How to Play Your Childhood Games on Dolphin Emulator
- The Dolphin emulator, released in 2003, allows users to play Nintendo Wii and GameCube games on various platforms including Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android.
- Dolphin remains the only reliable emulator for both consoles, running almost all games perfectly, and became open-source in 2008.
- Installing Dolphin on PC involves downloading the emulator, extracting the files, and setting up the game folder; on Android, it requires downloading from the Play Store and transferring games from a PC.
The Dolphin emulator is a software application designed to run Nintendo Wii and GameCube games. It is a rather old emulator, released in 2003, and was primarily intended to emulate the GameCube to preserve its games. Later, the developers expanded its capabilities to emulate the Wii due to popular demand. Dolphin has always been free and became completely open-source five years after its initial release.
Even today, Dolphin remains the only option for emulating these two consoles. Any other emulators are likely fakes or forks (modified copies) of Dolphin. At the time of writing, Dolphin is able to run almost all Wii and GameCube games perfectly.
How To Play Wii and GameCube Games on Dolphin?
Dolphin, as an older emulator, is available on almost all platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and even on iOS via an unofficial port. Running Dolphin on Windows is straightforward, but you will need to fulfill the following requirements:
- Windows 10 or higher
- A modern CPU (3 GHz and Dual Core, not older than 2008)
- A reasonably modern graphics card that supports Direct3D 11.1/OpenGL 3.3 at minimum.
- A graphics card that supports Direct3D 11.1/OpenGL 4.4 is recommended.
↪ Playing games on the Dolphin emulator on PC
Once these requirements have been fulfilled, follow the steps below to get Dolphin running on your PC:
- First, download the latest version of the Dolphin emulator.
Download the latest version of the Dolphin emulator - Once the file finishes downloading, use 7-Zip to extract it to your preferred location.
Use 7-Zip to extract the files - Congratulations! The Dolphin emulator has been installed on your PC. Make sure the games you want to run are present on your PC. Navigate to the folder where you extracted the files and open the emulator.
Double-click on “Dolphin.exe” to launch the emulator - The emulator should open up on the screen. Double-click on the empty space to designate a folder for all your games.
Double-click on the empty space and select the folder containing your games - Once you’ve selected the correct folder, the games should be displayed.
The games will be displayed - Finally, just double-click on your game of choice to start playing!
Double-click on any game, and it should start running
↪ Playing games on the Dolphin emulator on Android
Dolphin has been available on Android for quite some time, so it doesn’t demand much from your phone. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Android 5.0 Lollipop or higher
- A processor with support for 64-bit applications (either ARMv8 or x86–64).
- A graphics processor that supports OpenGL ES 3.0 at minimum.
Modern phones satisfy these requirements quite easily, so if you’re using a mid-range phone that was released after 2020, you should have no problems running Dolphin. As for the Dolphin Android setup, it’s pretty similar to the PC version. Just download the emulator from the Google Play Store, copy the game from your PC to your phone, and you’re good to go!
Even though emulators like Dolphin are legal, they often end up being used as fronts for piracy. So, make sure to get your games legally by buying them from thrift stores or online stores like eBay. Once you’ve obtained them, just copy the game data and get Dolphin running!
