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Dolphin Progress Report: Release 2512

138 points by akyuu 10mo ago

skrrtww 10mo ago
HN's auto-editorializing has tripped on "Report: " matching not just as a prefix but in the middle of the title as well. (original title: "Dolphin Progress Report: Release 2512")
LaurensBER 10mo ago
The improved Broadband Adapter support, latency improvements and performance improving game patches (by capping parts of the game loop) are really cool and exciting improvements! I grew up with the GameCube and spent many hours gaming on it but as the original hardware ages it's increasingly becoming more and more expensive to source (it's not unaffordable but you're paying for old stuff that's, unfortunately, likely to break soon-ish). Without projects like Dolphin it would become a very expensive hobby, somewhere in the next 5-10y. I know that there's "official" solutions but the quality of the emulators that Nintendo produces unfortunately, tends to be subpar. Dolphin is becoming so good that it's usually my goto benchmark for budget hardware (SBCs, lately the N100s, etc). Really cool to see that the team keeps pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
- MuffinFlavored 10mo ago
  I respect the work the Dolphin team (and any/every team for that matter) does. I don't quite get, with 100,000+ video games to play across so many different platforms, why people choose to play specific ones in niche ways.
  - bestouff 10mo ago
    I bet you'll understand when you get older.
  - joenot443 10mo ago
    In my opinion, Super Smash Bros Melee is the greatest fighting game to ever exist, and Dolphin allows me to play it with friends I've long since moved away from.
  - yuriks 10mo ago
    Games are not fungible.
  - ragequittah 10mo ago
    It's like not understanding why with so many books / movies / music albums people choose to read or watch or listen to specific older ones.
SandmanDP 10mo ago
> Currently, only Windows and Linux are supported by BBA-IPC, but if there is enough interest, cristian64 has already found another library that could let us support this in other operating systems. For anyone curious, the cross-platform IPC library they’re considering is ZeroMQ. Draft pull request here: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/14046 https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/14046
- binary132 10mo ago
  I thought zmq was unmaintained now and nanomsg was supposed to be the new thing to use…
  - SandmanDP 10mo ago
    Had to look it up. Saw this right on the main page of nanomsg: > This project has largely been superceded by the nng project. Users are encouraged to use nng if they are able. The nng project is wire compatible with this library, and supports a significant superset of capabilities.
    - binary132 9mo ago
      Ah, yeah nng is “nanomsg next generation”
SuperNinKenDo 10mo ago
Every time I read stuff from the Dolphin crew I'm totally blown away by not just the ingenuity but the attention to detail and care for what they are doing. They are the absolute North Star of emulators. Everyone should at least aspire to conduct themselves the way this lot do.
- jofzar 10mo ago
  > They are the absolute North Star of emulator Honestly, they are the North Star of transparent development. I wish even a 10th of the effort that went into these was put into corporate software release notes.
- blandflakes 10mo ago
  Agreed; I don't actually even care about emulating this particular hardware, but these reports are just interesting reading.
strangelove026 10mo ago
This project is amazing but for some reason local multiplayer is always such a headache (steamdeck via emudeck). Often times the controller disconnecting for a moment isn't able to re-connect in the previous slot. I guess my 8bitodo controllers are on their last legs. Anywho whenever this happens (every night at least once) we spend time trying to re-order the controllers (digitally and with the usb hub) but ultimately generally need to abandon our monkey ball or ribbit king session (which is tragic iykyk). I now have a really thorough note about how to configure all of the controllers and what ports things need to be in so that savestates work on the steamdeck controller. They don't work on the 8bitdo controllers. Two years ago was maybe able to get savestates on the 8bitdo controllers but I think an update regressed that functionality? Never been able to get it working again. So steamdeck needs to be port 4 for savestates so that no one needs to use the deck as a controller (which is plugged in to ubs hub and HDMI). That means I need to go into desktop mode and fiddle with settings if I want to use dolphin in single player on the deck (and back again to reset before friends come over). I imagine this is all because dolphin has a more sophisticated interface when it comes to controllers? It would be nice if there was a toggle that hides all of that functionality such that controllers work out of the box ala most other emulators. No idea the feasibility of that however. Or maybe it's an emudeck issue.

