CPU V GPU performance

RetroArch
#1

I’m wondering what kind of performance difference there is with RA (in general) from a system resources perspective.

If I have a mediocre CPU, will a very good GPU make a big difference?

For example, let’s say I have a very old PC running windows 7, like an old Core 2 Duo system or something like that. By itself, I wouldn’t expect that to be able to keep up with some of the more demanding cores. Then, lets say I add to it a GTX 2070, or something pretty fast. Is that going to be enough to make it run alright, or am I so CPU bottlenecked that it’s no use?

This isn’t a “real” situation that I’m describing, I’m just using the example as an extreme one in order to make my question very clear. (that’s what I’m hoping it does)

Thanks

#2

For most cores, CPU is the only factor. Only the hardware-rendered cores care about GPU at all and it’s typically not the most demanding part (there are some exceptions, like ParaLLEl-RDP running at 8x scale). The only thing the GPU matters for in most cases is shaders.

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#3

Single threaded CPU performance is king. :crown:

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#4

This is a really dumb question, but does RetroArch attempt to run on its own CPU core? Like, if you have a 2.5 Ghz Dual Core CPU, is it getting the full 2.5 Ghz from the second core (assuming nothing else is running on it)?

I’ve seen people say stuff like X program will run faster on a single-core 3.0 Ghz CPU than a 2 Ghz i5, for example, and I’m curious if the same applies to RetroArch.

#5

i think your OS’s thread scheduler is always trying to make the best out of all your CPU cores by dispatching threads among them, so afaik a situation where a CPU core wouldn’t have something already running on it is unlikely to happen in the first place. iirc retroarch’s “threaded video” setting is somehow forcing retroarch and emulation’s rendering loop to be on separate threads, which might be similar to what you are asking about, i wouldn’t recommend to enable that setting though, last time i heard of it, it was known for causing various issues (crashes with some gpus, additional input lag, …), and the performance benefit was very minimal anyway.

Yes, a scenario where a 3Ghz single-core will perform better than a 2Ghz multi-core is very likely to happen on anything single-threaded.

1 Like
#6

Thanks for the info. That definitely answers my questions.

#7

Thanks Hunter.

I ran into another similar question on reddit today asking about sound cards. Does a better sound card help with audio latency, or is that all a product of the CPU performance as well? (I’m assuming its CPU)

#8

I think there are situations where a dedicated sound card can help with latency, but I don’t think RetroArch is one of them. So yeah, probably not something to worry too much about.

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#9

Just speaking generally about sound cards, the drivers from the manufacturers tend to focus on adding enhancements and effects and such, which can introduce latency. The best thing you could do, just short of buying a new sound card, is to just disable all of the “Audio Enhancement” type options in the driver software.

I don’t know how much of a difference this might make in RetroArch, but it does make a difference in a recording environment with a specialized driver like ASIO4ALL.

#10

Thanks Hunter. :slight_smile: