i3? Isn't i7 supposed to be better than i3?
Moreover, the Dedicated GPU of that Dell is 2 GB.

And on the top of that, the Dell support forums has told me despite the i3 more clock speed (2.53GHz), the i7 (1.8GHz) is a far better and capable CPU.

[gunofdis]

On a desktop an i7 will always beat an i3 because all i3s are dual cores and all i7s are quads with high clock speeds. On a laptop it gets complicated because most mobile i7s are dual core with really bad clock speeds to save power. The MQ line is only slightly worse than a desktop i7, the -Us have trouble competing with desktop i3s. As for the support board, someone was just trying to make a sale.

There are probably use cases where the i7-U will outperform your old i3-M, but that's entirely down to the hyperthreading scheduler that won't do a thing for emulation. Video encoding and compiling large software projects come to mind. And in those use cases you're probably not looking at $1000 worth of difference, you're looking at a fairly incremental one.

They days of getting a new box after 3 years and finding it massively faster than your old one are more or less over unless someone starts actually competing with Intel in the desktop space. A modestly overclocked Westmere or Sandy Bridge processor can keep up with an equivalent Haswell one in everything but power consumption.