# Dolphin Emulator For Android Now Runs Close To Full Speed



## Kirito-kun (Oct 31, 2013)

Got a high-end Android device? Well, it's now possible to run GameCube games at close to full speed on that device. Yes. *Playing GameCube games on a smartphone or tablet*.

Take a look at this video of a Galaxy Note 3 running Lugui's Mansion and Melee at close to 100% speed.



The emulator is still in alpha, so this is a great accomplishment. Looks like the inclusion of OpenGL ES3.0 has finally made the emulator usable.

The emulator is free on Google Play but be warned, you need a very high-end device to run it. The Galaxy Note 3 featured in the video is one of the most powerful Android devices currently available, so don't expect every device to be able to run this emulator.


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## DinohScene (Oct 31, 2013)

Hello Wii games on phones in 2014.


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## ganons (Oct 31, 2013)

But is it built ground up like Drastic?


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## Kirito-kun (Oct 31, 2013)

ganons said:


> But is it built ground up like Drastic?


 
It uses a different JIT compared to Dolphin for x86/PC, so I guess you call it "built from ground-up". But it's completely open-source, unlike DraStic, so I'm not complaining.


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## PityOnU (Oct 31, 2013)

This is quite impressive.

Hmmm... Makes me wonder why the PC version isn't optimized as well.


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## _Chaz_ (Oct 31, 2013)

Back in 2002, I don't think the thought of a phone playing Gamecube ever crossed my mind. Now it seems too obvious.
At this rate, the 25th DS iteration may be able to run a Gamecube test application.


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## ganons (Oct 31, 2013)

the actual gameplay of ssb looks unplayable. He should have demoed the other popular titles i.e. mario kart/galaxy, windwaker etc


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## Duo8 (Oct 31, 2013)

ganons said:


> the actual gameplay of ssb looks unplayable. He should have demoed the other popular titles i.e. mario kart/*galaxy*, windwaker etc


 
To made it looks worse? Yeahhh


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## Satangel (Oct 31, 2013)

PityOnU said:


> This is quite impressive.
> 
> Hmmm... Makes me wonder why the PC version isn't optimized as well.


PC version is pretty top notch IMHO, I can play Mario Kart Wii on a pretty strong laptop, even online! Amazing, so easy to set up too


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## GameWinner (Oct 31, 2013)

Woot! Woot! Gotta keep my eyes on this.


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## PityOnU (Oct 31, 2013)

Satangel said:


> PC version is pretty top notch IMHO, I can play Mario Kart Wii on a pretty strong laptop, even online! Amazing, so easy to set up too


 
But your laptop is much more powerful than a smartphone...


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## The Real Jdbye (Oct 31, 2013)

What. The fuck. How is this even possible...


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## Kirito-kun (Oct 31, 2013)

The Real Jdbye said:


> What. The fuck. How is this even possible...


 
It's very possible. Smartphones and tablets are miles ahead of 6th gen home consoles as well as the Wii.

*Galaxy Note 3*

2.3 GHz quad-core ARM processor
Adreno 330 @ 130 GFLOPS
3 GB RAM

*GameCube*

485 MHz PowerPC single-core processor
ATI Flipper GPU @ 6.5 GFLOPS
43 MB RAM

*Wii*

783 MHz PowerPC single-core processor
ATI Hollywood @ 11 GFLOPS
88 MB RAM


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## JoostinOnline (Oct 31, 2013)

It's really not about the emulator, just the power of the Android.


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## Maxternal (Oct 31, 2013)

*Googles Galaxy Note 3's specs*

Hmm, I know of something else with a fairly nice GPU and a quad core 2ghz ARM proc
next stop, Dolphin on Vita

If a Wii game is a "nearly" full speed. I wonder about GameCube.


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## Kirito-kun (Oct 31, 2013)

Maxternal said:


> *Googles Galaxy Note 3's specs*
> 
> Hmm, I know of something else with a fairly nice GPU and a quad core 2ghz ARM proc
> next stop, Dolphin on Vita
> ...


