Dolphin / Gamecube / Wiiware / Wii Compatibility on Pi 5

TPR

@TPR said in Dolphin / Gamecube / Wiiware / Wii Compatibility on Pi 5:

So the issue I'm trying to figure out right now is why so many of my GC games are crashing upon loading them up in lr-dolphin.

For example, I made a completely vanilla Pi 5 Retropie build installing only the basic install and lr-dolphin and if I try to load the rvz file of NFL Blitz 2003 it crashes on the company logos 4 out of 10 loads, maybe more.

But there are images out there I've seen on AP that have lr-dolphin installed and using my same file for the game, it will load up flawlessly 50 times in a row.

Any idea what could be causing this?

@mitu any suggestions as to why my games on startup keep randomly crashing on lr-dolphin?

I can reproduce this using gl, Vulkan, pretty much any setting or change in the core. Yet these other builds seem to load lr-dolphin games just fine. The crashes seem to happen while loading up a game not during gameplay. I'd say 95% of the time it crashes before the game even starts If it makes it to when a game starts, usually its fine.

Any ideas?

@mitu So further testing...

This build I had downloaded a few months ago, I can load up NFL Blitz 2003 (USA).rvz 25 times in a row and it doesn't crash.

With the vanilla new install of RetroPie I made yesterday, it crashes on the loading screens 1 in 5 times.

Here's the info from the other build
blitz in old build.png

Here's the info from the build I made yesterday:
blitz in new build.png

And it usually crashes here:
crash 1.png
or here:
crash 2.png

If it makes it past these screens, I can play the game for a good 10-15 minutes without any issues. So the crashes seem to be happening right at the start when the game is loading.

Note that I've tested loading from both the SD card and an external hard drive, same issue. I've also tested .ciso, .rvz, and .iso files and I get the same results. Works fine in that other build, but crashes 1 in 5 times on the new build.

Different versions of RA from the old to the new build, but the lr-dolphin cores have the same file size. Any ideas?

mitu

@TPR said in Dolphin / Gamecube / Wiiware / Wii Compatibility on Pi 5:

@mitu So further testing...

I've done almost no testing and my input in this topic is minimal, tagging me and expecting an answer is not going to yield the desired effect.
If you want my advice, then ditch the Libretro core since it's outdated and buggy, and do your testing with the standalone emulator.

TPR

@mitu Appreciate the response either way! Thank you!

TPR

In case anyone is interested, here are more of my findings....

I copied the Retroarch version 1.16.0 to my build and then switching my audio output to "pulse" I was able to load the game (NFL Blitz 2003 (USA).rvz) 22 times in a row without it crashing at startup.

I switched back over to RA 1.19.1 and ASLA audio output and the game crashed on the very first load, and then it crashed again on 3 out of the 5 times I loaded. I do not appear to have the option to switch to "pulse" on RA 1.19.1 and I'm not sure why as the audio system is installed on my Pi.

Switched back over to 1.16.0 and with pulse and have now loaded it another 11 times without it crashing.

So I have added this older version of RA to my folder:
/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin

and renamed it retroarch_gc and created a new entry in my emulators.cfg to point to it:

lr-dolphin-pulseaudio = "/opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch_gc -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-dolphin/dolphin_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/gc/retroarch.cfg %ROM%"

I have NO IDEA AT ALL why this seems to be working, but this is the only thing I have found to make lr-dolphin more stable. In fact, in my last couple of hours of testing, I have not had the emulator core crash once on me since making this change.

I hope this is helpful to someone.

TPR

Even further testing....

I've now loaded up about 50 GC games at random, and played each one for about 3-5 minutes and I have not had a single one of them crash yet using the configuration I posted about above. Some other interesting tweaks...

I'm underclocking most games to a CPU setting of 40% - 70% and I'm seeing similar performance as the standalone build.

I have tried both the vulkan and gl video drivers and they seem to give about the same results. No obviously noticeable differences.

Some games, like Spongebob Revenge of the Flying Dutchman loaded up to an almost unplayable slow state, but then after underclocking it to CPU 30% it seems to play just fine.

I have no idea why an older version of RetroArch combined with using the Pulseaudio driver seems to be a working solution for making this core more stable, but it IS working for me.

I know a lot of people have said "use the standalone version of Dolphin" which I do have and I have used, but personally I just like the familiarity of the libretro cores and the consistency of the menus and having controllers be automatically configured, which is why I wanted to find a more stable solution for lr-dolphin

Hope this helps someone.

DTEAM

@TPR
If you want to play GameCube or Wii at fullspeed on a Pi5. You must use Dolphin standalone.
You just need to set your controller once and create hotkeys like lr-Dolphin and it will be like the lr-dolphin with the same hotkeys.

maliclandrea

@retropieuser555 how does one run Dolphin standalone? I've only figured out to run it through EmulationStation

AWiiEnthusiast

How did you get Mario Kart Wii to work? Whenever I load it up it says that it could not read or write to Wii system memory, asks me to make a new file, and says that the save data is corrupted.

retropieuser555

@AWiiEnthusiast not sure, I suspect similar to your Mario Party 5 problem there's some issue with your config files or your roms in some way.

