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 became an open-source project on July 13, 2008 when the developers released the source code publicly on an SVN repository on Google Code 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.[4] These preview builds, 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.[6] By now, Dolphin can boot all versions of the Wii OS.[citation needed] 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 perfectly. Many changes to the emulator improved speed for both x86 and x64 users so dramatically that users were achieving full or higher speeds than the Gamecube and Wii itself. Sound had dramatically improved. Graphics near 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. In order to make it more user-friendly, Dolphin’s GUI was reworked. The DirectX plugin received huge developments and is now faster than the previously used OpenGL graphics 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.
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.[10] Current features include:
- Action Replay support
- Xbox 360 Controller support, with rumble
- (jailbroken) iPhone support, with motion control over Wi-Fi (through iController)
- Experimental NetPlay
- Anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering
- Save states
- Memory Card Manager
- Real and emulated multiple Wii Remote support
- Wii Remote expansions support
- DSP HLE and experimental LLE
- WAD (DLC games) support
- Limited support for Homebrew and XFB emulation
- Hi-Res Support, Texture Dumper, Free Look[4]
- Frameskipping[11]
- Tool-assisted speedrun support[12]
- Post-processing pixel shaders
- OpenCL hardware accelerated texture processing
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:
- Super Smash Bros. Melee
- Super Mario Galaxy[16]
- Chibi-Robo! (speed lag for most computers)
- Super Mario Sunshine
- Resident Evil 4
- Resident Evil Zero
- Resident Evil
- Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
- Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii
- Donkey Kong: Country Returns
- Pro Evolution Soccer 2011
- Crash of the Titans
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl[7]
- F-Zero GX
- Luigi’s Mansion
- Mario Kart Wii[17]
- Mario Kart: Double Dash‼
- Mario Party 4[18]
- Mario Party 5
- Mario Party 6
- Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King[19]
- Tales of Graces[20]
- Mario Party 7
- Mario Party 8[21]
- Wii Sports Resort
- Sonic the Hedgehog 4
- Super Mario Galaxy 2[22]
- The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning
- The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night
- The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon
- Sonic Unleashed
Dolphin-Emu on Mandriva/Linux
The Dolphin-emu package on Mandriva is available at regular repository. You can install it by using urpmi:
[code]
urpmi dolphin-emu
[/code]
or using RPM package:
Dolphin-Emu 2.0 (SVN6946) for Mandriva 2010.2 – 64bit
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/MIB/2010.2/ … x86_64.rpm
Dolphin-Emu 2.0 (SVN6946) for Mandriva 2010.2 – 32bit
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/MIB/2010.2/ … 2.i686.rpm