Dolphin
Image: Dolphin

The team behind the Nintendo GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin has published a progress report for the period of May to July, and it comes with a few exciting update announcements which you may have missed (as spotted by How-To-Geek!).

To start, let's talk about the custom driver support. As introduced in version 5.0-19611 (released two months ago), players can now switch out the system driver for a user-provided driver on Android devices (using libadrenotools). There's even support for unofficial open-source drivers too, like Freedreno Vulkan (or Turnip as it is also called). This is a custom driver for Adreno 600 GPUS that can fix many of the emulation issues that have been plaguing Adreno users in the past. All in all, great news for Android owners!

Twilight Princess Turnip Dolphin
An example of one of the broken features on Adreno — Image: Dolphin
Twilight Princess Adreno Dolphin
And a problem-free version running on Turnip — Image: Dolphin

In addition to the above, Dolphin's developers also gave fans of the Nintendo Wii's WiiConnect24 service some good news too, as highlighted in the recent roundup.

Though the WiiConnect24 online service was closed over 10 years ago in June 2013, fans have up to this point been able to use a fan-developed alternative RiiConnect24 with Dolphin to access some of its most popular features.

Now, with version 5.0-19724 of Dolphin, the "compatibility and stability" of WiiConnect24 have been greatly improved, via another method that uses WiiLink instead. Dolphin's developers are calling this "a WiiConnect24 revolution within Dolphin", with WiiLink's lead developer Sketch implementing support on both the client side (Dolphin) and the server side (WiiLink). As stated in the roundup, they will also continue to support RiiConnect24, but WiiLink will be the default service.

There are also various other improvements to Dolphin too that we should probably mention. These include a new file-size check for NAND memory checks that will ensure the NAND size is within the bounds of the Wii's specifications, an Android trigger detection fix, and support for more accurate PAL/NTSC color spaces.

For a full rundown of all the changes, you can find the latest Dolphin Progress Report here. All of these features have currently been rolled out, so you can download the most up-to-date version of the emulator and start taking advantage of them now.

[source dolphin-emu.org, via howtogeek.com]