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Dolphin - Emulating Wii and Gamecube Games

TSM

Member
Where's my Dolphin Vulcan mode.... come on get on that shit! :)

One of the devs has to want to do it. Luckily for you, unlike DX12, Vulkan will help solve a lot of problems on android support. So it's very likely to happen at some point after 5.0 releases.

DX12 only happened because someone from outside the project decided to make it happen. If that person hadn't stepped up, it's likely DX12 wouldn't have happened for a long time if at all. Previously Delroth and Neobrain were talking down DX12 and Vulkan dramatically increasing performance, but the boost DX12 shows also will likely motivate someone to make a Vulkan backend.
 

Turrican3

Member
I would try using the latest development version of Dolphin and see if that makes any difference as well as trying out different sensor bar placements. It is also possible you are too close or too far away for the tracking to work properly. Sometimes things like lighting can also impact tracking.
Thanks for your reply.

Luckily enough, there was a far simpler (?) explanation, one that should remind me (and anyone else experiencing issues) to never ever take anything for granted.

Turns out - and of course I did *not* know that - the WiiU works a little bit differently than the Wii regarding the sensor bar. That is, assuming there's nothing wrong with my WiiU. :p
But here I'll explain what's going on with mine.

WiiU actually has the sensor bar turned off by default when there are no wiimotes synced with the console.
Yet, for a brief seconds (when you turn on the console, or you enter the setup app) the sensor bar is being turned on! That's why sometimes it happened to me that the pointer started working on Dolphin, only to stop after a few seconds.

I discovered all of this almost by chance: I wanted to make sure the bar was actually working so I took my smartphone camera (as you probably know, you can see IR leds this way) and looked at the bar with the WiiU already powered on... and I was a bit shocked when I saw that, well, no led was actually on. Then I synced a wiimote with the console and BAM!, sensor bar activated.

Mindblowing considering that I was under the assumption that, like the Wii, the sensor bar was always on. But as I said, it's probably NOT a good idea to assume something, only to find out things are actually quite different.
 

Hyllian

Member
Here's a shader for Dolphin/Ishiiruka: pixellate. I'll call it vc-pixellate.glsl (the vc means it's specially developed for virtual console games). It must be put inside scaling folder and is intended for virtual console games. To see the effect you must turn OFF any texture scalers.

Pixellate works by making the pixels the same size even at wrong aspect ratios (if you use nearest neighbor you'll see how distorted the pixels can get). It's good if you want to play the games at different resolutions. By clicking on "Display Shader Options" button, you can enable processing in gamma light, and set the values of input and output gamma.

I didn't test it with GC or Wii games, though I believe it can bring good surprises.

vc-pixellate shader
 

MBison

Member
Haven't used dolphin in a bit. Can it run both wbfs and isos? If it can't run wbfs, is there a standalone program that converts back to iso? Sorry for the dumb questions.
 
One of the devs has to want to do it. Luckily for you, unlike DX12, Vulkan will help solve a lot of problems on android support. So it's very likely to happen at some point after 5.0 releases.

DX12 only happened because someone from outside the project decided to make it happen. If that person hadn't stepped up, it's likely DX12 wouldn't have happened for a long time if at all. Previously Delroth and Neobrain were talking down DX12 and Vulkan dramatically increasing performance, but the boost DX12 shows also will likely motivate someone to make a Vulkan backend.

Very cool.

I wonder if PCSX2 will try the same then, if they want to make a mobile emulator as well.
 

MBison

Member
Getting back into dolphin with my new machine, what's the easiest method of using an actual Wii remote? Are there any USB light bars or whatever? Someone help me :)
 

rjc571

Banned
Another new(?) feature I noticed with Dolphin is that it automatically pairs your Wiimote if you press 1+2 with Dolphin active. No more needing to pair through Windows!
 

Vertti

Member
Ordered a dolphin bar. anyone else here using one? Fairly easy to get going?
I have it and it's very easy to use. Few things to remember tho.

1. The USB-cord is really short so you may need an extension cable.
2. The LEDs are too bright so they can burn easily. Just plug Dolphin Bar off if you know you are not using it.
 

