How To Setup Dolphin Emulator

It’s no secret that Dolphin is the best GameCube emulator available. If you’re looking for a guide on how to install Dolphin emulator and set it up, you’ve come to the right place! In this article, we’ll be breaking down how to use the Dolphin emulator with your setup.

Since its initial release back in 2003, the Dolphin emulator has come an incredibly far away. These days its emulation is very solid and it has great support for many different GameCube games. It’s the go to emulator for GameCube games and to play Wii games.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

What You’ll Need

Before diving in, please make sure that you satisfy each of the following requirements that you’ll need:

PC

• A Windows based PC that meets the technical specs listed on the Dolphin website here
• Windows 10 (or newer) installed on your PC

You’ll also need the following:

• A GameCube game ROM file – do keep in mind that downloading video games ROM files is illegal and that it is always recommended that you dump the ROM files from physical games that you own and don’t download ROMs from the internet)
• A USB or Bluetooth controller to use for playing GameCube games – you can connect an actual GameCube controller to your computer using an adapter found below

Gamecube Adapter for PC

$16.99

GameCube Controller

$67.98

How To Install Dolphin Emulator on PC?

Visit The Dolphin Website

First you’ll want to head over to the Dolphin website and download dolphin from their download page. Keep in mind that you’ll need to have the 64 bit Visual C++ Redistributable for Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 installed on your computer. If you don’t already have it, you can download this from the download page as well at the top shown in a red notification.

Visual C++ Redistributable Check

Be sure that you have the Visual C++ Redistributable installed on your computer being installing Dolphin.

Development Version

It’s recommended that you install the latest version shown under Development versions. This version will be the newest update that the team has released to the public. Be sure to download the Windows x64 version by clicking the Windows X64 button.

Unzip Files

After downloading, you’ll need to unzip the files using an archive tool on your PC. After unzipping the files, open up the Dolphin-x64 folder and double click the Dolphin.exe file to start the Dolphin emulator.

How To Setup Dolphin Emulator Controls?

It’s no secret that setting up a controller is crucial to a solid GameCube emulation experience. Make sure that your desired controller is connected to your computer, whether by USB cable or wirelessly using Bluetooth. After verifying your controller is connected, open Dolphin emulator and then go to the Controllers icon at the top.

Configure Controller

From the popup that appears, underneath the GameCube Controllers area, click the Configure button for Port 1. We’ll now be setting up our controller.

Input Selection

In the Device dropdown, select either Xinput or Dinput.

Which input you will need to choose will depend on the type of controller that you are using. Typically, XInput is for newer controllers and DirectInput is for older controllers. Some controllers will not work properly with one, but will work with the other so you will need to test both and see which works correctly with the controller you are using. More information on which input type to choose can be found on this Reddit thread here.

Controller Button Mapping

After you have chosen your input type, you can now start mapping your controller to each GameCube button shown on the screen. You will start by clicking each Button shown on-screen and then pressing the button on your controller you would like to map to it, going down the list until every single button shown has been mapped to one on your controller.

Do this process for every button, the D-Pad, the Control Stick and C Stick, and the Triggers.

Creating A Controller Profile

After you have completed mapping everything required, be sure to save your changes so that you won’t have to do this again next time. You can do this by giving your controller configuration a name in Profile at the top and then clicking the Save button.

After saving, you’ll now be able to load up your controller’s custom settings in the future. If at any point in the future you want to add additional controllers, just go through the steps for each controller you’re adding to an additional Port 2-4.

How To Setup Dolphin Emulator Games?

As mentioned earlier in this guide, you’ll need to find your GameCube games ROMs file yourself as we won’t be supplying those here.

Get Your Games Ready

Once you have some ROM files available to use, Dolphin has a neat way to display your games library in the emulator in either a list or grid view.

Configuration

To add games to Dolphin, head to Options and then to Configuration.

Setup Paths

Next, click the Paths tab at the top and then click the Add… button in the Game Folders area.

Add Games Folder

Now you’ll want to add the folder on your computer where your games are located. If you select the correct folder, you will then see the games appear in the main Dolphin window

How To Setup Dolphin Emulator for Best Performance

The Windows PC version of Dolphin has a number of different settings that can improve the resolution and rendering of GameCube games. For those looking to improve performance of their games, tinkering with the settings can lead to some significant improvements.

For more information on what each settings option does, you can hover your mouse over it and it will give a short description for you in a fancy little tooltip window that appears.

Graphics Settings

To start, click the Graphics icon in the main Dolphin window. In the popup that appears, click the Backend dropdown menu in the General tab, and then select Direct3D11.

Select Adapter

In the Adapter dropdown, select your GPU if it is not automatically selected and go ahead and leave the Aspect Ratio as Auto.

Setup Fullscreen Mode

For a more immersive experience, you can check the checkbox for Start in Fullscreen for your games to play in fullscreen instead of windowed mode.

Shader Compilation Mode

Now at the bottom you’ll find the Shader Compilation area. If your PC has a decent GPU, go ahead and select Exclusive Ubershaders. If however your computer’s graphics card isn’t that great, you can either leave it as the default settings or you can try out Hybrid Ubershaders.

