Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey everyone! I'm new here and the first thing I wanna do is thank everyone who works on the emulator for their hard work!

I have some questions on how graphics work in Dolphin and in General. I want to apologize in advance as I will question all the answers, and I encourage anyone to post your opinions even if you are not 100% sure how it works.

OK, the Dolphin Emulator has a few settings for graphics. There is the Windowed Resolution, Full Screen Resolution, a Native Setting, a X2 setting, Aspect Ratio Options, Widescreen Hack, and various enchancements (anti-aliasing, etc.)

I'm extremely confused, and from what I have searched, it is not too straightforward.

Can anyone explain what all these do and how they do it?

Things I am interested in:
When and what things get stretched?
When and what things render at higher resolution?
When do we get extra realestate(widescreen hack) and how much?
- (Does widescreen hack give you 16:9, more less? what if you widescreen hack an already widescreen game?)
How do enchancements work (is the image output that way or is it enchanced after an image is outputted)
Is there like layers in the game that you can disable and enable (kinda like SNES emulators)
- How do different regions get treated (PAL vs NTSC, etc)
Anything else!

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I know DVD's(NTSC) are 720x480 natively and either get stretched or squished depending on aspect ratio. I understand that when upscaling a DVD you are not really adding pixels, but apperently you can with Dolphin (messing with the polygins or something) and also in DVD's you can't just get extra realestate but you can in dolphin (because the information is there, just not visible)
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Thanks in advanced and sorry for the big confusing post.

Go into your general settings, go into the "Wii" tab, change 4:3 to 16:9.

(10-25-2009, 01:28 PM)Nebetsu Wrote: [ -> ]Go into your general settings, go into the "Wii" tab, change 4:3 to 16:9.

And what does that do? Is that the equivalent of choosing 16:9 on a real Wii?

Well, I think you are joking but you just generated more questions:
If a game has that setting and the Wii has that setting, if they are different does the game get distorded? Which one takes priority? What exactly does it do?

How about gamecube games, There is a few that support Widescreen right? How does that work?

I can answer some questions of yours...

16:9 Alone stretches the pixels if it has no ingame Widescreen.

The Widescreen hack gives as much to the sides of the screen as you can see if Dolphin is not limited by 4:3 or 16:9 options.

I've done some tests, here are my results.

Using Super Smash Bros Melee all results are based on taking screenshots.

1. Using native gives me a 640x480 screenshot.
2. Using native checking 4:3 also gives me 640x480 screenshot.
3. Using native and checking 16:9 gives me 640x360 screenshot.
4. Using native and widescreen hack gives me 640x480 screenshot.
5. Using widescreen hack ONLY gives me 640x436
6. Using widescreen hack and 16:9 givem me 640x360 (same with native)
7. Using widescreen hack and 4:3 gives me 581x436
8. Changing the Windows size manually does not seem to affect the screenshot size.
9. x2 and widescreen hack gives me 1280x960
10. x2 widescreen hack and 16:9 gives me 1280x720

I think the settings get corrupted if you change them too much and everything starts running slower. I delete my dolphin folder every few tests and re build it.

Conclusion: I have no idea , it seems that the native resolution for GameCube is 640x480. Choosing x2 makes it RENDER at twice the resolution (tested stretching a 640x480 and it looks horrible compared to the screenshot of x2)

I think the 4:3 and 16:9 simply stretch.

Widescreen hack adds real estate for sure but I don't know how much (the numbers don't add up)

I think a lot of the options conflict with each other, I'll have to do more testing later on...

We all could of told you those things but you over welled us with questions

Hi, I have a 1080p monitor (23") and I can´t find a resolution that will make it look perfect with soft edges. I can se all the pixels on every shape. Now, there where some versions of dolphin where the 1360 x 720 would make everything look smooth.
What is the best resolution that would make look everything smooth for my monitor? I´ve tryied them all but I´m not getting good results.
Thank you!

Use the SSAA option on the D3D plugin. Put it at 4x at least.

(02-25-2010, 02:11 AM)GodRays Wrote: [ -> ]Use the SSAA option on the D3D plugin. Put it at 4x at least.

Thanks for the response. Yes, I can do that but that could affect my performance. On older version some resolutions would look everything smoother. Is there a reason why for this or a setting that I am not aware of?
Thank you

At the DX9 plugin set the fullscreen resolution the same as your native resolution of your monitor, very important.

Aspect ratio I got it on Auto, play around with it.

P.S.: SSAA makes a lot of difference though, try the lowest setting.