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This GameCube classic is playable on Android again thanks to a big Dolphin update
- Dolphin emulator just got a big update with countless bug fixes and improvements for GameCube and Wii emulation.
- Among other things, Eternal Darkness is now playable again after a bug caused it to hang on boot.
- The update is available now to download for Windows, macOS, Android, and Linux.
If there’s one emulator that’s stood the test of time, it’s Dolphin emulator. From its scrappy start more than two decades ago as the first GameCube emulator on PC to the first Android release in 2013, it’s more than earned its spot as one of the best emulators on the market. And now, it’s even better thanks to a new update.
Release 2412 introduces a ton of bug fixes, and while none of them are game-changing (so to speak), they do make a huge variety of problematic games more playable. If you’ve used the emulator to play games like Metroid Prime or Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, you may have noticed an annoying “unknown opcode” popup interrupting your gameplay. It usually didn’t cause the emulator to crash, but it was a major distraction.
Cult classic Eternal Darkness is now playable after hanging on boot in a previous update.
The Dolphin dev team isolated the issue, which was related to cycle accuracy, and incorporated a fix in the latest update. However, this fix also caused the cult classic GameCube game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem to hang on boot. After digging deeper into the issue, a patch was created for all regional versions of the game rather than an update to the emulator itself, since that could unintentionally break other games.
The full progress report describes each fix in much more detail, so head over there if you want the nerdy nitty-gritty. The latest release is available to download for Windows, macOS, Android, and Linux on the official website.