Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)

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Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
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 4Stars4.pngEdit rating: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)
Playable
GameIDs
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

Visors

Visors will only work if Store EFB Copies to Texture Only is disabled. Though Store EFB Copies to Texture Only is forced off by the GameINI, visor corruption may still occur if the graphics configuration window is opened during gameplay. Disable Store EFB Copies to Texture Only in the Dolphin GUI to avoid any problems.

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. There is no fix for this problem.

The Black Bar

During Shader Compilation, stuttering can become so severe that it desyncs the GPU and CPU threads in Dual Core mode. The game freaks out over this desync, creating a black bar at the bottom of the screen, which takes up 15% of the screen space and "squishes" the game in the remaining space. The black bar will remain there from then on whether stuttering continues or ceases.

After 4.0-7517, enabling Virtual XFB or Real XFB will fix and/or prevent the problem. If XFB is disabled the problem may still occur. Details can be found in the September Progress Report.

Template:SRefraction SlowdownTemplate:/s

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 not affected by this problem in this game. Fixed by 4.0-5124.

Enhancements

60Hz AR Codes

PAL[1]
Enable 50Hz Mode [Ralf]
EG75-68B7-QN0DF
3FTF-FBBX-V2BEQ

Configuration

Only configuration options for the best compatibility where they deviate from defaults are listed.

Graphics

Config Setting Notes
Store EFB Copies to Texture Only Off Needed to avoid visor issues

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.

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5.0-21270 (current)
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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 @ 4GHz 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 @ 3.1GHz ATI Radeon HD 4850 Playable: 30-60FPS with OpenGL plug-in and Recommended Configuration
r7346 Windows 7 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66GHz 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 @ 3.8GHz 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 @ 3.2GHz 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 @ 4.3GHz 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 @ 3.15GHz 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 @ 4GHz 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 @ 3.1GHz 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

Gameplay Videos