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Dolphin - Emulating Wii and Gamecube Games

Nere

Member
Unfortunately yes, I think the Dolphin dev. team has a hard time to eliminate the issue, because it is a console specific and pc specific problem.
You do not need a wrapper for Dolphin, it supports normal DInput and XInput devices :).

Maybe not but without this program it doesn't get detected.
 

JJShadow

Member
I would like to revisit some of my Wii catalog using Dolphin (mainly Xenoblade Chronicles, Zelda SS and TP, Mario Galaxy 2 and the Metroid Prime Trilogy), but I don't know if I can run them at 30 FPS at least using my laptop. My specs are:

i5-4200M @ 2.5Ghz (up to 3.1 with Turbo)
8GB RAM
Geforce GTX765M 2GB

Do you think I can run them without problems? Apart from this, which one of them requires the WiiMotion Plus to play? (besides Zelda SS)

Thanks!
 

NeoBob688

Member
I would like to revisit some of my Wii catalog using Dolphin (mainly Xenoblade Chronicles, Zelda SS and TP, Mario Galaxy 2 and the Metroid Prime Trilogy), but I don't know if I can run them at 30 FPS at least using my laptop. My specs are:

i5-4200M @ 2.5Ghz (up to 3.1 with Turbo)
8GB RAM
Geforce GTX765M 2GB

Do you think I can run them without problems? Apart from this, which one of them requires the WiiMotion Plus to play? (besides Zelda SS)

Thanks!

Hi JJShadow,

1. Dolphin is primarily CPU intensive. Your CPU in terms of the performance of each processor core is very similar to my last desktop rig. Zelda TP should work very well. Zelda SS should also work reasonably well, but you might get a little bit of slowdown occasionally. Xenoblade Chronicles should perform well. The Metroid Prime games are very intensive and are unlikely to yield a consistent and smooth framerate with your setup. EDIT: Super Mario Galaxy I am not sure. It didn't run consistently on my old rig but that was before a lot optimizations were implemented in Dolphin in the last 1.5 years.

2. Aside from Zelda Skyward Sword none of the other games you list require WiiMotion Plus.
 

Lettuce

Member
How long is the stutter? I get like 0.25 seconds of stutter at those parts (noticeable but not bothersome), 60FPS otherwise.

Yeah Maybe 0.25 seconds and happens multiple times in short bursts but sometimes happens mid race. I have tired lowering the resolution but it doesn't seem to have any effect at all. Here's a quick video of the stutter....

https://youtu.be/ruTLVv6DrTY

It doesn't effect the gameplay just annoying that it happens
 
Random question about Mario Kart Wii, is there any way to simulate 4-player mode with only one human player? As in, make the game switch to 30fps mode and having the split-screen but everyone sans one character is still AI controlled?
 
alright. i'm confused so i'll defer to y'all.


i want to emulate metroid prime 2.

i wanted to emulate metroid prime 2 years ago but it was an imposing process back then, i had to fuck around with ishiruuka forks and look out for visual glitches and stuttering abound. i gave up.

so, as someone who wants to emulate metroid prime 2, what's the best way to go about that these days?

official dolphin? any problems there? am i gonna still have to deal with mega stuttering and black bars on a capable computer?


edit: oookay, answers i needed right there on the very last page before this one. sweet.
 
I keep getting random crashes in Paper Mario TTYD. Happens like every five to eight minutes. Game runs perfectly fine until it just randomly crashes. It's not /that/ bad since I can basically just save wherever, but it's kind of annoying. Anyone know of a possible fix?
 
Okay, I kinda hate to ask here, but I've been having issues finding this elsewhere.

With the whole Tales of Symphonia business going on, I decided to just replay the game in Dolphin. Does anyone have a proper NTSC 16:9 AR code? Although I think a Gecko code would work also. I can only seem to find PAL codes.
 
i wonder if it'd be possible to create an ar code for one of the metroid prime games that just loads through the game's shaders in a sequence so that you could pre-compile them and not have to deal with stutters during gameplay.
 

