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dolphin-emu
dolphin
C++2014–2026
dolphin-emu / dolphin

dolphin

Dolphin is a GameCube / Wii emulator, allowing you to play games for these two platforms on PC with improvements.

27Distinct people
31Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
15.8KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Dolphin is a GameCube / Wii emulator, allowing you to play games for these two platforms on PC with improvements.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year31 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2014-11-13 07:52:11 UTC to 2026-03-12 15:56:08 UTC.

0123452014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20142015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 2 submissions, 2 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 1 submissions, 4 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC422
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC514
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
Dolphin - A GameCube and Wii Emulator Homepage | Project Site | Buildbot | Forums | Wiki | GitHub Wiki | Issue Tracker | Coding Style | Transifex Page | Analytics Dolphin is an emulator for running GameCube and Wii games on Windows, Linux, macOS, and recent Android devices. It's licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later (GPLv2+). Please read the FAQ before using Dolphin. System Requirements Desktop OS Windows (10 1903 or higher). Linux. macOS (11.0 Big Sur or higher). Unix-like systems other than Linux are not officially supported but might work. Processor A CPU with SSE2 support. A modern CPU (3 GHz and Dual Core, not older than 2008) is highly recommended. Graphics A reasonably modern graphics card (Direct3D 11.1 / OpenGL 3.3). A graphics card that supports Direct3D 11.1 / OpenGL 4.4 is recommended. Android OS Android (7.0 Nougat or higher). Processor A processor with support for 64-bit applications (either ARMv8 or x86-64). Graphics A graphics processor that supports OpenGL ES 3.0 or higher. Performance varies heavily with driver quality. A graphics processor that supports standard desktop OpenGL features is recommended for best performance. Dolphin can only be installed on devices that satisfy the above requirements. Attempting to install on an unsupported device will fail and display an error message. Building You may find building instructions on the appropriate wiki page for your operating system: Windows Linux macOS Android OpenBSD (unsupported) Before building, make sure to pull all submodules: git submodule update --init --recursive Android-specific instructions These instructions assume familiarity with Android development. If you do not have an Android dev environment set up, see AndroidSetup.md. If using Android Studio, import the Gradle project located in ./Source/Android. Android apps are compiled using a build system called Gradle. Dolphin's native component, however, is compiled using CMake. The Gradle script will attempt to run a CMake build automatically while building the Java code. Uninstalling On Windows, simply remove the extracted directory, unless it was installed with the NSIS installer, in which case you can uninstall Dolphin like any other Windows application. Linux users can run cat install_manifest.txt | xargs -d '\n' rm as root from the build directory to uninstall Dolphin from their system. macOS users can simply delete Dolphin.app to uninstall it. Additionally, you'll want to remove the global user directory if you don't plan on reinstalling Dolphin. Command Line Usage Usage: Dolphin.exe [options]... [FILE]... Options: --version show program's version number and exit -h, --help show this help message and exit -u USER, --user=USER User folder path -m MOVIE, --movie=MOVIE Play a movie file -e <file>, --exec=<file> Load the specified file -n <16-character ASCII title ID>, --nand_title=<16-character ASCII title ID> Launch a NAND title -C <System>.<Section>.<Key>=<Value>, --config=<System>.<Section>.<Key>=<Value> Set a configuration option -s <file>, --save_state=<file> Load the initial save state -d, --debugger Show the debugger pane and additional View menu options -l, --logger Open the logger -b, --batch Run Dolphin without the user interface (Requires --exec or --nand-title) -c, --confirm Set Confirm on Stop -v VIDEO_BACKEND, --video_backend=VIDEO_BACKEND Specify a video backend -a AUDIO_EMULATION, --audio_emulation=AUDIO_EMULATION Choose audio emulation from [HLE|LLE] Available DSP emulation engines are HLE (High Level Emulation) and LLE (Low Level Emulation). HLE is faster but less accurate whereas LLE is slower but close to perfect. Note that LLE has two submodes (Interpreter and Recompiler) but they cannot be selected from the command line. Available video backends are "D3D" and "D3D12" (they are only available on Windows), "OGL", and "Vulkan". There's also "Null", which will not render anything, and "Software Renderer", which uses the CPU for rendering and is intended for debugging purposes only. DolphinTool Usage usage: dolphin-tool COMMAND -h commands supported: [convert, verify, header, extract] Usage: convert [options]... [FILE]... Options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -u USER, --user=USER User folder path, required for temporary processing files. Will be automatically created if this option is not set. -i FILE, --input=FILE Path to disc image FILE. -o FILE, --output=FILE Path to the destination FILE. -f rvz|iso|gcz|wia, --format=rvz|iso|gcz|wia Container format to use. Default is RVZ. -s, --scrub Scrub junk data as part of conversion. -b BLOCK_SIZE, --block_size=BLOCK_SIZE Block size for GCZ/WIA/RVZ formats, as an integer. Suggested value for RVZ: 131072 (128 KiB) -c none|zstd|bzip2|lzma|lzma2, --compression=none|zstd|bzip2|lzma|lzma2 Compression method to use when converting to WIA/RVZ. Suggested value for RVZ: zstd -l COMPRESSION_LEVEL, --compression_level=COMPRESSION_LEVEL Level of compression for the selected method. Ignored if 'none'. Suggested value for zstd: 5 Usage: verify [options]... Options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -u USER, --user=USER User folder path, required for temporary processing files. Will be automatically created if this option is not set. -i FILE, --input=FILE Path
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

