Dolphin is an emulator for the Nintendo GameCube and the Nintendo Wii.
The Windows releases require the 64-bitVisual C++ redistributable for Visual Studio 2022to be installed.
What games can you plan with Dolphin Emulator?
Dolphin lets you enjoy Nintendo GameCube and Wii games on PC.
For a complete list of playable games, you’re able to check out the listhere.
What kind of CPU do I need to run Dolphin?
You’ll need a quad-core CPU or better.
Do I need a powerful GPU to fire off the Dolphin emulator?
A discrete graphics card that supports DirectX11.1 and OpenGL 4.4 is highly recommended.
How much RAM do I need to run Dolphin?
Dolphin requires at least 2GB of RAM.
RAM speed generally has no effect on emulation performance.
Can I use two or more controllers for local multiplayer on Dolphin emulator?
You only need to configure the first two ports of the Controller Configuration page.
What operating systems are supported?
Dolphin requires 64-bit operating systems to run properly.
Having said all of that?
We do have a few major changes that made the cut.
Our advanced users may be thinking, “Wait, couldn’t we already do that?”
and they’d be right.
And if you’re into weird old game behaviors?
A developer dove into Summoner: A Goddess Reborn to determine why it crashes so much.
The catch with this one?
Some of these crashes have been confirmed to happen on official hardware!
But, let’s not spoil everything and get into the notable changes of the March 2025 release!
What did gamers do with this incredible power?
Cheat at video games of course!
In fact, many game enhancers had the ability to dump games!
This overlap made cheat support an essential feature for emulators.
Because Dolphin’s development began in this era, Dolphin supported Action Replay codes before it supported Wii games.
However, cheat systems are still just a way to edit memory.
They could use cheats to change the game itself.
After some deliberation within the RetroAchievements staff, the conclusion was an allowlist.
Select and specific cheat codes are now able to be used in RetroAchievements' hardcore mode.
Now overachievers can enjoy the thrills of Gotta Get ‘Em All in the comfort of 16:9.
Everyone benefits from this, whether achievement hunting or not!
Read the completerelease notes.
That isn’t to say there aren’t any titles seeing significant improvements.
LIT (School of Darkness) had a unique problem that exposed yet another unemulated hardware behavior.
And if you’re looking for a deep dive into problematic behavior in a game?
We have one of those as well.
All of the changes below are available in Release 2412.
Doing so fixed an issue in I SPY: Spooky Mansion where the wind was too loud.
Unfortunately, it also started causing issues in Need for Speed: Nitro’s audio.
Thankfully, the issue was found relatively quickly after it was reported.
After fixing an off-by-one error and adding some clamping, Need for Speed: Nitro’s issues were resolved.
All of the changes below are available in Release 2409.
Pixels that your setup spent your hard-earned money rendering are now hidden in windowed mode by default.
Read the complete release noteshere.
On the 24th of June, 2016, Dolphin 5.0 was released.
All of this was achieved without a new release.
But users haven’t forgotten our past releases.
They have been waiting for years, patiently anticipating when our next release may arrive.
That wait ends today.
However, the purpose of our old stable builds is now no longer relevant to Dolphin Emulator.
We no longer need a benchmark to compare against or an anchor to ground us.
We have grown beyond them.
The long drought of Dolphin releases is no more and will never happen again!
Welcome to a new era of Dolphin Emulator - the Release Era!
Announcement
We are pleased to announce that Dolphin has adopted a rolling release cycle!
These are proper release builds however, with the full infrastructure and support that comes with them.
They are tagged as releases in Git, allowing our distribution partners to properly support us and our users.
And, of course, every release will advance Dolphin’s version number.
As such, we are abandoning the X.0 release numbering and moving to a new date-based versioning scheme!
Accompanying this article is our first rolling release - Dolphin 2407!
Here are the details of the new rolling release scheme:
A New Look!
To herald and symbolize this new era, we also have a new logo!
Complete release notes here.