TSM

Member
i wonder if it'd be possible to create an ar code for one of the metroid prime games that just loads through the game's shaders in a sequence so that you could pre-compile them and not have to deal with stutters during gameplay.

The problem is that there's currently no way to predict what shaders will need to be generated until they are needed. A potential solution is on the way in the form of ubershaders. This won't happen until after the 5.0 stable release though. It's hard to tell how far along phire is because he hasn't updated the pr in awhile. He has a graph that shows how large the improvement was early on though.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Is there a way to force dolphin to a specific window size? Trying to run at 16:9 on a 21:9 monitor and I don't want to manually resize the window because it doesn't lock the aspect ratio
 

JCV

Unconfirmed Member
Is Skyward Sword now fully playable (with MotionPlus support)? I'm thinking of buying a DolphinBar just to be able to replay it in glorious HD.
 

NeoBob688

Member
Is Skyward Sword now fully playable (with MotionPlus support)? I'm thinking of buying a DolphinBar just to be able to replay it in glorious HD.

Yes, I recently played it with a DolphinBar and a Wiimote with integrated WiiMotion Plus.

The motion controls seemed very finicky a lot of the time and I needed to re-center the controller pointer a lot. I am unsure if this is just the nature of the game's controls or a Dolphin issue. More likely the former based on what I have heard.
 

TSM

Member
Is there a way to force dolphin to a specific window size? Trying to run at 16:9 on a 21:9 monitor and I don't want to manually resize the window because it doesn't lock the aspect ratio

Your best bet is to see if a 21:9 AR code exists for the games you are trying to play. Failing that I don't have any experience with trying to play on a 21:9 monitor.
 

shockdude

Member
Is there a way to force dolphin to a specific window size? Trying to run at 16:9 on a 21:9 monitor and I don't want to manually resize the window because it doesn't lock the aspect ratio
Dolphin should correctly letterbox itself regardless of window size, even on a 21:9 monitor.
What Dolphin version are you using? In the Graphics settings, make sure that Aspect Ratio is set to "Auto".
 
Is Skyward Sword now fully playable (with MotionPlus support)? I'm thinking of buying a DolphinBar just to be able to replay it in glorious HD.
Skyward Sword was fully playable on Dolphin when it launched, my first playthrough was on Dolphin because it looked too gorgeous.
 
Is Skyward Sword now fully playable (with MotionPlus support)? I'm thinking of buying a DolphinBar just to be able to replay it in glorious HD.

Yes, I recently played it with a DolphinBar and a Wiimote with integrated WiiMotion Plus.

The motion controls seemed very finicky a lot of the time and I needed to re-center the controller pointer a lot. I am unsure if this is just the nature of the game's controls or a Dolphin issue. More likely the former based on what I have heard.

Yes, it's the game. In my experience the sword controls work reliably, but aiming can often get knocked out of whack. Not sure why they went all in on motion and dumped the IR pointing. It really should have been a hybrid.

If you can get the feel of re-centering on the fly, it shouldn't be too much trouble.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Dolphin should correctly letterbox itself regardless of window size, even on a 21:9 monitor.
What Dolphin version are you using? In the Graphics settings, make sure that Aspect Ratio is set to "Auto".

Latest version of the development stream downloaded today. Haven't changed anything except internal res to 4x and added 360 controller mappings

Will take a look to see how the game window varies vs the outer dolphin window. Sounds like it shouldn't be a problem so thanks for that
 
The problem is that there's currently no way to predict what shaders will need to be generated until they are needed. A potential solution is on the way in the form of ubershaders. This won't happen until after the 5.0 stable release though. It's hard to tell how far along phire is because he hasn't updated the pr in awhile. He has a graph that shows how large the improvement was early on though.

i'll keep an eye on this, thanks.
 

finley83

Banned
Any kind soul know of a way to get a CRT filter effect in Dolphin please? I'm playing RE2 and it really doesn't hold up well on an LCD monitor!
 
