Dolphin

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Dolphin
Dolphin-logo.png
Developer(s) Dolphin Emulator Project
Latest version 5.0 (Stable)
Active Yes
Platform(s) Windows
Linux
macOS
Android
Architecture(s) x86_64, ARM
Emulates GameCube
Wii
Game Boy Advance (basic, for connectivity features)
Compatibility Compatibility list
Website Dolphin-emu.org
License GNU GPLv2
Source code GitHub
BIOS/Keys Optional

Dolphin is an open-source GameCube, Wii emulator that is also available as a libretro core for RetroArch.

Download[edit]

Windows Linux macOS Android Official Release*
Stable/Dev
Android Unofficial MMJR
Android Unofficial MMJ
iOS Unofficial iOS port

Windows macOS Android Triforce Branch
for Triforce support
Linux FreeBSD dolphin-emu Package Listing
at pkgs.org

* Linux support comes in the form of an official Ubuntu PPA. See pkgs.org for other distributions.


Recommended setup[edit]

System requirements[edit]

  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 3 GHz, AMD Phenom II X4 955[1] or better
  • GPU: DirectX 11.1 or OpenGL 4.4 support or better
  • RAM: At least 2 GB

Controllers[edit]

Overview[edit]

Dolphin is a GameCube, Wii emulator that supports many extra features not present on the original consoles, and additionally capable of basic Game Boy Advance by its own built-in version of mGBA with stripped-down GUI, for the sake of GameCube games that support connectivity features. Though early development was supported by a very active homebrew scene led by fail0verflow precursor Team Twiizers, proper emulation is still underway as of 2024 and improvements are still being made as Wii games continue to have issues.

Dolphin's official website, dolphin-emu.org, also runs a blog with monthly progress reports, tracking pull requests from contributors, and providing comprehensive and in-depth feature articles. Another site that has been confused for the real one, dolphin-emulator.com, has no connection to the project and only hosts builds going up to 4.0.

Features[edit]

Some of Dolphin's settings and game screenshots. View picture to enlarge.
  • Widescreen
Instructional animation on how to use Swiss with Dolphin. Click to view.

Dolphin has support for widescreen output and can override the aspect ratio of the original game. However, this is a hack that rarely works without issues.

To get widescreen fully natively, try Swiss. This can even be run on a real GameCube/Wii if desired.

  • Netplay
Main article: Dolphin Online
  • VR support

There exists an old fork with VR support called Dolphin VR.

The Dolphin Team is working on an official VR implementation using OpenXR.[2][3]

  • Texture Packs
Main article: Texture packs#GameCube/Wii

Dolphin lets you dump game textures and also replace game textures with new custom ones.

Guides and info[edit]

References[edit]

  1. https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-new-dolphin-cpu-benchmark-no-game-required
  2. jordan-woyak. WIP - OpenXR. GitHub.
  3. Maylmilae, JMC47. Dolphin Progress Report: August and September 2019. "In general, despite the loss of NVIDIA 3D Vision, Dolphin's 3D support has been modernized to work with the new VideoCommon and should be working better than ever between all of our backends. And these updates help lay the foundation for what's to come."