Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)
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.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes | |
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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 |
Input methods | GameCube Controller |
Compatibility | 4 Playable |
GameIDs | |
See also... |
Trilogy Version |
Like it's 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 adds 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 exists for the Wii as part of the Metroid Prime: Trilogy.
Problems
Micro-stuttering
All of the Prime games suffer from micro-stuttering: screen redraws and small stops in the video that can become very annoying. It occurs in all graphics backends, but the OpenGL backend has consistently been the most resistant to the problem. DSP HLE and DSP LLE are both affected, though DSP LLE appears to make it worse in some revisions. Its severity varies depending on the revision and settings used, so if you want to play the game you should try a wide variety of combinations. Micro-stuttering can trigger the Black Bar glitch.
Audio Issues
With DSP HLE several sounds don´t play appropriately, and sometimes music stops playing. Use DSP LLE to avoid these problems.
Black Bar
Whenever Dolphin has trouble with the game and flickers, from a loading hiccup to taking a screenshot, a black bar will appear on the bottom of the screen, taking up 15% of the screen space and "squishing" the game in the remaining space. This occurs in all graphics backends, and there is no known solution, but OpenGL is the most resistant. See issue 5185. Old versions of Dolphin, such as 3.0-135, do not have this issue on all backends.
- PAL users can disable "EuRGB60 Mode (PAL60)" in the Wii settings to prevent this issue.
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. D3D11 and D3D9 are not affected by this problem in this game.
Visors
Scanner/Visors will only work if EFB to Ram is enabled. However, EFB to Ram is set as default within the game INI, preventing the user from using anything but EFB to Ram for this game.
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.
Configuration
Only configuration options for the best compatibility where they deviate from defaults are listed.
Audio
Config | Setting | Notes |
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DSP Emulator Engine | LLE | Minimizes audio problems |
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.
Testing
This title has been tested on the environments listed below:
Test Entries | |||||
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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 45-60 FPS!!!) | |
r6569 | Windows 7 x64 | AMD Phenom II X2 550 @ 3.1GHz | ATI Radeon HD 4850 | Playable: 30-60 FPS with OpenGL plug-in and Recommended Configuration | |
r7346 | Windows 7 x64 | Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 2.66GHz | nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS | Playable: 30-60 FPS 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 x64 | 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 |
r7661 | Windows 7 x64 | 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 |
^3.0 | Windows 7 x64 | 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 |