Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Developer(s)	Retro Studios
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Series	Metroid, Metroid Prime
Platform(s)	GameCube
Release date(s)	NA November 15, 2004 EU November 26, 2004 AUS December 2, 2004 JP May 26, 2005
Genre(s)	First-person action-adventure, First-person shooter, Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer (4)
Input methods	GameCube Controller
Compatibility	5 Perfect
GameIDs	G2MP01, G2ME01, G2MJ01
See also...	Trilogy Version Dolphin Forum thread Open Issues Search Google Search Wikipedia

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, known as Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes (メトロイドプライム2: ダークエコーズ Metoroido Puraimu Tsū: Dāku Ekōzu) in Japan, is a first-person, action-adventure video game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the seventh published game in the Metroid series and a direct sequel to Metroid Prime.

Like its predecessor, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes takes place in an open-ended world with interconnected regions, revolving around solving puzzles to uncover secrets, platform jumping, and shooting enemies. Echoes features parallel dimensions gameplay, Light Aether and Dark Aether, where changes in either dimension often reflect changes in the other. Dark Aether's atmosphere is caustic and damages Samus' Power Suit, requiring the player to move between designated "safe zones" that allow Samus' health to be regained slowly.

An updated version was released for the Wii as part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy.

Emulation Information

Shader Compilation Stuttering

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC) is one of the most susceptible titles to shader compilation stuttering. The GC and Wii have no concept of shaders - everything is executed directly by the hardware without an intermediate programming language (API). Modern computers and mobile 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 directly. Shaders have to be generated though, 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 a few demanding titles, the shaders that they generate are so large that they can result in noticeable stuttering, in severe cases pauses of over a second may occur.

Since 5.0-4869, this problem can be solved by enabling ubershaders. Changing GPU, updating GPU drivers, or updating Dolphin may invalidate the shader cache, requiring specialized shaders to be compiled again. Since 5.0-6461, Dolphin caches shader pipeline UIDs independently of the video backend and compiles them on game start. This allows cached shaders to work across different video backends, platforms, hardware configurations and even Dolphin versions as long as changes aren't made to Dolphin's actual shader pipeline. These shaders are compiled in the background when the game starts, which may cause stuttering for a short period. Enable Compile Shaders Before Starting to avoid this.

Problems

There are no reported problems with this title.

Enhancements

IR>1 Dot

When playing above 1x Native internal resolution, there is a dot in the center of the screen. It's small and easy to ignore, but it is present whenever the HUD is on screen.

A workaround for this problem is to put these custom textures into the Dolphin Emulator\Load\Textures folder and enabling the Load Custom Textures option in the advanced graphics settings.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mx3dazG-_0nb-G9pex4X4sEQx2NSvKAk?usp=share_link

The dot, zoomed in 8x

16:9 HUD Mod

This a mod for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the Nintendo GameCube that adjusts the HUD to better match forced 16:9 widescreen hacks. Widescreen HUD Mod for Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

• Choose Force 16:9 or Stretch for the Aspect Ratio (Options -> Graphics Settings -> General -> Aspect Ratio)
• Enable Widescreen Hack (Options -> Graphics Settings -> Enhancements -> Check Widescreen Hack)
• To fix frustum culling problems (seeing stuff pop in and out near the left/right edges of the screen), use the VR Culling Fix.
• To fix the game flickering between normal and stretched view, edit the game INI to add:

[Video_Settings]
SuggestedAspectRatio = 2

(To edit game INI settings, right click Metroid Prime 2: Echoes in the game list -> Properties -> Game Config tab -> Editor There, you can add the setting to the User Config section)

60FPS in Multiplayer

When playing with 3-4 players in split-screen multiplayer, the framerate is locked at 30FPS. These Gecko codes provided below will make split-screen multiplayer levels play at 60FPS.

NTSC-U

$60FPS in Multiplayer [Nick Reynolds]
003C5AB1 00000000

50Hz AR Codes

PAL[1]

$Enable 50Hz Mode [Ralf]
042BEE20 3BC00000

16:9 Aspect Ratio Fix

Make sure to disable the Dolphin Widescreen Hack before using these codes.

NA

$16:9 Widescreen [gamemasterplc]
C230256C 00000002
3DC04000 91C20000
C3420000 00000000
C236D684 00000004
3DC03FAA 61CEAAAB
91C20000 C2620000
ED330272 ED6A4824
60000000 00000000

EU

$16:9 Widescreen [Ralf]
04036EA0 38A00356

Widescreen Hack Stretch Flickering Fix

To fix the game flickering between normal and stretched view while using Widescreen Hack, edit the game INI to add:

[Video_Settings]
SuggestedAspectRatio = 2

VR Culling Fix

In VR, culling needs to be disabled completely and these Gecko codes will do that. Make sure to enable the Dolphin widescreen hack for these codes.

NA

$VR Culling Fix
04302498 38600001
0430249C 4E800020
04302298 38600001
0430229C 4E800020
043022F8 38600001
043022FC 4E800020
04302450 38600001
04302454 4E800020
04302364 38600001
04302368 4E800020

PAL

$VR Culling Fix
0430290C 38600001
04302910 4E800020
0430270C 38600001
04302710 4E800020
0430276C 38600001
04302770 4E800020
043027D8 38600001
043027DC 4E800020
043028C4 38600001
043028C8 4E800020
0430290C 38600001
04302910 4E800020

HD Textures

Metroid Prime Trilogy - HD Interface Textures. This texture pack works with the Trilogy and the standalone GameCube/Wii titles.

Immediately Present XFB

This graphics hack can be enabled for any of the releases of Metroid Prime 1 and 2 for Gamecube to reduce input latency.