MBison

Member
Ok I got this and am having trouble. I synced a Wii mote but can't get it working in dolphin. Both lights are lit and its on mode 4 but nothing happens in dolphin. I selected Real Wiimote under controllers.

Ideas?

I tried updating firmware but holding sync while plugging it into the USB doesn't seem to do anything.

Aigh.

I've tried motion plus controller and a standard and still nothing.

Frustrated especially since there doesn't seem to be much help online.


EDIT: never mind seems to work now. I switched USB ports and it works. Not sure what the issue was.
 

MBison

Member
Ok now that i have this thing up and running and looking great, what are some of the best (and easiest to implement) HD texture packs / game combos to really looking fantastic? I played through Xenoblade Chronicles on dolphin a few years back with some updated textures (HUD mostly) and it was awesome. Any ideas on some great texture pack and game combinations?
 

soheil

Member
So I upgraded to Win 10 and I have significant FPS drop on all of my games on Dolphin.

Does anyone have same problem?any suggestion?
 

MBison

Member
1) does anyone play with native resolution jacked up to max? which is like 6K on the developmental version heh

2) anyone using any of the anti-aliasing or post processing effects?
 

czk

Typical COD gamer
Hi im looking for a decent CPU for wii emulation. I have around 400$ for a CPU. , mobo and ram. Currently own a hd 7870. Any suggestions?
 
Hi im looking for a decent CPU for wii emulation. I have around 400$ for a CPU. , mobo and ram. Currently own a hd 7870. Any suggestions?

Single core clock speed is the most important factor, so you'll need an overclockable board and chip to start with.
 
1) does anyone play with native resolution jacked up to max? which is like 6K on the developmental version heh

2) anyone using any of the anti-aliasing or post processing effects?

Use 3x internal resolution with 2x or 4x MSAA and you get near 1080p easily.

4x or 5x internal resolution is more than enough as well if 3x is not sweating your hardware.
 

Nerrel

Member
1) does anyone play with native resolution jacked up to max? which is like 6K on the developmental version heh

2) anyone using any of the anti-aliasing or post processing effects?

4x res is more than enough for 1080p. You don't really need to go higher, as you won't see much improvement even in the most detailed games and your performance costs will be drastic.

You should always use at least 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering. I think it's better to play at 3xIR with 4xAA rather than just 4xIR alone without any AA. I also think per-pixel lighting is worth having on at all times. It can make a pronounced difference in depth in a lot of games and doesn't often cause glitches or reduce performance.

Ishikura is beginning to introduce some really cool effects, like ambient occlusion, depth of field and rim lighting, but unfortunately they often kill performance and don't function perfectly. Hopefully at some point down the road all of the Ishikura features become practical, because they're huge upgrades.
 
1) does anyone play with native resolution jacked up to max? which is like 6K on the developmental version heh

2) anyone using any of the anti-aliasing or post processing effects?
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-anti-aliasing-vs-internal-resolution?pid=375046#pid375046
Raising the internal resolution will be a poor substitute for anti-aliasing. Dolphin doesn't have a scaling filter for it's internal resolution system, so you can raise the internal resolution as high as you want, and aliasing will still appear! It's better to set the internal resolution to something that matches your system (3x native for 1080p for example) and then turn on SSAA.

Helios is working on a PR to tip users about this in the GUI. Apparently that is really needed!
 

TSM

Member
The reason IRs higher than 4 don't look significantly better is because Dolphin only does the most rudimentary of scaling. It could look significantly better, but someone would have to step up and program it. The main Dolphin team knows this is the case, but none of them seem to feel it's something they want to address. It's some low hanging fruit if someone wants to contribute to Dolphin.
 
Please point out where I said to turn off AA when you go higher internal resolution.

If you are still getting easy performance with AA and 3x resolution, you can just increase the resolution further too.

With AA still on.

Kids these days. Always trying to prove'em.
I was on mobile and quoted you by accident, I meant to quote the original guy asking. I'll edit my post.
 
Does it though? Dolphin is way more efficient now, especially with DX12. I've seen stock fx6300s run games just fine on current builds.

As is the case with all emulation, the cpu is the most important feature. What "just fine" is will be different for different people. For someone asking about building something specifically for Dolphin, the more instructions per clock the better.
 

