GameCube emulators

Nintendo GameCube

Developer	Nintendo
Type	Home video game console
Generation	Sixth
Release date	2001
Discontinued	2007
Predecessor	Nintendo 64
Successor	Wii
Emulated	✓

For emulators that run on the Nintendo GameCube, see Emulators on GameCube.

The GameCube (GCN/NGC) is a 32-bit, sixth-generation console released by Nintendo on November 18, 2001, for $199 ($362 in 2026). It has an IBM PowerPC Gekko CPU at 486 MHz with 24 MB of RAM and an ATI Flipper GPU at 162 MHz. Nintendo, Namco, and Sega later designed the Triforce arcade board based on the GameCube, releasing titles for it the following year. Unlike PlayStation 2 or Xbox DVD playback support, the GameCube didn't have playback support for mini-DVD movies. However, a special version of the GameCube that could play DVD-Video, audio CDs and VCDs was released by Nintendo and Panasonic, called the Panasonic Q.

Nintendo released the successor, the Wii, in 2006, which was revealed to have very similar (albeit more powerful) hardware and compatible interfaces. This meant the Wii could run GameCube games natively rather than via emulation. While this was removed in later revisions, as well as the vWii mode in the Wii U, the hardware is still similar enough that GameCube games can be run via certain homebrew programs, with Nintendont being the most popular and easy to use.

Emulators

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Hardware variants	Enhancements	Hardware features and peripherals	Compatibility	License	Active	Recommended
x86
Dolphin		Dev 2606a libretro core	~	✓	✓	97%	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	✓
Ishiiruka-Dolphin (いし海豚)		Dev	✗	✓	✓	?	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	~
Pureikyubu (PlayCube)		1.8	✗	~	✗	?	CC0 1.0 (Public domain equivalent)	~	✗ (WIP)
Dolphin (Nintendo)		e2.8	✗	?	✗	?	Proprietary	✗	✗
ARM
Dolphin		Dev 2606a libretro core	~	✓	✓	97%	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	✓
DolphiniOS		Release Beta	✗	?	✗	?	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	✓
Dolphin MMJR‡		git‡	✗	?	✗	?	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
Consoles
Nintendo Classics (unknown codename)		N/A	✗	~	?	Only for selected titles	Proprietary	✓	✓
Hagi		Patch-based	✗	?	✗	Only for selected titles	Proprietary	✓	✓
Dolphin		1.1.6 libretro core	✗	✓	✓	97%	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	✓

Compatibility layers (...)

Name	Platform(s)	Latest Version	Hardware variants	Enhancements	Hardware features and peripherals	Compatibility	License	Active	Recommended
Consoles
Nintendont (任天堂NT)		git	~	✗	~	99.61% 1020 out of 1024 reported titles	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✓	✓
Devolution		r206	~	?	~	?	GPLv2 (Copyleft)	✗	✗
DIOS MIOS (Lite)		2.11	✗	?	✗	?	GPLv3 (Copyleft)	✗	✗

Native

Name	Platform(s)	Latest version	Enhancements	Hardware features and peripherals	Compatibility	License	Active	Recommended
Consoles
Wii Backwards Compatibility		v6	?	✓	No documented issues	Proprietary	✗	✓

Comparisons

Emulators

Dolphin

The emulator of choice for the GameCube and the first Wii emulator. It is updated on a near-daily basis and has great emulation of almost every game, though some games have known bugs on their issue trackers. It is the first emulator to boot the full game catalog of a sixth-generation home console (Before any emulator for the same generation rivals like the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and Xbox) and did so in September 2016. The developers maintain a wiki containing known bugs, tips, user-provided tests, and much more for every game.

Ishiiruka-Dolphin

A fork of Dolphin optimized towards performance at the cost of accuracy and stability in the process.

Pureikyubu

An open-source Nintendo GameCube emulator which initially started development under the name Dolwin in 2004; it could boot and run some commercial games and demos. Nowadays, Pureikyubu is designed to be a research emulator for developers, with accuracy being a priority.

Dolphin (Nintendo)

Nintendo made an emulator for Windows that was also called Dolphin. This official program doesn't run commercial games and has no connection to the open-source project.

Hagi

An official GameCube/Wii emulator developed by Nintendo European Research & Development (NERD). Hagi has been used primarily for re-releases on the Switch, such as Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Pikmin, and Pikmin 2.

Nintendo Classics

Another official emulator. Released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2 and available for the members of Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. It can emulate The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Soulcalibur II and F-Zero GX.

