Dolphin crashes whenever I attempt to boot a game.
I OWN Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin 2, & Metroid Prime 2.
All of which do not boot.
When I attempt to boot a game,
it switches to the game screen, the vista "loading" icon appears
and then a menu pops up saying that
"Dolphin has stopped working, Vista is searching for a solution.."
My computer specs are:
Vista 32 bit
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz
1 Gig Ram
Nvidea GeForce4 mx 440
And this is my Dolphin cofig:
http://i40.tinypic.com/15hlhrm.jpg <--Config
http://i43.tinypic.com/2s6x9uf.jpg <--Graphics Page 1
http://i42.tinypic.com/28s21k7.jpg <--Graphics Page 2
I have the newest version of Dolphin installed.
I have read the Setup Posts.
I have installed all missing versions of Java.
And my drivers are up to date.
Help!
Your video card is based on 5+ year old tech, lacks any shaders and is not supported. Dolphin requires a video card that properly support Shader Model 2.0 (Pixel/Vertex Shading 2.0), OpenGL 2.1 or better. Geforce FX cards won't work either, they lack proper support for SM 2.0 thus can't properly render games and applications that make use of SM 2.0.
Your Processor is also old and quite underpowered, even with a proper video card your speed in most games would be very slow. However there are some games that don't require much resources and you might be able to achieve half speed or slightly better, but Metroid Prime 2 isn't one of those games and is on the heavy side as far as resources are concerned.
Since you have no hope of running anything with that POS Geforce MX card (Believe me, I used to own one a while back), you should ditch that card and invest in a decent graphics card.
You should be able to pick up a Geforce 6xxx series quite cheaply now, and use the DX9 plugin. It should be enough to run Dolphin, just not with all the bells and whistles such as AA, AF, higher resolutions.
I also read elsewhere that a Radeon 5670 can be bought for around $70, so you may want to consider investing in a new card.
I would however suggest that you build or buy a new PC that meets or exceeds the recommended requirements to run Dolphin acceptably. While this is the more expensive option, it will be well worth it and allow you to run most games comfortably. In fact this might be your only option as I'm quite sure your PC doesn't have a PCI-express slot, newer video cards have been manufactured for the PCI-express standard since the release of the Geforce 6xxx series debuted on the market.
Here are the requirements for Dolphin. These were posted a while ago, but are unlikely to ever change much:
Quote:======= System Requirements =======
* Operating System: Microsoft Windows (2000/XP/Vista or higher) / Linux / Apple Mac OS X (Intel version).
* Processor: Any Fast CPU x86 or x86_64, SSE2 supported Processor. Dual Core and SSE3, SSSE3 for more speed. Recommend a Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.0+ Ghz or AMD Phenom 9550+ 2.2Ghz+
* Graphics: Any graphics card that supports Direct3D 9 or OpenGL 2.1.
* Your Brain: Understanding the FAQ, Forum Rules, and that we don't support Piracy.
Note: OpenGL plugin is the best working video plugin for Dolphin, do not expect great results with the Direct3D9 plugin compared to the alternate one.
Note: Direct3D9 plugin is still in the works and has more kinks than the OGL one, so expect to run into black screen, shading errors, and other graphical bugs.
Note: Dolphin is not 100% perfect at its emulation. Running into crashes, errors, and whatnot is expected!
======= Runtime Library Requirements =======
Dolphin needs you have to have the libraries listed below installed.
[Windows]
-MS Visual C++ Runtime 2008 SP1: This fixes the "side by side" / "application config" & model errors
Microsoft VC++ 2008 SP1 Redist x86 - For 32bit Windows
Microsoft VC++ 2008 SP1 Redist x64 - For 64bit Windows
-The DirectX March 2009 Runtime: This fixes the plugin loading errors
Note: THIS MEANS UPDATE YOUR DIRECTX EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE VERSION 9.0c or 10 or 10.1!!!!!!
Microsoft DirectX Updater
[Linux]
-install libbluetooth: fixes the "PANIC failed to load plugin Plugins/libPlugin_wiimote.so" error for linux users
======= Video Card Requirements =======
You must have a video card that support OpenGL 2.x fully or Direct3D 9.0c.
Note: OpenGL plugin is the best working video plugin for Dolphin, do not expect great results with the Direct3D9 plugin compared to the alternate one.
Note: Direct3D9 plugin is still in the works and has more kinks than the OGL one, so expect to run into black screen, shading errors, and other graphical bugs.
[color=red]Note: Make sure your drivers are up to date!
[Driver Sites]
NVIDIA Drivers
ATI Drivers
[Models that Dolphin likes]
- NVIDIA GeForce 6 to 9 Series and GeForce 200 Series
--* GeForce 6 Series
--* GeForce 7 Series
--* GeForce 8 Series
--* GeForce 9 Series
--* GeForce 200 Series
- ATI Radeon R200 to R700 Series
--* ATI Radeon Processor Generations
--* Radeon 300
--* Radeon 420
--* Radeon 520
--* Radeon 600
--* Radeon 700
[Model thats Dolphin doesn't like]
- Any Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) Chipset (These cards do not support OpenGL 2.x fully)
--* Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
- Older NVIDIA Chipsets
--* GeForce 256
--* GeForce 2
--* GeForce 3
--* GeForce 4
--* GeForce FX Series
- ATI Radeon R200 and Older
--* ATI Radeon Processor Generations
--* Radeon 100
--* Radeon 200
--* RIVA TNT
------+ RIVA TNT
--* RAGE
------+ Rage
Credit to Omegadox for these, I had to source the requirements from elsewhere since I can't seem to find the thread on this forum which I thought was a sticky.