• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Dolphin - Emulating Wii and Gamecube Games

Tizoc

Member
Are you sure you're using the ishiiruka build? You don't need to install anything else.

Yeah it's the one with the red icon right? I run that but I don't see the Fast ESB option among others.
Note that I only downloaded and installed 706 from the Ishiiruka link.

EDIT: For now though I am using DX12 for Ishi Iruka. What's the best texture scaling model? Bicubic?
 
I was having some weird slowdown when I looked at a certain part of the backdrop at first. I don't know if it just smoothed out over time (dolphin does that), or if switching to the Ishiiruka build really fixed things. I'm using DX12 and "Fast EFB Access" (under Hacks).

That worked great. My game is running at perfect framerate with the high res texture pack on top of that. Not sure why this is working better than the original emulator for me. Geez.
 

Daedardus

Member
The framerate drops are more than likely the shader cache issues the normal Dolphin still has. It's not really a slowdown, but rather, every time a new shader is used, Dolphin has to compile it and add it to the shader cache, causing a small interupt. Thus the first time you play a new level with a new build you may experience lots of choppy frame rates. After a while everything improves though.

Ishiiruka fixes this with asynchronous shader compilation. The Dolphin team doesn't like the implementation however, and they are writing a new function that should fix all problems related to shaders. It was put on hold until 5.0 got released however, but it should be here soon, I think the devs know that it has become an important issue for many.
 
Small freezes in gameplay are annoying but it's good to know they are going to fix the issue at some point, sometimes I get pauses in games but I think that might be related to my HDD going into power saver mode while playing but I need to test some power options to make sure.
 
Yup "now feature-complete, time for clean-ups/bug-fixing/performance work."
- You can probably play games now.
- Performance in my brief testing is slightly above OpenGL on nVidia
- AMD seems roughly ~25% faster compared to OpenGL in some scenarios (apart from needing the dualsrc blend fallback)
- Can't really test on Intel, my most recent iGPU is a Haswell and Vulkan support is buggy
 

nkarafo

Member
So, it's been almost a month after the release of version 5.0 and there are already a lot of development versions, i see the latest one being 5.0.296.

Is it better to download these or just the stable? I don't like how the stable release has an installer...
 

Rich!

Member
So, it's been almost a month after the release of version 5.0 and there are already a lot of development versions, i see the latest one being 5.0.296.

Is it better to download these or just the stable? I don't like how the stable release has an installer...

no reason to stay on the stable version
 

TirMcGrey

Member
We had almost little to no stutter playing this classic gem tonight with a full group running a good constant 30fps. Set the PC up with a dual screen setup (main screen being our living room TV) and besides the somewhat rigged look of the 4 GBA screens on the right, playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles again was a blast, a solid 5 hours disappeared into the night. I'm using Dolphin 5.0 with 4 instances of VisualBoyAdvance running on the side.

CoIlupTUkAAJZpj.jpg:large
 
How does F-Zero GX run on 5.0 these days? Any settings tweaks required?

my stock i5 6500 and a gtx950 runs the game flawless at high res without any adjustments, I can even leave the heat haze effects on without issue. Some textures flicker when not moving fast and there's the odd spike in gameplay but I think that's to do with the whole cache issue. To note I use DX12 mode.
 

scitek

Member
I was having some weird slowdown when I looked at a certain part of the backdrop at first. I don't know if it just smoothed out over time (dolphin does that), or if switching to the Ishiiruka build really fixed things. I'm using DX12 and "Fast EFB Access" (under Hacks).

Thanks for this link. I was getting some stuttering in Metroid Prime 3 with the normal nightly builds and this fixed them. Perfect 4K/60fps now with 8x internal rendering.
 
my stock i5 6500 and a gtx950 runs the game flawless at high res without any adjustments, I can even leave the heat haze effects on without issue. Some textures flicker when not moving fast and there's the odd spike in gameplay but I think that's to do with the whole cache issue. To note I use DX12 mode.

Hmm I tried the game on open gl and dx11/12. Runs great except the sand track is horrifically slow. I changed all the settings in the wiki but nothing really helped. Any ideas?

edit: ack, nm I wasn't using DX12. Runs great now!
 

stn

Member
Is the following enough to properly run Dolphin?

AMD Phenom II X4 810 Processor
8GB RAM
ATI HD Radeon 4200

Thanks!
 

Yudoken

Member
Hmm I tried the game on open gl and dx11/12. Runs great except the sand track is horrifically slow. I changed all the settings in the wiki but nothing really helped. Any ideas?

If you want more help you should detail your specs.

Most people that can't run dolphin games fine (which are running for most people) use weak and outdated hardware even though dolphin runs on most systems fine (especially with intel cpu's and nvidia gpu's as far as I know).

Also do a 3D mark benchmark to test your hardware to see how well it performs and detect potential problems.
 
