Test dolphin using original GameCube Hardware

[username]

My greetings to the dolphin emulator community,

I wonder if it is possible to test dolphin emulator performance using the original GameCube Hardware rather than using various PC hardware - specs. The reason is the fact that Gamecube hardware is capable to run GameCube games perfectly. This means we could take advantage of the GameCube hardware as the base specification for testing and developing the efficiency of dolphin's emulator algorithm.

Is it possible to run dolphin emulator on the original hardware?

If the answer is "No". I hope the dolphin emu team provide "dolphin emu community/developers" with a kit that allow GameCubes to be connected to the computer, which will make it easier for them ("the team") to collect the needed performance statistics/info of dolphin running on GC hardware. This will result in speeding up the development process.

Also, If you could send the dolphin team the kit idea, please do as I do not know how to reach them.

Kind Regards

Username

[JosJuice]

No, it's not possible to run Dolphin on a GameCube or Wii.

I don't understand how such a kit would work or how it would be helpful.

[Admentus]

Uhhhh? Why exactly do you want to run Dolphin on a GameCube? The GameCube already runs GameCube titles? But perfectly and accurately? And the emulator can be used to run GameCube titles on your PC? Don't forget about the Wii?

I mean, the perfect method to measure accuracy would be by using a real GameCube to compare if a game behaves as intended on the emulator?

I'm confused?

Imagine running Dolphin at 1 frame per 10 seconds on a GameCube...?

[JosJuice]

(11-29-2018, 07:30 AM)Admentus Wrote: Uhhhh? Why exactly do you want to run Dolphin on a GameCube? The GameCube already runs GameCube titles? But perfectly and accurately?

From how I understand it, they want to be able to find out how much overhead Dolphin has compared to running a game natively. Not that knowing that would help with the development of Dolphin.

[Invader]

I think you might have a fundamental misunderstanding of what emulation is or how it works. I'd recommend reading up more about it online. Emulation is used to run software on systems with "significantly" different hardware setups. The way you describe running Dolphin on a gamecube doesn't make any sense.

To answer the "Dolphin Kit" question, developing an accurate emulator requires knowledge of the original hardware. Dolphin developers run hardware tests on console all the time to check for inaccuracies in Dolphin.

[Helios]

Well, JMC does and then complains when Dolphin is wrong anyways

[argadelfinen]

Running GameCube games on a GameCube is 100% efficient. A hypothetical “Dolphin for GameCube” would be approximately that, because it wouldn't have to bother emulating anything the GameCube hardware could do itself.

Porting to GameCube wouldn't reveal anything new about how efficient Dolphin is at emulation. It's already obvious the GameCube is the most efficient at, uh, being itself.

[JMC47]

A tool for hooking up a GameCube to a computer for analysis is called a capture card. Then, you want two Wavebird dongles set to the same channel. Then, you play a game with low RNG like Luigi's Mansion. Get into the same spot, take a screenshot, see how it looks. That's how I tested depth issues lol.

[mimimi]

The performance for 99% of the games is known: 25, 30, 50 or 60 fps. Do you want Dolphin to be able to emulate a slowdown that happens on actual gamecubes? For that, maybe, some hardware could help, but i think most people would want Dolphin to run full speed anyways, even if that is "wrong" emulation.

As for accuracy, you can hook up an usb gecko to make screenshots and compare them to screenshots made with Dolphin. Or you could fix/update the FifoCI client for gamecube/wii, so you could play back recent fifo logs on gamecube/wii directly. With this, could could directly compare how the gamecube and Dolphin draw certain things. Both examples are just for graphics differences, and i don't think there are too many graphics differences left, especially those that people would actually care about.

As for cpu stuff, you can run test programs via homebrew on a gamecube or wii. Dolphin's benchmark is a homebrew program, and the time it takes to finish on the gamecube should be in the table with the results. As for live data, i think people would use an usb gecko.

[SCOTT0852]

If you're hooking up real hardware to a pc, you're not emulating. You're just running the original hardware, but now it's also got tons of useless wires and it would probably take up 80 USB ports.