Dolphin is an open-source Nintendo GameCube, Wii, and Triforce emulator for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (Intel-based). It is the first emulator to successfully run commercial Nintendo GameCube and Wii games and is the only emulator capable of running commercial Wii games. Its name refers to the Nintendo Dolphin, which was the development codename for the GameCube
History
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Origins (2003–2007)
Dolphin was first released in 2003 as an experimental Nintendo GameCube emulator that could boot up and run commercial games. However, it had performance issues and many games crashed on start up and some of them wouldn't boot ; average speed was from 2 to 20 FPS and audio was not yet emulated.
Dolphin was officially discontinued in 2004, and the developers released version 1.01 as the final build of the emulator. However, the developers decided to revive the project in 2005 and then in 2007, version 1.03 was released with minor improvements and a little sound support.
Open Source and Wii Emulation (2008–present)
Dolphin became an open-source project on July 13, 2008 when the developers released the source code publicly on an SVN repository on Google Code under the GPLv2. At this point, the emulator even had basic Wii emulation implemented. Since its open sourcing, various developers were attracted and development on the emulator has continued since, with regular releases of SVN builds, unlike before, when it was closed-source.[4] These preview builds, unofficial SVN builds, were released with their revision number (e.g., RXXXX) rather than version numbers (e.g., 1.03). As with previous builds, differences between consecutive builds are typically minor.
Dolphin's Wii emulation reached a milestone in February 2009 when it made a breakthrough, managing to successfully boot and run the official Wii System Menu v1.0. By now, Dolphin can boot all versions of the Wii OS.[citation needed] There is, however, no full support for Wii channels, except for the disc channel.
By April 2009, most commercial games, Gamecube and Wii alike, could be fully played albeit with a few minor problems and errors, with a large number of games running perfectly. Many changes to the emulator improved speed for both x86 and x64 users so dramatically that users were achieving full or higher speeds than the Gamecube and Wii itself. Sound had dramatically improved. Graphics near consistent except for a few minor problems.
By late October 2009, numerous new useful features were incorporated into the emulator such as automatic frame-skipping, which increased the performance of the emulator as well as increased stability of the emulator overall. Also improved was the NetPlay feature of the emulator, which allowed players to play multiplayer Gamecube and Wii games online with friends, as long as the game doesn't require a WiiMote. In order to make it more user-friendly, Dolphin's GUI was reworked. The DirectX plugin received huge developments and is now faster than the previously used OpenGL graphics plug-in.
By the end of November 2010, the developers fixed most of the sound issues (such as crackling), added compatibility with even more games, and increased the overall emulation speed and accuracy.
Download Emulator
Windows 7 (32 - bit) : Download
Windows 7 (64 - bit) : Download
Mac OS X : Download
Web:http://www.dolphin-emulator.com/
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