6d ago

Dolphin Progress Report: Release 2512

Christmas has come early with a new Dolphin Progress Report! There's some juicy technical details, so I definitely recommend that folks read the full report if that sounds interesting, but here's the high-level summary of user-facing impacts (click the ¶ symbol to the right of each heading to jump to the relevant section in the progress report):

RetroAchievements are now available on Android ¶
- Not my thing (I have a bad enough completionist streak without achievements), but welcome news for the achievement hunters on-the-go—here's a list of supported games.
2509-493 - Add Rush Frame Presentation and Smooth Frame Presentation Options by Billiard ¶
- Really neat new options that allow users to improve latency and frame pacing, both of which can actually be better than a console + CRT in certain games! The effectiveness and compatibility will vary by game (for instance, they show why you definitely don't want to enable Immediately Present XFB for Rogue Squadron II), so you'll want to test these features on a per-game basis. See the post for more guidance.
2509-74 - GameCube - Add SDL Stock Profile by Samb ¶
- No fuss default profile included so you won't be forced to manually configure your SDL controllers for GameCube if you don't want to (but make sure you calibrate your joysticks!). See report for step-by-step instructions.
2509-237 and 2509-339 - Add Option to Reset Settings Back to Default by JoshuaVandaele and Simonx22 ¶
- Not much to say about it, but with how byzantine Dolphin's settings can be this was both non-trivial to implement and I'm sure very welcome for the people who tinker with their Dolphin settings and get themselves into trouble.
2509-217 - GamePatch: Modify Certain Games to Behave Better in Dolphin by SuperSamus with additional contributors ¶
- Interesting technical details for this one that involve the JIT and analog TV signals, but the bottom line is: Dolphin will apply game patches that will massively improve performance (as in potentially 2-3x better) in
2509-242 - BBA: IPC for BBA Between Multiple Instances of Dolphin on the Same Machine by cristian64 ¶
- Neat, but niche enough that rather than try to explain, I'll just copy-paste the explanation:
  Broadband Adapter (IPC): HLE solution that allows Dolphin instances on the same machine to share memory and communicate directly without the need for a host network.
  BBA-IPC allows for easy testing of BBA features on a single PC, and can also be used in conjunction with game streaming services like Parsec to play BBA titles over the internet without needing to meet the strict latency requirements of emulating the BBA over the internet.
509-250 - IP/Top: Make InetAToN async by sepalani ¶
- This change will improve online Wii play for those on high-latency connections (e.g. mobile data) by making DNS lookups non-blocking
2509-481 - SDIO: Fix CSD/CID emulation by Naim2000 ¶
- Fixes an inaccuracy in Wii SD card emulation that will allow for use of virtual SD cards up to the 32GB limit present on original hardware (the bug caused errors when the data exceeded 10.7GiB). This is especially useful for those using games with lots of DLC (Rock Band, Just Dance) or large homebrew software (_Super Smash REX).
2509-542 - USB: Emulated Support for Logitech Microphone for Wii by Biendeo ¶
- This Wii peripheral used in roughly 100 games (think Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and various karaoke games) can now be emulated with any standard PC microphone!
2509-406 - On-Screen Display: Add New Default Font by TryTwo ¶
- The default OSD font is now a vector font rather than the old raster (pixel-based) font, so it should be clear and easy-to-read at any scale! You can also commit font crimes by supplying your own font:
2509-554 - AX-HLE: Fix Low Pass Filter Edge Case by flacs ¶
- I love stuff like this: coding error in a game few people care about (or even remember) exposes flaw in the current emulation logic, leading to improved accuracy. The sloppy coders of today plant seeds for the emulation developers of tomorrow!