Some time has passed, and a lot has happened both for Dolphin in general (amazing work, thank you team!) and for this issue with Intel drivers + D3D backend -> glitches on some games.
The glitches can be seen on several games. Some are subtle grey pixels in the background, some are rainbow-colored shining and flashing in the foreground. A short list to give an example:
* Donkey Kong Country Returns: Very apparent bright pixels on most objects
* New Super Mario Bros Wii: Random objects / scenery elements have many glitchy pixels / parts, most objects are unaffected.
* Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 : Stars in level selection screen and in-level show glitchy "shine"
* Mario Kart Wii: Background trophy in level selection screen has grey subtle but clearly wrong pixels.
The issue has been extensively discussed in Dolphin issue tracker (Issue N:o 7167) and GitHub (Pull Request N:o #509 at https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/509 ). Magumagu found out that even the new TEV formula works, if certain operation is replaced with another type of operation (bit shift >>7 to conditional ternary operation >= 128 ? 1 : 0). This is even more indicative that the Intel drivers are the reason for these glitches.
There is a bug report for Intel at https://communities.intel.com/thread/52145 .
As of 4th of August 2014, the latest official Intel drivers (version 15.33.22.3621) have not fixed the issue. Nor has Intel forum support given any message that they know what's going on.
Dolphin team discussed this in IRC, and they decided that the fix should not be included in Dolphin's code, the reasons for this decision are well explained at GitHub pull request. I respect the decision.
So now there are these options for Intel HD users:
* Use an outdated version of Dolphin (pre 4.0-1288)
* Live with the glitches (and wait for Intel to fix the drivers)
* Get a dedicated GPU and never worry about this again
* Use the fix, that is known but won't be in Dolphin master builds (and wait for Intel to fix the drivers).
I chose the last option, but that requires to install all the tools to build Win64 version of Dolphin. But as said, a LOT has happened, and to allow Intel HD users to enjoy glichless graphics and the latest version of Dolphin, I created a branch at GitHub, that is up to date (4th of August 2014). So you can enjoy exclusive fullscreen with D3D, lighting fix for SMG2 dark goombas and all the other great thing that have been included since 4.0-1288. I recommend reading the progress report. Simply amazing.
The repository (won't be up to date afterwards): https://github.com/TurboK234/dolphin/tree/D3D_TEV_Intel_Fix
The build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23618751/Dolphin4.0.1288_glitch/Dolphin_x64_4.0-2849_D3D_TEV_Intel_Fix.zip
EDIT: There might be a severe bug regarding vertexloader in this build, didn't test it. Delroth fixed the bug since, and the repository above is updated to the latest master that includes the fix for it. Maybe I'll need to build a new x64 version later when I have the time...
EDIT2: Updated the build to 4.0-2448 .
EDIT3 (09-01-2014): Updated to the latest build 4.0-2849, since there has been HUGE speed improvements in Dolphin recently. The public repository is also updated.
The glitches can be seen on several games. Some are subtle grey pixels in the background, some are rainbow-colored shining and flashing in the foreground. A short list to give an example:
* Donkey Kong Country Returns: Very apparent bright pixels on most objects
* New Super Mario Bros Wii: Random objects / scenery elements have many glitchy pixels / parts, most objects are unaffected.
* Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 : Stars in level selection screen and in-level show glitchy "shine"
* Mario Kart Wii: Background trophy in level selection screen has grey subtle but clearly wrong pixels.
The issue has been extensively discussed in Dolphin issue tracker (Issue N:o 7167) and GitHub (Pull Request N:o #509 at https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/509 ). Magumagu found out that even the new TEV formula works, if certain operation is replaced with another type of operation (bit shift >>7 to conditional ternary operation >= 128 ? 1 : 0). This is even more indicative that the Intel drivers are the reason for these glitches.
There is a bug report for Intel at https://communities.intel.com/thread/52145 .
As of 4th of August 2014, the latest official Intel drivers (version 15.33.22.3621) have not fixed the issue. Nor has Intel forum support given any message that they know what's going on.
Dolphin team discussed this in IRC, and they decided that the fix should not be included in Dolphin's code, the reasons for this decision are well explained at GitHub pull request. I respect the decision.
So now there are these options for Intel HD users:
* Use an outdated version of Dolphin (pre 4.0-1288)
* Live with the glitches (and wait for Intel to fix the drivers)
* Get a dedicated GPU and never worry about this again
* Use the fix, that is known but won't be in Dolphin master builds (and wait for Intel to fix the drivers).
I chose the last option, but that requires to install all the tools to build Win64 version of Dolphin. But as said, a LOT has happened, and to allow Intel HD users to enjoy glichless graphics and the latest version of Dolphin, I created a branch at GitHub, that is up to date (4th of August 2014). So you can enjoy exclusive fullscreen with D3D, lighting fix for SMG2 dark goombas and all the other great thing that have been included since 4.0-1288. I recommend reading the progress report. Simply amazing.
The repository (won't be up to date afterwards): https://github.com/TurboK234/dolphin/tree/D3D_TEV_Intel_Fix
The build: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23618751/Dolphin4.0.1288_glitch/Dolphin_x64_4.0-2849_D3D_TEV_Intel_Fix.zip
EDIT: There might be a severe bug regarding vertexloader in this build, didn't test it. Delroth fixed the bug since, and the repository above is updated to the latest master that includes the fix for it. Maybe I'll need to build a new x64 version later when I have the time...
EDIT2: Updated the build to 4.0-2448 .
EDIT3 (09-01-2014): Updated to the latest build 4.0-2849, since there has been HUGE speed improvements in Dolphin recently. The public repository is also updated.