Unrelated but I'm gonna leave this here. The most recent update on Dolphin gives access to Retroachievements when using allowed cheat codes, such as 16:9 wide-screen & 60fps modes

https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2025/03/10/dolphin-progress-report-release-2503/

retropieuser555

Apologies bumping my own thread but I noticed in the Mesa 25.1 release notes the fix for dual source blending has been implemented in v3d driver

https://docs.mesa3d.org/relnotes/25.1.0.html

I'll give this a go in a few days when I have some time, but chances are this will fix a few specific graphical errors that happen on GameCube, psp etc like the mario kart double dash blue screen

Edit: Okay I build mesa 25.1.0 direct from gitlab, have to install a bucket ton of dependancies for building and use OpenGL rather than Vulkan as the video backend, but Mario Kart DD and Resident Evil 4 both work perfectly now. Even one of my favourite Wii games: Zack & Wiki, is working perfectly compared to the graphical mess it has before.

I've done and further testing and it appears this is the best way to play gamecube/Wii now, it does more than just fixes the graphical glitches in the handful of games.

Using mesa 25.1.0, various problem games such as Star Fox Adventures, Mario Sunshine, Luigi Mansion, the frame rate is now better than Vulkan, which in itself was a boost compared to original open GL with the stock mesa version that comes as standard with the pi 5.

I'll go through and test some other games that are in the yellow or orange on the spreadsheet. But I do feel that Mesa 25.1.0 with Open GL is the best default option to use (of course some games still require other tweaks, such as fast disc access for Simpsons Hit & Run; even my fast MacBook needs that)

If you install mesa and get an error and emulationstation won't load, make sure you've installed vc4 as well as v3d.

sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers mesa-va-drivers mesa-vdpau-drivers \
build-essential meson ninja-build \
libdrm-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev libxdamage-dev libxfixes-dev \
libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libxss-dev \
libxcomposite-dev libxrender-dev libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev \
wayland-protocols libexpat1-dev libglvnd-dev glslang-tools \
libvdpau-dev python3-yaml python3-mako \
libclang-dev libclang-15-dev llvm-15-dev \
libgbm-dev libudev-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb1-dev libxcb-dri2-0-dev libxcb-dri3-dev \
libxcb-present-dev libxcb-glx0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev libxcb-sync-dev \
libxshmfence-dev


wget https://archive.mesa3d.org/mesa-25.1.0.tar.xz
tar -xf mesa-25.1.0.tar.xz
cd mesa-25.1.0

meson setup builddir --prefix=/usr -Dbuildtype=release \
  -Dgallium-drivers=vc4,v3d \
  -Dvulkan-drivers=broadcom \
  -Dplatforms=x11 \
  -Degl-native-platform=drm \
  -Dllvm=true

ninja -C builddir
sudo ninja -C builddir install

DTEAM

@retropieuser555

No change on my side (I used the backports)

retropieuser555

@DTEAM I'll take a look, debian bookworm backports is 25.0.4 right? The commit I'm looking at is on 25.1, so might need to wait a few days for backports to be updated

https://packages.debian.org/source/bookworm-backports/mesa

Edit : actually it seems backports is around a month or so behind based on when 25.0.4 was released in April

DTEAM

@retropieuser555 said in Dolphin / Gamecube / Wiiware / Wii Compatibility on Pi 5:

@DTEAM I'll take a look, debian bookworm backports is 25.0.4 right? The commit I'm looking at is on 25.1, so might need to wait a few days for backports to be updated

https://packages.debian.org/source/bookworm-backports/mesa

Also 25.0.4-1 for me

DTEAM

@retropieuser555 said in Dolphin / Gamecube / Wiiware / Wii Compatibility on Pi 5:

Edit: Okay I build mesa 25.1.0 direct from gitlab, have to install a bucket ton of dependancies for building and use OpenGL rather than Vulkan as the video backend, but Mario Kart DD and Resident Evil 4 both work perfectly now. Even one of my favourite Wii games: Zack & Wiki, is working perfectly compared to the graphical mess it has before.

I'll wait for the Bookworm-Backports update. I saw a similar bug (white screen) on aethersx2 (PS2) with God of War II (Pegasus race just before Temple of Lahkesis). I'll check if that update will change something.

retropieuser555

@DTEAM said in Dolphin / Gamecube / Wiiware / Wii Compatibility on Pi 5:

I'll wait for the Bookworm-Backports update. I saw a similar bug (white screen) on aethersx2 (PS2) with God of War II (Pegasus race just before Temple of Lahkesis). I'll check if that update will change something.

It might not do much for aethersx2 as Open GL doesn't work for that for some reason, only Vulkan. Maybe if a dev comes along and works on arm64/aarch64 support for PCSX2 someday

gvx64

@DTEAM I was just curious, what command(s) are you using to install your new MESA drivers via backports on your Pi? I tried manually compiling 25.1 on my Pi4 but I am getting a compiler error and I think it would just be easier to go with the backport route for when these new drivers become available.

I am really excited to hear about the performance improvements with the 25.1 drivers. I would really like to try this out on the Pi4 and see just how much of a boost it can provide for Gamecube/3DS emulation.

DTEAM

@gvx64

Follow the instruction on my last post here

If you use sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports mesa-va-drivers MESA will not be broken. With this, you don't have to play with dependancies.

Edit: For now, Bookworm Backports = mesa (25.0.4-1~bpo12+1) and not 25.1.