Lag / Slow Motion on Certain Wii Games

[hockeygirl]

Hi guys, I travel a lot and, since I can't exactly cart my various consoles and massive game collection around with me, Dolphin has been my saving grace for quite a while. It works beautifully for Game Cube, almost without exception. However, I've recently started playing some Wii games on it as well and am experiencing problems with certain ROMs.

Some games, like Smash Bros Brawl and Mario Kart run perfectly. But other games are suffering from major lag. For example, when trying to play New Super Mario Bros, the game seems to run fine, the pre-play video bits look good and smooth, and even the "level selection screen" (where Mario is standing on the map and you have to move forward to the next space to actually start the level) looks normal. Then, once you actually start the level, it seems like Mario is moving in slow motion. Any time he jumps, it's like he's on the moon in low gravity, and if I turn him to face a different direction while he's moving, it takes a moment of slow-mo skidding for him to turn around.

Another example is Sonic All Stars Racing, which has a lot of skipping on both video and audio when I start it, occasionally crashes during the intro video, and I can't see any of the game selections (I can keep clicking "okay" to choose driver, level, etc. but can't see the actual options, therefore it goes to the default), although once the race itself finally starts, it seems to work normally.

Are there any particular settings for Dolphin that are more ideal for certain Wii games? Or did I maybe just get a bad copy of the game? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as these are some of my favorite games and I really can't pack the actual Wii every time I hop on a plane

Thanks!

[meganova]

Hello,

Based on your explanation, it seems to be a general issues when emulating games on PC, lags and such.

Can you post your PC specs, dolphin version, as well the settings?

[hockeygirl]

Hi, I''ve got both Dolphin 3.5 and 4.0.2 and laptop specs are as follows:

Windows 7
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
System Model Dell System XPS L502X
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2450M CPU @ 2.50GHz, 2501 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A09, 1/13/2012
SMBIOS Version 2.6
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 3.90 GB
Available Physical Memory 1.59 GB
Total Virtual Memory 7.79 GB
Available Virtual Memory 5.11 GB
Page File Space 3.90 GB

EDITE After a lot of fiddling around with the settings, it seems that 3.5 is actually doing a better job of playing the games. It's now playing New Super Mario Bros and Sonic and Sega All Stars perfectly. I'm not sure why the same games aren't working on the newer version of Dolphin with identical settings, or why they suddenly started working fine on version 3.5, but I'll try out the rest of the games and we'll see what happens.

[Monobright]

Tried checking the Wiki to see the configuration settings for each game?

[hockeygirl]

Okay, after a lot of playing around with the settings, there are only 3 games that do not work right, regardless of what I do:

1080 Avalanche - Sound is completely distorted, little more than static at times. EBF Copies set to Texture (no other recommendations in the wikia). Most settings seem to result in decent visuals but there is some lagging and it crashes often. In Dolphin 4.0.2, if I disable audio and use Direct3D9, it seems to play like a normal game. It would be nice to be able to use the sound though...

F-ZERO GX - Distorted sound, terrible lagging and tendency to crash. Wikia cites no specific config options and I've tried as many setting combinations as I can think of. The best I got with enough tinkering was a config that seemed to allow me to race at almost normal speeds once the race actually started, although I have to keep audio disabled since it's so messed up and character selection, race opening countdown, etc. move at a snail's pace and often crash.

Mario Power Tennis - Awful graphics. The intro and replays are okay but once a match actually begins (user controlled portions), the court looks flickery/flashy, very hard on the eyes. Direct3D9 plays at normal speed but known DirectX issues cause the camera to be looking from behind the bleachers at points, which is manageable but definitely distracting. OpenGL per the wikia suggestion has no camera problems but runs in slightly slow motion. Both options suffer from the flickering. No audio problems.

If anyone can offer some advice on any of these, I would really appreciate it as they are some of my favorite games and it's very frustrating not being able to play them while I'm away!

[meganova]

1080 Avalanche
- common issue, it seems to be specs dependent though, especially on mid end computer (I can run it well after OCing my computer a bit, with only minor sound problem)
- changing few settings on DSP can lead to further distorted sound, compared to default one. You can try set to LLE recompiler, and change the Framelimit to Audio.

F-ZERO GX
- another common ones, this game is very demanding, problems with sound distortion and lagging is to due to drop in framerates
- Try changing the audio backend OpenAL, crash can be fixed by enabling vsync and using OpenGL, but better if you running it on default settings first, with recommended settings from wiki.

Mario Power Tennis
- Try using OpenGL if you haven't, that what fix most graphic issue when playing this game. No known fix for other issue though.

[hockeygirl]

Thanks for the suggestions but unfortunately, F-Zero GX is going at half speed and the audio won't work on any setting. 1080 Avalanche plays closer to normal speed but there's no combination of settings (including the ones you mentioned) that has fixed the audio. I've tried all of the suggested settings and fixes I've come across and none seem to work for me. Looks like I'll just have to make do with not having audio and a bit of lagging for now. Maybe the new laptop I'm waiting on will make a difference.

As far as Mario Power Tennis, it looks like the issue is a known one:

http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu...s%20flickering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOEvY8_WgG4

Guess it's a long time problem and there's no fix yet, sadly...and surprisingly. Thanks for your help though!

[Zorlon]

Buying a Wii would help, a second hand one would be best as new ones have certain limits to them, make sure it has GC compatibility (It will have GC ports for pads and mem cards) so you can play those as well, you should be able to pick one up for very cheap now

The other advantage of the GC ports is that you can use a GC controller for some Wii games that support it as well as GC games, even if you don't like the GC pads you can get a PSX/PS2 to GC converter

[The only issue about a second hand one is you don't really want the latest firmware update on it and the only way to find that out is to boot the console and look at the settings, buying online though you can just ask whoever is selling it to look for you]

I know that sounds like doh but you can soft mod a Wii very easy so I'm not saying buy the games, but you may want to buy a USB HDD and if one is not supplied with the system a normal SD card (2GB max 4GB up over are HD cards, it's only used for modding the console to start with, you can store everything else on the USB HDD)

If that is an option I can or another member can give you more info on that in our Everything Console section

To be honest Wii games are just not the same via PC unless you happen to be using Wii Motes ect and get perfect emulation, GC games are not all perfect either as you have found out via PC emulation (Small note but all GC games on the Wii using the softmod method are perfect either due to some sound streaming not correctly done yet, this only effect a very small number of games though (less than 10 [they had more than 10 listed but they also never updated the list and found most the games list with issues do work], the only game I know of off the top of my head was Star Fox Adventures, though I have not looked for updates on that recently))

[hockeygirl]

Thanks but I already own a Wii and I only download the games that I've already bought. As I mentioned, the problem is that I travel a lot for work and am away for months at a time, and I can't drag my various consoles and binders full of games around with me, so I like to be able to play them on my laptop during long flights, down time while I'm away, etc. which means relying on emulators. I know that there will always be some limitations and it's never quite the same as playing them on the actual consoles but it's the only real option while traveling

[Zorlon]

fair enough