DonMigs85

Member
The Core i3-6100 paired with 2666 or 3200Mhz DDR4 on a cheap Z170 mobo should do well. Can also handle a lot of modern PC games fine
 

isamu

OMFG HOLY MOTHER OF MARY IN HEAVEN I CANT BELIEVE IT WTF WHERE ARE MY SEDATIVES AAAAHHH
I wish Carl Kenner would pick development again on his DolphinVR project :(
 
For connecting Wiimotes to my Windows 7 PC via Bluetooth, can anyone tell me if the Mayflash DolphinBar is a viable alternative to having to hack/install the Toshiba Bluetooth stack over the default Win 7 Bluetooth stack? The Amazon page for the DolphinBar says it can be used to connect Wiimotes, and I'd love to not have to go through the process of getting the Toshiba Bluetooth stack, but I'd just like a confirmation that this is the case before I hit the order button.
 

Theonik

Member
For connecting Wiimotes to my Windows 7 PC via Bluetooth, can anyone tell me if the Mayflash DolphinBar is a viable alternative to having to hack/install the Toshiba Bluetooth stack over the default Win 7 Bluetooth stack? The Amazon page for the DolphinBar says it can be used to connect Wiimotes, and I'd love to not have to go through the process of getting the Toshiba Bluetooth stack, but I'd just like a confirmation that this is the case before I hit the order button.
It should be fairly easy to use. Dolphin devs ended up working with Mayflash to ensure that the Dolphinbar worked correctly. Connecting Wii remotes with Dolphin is easier than it ever was.
e: https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index....s_(RVL-CNT-01-TR)_Connection_Guide#DolphinBar
 

Jedi Otter

Member
For connecting Wiimotes to my Windows 7 PC via Bluetooth, can anyone tell me if the Mayflash DolphinBar is a viable alternative to having to hack/install the Toshiba Bluetooth stack over the default Win 7 Bluetooth stack? The Amazon page for the DolphinBar says it can be used to connect Wiimotes, and I'd love to not have to go through the process of getting the Toshiba Bluetooth stack, but I'd just like a confirmation that this is the case before I hit the order button.

I actually got one just the other week. Sensor Bar turns on when dolphin is opened, and after I paired the wii remote and sensor (which is the basic pressing of the sync buttons) all I have to do is press a button on the wii-remote and its ready to go.
 
It should be fairly easy to use. Dolphin devs ended up working with Mayflash to ensure that the Dolphinbar worked correctly. Connecting Wii remotes with Dolphin is easier than it ever was.
e: https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index....s_(RVL-CNT-01-TR)_Connection_Guide#DolphinBar
I actually got one just the other week. Sensor Bar turns on when dolphin is opened, and after I paired the wii remote and sensor (which is the basic pressing of the sync buttons) all I have to do is press a button on the wii-remote and its ready to go.
Thanks guys, appreciate the info
 
I'm so excited guys. I finally got DX12 on my desktop. It's an AMD Athlon II x4 2.8ghz with a Geforce GT 640 card. Not great, but has been fine for me. I've never been able to run Dolphin games very well on it.
My previous benchmark with F Zero GX was about 24 fps at best. Now I'm at a solid 50-60fps. <3 Direct X 12.
 
Basically all AMD GCN GPUs and Nvidia Fermi onwards, although Fermi still hasn't gotten driver support from Nvidia so it's really Kepler onwards right now.

I have an A10 5757M laptop with a Radeon HD 8650g, and it does not have DX12 yet :( Stuck on 11.2.
Looks like it's a Richland APU so I won't be getting it ever.
 

isamu

OMFG HOLY MOTHER OF MARY IN HEAVEN I CANT BELIEVE IT WTF WHERE ARE MY SEDATIVES AAAAHHH
Oh man... F-Zero GX with the Oculus is something else!

WOW....are you using the latest version of DolphinVR by 2EyeGuy? If so I have a few questions....

Can you describe what the sense of speed is like? How is the sense of depth and overall feeling of "being there"? Does it feel like you're actually *IN* the world, sitting in the cockpit of the ship? Does the track and the objects feel life-size?
 
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