Back when I used to play my actual Gamecube, there were a few Action Replay codes I remember working as intended on my games, but with Dolphin, this is not the case apparently.
Before I go any further, I do assume AR codes compatibility are probably the least of the developers' concerns, and also I do realize many AR codes have buggy side effects. I am simply stating that some of the codes I've tried out have different effects when playing the same game, same region on Dolphin than on an actual console hardware unit.
Going back to the matter, I enabled, amongst others, the ability to freeze/restart the timer on TimeSplitters 2 challenge mode using R+A/R+B. I do in fact remember that working on GC, though it has no effect on Dolphin. Other AR codes were working at the time too, just not these ones.
I decided to pull out Omniconvert (an input/output conversion utility from/to code devices (and different versions of them) like AR, GS, CB, and raw code) and found that translating the raw code for the defective AR cheats configured in the included .INI files that came with the binary distro back to AR Max gave a different output back than what was provided by AR Central/CodeJunkies. I then took the codes from ARC/CJ and overwrote the original entries in the INI files, only to realize Dolphin converted them into identical raw code as the faulty code.
Again, I do realize AR codes don't always work as intended, but to behave correctly on GC hardware, but not at all on Dolphin, raises my curiosity. My guess is that Dolphin is doing selective mistranslation of AR Max codes. I say 'selective' because so far it's only two AR codes I've tried out of dozens.
Here is the conversion of one of the codes (multiple lines separated with |):
ARC/CJ supplied this: F5QY-HVT7-JPPJC|61Q1-1XYP-49GWU|8VUA-K89T-G98HP
Raw code: 0A3B7AF8 00000120|041504E0 60000000
Conversion back to AR code: 0WX2-WD4B-C47CV|G9BJ-109G-RUT21|V446-4V29-TD34G
Before I go any further, I do assume AR codes compatibility are probably the least of the developers' concerns, and also I do realize many AR codes have buggy side effects. I am simply stating that some of the codes I've tried out have different effects when playing the same game, same region on Dolphin than on an actual console hardware unit.
Going back to the matter, I enabled, amongst others, the ability to freeze/restart the timer on TimeSplitters 2 challenge mode using R+A/R+B. I do in fact remember that working on GC, though it has no effect on Dolphin. Other AR codes were working at the time too, just not these ones.
I decided to pull out Omniconvert (an input/output conversion utility from/to code devices (and different versions of them) like AR, GS, CB, and raw code) and found that translating the raw code for the defective AR cheats configured in the included .INI files that came with the binary distro back to AR Max gave a different output back than what was provided by AR Central/CodeJunkies. I then took the codes from ARC/CJ and overwrote the original entries in the INI files, only to realize Dolphin converted them into identical raw code as the faulty code.
Again, I do realize AR codes don't always work as intended, but to behave correctly on GC hardware, but not at all on Dolphin, raises my curiosity. My guess is that Dolphin is doing selective mistranslation of AR Max codes. I say 'selective' because so far it's only two AR codes I've tried out of dozens.
Here is the conversion of one of the codes (multiple lines separated with |):
ARC/CJ supplied this: F5QY-HVT7-JPPJC|61Q1-1XYP-49GWU|8VUA-K89T-G98HP
Raw code: 0A3B7AF8 00000120|041504E0 60000000
Conversion back to AR code: 0WX2-WD4B-C47CV|G9BJ-109G-RUT21|V446-4V29-TD34G