Compatibility layers

Nintendont

While not technically an emulator, Nintendont is a compatibility layer that allows you to play GameCube games on the Wii and even the Wii U. It's compatible with nearly all GameCube titles (and Triforce games, too) and supports extra features such as memory card emulation along with support for additional controller input options such as the USB GameCube controller adapter, Classic Controller Pro, Wii U Pro Controller, and even the Wii U GamePad.

DIOS MIOS (Lite)

Another compatibility layer for the Wii (but NOT Wii U) that allows you to play GameCube games. The main version allows users to load games off of a USB device, while the "Lite" version loads games from an SD card. Nintendont serves as a direct successor to this project, making DIOS MIOS entirely obsolete.

Enhancements

Name		Dolphin	Ishiiruka-Dolphin
Controls	Disguise peripheral support through Passthrough Tricking the software into think that the original controller was connected even those identify themselves with different device IDs. When a game tries to identify a connected 'nearly the same internally' controller, emulator will tell it that the equivalent original controller is connected instead, allowing it to work.	✓[4]	?
	Input lag-mitigating technique	✗	?
	Mouse injector compatible	✓*	?
	Real peripheral support (Passthrough) Ability to passthrough USB HID devices or Bluetooth adapter for emulated system.	✓[5][6]	?
	Turbo button	?	?
Graphics	Better texture filtering Enhancement option for providing better texture filtering methods comparing the original hardware had.	Dolphin's anisotropic filtering enhancement is not emulation of the consoles' anisotropic filtering. In fact, Dolphin completely ignored all anisotropic filtering requests from the game entirely! Dolphin's enhancement was everything or nothing, and there was no way to only enable anisotropic filtering just for the textures that would have used it on console. As such, it was impossible to get console-matching texture output - without the enhancement some textures would be too soft, and with the enhancement some textures would be too sharp. It was never quite right. This has been changed recently though![7] If Dolphin's texture filtering is set to 'Default' and a game requests anisotropic filtering, Dolphin will now listen to the game's request and apply the specific anisotropic filtering it asked for (this way it will be emulation of the hardware feature, not enhancement).
	Pre-rendering anti-aliasing (MSAA, SSAA)	✓	?
	Ray tracing (DXR, VRT and MRT)	Implementing ray tracing in an emulator is unfortunately quite challenging and unlikely to be feasible in the near future. However you can try "Screen-Space Ray Traced Global Illumination" shader using ReShade. See here and here
	Resizable internal resolution	✓	?
	RTX Remix	Implementing RTX Remix technology in an emulator is unfortunately quite challenging and unlikely to be feasible in the near future. Besides, Dolphin already supports most of RTX Remix features such as access to assets, texture replacement and post-processing effects etc.[8] On top of that you can use ReShade.
	Super-resolution techniques (DLSS, XeSS and FSR 2+)	Requires access to the depth buffer and temporal data like motion-vectors so it's quite challenging and unlikely to be feasible in the near future. Besides, any GPU that can use DLSS can run Dolphin at 8k native with ease anyway.
	Texture packs	✓	?
	True color rendering This is an enhancement that reduces banding by forcing the emulated hardware to the highest bitdepth possible. Read this for more information. It is useful especially on non-CRT displays, producing nicer looking gradients.	✓	?
	Widescreen and ultra-widescreen hack To get full native widescreen, try Swiss. This can even run on a real GameCube/Wii if you wish.	✓	?
Performance	Frame generation technologies (LSFG, DLSS-G, XeSS-FG and AFMF)	Implementing frame generation technology in an emulator is unfortunately quite challenging and unlikely to be feasible in the near future, however post-processing techniques such as motion interpolation is quite possible. Input latency will be a crucial factor, but its impact likely varies depending on the specific technique employed, it's recommended to use after applying the "Internal Framerate Hack" and "skip presenting duplicate frames option". While AFMF or LSFG can be used with Dolphin, please be aware that some visual glitches and artifacts may occur at this time.
	Internal frame rate hack	✓	?
	Overclock	✓	?
	Preload optical disc image to RAM For users with sluggish multi-platter HDDs or plagued by horrible seek times, this enhancement might offer smoother experience, potentially reduced power consumption; it also shines when disc images reside on a network drive. Although keep in mind that preloading image would take some time, and it will require additional amount of RAM capacity.	✗*	?
	Rendering latency reduction technologies (LatencyFleX, Reflex, Xe-LL and Anti-Lag+)	While most emulators offer frame pacing or framebuffer latency control options, implementing rendering latency reduction technologies isn't currently feasible. This is likely doesn't offer enough benefit to justify the development effort.
Post-processing	AI-powered filter compatible (Freestyle)	?	?
	Filters	✓	?
	Inverse tone mapping compatible	✓*	?
	Post-rendering anti-aliasing (FXAA, TXAA and MLAA/SMAA)	✓	?
	Post-rendering scaling (Sharp bilinear, Lanczos and FSR 1)	✓	?
	Shader chain	WIP	?
Quality of life	Automatic emulated controller connect/disconnect Automatically connects or disconnects emulated controllers when a new or current controller is connected or disconnected.	✗	✗
	Automatic updater	✓	?
	Big Picture Mode	WIP	?
	Built-in cheat manager	✓	?
	Built-in custom resolution/CRTSwitchRes For using this on Windows OS you need CRT Emudriver. Another option is using EDID editor tool such as "Custom Resolution Utility".	Exclusive to libretro core at the moment. Also there is a project for achieving software emulators like libretro cores and GroovyMAME send the raw RGB data over a network to a core running on MiSTer, it basically turns the MiSTer into a GPU for the emulator allowing for easy setup and use with CRT TVs/Arcade monitors.	?
	Built-in mod editor and manager	~	?
	Built-in patch manager	?	?
	Built-in save manager	?	?
	Command line options	✓	?
	On-screen display Showcases messages, controller input state which is useful for speedrunners, performance data, active settings, and various notifications.	✓	?
	Pause/resume emulation	✓	?
	Per-game profiles	✓	?
	Portable and Stealth Useful enhancement feature for non-personal computer use or plug-and-play scenarios. However, it still requires necessary prerequisites and dependencies for your operating system.	✓	?
	Streamable compression format	✓	?
	Variable refresh rate compatible	✗*	?
TAS features	Fast-forward/Turbo speed	✓	?
	Macros/Scripts/Lua	✓	?
	Movie recording/playback	✓	?
	Rewind	✗	?
	Save states	✓	?
Misc.	AI service With the help of OCR and other techniques, the AI service can provide a live translation of a game, or text-to-speech capabilities for the visually impaired among other things, either on demand or automatically.	Exclusive to libretro cores at the moment.
	Debug features	✓	?
	EmuVR support	Exclusive to libretro cores at the moment.
	File viewer Lets the user look at the ROM's files.	✓	?
	Free Look Free Look is an enhancement feature that allows manipulation of the in-game camera.	✓*	✗
	Netplay This shouldn't be confused with Broadband Adapter emulation, see hardware features and peripherals.	✓*	✗
	RetroAchievements	~	✗

