Dolphin is a free and open-source video game console emulator for GameCube and Wii that runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S.
It had its inaugural release in 2003 as freeware for Windows. Dolphin was the first GameCube emulator that could successfully run commercial games. After troubled development in the first years, Dolphin became free and open-source software and subsequently gained support for Wii emulation. Soon after, the emulator was ported to Linux and macOS. As mobile hardware got more powerful over the years, running Dolphin on Android became a viable option.
Dolphin has been well received in the IT and video gaming media for its high compatibility, steady development progress, the number of available features, and the ability to play games with graphical improvements over the original consoles.
Development
Origins (2003–2006) Dolphin was first released in September 2003 by Henrik Rydgård (ector) and F|RES as an experimental GameCube emulator that could boot up and run commercial games. Audio was not yet emulated, and the overall performance quality was very poor. Many games crashed on start-up or barely ran at all; average speed was from 2 to 20 frames per second (FPS). Its name refers to the development code name for the GameCube.
Dolphin was officially discontinued temporarily in December 2004, with the developers releasing version 1.01 as the final version of the emulator. The developers later revived the project in October 2005.
Open source, Wii emulation, and 2.0 release (2008–2010) Dolphin becoming an open-source project was originally planned for 2007, but delayed until 13 July 2008 when the developers released the source code publicly on a SVN repository on Google Code under the GPL-2.0-only license. At this point, the emulator had basic Wii emulation implemented, limited Linux compatibility and a new GUI using wxWidgets. The preview builds and 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.
By February 2009, the software was able to successfully boot and run the official Wii System Menu v1.0. Shortly after, almost all versions of the Wii system software became bootable.
By April 2009, most commercial games, GameCube and Wii alike, could be fully played, albeit with minor problems and errors, with a large number of games running with few or no defects. Adjustments to the emulator had allowed users to play select games at full speed for the first time, audio was dramatically improved, and the graphical capabilities were made more consistent aside from minor problems.
By late October 2009, several new 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 did not require a Wii Remote. The emulator's GUI was also reworked to make it more user-friendly, and the Direct3D plug-in received further work.
On 12 April 2010 Dolphin 2.0 was released.
3.0 and 3.5 releases (2010–2012) By the end of November 2010, the developers had fixed most of the sound issues such as crackling, added compatibility with more games, and increased the overall emulation speed and accuracy.
In June 2011, version 3.0 was released. Strange user interface behavior, crashes, graphical glitches and other various issues were fixed. The release notes state that the majority of games "run perfectly or with minor bugs.” The release featured redesigned configuration windows, an improved LLE sound engine, new translations, added support for the Wii Remote speaker, EFB format change emulation, graphics debugger and audio dumping among several other new features. The 3.0 release removed the plug-in interface in order to “allow for a much better integration with the other parts of Dolphin.” The developers also added a Direct3D 11 video back-end and an XAudio2 audio back-end.
On 25 December 2012, version 3.5 of Dolphin was released, featuring support for emulating the GameCube Broadband Adapter and Microphone accessories. It introduced a FreeBSD port, free replacement for the DSP firmware, and the WBFS file format.