Metroid Prime (GC)

Metroid Prime is a video game developed by Retro Studios and Nintendo for the Nintendo GameCube. It is the first 3D game in the Metroid series, the fifth main installment, and the first of the three part Metroid Prime storyline.

Despite taking place in the first person view, Metroid Prime is classified by Nintendo as a first-person adventure rather than a first-person shooter, due to the large exploration component of the game and its precedence over combat. As with all Metroid games, players solve puzzles, perform platform jumps, and fight enemies in a large, open ended world. Along the way, the player finds power ups that improve her abilities, and clues about the mystery of the planet. The story is told organically; the story is revealed through scan logs, allowing the player to dive into the story or ignore it as they see fit.

An updated version exists for the Wii as part of the Metroid Prime: Trilogy; which also contains the sequels Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

Shader Compilation Stuttering
The Metroid Prime games are some of the most susceptible titles to shader compilation stuttering, thanks to a combination of very complex effects and dynamic loading. The GC and Wii have no concept of shaders - everything runs directly "on the metal" without any APIs. Modern desktop and phone systems do not work in this way, requiring the use of shaders as an intermediary so your system's GPU can perform the tasks that the GC and Wii GPU performed. But shaders have to be created, and since GC/Wii games are not designed to create shaders ahead of time as a PC game would, when a new effect appears Dolphin has to delay the CPU thread while the GPU thread performs the compilation; a pause that does not exist on the consoles. For most games shader generation takes only a few milliseconds, but for the Metroid Prime series and a few other demanding titles, the shaders that they generate are so large that they can result in noticeable stuttering.

Eventually stuttering will reduce as a shader cache is built up, but there is no solution to this problem at this time.

Dolphin Savestates
Dolphin savestates may randomly fail, especially if a lot of activity is happening on screen when making the save. Use in game save stations to avoid any issues.

Incorrect Textures
When using Store EFB to Texture Only, some environment textures may be EFB Copies instead of proper textures. Fixed by.

Visors
The Thermal Visor and Xray Visor will only work if Store EFB Copies to Texture Only is disabled. However, Store EFB Copies to Texture Only is disabled as default within the game INI, normally preventing the user from using anything but that setting for this game. Such can be overridden by opening/editing configuration options post the start of the game or modifying the game .ini, which can cause the issue to reoccur. Fixed by.

Refraction Slowdown
Refraction effects, such as raindrops on Samus' visor, cause slowdown in OpenGL. Even the strongest computers are affected by this issue, and there is no solution with the OpenGL backend at this time. D3D is affected by this issue also, but only if anti-aliasing is enabled. Fixed by.