Dolphin (emulator)
Encyclopedia
Dolphin is an open-source Nintendo GameCube
, Wii
, and Triforce emulator
for Microsoft Windows
, Linux
, and Mac OS X
(Intel-based). It is the first emulator to successfully run commercial Nintendo GameCube and Wii games and is the only emulator capable of running commercial Wii games. Its name refers to the Nintendo Dolphin, which was the development codename for the GameCube.
Dolphin was officially discontinued in 2004, with the developers releasing version 1.01 as the final build of the emulator. However, the developers decided to revive the project in 2005 and then in 2007, version 1.03 was released with minor improvements and a little sound support.
under the GPLv2. At this point, the emulator even had basic Wii emulation implemented. Since its open sourcing, various developers were attracted and development on the emulator has continued since, with regular releases of SVN builds, unlike before, when it was closed-source. These preview builds and unofficial SVN builds were released with their revision number (e.g., RXXXX) rather than version numbers (e.g., 1.03). As with previous builds, differences between consecutive builds are typically minor.
Dolphin's Wii emulation reached a milestone in February 2009 when it made a breakthrough, managing to successfully boot and run the official Wii System Menu v1.0.
By now, Dolphin can boot all versions of the Wii OS. There is, however, no full support for Wii channels, except for the disc channel.
By April 2009, most commercial games, Gamecube and Wii alike, could be fully played albeit with a few minor problems and errors, with a large number of games running with virtually no defect. Improvements to the emulator had allowed users to play select games at full speed for the first time, audio had dramatically improved, and the graphics capabilities were fairly consistent except for a few minor problems.
By late October 2009, numerous new useful features were incorporated into the emulator such as automatic frame-skipping, which increased the performance of the emulator as well as increased stability of the emulator overall. Also improved was the NetPlay feature of the emulator, which allowed players to play multiplayer Gamecube and Wii games online with friends, as long as the game doesn't require a WiiMote. The GUI
was reworked to make it more user-friendly. The DirectX
plug-in also received huge developments, and is now often faster than the OpenGL
plug-in.
By the end of November 2010, the developers fixed most of the sound issues (such as crackling), added compatibility with even more games, and increased the overall emulation speed and accuracy.
By July 2011, version 3.0 was released and the emulator reached its final stages. There've been roughly 2500 commits between 2.0 and this release. Strange UI behavior, crashes, graphical glitches and other problems were fixed. For example, many games which didn't boot at all in Dolphin now work. The configuration dialogs were restructured in a more sensible manner to ease emulator usage for new users. The video config dialog received a complete overhaul and features a description panel for each option now. Various features were added including support for the Wiimote speaker, EFB format change emulation, GFX debugger, audio dumping, and many others. Thanks to numerous fixes to the LLE emulator engine, audio emulation in Dolphin is close to perfect now (provided that one has the necessary DSP dumps). The developers also added a D3D11 video backend and an XAudio2 audio backend. The 2.0 release already had seen the introduction of plugin rewrites; the new plugins have been brought to feature parity and were replaced so well, that it was decided to merge all plugins into the Core. Further improvements are better suited as additions in the current infrastructure since this architecture allows for a much better integration with the other parts of Dolphin. A set of eight translations (Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Greek, Hungarian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish) is also included with Dolphin 3.0. There have been some performance optimizations (especially in the texture decoder), but generally speaking performance decreased in favor of more accurate hardware emulation. The Windows build uses MSVC 2010 now, Linux users should use the new CMake build system. OSX people still compile Dolphin via SCons.
. This feature has been widely lauded by the gaming community and has received features on numerous gaming networks, as the emulator has surpassed the limits of the original console.
These are some notable games which are compatible with Dolphin:
or ATI
. Dolphin is able to accept input from a mouse, keyboard, joypad, joystick, Wii Remote, and microphone.
Minimum requirements
and 1UP.com
commend the ability to play games in high-definition
. It has also been highly praised for the high compatibility of games with the emulator and the ability to emulate not just one but two consoles, in addition to the Triforce arcade board. It has also received the attention of many websites due to it being the only emulator to properly emulate a seventh generation
console.
Nintendo GameCube
The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...
, Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
, and Triforce emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
(Intel-based). It is the first emulator to successfully run commercial Nintendo GameCube and Wii games and is the only emulator capable of running commercial Wii games. Its name refers to the Nintendo Dolphin, which was the development codename for the GameCube.
Origins (2003–2007)
Dolphin was first released in 2003 as an experimental Nintendo GameCube emulator that could boot up and run commercial games. However, it had terrible performance and many games crashed on start up or barely ran at all; average speed was from 2 to 20 FPS and the audio was not yet emulated.Dolphin was officially discontinued in 2004, with the developers releasing version 1.01 as the final build of the emulator. However, the developers decided to revive the project in 2005 and then in 2007, version 1.03 was released with minor improvements and a little sound support.
Open Source and Wii Emulation (2008–present)
Dolphin became an open-source project on July 13, 2008 when the developers released the source code publicly on an SVN repository on Google CodeGoogle Code
Google Code is Google's site for developer tools, APIs and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google's developer products....
under the GPLv2. At this point, the emulator even had basic Wii emulation implemented. Since its open sourcing, various developers were attracted and development on the emulator has continued since, with regular releases of SVN builds, unlike before, when it was closed-source. These preview builds and unofficial SVN builds were released with their revision number (e.g., RXXXX) rather than version numbers (e.g., 1.03). As with previous builds, differences between consecutive builds are typically minor.
Dolphin's Wii emulation reached a milestone in February 2009 when it made a breakthrough, managing to successfully boot and run the official Wii System Menu v1.0.
By now, Dolphin can boot all versions of the Wii OS. There is, however, no full support for Wii channels, except for the disc channel.
By April 2009, most commercial games, Gamecube and Wii alike, could be fully played albeit with a few minor problems and errors, with a large number of games running with virtually no defect. Improvements to the emulator had allowed users to play select games at full speed for the first time, audio had dramatically improved, and the graphics capabilities were fairly consistent except for a few minor problems.
By late October 2009, numerous new useful features were incorporated into the emulator such as automatic frame-skipping, which increased the performance of the emulator as well as increased stability of the emulator overall. Also improved was the NetPlay feature of the emulator, which allowed players to play multiplayer Gamecube and Wii games online with friends, as long as the game doesn't require a WiiMote. The GUI
Gui
Gui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
was reworked to make it more user-friendly. The DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
plug-in also received huge developments, and is now often faster than the OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
plug-in.
By the end of November 2010, the developers fixed most of the sound issues (such as crackling), added compatibility with even more games, and increased the overall emulation speed and accuracy.
By July 2011, version 3.0 was released and the emulator reached its final stages. There've been roughly 2500 commits between 2.0 and this release. Strange UI behavior, crashes, graphical glitches and other problems were fixed. For example, many games which didn't boot at all in Dolphin now work. The configuration dialogs were restructured in a more sensible manner to ease emulator usage for new users. The video config dialog received a complete overhaul and features a description panel for each option now. Various features were added including support for the Wiimote speaker, EFB format change emulation, GFX debugger, audio dumping, and many others. Thanks to numerous fixes to the LLE emulator engine, audio emulation in Dolphin is close to perfect now (provided that one has the necessary DSP dumps). The developers also added a D3D11 video backend and an XAudio2 audio backend. The 2.0 release already had seen the introduction of plugin rewrites; the new plugins have been brought to feature parity and were replaced so well, that it was decided to merge all plugins into the Core. Further improvements are better suited as additions in the current infrastructure since this architecture allows for a much better integration with the other parts of Dolphin. A set of eight translations (Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Greek, Hungarian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish) is also included with Dolphin 3.0. There have been some performance optimizations (especially in the texture decoder), but generally speaking performance decreased in favor of more accurate hardware emulation. The Windows build uses MSVC 2010 now, Linux users should use the new CMake build system. OSX people still compile Dolphin via SCons.
