Dolphin Progress Report

Because it's cool! It's interesting to see how they're improving emulation, and often they come up with interesting ways to do so.

This update is quite low on technical details, but usually their updates, https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2017/06/03/dolphin-progress-rep..., go into a lot of depth about CPU + GPU emulation which is an area which most of HN finds novel and interesting.

Because they post monthly updates that are detailed, well-written, and highly informative. The kinds of problems they solve are technically interesting, and the update posts are a model that many more software projects should emulate (pun mostly intended).

The Dolphin progress reports have become an institution because they (usually) contain interesting technical background info about the implementation of new emulator features, why one solution was chosen over another, and what problems had to be solved (and remain to be solved). Between the lines there's more useful software development advice then what most tech blogs provide.

I honestly can't think of many things that require more Hacking than writing a fast, compatible, multiplatform console emulator, followed by writing a How It's Made.

It's probably one of the highest quality emulators out there. For example it is fully compatible with the Gamecube and Wii controllers using your computer's Bluetooth. They've reached a level where the console can even access the Wii Online community and appears to Nintendo's servers as a legitimate Wii (you still need to grab the encrytped blobs from your console though).

To all intents and purposes they've completely emulated a Gamecube and Wii and then gone many steps further in improving audio and graphics (original Wii is capped at 480p - Dolphin can go to 4K or beyond with visuals rivalling even the new Nintendo switch).

Every few months I get caught up on these and secretly wish I worked with a testing infrastructure even a quarter as robust. Working on an emulator seems like the most finicky development work out there but the Dolphin group can hack without fear because they can be reasonably confident that a change to fix one issue didn't have an impact elsewhere.

It's a super successful open source effort. They build a great product and make it super accessible to people to use and contribute. It very much belongs on HN.