Dolphin Emulator For Android

[Kirito-kun]

It's finally happening. Dolphin Emulator has been ported to Android. It runs like crap but is confirmed to work. This is only the start. Soon, everyone will be playing Wii and GameCube games on Android smartphones and tablets. All will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.



However, emulation speed is a major issue right now. Currently, no Android device is able to run this emulator at full speed. My Galaxy S2 only manages about 1FPS.

You can find the emulator in the Google Play Store. It's current in alpha.

Has anyone tried this emulator on their device? What kind of framerates are you getting? How long will it be until devices will be able to run this emulator at full speed?

 

[ElYubiYubi]

They are optimizing it for Tegra 4 & Snapdragon 800. He has a NVIDIA Shield.

I'm sorry but your S2 will never run this.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I doubt GC we will see full speed on a tablet or phone for a while, unless it's running on a PC remotely.

If I was forced to guess at what time that would happen, you might see some "playable" games in a year or two on the latest hardware.

Full speed PC like emulation is probably like 5 years off maybe a little more.

Still very cool to see that some day I should be able to play Mario Sunshine on a tablet.

 

[pwsincd]

how would this fare on a nexus 7 or galaxy s4mini ?

 

[Kirito-kun]

how would this fare on a nexus 7 or galaxy s4mini ?

Not on the Galaxy S4 Mini, as it has pretty poor hardware. Not on the original Nexus 7 as the GPU of the Tegra 3 doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.0, which is required for fast rendering.

Maybe on the 2013 Nexus 7 as it's Adreno 320 GPU supports OpenGL ES 3.0. It also has faster overall hardware compared to the 2012 Nexus 7. Even so, you'd still likely be playing with lower framerates and stuttering.

The only phone out right now that will likely be able to run the emulator at full speed is the Galaxy Note 3, which has a 2.3 GHz quad-core processor, an OpenGL-capable GPU, and 3GB of RAM. It's over 10 times more powerful than the Wii in terms of raw processing power.

 

[Ralph Steven]

Sounds like a good project. Have to appreciate hard work but will still take a while to runs in normal parameters

 

[Satangel]

Not on the Galaxy S4 Mini, as it has pretty poor hardware. Not on the original Nexus 7 as the GPU of the Tegra 3 doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.0, which is required for fast rendering.

Maybe on the 2013 Nexus 7 as it's Adreno 320 GPU supports OpenGL ES 3.0. It also has faster overall hardware compared to the 2012 Nexus 7. Even so, you'd still likely be playing with lower framerates and stuttering.

The only phone out right now that will likely be able to run the emulator at full speed is the Galaxy Note 3, which has a 2.3 GHz quad-core processor, an OpenGL-capable GPU, and 3GB of RAM. It's over 10 times more powerful than the Wii in terms of raw processing power.

10 times more powerful than the Wii, wtf :o
That's crazy, although I thought console CPU's are more powerful than such mobile CPU's? Like it is with laptops and PC's, a quadcore laptop CPU is less powerful than a quadcore PC CPU.

 

[Gamemaster1379]

Not on the Galaxy S4 Mini, as it has pretty poor hardware. Not on the original Nexus 7 as the GPU of the Tegra 3 doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.0, which is required for fast rendering.

Maybe on the 2013 Nexus 7 as it's Adreno 320 GPU supports OpenGL ES 3.0. It also has faster overall hardware compared to the 2012 Nexus 7. Even so, you'd still likely be playing with lower framerates and stuttering.

The only phone out right now that will likely be able to run the emulator at full speed is the Galaxy Note 3, which has a 2.3 GHz quad-core processor, an OpenGL-capable GPU, and 3GB of RAM. It's over 10 times more powerful than the Wii in terms of raw processing power.

It runs like shit on the newest Nexus 7. I gave it a try on my 2013 model with Luigi's Mansion, and likely was getting 1 frame per second with horrid stuttering. All the controls were crammed in the upper left corner, and after a minute or two, it was still stuck on the original "Nintendo' boot logo for Luigi's Mansion.

 

[Chocolina]

It runs like shit on the newest Nexus 7. I gave it a try on my 2013 model with Luigi's Mansion, and likely was getting 1 frame per second with horrid stuttering. All the controls were crammed in the upper left corner, and after a minute or two, it was still stuck on the original "Nintendo' boot logo for Luigi's Mansion.

It runs like shit on any device, but the 2013 model of Nex7 uses Snap S4 Pro.

Since the S4 Pro, we've had Exynos 5 Octa 5410, Snapdragon 600, Tegra 4i, Tegra 4, Exynos 5 Octa 5420, Snapdragon 800, and they just announced last month the Snapdragon 410, and last week the Snapdragon 805 and two Tegra K1 models set for the 1st and 2nd half of the year.

The 410 is of no significance, but everything else was the best of ARM at their time of release.Call it a generation, or a tier, but the S4 Pro is 2 generations behind, but even so, next generation isn't going to be much better at emulating Gamecube. In Dolphin's current form, Gamecube will run comfortably on mobile in 18 months, give or take, assuming you have the latest device of Holiday-time-2015. Dolphin performance can always increase via software updates, but it should be noted that even if you get 1-2 FPS on your Gamecube games, the Snap 800 and Tegra 4 isn't much better, and it's likely the next generation of ARM won't be cut out for it either. Its very possibly that this comming year will give us all the power we'll need, but software will get in the way.

What interests me is Tegra K1, which they're saying is a GPU based off of their Desktop/PC GPUs. They're going as far to say that it might compete graphically with the new generation of consoles, and making it powerful enough to run Unreal Engine 4, something the Wii U can't even run, and is said that the X1 can't even use. And they're saying the next gen of ARM chipsets will be D3D11-like class.

But still, given all this amazing mobile/low-wattage processing power, the most popular games on mobile will be Candy crush, Temple run clones, and angry birds. -_-
But atleast our emulators are becoming more capable. PSP games are already almost at playable standards. I can play most of Ratchet and Clank PSP at 100% on my Nex5, but with annoying glow-issues.