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Dolphin - Emulating Wii and Gamecube Games
- Thread starter Stallion Free
- Start date
EternalGamer
Banned
After seeing all the amazing screenshots in this thread I decided to give the Dolphin a spin. I have a Wii that I never play (frankly, because it looks kind of ugly on an HD TV). I always wanted to love Super Mario Bros Wii. I got it for Christmas but only played it twice for the aformentioned reason. So I thought I'd give that a shot first.
I seemingly forgot what I learned from years ago in dealing with emulation: it is really a cool hobbyist kinda thing; it isn't really for playing games.
I have a pretty nice PC set up. An overclocked i920 at 3.20 GHZ, 6GB RAM, Solid State Drive, and 2 CrossFired Radeon 6970s. So I thought I should be able to run something like New Super Mario Bros. Wii at full speed, at least with some features turned down. Even turning off Anti-aliasing, it was never up to completely full speed and the bricks were always invisible.
So, even after I optimized the best I could managed I ended up with a version of the game that was only 90% the actual game's speed, looked almost as ugly as it did on the Wii, and had invisible bricks.
Not complaining because I know what a tremendous feat even this is with emulation. But just a note of caution for those "window shopping" this thread": all those pretty pictures you see? Those are not the games in motion. Just keep that in mind.
I think I'll stick to using my PC for playing PC games and leave the emulation to hobbyist. It was a nice dream to actually PLAY Wii games in HD, though...
I seemingly forgot what I learned from years ago in dealing with emulation: it is really a cool hobbyist kinda thing; it isn't really for playing games.
I have a pretty nice PC set up. An overclocked i920 at 3.20 GHZ, 6GB RAM, Solid State Drive, and 2 CrossFired Radeon 6970s. So I thought I should be able to run something like New Super Mario Bros. Wii at full speed, at least with some features turned down. Even turning off Anti-aliasing, it was never up to completely full speed and the bricks were always invisible.
So, even after I optimized the best I could managed I ended up with a version of the game that was only 90% the actual game's speed, looked almost as ugly as it did on the Wii, and had invisible bricks.
Not complaining because I know what a tremendous feat even this is with emulation. But just a note of caution for those "window shopping" this thread": all those pretty pictures you see? Those are not the games in motion. Just keep that in mind.
I think I'll stick to using my PC for playing PC games and leave the emulation to hobbyist. It was a nice dream to actually PLAY Wii games in HD, though...
Nostalgia~4ever
Banned
EternalGamer said:
dolphin is very CPU dependent, and that CPU isnt great anyway.
EternalGamer said:
As I don't have that one special game I comment on how well it runs but maybe there are special fixes for the game?
Also I cannot comment on other people posting screenshots here, but I only play my games on Dolphin and they all look exactly like the screens posted here. Thats why I think your statement is a little unfair, especially since you tried a single game and thats it.
Nostalgia~4ever said:
Eh, the CPU's OK. NSMB also requires a lot of tweaking for everything to look proper in Dolphin (game-specific fixes, which you can find by googling), and also isn't a very visually impressive game from an art perspective. (And honestly, it looks fine even at 480p played on a 1080p 120" projection)
Nostalgia~4ever
Banned
StevieP said:
I have that CPU as well, but 3.2 GHZ is too low in order to run most dolphin games at full speed. You need to get up at 3.5 - 4 GHZ since the extra cores dont do anything.
EternalGamer
Banned
Nostalgia~4ever said:
Only in the world of emulation would my CPU be considered "not that great." I will grant you that it isn't as good as a top of the line Sandy Bridge, but it sure the heck isn't old. I just got this PC six months ago and and it is a pretty nice Alienware build. I mean, probably 90% of the people who play PC games have a processor at about the same level or worse.
It can run every game I've ever thrown at it maxed out with at least 60FPS without a problem including The Witcher 2. I have yet to find a single PC game that I have to dial anything back to play and I couldn't even get this running a 2D platformer at full speed with everything turned off.
Again, I'm not complaining. I know from past experience that world of emulation is not the ideal world for actually playing games. It is better suited for tweaking and admiring your results. When it comes to playing games for extended periods of time (unless you are dealing with old 2D systems) things start to fall apart rather quickly.
