How to Install Dolphin Emulator
Intro & Requirements
Dolphin Emulator is software installed on your computer that emulates the Nintendo Wii and its games.
This tutorial will install the latest Developer Version of Dolphin onto your computer. There are what is known as 'Stable' versions for installation. But these versions aren't all that stable, and they are very very outdated.
Computer Requirements:
8 GB RAM or higher
Basic intel i5 processor or better
NOTE: Once you have completed this guide and have Dolphin installed, view this guide HERE to learn how to apply cheat codes in Dolphin.
Installing For Windows:
NOTE: For Windows 8 or later
The development versions require the 64-bit Visual C++ redistributable for Visual Studio 2019 to be installed. Link - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help...-downloads
Go to the Download page of the Dolphin website - https://dolphin-emu.org/download/
Scroll down to Development Versions. The version listed at top is the most recent. Click on the blue Windows x64 button to download. The download package will be in 7z format, you will need some third party archiver/extractor (such as WinRAR). Extract the download. You will see an application named Dolphin.exe. This is the application you would run to launch Dolphin.
Launch the exe file. Dolphin should boot. If not, you will need to use Google or search on the Dolphin Forums to remedy the problem as it can be a result of various things. If Dolphin boots, but the game cannot play in full 60fps, it may be an issue with a cheap Graphics card or the processor is not good enough.
If Dolphin boots and plays your games at 60fps, you are done. Congratz!
Installing For Linux (Ubuntu or Debian only)
For Linux installations of Dev versions of Dolphin, Dolphin must be built from source.
NOTICE: For Ubuntu, you must be on version 18.04 or later (there is a special note for 20.04 on Step 3). For Debian, you must be on Debian 10 or later.
The information on this thread is from this Dolphin wiki page - HERE
Refer to that wiki page or post a reply here if you are stuck on a step.
Let's begin.
1. Update, Upgrade, etc, etc.
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade && sudo apt-get autoremove && sudo apt-get autoclean
The above command will update and upgrade everything for your Linux OS plus delete/wipe any unneeded cache and/or dependencies
If you had to preform any upgrades, be sure to reboot your computer - sudo reboot
2. Install the Necessary Dependencies
sudo apt-get install cmake pkg-config git libao-dev libasound2-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libbluetooth-dev libenet-dev libgtk2.0-dev liblzo2-dev libminiupnpc-dev libopenal-dev libpulse-dev libreadline-dev libsfml-dev libsoil-dev libsoundtouch-dev libswscale-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libwxbase3.0-dev libwxgtk3.0-dev libxext-dev libxrandr-dev portaudio19-dev zlib1g-dev libudev-dev libevdev-dev "libpolarssl-dev|libmbedtls-dev" libcurl4-openssl-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libpng-dev qtbase5-private-dev
The above command may take about 10 minutes to complete.
3. Install More Dependecies
sudo apt-get install git cmake pkg-config gcc libwxbase3.0-dev libwxgtk3.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxext-dev libreadline-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libevdev-dev libudev-dev libasound-dev libpulse-dev libao-dev libopenal-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev libenet-dev liblzo2-dev libminiupnpc-dev libsoil-dev libsoundtouch-dev libsfml-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libbluetooth-dev libxrandr-dev
NOTE: For Ubuntu 20.04 replace libwxgtk3.0-dev with libwxgtk3.0-gtk3-dev
4. Make the script
Dolphin wiki provides an excellent script that will build the source code for you. Obviously if you are experienced with building source code, you can build it without the script
In your home user directory, make a folder called 'DolphinScript'. Inside DolphinScript, make a blank file called script.sh
Open script.sh with any basic editor and enter this in..
#!/bin/bash
DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )"
getdolphin() {
echo 'Downloading Dolphin...'
git clone https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin.git
}
updatedolphin() {
cd $DIR/dolphin
echo 'Updating the local repository...'
git pull origin
}
build() {
cmake $DIR/dolphin
make
}
updatedolphin || getdolphin
mkdir $DIR/build
cd $DIR/build
build && echo 'Compiled successfully.' || exit
echo 'Proceeding to the installation; press Enter to continue or Ctrl+C to cancel.'
read
if [ $(whoami) == "root" ];
then
make install
else
sudo make install
fi
5. Running the script
First we need to make the script executable, open a terminal and cd to /home/youruser/DolphinScript
Run this command - sudo chmod +x script.sh
Now run the script!
sudo ./script.sh
This process is lengthy and can take as long as an hour. But if you have good specs and high RAM, it should only take 15 - 20 minutes.
You will be prompted to press Enter to continue or Ctrl+C to cancel. Press Enter to finish the script.
6. Booting Dolphin
Once the script is done, simply run this command - dolphin-emu
Dolphin Emulator will launch, click the Open button and choose an iso/wbfs to play.
Congratz. It's recommended to install your own NAND and some other things, which will be covered in other guides.
7. Future Use and Other Notes
Please do NOT change the location or names of the folders/directories of where your source code files are stored. This can cause Dolphin to break. It will also disable all future upgrades.
Please also note that even though there is a script provided to upgrade Dolphin, if you have your Dolphin working 100%, then i do NOT recommend upgrading unless it is needed to fix an issue/bug.
How to Upgrade Dolphin:
Simply re-run the script. The master git hub tree will be viewed, and updates will be installed if there are any.
