6 ms·

Dolphin Progress Report: February, March, and April 2022

129 points by soopurman 4y ago

makeworld 4y ago
About the update servers: why don't they just host their own copy of the required update files? I thought maybe because of copyright issues, but when the current solution is running their own intermediary server it seems kind of equivalent.
- delroth 4y ago
  The update data is not redistributable, but there is nothing copyrightable in what the "fake update server" returns (30 lines of PHP serving some trivial static XML files).
  - makeworld 4y ago
    Ah I see, thanks! I thought the fake update server would be returning the actual data files itself. What a precarious situation to be in though, that's unfortunate.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    Maybe the "fake update server" could have a "cache" for "reliability"?
    - nfriedly 4y ago
      Nintendo's lawyers are very aggressive with anything IP related, and I'm sure they would love an excuse like that to shut down the dolphin project.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  > but when the current solution is running their own intermediary server it seems kind of equivalent. My impression is that they aren't hosting or relaying any of the update files -- they're running a web service which provides Dolphin users with URLs of files which are hosted by Nintendo.
baal80spam 4y ago
This software is fantastic. I have greatest respect for the Dolphin Team.
jonny_eh 4y ago
Could Dolphin ever add support for WiiU/3DS? I realize there are existing emulators for those platforms, but Dolphin rocks.
- delroth 4y ago
  It wouldn't make any technical sense to do so. 3DS is completely different hardware, Wii U has some hardware similarities but the environment in which games run is completely different (there's an OS, a bunch of dynamic linking, etc.).
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Yeah, Dolphin was a Gamecube emulator and since the Wii was basically two GameCubes taped together it was very easy for it to begin supporting Wii titles. The Wii U is significantly different, I think.
    - lapetitejort 4y ago
      The Wii U could run Wii games thanks to dedicated chips on the MoBo. That's why it has to switch into Wii mode. Most Nintendo backwards compatibility depends on dedicated hardware to operate. Wii and GameCube are the exception. The Super Nintendo was going to be backwards compatible with the NES but Nintendo found it too expensive.
      - fredoralive 4y ago
        Pedantically, I'm not sure if there are any extra physical chips on the Wii U for backwards compatibility, at least for the major bits. On the CPU side, the Wii U uses a weird triple core PowerPC 750 (aka G3) setup, even though the 750 was a) ancient and b) not designed for SMP, in order that it could be used for backwards compatibility with the previous 750 powered units. On the GPU side it does still have the old GC / Wii "GX" GPU as a separate unit, but it's just on the same chip as the modern GPU.
    - driscoll42 4y ago
a_shovel 4y ago
> It's an impressive effect for the time, as the lighting on the ridges will shift and match the sun's angle even as the suns dynamically move through the sky. Bump mapping like this wouldn't become common until the next console generation, and here it is in a GameCube launch title from 2001! It's always fun when a Factor 5 game appears in one of these. These people were wizards.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
  Bump mapping was supposed to be a selling point of the Gamecube hardware, so it wouldn't surprise me if Nintendo specifically asked or told Factor 5 to incorporate it. IIRC, it was used in the Zelda Spaceworld 2000 demo. I remember magazines at the time noting the bump mapping on Ganondorf's sword: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvE3yJv3fm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvE3yJv3fm0 Slightly longer video of just the Zelda segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIa79bTDuV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIa79bTDuV4
  - HelixEndeavor 4y ago
    Why did they drop that selling point? Did it hog too much performance for most games?
    - AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
      I think the article itself probably explains it well: you didn't get it for free. >However, there was a reason this effect didn't take off until years later. The DirectX9 and newer forms of bump mapping are painless - developers can use them with very little setup and they are very, very cheap to run. Devs don't even need to think about it. But with this older type of bump mapping, developers had to build the effect themselves. And it was not cheap. For something that just adds a bit of visual flare, most GameCube and Wii developers decided it was not worth it and passed it by. So again, Nintendo themselves probably coded it into the tech demo because they wanted to show off what was possible with the hardware, even if it wasn't practical (I believe there was a Dreamcast tech demo that bragged about how many polygons they had put into rendering a bowl of fruit).[0] And it is known that Nintendo worked with Factor 5 directly to provide them with prototype Gamecube hardware before the console was ready so that F5 could release a "killer app" launch title. It wouldn't surprise me, then, that F5 similarly threw in all the bells and whistles they could think of. [0]https://imgur.com/HvQqYjT https://imgur.com/HvQqYjT
poglet 4y ago
Recently installed Dolphin to play some coop games with my family. - Using the origional Wii Remotes (I purchased a 4th one from Ebay) and the Mayflash sensor bar which I've had for a few years. - It works great, much better the the origional Wii - I will need to further explore the GameCube / Wii U games.
Jasper_ 4y ago
> The creatively named “Windows.Gaming.Input” (WGI) is the newest input API for Windows. For now! The Windows.Gaming.Input API is the Xbox One API, and has been around since Windows 8 for UWP and the Xbox One SDK. The new one is GameInput [0], which is used on the Xbox One X by Microsoft's new gaming SDK, the GDK. It's not yet on Windows, but it is, ostensibly, coming soon... [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/input/overviews/input-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/inpu...
danbolt 4y ago
There's a really interesting gem in technical planning for games on the memory-mapping logic for Disney Games[1]. Or, what was assumed to be an antipiracy measure was in fact attempting to rescue a game that didn't do any planning for memory budgets. [1] https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-disney-trio-of-destruction%E2%84%A2 https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-disney-trio-of-destruc...
- Ballu 4y ago
  Never seen the domain name with this sign "TM". Typing TM doesnt work.
  - BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_symbol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_symbol
  - Natfan 4y ago
    I'm being pedantic here, but the trademark symbol is actually a part of the path, not the domain name.

