The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (ゼルダの伝説 スカイウォードソード, Zeruda no Densetsu: Sukaiwōdo Sōdo) is an action-adventure game for the Wii console and the sixteenth entry in the Legend of Zelda series. Nearly 5 years in development, the Skyward Sword departs from many of the traditional Zelda norms, featuring new controls, a new art style, and formula differences. Skyward Sword requires either the Wii Motion Plus add on or a Wii Remote Plus.

Skyward Sword heavily integrates the use of the Wii Motion Plus; swordplay, for instance, is integrated with the controller to a point where the player has one-to-one motion control over Link's sword and the its attack directions. In contrast to earlier installments, battles do not focus solely on timing attacks, but also on their target, such as the direction in which enemies are hit. This also allows for the sword to be integrated into puzzles to a greater extent than in previous titles.

Problems
As the game is still being released and is very technically demanding, the best options for the game can change at a rapid pace as users discover new options and changes to dolphin are made. See the | forum thread for details as it develops.

Wii Motion Plus
Skyward Sword requires the Wii Motion Plus addon. Dolphin is currently not capable of emulating the wii motion plus; the only way for dolphin to play this game is to use a real, physical wii remote with wii motion plus. See.
 * Pre 3.0 revisions of Dolphin had rudimentary wii motion plus emulation, but it does not work properly, lacking calibration and constantly disconnecting.

Depth of Field (DoF)
Skyward Sword uses a Depth of Field effect to blur distance objects in a painting like style. Older revisions (pre 3.0) do not render the effect. Newer revisions can sort of render it, but requires EFB to Ram to avoid scanlines. (See ). Note that using EFB to Ram for this effect causes a significant performance hit even with powerful machines.

The DoF Effect properly emulated in Dolphin, click to see at full resolution

Shadow Flickering
Shadows in the game can flicker when the internal resolution is set to "Auto" with the DX9 backend. Either use DX9 with a preset internal resolution (example: 3x Native), or use DX11.

Banding
With Anisotropic Filtering (AF) at its default 1x, banding may be present in shading on characters and surroundings. Increasing AF to higher values (such as 16x) will correct the problem. It should not cause a performance hit, but may on weaker machines.



Pellets/Arrows Aim
"Skip EFB Access to CPU" can provide a useful speedup for this demanding game. However, having the feature on can prevent you from aiming properly. Disable "Skip EFB Access to CPU" to fix.

Sword Missing
Links sword may disappear. To insure the sword does not disappear, makes sure "Cache Display Lists" is disabled.