EternalGamer said:
Dolphin is way way way more CPU-heavy than GPU-heavy, which many PC games are. Your hi-end crossfire setup will cut through Witcher 2 like butter, but it means almost nothing when it comes to emulation. Dolphin is unique in the emulation world, in that it *does* take some advantage of GPUs... but it's not going to help you much. Further overclocking your CPU would help, but as I said - NSMB is strange in that it requires a lot of tweaking to run proper.
As an example, I remember playing with that exact game 6 months ago and it ran practically in slow motion on my i5 2500k Sandy Bridge (at 4.5ghz) until I ... I can't remember which option I turned on to be honest. I googled it. As soon as I turned these particular options on, it shot to 60FPS instantly, with only the loss of spinning coin sprites as a byproduct.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Apart from your failing to set Dolphin up, how did you also manage to fail the 25 or so links over the past couple pages to Jediyoshi's youtube page showing the games running?EternalGamer said:
Also, do you post on 1up as Al3xander?
AbsoluteZero
Banned
theBishop said:
But if you don't have a Wii remote that means you don't own a Wii.
And if you don't own a Wii you can't rip your games.
And if....
EternalGamer
Banned
StevieP said:
Totally understand all of that. Like I said, I think I was just lured into a false dreamland due to all the amazing high res.
I do kinda want to actually play New Super Mario Bros Wii now and I'd prefer to do it on my PC with a 360 controller, so maybe I'll do some more searching and tweaking.
I had just temporarily forgotten that emulation is still, well... the world of emulation.
theBishop said:
Uh. Well. Way to avoid the banhammer.
I have no idea if someone's tried Move on it, but if it's someone's coded the Move to be a directinput device in Windows, I suppose it's possible. But I'm not sure if the pointer would work in that case.
Personally, if I were you I'd grab myself a refurbed Wii Remote+ and Nunchuck on ebay for like $5-10, along with a wireless sensor bar for about the same. The Wii Remote + is a better pointer than the Move due to its reliance on infrared triangulation.
nincompoop
Banned
If you don't have a Wiimote, then you probably don't have a Wii, so you wouldn't be able to dump your games anyway. Actually, even if you have a Wii then you'd still need a Wiimote to get into the homebrew channel, unless you set it up to boot directly into the homebrew channel or something.theBishop said:
EternalGamer
Banned
Returning to this thread about two hours after my original post. I'm not afraid to eat crow when I'm wrong.
I'm wrong.
All I had to do was change the texture rendering mode to "emulation" and turn off RAM emulation. I can now run New Super Mario Bros Wii at full speed with constant 60FPS at 1920x1080 resolution 4xAA and double rendered native textures. I may even be able to run it smoothly at higher outputs, but I haven't tried because it already looks amazing.
This is far superior to playing this game on the Wii. Not only is it an extremely crisp and detailed image, I also no longer have to put up with the crappy tilt and waggle controls. I just assigned tile left to L-Trigger and tilt Right to Right trigger and shake to RB. So I have complete control over spin jumps and tilting platforms w/o having to play with annoying motion controls.
I'm wrong.
All I had to do was change the texture rendering mode to "emulation" and turn off RAM emulation. I can now run New Super Mario Bros Wii at full speed with constant 60FPS at 1920x1080 resolution 4xAA and double rendered native textures. I may even be able to run it smoothly at higher outputs, but I haven't tried because it already looks amazing.
This is far superior to playing this game on the Wii. Not only is it an extremely crisp and detailed image, I also no longer have to put up with the crappy tilt and waggle controls. I just assigned tile left to L-Trigger and tilt Right to Right trigger and shake to RB. So I have complete control over spin jumps and tilting platforms w/o having to play with annoying motion controls.
Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
EternalGamer said:
just wondering if its worth playing through Zelda Twilight Princess on Dolphin or just playing it on my Wii?
i never played through the game yet, and i've been meaning to for a while now.
i tried the game out for a bit on the emulator and it seems to run fine ...seems like its locked @ 30fps in game, and the graphics looks considerably better than on the wii.
i'm just kinda wondering if i'll be able to play through the whole game on the emulator, or will i run into problems later?
i never played through the game yet, and i've been meaning to for a while now.
i tried the game out for a bit on the emulator and it seems to run fine ...seems like its locked @ 30fps in game, and the graphics looks considerably better than on the wii.
i'm just kinda wondering if i'll be able to play through the whole game on the emulator, or will i run into problems later?