Hardware features and peripherals

Name			Dolphin	Ishiiruka-Dolphin
Controller features	Rumble		✓	?
Hardware features	Dolby Surround as Dolby Pro Logic II		✓*	?
	GameCube Game Disc		✗	✗
	Progressive scan		✓	?
	System BIOS		✓	?
Peripherals	Calendar Card		✗	✗
	Connectivity	Broadband Adapter	✓	✓
		Game Boy Advance Cable	✓	✓
		Modem Adapter	✓*	✗
	Controllers	ASCII Keyboard	✓	✓
		Dance Dance Revolution Dance Mat	✓	✓
		DK Bongos	✓	✓
		Racing wheel	✓	✓
	Game Boy Player		✗	✗
	Inrou-Kun pedometer & Botan-San walking pad		✗	✗
	Microphone		✓	✓
	SD Card Adapter		✗	✗
Misc.

Main Menu

tcrf: GameCube Revisional Differences

Gamecube Main Menu emulation using Dolphin emulator

Initial Program Loader (IPL) of the GameCube and its top level interface, allowing the player to load discs, change settings, and manage up to two memory cards at once.

To boot the GameCube's BIOS and IPL, you need a dump from real hardware. Dolphin doesn't require it to load games but can be set to use it if desired. Current development builds have introduced a feature allowing users to load the BIOS directly from the interface in the Tools list without needing to load a game. If you're on the current stable release, use XFB Virtual and disable "Skip BIOS" in the GameCube options. You don't have to load a GameCube title for the startup animation begins, boot directly to the menu by using Load GameCube Main Menu under Tools.[9] If you insert the disc/disc image before booting the main menu, like on the original console, you hold the first controller's A-button down and the system will send you to the main menu instead of booting the game. You can then switch to another game with Change Disc, or you can explore the BIOS.

