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Dolphin - Emulating Wii and Gamecube Games

L

LiK

Member
Stallion Free said:
People really need to stop thinking this because it will never happen. There is no way that they are going to emulate games on Wii 2 or whatever at 1080p with 4x super sampling.
Click to expand...

uh huh. i'm sure you have inside info on Nintendo's future plans. i'm just hoping their future HD console will do something similar for their Wii games.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
nincompoop said:
Now you're just splitting hairs here. It's not like super sampling makes THAT big of a difference over MSAA, especially at 1080p.
Click to expand...

By rendering at 1080p in the first place you're already introducing all the many potential problems you'd get by using supersampling. 480P and some added MSAA is about the best we can realistically hope for, but even then I wouldn't count on it.

Oh and yes, there's a huge difference between MSAA and supersampling, it'd be ridiculous to claim otherwise.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
LiK said:
uh huh. i'm sure you have inside info on Nintendo's future plans. just a wish.
Click to expand...

No, but he does have a brain, he does understand some of the basic principles of emulation and he can use logic. Three very basic things that it appears 99% of the posters in this thread don't seem to have within their grasps. We're not making wild predictions for the sake of it here, we're trying to explain to you guys precisely why what you're claiming and hoping for is nothing much more than pie in the sky pipe dreams.

Can we say this shit with absolute 100% certainty? No of course not, but we can say it with something above 99% authority whereas everyone else is making claims without a shred of investigative work behind them. This isn't how intellectual debates are supposed to work, so this is my last word on the subject unless someone can come up with well thought out reasoning to the contrary. Though like waiting for an official alternative to Dolphin, its not something I'll hold my breath for.
 
L

LiK

Member
brain_stew said:
No, but he does have a brain, he does understand some of the basic principles of emulation and he can use logic. Three very basic things that it appears 99% of the posters in this thread don't seem to have within their grasps. We're not making wild predictions for the sake of it here, we're trying to explain to you guys precisely why what you're claiming and hoping for is nothing much more than pie in the sky pipe dreams.

Can we say this shit with absolute 100% certainty? No of course not, but we can say it with something above 99% authority.
Click to expand...

ok ok, jesus...
 
V

vazel

Banned
Oh snap people got told in this thread. :lol

explode.gif
 
B

brain_stew

Member
LiK said:
yea, i'll stay away from this thread from now on. fucking scary. :lol
Click to expand...

Its no different to any other thread on GAF. If you say stupid, uninformed shit you'll get called on it. Its what keeps discussion decent and intelligible.
 
L

LiK

Member
brain_stew said:
Its no different to any other thread on GAF. If you say stupid, uninformed shit you'll get called on it. Its what keeps discussion decent and intelligible.
Click to expand...

why so angry? i didn't come in here to start any debates. sorry we don't have your incredible deep emu knowledge to counter your arguments.
 
N

nincompoop

Banned
brain_stew said:
It has everything to do with the dilemma posed. Sony's PS1 emulation is the only official system wide (well near enough) software emulation currently offered, it is the benchmark.

The games don't run in their original resolutions out of spite, they run like that because Sony is bothered about compatibility above all else and in order to achieve that they went for very low level emulation. Proper low level emulation doesn't allow you to render games with truckloads of enhancements because its aim is to replicate the workings of the original system as close as possible in order to achieve near perfect compatibility.

Dolphin is built on the principals of "high level emulation" its why the results are spectacular when they work but many games require specific hacks to get them to a playable condition. You might not know, but these days Saturn emulation is actually further forward than N64 emulation, at least in terms of compatibility, despite the fact that the Saturn is a much more complex system and went more than a decade without any sort of adequate emulation solution whereas the N64 already had some pretty decent emulators up and running just a few years after its release. This strange scenario is likely due in no small part to the fact that all the major N64 emulators went for HLE whereas as SSF was always meant to be a LLE from day one.


A official solution similar to Dolphin just isn't happening, the costs to tests the 1000+ games and build individual profiles for each and everyone are completely unreasonable. Nintendo aren't going to let the community run an alpha version of their emulator for several years in order to build up comprehensive bug reports like Dolphin can.