Features
The development builds of Dolphin may have new enhancements, fixes, and experimental features which will eventually be in an official release. Dolphin's team is asking the community for suggestions for new and more useful features they want in Dolphin. Current features include:- Action ReplayAction ReplayAction Replay is the brand name of a series of video game cheating devices created by Datel. As of 2010, Action Replays are currently available for some of the current major gaming platforms which include the Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, PlayStation 2, and the PlayStation Portable, and many older...
support - Xbox 360 ControllerXbox 360 ControllerThe Xbox 360 Controller is the primary controller for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console and was introduced at E3 2005. The Xbox 360 controller comes in both wired and wireless versions. Original Xbox controllers are not compatible with the Xbox 360...
support, with rumble - (jailbroken) iPhoneIPhoneThe iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
support, with motion control over Wi-Fi (through iController) - Experimental NetPlay
- Anti-aliasingAnti-aliasingIn digital signal processing, spatial anti-aliasing is the technique of minimizing the distortion artifacts known as aliasing when representing a high-resolution image at a lower resolution...
, anisotropic filteringAnisotropic filteringIn 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering is a method of enhancing the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles with respect to the camera where the projection of the texture appears to be non-orthogonal In 3D computer graphics, anisotropic filtering... - Save states
- Memory Card Manager
- Real and emulated multiple Wii RemoteWii RemoteThe , also known as the Wiimote, is the primary controller for Nintendo's Wii console. A main feature of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with and manipulate items on screen via gesture recognition and pointing through the use of accelerometer and...
support - Wii Remote expansions support
- DSP HLE and LLE
- WAD (DLC games) support
- Support for Homebrew and XFB emulation
- Hi-Res Support, Texture Dumper, Free Look
- Frameskipping
- Tool-assisted speedrunTool-assisted speedrunA tool-assisted speedrun is a speedrun movie or performance of a video game produced by means of emulation and using features unavailable to regular players, such as slow motion or frame-by-frame advance of the gameplay, and re-recording of previous portions of a performance...
support - Post-processing pixel shaders
- OpenCLOpenCLOpenCL is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors. OpenCL includes a language for writing kernels , plus APIs that are used to define and then control the platforms...
hardware accelerated texture processing
High-definition support
Dolphin, like most PC emulators, supports arbitrary resolutions, whereas the Gamecube and Wii only support up to 480p480p
480p is the shorthand name for a video display resolution. The p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non-interlaced. The 480 denotes a vertical resolution of 480 pixel high vertically scanning lines, usually with a horizontal resolution of 640 pixels and 4:3 aspect ratio or a horizontal resolution of...
. This feature has been widely lauded by the gaming community and has received features on numerous gaming networks, as the emulator has surpassed the limits of the original console.
Games compatibility
Dolphin is able to run many Wii and GameCube games in almost full emulation with few minor errors. Various compatibility lists document which games run perfectly, and what settings need to be tweaked in order to ensure no glitches.These are some notable games which are compatible with Dolphin:
- Mario Kart: Double Dash‼
- Mario Kart WiiMario Kart Wiiis a racing video game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. It is the sixth installment in the Mario Kart series and the second Mario Kart title to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The game was released worldwide...
- Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. Melee, known in Japan as , often abbreviated as SSBM or simply as Melee, is a crossover fighting game released for the Nintendo GameCube shortly after its launch in . It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 game Super Smash Bros., and the predecessor to the Wii game Super Smash...
- Super Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. BrawlSuper Smash Bros. Brawl, known in Japan as , often abbreviated as SSBB or simply as Brawl, is the third installment in the Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games, developed by an ad hoc development team consisting of Sora, Game Arts and staff from other developers, and published by...
- Super Mario GalaxySuper Mario Galaxyis a 3D platform game developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It was released in most regions in November 2007, and is the third 3D original platformer in the Mario series, after Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. The game follows the protagonist, Mario, on a...
- Super Mario Galaxy 2Super Mario Galaxy 2is a platforming video game developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It was first announced at E3 2009 and is the sequel to Super Mario Galaxy. It was released in North America on May 23, 2010, in Japan on May 27, 2010, in Europe on June 11, 2010, and in Australia on July 1,...
- New Super Mario Bros. WiiNew Super Mario Bros. Wiiis a 2009 side-scrolling platform video game published and developed by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. The game was released on November 12, 2009 in Australia, November 15, 2009 in North America, November 20, 2009 in Europe and December 3, 2009 in Japan...