I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles with the current texture pack available on Dolphin 5.0. I've been running it at 4K/30FPS on my i7-4790K / GTX 1070 / 16GB DDR3 / W10 setup, but I do get some stuttering at times when adventuring through the environments. Also, the framerate will take a sharp dip to like 15 in certain areas for just a second, then gets back up to 30. Any way to avoid the stuttering in this game at all? I've tried OpenGL, DirectX 11 and 12 and also lowering the resolution.
 
Hmm I tried the game on open gl and dx11/12. Runs great except the sand track is horrifically slow. I changed all the settings in the wiki but nothing really helped. Any ideas?

edit: ack, nm I wasn't using DX12. Runs great now!

DX12 is great, I never tried dolphin on my old pc because I knew it would never run 100% but with the DX12 build I gave it a go a few months back, it was able to run mario kart wii on my old core2duo 3.15Ghz processor, was rather amazing to see.

This new i5 has yet to run into any performance issues, only stutters and known glitches for the few games that I own... i've yet to try Other M even though the box is right behind me in my dvd rack.
 

DonMigs85

Member
Is the following enough to properly run Dolphin?

AMD Phenom II X4 810 Processor
8GB RAM
ATI HD Radeon 4200

Thanks!

That GPU will hold it back a lot, but the CPU is ok for some games like Mario Sunshine or Soul Calibur 2. Try to get at least a GTX 950 or wait for the 1050
 

Nabs

Member
Thanks for this link. I was getting some stuttering in Metroid Prime 3 with the normal nightly builds and this fixed them. Perfect 4K/60fps now with 8x internal rendering.

Nice! I've been playing Prime 1 (Trilogy) and it's been smooth sailing with this build.
 

jediyoshi

Member
Anything new in ver. 5.xx that would break the emulator on a pc if earlier versions (4.xx) worked ok?

They didn't work ok, what games were you playing that you think were working fine?

The installations don't have to replace each other in any case, you can just install/extract it anywhere and it'll read your existing settings.
 

Decado

Member
They didn't work ok, what games were you playing that you think were working fine?

The installations don't have to replace each other in any case, you can just install/extract it anywhere and it'll read your existing settings.

Well, in dolphin 4.xx I could load games. In 5.xx I just get a black screen in every game I try. I go back and try my 4.xx install and it seems to work (though the later 4.xx never seemed as solid to me...but I didn't play a ton). Something has to be different.
 
Well, in dolphin 4.xx I could load games. In 5.xx I just get a black screen in every game I try. I go back and try my 4.xx install and it seems to work (though the later 4.xx never seemed as solid to me...but I didn't play a ton). Something has to be different.

They aren't installed in the same folder are they?
 
I just don't get this Emulator. On 4.0 I got Silent Hill to play almost consistently at around 28 fps at 2x res on a 2.8 GHz i7, now I am able to run it at 3x native at mostly 50 to 60 fps with the shadows almost Glitch free, but it randomly slows down to a crawl for some sections, then back up to 60 just a few meters further. It's not even in demanding scenes or anything.

At least Goldeneye and re4 work fine. Now to buy a Bluetooth Dongle and some wireless sensorbar.

Got to test Red Steel2 when I can.
 
I just don't get this Emulator. On 4.0 I got Silent Hill to play almost consistently at around 28 fps at 2x res on a 2.8 GHz i7, now I am able to run it at 3x native at mostly 50 to 60 fps with the shadows almost Glitch free, but it randomly slows down to a crawl for some sections, then back up to 60 just a few meters further. It's not even in demanding scenes or anything.

At least Goldeneye and re4 work fine. Now to buy a Bluetooth Dongle and some wireless sensorbar.

Got to test Red Steel2 when I can.

It's called dynamic shader complilation. Shaders define how a GPU should do its job, like a little autonomous program. Essentially anytime the emulator runs into a shader it hasn't seen and hasn't cached from before, it has to take the GameCube/Wii code and compile a new shader to give to the GPU. Dolphin has to pause while the CPU does this. As far as I know, the more you play the game the less this will happen since it will keep building out its cache and never have to recompile those shaders. Try it yourself; play a section, bear with the stuttering, then exit dolphin and try that same area again.
 
Oh ok, that's interesting. It does that through Gameplay? Kinda nifty.

Basically, Wii/GC graphics chip has some options which, when switched, make major changes regarding whatever the chip is doing. A lot of games set these options once, and a greater lot sticks to a limited set of configurations (say, dozen) for the entire operation time, so Dolphin developers decided to make a shader for each such config. (Given PC shader limitations at the time, this was probably the only way to take advantage of a typical PC GPU.)

However a little bunch of (typically better) games uses those graphics chip's options very liberally instead and the preparing a new shader for each set of them gets jittery. So some people prefer a rather weird fork of Dolphin that will try to find a matching existing shader instead of waiting for the new one to get ready. An alternative that's apparently in progress in the main project is making one huge shader dealing with all the options; this will probably be way more taxing on the GPU.
 
