Well, it seems the team at libretro cannot be beaten! So on June 29th, they released the alpha of a new core for Retroarch the Dolphin (Windows/Linux) (Alpha release!)
Now you should be reminded that this still an alpha release so a lot of work needs to be done fine-tune and so on Also macOS users there is currently no working macOS version available because this core requires that you turn on Enable Shared Hardware Context.
This is an excellent installment I’ve actually been playing Evolution world’s for the GameCube and I have to say I was really impressed that it ran so smoothly, yet when I went to play Super Mario Sunshine couldn’t get it to load the fonts correctly.
This is more than likely the fault of my own but could also be representative of this being Alpha release!
The wonderful people libretro have been nice enough did give us a little walkthrough to help us step by step to get the Dolphin Core running on your Windows/Linux machine.
How to get it
Start RetroArch.
Go to Online Updater -> Update Cores.
Download ‘Gamecube/Wii (Dolphin)’ from the list.
Important! How to turn on shared hardware context (required)
This core also requires that you turn on ‘Enable Shared Hardware Context’. If you don’t do this, you will only see a black screen.
First, you need to ensure that ‘Show Advanced Settings’ is turned on. Go to Settings -> User Interface and turn ‘Show Advanced Settings’ on.
Now, go back, and go to Settings -> Core.
Once inside the ‘Core’ settings, set ‘Enable Shared Hardware Context’ to ON.
The upcoming version of RetroArch (version 1.6.1) might make it unnecessary to toggle this, saving you the hassle of having to do this.
There is also a demo you can try to get to it follow these simple steps,
Go to Online Updater -> Content Downloader.
Go to ‘Dolphin’, and select the file ‘dolphin-data.zip’
You should now have the required game INI settings placed in the proper directory. Dolphin will look inside this directory for game-specific recommended settings.
NOTE: You can also place the system files inside your System directory, or even the game’s save directory. It looks for a directory called either ‘Dolphin’ or ‘dolphin-emu’ inside those directories.
Thanks to the hard work of the team at libretro you can enjoy some of the best GameCube and Wii games out there in RetroArch libretro glory.
You can follow @libretro for news and updates or at the site here.
Thanks for reading and keep doing it for the love of the game.