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Dolphin - Emulating Wii and Gamecube Games

Skilletor

Member
I couldn't make it past the intro of Twilight Princess, but everything I see of it later in the game really looks like the Zelda game I want to play. The art direction is fantastic.
 

Im_Special

Member
Have they mention that they plan on adding more than 2 core support?

This comes up a lot and the answer is that no Dolphin will not support more then 2 cores, because it wouldn't speed up anything. Note: you can get Dolphin to use a 3rd core by enabling DSPLLE on thread, but this requires that you dump the corresponding files from your wii.
 

Sentenza

Member
Hot, Cowgirl, Ninja?
with almost a nip slip
This picture is win.
The game on the other hand is awful.

I couldn't make it past the intro of Twilight Princess, but everything I see of it later in the game really looks like the Zelda game I want to play. The art direction is fantastic.
Twilight Princess is a very solid product overall.
The introduction chapter is tedious beyond imagination, and playing as a wolf isn't that much better in most cases. Still, it offers well designed dungeons and more generally a lot of enjoyable content.
 
Something is off in that image.

It was stretched. I wasn't aware of the widescreen hack option in the settings. I saw the 16:9 ratio option and picked it assuming that it was all dolphin could really do.

I'm running proper res now with the widescreen hack option and it looks much better.


Twilight princess though is looking all kinds of jacked up with the widescreen hack, or more specifically, water. The 4:3 area of the tv screen is rendered correctly but the outer sides of the screen where it's filling in is all stretched and distorted and there are double images of link or whoever being rendered in the water.

Like this basically (not my image but same thing)

L3g4K.jpg
 

Hypatia

Member
Hi guys, new video!

Hmm, my problem with this is they're not really higher res textures of the old ones.

There are similiarties in that a brick texture is still a brick texture but when you're changing contrast, colouring, style and even brick size it gives the game a totally different feel.

You should try creating your textures in a new layer over the originals so you can make them conform more closely.

Otherwise you'll end up sacrificing the art styles consistancy for detail (which is a problem pretty much all texture packs seem to have for reason...).
 

tlstls

Banned
So the guys who say that a HD Textures Mod damage and makes the game different, take a look at the Pier Solar HD (that is done by the same team):



 
It was stretched. I wasn't aware of the widescreen hack option in the settings. I saw the 16:9 ratio option and picked it assuming that it was all dolphin could really do.

I'm running proper res now with the widescreen hack option and it looks much better.


Twilight princess though is looking all kinds of jacked up with the widescreen hack, or more specifically, water. The 4:3 area of the tv screen is rendered correctly but the outer sides of the screen where it's filling in is all stretched and distorted and there are double images of link or whoever being rendered in the water.

Like this basically (not my image but same thing)

L3g4K.jpg

Solution: Get a wii copy of TP instead which has a native 16:9 mode. As you noted, some games are beautiful with the widescreen hack, and others just plain break games.
 
So the guys who say that a HD Textures Mod damage and makes the game different, take a look at the Pier Solar HD (that is done by the same team):




Two different pair of shoes really. With this example they basically redo everything.
With 3D games the modelling stays the same, with textures just being patterns on flat surfaces. Creating textures for polygon models that completely disregard the models detail and proportions is just not working. It's more detailed, but it mostly never looks right due to the lack of properly adjusted macro detail.
 

jediyoshi

Member
So the guys who say that a HD Textures Mod damage and makes the game different, take a look at the Pier Solar HD (that is done by the same team):

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume for every single person who cares one way or another, no one is against the idea of Nintendo authoring new textures for existing games if they wanted. Your example doesn't hold weight seeing as they can take full advantage of the one plane they have to work with.

The problem with new textures on existing models is that there's a diminishing return in what's gained by slapping higher resolution textures on existing geometry and a sudden increase in dissonance between what's physically in the space and what the new detail is trying to portray, especially when you're dealing with cartoony proportions/realistic textures.
 

Persona7

Banned
When I play Wind Waker on my HDTV and gamecube I can clearly see the heat refractions, it looks very weird. I just assume it was built that way.
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?

Watched your videos and also visited your site and looked at the screenshots.
First of all let me say it shows you put a lot of effort into your work; This is one of the best (if not the best) HD texture pack I've seen for this game. As I have neither the talent nor the patience to pull off anything remotely similar, I feel kind of bad criticizing.

But as a consumer, if I was just comparing the two versions from an aesthetic point of view, I'd have to say that sometimes less is more. To me, consistency is really important in order to preserve immersion in a game like Zelda. Sometimes adding too much detail just goes against that goal. Especially if the detail isn't in the most important places.

For example, from your latest video, why go through all the trouble of replacing the ground textures in the fountain plaza if the player can't move the camera in that area anyway? It's not like there's a chance you'd accidentally see the original textures up close.

Another example, the floor tiles and some of the ground textures in the Lakebed Temple are high resolution and high contrast, it's just too distracting. The player's attention should be on Link. Either lower the resolution, or the contrast, or maybe a little bit of both.