 
The only problem is that the PS Vita's GPU may not be powerful enough. It only pushes out 50 GFLOPS compared to the Note's 130 GFLOPS. And Dolphin needs a good GPU to run, I know from personal experience running the PC version. The Vita's GPU also doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.0, which is required for Dolphin to render 3D graphics at a playable speed.


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## Fishaman P (Oct 31, 2013)

Very very VERY misleading.  Full speed in menus and a prerendered video, whoop-dee-doo.

Melee runs (very glitchily) at 20% speed on the Galaxy S4 with OpenGL ES3 and Dual Core. THAT'S how it runs on high-end hardware.
And if you watched the video, you'd see that Luigi's Mansion is completely unplayable, no matter your patience. It's just broken.

Also, if you'll notice, the game is displaying in portrait mode. That's not because of the phone's orientation; it's a massive bug with the Adreno GPU drivers. That's the only way it can display in OpenGL ES3 mode on the high-end Samsung phones, at least for the moment.


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## Kirito-kun (Oct 31, 2013)

Fishaman P said:


> Very very VERY misleading.
> 
> Melee runs (very glitchily) at 20% speed on the Galaxy S4 with OpenGL ES3 and Dual Core. THAT'S how it runs on high-end hardware.
> 
> Also, if you'll notice, the game is displaying in portrait mode. That's not because of the phone's orientation; it's a massive bug with the Adreno GPU drivers. That's the only way it can display in OpenGL ES3 mode on the high-end Samsung phones, at least for the moment.


 
20%? Were you paying attention to the video? It was running at least 2/3 normal speed.

Also, the phone was a Galaxy Note 3, which is more powerful than the Galaxy S4 in terms of CPU (Snapdragon 800 vs 600, 2.3 GHz vs 1.9 GHz) and also has more RAM.


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## Fishaman P (Oct 31, 2013)

Kirito-kun said:


> 20%? Were you paying attention to the video? It was running at least 2/3 normal speed.
> 
> Also, the phone was a Galaxy Note 3, which is more powerful than the Galaxy S4 in terms of CPU (Snapdragon 800 vs 600, 2.3 GHz vs 1.9 GHz) and also has more RAM.


Again, it was only running faster than that IN MENUS. AKA, the REALLY easy part to emulate. Watch the timer in the Melee fight.  Shows who watched the video (and tried it on their own hardware).
Yes, the 400MHz difference is a factor, but not a 50% speed factor. The 3GB of RAM is irrelevant; Dolphin and Android combined don't use more than 1.5GB.


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## trumpet-205 (Oct 31, 2013)

PityOnU said:


> But your laptop is much more powerful than a smartphone...


Android version make even more sacrifice in terms of accuracy to get more speed out of it.

Higher accuracy (more closer to low level emulation) means emulating more system like, while less accuracy (more closer to high level emulation) means emulating results instead.

Higan/bsnes, an SNES emulator dedicated to accuracy rather than hacks and tricks, can't even run at full speed on many modern CPUs.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/...-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/


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## Kirito-kun (Oct 31, 2013)

Fishaman P said:


> Again, it was only running faster than that IN MENUS. AKA, the REALLY easy part to emulate. Watch the timer in the Melee fight. Shows who watched the video (and tried it on their own hardware).
> Yes, the 400MHz difference is a factor, but not a 50% speed factor. The 3GB of RAM is irrelevant; Dolphin and Android combined don't use more than 1.5GB.


 
The fact that Galaxy Note 3 has Snapdragon 800 also makes a big difference. Think Intel Sandy Bridge vs Ivy Bridge CPUs. The Note's 3 Adreno 330 GPU is also about twice as powerful as the GS4's Adreno 320.

True it's not running perfectly, but it's pretty much guaranteed that the emulator won't run as well as on the GS4 compared to the Note 3.