jediyoshi
Member
Zimbardo said:
Just go with it on the emulator if everything seems to work fine. I believe it's a feature they've added post v3 so you'll have to update to a more current build if you're not already, but if you have an SD card you can export your save for the Wii to use and continue on from there and vice versa.
ss_lemonade
Member
EFB to RAM does hurt performance quite a bit in some games. I think you need some ridiculously fast ram to be able to use this without problems. I'm able to manage with an oc'ed 2500k with the majority of stuff I've tried, but there are still some games that run slow with it (which is why until now, I am still searching how to disable it via game configs)
georaldc said:
Thanks a lot for you tips (and thanks to everybody who answered). Now S&P2 runs at full speed, unfortunately you were right about that bugged corner and my version dates from last week, well, its a step in the right direction! I'll write about that in the bug section of the official Dolphin website. Maybe they'll find but I'm sure that bug has been signaled before already.
I'll test that LLE plugin tomorrow...
I'm having some trouble with r7671
Originally tested Pandoras Tower with r7595 where it worked relatively well but showed a black Border on the left side of the screen.
r7671 causes massive "lags" which warp the character models. It runs ok at first, suddenly stops for a fraction of a second, skips a few frames as well as parts of the animation and then "drags" parts of polygons to where they are supposed to be.
This really psss me off.
Tried various settings but nothing seems to fix this completely. Disabling [RAM] for [EFB Copies] seems to reduce the frequency of this happning but I'd like to get rid of it alltogether.
Is this emulator related or did I somehow manage to frag my (V)RAM?
Edit: Same problems with r7623 & r7669
Originally tested Pandoras Tower with r7595 where it worked relatively well but showed a black Border on the left side of the screen.
r7671 causes massive "lags" which warp the character models. It runs ok at first, suddenly stops for a fraction of a second, skips a few frames as well as parts of the animation and then "drags" parts of polygons to where they are supposed to be.
This really psss me off.
Tried various settings but nothing seems to fix this completely. Disabling [RAM] for [EFB Copies] seems to reduce the frequency of this happning but I'd like to get rid of it alltogether.
Is this emulator related or did I somehow manage to frag my (V)RAM?
Edit: Same problems with r7623 & r7669
robertlebrone
Member
Just got Dolphin setup and with a couple of my games and they look amazing. However when I play Donkey Kong Country Returns the input lag is killer. I'll press a button and it seems like it is almost a full second before anything happens in game. Is there a fix for this?
Also how do you fix the looping sound issue?
config: intel i5 2500k @ 4.8GHz, 8gb ddr3, gtx 570
Also how do you fix the looping sound issue?
config: intel i5 2500k @ 4.8GHz, 8gb ddr3, gtx 570
robertlebrone
Member
Ahhh! This Donkey Kong issue is going to drive me up the wall. I've checked all over the net for the last several hours looking for a solution to the input/button lag and it's like the issue doesn't exist beyond me. I'd figure someone else would have the same issue at least.
Really want to play it since I just can't get into playing it on the Wii with the graphics, but it is unplayable in its current state.
Really want to play it since I just can't get into playing it on the Wii with the graphics, but it is unplayable in its current state.
robertlebrone
Member
Dolphin ver. r7671
Resolution: 1080p
V-Sync: ON
Fullscreen
2x Native
9xSSAA
16x AF
Force Texture Filtering: ON
EFB Copies: Virtual
Embedded Frame Buffer: Ignore Format changes- ON
External Frame Buffer: Disable
Game runs dead locked 60fps, besides the debilitating button lag.
Resolution: 1080p
V-Sync: ON
Fullscreen
2x Native
9xSSAA
16x AF
Force Texture Filtering: ON
EFB Copies: Virtual
Embedded Frame Buffer: Ignore Format changes- ON
External Frame Buffer: Disable
Game runs dead locked 60fps, besides the debilitating button lag.
TheVampire
Banned
Guys I wanted to play Resident Evil 2 and 3 again but on PC they look like dated shit.
Would they look any better on the emulated version?
Would they look any better on the emulated version?
robertlebrone
Member
Nah, I'll try a level and see how it goes with vsync off.
Edit: Vsync off didn't make any difference. I've tried everything I can think of, guess it just is what it is, oh well.
