Dolphin Progress / Comparison

bananaclawz · 06-01-2020, 11:04 AM #1

Is the Developer code for Dolphin harder than Nintendo 3ds? I am confused how Citra is phenomenal on the Android Snapdragon 855 but Dolphin Devs make every excuse in the book to use Nvidia Shield hardware citing how difficult it is to work with the exact same hardware Citra utilizes so well.

Just curious.

**mbc07** · 06-01-2020, 02:29 PM #2

Moved to Android...

**KHg8m3r** · 06-01-2020, 02:49 PM #3

It's because the CPU for the GC/Wii is based on PPC architecture, the 3DS is based on ARM. They're completely different and thus need to be emulated differently.

Not to mention the difference in GPU architecture as well and reliance on different rending pipelines.

sirdaniel · (This post was last modified: 06-01-2020, 10:54 PM by sirdaniel.)

(06-01-2020, 11:04 AM)bananaclawz Wrote: Is the Developer code for Dolphin harder than Nintendo 3ds? I am confused how Citra is phenomenal on the Android Snapdragon 855 but Dolphin Devs make every excuse in the book to use Nvidia Shield hardware citing how difficult it is to work with the exact same hardware Citra utilizes so well.

Just curious.

A please compare Wii hardware with 3dx and you will get the answer.

Anyway, i have played first Citra release from playstore on my mali system and it was slow with 3ds MK (50% speed), while GC MK DD is almost full speed so i do not confirm such statement about quality code.

And some other technical comparison:
- Citra supports native AAc decoder. If device has hardware decoder for aac then audio music is free in emulating
- Citra has async GPu emulation. Its done on separate core. But i believe dolphin on android has the same.
- Citra require OGL ES 3.2. It will be even faster when devs implements vulkan backend. Question is why minimum is Android 8 as system requierement.

All in all citra borrowed some code from dolphin.

Also looked on some comments on citra blog. Reports say, that citra is slow on exynos and mali SoC. Its quite fast on Snapdragon/Adreno. This means that code needs some handtuning and app code state is from beginings of dolphin android.

**mbc07** · 06-02-2020, 05:12 AM #5

(06-01-2020, 10:44 PM)sirdaniel Wrote: Also looked on some comments on citra blog. Reports say, that citra is slow on exynos and mali SoC. Its quite fast on Snapdragon/Adreno. This means that code needs some handtuning and app code state is from beginings of dolphin android.

And here we go with the "oPtImIzE yOuR aPp" bullshit again. If somehow this still isn't clear, Exynos/Mediatek/Kirin SoCs have Mali GPUs and Mali GPUs still have garbage drivers to this day. It's not that Dolphin, or Citra or <insert any other heavy Android app/emulator here> is targeted specifically at Snapdragon or Tegra SoCs, that never were the case, they simply have better (or in Adreno's case, less broken) drivers and thus the apps perform better. The day ARM delivers better drivers to the SoC makers utilizing their Mali GPUs is when things will improve.

LG Fanatic · (This post was last modified: 06-02-2020, 11:15 AM by LG Fanatic.)

(06-01-2020, 11:04 AM)bananaclawz Wrote: Is the Developer code for Dolphin harder than Nintendo 3ds? I am confused how Citra is phenomenal on the Android Snapdragon 855 but Dolphin Devs make every excuse in the book to use Nvidia Shield hardware citing how difficult it is to work with the exact same hardware Citra utilizes so well.

Just curious.

Stop being entitled. If you haven't noticed, Dolphin is well optimized now. On phones with good CPUs, many games play quite well. On Citra, they worked on the Android port for two years before releasing it to the public. No doubt if they released an early build, android users like yourself would be leaving one star reviews on how the emulator sucks. But if you think you know better than the actual developers, feel free to make your own emulator.

bananaclawz · 06-08-2020, 10:25 AM #7

(06-02-2020, 09:22 AM)LG Fanatic Wrote: Stop being entitled. If you haven't noticed, Dolphin is well optimized now. On phones with good CPUs, many games play quite well. On Citra, they worked on the Android port for two years before releasing it to the public. No doubt if they released an early build, android users like yourself would be leaving one star reviews on how the emulator sucks. But if you think you know better than the actual developers, feel free to make your own emulator.

Nothing I said was entitled. It sounds more like you are Narcissistic versus up to actual discussion.

I downloaded Citra and after I saw how well 4x Internal Resolution worked I bought the app. In terms of performance the 3ds is more powerful than Gamecube but you can't even play most Gamecube games on Dolphin with the Internal Resolution higher than default.

It was an honest, curious question.

Aggro_hamtaro · 06-08-2020, 11:24 AM #8

I am having a hard time getting any games to work on the citra emulator. On the dolphin emulator most games work flawlessly even with HD packs, so I really don't know where all of this criticism is coming from.

**mbc07** · 06-08-2020, 11:27 AM #9

(06-08-2020, 10:25 AM)bananaclawz Wrote: In terms of performance the 3ds is more powerful than Gamecube

No, it isn't.

bananaclawz · 06-09-2020, 06:25 AM **#10**

(06-08-2020, 11:24 AM)Aggro_hamtaro Wrote: I am having a hard time getting any games to work on the citra emulator. On the dolphin emulator most games work flawlessly even with HD packs, so I really don't know where all of this criticism is coming from.

My take from that would be more demand for 3ds than Gamecube. I meant strictly Android Citra vs. Android Dolphin.

I easily get Wii is stronger than 3ds...but not Gamecube. I can play MK7 at 3x Internal Res + Texture Filter but can't play Mario Kart DD on anything higher than default..