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The launch of Smash Brothers for Wii U introduced a Wii U GameCube Controller adapter, which Dolphin developers were quickly able to make compatible with their emulator. Before following the rest of this guide, be sure that you have the list of requirements above completely met. To open and manage the controller settings for Dolphin, from the Dolphin's main window, navigate to Options -> Controller Settings, or simply click the 'Controllers' button. The main controller configuration window will appear, as seen in the screenshot below. In the first half, you can configure or disable the emulated GameCube controller ports.
The Dolphin Emulator is among the most popular, if not the most popular, on the scene. This is because of an unprecedented level of accuracy, performance features, and enhancement capabilities. What started as a humble GameCube emulator became the premiere GameCube and Wii emulator before the latter system’s console cycle was even finished! Dolphin is an open-source, cross-platform project, which means it’s available on all kinds of hardware. More recent versions only support 64-bit Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Android operating systems, though. For the sake of simplicity, this guide will assume that you’re using Windows 10, the most-used desktop operating system at the time of writing.
Much of the wisdom learned here can be applied to installation and configuration on other operating systems as well, and we even have an. I’d still recommend following this guide’s post-installation steps to learn more about configuration, though, especially graphics settings.
Installing Dolphin Emulator on Your PC When installing Dolphin Emulator, you have two options: a Stable version, or a Development version. Stable versions are released once every year or two, while Development versions can have multiple within the same day.
If you want to play it super-safe, you can use a Stable version, but I highly recommend simply using the latest Development version and updating once every week/two weeks. Issues don’t arise often in Development versions, and when they do they are quickly fixed. Head to the and select which version you want to install. At the time of writing, Dolphin 5.0-5667 is the most recent, so we’ll be installing that one in this guide. Click “Windows x64.” Dolphin will download in a 7z archive which can be extracted using either 7-Zip or WinRAR. And is free, though,.
You’ll need to decide where to place this archive – I recommend setting aside a folder especially for Dolphin and your games. For me, this is a folder on a secondary hard drive named “GameCube and Wii.” Hit “Save,” open up the folder where you placed your Dolphin archive and extract it.
Inside the folder you’ve extracted (I recommend choosing “Extract to dolphin-master-your-version” so it’s easy to switch between versions later on), go inside the “Dolphin-x64” folder and click your Dolphin executable to launch it for the first time. And you’re in! You’ll see that I have quite the collection of games despite this being a new version of Dolphin for me. This is because, regardless of where you actually install your versions of Dolphin, all of your configuration files will be kept in “My Documents - Dolphin Emulator.” When using custom textures and saving configuration files, make sure that you place them there so they will be usable across your entire Dolphin installation. Configuring Controllers in Dolphin Emulator Dolphin Emulator is primarily for playing games, but before you can play any of those, you’ll need to configure your controllers.
Before we dive straight into configurations themselves, check if you have any of the following controllers on hand:. An XInput-compatible controller – Xbox 360, Xbox One + S/X, many Logitech gamepads. XInput gamepads will be recognized by default but must be configured manually or with an.ini file. A PlayStation 3/4 controller – These can be recognized as XInput controllers using the.
A GameCube controller – Using the Wii U GameCube Controller Adapter or its Mayflash counterpart,. A Wii Remote – Using a Bluetooth adapter and the “Real Wiimote” option in your settings, you can sync a real Wiimote. You’ll need to get a wireless sensor bar alongside that, though, or opt for the which doubles as a Bluetooth receiver for your Wiimote. So you’ll need, for the most part, either the real thing or an to have anything resembling an authentic experience with Dolphin. Without those you’ll need to use a mouse/keyboard setup, which I generally don’t recommend for anyone outside of a few scenarios (like for Metroid Prime Trilogy, an FPS title). If you’d like help picking a gamepad,. Fortunately for you, I’m going to provide you with some ready-to-use profiles that will be immediately compatible with any XInput-enabled controller connected to your system.
These profiles will support the following:. A GameCube controller profile.
