This month, the story can't be anything else but CPU optimizations and fixes, after Fiora decided that if the code is in the JIT, she will make it faster. Nothing is safe from her. Since the end of July, Dolphin's JIT CPU core has seen a 26% performance boost in the Dolphin Benchmark. That is not a typo.
On the accuracy front, we've got some nifty changes that fix bugs going back to the beginning of time for Dolphin. Some ancient audio bugs bite the dust, some …
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Update: Since the creation of this article, Bluetooth Passthrough has been created as a new option for Wii Remote connectivity. By taking over the drivers of a Bluetooth Adapter, it allows unprecedented support for Wii Remote features, including the speaker and even 3rd party Wiimotes. However it doesn't work on all bluetooth adapters, and requires some setup to work. Even though it may not be the best option anymore, the DolphinBar remains a very easy all-in-one option for Wii Remote functionality, and we still recommend it for …
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In programming users usually don't see or care about what's going on on the inside all that much. All those boring code optimizations may make things easier for the developers and slowly improve the emulator, but hard-to-quantify changes are not exactly exciting. This month was full of those, with several hundred changes yet very little the general user would find interesting. Nevertheless, in the sea of code improvement, there are some real treasures: big performance improvements, some ancient bugs squashed, regression fixes, and some exciting new features to …
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When an open source project is really working, things can move frighteningly fast. One developer can focus on a feature while others are reviewing the code and preparing it for merge, allowing things to move forward in a very streamlined fashion. This not only gets things done faster, but each coder can specialize in what they do best, producing the best possible product for the user base.
When things come together just right, months like this can happen. The June Progress Report is a massive monument to months …
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The single greatest mission of an emulator is the preservation of a console and its games. The Dolphin team has made a commitment to that, especially over the past two years. After nearly a decade of guesswork, hacks, and "good enough" emulation, the developers took a stand to strive for something greater. This change in goals has forced difficult decisions had to be made again and again.
This past month has been one filled with the benefits of working with an accuracy oriented mindset. Not only …
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Ten years ago Dolphin was a very limited program designed to run in only one environment. It was a 32-bit Windows application that required Direct3D 9 with no alternatives. A lot of things have changed since then as Dolphin has expanded its goals. The emulator has become much more robust over time with support added for 64-bit Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and even Android phones and tablets!
Sometimes though, changes must be made. Some choices require months of preparation, discussion, examination, while others are …
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The GameCube GPU is a complex, tight-knit piece of hardware with impressive features for its time. It is so powerful and so flexible, it was used unmodified within the Wii architecture. For a comparison, just imagine a SNES running with an NES's graphics system. This is completely unheard of, before or since. The GameCube is a remarkable achievement of hardware engineering! With its impressive capabilities, emulating the GameCube's GPU has been one of the most challenging tasks Dolphin has ever faced.
As well as …
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Update: There is an issue with the Nvidia drivers that kept buffer storage from being utilized properly on Windows: they do not report the driver version. Since the Linux version of the driver reports its version correctly, the Dolphin devs assumed that the nvidia drivers would report it and used a version check to make sure ARB_buffer_storage was only utilized on drivers that actually support it. Because of this issue, even the latest drivers that support the function failed the version check and Dolphin didn't use buffer_storage on Windows. And thanks to an unrelated bug discovered later, the …
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The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is one of the most popular Gamecube games, if not Nintendo games, in existence. Its mixture of an open world, sharp dungeons, and an inventive art style turned heads more than ten years ago when it was released. Dolphin has had its share of problems with Wind Waker, but none could be so frustrating as its mishandling of the heat distortion.
This issue actually crops up in two ways throughout Wind Waker. The more common way is that all of the flame …
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As many people have noticed, revision 4.0-155 removed D3D9 as a video backend, leaving D3D11 and OpenGL as the sole hardware backends in Dolphin. For the longest time, D3D9 was considered Dolphin’s fastest backend and was a favorite of Windows users. But then, why would it be removed?
While it was enjoyed by users, it was a source of endless frustration for the developers. D3D9 is inherently flawed, and working around its problems wasted time and slowed development. With D3D9 removed, the developers can focus their effort on making the emulator better instead of pandering to the ever …
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