Configuration Guide

Dolphin has three related configuration windows: Config, Graphics, Controller, in addition to applying settings per game through game properties. Dolphin is a very demanding program, so configuring Dolphin the right way is very important to run games smoothly.

System Requirements

Every game has different requirements, some games may require a powerful computer while some other games may not. Generally, these are the minimum recommended requirements for Dolphin.

• OS
  • 64-bit edition of Windows (7 SP1 or higher)
  • Linux
  • macOS (10.10 Yosemite or higher)

Windows Vista SP2 and unix-like systems other than Linux are not officially supported but might work.

• Processor - A CPU with SSE2 support. A modern CPU (3 GHz and Dual Core, not older than 2008) is highly recommended.
• Graphics - A reasonably modern graphics card (Direct3D 10.0 / OpenGL 3.0). A graphics card that supports Direct3D 11 / OpenGL 4.4 is recommended.

Dolphin Configuration

Dolphin is shipped with default settings for the most optimal performance, you do not usually need to change anything on your first time Dolphin setup.

Enable Dual Core

Provides a significant speedup on modern systems. Recommended on most games, though may cause issues like crashing or graphic issues on some games. Refer this page for a list of games that require disabling Dual Core.

CPU Emulator Engine

There are currently four CPU Emulator Engines, the recommended one is JIT Recompiler which is the fastest engine and the recommended on almost all games. The others being...

• JITIL Recompiler - Slower than JIT, required only for Poképark series.
• Cached Interpreter - Very slow, not recommended.
• Interpreter - Slowest engine, it runs slow doesn't matter how powerful is your PC, not recommended.

Graphics

These are settings that will improve emulation compatibility and/or enhance quality for HD gameplay in exchange of PC performance.

Backend

Depending of the game and the graphics card: OpenGL or Direct3D11 will have better performance. It is required that your graphic card supports at least OpenGL 3.3+ and/or Direct3D10.1+. Vulkan and Direct3D12 are still in experimental phase and they are still not recommended.

• Internal Resolution - "Auto - (Multiple of 640x528)" is recommended. If emulation suffers from slowdowns when going to fullscreen, change it to "1x Native (640x528)", and go up from there until you can find the highest setting without slowdown.
• Skip EFB Access from CPU can provide a speed boost. However it provides this boost at the expense of emulation accuracy, breaking some games and removing effects. It should be ok to use, but be careful with it.
• Ignore Format Changes - The vast majority of games don't care about this, and it provides a small boost. However a small number of games hate this setting. Recommended.
• Store EFB Copies to Texture Only - Make sure that "Store EFB Copies to Texture Only" is enabled. Disable it only when running a game that requires it.
• Disable Destination Alpha - Allows Dolphin to skip the destination alpha pass used by some games’ effects. It breaks a lot of games, but can be a handy speedup. Use carefully.
• Fast Depth Calculation - Uses a less accurate method of calculating depth values. Gives a small speedup, but can cause flickering textures.
• Bounding Box Calculation - Don't emulate bounding box calculation, which is only required for a limited set of games (i.e. Paper Mario).

DSP

Audio Backend

OpenAL is usually faster. Recommended on almost all games.

DSP Emulator Engine

DSP HLE is the fastest DSP Emulator Engine. It is very reliable, and only a few games still have problems with it. Use DSP LLE if DSP HLE is not working properly. See DSP LLE for more details.