The latest Dolphin build 2509 attempts to make some dents in one of emulation’s oldest problems: random crashes in GameCube and Wii games.
This includes, on desktop, disabling Dual Core by default to work around some freezes; targeting very accurate mode overrides that allow several Disney Wii games to boot; and, more importantly, rewriting Bluetooth Passthrough for maximum compatibility across the board (and support for official Wii Remotes). Brazilian Portuguese: Agora vai. The high number of pull requests certainly helped us significantly reduce our bug tracker, as many contributors came with their own fixes for issues.
Dual Core off by default – stability more important than speed
Dual Core mode was a neat performance trick when it landed over a decade ago, separating CPU and GPU emulation across threads to keep frame rates up on weaker processors. The trade-off is time when compared to the original line of consoles with fixed and deterministic hardware, vs a PC managing threads, each potentially scheduled at significantly varied periods. That mismatch can lead to occasional but infuriating crashes and desyncs that are infamously difficult to replicate and solve.
Release 2509 switches the desktop default to single-core emulation, which is naturally more deterministic. Most modern CPUs (say, AMD’s Ryzen 5000/7000 series or Intel’s 12th-gen family and later) have plenty of single-thread performance to keep the library running at 60 fps for almost all users, so most players shouldn’t experience slowdowns—just less random crashing and cleaner save files. Tool-assisted speedrunning and netplay communities will also appreciate consistent timing.
On Android, Dual Core is still on by default. Mobile chipsets are still constrained by tighter thermal and power limits, and Android’s OS overhead can eat into single-thread throughput. For use in tablet mode, those few additional inches often stand between choppy frame rates and smooth play. People with older desktop CPUs may still want to enable Dual Core again if they are willing to accept the stability hit.
Disney Wii games finally boot to widescreen
The three bad Wii games, Toy Story 3, Cars 2, and Disney Infinity, have indeed always been the outliers. Made by Avalanche Software, however, these titles leaned on some sneaky code paths that tripped up emulators—including a nasty trick with the data cache intentionally designed to mess with emulators’ attempts at producing accurate CPU timings. It was also incredibly sluggish even when booting.
Dolphin [9] made surgical modifications to how memory addresses are treated and only verified in these edge cases by skipping the trap, thus retaining correctness elsewhere. The upshot: these three apps now scream on capable desktops. They’re still computationally expensive, but any decently modern gaming PC should handle them with a yawn.
Bluetooth Passthrough now supports newer adapters
If you are a player, or aspire to be one, and want to have that console-like experience on your Wii, the use of Bluetooth Passthrough is a must. Instead of a PC’s generic Bluetooth stack, Passthrough lets Dolphin take over and extend the Wii’s 200 Hz input polling, non-standard descriptors, MotionPlus data, and even the speaker in the remote. Recent developments in a few of the adapters, specifically those based on the Realtek RTL8761 chipset, left many users hanging.
The new release overhauls the Passthrough code path, providing improved throughput and featuring dedicated fixes for RTL8761-based dongles. In practical terms, this means tighter lag over Bluetooth, less downtime (due to dropped controller inputs), and wider support among the countless USB adapters in circulation. Original Wii Remotes will have improved reconnecting behavior for both Linux and Windows users who use the service regularly.
What players may want to know before updating
Desktop users will fall back to the safer single-core path on updating. If you are going for max frames on old hardware, go ahead and lower these settings, but it will determine how stable your game plays while doing so. If you can’t get 60 fps after all that, then I don’t know what to tell you, bro… maybe try changing smith_dimen? For the purposes of Android, though, keeping Dual Core enabled is still very much a reality, and on newer high-end devices you can try turning it off to see if stability improves with no loss in performance.
If you are using real Wii Remotes with your Dolphin setup, you should simply use Bluetooth Passthrough and be sure the adapter is compatible. The new code supports more chipsets than the old one, but driver access and OS permissions are still factors. As with everything, reading the project documentation or contacting the community will help you refine settings for your platform.
A step toward better, crash-free emulation
With Dual Core out of the way and finicky titles like Disney Infinity finally getting in the green, Dolphin’s focus is clear: accuracy and reliability are the priority now that mainstream hardware has plenty of power to spare.
It’s a good quality-of-life update for anyone revisiting their GameCube and Wii collections, but it also serves as a reminder that even long-established emulators still grow up as old silicon and software realities change.
The project’s maintainers have been vocal about these trade-offs in their technical write-ups and issue trackers, and the community’s testing efforts continue to form priorities. Roberts hopes the majority of players will simply enjoy release 2509 better: there should be fewer crashes, a wider variety of controllers supported, and just that tiny bit more console-native shine to keep the classics timeless.