Dolphin now has native GameCube controller support with Wii U adapter

Wii U owners were overjoyed when Nintendo announced the USB GameCube controller adapter for Super Smash Bros. Wii U. After using the GameCube controller for Smash Bros. for 13 years, it just feels right, you know? Great as that adapter is for Wii U owners, it’s even more significant for PC gamers who play Nintendo games on their gaming rigs using the Dolphin GameCube and Wii emulator.

A few days after the adapter was released, programmers managed to reverse-engineer it to work on PC. But now the latest builds of Dolphin have native support for the adapter, making GameCube controllers plug-and-play easy. Thanks to Nintendo’s adapter, Dolphin now has perfect 1:1 GameCube controller mapping. To my knowledge, that’s a first for a PC emulator.

The Dolphin progress report for December goes into a bit of detail about the native support for the adapter, crediting Dolphin programmer skidau with the contribution.

It also provides a link to the setup page, which explains how to get the adapter working with Dolphin. Once you go through the setup process, plug in a controller and it’ll be automatically calibrated correctly, with working rumble and hot-plugging (plugging and unplugging the controller while playing). And yes, the wireless Wavebird controller works. So do the bongos used for DK Jungle Beat and Donkey Konga.

My favorite bit of the progress report uses F-Zero GX’s controller calibration tool to compare the accuracy and dead zones of various GameCube controller implementations. No surprise--it’s the best option, beating out a calibrated Xbox 360 controller and the Mayflash GameCube to USB adapter, which predated Nintendo’s official adapter.

If you've never tried Dolphin before, now's a great time. The emulator has gotten much, much faster in the past year; I wrote about why a few months ago.