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## Fishaman P (Oct 31, 2013)

Kirito-kun said:


> The fact that Galaxy Note 3 has Snapdragon 800 also makes a big difference. Think Intel Sandy Bridge vs Ivy Bridge CPUs. The Note's 3 Adreno 330 GPU is also about twice as powerful as the GS4's Adreno 320.
> 
> True it's not running perfectly, but it's pretty much guaranteed that the emulator won't run as well as on the GS4 compared to the Note 3.


Dude. I know _way_ more about Dolphin for Android. Not trying to be rude, but the argument is pointless since I know what I'm talking about.
The Adreno 320 is more than fast enough for Dolphin for Android's current state, at least at 1x IR. Hell, I'd wager it could handle 2x IR on Melee.

Actually, the IB vs. SB upgrade is fitting here. It'll make a performance impact that can be recorded with numbers, but the real world effect will be going from 20% speed to 25% speed, at best. I'm betting memory bandwidth is playing into things here as well (register allocator), and the Note 3 doesn't change that from the S4.


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## spotanjo3 (Nov 1, 2013)

What about iPhone 5s ?


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## Kirito-kun (Nov 1, 2013)

bearmon2010 said:


> What about iPhone 5s ?


 
Unlikely. The locked-down nature of iOS makes it hard to implement high-end emulators which run well. In fact, it's impossible to implements a JIT in iOS as iOS doesn't allow apps to generate additional executable code at runtime. Jailbreaking might solve that, but I can't see Dolphin supporting iOS in the next couple years.


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## gbadl (Nov 1, 2013)

So I have a PC that can run Dolphin at about 75-80% in Windows. What speed do you think I will get if I install Android on the PC and run this emulator?

http://www.android-x86.org/releases/build-20130725


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## Kirito-kun (Nov 1, 2013)

gbadl said:


> So I have a PC that can run Dolphin at about 75-80% in Windows. What speed do you think I will get if I install Android on the PC and run this emulator?
> 
> http://www.android-x86.org/releases/build-20130725


 
You're better off running the PC version. Android for x86 isn't optimized very well as of yet. Try enable frame skipping if you have trouble running the PC version at full speed. That always helps.


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## TheCasketMan (Nov 1, 2013)

Wow, emulators are where phone specs are truly put to the test instead of native android/ios games like ABirds and TRun.  The only game that uses a phone's power is deaf trigger 2


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## ganons (Nov 8, 2013)

Fishaman P said:


> Dude. I know _way_ more about Dolphin for Android. Not trying to be rude, but the argument is pointless since I know what I'm talking about.
> The Adreno 320 is more than fast enough for Dolphin for Android's current state, at least at 1x IR. Hell, I'd wager it could handle 2x IR on Melee.
> 
> Actually, the IB vs. SB upgrade is fitting here. It'll make a performance impact that can be recorded with numbers, but the real world effect will be going from 20% speed to 25% speed, at best. I'm betting memory bandwidth is playing into things here as well (register allocator), and the Note 3 doesn't change that from the S4.


 
So do you think there will be a big improvement when 64bit cpu's like the iPhone 5s hits the Android next year?


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## Fishaman P (Nov 9, 2013)

ganons said:


> So do you think there will be a big improvement when 64bit cpu's like the iPhone 5s hits the Android next year?


Well, that depends.  64-bit arithmetic will certainly be faster, and ARM64 probably has more registers, reducing memory dependency.

That being said, I don't expect any 2014 chip to get 50% speed in Melee.  I would guesstimate 35% speed, and that's if Dolphin is updated to take advantage of the new features.


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## PROTOBOY (Nov 9, 2013)

Does the android emulation Dolphin performance is better of Windows emulation???????????????


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## slingblade1170 (Mar 27, 2014)

I've tried this on a Note 3 and while impressive it is nowhere near full speed on any ISO I tried.