A Wii Classic controller profile. A specialized Super Mario Galaxy 1/2 profile, which maps all functions to a normal XInput gamepad. Most notable changes are star-bit pointer to the right analog stick, shake/skin to the X button and jump to the A button. There are a number of other profiles out there in the wild for you to download and use at your own volition, but these should suit you for most of the games you’ll be playing on Dolphin. I highly recommend investing in actual controllers and adapters to play it all, though. Installation instructions are included. Loading configuration files in Dolphin is fortunately pretty simple.
First, make sure that “Standard Controller” and “Emulated Wii Remote” are selected in their respective dropdowns, like below. On either of these, all you need to do is click “Configure.” Select your XInput Gamepad under “Device” and the profile of your choice under “Profile,” and click Load to automatically apply all of my settings for your usage. You’re welcome to tweak any of these as you like and either overwrite my provided profiles or create your own. Humbly speaking, I think mine are a pretty great place to start. A Guide to Dolphin Emulator Graphics Settings Open your Graphics menu, and let’s walk through all of the important settings. General Backend Options:. OpenGL – The most well-supported Backend, it should give good performance and provide minimal in-game issues.
DirectX 11 – Falls right behind OpenGL in terms of support and may provide better or worse performance depending on the game. Vulkan – Is labeled “experimental” for a reason. Can provide great performance increases but is also a lot more prone to glitches and errors than the other backends. Software Renderer – Is very slow, doesn’t offer enhancements and will try to play exactly like the Wii/GameCube.
Only useful for developers – no reason to use this. Null – Does nothing.
Fullscreen Resolution can be set either to “Auto” or your native resolution. I set mine to the latter for Shadowplay recordings, but if you aren’t recording your Dolphin gameplay you shouldn’t need to worry about this. Aspect Ratio is best left on “Auto” since it may change depending on the game. V-Sync will reduce screen-tearing at the cost of some performance. Enable if you can handle that, otherwise leave it alone if it causes lag spikes in-game. Using Fullscreen will make your games automatically launch in Fullscreen. You can use this if you like, but Alt + Enter and the FullScr button in Dolphin’s main interface can do this for you as well.
The “Other” options are all pretty self-explanatory. I recommend enabling “Show FPS” while experimenting with settings and disabling it once you know what works for your system. Leave the others alone unless you know what you’re doing. Enhancements Internal Resolution corresponds to game resolution. I recommend starting at 2x Native as a baseline and moving up until you start seeing performance hitches.
This will have the biggest effect on your FPS. Anti-Aliasing will reduce “jaggies” in an image, making it clearer and sharper.
It is very performance-intensive, however, so I advise leaving it off or adjusting it after you’ve found a comfortable resolution for your play. Anisotropic Filtering is pretty much free visual fidelity on PC. Set to 16x or 8x if that gives you performance problems. Ubershaders will add shader compilation to your initial game launches but will otherwise save you lag spikes in games that are prone to it, like Xenoblade or the Metroid Prime Trilogy. I recommend setting this to “Hybrid” if you have a modern GPU. Post-Processing Effects will add post-processing to your images.
I don’t personally care for it, and it may impact performance slightly, but you’re welcome to experiment with it if you like. The FXAA option is a lightweight way to add some AA, for instance. As for the other enhancements:. Scaled EFB Copy and Per-Pixel Lighting will ensure better visuals at little to no cost to performance or compatibility.
Leave enabled. Force Texture Filtering will boost visuals but can cause issues – especially in games like Mario Sunshine.
Leave this disabled. Widescreen Hack can give some great results, but in general, you’re better off applying game-specific widescreen codes instead. Leave this disabled. Disable Fog may look nice but will break games that use it actively, like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. Leave this alone. Force 24-Bit Color will make your game look more vibrant at little to no performance cost.
Leave enabled. Stereoscopy really only applies to those using 3D monitors or Virtual Reality headsets. That’s enough content for an article all on its own, so we’re going to leave that alone for now. Hacks Skip EFB Access From CPU can give performance gains but damages compatibility and playability. Leave unchecked. Ignore Format Changes improves performance with minimal to no downsides.