- Donkey Kong Country ReturnsDonkey Kong Country ReturnsDonkey Kong Country Returns, known as in Japan, is a side-scrolling 2.5D platform game developed by Retro Studios and released by Nintendo for the Wii console on November 21, 2010, in North America, December 3, 2010, in Europe, and on December 9, 2010, in Japan...
- Luigi's MansionLuigi's MansionLuigi's Mansion, known as in Japan, is an action-adventure game published by Nintendo for the Nintendo GameCube. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in Europe on May 3, 2002. The game was a launch title for the GameCube...
- F-Zero GXF-Zero GXis a futuristic racing video game for the Nintendo GameCube console. Developed by Sega's Amusement Vision department and supervised and published by Nintendo, it was released in Japan, Europe and North America . F-Zero AX, the arcade counterpart of GX, uses hardware conceived from a business...
- Mario Party 4Mario Party 4is the fourth installment in a series of board game style and is the first game in the series to be released for Nintendo Gamecube, featuring popular Nintendo characters. Mario Party 4 was released in North America on October 21, 2002, in Japan on November 8, 2002, and in Europe and Australia on...
- Mario Party 5Mario Party 5is a party video game published by Nintendo and developed by Hudson Soft. It is the second game in the Mario Party series for Nintendo Gamecube. It was released in North America on November 10, 2003, in Japan on November 23, 2003, and in Europe on December 5, 2003...
- Mario Party 6Mario Party 6is the sixth game in the Mario Party series of board game-style video games by Nintendo and is the third title in the series made for Nintendo GameCube and was released in Japan on November 18, 2004; North America on December 6, 2004; in Europe on March 18, 2005; and in Australia on September 15,...
- Mario Party 7Mario Party 7is the seventh in a series of board game style video games for Nintendo platforms and is the fourth and final title in the Mario Party series for Nintendo Gamecube. Mario Party 7 features popular Nintendo characters. It was released on the Nintendo GameCube in North America on November 7, 2005, in...
- Mario Party 8Mario Party 8is a party video game, the eighth installment in the Mario Party series, and is the first title in the series to be released for the Nintendo Wii. It is also the first Mario Party title to have the ability to use Mii characters. It was released in North America on May 29, 2007, in Europe on June...
- Harvest Moon: Magical MelodyHarvest Moon: Magical Melodyis a social simulation video game for the Nintendo GameCube developed by Marvelous Interactive. It is an updated version of , which was only released in Japan. The updated GameCube version was released in the United States by Natsume on March 28, . For its European release by Rising Star Games, it...
- Wii Sports ResortWii Sports ResortWii Sports Resort has received generally favorable reviews, with an average score on Metacritic of 80%. IGN gave it a 7.7 out of 10, citing the impressive fidelity of the controls and how the graphics, as compared to the majority of Wii games, were superb. GameTrailers gave an 8.6 out of 10....
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- Resident Evil
- Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
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- Xenoblade Chronicles
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System requirements
Dolphin runs best on a computer with a multi-core processor and a graphics card that supports OpenGL/DirectX, Pixel Shader 2.0, and OpenCL. Preferable graphics cards are those manufactured by NvidiaNVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
or ATI
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
. Dolphin is able to accept input from a mouse, keyboard, joypad, joystick, Wii Remote, and microphone.
Minimum requirements
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows (XP/Vista/7) / Linux / Mac OS X (Intel version)
- CPU: Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 with SSE2
- GPU: OpenGL 2.1 or DirectX 9.0c compatible
Reception
Dolphin has received widespread acclaim across various independent gaming sites. For instance, EurogamerEurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
and 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
commend the ability to play games in high-definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
. It has also been highly praised for the high compatibility of games with the emulator and the ability to emulate not just one but two consoles, in addition to the Triforce arcade board. It has also received the attention of many websites due to it being the only emulator to properly emulate a seventh generation
History of video game consoles (seventh generation)
In the history of video games, the seventh generation of consoles is the current generation , and includes consoles released since late by Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony...
console.
External links
- Dolphin's project site at Google CodeGoogle CodeGoogle Code is Google's site for developer tools, APIs and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google's developer products....