Edit: The one example we have of a "system wide" HLE based emulator is the Xbox 360's BC and look how that turned out. Even then, the programmers were very careful to not increase the resolution of any of the emulated games even though they did add other enhancements like 4xmsaa because it can have many undesirable effects.
Click to expand...
That's nice, now point out to me where I claimed that Nintendo would go for a system wide solution for Wii/GC backwards compatibility on their next console? All I said was that it wouldn't be unprecedented for Nintendo to offer downloadable versions of older games which run at higher resolutions than they did on their original systems. Every issue which you raised in your post is completely irrelevent to this point.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
LiK said:
why so angry? i didn't come in here to start any debates. sorry we don't have your incredible deep emu knowledge to counter your arguments.
Click to expand...

I'm not angry at all, I'm perfectly calm, I just prefer to answer stuff directly and comprehensively, that's all.

The problem is, this has been done (in this very thread even) a 1000 times before, we've explained the reasons in great detail and people still just chime in with the same old tired pie in the sky stuff. Its tiresome so I'd rather be as clear, concise and through as I can so that people don't use the same old "arguments" again and we can instead elevate the level of discussion at least a few yards above the sand pit.
 
V

vazel

Banned
nincompoop said:
http://i33.tinypic.com/15eedz5.gif
You're right, what a huge difference!
Click to expand...
SSAA does make a difference with games that use transparent textures for stuff like fences and foliage which MSAA does not cover since they aren't polygons. These are mostly used in old pc and console games. Old console games especially on the PS2 would benefit.
 
V

vazel

Banned
fizzelopeguss said:
Shader aliasing makes modern titles shimmer like a motherfucker, from what ive tried of supersampling that's reduced considerably. But yeah, dimishing returns and all that.
Click to expand...
A good game to see this in is Riddick Butcher Bay where it happens a lot. Not sure if it's the same in the remake.
 
J

JADS

Member
bridegur said:
How well does the Mac version of Dolphin run? I'm getting a new iMac and would love to forget about Bootcamp altogether.
Click to expand...
Windows version >>>> Linux version >> MAC version. If you want to get the most performance install Windows 64bit. It will run on MAC but expect a great performance loss due to the lack of the directx plugin.
 
manzo

manzo

Member
Why the hell all the nightly builds keep crashing on me? The only version I can get to work is the stable 2.0 version. :O
 
J

JADS

Member
manzo said:
Why the hell all the nightly builds keep crashing on me? The only version I can get to work is the stable 2.0 version. :O
Click to expand...

Are you up-to-date with your DirectX? (Please note that having Direct11 doesn't mean that you are up-to-date) Do you have the Microsoft VC++ 2008 SP1 x64 or x86 Redist installed?
 
B

Barkley's Justice

Member
why would nintendo let you play all your old wii games on wii 2 when they can re-sell you all of your old games "up-res'd" on wii2 via virtual console?

sillies....
 
manzo

manzo

Member
JADS said:
Are you up-to-date with your DirectX? (Please note that having Direct11 doesn't mean that you are up-to-date) Do you have the Microsoft VC++ 2008 SP1 x64 or x86 Redist installed?
Click to expand...

I updated DirectX, ATI drivers and VC++ redists. I got 6063 to work, but nothing newer than that. Weird.

Anyway - I'm pretty much toying around with the emulator. Oh god it's hard to go back to a real Wii after this. :(

Is there a way to convert the .DAT savegame files to the .BIN format that Wii understands? I managed to convert my Muramasa save from Wii to the Dolphin format (and it works just fine), but how can I continue my save on a real Wii?

Edit: Update from the newest 6080 build:
"Revert r6076 and r6077 since they broke x64 builds"
No wonder why 6077 kept crashing on me! :lol
 
J

JADS

Member
manzo said:
I updated DirectX, ATI drivers and VC++ redists. I got 6063 to work, but nothing newer than that. Weird.