138 points by akyuu 10mo ago

HN's auto-editorializing has tripped on "Report: " matching not just as a prefix but in the middle of the title as well. (original title: "Dolphin Progress Report: Release 2512")

LaurensBER 10mo ago

The improved Broadband Adapter support, latency improvements and performance improving game patches (by capping parts of the game loop) are really cool and exciting improvements! I grew up with the GameCube and spent many hours gaming on it but as the original hardware ages it's increasingly becoming more and more expensive to source (it's not unaffordable but you're paying for old stuff that's, unfortunately, likely to break soon-ish). Without projects like Dolphin it would become a very expensive hobby, somewhere in the next 5-10y. I know that there's "official" solutions but the quality of the emulators that Nintendo produces unfortunately, tends to be subpar. Dolphin is becoming so good that it's usually my goto benchmark for budget hardware (SBCs, lately the N100s, etc). Really cool to see that the team keeps pushing the boundaries of what's possible.

MuffinFlavored 10mo ago
I respect the work the Dolphin team (and any/every team for that matter) does. I don't quite get, with 100,000+ video games to play across so many different platforms, why people choose to play specific ones in niche ways.
- bestouff 10mo ago
  I bet you'll understand when you get older.
- joenot443 10mo ago
  In my opinion, Super Smash Bros Melee is the greatest fighting game to ever exist, and Dolphin allows me to play it with friends I've long since moved away from.
- yuriks 10mo ago
  Games are not fungible.
- ragequittah 10mo ago
  It's like not understanding why with so many books / movies / music albums people choose to read or watch or listen to specific older ones.

SandmanDP 10mo ago

> Currently, only Windows and Linux are supported by BBA-IPC, but if there is enough interest, cristian64 has already found another library that could let us support this in other operating systems. For anyone curious, the cross-platform IPC library they’re considering is ZeroMQ. Draft pull request here: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/14046 https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/14046

binary132 10mo ago
I thought zmq was unmaintained now and nanomsg was supposed to be the new thing to use…
- SandmanDP 10mo ago
  Had to look it up. Saw this right on the main page of nanomsg: > This project has largely been superceded by the nng project. Users are encouraged to use nng if they are able. The nng project is wire compatible with this library, and supports a significant superset of capabilities.
  - binary132 9mo ago
    Ah, yeah nng is “nanomsg next generation”

SuperNinKenDo 10mo ago

Every time I read stuff from the Dolphin crew I'm totally blown away by not just the ingenuity but the attention to detail and care for what they are doing. They are the absolute North Star of emulators. Everyone should at least aspire to conduct themselves the way this lot do.

jofzar 10mo ago
> They are the absolute North Star of emulator Honestly, they are the North Star of transparent development. I wish even a 10th of the effort that went into these was put into corporate software release notes.
blandflakes 10mo ago
Agreed; I don't actually even care about emulating this particular hardware, but these reports are just interesting reading.

strangelove026 10mo ago

This project is amazing but for some reason local multiplayer is always such a headache (steamdeck via emudeck). Often times the controller disconnecting for a moment isn't able to re-connect in the previous slot. I guess my 8bitodo controllers are on their last legs. Anywho whenever this happens (every night at least once) we spend time trying to re-order the controllers (digitally and with the usb hub) but ultimately generally need to abandon our monkey ball or ribbit king session (which is tragic iykyk). I now have a really thorough note about how to configure all of the controllers and what ports things need to be in so that savestates work on the steamdeck controller. They don't work on the 8bitdo controllers. Two years ago was maybe able to get savestates on the 8bitdo controllers but I think an update regressed that functionality? Never been able to get it working again. So steamdeck needs to be port 4 for savestates so that no one needs to use the deck as a controller (which is plugged in to ubs hub and HDMI). That means I need to go into desktop mode and fiddle with settings if I want to use dolphin in single player on the deck (and back again to reset before friends come over). I imagine this is all because dolphin has a more sophisticated interface when it comes to controllers? It would be nice if there was a toggle that hides all of that functionality such that controllers work out of the box ala most other emulators. No idea the feasibility of that however. Or maybe it's an emudeck issue.