Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Developer(s)	Retro Studios
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Series	Metroid
Platform(s)	Wii
Release date(s)	JP March 6, 2008 NA August 27, 2007 EU October 26, 2007 AUS November 8, 2007
Genre(s)	First Person Action Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-Player
Input methods	Wii Remote + Nunchuk
Compatibility	5 Perfect
GameIDs	RM3P01, RM3E01, RM3J01, G2MEAB
See also...	Trilogy Version Dolphin Forum thread Open Issues Search Google Search Wikipedia

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is a first-person action-adventure game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. It is the tenth game in the Metroid series, and the final entry in the Metroid Prime Trilogy. The Wii Remote and Nunchuk devices are featured in a new control scheme that took a year to develop and caused the game's release to be delayed several times.

Gameplay for Metroid Prime 3 is similar to its predecessors: players explore open ended worlds, finding story clues and power ups, solving puzzles, jumping on platforms, and fighting enemies. Unlike past games however, the game is divided into several open worlds; each world is smaller than the single open world environments of Metroid Prime or Metroid Prime 2, but the combined size is greater. As with Metroid Prime 2, exploring the worlds is not aimless: players explore the world freely, but there are specific tasks meant to be accomplished on each world which are told to you beforehand. The game also includes hypermode, a phazon overload system that allows players to exchange health for massive damage. The biggest change is the controls. Metroid Prime 3 uses a new control system using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, allowing free aiming and movement similar to mouse and keyboard controls.

Metroid Prime 3 was also included in Metroid Prime: Trilogy, which includes updated versions of its prequels: Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.

Problems

Random Crashes

Prime 3 has a tenancy to crash randomly. There is no known solution to this problem at this time, but restarting should allow you to get past the crash point. Save often.

Savestates

Using savestates in MP3 will crash Dolphin. Use the in-game saving to avoid any problems.

Wiimote Lag

The game may experience a large amount of Wii Remote lag. Insure "Alternate Wiimote Timings" is active in the game settings to correct it. Dolphin 3.0 does not have this setting, making controlling this game very difficult for that version.

Audio Problems, Stalls

The game will have numerous audio problems with DSP HLE, such as sound effects issues and a few seconds of music randomly looping forever. And it may stall out during the "Input Identity Code" sequence at the start of the game. DSP LLE makes it a lot better, but LLE creates stuttering problems in some revisions. See issue 5563.

Pixelation Glitches

A large pixelated block may appear in the upper left area of the frame. It may only appear during movement (newer revisions) or be stuck there permanently (older revisions), and it may appear after using the command visor. To avoid this problem, use the D3D11 graphics backend.

File:MP3-Pixelboxes-cropzoom.jpg

Example of the pixelation

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. See issue 5574. Old versions of Dolphin, such as 3.0-135, do not have this issue on all backends.

Correct emulation

Black bar and squishing

Bloom Offset

Prime 3 has noticeable bloom offset problems. It will have several copies of the bloom spread out from the source, and can be very distracting. The only solution is to disable "Scaled EFB Copy", but this has some issues of its own from the low resolution bloom. See issue 5573.

Example of the bloom offset

Another example of the offset

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's always there. There is no fix for this problem.

The dot, zoomed in 8x

Visors

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.

Configuration

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

Graphics

Config	Setting	Notes
Video Backend	D3D11	Needed to avoid the pixelated box problem

Audio

Config	Setting	Notes
DSP Emulator Engine	LLE	Avoid sound problems and stalls

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.

r1546

Δ

5.0-21455 (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
r5442	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 @ 2.6GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 275	Intro slow, but in game full speed.
r7111	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600	ATI Radeon HD 5770	20/40 frames
r7478	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.4GHz	AMD Radeon HD 6950	Works great. Real Wiimote errors. Have to use emulated Wiimote.	Robodt7
r7670	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.1GHz	AMD Radeon HD 6850	Runs flawlessly. 60fps all the time. Still has Wiimote control lag issues. Red blooming from light sources now fixed.	MegaJump
r7670	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti	Struggle to reach 60fps. Enabling any kind of anti-aliasing has a serious hit on performance 20-40 frames on 4x internal res.	boeoz

Gameplay Videos

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on Dolphin Wii/GC Emulator (720p HD) Full Speed

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption on Dolphin the Wii Emulator (1080p HD)