It may need to be disabled for a few games out there but none that I’ve played. Store EFB Copies to Texture Only offers higher performance but lower accuracy.
(Most notably, things like save-file screenshots won’t work with this enabled.) This setting is fine in most cases but may need to be disabled on a per-game basis. Texture Cache is best left on Fast with GPU Texture Decoding enabled for those with discrete GPUs. XFB is best left on Disable unless a specific game requires it enabled. All options under “Other” will provide visual and performance improvements in all but a few titles. Advanced Most things here should be left alone unless you’re a developer. However, enable “Load Custom Textures” and “Prefetch Custom Textures” if you’ll be using them. “Enable Progressive Scan” is safe to enable but won’t do anything in most games.
Adding Games to Dolphin Emulator Start by selecting “Config.” Now, click “Paths.” Click “Add,” then add the folder where you’re storing your games. Note: acquiring games is your own responsibility – do so by legally extracting them from a Wii console. We are not liable if you choose to use other methods!
In the main menu click “Refresh,” and you should now see a list of all the games Dolphin found in that directory. If you don’t see banners for some of your games, don’t worry – those will appear after you launch them, play them and create a save file. Checking Game Compatibility Before playing anything in Dolphin Emulator, you should check its compatibility. You can do this by searching for it on the or right-clicking a game’s entry and selecting “Wiki.” The game’s Wiki page will provide you all the information you need to know on compatibility issues in Dolphin, as well as information and links to enhancements, widescreen codes and more. Use this information to ensure your settings are compatible with the games you’re playing! About Other Dolphin Emulator Enhancements Advanced enhancements involve using special codes and texture packs with your games in Dolphin to bring them to new heights. Unfortunately, the installation and configuration process will change depending on what game you’re playing, but if you find these enhancements, online tutorials will be included alongside them.
This will look much better when played in-game. Rendering and compression of this footage have somewhat compromised the visual fidelity of the footage above, but this should still give you a strong idea of just what can be done with Dolphin enhancements. Conclusion There are definitely some more Dolphin Emulator topics I’d like to cover in more detail in the future, but this should be all you need to get started using Dolphin to play and enhance all of your favorite Wii and GameCube titles. Comment below if you need assistance with anything Dolphin-related, or tell us what you’ll be playing!
Hi, I bought a Logitech Dual action controller, hoping I could use it for an n64 emulator. Most games, like Mario, use the n64 controller for 360 degree movement, and there is also different sensitivity (like if you just barely push the control stick in Super Mario, it causes Mario to walk- but if you push it all the way, he runs). So is there any way I can get the 360 degree movement (instead of just up, down, left, right) and perhaps the sensitivity from my gamepad? If o, what plugins/emulator should I use?
Thanks for the help. I appreciate the help, and the screen ulaoulao.
I have downloaded the Logitech Driver and calibrated the joystick using it. I also am using Project64 and that exact plugin.
But still, it's the same thing. When I adjust the Range while playing Mario, for example, I can get him to walk when I push the joystick. But then he can't run (he seems limited to one speed only).
In other words the emulator is only registering one kind of push of the joystick in the four directions still. This is hard to explain, but let me clarify just in case: when I slightly push the joystick to the upper left, Mario SHOULD walk slowly in that direction. Then when I push harder, Mario SHOULD run. But now, it doesn't matter whether I push slightly or push hard- Mario does the same thing- he either walks or runs depending on how I set the Range. I did some messing around with this using a logitech ps3 controller, but it should work with whatever gamepad. Go to control panel - game controllers click properties go to the settings tab and click calibrate. When it tells you to use the four corners on the d-pad, just use the left analog stick instead.
After that you calibrate the right joystick, then finish. Then go to your emu.
Im using pj64 with the nrage controller plugin, and remap the controls. I think what this does is trick the computer into reading the joystick as an analog pad, which has 360 range of motion and push sensitivity? Idk, but after i did this pj64 started reading the left stick as how it used to read the dpad, and vice versa, and it started working just how i (and i believe you as well) wanted.