Get Your Gaming Fix with Retro Nostalgia on Raspberry Pi 4

Learn how to install and configure the legendary Dolphin Emulator, a Nintendo GameCube and Wii emulator, on your Raspberry Pi 4 for a retro gaming experience. …


Updated October 19, 2023

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Learn how to install and configure the legendary Dolphin Emulator, a Nintendo GameCube and Wii emulator, on your Raspberry Pi 4 for a retro gaming experience.

The Dolphin Emulator is one of the best-known emulators available for the Nintendo GameCube and Wii consoles. It provides a faithful recreation of these classic games, allowing you to relive your childhood or try out new titles on your Raspberry Pi 4. This guide will walk you through the installation process and help you configure Dolphin to its full potential.

Before we begin, make sure that your Raspberry Pi 4 is up-to-date with the latest software updates:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 1: Install Dependencies

Dolphin requires some dependencies to run properly on Raspberry Pi. Run the following command to install them:

sudo apt install -y libasound2-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libfontconfig1-dev libgtk-3-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libpng-dev libpulse-dev libsdl2-dev libsqlite3-dev libssl-dev libudev-dev zlib1g-dev

Step 2: Download and Compile Dolphin Emulator

Visit the official Dolphin website to download the latest release for Linux: https://dolphin-emu.org/download/

Extract the downloaded archive and navigate to its folder in your terminal:

tar -xvf Dolphin-*.tar.gz
cd Dolphin-*

Compile and install Dolphin using the following commands:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

This may take a while, depending on your Raspberry Pi’s processing power. Once complete, you should have Dolphin installed on your system.

Step 3: Configure Controllers

To get the most out of your gaming experience, you’ll want to set up proper controller support. Dolphin supports many different types of controllers, but for this guide, we’ll focus on configuring the PiGPIO adapter for the Raspberry Pi.

First, install the required software:

sudo apt install -y python3-pigpio python3-pip
sudo pip3 install pigpio

Next, enable the I2C interface in your Raspberry Pi’s configuration:

  1. Open raspi-config by running sudo raspi-config in your terminal.
  2. Navigate to “Interfacing Options” and select “I2C”.
  3. Enable I2C and reboot your Raspberry Pi when prompted.

Finally, download the PiGPIO adapter configuration tool:

git clone https://github.com/drejkim/pigpio-adapter-config.git
cd pigpio-adapter-config
sudo python3 setup.py install

Run pigpio_config in your terminal and follow the prompts to configure your controller. You’ll need to restart Dolphin for the changes to take effect.

Step 4: Configure Audio Output

By default, Dolphin uses PulseAudio for audio output on Linux systems. However, this may not work well with the Raspberry Pi’s hardware limitations. To improve audio quality, we recommend using ALSA instead.

Edit Dolphin’s configuration file by running:

nano ~/.dolphin-emu/Dolphin.ini

Scroll down to the [Audio] section and change SoundSystem from “PulseAudio” to “ALSA”. Save and exit the file.

Step 5: Load Your Games

You can now load your GameCube or Wii games into Dolphin by navigating to “File” > “Open…” in the main menu. Make sure to choose the correct ISO or GCM/WAD files for your games.

That’s it! You should now be able to play your favorite Nintendo classics on your Raspberry Pi 4 with the Dolphin Emulator. Enjoy your retro gaming fix and happy emulating!