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## Psionic Roshambo (Mar 27, 2014)

This is pretty cool to me, I mean sure it may not be usable right now but the software is in the works and by the time it is in a more complete state the hardware should be better able to handle it's requirements.

I can see the two paths crossing by the end of the year or early next year.


Maybe something running this chip with what ever version of Android is out at the end of the year.

http://semiaccurate.com/2014/02/04/rockchip-rk3288-beats-everyone-coretex-a12-mali-t760-h-265/


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## XtremeHacker (Dec 21, 2015)

Sorry to bump an old thread but on Dolphin Alpha 14 it runs pretty nice on my Kindle Fire HDX 7" I wonder what the last dev buid that worked with 32 but bit arm will run like?


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## DarkFlare69 (Dec 22, 2015)

XtremeHacker said:


> Sorry to bump an old thread but on Dolphin Alpha 14 it runs pretty nice on my Kindle Fire HDX 7" I wonder what the last dev buid that worked with 32 but arm will run like?


What fps


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## XtremeHacker (Dec 22, 2015)

DarkFlare69 said:


> What fps


Can't remember I'll edit this post with FPS when I have time.


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## BurningDesire (Jan 5, 2016)

Should I install this on my fire tv and see what happens ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


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## XtremeHacker (Jan 5, 2016)

Fire Tv isn't as good as my HDX and they both have 32 bit arm cpus which means they haven't worked with Dolphin since Oct. 2014, sorry.


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## BurningDesire (Jan 5, 2016)

XtremeHacker said:


> Fire Tv isn't as good as my HDX and they both have 32 bit arm cpus which means they haven't worked with Dolphin since Oct. 2014, sorry.


Well that sucks. Thanks for telling me though !


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## cvskid (Jan 5, 2016)

Interesting, just didn't think people would want to play gamecube on a phone or tablet.


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## KiiWii (Jan 5, 2016)

Why wouldn't you want to play one of the greatest consoles on the go!? It's a fantastic concept! Zelda TP/WW, Mario kart/sunshine, waverace/1080, Luigis mansion, mele, fire emblem, F-Zero, ikaruga... ah the nostalgia!

I personally have an iPhone so this is no use for me in the traveling aspect, however I do have android box's for IPTV which would be great to use this, along with other emulators, on..... but mine are 32-bit too 

I wonder what boxes would be compatible with this....


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## cvskid (Jan 5, 2016)

KiiWii said:


> Why wouldn't you want to play one of the greatest consoles on the go!? It's a fantastic concept! Zelda TP/WW, Mario kart/sunshine, waverace/1080, Luigis mansion, mele, fire emblem, F-Zero, ikaruga... ah the nostalgia!
> 
> I personally have an iPhone so this is no use for me in the traveling aspect, however I do have android box's for IPTV which would be great to use this, along with other emulators, on..... but mine are 32-bit too
> 
> I wonder what boxes would be compatible with this....


Hanheld gamecube? Problem solved. 

http://www.hightech-edge.com/wp-content/uploads/gamecube-u-portable-handheld-3.jpg


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## Keylogger (Jan 5, 2016)

cvskid said:


> Hanheld gamecube? Problem solved.
> 
> http://www.hightech-edge.com/wp-content/uploads/gamecube-u-portable-handheld-3.jpg


Handheld gamecube?
Wii U gamepad with Nintendont


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## KiiWii (Jan 5, 2016)

Keylogger said:


> Handheld gamecube?
> Wii U gamepad with Nintendont


Not much range though.... couldnt take it out the house....


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## jDSX (Jan 5, 2016)

So your saying that my Samsung galaxy tab 4 can emulate gamecube even though it handles psp emulation like crap? 
Yeah nice troll there.


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## XtremeHacker (Jan 5, 2016)

I'm not, though my Fire runs LBP super smooth at 1080p or something res so I think your tab should at least run it good at native res.


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## Deleted-379826 (Jul 10, 2016)

Nasha said:


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> 
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This is malicious do not download!


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