Edit: Vsync off didn't make any difference. I've tried everything I can think of, guess it just is what it is, oh well.
nincompoop
Banned
What revision/settings are YOU using? I have the same input lag problem with DKCR and it would be helpful if we could test the game in the exact same environment as someone who doesn't.Nabs said:
Maybe a little bit, Dolphin seems to be using a really nice texture filter that prevents 2D elements from looking like shit in most games I've tried. Don't expect miracles though.TheVampire said:
TheVampire
Banned
Can Dolphin use an xbox 360 controller?
SecretMoblin
Member
TheVampire said:
Yep. It's easy to set up and save different configs for different games, too.
robertlebrone
Member
nincompoop said:
This would be extremely helpful.
I've done it before. It works pretty well, but obviously the cursor actions suffer. You can assign the cursor movement to the right stick, but it's really not great. Everything else, however, actually feels better to me. You can assign the waggle action to a button even, which feels so much more natural.AiTM said:
Nabs
Member
nincompoop said:
Card: 5850
Dolphin rev: 7671 (has worked fine with previous builds)
Settings aren't really anything special. These aren't really tweaked specifically for the game, but they work fine:
(DX9) 2x Native Res / No AA / 16AF / Per-Pixel Lighting / EFB - Virtual / Skip EFB Access (I think I set this for Sonic)
General config stuff: Framelimit on auto, JIT Recompiler. Audio: HLE, nothing checked off (I don't think DK needs DTK) / Xaudio2
Game properties: Enable Block Merging, Disable Wiimote Speaker.
So yeah, the game runs fine, never had an issue with input lag.
hioh631, if you're having audio issues (and have a beastly rig) you should definitely look into LLE. It won't be perfect, but it should be an improvement.
Hitoribhoshi
Member
Hi, I'm sorry about what I'm about to ask because I suppose it's been already asked somewhere here:
from what I gathered, Dolphin/PCSX2 are said to be CPU depandent.
but when you try to increase (a lot (at least 1080p)) the internal resolution and options like no fog and filters like SSAA/FSAA, aren't those operation pretty much 100% GPU dependant ?
I'm asking because I'm trying to run a few games on my parents c2d E8400/7 64Bits/4Gb ram/Radeon 4550 and it works ok low-rez, but lags really bad when pushing settings higher, so I guess the shitty GPU is the bottle neck here.
I'm trying to grasp how this all works in order to build a proper emulation pc, probably sandy bridge based (2600K) but I really have no idea about ram above 4Gb ou GPU(what can I do with a 700$ card or can't with 400$/200$ card?)
thanks and sorry again for this has probably been asked a thousand time. (and yes I read the first post and a lot of other stuff here and there)
from what I gathered, Dolphin/PCSX2 are said to be CPU depandent.
but when you try to increase (a lot (at least 1080p)) the internal resolution and options like no fog and filters like SSAA/FSAA, aren't those operation pretty much 100% GPU dependant ?
I'm asking because I'm trying to run a few games on my parents c2d E8400/7 64Bits/4Gb ram/Radeon 4550 and it works ok low-rez, but lags really bad when pushing settings higher, so I guess the shitty GPU is the bottle neck here.
I'm trying to grasp how this all works in order to build a proper emulation pc, probably sandy bridge based (2600K) but I really have no idea about ram above 4Gb ou GPU(what can I do with a 700$ card or can't with 400$/200$ card?)
thanks and sorry again for this has probably been asked a thousand time. (and yes I read the first post and a lot of other stuff here and there)
Risk Breaker
Member
Hmmm I have some questions: what's the difference between Dolphin rev xxxx and Dolphin 2.0? Because for example WW runs like utter crap on Dolphin 7669 (newest one I installed) no matter the settings while Dolphin 2.0 is a lot faster and even with 2.25x SSAA it runs fine, PN 03 runs like at 180% if uncapped as well. However WW's sound doesn't work on Dolphin 2 but it does work on 7669 and Dolphin 2.0 seems to have less settings and it's not being updated/nobody uses it here?
Can someone please explain
My hardware isn't too good and I'm not really planning to play through the games on my PC but it's annoying not being able to get everything running ok at the same time.
Can someone please explain
My hardware isn't too good and I'm not really planning to play through the games on my PC but it's annoying not being able to get everything running ok at the same time.Nostalgia~4ever
Banned
dark10x said:
360 controller works great for prime 3 though