129 points by soopurman 4y ago

About the update servers: why don't they just host their own copy of the required update files? I thought maybe because of copyright issues, but when the current solution is running their own intermediary server it seems kind of equivalent.

delroth 4y ago
The update data is not redistributable, but there is nothing copyrightable in what the "fake update server" returns (30 lines of PHP serving some trivial static XML files).
- makeworld 4y ago
  Ah I see, thanks! I thought the fake update server would be returning the actual data files itself. What a precarious situation to be in though, that's unfortunate.
- masklinn 4y ago
  Maybe the "fake update server" could have a "cache" for "reliability"?
  - nfriedly 4y ago
    Nintendo's lawyers are very aggressive with anything IP related, and I'm sure they would love an excuse like that to shut down the dolphin project.
duskwuff 4y ago
> but when the current solution is running their own intermediary server it seems kind of equivalent. My impression is that they aren't hosting or relaying any of the update files -- they're running a web service which provides Dolphin users with URLs of files which are hosted by Nintendo.

baal80spam 4y ago

This software is fantastic. I have greatest respect for the Dolphin Team.

jonny_eh 4y ago

Could Dolphin ever add support for WiiU/3DS? I realize there are existing emulators for those platforms, but Dolphin rocks.

delroth 4y ago
It wouldn't make any technical sense to do so. 3DS is completely different hardware, Wii U has some hardware similarities but the environment in which games run is completely different (there's an OS, a bunch of dynamic linking, etc.).
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yeah, Dolphin was a Gamecube emulator and since the Wii was basically two GameCubes taped together it was very easy for it to begin supporting Wii titles. The Wii U is significantly different, I think.
  - lapetitejort 4y ago
    The Wii U could run Wii games thanks to dedicated chips on the MoBo. That's why it has to switch into Wii mode. Most Nintendo backwards compatibility depends on dedicated hardware to operate. Wii and GameCube are the exception. The Super Nintendo was going to be backwards compatible with the NES but Nintendo found it too expensive.
    - fredoralive 4y ago
      Pedantically, I'm not sure if there are any extra physical chips on the Wii U for backwards compatibility, at least for the major bits. On the CPU side, the Wii U uses a weird triple core PowerPC 750 (aka G3) setup, even though the 750 was a) ancient and b) not designed for SMP, in order that it could be used for backwards compatibility with the previous 750 powered units. On the GPU side it does still have the old GC / Wii "GX" GPU as a separate unit, but it's just on the same chip as the modern GPU.
  - driscoll42 4y ago

a_shovel 4y ago

> It's an impressive effect for the time, as the lighting on the ridges will shift and match the sun's angle even as the suns dynamically move through the sky. Bump mapping like this wouldn't become common until the next console generation, and here it is in a GameCube launch title from 2001! It's always fun when a Factor 5 game appears in one of these. These people were wizards.

AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
Bump mapping was supposed to be a selling point of the Gamecube hardware, so it wouldn't surprise me if Nintendo specifically asked or told Factor 5 to incorporate it. IIRC, it was used in the Zelda Spaceworld 2000 demo. I remember magazines at the time noting the bump mapping on Ganondorf's sword: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvE3yJv3fm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvE3yJv3fm0 Slightly longer video of just the Zelda segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIa79bTDuV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIa79bTDuV4
- HelixEndeavor 4y ago
  Why did they drop that selling point? Did it hog too much performance for most games?
  - AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
    I think the article itself probably explains it well: you didn't get it for free. >However, there was a reason this effect didn't take off until years later. The DirectX9 and newer forms of bump mapping are painless - developers can use them with very little setup and they are very, very cheap to run. Devs don't even need to think about it. But with this older type of bump mapping, developers had to build the effect themselves. And it was not cheap. For something that just adds a bit of visual flare, most GameCube and Wii developers decided it was not worth it and passed it by. So again, Nintendo themselves probably coded it into the tech demo because they wanted to show off what was possible with the hardware, even if it wasn't practical (I believe there was a Dreamcast tech demo that bragged about how many polygons they had put into rendering a bowl of fruit).[0] And it is known that Nintendo worked with Factor 5 directly to provide them with prototype Gamecube hardware before the console was ready so that F5 could release a "killer app" launch title. It wouldn't surprise me, then, that F5 similarly threw in all the bells and whistles they could think of. [0]https://imgur.com/HvQqYjT https://imgur.com/HvQqYjT

poglet 4y ago

Recently installed Dolphin to play some coop games with my family. - Using the origional Wii Remotes (I purchased a 4th one from Ebay) and the Mayflash sensor bar which I've had for a few years. - It works great, much better the the origional Wii - I will need to further explore the GameCube / Wii U games.

Jasper_ 4y ago

> The creatively named “Windows.Gaming.Input” (WGI) is the newest input API for Windows. For now! The Windows.Gaming.Input API is the Xbox One API, and has been around since Windows 8 for UWP and the Xbox One SDK. The new one is GameInput [0], which is used on the Xbox One X by Microsoft's new gaming SDK, the GDK. It's not yet on Windows, but it is, ostensibly, coming soon... [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/input/overviews/input-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/inpu...

danbolt 4y ago

There's a really interesting gem in technical planning for games on the memory-mapping logic for Disney Games[1]. Or, what was assumed to be an antipiracy measure was in fact attempting to rescue a game that didn't do any planning for memory budgets. [1] https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-disney-trio-of-destruction%E2%84%A2 https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-disney-trio-of-destruc...

Ballu 4y ago
Never seen the domain name with this sign "TM". Typing TM doesnt work.
- BugsJustFindMe 4y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_symbol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_symbol
- Natfan 4y ago
  I'm being pedantic here, but the trademark symbol is actually a part of the path, not the domain name.