Dolphin emulator how does it work

By opening the graphics menu, you are overriding the GameINI default settings and instead using the settings within the graphics menu, which will be the global defaults or whatever you last set them to. If you are playing a game that needs accurate but demanding settings, opening the graphics menu will disable those settings and result in a speed up.

However, you will then be subject to the glitches and problems the GameINI settings were protecting you from. See the Dolphin Wiki for details on what games needs which settings to run correctly and why. Builds are compiled for every development version of Dolphin and are available on the download page. All of the Git commits are also available on GitHub where you can comment on changes and view new pull requests to get a jump on upcoming features. Most of the Dolphin developers read the "Development discussion" forum.

Posting a thread there might be a good idea to get some feedback from developers but also from users. Dolphin developers also communicate via IRC, which is better for instant discussion than a forum.

Join us on dolphin-emu irc. Even if your idea is very good, note that developers are doing their work on Dolphin on their free time and don't necessarily have the time to implement everything people suggest.

If you can, implementing a first draft of your idea might be a good way to get developers attention. Every core on a CPU runs in parallel.

Two tasks can run very well in parallel if they don't need to communicate often or to run at the exact same speed. For example, compressing files can be run on separate cores because compressing one file and compressing another file are two completely independent tasks, which do not need to communicate. Breaking up any of these tasks into smaller tasks just to run it on more cores is very likely to make the program slower.

That's why Dolphin only runs on 3 cores and won't use all of your 4 or 6 cores CPU. While it's true the GameCube and Wii hardware is a lot slower than what you need to emulate the console using Dolphin, the hardware found in these consoles is also very different from what you can find in a gaming PC.

For example:. Games are programmed for this CPU: when emulating, every basic instruction a game runs needs to be translated to something a PC can execute. Depending on the instruction, this can take from 2x to x clock cycles, which explains why you need more than a MHz CPU to emulate a GameCube.

The GPU is not using shaders: every graphics effect and every computation done by the game is executed directly by the hardware without an intermediate programming language.

This list is not exhaustive but should give you a good idea of what exactly makes emulation require a powerful computer. Long answer: Downloading commercial games is illegal and thus strongly frowned upon by the Dolphin developers.

To prevent legal issues, this includes gray areas like downloading games which you purchased earlier. You don't necessarily need to own a gaming console by yourself because you can buy a game disc and dump them with a friend's console.

On the other hand, copying a friend's game dump is considered illegal again. For dumping games with a Wii, you'll want to install the homebrew channel and run an application like CleanRip. About Dolphin What is Dolphin? Dolphin's License Who Made Dolphin? Dolphin is not affiliated with Nintendo in any way. Our buildbot provides each revision of Dolphin in four variants on the main site: Windows x64 for bit Windows operating systems macOS for bit macOS computers Android APKs for bit Android We no longer distribute Linux builds on our website, requiring users to build from source.

Windows Linux. CPUs do not work that way. Not all games are compatible with Dolphin Emulator. The Dolphin Wiki contains information about compatibility issues as well as various enhancements. While the use of emulators is legal, it is illegal to download or distribute ROMs of games that you do not already own. Before you begin, it is recommended to put all of your ROMS in a single folder. Open Dolphin Emulator and select Config. Select the Paths tab. Select Add.

Select the folder containing your games. Close the Configuration window and select Refresh. Your games will appear on the main menu. Double-click the game you want to play to launch Dolphin Emulator. Select Load State to load a save file. If you connect a PlayStation 3 or 4 controller to your PC , you can use that as well. It's even possible to use the original GameCube controller if you have the appropriate adapter. To play Wii games, you'll need an actual Wii Remote and a Bluetooth motion sensor bar.

You can also find controller profiles for Dolphin Emulator that automatically configure button mapping for specific games such as Super Mario Galaxy. Here's how to configure controller settings.

Select Port 1 under GameCube Controllers and select the type of controller you want to use, then select Configure. Configure the button mapping to your liking, then select OK. To save your controller settings, enter a name under Profile and select Save.

Select Wiimote 1 under Wiimotes and select the type of controller you want to use, then select Configure. You can use your keyboard or a gamepad to play Wii games, but you will be unable to use motion control features. Keep all custom assets in this folder. You can also create custom settings for each game. For example, here's how to enable cheats for a game. Right-click the game in the Dolphin main menu and select Properties. Select the AR Codes tab. Check the boxes beside the cheats you wish to enable.

If you have a high-end gaming PC, it should have no problem running GameCube and Wii games at their original speeds or even faster. Set Anisotropic Filtering to 16x for better perspective rendering and cleaner textures. Leave all other options at the default settings. You can skip the Hacks and Advanced tabs since their defaults are the optimal settings for most games.

They can break compatibility, so they should only be used when needed for particular titles. Dolphin is compatible with many different types of controllers, from typical joypads to actual Wiimotes for which your PC must have Bluetooth support.

This option allows you to map some motion controls to other inputs. Those can range from keyboard keys to gestures on another motion control device — like a Move controller or paired smartphone.

Xbox-compatible joypads work as XInput controllers and are easily recognized by Windows. They will probably be directly selectable In Dolphin. For PlayStation controllers, you will probably have to use ScpToolkit. Check out this article for help in choosing a new gamepad for your PC. They are designed to use a sensor bar as a reference point for their position in space. You can bring your actual Wii console next to your PC and power it on for the sensor bar to work, but that largely defeats the purpose of using an emulator.

If you are skilled with a soldering iron, you can modify it to work with a USB connector. Using the ever-popular Super Smash Bros. There are two ways to save your progress in a game. In PC gaming, most games allow users to save any time they wish by selecting such an option.

Console games usually go for automatic saves between checkpoints. Savestates bring those worlds together. With savestates, the emulator can dump all the memory used by the emulated system into a disk file. The default hotkeys are F1 to F8 for loading savestates from the first eight save slots and Shift and F1 to F8 for saving to them.

Modern emulation has reached a point where the emulators not only try to replicate the experience of gaming on an actual console but also improve it in any way possible. One of those allows it by replacing textures or other game resources, which can radically modernize a title or modify it in useful or interesting ways.

Dolphin supports both Texture Packs and Resource Packs. Their difference is that Texture Packs come as folders with images, which you must install yourself. Resource Packs are a new feature for the Dolphin emulator and not yet widely supported. However, not all games are fully compatible with Dolphin emulator.

Development releases can come out weekly and include the latest updates but often have more glitches. Check the Issues list to see if your issue has been reported and whether a fix is already in place may require upgrading the emulator or whether a fix is pending.