If you find that you have any performance issues while playing games, you should try checking the checkbox for Compile Shaders Before Starting. This might make some games take longer to load at first, however this will usually smooth out performance for computers that don’t have high end graphics cards.

Enhancements

Now you’ll want to click the Enhancements tab and then make the following selections:

• Internal Resolution: Auto (or select your actual monitor resolution if you know the correct value)
• Anti-Aliasing: 4x MSAA

Both of the above settings will do some solid upscaling and anti aliasing on their own. You can tweak these settings a bit if you wish to see what you like best and what performs best with your setup.

Load Your GameCube Games

With everything all setup, you’re now ready to play some games! Go ahead and double click any games in the main Dolphin window to start playing.

How To Setup Memory Card for Dolphin Emulator

There are two ways that you can save your games in Dolphin:

• While playing in-game, which writes the data to a virtual memory card file and works basically just like it does on the console itself
• By using a Save State which saves everything in the Gamecube’s memory to a file so you can load it later and continue from the exact point wherever you left off

Saving In-Game

To save the in-game way, first make sure you have a memory card configured. In Dolphin, click the Config button at the top, go to the Gamecube tab, and make sure Slot A is set to Memory Card. Then you can just save normally while playing your game.

Save States

To use a Save State, press Shift + F1 to save to slot 1, and F1 to load it again. You have 8 slots total, F1 through F8. Do keep in mind though that loading save states won’t always work if the configuration options aren’t the same. If it crashes when you try to load, just change the options back and try again. Many options can be changed without affecting save states, the ones that tend to break things are usually the same ones Dolphin won’t let you change though while a game is running.

You can also manually configure Save Slots with a GameCube game running by opening the dolphin main emulator menu and then going to Emulation and you’ll be able to see the different options available under Load State, Save State, and Select State Slot. You have the ability to choose which Save Slot to save your current game’s data to along with some other settings.

FAQ

Is Dolphin Available on RetroArch?

Yes, Dolphin is available to use with RetroArch. You need to setup the RetroArch GameCube Dolphin core to play GameCube games. It’s a very simple process and you can follow the link for our guide on how to do this.

How To Setup A Game Directory?

You can easily setup a game directory by setting up a path to your games on your computer. In the main Dolphin menu, click Options and then Configuration, then Paths, then the Add… button. Next you’ll want to select the location of the directory on your computer where your ROM files are stored. If you choose the correct location, you will see the games appear in the main dolphin screen.

How To Setup A Wii U GameCube Controller Adapter

On Windows PC, the GameCube controller adapter requires a custom driver in order for Dolphin to be able to properly detect it and use it. Fortunately, a free tool called Zadig can help you get this all setup pretty easily.

Using Zadig

Go ahead and download Zadig from here and then proceed to the following steps:

• In Zadig, go to the Options menu and choose List All Devices
• In the dropdown menu, choose WUP-028 and be sure that the USB ID is 057E 0337 (if the USB adapter doesn’t appear in the list, remove the USB from your computer and try re-plugging it back into another USB port until it recognizes it)
• On the right hand side, choose WinUSB and then click Replace Driver and then select Yes to modify the system driver
• After you have verified that the driver has been successfully installed, close Zadig
• Run Dolphin and click Controllers
• Choose any of the Ports 1-4 that you’d like to use the adapter for

You should now be all set and ready to use the adapter.

How To Setup NetPlay

Fortunately, if you followed this guide to install and setup Dolphin, NetPlay is actually quite easy to setup and use with the newest version of the Dolphin emulator.

If this is your first time using NetPlay on an emulator, it’s recommended you don’t change too many settings and instead simply follow the instruction we lay out here. These instructions are for the latest available development build.

Starting A NetPlay Session

A NetPlay session in Dolphin is started before the game is run. You can setup a NetPlay session by going to Tools and then Start NetPlay… to see the different options available for both starting and joining NetPlay sessions. Do keep in mind the following:

• All players need to be using the same version of Dolphin in order for NetPlay to work
• If enabled, SD cards must be identical between players
• If DSP LLE is used, DSP ROMs must be identical between players
• If a particular game hangs on startup, it might not support Dual Core NetPlay, try disabling Dual Core
• If connecting directly, the host must have the chosen UDP port open/forwarded

You may read all the requirements, prerequisites, and steps for hosting and joining NetPlay sessions here. Do keep in mind that it’s nearly impossible to give exact instruction on how to do port forward because this can differ for every router/modem.

How To Setup Cheats

You can follow our guide to use Dolphin emulator cheats to get cheat codes all setup for your GameCube games. It’s rather simple to setup and shouldn’t take you more than a couple minutes maximum.

Conclusion

Hopefully you found this Dolphin emulator guide helpful. It’s no secret that Dolphin is the best GameCube emulator available. Dolphin supports not only GameCube games, but the fact that it’s also a Wii emulator makes it a no brainer. Let us know in the comment section below if you have any questions and we’d be happy to help. Have fun replaying your favorite classic GameCube games!

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