Emulator

If you're expecting every game in Dolphin to run at full speed, you'll be sorely disappointed. GameCube/Wii emulation is incredibly CPU-intensive, and there are a few games that even the fastest processor money can buy will struggle to run.

If your computer can only run a game at 20-30% speed, there's little that can be done other than fiddling with the settings or buying a faster CPU. Furthermore, your graphics card doesn't matter nearly as much to Dolphin as it does for PC games. It's all about the CPU.

I generally fiddle with the graphics settings for each game until I get a good balance between speed and graphical glitchiness.

Also, never use Real EFB unless the game really needs it. It's the worst slowdown - for me, it takes New Super Mario Bros. Wii from a respectable 60-100% to a measly 5%.

Actually, no, that was EFB copies to RAM that did that for NSMB. But Real EFB is still a huge slowdown for every game, and it makes 'em look terrible too.

@pauldacheez
Don't answer dumb questions by dumb people on here please and perpetuate these types of threads. Don't reward bad behavior - that's my motto.