Dolphin Emulator Release 2606 Progress Report

Dolphin Emulator Release 2606 Progress Report

Dolphin Release 2606 delivers significant hardware emulation milestones, including the first functional support for the Game Boy Player and the ability to run the rare Triforce arcade game The Key of Avalon. It also resolves a decade-old graphical issue with "fake HDR bloom" in flagship GameCube and Wii titles through a new rendering pipeline modification.

Game Boy Player Support

Dolphin now emulates the Game Boy Player, the GameCube peripheral that allowed Game Boy Advance (GBA) games to be played on a television. This implementation leverages the previously integrated mGBA core to handle GBA emulation while recreating the specific hardware communication and audio/video funneling of the Game Boy Player.

Implementation and Challenges

The feature was developed as an April Fools' joke that became a reality. However, initial releases faced severe audio issues—described as "piercing"—because the developers primarily tested with the official Start-Up Disc, which heavily filtered audio. The issues were identified and corrected after testing with the Game Boy Interface (GBI) homebrew software.

Usage and Limitations

To use the feature, users must load a GBA ROM via the "Game Boy Player ROM" setting and run either the Start-Up disc or GBI. While functional, the developers note that this is a "curiosity" rather than a replacement for dedicated GBA emulators, as Dolphin has higher system requirements and lacks the specialized UI of standalone handheld emulators.

Triforce Emulation: The Key of Avalon

The Key of Avalon is now functional in Dolphin, marking a major milestone for Triforce arcade emulation. This game presented a unique challenge because the developers lacked access to the physical cabinets, relying solely on GD-ROMs.

Overcoming Hardware Hurdles

  • Touchscreen Protocol: Developers reverse-engineered the touchscreen pedestals by identifying the Elo SmartSet Data Protocol, which was similar to the game's actual protocol.
  • IC Card Handling: The game frequently hung during startup. A rewrite of the IC Card handling code was required to make the game proceed to actual gameplay.
  • Deck Loading: Because the physical deck reader was not fully emulated, the developers implemented a method to load card decks via JSON files, allowing players to build custom decks for the trading card game.

Graphics Mods: Fixing High-Resolution Bloom

For years, many flagship GameCube and Wii games (such as The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy) used a "fake HDR bloom" effect. This effect was created by rendering blurred EFB copies of the screen at a low resolution and blending them over the image.

The Resolution Problem

When users increased the internal resolution in Dolphin, the blur values—which were hard-coded for 480p—remained static. This resulted in visible "layers" or duplicate copies of lights, breaking the visual fidelity at high resolutions.

The "Bloom Blurred" Solution

Rather than using "No Bloom" or "Native Bloom" (which caused shimmering), a new graphics mod called Bloom Blurred was introduced. This mod allows Dolphin to perform its own blur on the bloom effect that scales with the current resolution. This fix is now available for over 50 games via the Graphics Mods system.

Additional Technical Updates

Wii Remote Audio Mixer

A new audio mixer allows audio intended for the Wii Remote's internal speaker to be routed to any additional speaker device, including controllers with audio output (e.g., DualSense on Linux).

Custom Cropping

Dolphin has expanded its cropping capabilities. Users can now define custom crops to remove black bars or isolate specific screen areas (such as a single player's view in split-screen NetPlay) without affecting the game's internal logic or risking desyncs.

Android Minimum Version

The minimum supported Android version has been bumped to Android 7 Nougat (API level 24) to allow the adoption of new features and remove legacy compatibility code.

Infrastructure and Bot Mitigation

To combat aggressive AI scraper bots that were effectively DDoSing the main website, the Dolphin team has deployed Bunny CDN and a Web Application Firewall (WAF). This setup uses bot protection and caching to reduce server load and prevent outages. The team recommends that well-meaning scrapers use the official updater API endpoints (GET /update/latest/(track name)) to avoid being blocked by the WAF.

Redump Integration

Dolphin has updated its integration to point to Redump.info, replacing the old Redump.org. This move follows the migration of the Redump community to a new site to improve stability, HTTPS support, and accessibility in the face of AI scraping pressure.

Wii RetroAchievements Statistics

Following three months of Wii support, the top games by player count include:

  • Super Mario Galaxy: 5,408 players
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii: 4,052 players
  • Mario Kart Wii: 3,744 players
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl: 3,445 players

Sources