Dolphin emulator android guide- Play Gamecube and Wii games on android

The Dolphin emulator is undoubtedly your best bet at playing Gamecube and Wii games on an android device. However, it gets pretty annoying how the emulator has numerous fork builds/versions and they have no consistency in their performance. One version/build might be suitable for one device but not for the other, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered. This guide will help you determine which version of the Dolphin emulator is the best for your android device and we will give you a step-by-step tutorial on how you can play your favourite Gamecube games on android devices.

Considering how emulation with Dolphin is an extremely CPU-intensive task you will require a decent enough device. A processor with performance equivalent to that of a Snapdragon 695 should be enough and give you a decent experience even in heavy titles like Twighlight princess and Resident Evil 4.

Also checkout- Citra- 3DS emulator complete guide for android.

Which version of the Dolphin emulator should you use on your android phone?

If you own a flagship device with a Snapdragon 865 you can simply use the Default official Dolphin Emulator, but a mid-range device might require experimenting, however, if you wish to skip the hassle of testing and experimenting I would recommend using the Dolphin MMJR as it is the one most likely to perform the best on most devices but, we have also seen devices where the MMJR build performs much worse than the Default or the MMJR 2.0.

To get the best results it is highly recommended that you first test out the official build of the Dolphin emulator and if you are not satisfied then move on to the fork builds(MMJR & MMJR2). Download links for each build are given below.

• Dolphin official
• Dolphin MMRJ
• Dolphin MMRJ2.0

From here it is all about trial and run, try out each version of the Dolphin emulator and choose the one with the best performance on your device starting with the official dolphin emulator, if the performance is not up to the mark test out the performance on each version.

Note- You can add games to your library by clicking on the ‘+’ button (the ‘+’ button is located at the top right or bottom right of the main menu) and selecting the folder where your WII or Gamecube games are located.

Mapping controls on a controller in the Dolphin emulator

Let’s get started by configuring the controls, you can either play the games using the on-screen controls or plug in a Bluetooth or USB controller. Open the settings menu by clicking on the gear icon and from there head to Gamecube input, yr and map the controls through the ‘Gamecube input‘ menu.

Similarly, you can map the inputs for the Wii games using the Wii input menu, and set the Extension to ‘nunchuck’. Mapping Wii controls can be quite overwhelming at first but you will get used to it. You can map the IR controls to the right analog stick which will allow you to use motion controls.

How to disable on-screen controls

You can remove the onscreen controls in the Dolphin emulator by bringing up the on-screen menu while in the game, from there navigate to Overlay Controls< Toggle controls and click and ‘toggle all’ to disable them.

Optimizing Dolphin emulator on your android phone

Now that you have determined which version of the Dolphin emulator runs best on your phone, let’s have a look at the best settings for an overall optimized performance and stable framerate for each version.

Important- The graphics settings mostly differ from game to game hence it is highly advised that you experiment and change the values if the performance is not up to the mark.

Dolphin Official

For optimizing the official Dolphin emulator’s performance head to the graphics settings by clicking on the Gear icon on the top right of your screen.

• In the Graphics settings, set the Video backend to OpenGl as it performs the best on most devices and games although you are free to experiment with Vulkan as it might run better for some games.
• Head to the enhancements menu and test the values for internal resolution, start from 2x and test the performance, if the game runs at a stable framerate try going higher, if not lower it down to speed up the game.
• Scroll to the bottom of the enhancement menu and enable the widescreen hack, also change the aspect ratio to ‘force 16:9’ from the graphics settings menu.
• Go to Settings<graphics settings<Hacks here enable ‘Skip EFP Access from CPU‘ and enable ‘immediately present XFB’.
• Next, navigate to Settings<Config<Advanced here, you will find Synchronize GPU set it to ‘never’ for additional performance gain for some devices. (Only enable it if you are really struggling to get a stable performance as it can cause crashes)

Dolphin MMJR

For optimizing the Dolphin MMJR emulator’s performance head to the graphics settings by clicking on the Gear icon on the top right of your screen. From there-

• In the Graphics settings, set the Video backend to OpenGl as it performs the best on most devices and games although you are free to experiment with Vulkan as it might run better for some games.
• Head to the enhancements menu and test the values for internal resolution, start from 2x and test the performance, if the game runs at a stable framerate try going higher, if not lower it down to speed up the game.
• Scroll to the bottom of the enhancement menu and enable the widescreen hack, also change the aspect ratio to ‘force 16:9’ from the graphics settings menu.
• While in-game click the back to bring up the on-screen menu, from there make sure ‘Skip EFP Access from CPU‘ and enable ‘immediately present XFB’ are enabled.
• You can configure settings differently specifically for games by holding your finger down on the game title and selecting game settings from the menu. This will help you to use different configurations for different game titles.

Dolphin MMJR 2.0

• In the Graphics settings, set the Video backend to OpenGl as it performs the best on most devices and games although you are free to experiment with Vulkan as it might run better for some games.
• Head to the enhancements menu and test the values for internal resolution, start from 2x and test the performance, if the game runs at a stable framerate try going higher, if not lower it down to speed up the game.
• Scroll to the bottom of the enhancement menu and enable the widescreen hack, also change the aspect ratio to ‘force 16:9’ from the graphics settings menu.
• Go to Settings<General and enable skip Gpu idle hack if you are struggling with performance this might help you gain a few frames. In some cases, it has improved performance significantly and is worth checking out.

Conclusion

The Dolphin emulator has definitely elevated android emulation, the quality and the number of playable games are absolutely remarkable. However as amazing as the emulator is, getting started can be quite overwhelming and it was quite evident to us while preparing this guide. The testing is time-consuming and annoying especially if you are on a mid-range device, things are much simpler on flagship devices as the official Dolphin emulator will perform extremely well.