In natural environments, higher res textures can also expose the game's lower res geometry at times, as well as make some of the recurring patterns in the textures too obvious. It would be a shame for all your hard work to go unappreciated, because there are some parts that I think definitely work, such as the Temple of Time and Sacred Grove, and the Stalagmite Columns in the Lakebed Temple. I think you should try to focus on improving only the textures that seem out of place or jarring in the original build, and try to make your new textures blend in with the environments better, even if that means lowering their quality.

edit: looking at more of your screenshots, it seems like the game's bloom lighting is contributing to the increase in saturation and contrast, and as a result pushing it too far over the edge. Maybe it would help to try and compensate for this when making the textures?
 
Phenom 2 is a three year old chip, and you're comparing it to a 3 month old chip at higher clock rates.

If you got the latest AMD chipset (Vishera based, not Zambezi) which are clocked at 4ghz and can overclock to 5ghz+ you won't have any problems playing games on dolphin either ;)

I'm not saying that the latest intel hardware wouldn't still be better, but either one will get just about every game playable (and any that don't probably won't play full speed on either)

Fastredponycar: As I said, the fire graphics aren't broken, they just require a tweak of settings that MAY cause some slowdown if your PC isn't up to it, it also doesn't work with the widescreen hack because it's a framebuffer effect that outputs at a fixed 4:3 width (and resolution)

Do you actually have one of the newer AMD CPUs? Because i haven't been able to find anything on how dolphin performs on Piledriver.
 
Watched your videos and also visited your site and looked at the screenshots.
First of all let me say it shows you put a lot of effort into your work; This is one of the best (if not the best) HD texture pack I've seen for this game. As I have neither the talent nor the patience to pull off anything remotely similar, I feel kind of bad criticizing.

But as a consumer, if I was just comparing the two versions from an aesthetic point of view, I'd have to say that sometimes less is more. To me, consistency is really important in order to preserve immersion in a game like Zelda. Sometimes adding too much detail just goes against that goal. Especially if the detail isn't in the most important places.

For example, from your latest video, why go through all the trouble of replacing the ground textures in the fountain plaza if the player can't move the camera in that area anyway? It's not like there's a chance you'd accidentally see the original textures up close.

Another example, the floor tiles and some of the ground textures in the Lakebed Temple are high resolution and high contrast, it's just too distracting. The player's attention should be on Link. Either lower the resolution, or the contrast, or maybe a little bit of both.

In natural environments, higher res textures can also expose the game's lower res geometry at times, as well as make some of the recurring patterns in the textures too obvious. It would be a shame for all your hard work to go unappreciated, because there are some parts that I think definitely work, such as the Temple of Time and Sacred Grove, and the Stalagmite Columns in the Lakebed Temple. I think you should try to focus on improving only the textures that seem out of place or jarring in the original build, and try to make your new textures blend in with the environments better, even if that means lowering their quality.

edit: looking at more of your screenshots, it seems like the game's bloom lighting is contributing to the increase in saturation and contrast, and as a result pushing it too far over the edge. Maybe it would help to try and compensate for this when making the textures?

Agree with all of this. If you re-texture the game, you'd also need to make sure that with the new detail the tiling should be less obvious. Even right at the start, the groundtextures that are just huge lo-fi maps in the original still work better than the new ones since you just see really ugly tiling there. If I'd have to decide between lower res textures that still work in terms of composition and tiling versus higher res textures that have pretty damn bad tiling issues, I'd choose the former.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
That looks pretty sweet, did you have to remove some kind of filter the game has to look this clear, or did only the first game utilize that?
 

Grief.exe

Member
With the 10th Anniversary of Metroid Prime coming, I realize I've never played that game before.

Should I play the gamecube version or the Wii version?
 

Im_Special

Member
Play which ever one you have an actual console for, because the Metroid Prime games are one of the few games that just don't work well with the current state of Dolphin.
 

Grief.exe

Member
And you own the games?


If so, play the versions you own; on the respective console as someone said.

Lending a GC or Wii off a friend should be easy at this point.

I don't own the games.

EDIT: Found some advice for running the sound, saving it here for easy reference later:

has near perfect audio with DSP-LLE on thread and Xaudio2. It's only derped once or twice in hours of playing over several days. LLE on thread and Xaudio2 with EFB to Ram (cached).
 
I don't own the games.

EDIT: Found some advice for running the sound, saving it here for easy reference later:

So.... not only do you admit to pirating the games, you're also going to pirate the LLE binaries you can only legally have from a real Wii or GCN console. Neat.
 
So.... not only do you admit to pirating the games, you're also going to pirate the LLE binaries you can only legally have from a real Wii or GCN console. Neat.
That's the least shocking part; infringing BIOS, binaries, not ripping stuff yourself and that legal crap I can live with. (for the record I don't use emulators or play games on PC's, I don't know what I'd do in those situations never thought about it)

Anyway, I don't really condone *that*... Piracy when it comes to intelectual property that I regard as art though, not so much. I remember a few years ago spending loads of money on Persona Eternal Punishment (and the Innocent Sin jap version) just so I could play them, legally, not the only examples too. Like I haven't played Tales of Innocence fantranslated on the NDS because I don't own the japanese version.

