GameCube/Wii emulation - high resolution awesomeness

Console emulation is awesome. Why? Because not only can it make games on older systems prettier, it can also do it for a current system. While Nintendo's stubbornness to not compete in the 'graphics race' with Sony and Microsoft resulted in a console without HD graphics, it also made it much more possible for Wii to be emulated in the first place (also, being a beefed up GameCube didn't hurt). And even though WiiU will finally jump into HD graphics, Nintendo already made it explicitly clear that WiiU won't be upscaling older Wii games to HD resolutions. Why wait for them to do something about it, when you can be playing Wii games in HD resolutions today?

Enter Dolphin, the free and incredible GameCube and Wii emulator that can run most of GC's and Wii's library, while also adding graphical capabilities that make games played on Wii look kind of embarrassing. Wii's maximum resolution is measly 640 x 480 pixels, which looks horrible on todays' big TVs and monitors. With Dolphin you can play them in your monitor's or TV's native resolution, with Dolphin's internal resolution set to up to 4x it's native one - that's 2560 x 2112 pixels, more than any of todays' TVs. Not good enough? Add up to 9x SSAA anti-aliasing, making all jaggies disappear, and up to 16x anisotropic filtering for nicer looking distant textures. Still not good enough? Let's add 3D Vision, enabling 3D support in games, which we'll probably get from Nintendo in a decade, and even some lightning and other texture enhancements.

Of course, all of the above will bring even the mightiest of everyday computers almost to their knees, so it depends what your computer will be capable of. Even Wii's regular 640 x 480 resolution looks infinitely better with AA and AF enabled, without most of the needed processing power for outputing higher resolutions. You probably shouldn't be thinking about trying this out if you don't have at least a dual-core CPU clocked at 2.5+ GHz, 2 GB of RAM and a fairly modern GPU. Sorry. :)

To make this a bit more clear, let's make a comparison of a few games without all the added candies (640 x 480, no AA and AF) on the left, a middle ground (640 x 480 with 9x AA and 16x AF) in the middle and in extremely high internal resolution (2560 x 2112 with 9x AA and 16x AF) on the right:

New Super Mario Bros. Wii:




Metroid: Other M:



Red Steel 2:



Convinced yet? If so, jump to Dolphin's download page and download the latest version or daily build. The whole process of setting everything up is a bit long for me to cover it all here, so for now I'm just gonna point you in the direction of already written guides and links that should put you on your merry way:

• NeoGAF's Dolphin thread with an extensive guide how to set everything up
• WiiHacks.com guide on ripping your own Wii games to ISO files, which you need for Dolphin
• The official Wii compatibility list and GameCube compatibility list to see which games work with Dolphin

What you need in a nutshell: 

• a capable computer with Dolphin installed (optional 64bit version for a speed gain)
• Wii games in ISO format (rip them yourself using a Wii, USB drive/SD card and the already mentioned WiiHacks.com guide or ignore your moral scruples and download them)
• a Bluetooth adapter if you want to connect your Wiimote to the PC
• an Xbox 360 (or one you prefer) controller to use as a GameCube pad

Also, while it's not a perfect solution, it is the cheaper one: just use your Wii's sensor bar with Dolphin. It means you'll need to have your Wii turned on when using Dolphin, but it's cheaper than ordering an additional wireless sensor bar.

And there you have it. If anyone wants me to make some screenshots of other games, to see how they compare, let me know in the comments. Until next time!