Configuration

This title does not need non-default settings to run properly.

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Metroid Prime 2: Echoes since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.

r1943

3.0-135

3.0-697

3.0-766

3.5-380

4.0-5124

5.0-4869

Δ

2409-117 (current)

Δ

Δ

Δ

Δ

Δ

2.0 (r5384)

Compatibility can be assumed to align with the indicated revisions. However, compatibility may extend to prior revisions or compatibility gaps may exist within ranges indicated as compatible due to limited testing. Please update as appropriate.

Testing

This title has been tested on the environments listed below:

Test Entries
Revision	OS	CPU	GPU	Result	Tester
r1943	Windows	Intel Core i7-920 @ 4 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285	Metroid Prime 2 on Dolphin 1943 (Emulator) - High Quality (Normally running on 45-60FPS!!!)
r6569	Windows 7	AMD Phenom II X2 550 @ 3.1 GHz	ATI Radeon HD 4850	Playable: 30-60FPS with OpenGL plug-in and Recommended Configuration
r7346	Windows 7	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS	Playable: 30-60FPS with DX9 plug-in and Recommended Configuration. Just like Metroid Prime 1, if there are too many enemies, you will occasionally have some slowdown, especially since EFB copy to RAM is REQUIRED for the scan visor, which is an essential part of the game. Essentially runs flawlessly as of r7346.	ShobuPrime
r7436	Windows 7	AMD Phenom II X4 955 @ 3.8 GHz	ATI Radeon HD 4650	Playable: Runs fine except for occasional loading pauses and the scan visor. Using slightly tweaked config based off of recommended config.	MechWarrior001
3.0	Windows 7	AMD Phenom II X6 1100T	AMD Radeon HD 6850	Perfect, just some slows when rain drops or water on the visor,audio some times crashes, graphics are clean and perfect	Aldaris
r7661	Windows 7	Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 @ 3.2 GHz	AMD Radeon HD 6950	Perfect thanks to Dolphin DX 11 renderer without any issues and with the scan visor fully functional. 60FPS all the time.	Xenon
4.0-256	Windows 7	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.3 GHz	AMD Radeon HD 7950	Near perfect. Some slowdown when jumping out of shallow water, or looking up at open sky, but neither are significant issues due to their rarity. The green dot and black bar bugs persist, but I've yet to encounter flickering or micro-stutter.
4.0-1192	Windows 7	AMD Athlon X4 640 @ 3.15 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT	Playable to completion with near-perfect emulation. Noticed some sound glitches when fighting Warrior Ing. Slowdown to ~20FPS when viewing map and during water splash effect. (Dual core/HLE/DX11/No enhancements)	Durandal
4.0-1720	Windows 7	Intel Core i7-2600K @ 4 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660	Crippling lag with water splashes seems to have been lessened quite a bit, now either causes minimal frame drops or none at all (Thank god, as I was in the Bog at this point); the same can be said for raindrops. Black bar issue appears to happen immediately, though, compared to some of the earlier revisions and the game still refuses to launch with "Sync GPU Thread" enabled. Game otherwise runs quite smoothly with no noticeable/reproducible issues	TehGuy
4.0-6426	Windows 8.1	Intel Core i5-2400 @ 3.1 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce GT 610	Near perfectly emulated, some big open areas will slow down, interestingly not as bad as in MP1, black bar isn't a problem at all and in fact i didn't notice it until i checked this article. Automatic Resolution depending on window size, DX11, dualcore mostly 60FPS, Graphic config is based on an MP1 config and works just perfect, here the video.	KerrangR
5.0-153	Windows 10	Intel Core i5-4590 @ 3.7 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti	Minor stutters/slowdowns loading relatively new things throughout gameplay as well as minor pause coming out of interactive menus (map/logbook etc...) Very smooth otherwise. Direct3d 12 / 2.5x native resolution / 16x anisotropic filtering / per-pixel lighting / virtual xfb / store efb copies to ram & texture / widescreen (through gecko codes) It seems the game isn't inherently broken anymore in the visor and black bar department, game is emulated just fine with efb to texture only and xfb disabled. However, map flickering is a problem and I have encountered black frame flickering as well as in-game image flickering (whatever is rendered the frame before i open the map) while sitting in the map interface, with both types mitigated with virtual xfb and efb to ram & texture. Torvus bog is a demanding area (3x native res had to be dropped to 2.5x) but it is very much near perfect with water droplets and the likes; unfortunately entering and leaving water causes micro stuttering.	Brownittoya
5.0-2361	Windows 10	AMD FX-8350 @ 4 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970	Played with D3D11, the experimental D3D12 and Vulkan to find few differences in performance. All three ran the game fine at 60 FPS and I was able to get to my preferred 3x internal resolution without losing performance. Regardless of settings, the blackbar issue has only been a problem if I bring up the stop emulation prompt and then cancel it. In regular play sessions it has never happened so far. Stuttering seems much more bearable than in prior builds and the time it takes for stuttering to ease down seems faster too. Refracting lights from inactive portals and water droplets as well as viewing the map still destroys framerate however. Turning off "Store EFB Copies to Texture Only" did not break the scan visor for me but also didn't fix the frame drops around water and portals like some claim. Otherwise it's near perfect at this state.	Gotohellcadz

Gameplay Videos

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes on NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV - Dolphin Emulator (Nintendo GameCube)

Metroid Prime 2 on Dolphin 1943 (Emulator) - High Quality (Normally running on 45-60FPS!!!)

Dolphin Emulator 4.0 - Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (1080p HD) - Nintendo GameCube

• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV - Dolphin Emulator 5.0-13493 [1080p] - GameCube