The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Nintendo's thematic action-adventure sequel to Ocarina of Time takes the series back to its more cartoonish roots. Utilizing a completely new look with cel-shaded graphics, the game casts players in the role of a familiar young boy, who sets out to save his kidnapped sister. Gameplay is vintage Zelda, only that the game's overworld is covered by water. Players have to control the direction of the wind to sail across the ocean and find dungeons, towns, and plenty of secrets. A special Game Boy Advance link-up option lets another player join the quest and give hints and assistance via the handheld.

Sound

 * Sound and music cut out at various points.
 * Sound de-syncs during cinematics. This issue has been partially fixed, see this forum thread.
 * If audio throttle is on black screens may occur when audio de-syncs

In older revisions
Distant areas are blurry with EFB copy to RAM option enabled. To avoid this, enable EFB copy to texture, but this will prevent the pictobox from working (infinite error when taking a photo). But distant areas may get "pixelated" with EFB copy to texture. So there are 3 ways to get a clear image at distance in that case :
 * Disable CPU→EFB access, enable EFB copy to RAM.
 * Breaks the sun glare effect.
 * Disable EFB copy.
 * This solves the distant areas problem but breaks characters shadows, screen blurring (when cutting small trees with sword and other things), and causes the pictobox problem.
 * Enable EFB and Zelda Twilight Princess Bloom Hack.
 * Solves the blur problem and other issues. Zelda Twilight Princess hack works better than Bleach Versus Crusade, since Bleach Versus Crusade breaks shadows.

In newer revisions

 * CPU->efb access and and efb copy to texture/ram no longer affect the DOF blur.
 * To remove the DOF blur you need to use an efb scale that is higher than your window/fullscreen resolution. This means for lower resolutions you will need a 2x efb scale and for higher resolutions you will need a 3x efb scale.  This will eliminate the DOF blur without breaking anything.
 * It is not advised to use projection hacks with newer revisions.

Black Squares in Dragon Roost

 * Use Zelda Twilight Princess Bloom Hack and EFB to RAM or texture enabled.
 * Blur distant images fixed, shadows work, and the fire effect is correct.

Pictobox only shows black images

 * Don't use EFB to texture
 * If you take a photo in this mode it will appear black both when you take it and when you try to view it, even if switching to EFB to RAM later the photo will continue to be black.
 * Don't use projection hack and Enable EFB to RAM
 * Pictobox will work perfectly, but bugs with waiting to see the photo continue.
 * Use a projection hack and Enable EFB to RAM
 * It's essential to use a projection hack or problems will occur: blurred distant images and black squares in Dragon Roost. When using a projection hack, photos will appear black at first, but when you switch modes to view photos they will appear normally.


 * With issues with the pictobox should be resolved, as long as "EFB to RAM" is enabled.

Texture flickering

 * Sometimes textures such as waves or shadows will flicker at certain camera angles
 * Use or higher and make sure that Pixel depth is enabled in the graphics plugin to fix this.

Black/gray screens

 * A black/gray screen crash may occur after certain events in the game. This can be fixed by enabling the "fix item hang" patch in the patches section of game properties (right click the game in the main dolphin window to get to game properties)
 * Be warned however that the fix item hack patch will cause audio issues. Use it only when you encounter a black/gray screen crash

GameBoy Player
Emulation of GameBoy Player doesn't work with this game. It can be enabled in Config => GameCube, but the game will not detect it. (GBA Link is partially emulated since and requires a dump of GBA BIOS and VBA-M with joy bus options to work).

Testing

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Gameplay Videos

 * The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker - Dolphin SVN3972 x64 (HD)

Action-adventure games