Skip to main content

Dolphin Emulator now supports every single GameCube game

If you own the entire GameCube library on disc, now it’s completely legal for you to own that entire library digitally. The Dolphin Emulator team has announced that now every GameCube game ever released works on the emulator.

For years, Dolphin has been the go-to emulator for playing your GameCube and Wii games on PC. Its list of compatible games was expansive, as was its feature set, which allowed for modifications and increased visuals. But one game had eluded the Dolphin development team for years: Star Wars: The Clone Wars on GameCube.

Recommended Videos

According to a recent blog post, this had to do with the game’s complex way of using the PowerPC Memory Managing Unit. It made the game absolutely unplayable on Dolphin.

The problem arose from how the game worked with the Memory Management Unit (MMU) and RAM. The MMU is essentially virtual memory that talks to the RAM. If the game were to directly talk to the GameCube’s limited 24MBs of RAM, it would quickly crash. The game would instead need to talk to the MMU, and then the MMU would talk to the RAM when necessary. This prevented the RAM from being overloaded.

So, what made Star Wars: The Clone Wars so complex? It uses the GameCube’s ability to map memory and switches it on the fly as the game requires. This would crash the emulator. The blog post goes into far more detail, and is very technical.

The team had to go in and rewrite the BAT (Block Address Translation) code to make it work. This means that now the team highly recommends beefy gaming computers that can deal with the processing load. Games that use this different manner of addressing memory can run 8-15 percent slower.

Now that every GameCube game can be emulated, it should work as a great archiving tool. Emulators in general have been a godsend to the gaming community as older systems that are becoming more scarce are still available to play on PC.

Imad Khan
Imad has been a gamer all his life. He started blogging about games in college and quickly started moving up to various…
The Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 gaming monitor is 55% off, but there’s a catch
Samsung's Odyssey Neo G7 on a desk.

The 43-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 gaming monitor is an excellent display for gamers, but it's not always available with a discount from monitor deals, and it's pretty expensive at its original price of $1,000. However, we've found a way for you to get it with a 55% discount, and that's to take advantage of Samsung's open box pricing so that you'll only have to pay $450. That's a massive $550 in savings, and you don't have to worry about the quality of the gaming monitor -- open box products still look brand new and are tested to be working properly. You need to hurry though, as stocks are limited!

Why you should buy the 43-inch Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 gaming monitor

Read more
What is Wordle and how do you learn to play it?
Woman playing Wordle on her smartphone.

If you've seen those green squares flooding your social media feed or keep hearing your friends and family talk about keeping their Wordle streaks alive, you're probably curious what this game is that has the world hooked. Wordle hit the mainstream in 2022 and has since become part of most people's daily routine. What makes it so addictive is how challenging it can be to solve a puzzle, which makes it important to know the best Wordle starting words or to check out some Wordle answers and hints for any given day's game. Wordle isn't as complicated as Connections, Strands, NYT Crossword, or the Mini Crossword, but it is a little tricky if you've never played it before. I'll go over all the rules and information you need to become a Wordle pro in no time.

What is Wordle?

Read more
I wasn’t a fan of Mario Kart World’s free roam mode until I changed my perspective
Daisy rides a jetski in Mario Kart World.

Long before Mario Kart World was announced, I theorized what Nintendo's next spin on the franchise would be. Mario Kart 8 introduced anti-gravity, and Mario Kart 7 brought us hang gliders, so I was curious what angles were left to explore that would keep the core kart racing experience intact. As we know now, that turned out to be one giant interconnected map that players are free to explore with no boundaries or time limits.

As interesting as that idea was on paper, I remained a little skeptical due to the lack of details Nintendo gave about what exactly I would be doing in this world. The last trailers showed off a few challenges and collectibles, but I wasn't convinced that was enough to justify the new open-world design. My first week with the game only reinforced that feeling. However, I realized my own expectations were at fault -- not the game -- and have come to appreciate Mario Kart World's world for what it is.

Read more