Sonic & Knuckles

Sonic & Knuckles
Developer(s)	Sonic Team, Sega Technical Institute
Publisher(s)	Sega
Series	Sonic the Hedgehog
Platform(s)	Virtual Console, Sega Genesis
Release date(s)	Sega Mega Drive/Genesis NA October 17, 1994 JP October 18, 1994 EU October 19, 1994 AUS November 1994 Virtual Console JP October 27, 2009 EU February 12, 2010 NA February 15, 2010
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player
Input methods	GameCube Controller, Classic Controller
Compatibility	4 Playable
GameIDs	MCDP8P, MCDE8P, MCDJ8P
See also...	Dolphin Forum thread Open Issues Search Google Search Wikipedia

Sonic & Knuckles is a 1994 platform video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, developed by Sonic Team and the Sega Technical Institute for the Sega Genesis. In addition to being a standalone game, through a system dubbed "lock-on technology," Sonic & Knuckles acts as an expansion pack to both Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the latter with which it was developed in tandem. The packs as unlockable games were included for Sonic Mega Collection. The Virtual Console release of the game emulates this function: it will detect if the player has the other games in the Wii's memory, and provide the user with a menu to select which combination of games they wish to play.

Problems

Slowdown in Special Stages

During the "Collect the Blue Spheres" Special Stages, the game will lag when a lot of spheres are on screen. This is a fault of Dolphin's emulated CPU not matching up perfectly with the Wiis. Changing the "emulated CPU Clock" to ~140% will fix the slowdown.

Configuration

No configuration changes are known to affect compatibility for this title.

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Sonic & Knuckles since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.

r5472

4.0-7088

Δ

5.0-20135 (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
3.0-843	Windows 7	Intel Core i7-2600K @ 3.6 GHz	Intel HD 3000	The game runs. but no picture. FPS: 120VPS: 60 Speed: 100%	23732
4.0.2	Windows 7	AMD FX 4130 @ 3.8 GHz	AMD Radeon HD 6670	picture is visible but it flickers	skittyz321
4.0-9196	Windows 10	Intel Core i5-3570K @ 3.8 GHz	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760	Runs well, but like other versions of the game the special stages lag at default CPU clock.	JMC47