Any kind soul know of a way to get a CRT filter effect in Dolphin please? I'm playing RE2 and it really doesn't hold up well on an LCD monitor!
Apparently Asmodean ported Timothy Lotte's CRT Shader to Dolphin, more precisely DolphinFX. You can get it here :
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thre...e-for-the-opengl-backend?pid=346447#pid346447

I don't know if it works at all with the new builds and I have never touched DolphinFX but Timothy Lotte's CRT Shader is usually among the best.
EDIT : no it doesn't work

EDIT : I ported Timothy Lotte's CRT Shader (the most recent version with shadow mask from RetroArch) to ReShade.

sanstitredvsi3.png


sanstitrewcspo.png


sanstitrewasoh.png


sanstitrep2s51.png


Download and install ReShade and replace the relevant files with the ones in the archive below :
http://www.mediafire.com/download/wh7dhxxq13714oh/Reshade_LottesCRT.zip

It's just a quick and lazy port. I reused some files and replaced their content. You might want to polish it a little of course.
 
The Direct3D 12 graphics backend has now been been merged into Dolphin. It looks like it will be making the 5.0 release after all.

Damn, I really want to check this out.

From the pull request:

Github - JMC47 said:
At lower IRs, DX12's performance is superior, but it really flies at 4x - 8x IR.

At 4K resolutions, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was 48% faster on D3D12 vs OpenGL/D3D11 (GTX 760)

Stability wise, I (driver) crashed once early on while tabbing. Haven't had a crash since in two days of use.

Is this thread-worthy?

BTW, you can grab a dev download from here: https://dolphin-emu.org/download/?nocr=true
 

tensuke

Member
Difference is night and day with DX12. Just tried Twin Snakes and was playing at 6x native (4K), 8x ssaa, 16x af in the high 40s/low 50s where before I had to lower it to 3x native, 4x ssaa, 8x af to hit high 50s. On a 970. I'll probably lower it to 4x or 5x to play but that's a great improvement.
 

Theonik

Member
Wait, what? Just a little while ago someone included it in an experimental branch. I was not expecting to see it officially merged this soon. Such good speedups and they haven't even included all of the possible enhancements yet... good stuff.
In large part, the reason why DX12 is so much faster at the moment is because it does not support many of the enhancements that the other backends do and isn't entirely feature complete. Actual performance will decline as development goes on.
 
In large part, the reason why DX12 is so much faster at the moment is because it does not support many of the enhancements that the other backends do and isn't entirely feature complete. Actual performance will decline as development goes on.

Interesting. So will games actually look worse with DX12 right now, resolution notwithstanding? I'd love to see some comparison shots if someone has the time.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
I can finally play Rogue Leader in HD :D. Runs at a locked 60 apart from the dancing Stormtrooper intro. DX12 did wonders for emulation.

Edit: What's this about DX12 not supporting enhancements? Looks just as good as the other plugins to me, no odd skybox issues in Rogue Leader even.
 

PGamer

fucking juniors
Edit: What's this about DX12 not supporting enhancements? Looks just as good as the other plugins to me, no odd skybox issues in Rogue Leader even.

The current Direct3D 12 backend isn't finished yet as it doesn't emulate all the functions the other backends do. This is part of the reason that it's so much faster right now. The direct performance comparisons so far aren't hugely meaningful taking this into account.
 

LilJoka

Member
The current Direct3D 12 backend isn't finished yet as it doesn't emulate all the functions the other backends do. This is part of the reason that it's so much faster right now. The direct performance comparisons so far aren't hugely meaningful taking this into account.

Do we have details on what's missing?
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
The current Direct3D 12 backend isn't finished yet as it doesn't emulate all the functions the other backends do. This is part of the reason that it's so much faster right now. The direct performance comparisons so far aren't hugely meaningful taking this into account.

Oh. Wouldn't it be possible to give users more fine tuning options available to get faster speeds out of games that seemingly don't require those specific functions? Sort of like the extensive Speedhacks available in PCSX2?
 
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