Anyway - I'm pretty much toying around with the emulator. Oh god it's hard to go back to a real Wii after this. :(

Is there a way to convert the .DAT savegame files to the .BIN format that Wii understands? I managed to convert my Muramasa save from Wii to the Dolphin format (and it works just fine), but how can I continue my save on a real Wii?
Click to expand...

r6080 Revert r6076 and r6077 since they broke x64 builds -> There is your problem :lol I don't know much about save games. Doesn't savegamemanagerGX support .dat files out of the box?
 
manzo

manzo

Member
JADS said:
r6080 Revert r6076 and r6077 since they broke x64 builds -> There is your problem :lol I don't know much about save games. Doesn't savegamemanagerGX support .dat files out of the box?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just noticed the broken build. :lol

I'll take a look at SaveGame Manager GX, thanks!
 
P

Platy

Member
Can anyone care to explain a little better what you need to play Four Swords ?

Dolphin up to 6059
GBA Bios
A gba emulator and ... only that ?

How do you link it ?
Any special configuration on any emulator ?
Any rom ?
Anything i need to know beyond "it is possible" ?
 
J

JADS

Member
Platy said:
Can anyone care to explain a little better what you need to play Four Swords ?

Dolphin up to 6059
GBA Bios
A gba emulator and ... only that ?

How do you link it ?
Any special configuration on any emulator ?
Any rom ?
Anything i need to know beyond "it is possible" ?
Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpx_ZQp6Fxc <- Here is some crappy tutorial I made that explain most of your questions. For Zelda settings use the opengl plugin and enable safe texture cache.
 
D

Dexa

Banned
started playing galaxy 2 in hd again ... fuu @ still existing grand star bug -.-
is there still no way to get the bg music playing?
 
J

JADS

Member
Dexa said:
started playing galaxy 2 in hd again ... fuu @ still existing grand star bug -.-
is there still no way to get the bg music playing?
Click to expand...

Nope. Which is one of the reasons I haven't gone trough both SMG and 2 on Dolphin yet.
 
C

CryptiK

Member
OK so I am finally entering the fold! I got a new Motherboard and now I can overclock

Here are my Specs

Q6600@3.00GHz(feels so good to write something other than stock)
9800GTX 512MB
4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
Win7 x64

Now I am on stock cooling at the moment..
I currently get around 50-60FPS on Super Mario Galaxy now would uping my CPU clock to 3.4/3.5Ghz help the FPS become a constant 60? or will I need to get a new GPU aswell (thinking GTX460 1GB)

I can run New Super Marios Bros at a constant 60 no sweat :D
 
M

Mr_Brit

Banned
CryptiK said:
OK so I am finally entering the fold! I got a new Motherboard and now I can overclock

Here are my Specs

Q6600@3.00GHz(feels so good to write something other than stock)
9800GTX 512MB
4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
Win7 x64

Now I am on stock cooling at the moment..
I currently get around 50-60FPS on Super Mario Galaxy now would uping my CPU clock to 3.4/3.5Ghz help the FPS become a constant 60? or will I need to get a new GPU aswell (thinking GTX460 1GB)

I can run New Super Marios Bros at a constant 60 no sweat :D
Click to expand...
New GPU wouldn't do anything. The OC CPU may help you reach a constant 60 FPS.
 
C

CryptiK

Member
Mr_Brit said:
New GPU wouldn't do anything. The OC CPU may help you reach a constant 60 FPS.
Click to expand...
What kind of OC am I looking at to hit the magic 60? who here has a similar system and is able to hit 60?

My GF has a i5 760 @ Stock(2.8Ghz)
and a 5770 1GB
and runs it almost constant 60 at 720P
 
K

KAL2006

Banned
Question is it possible to play

Tales of Symphonia GameCube full speed on:
4870 1GB
AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz (i think I can overclock that to 3.2GHz though)
4GB RAM

also what other games will work fullspeed on my hardware
 
S

Sanjay

Member
Playing SMG on Dolphin is like having sex with a prostitute, theres zero bond, zero connection, zero warmth because of the no background music bug but it looks so goooooood:D

dolphin2010-08-2002-41c1x4.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2001-31i078.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2001-31t2zb.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2001-32s20j.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2001-35a366.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2001-50r4r3.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2002-415183.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2002-44o2cx.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2002-50a19i.jpg


dolphin2010-08-2002-27v4vq.jpg
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
I just got my 1080p monitor (been playing @ 720p on a lil 17") and yeah... gonna have to agree with Sanjay.
 
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