GameCube Game Disc

The GameCube Game Disc (DOL-006) is the game medium for the GameCube, created by Matsushita/Panasonic, one of the ten founders of the DVD Forum, and later extended for use in the first Wii model backward compatibility mode. The GameCube is Nintendo's first optical disc console, after mainly ROM cartridge-based platforms. The GameCube Game Disc is a 1.46 GB, 8 cm miniDVD-based technology that reads at a constant angular velocity (CAV). It was chosen by Nintendo to prevent copyright infringement of its games, to reduce manufacturing costs compared to Nintendo 64 Game Paks, and to avoid licensing fees to the DVD Forum. GameCube Game Discs don't use the Content Scramble System found on normal DVD-Video discs, as Nintendo wasn't satisfied with its level of security.

The GameCube is unable to be used as a general DVD player, except for the Panasonic Q which is a uniquely customized GameCube with DVD capability that was released only in Japan.Wikipedia:Nintendo_optical_discs#GameCube_Game_Disc GameCube Game Disc

• Dolphin has support for GameCube Game Disc dumps/images. But unfortunately most regular optical drives for PCs are unable to read GameCube & Wii discs, so you need to rip your discs. However, you can use some out-of-print models of DVD drives that may read GC and Wii discs but even then you will need a compatible software tool to dump it. See Ripping_games page for more information.
• See this dedicated page for more information about home media playback support for emulation software.
• See Ripping_games.

GC/GBA Cable

Nintendo produced a special cable (DOL-011) that allowed connectivity with the Game Boy Advance in specific games. Up to four ports could be taken up for the game. While the third-generation Pokémon games are the prime example of it being used in conjunction with Colosseum, XD, or Pokémon Box, they aren't the only games to do so.

Dolphin includes a GBA core based on mGBA that is tied to GameCube emulation, allowing for a very stable connection that works with features such as save states and netplay. Dolphin can also connect to standalone versions of mGBA or VisualBoyAdvance-M; this is necessary for some less commonly used features or cases where the GBA has to be disconnected from the GameCube. Both can be enabled by going into the controller settings and assigning the GBA to one or more ports. The general config menu also allows you to specify a GBA ROM to be used if using the built-in GBA core.

Nintendont includes support for the GBA link cable hardware, but only through the GC controller ports on the original Wii (model RVL-001). It is currently not supported through any USB adapters.

Bongos

This special controller is used with Donkey Konga and other Donkey Kong games released for the GameCube.

Dolphin supports this controller via the GameCube controller adapter.

Nintendont is known to support this controller through the GC controller ports on the original Wii (model RVL-001). It is currently unclear whether the controller is supported through any USB adapters.

Game Boy Player

This add-on plugged into the bottom of the GameCube and allowed it to play Game Boy / Game Boy Advance games on a standard television; it had provisions against Game Boy Advance Video cartridges by returning an error after booting them. The launcher even supported the GBA-GCN link cable, where the Game Boy Advance would serve as the controller. Some GBA games like Super Mario Advance 4 and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga took advantage of the add-on by adding rumble support. The hardware is essentially a peripheral containing Game Boy Advance hardware, which means that recreating it would require simultaneous emulation of a GameCube and a GBA, including BIOS files for both.

No emulator currently supports the Game Boy Player hardware and its features. The Dolphin developers have hinted at adding support for it in the future, made possible by the aforementioned mGBA integration (see the previous section of this page).

Hardware variants

Triforce

The Triforce is an arcade system board developed jointly by Namco, Sega, and Nintendo, with the first games appearing in 2002. The system hardware consists of a retail GameCube motherboard, with custom devices interfacing with the EXI, SI and DI, and a custom IPL.

Dolphin used to have Triforce support. However, it was removed several years ago. Nevertheless, a branch remains and can still be used, albeit with some difficulty.

Compatibility is patchy, and while all games boot, many require memory patches via gecko codes to progress beyond error screens. This is further compounded by the abundance of patched or modified dumps floating around. Many of which have patched headers for use with Nintendont, or being renamed versions of their GameCube counterparts. This is most prevalent with Mario Kart Arcade GP 1 & 2, with there being no good (public) dumps at all. The site that previously hosted the gecko codes for Triforce games has since shut, and the replacement site doesn't have codes for Triforce games, requiring codes to be manually downloaded from the Wayback Machine. Furthermore, games have multiple revisions, and codes only work on specific revisions.