Basically, Wii/GC graphics chip has some options which, when switched, make major changes regarding whatever the chip is doing. A lot of games set these options once, and a greater lot sticks to a limited set of configurations (say, dozen) for the entire operation time, so Dolphin developers decided to make a shader for each such config. (Given PC shader limitations at the time, this was probably the only way to take advantage of a typical PC GPU.)

However a little bunch of (typically better) games uses those graphics chip's options very liberally instead and the preparing a new shader for each set of them gets jittery. So some people prefer a rather weird fork of Dolphin that will try to find a matching existing shader instead of waiting for the new one to get ready. An alternative that's apparently in progress in the main project is making one huge shader dealing with all the options; this will probably be way more taxing on the GPU.

Fascinating. I just hope I can play through shattered memories on at least 3x native,as it looks rather lovely at that res.
 

Daedardus

Member
Ishiiruka actually compiles the shader in another thread and just chooses to not show the effect until it's ready, it doesn't actually try to catch it with another. That's why graphical glitches may occur if the effect was important and needed to be run before the compiling finishes.
 

TSM

Member
It's called dynamic shader complilation. Shaders define how a GPU should do its job, like a little autonomous program. Essentially anytime the emulator runs into a shader it hasn't seen and hasn't cached from before, it has to take the GameCube/Wii code and compile a new shader to give to the GPU. Dolphin has to pause while the CPU does this. As far as I know, the more you play the game the less this will happen since it will keep building out its cache and never have to recompile those shaders. Try it yourself; play a section, bear with the stuttering, then exit dolphin and try that same area again.

About the bolded: This is only true if you never update dolphin or your video card drivers. Each new version of either invalidates the cache and starts over.
 

Dmax3901

Member
Hey everyone, so I just got my Wii U Pro Controller connected to my PC via wiinusoft but how do I get dolphin to recognise it from there?
 
So I installed the driver for the Wii U Gamecube Controller Adapter on my PC and did the whole wizard step-by-step. However, when I tried to test it on the driver, it said the adapter wasn't detected. I have the adapter plugged in with a controller too. What should I do to remedy this, so I can use it for Dolphin or any other emulator?

http://imgur.com/eFOntua
 
The driver "translation" programs tend to be in a lot of mess on Windows 10 ATM, so make sure it's not that.

Dolphin should be able to access the GC adapter without such program, however it is not entirely impossible that what they were using for that has the same problem the driver programs do - although it should be relatively easy to fix by developers of emulators compared to authors of driver translators.
 
The driver "translation" programs tend to be in a lot of mess on Windows 10 ATM, so make sure it's not that.

Dolphin should be able to access the GC adapter without such program, however it is not entirely impossible that what they were using for that has the same problem the driver programs do - although it should be relatively easy to fix by developers of emulators compared to authors of driver translators.
Yeah, I'm using a "translation" program because I'm actually attempting to use it with a PS emulator. I asked in here because a lot of you guys probably use the Gamecube Controller Adapter as well. Maybe if I use a previous version of the driver, it'll work...
 

Sanic

Member
Having some performance issues in Mario Sunshine running on a 6600k w/ an RX 480. I get massive slowdown transitioning in and out of the map screen, and also some stuttering on many in game "cut scenes" (mostly camera pans at the start of levels). Not really seeing others with this online so was wondering if it's an isolated issue.
 
So I installed the driver for the Wii U Gamecube Controller Adapter on my PC and did the whole wizard step-by-step. However, when I tried to test it on the driver, it said the adapter wasn't detected. I have the adapter plugged in with a controller too. What should I do to remedy this, so I can use it for Dolphin or any other emulator?

http://imgur.com/eFOntua

Try this one. When I did the W10 update it must have reset or deleted this driver and my Gamecube stuff no longer worked. Going through the process in the link worked flawlessly.
 

finley83

Banned
Didn't think it was worth starting a new thread for this, although it's not specifically related to Dolphin so apologies!

Basically, I've managed to get my Wii softmodded so I can play my Wii and GC backups on it without any issues (e.g. have got the right IOSs installed so Metroid Prime Trilogy works properly, etc.) and was wondering if there's any way I can make a restorable backup of my NAND that would work on another Wii in the event my current one stops working? Alternatively is there any easy way to get a list of the custom IOSs that I have installed for future reference?

I'm really happy with the way it's set up now, but never made a note of exactly what I did to get it working this way...
 
Didn't think it was worth starting a new thread for this, although it's not specifically related to Dolphin so apologies!

Basically, I've managed to get my Wii softmodded so I can play my Wii and GC backups on it without any issues (e.g. have got the right IOSs installed so Metroid Prime Trilogy works properly, etc.) and was wondering if there's any way I can make a restorable backup of my NAND that would work on another Wii in the event my current one stops working? Alternatively is there any easy way to get a list of the custom IOSs that I have installed for future reference?

I'm really happy with the way it's set up now, but never made a note of exactly what I did to get it working this way...

This is really better suited to the Wii Homebrew thread. You're much more likely to get answers there. Don't have the link on me atm but search and you'll find it; I know it exists.
 
Top Bottom