TL;DR
- Dolphin Emulator has been updated to Release 2503 on all platforms.
- It brings better cheat support with RetroAchievements, game-by-game graphical settings, and time played tracking.
- However, most of these changes only apply to the desktop versions, as RetroAchievements isn’t available on the Android version as of yet.
Update, March 10, 2025 (08:18 AM ET): A previous version of this article stated that some of these changes are available on the Android version of Dolphin Emulator, but after testing, they are not. We have updated the article based on our testing and apologize for the inconvenience.
Dolphin Emulator is one of the most well-loved and well-established GameCube and Wii emulators on the scene. Its dev team continues to improve it more than two decades after its initial release. The latest update, Release 2503, just landed this morning, and it brings a number of tweaks and quality-of-life improvements for the desktop versions of the app.
The biggest change is the way that the emulator handles cheats with RetroAchievements. Typically, all cheats are disabled when in the “hardcore” mode that unlocks RetroAchievements to level the playing field. After all, it’s not an achievement if you can cheat your way through it.
However, the term “cheat” is a misnomer in the retro gaming world since it includes anything that modifies the game’s code. In other words, gameplay enhancements like widescreen hacks, anti-invert stick codes, and game-breaking glitch fixes fall into the same category despite being geared toward accessibility rather than giving an advantage in gameplay.
Select cheats are now available in ‘hardcore’ mode for RetroAchievement seekers.
After discussing the issue with the RetroAchievement staff, the Dolphin Emulator team has enabled a select few cheats while in hardcore mode. The allowlist mostly includes widescreen hacks and small accessibility changes, but as part of the process hundreds of new cheats were added to the emulator for anyone to enjoy. The new cheats are available on the Android version of the app, but as of 2025, RetroAchievements still haven’t been implemented on the mobile version.
Apart from that, Dolphin Emulator now supports game-by-game graphical settings. This was technically possible in previous builds, but only via the text editor. Now, settings like internal resolution and anti-aliasing can be set individually in the game properties tab. The Android version already had the ability to adjust settings on a game-by-game basis, so nothing has been changed there.
There are a few other changes that also apply to just the desktop versions of the app. If you like to see how much time you’ve wasted on your favorite games, the emulator will automatically track and display your game time in your game list, similar to modern platforms like Steam. It’s turned on by default, but you can turn it off if you choose. There’s also a completely revamped UI to adjust input settings.
You can download Release 2503 from the official Dolphin Emulator website. The team has promised some “bombshell” features in the next release, so look forward to those once testing has completed.