To use the Triforce branch, certain settings must be modified:

• Under Config/GameCube, SP1 and Port 1 need to be assigned to AM-Baseboard.
• To actually play games, cheats need to be enabled. While the Mario Kart games have patches on their Dolphin Wiki pages, codes for other games should be downloaded from here.

Triforce games can also be run on a Wii using Nintendont. Patches and gecko codes aren't required. Triforce support is essentially unmaintained and lacks features such as LAN connectivity, internal saving (for things such as high scores or F-Zero AX time attack ghosts), and GameCube memory card reading. Mario Cards and F-Zero License Cards can be emulated for the Mario Kart Arcade GP games and F-Zero AX respectively, but linking F-Zero AX to an F-Zero GX save is impossible. Note that this method can't be used within Dolphin, as Nintendont uses the Wii's ARM "Starlet" processor, which Dolphin doesn't emulate (Starlet only exists to run IOS, which Dolphin reimplements anyway).

Recommended builds for Triforce

Thanks to these builds, most games work correctly with a minimal number of patches needed, so these builds are the most recommended right now for Triforce emulation;

• Modified build of the Dolphin Triforce branch known as DolphinTriforce-Brodostar, which can run Virtua Striker 4, Virtua Striker Ver 2006 and F-Zero AX (both games crash or run extremely slow normally). It also has all the Gecko codes/controls preconfigured. You can download it here.

• Another suggestion is to use the latest builds by Crediar, found here. Additional Gecko codes that provide further fixes (performance fix etc.) for this build can be found here.

Dolphin Pull Requests for Triforce

There are 2 pull requests by Zopolis4 to add preliminary support for Triforce back into upstream Dolphin, but the work is ancient and unsupported.

Panasonic Q

The Panasonic Q GameCube console.

The Panasonic Q (sometimes referred to as GameQ by GameCube fans) is a hybrid version of the GameCube with a DVD player manufactured by Panasonic in cooperation with Nintendo. The system was officially released only in Japan. A feature of its main competitors, the Xbox and the PlayStation 2, the GameCube lacked commercial DVD movie playback functionality due to the use of the Nintendo optical discs format for games and the correspondingly small disc tray. Initially, the Panasonic Q could only play games and DVDs from Japan; however, a modified version, which could play American games and DVDs, began to be sold from Import shops, making it a popular console to import from Japan. The unit was priced at around ¥41,000 JPY, and the modified version was priced at ¥46,000 JPY. The Panasonic Q is capable of using almost all the GameCube hardware upgrades. A special version of the Game Boy Player was designed for the Q because the Player was designed to fit onto the bottom of the GameCube, and the Q's different bottom form factor kept the Player from being installed. Other features of the Panasonic Q include a backlit information LCD, a front-loading slot disc tray, an optical sound output supporting Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS, a separate subwoofer jack, DVD remote control, and a stainless steel chassis. These high-end features, as well as the aforementioned multimedia playback capabilities, have made the Panasonic Q a popular console to collect.

The Q system was licensed by Nintendo, released on December 13, 2001, and was discontinued on December 18, 2003, due to low sales.

• Dolphin has no support for this variation.
• See this dedicated page for more information about home media playback support for emulation software.

Emulation issues

For more information about Nintendo GameCube hardware and reverse engineering;

• MVG: How the Nintendo GameCube Security was defeated, The Nintendo GameCube is still awesome - Games, Homebrew, Modding and More, Dolphin has been ported to the Xbox
• Dolphin: Blog, Discord
• Awesome GameCube Development
• Rodrigo Colpetti's GameCube practical analysis
• GC-Forever
• ConsoleMods - GameCube

Resources

• Dolphin Wiki - The most comprehensive wiki for the Dolphin emulator and games. Good for any fixes/tweaks/settings you should know beforehand.

References

Nintendo(edit)

• Consoles: Color TV-Game • Nintendo Entertainment System (Family Computer) • Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super Family Computer) • Nintendo 64 • GameCube • Wii • Wii U • Nintendo Switch • Nintendo Switch 2
• Handhelds: Game & Watch • Game Boy/Color • Virtual Boy • Pokémon Mini • Game Boy Advance • Nintendo DS • Nintendo DSi • Nintendo 3DS
• Arcade: Aleck 64 • Namco ES3 • Triforce
• Related: Family Computer Disk System • Satellaview • 64DD • Super Game Boy • e-Reader • Amiibo