I have a huge backlog of games I want to play but haven't because I don't own them yet; that said I can somewhat understand someone pirating... say, Panzer Dragoon Saga (understanding being different than applauding it), because it's so rare, expensive and dificult to get (I didn't play it, but I really wanted to, for years now) but I can't understand someone expecting me to understand he's saying he's gonna pirate a whole game saga (and a good one at that) that is certainly not rare.

Talk about parasitic existence.
 

rybrad

Member
Anyone have a good setup for running The Last Story? I got in on the sweet Amazon $8 deal but the thought of playing a long RPG on my Wii sounds painful.
 

Sullichin

Member
I don't own the games.

EDIT: Found some advice for running the sound, saving it here for easy reference later:

I've had pretty decent results with DSP LLE sound on its own thread, "Accurate V-Beam Emulation" checked, widescreen hack off, EFB To RAM needs to be on for some of the visors to work correctly iirc. There's still lots of fps drops at any resolution but it's playable. OC'ng my CPU actually helped here, but not that much. This is with the GCN version, don't have the Wii one.
 

Grief.exe

Member
So.... not only do you admit to pirating the games, you're also going to pirate the LLE binaries you can only legally have from a real Wii or GCN console. Neat.

That's the least shocking part; infringing BIOS, binaries, not ripping stuff yourself and that legal crap I can live with. (for the record I don't use emulators or play games on PC's, I don't know what I'd do in those situations never thought about it)

Anyway, I don't really condone *that*... Piracy when it comes to intelectual property that I regard as art though, not so much. I remember a few years ago spending loads of money on Persona Eternal Punishment (and the Innocent Sin jap version) just so I could play them, legally, not the only examples too. Like I haven't played Tales of Innocence fantranslated on the NDS because I don't own the japanese version.

I have a huge backlog of games I want to play but haven't because I don't own them yet; that said I can somewhat understand someone pirating... say, Panzer Dragoon Saga (understanding being different than applauding it), because it's so rare, expensive and dificult to get (I didn't play it, but I really wanted to, for years now) but I can't understand someone expecting me to understand he's saying he's gonna pirate a whole game saga (and a good one at that) that is certainly not rare.

Talk about parasitic existence.

Sorry guys, I don't own a console. Haven't for years.

Not only that but I don't really have money for a console, or want to deal with the low visual fidelity that comes with the territory.

Do I plan on expanding my game library one day? Yes, I plan on expanding my classic game library into something amazing one day, but after I graduate college.

Kind of irrelevant either way because most likely if I am able to find a copy of Metroid Prime on Game Cube, none of that money will go to Nintendo. Even more irrelevant since I don't even put optical media drives into my builds anymore, or have a console to rip the disc.

I'm sorry that offends you so much and I wish I had the money or time to go out and find a copy.

I've had pretty decent results with DSP LLE sound on its own thread, "Accurate V-Beam Emulation" checked, widescreen hack off, EFB To RAM needs to be on for some of the visors to work correctly iirc. There's still lots of fps drops at any resolution but it's playable. OC'ng my CPU actually helped here, but not that much. This is with the GCN version, don't have the Wii one.

Thanks for the help, sounds pretty similar to what I've been researching.
 

rjc571

Banned
Sorry guys, I don't own a console. Haven't for years.

Not only that but I don't really have money for a console, or want to deal with the low visual fidelity that comes with the territory.

Do I plan on expanding my game library one day? Yes, I plan on expanding my classic game library into something amazing one day, but after I graduate college.

Kind of irrelevant either way because most likely if I am able to find a copy of Metroid Prime on Game Cube, none of that money will go to Nintendo. Even more irrelevant since I don't even put optical media drives into my builds anymore, or have a console to rip the disc.

I'm sorry that offends you so much and I wish I had the money or time to go out and find a copy.



Thanks for the help, sounds pretty similar to what I've been researching.

You can't afford to buy a console and games but you have a PC capable of running Dolphin?
 

xJavonta

Banned
You can't afford to buy a console and games but you have a PC capable of running Dolphin?

PCs aren't expensive. Maybe he got it for school or something. Or maybe his current financial situation prevents him from buying a console but in the past he had the funds to buy a PC. We really don't know. Either way, he is pirating games and that's wrong. Everyone needs entertainment, sure, but there are tons of free games.
 
PCs aren't expensive. Maybe he got it for school or something. Or maybe his current financial situation prevents him from buying a console but in the past he had the funds to buy a PC. We really don't know. Either way, he is pirating games and that's wrong. Everyone needs entertainment, sure, but there are tons of free games.

There's also buttloads of sales on Steam and various downloadable services. Pirating GCN games shouldn't exactly be high on the list of someone's priorities.
 
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