31 sources
Dolphin is a GPLv2+ application, and the runtime is under a proprietary license. We currently rely on the "system libraries" exception in the GPL to allow linking with the runtime in the first place. If we ship the runtime with Dolphin, it might not be considered a "system library" anymore. There's some past discussion in this PR, where we made a change to automatically install the runtime DLLs but ended up reverting it: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/11068 (this is based off my own recollection of what others have told me, it might be out of date or wrong)
In Dolphin Progress Release 2407 and 2409
Dolphin ships with a bunch of keys in the source code[0]. So do almost every other emulators for any console from 6/7th gen consoles (ps3, xbox360, gamecube), see delroth's post on the matter here[1]. It's really not that simple - jurisdiction matters a lot, and also Nintendo's own priorities. [0]: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/blob/34527cadcce49a9a... [1]: https://delroth.net/posts/emulation-crypto-keys-copyright-dm...
In Apple now allows retro game emulators on its App Store
> It is not unlawful to plug a DVD player into your iPod and play the DVD back digitally though. That's basically what Dolphin is doing - it runs unmodified disc images, copy protection and all. If it can play disc images with copy protection, it de facto requires a way around that copy protection that is unlicensed, slamming it squarely into Section 1201. > The emulator should be clean, outside of any legal complaints about "damages". Dolphin contains Nintendo decryption keys; which is actually very likely illegal when the rest of the emulator is not. Recall 09 F9… A competing emulator developer (for Citra) has also commented on this and said what Dolphin did there was legally dangerous and very much not endorsed by courts. https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/13ss1o9/comment/... > Their commercial product is allowed to create iOS
Read the rest
VMs on unofficial hardware. If you read the ruling, the fair use won because Corellium successfully argued there was no way that their product could impact Apple in any substantial negative way in the general market. They also argued that their products do not perform as substitutes to any products that Apple provides. And lastly, their products offer a unique benefit for a unique, niche, special interest, with vetting and similar procedures to ensure only people with those interests used their software. If, however, they had done that to make their own smartphones, or a general iOS emulator for playing games on PC, they would have been annihilated. Nintendo easily has a case that emulation causes substantial financial and business harm; and that emulation can serve as a replacement for their products. Courts don’t like that. Edit (“posting too fast”): Unlike the GameCube, Wii games are digitally signed and encrypted. This specific line of code contains the illegal key: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/blob/34527cadcce49a9a... As the developer of Citra (above) noted, big no-no. The emulator is legally fine, but encryption keys are a no-go. Bleam was OK because keys were not involved. Every case that has involved keys for a non-extremely-specific use (Psystar, RealPlayer, VidAngel) has gone down in flames.
In Dolphin on Steam Indefinitely Postponed
The DMCA was for the private encryption keys included directly inside Dolphin source code [0]. I am not defending the DMCA at all, I think it's a shit law, but let's be clear, I can't think of a clearer example of a valid DMCA violation. It is circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a protected work [1]. Defending it by saying the work is non-infringing is fighting a very losing battle, you would have to attack the DMCA at its core in order to come out on top here. [0] https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/blob/master/Source/Co... [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201
In Dolphin on Steam Indefinitely Postponed
It was a bit more complicated than that: the issue was that one of the early big.LITTLE designs (Samsung's Exynos 8890) had different cacheline sizes on the big and little cores. glibc's `__clear_cache` would cache the cacheline size on first call, so if the program was started on a big core then migrated onto a little core it would only flush every other cacheline. Which was an issue for any program needing to explicitely clear the caches, like most any JIT. And the mitigation was not to "change its allocation", it was to bypass libgcc and handroll cache clearing: https://github.com/mono/mono/pull/3549 Source: https://www.mono-project.com/news/2016/09/12/arm64-icache/ This issue didn't only affect Mono e.g. dolphin (https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/4204) and ppsspp (https://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp/pull/8965) had been hittin
Read the rest
g the same issue and adopted mono's fix. But fundamentally this is the 8890 being broken: as the Mono post notes, technically nothing precludes core migration in the middle of clearing the cache, which would also lead to broken behaviour, with no mitigation.
In Intel's New Chimera: Alder Lake
In my experience the average C++ programmer (not concurrency expert) writing multithreaded code does not know how to properly use mutexes and atomics to guard against shared access. Sometimes they don't know they need mutexes (https://github.com/martinrotter/rssguard/issues/362), or lock the wrong mutex (https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/10540), or only lock on writes but not reads, or the set of possible states is a confusing muddled mess that neither the author nor readers understand (https://github.com/thestk/rtaudio/issues/337#issuecomment-99...). Rust's &/&mut system and mutexes are a forcing function that naturally results in cleaner code (cpal's ALSA code (https://github.com/RustAudio/cpal/blob/master/src/host/alsa/...) is beautiful and statically marks state as thread-local or shared, RtAudio's code is an entangled mess
Read the rest
with data races).
In Why Rust mutexes look like they do

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