an interesting idea...

[shockdude]

it might be possible to create a very basic 64-bit linux-based "dolphin os" by creating a linux os that can only load one program (dolphin) and can only read one partition (for gamecube games), as well as some other stuff

reasons why this might be beneficial:
1. no other programs running to achieve as good of a speed as possible
2. no need to get 64-bit windows or a linux os that you'll never use other than for dolphin
3. can have a custom user interface
4. will probably boot faster than windows or linux

discuss

[Sercio]

That would be theoretically paosible... but its a hell work to do! This would require to code everything new again as video drivers and lots of other things! Its not worth doing this!

[Toasty]

This has sort of been discussed before.

1. Typical overhead from the OS is negligible
2. But you'd still need another OS - this one

You're last two points are true I suppose, but overall it would be a whole ton of work for a percent or two more performance at best. And that's not even taking into account the fact that Dolphin would have to be ported to Linux. Time would be better spent optimizing the emulator's code. Sorry to rain on your parade.

[_Chrono_]

youd gained at best 1-2 FPS... the OS is not whats holding the emulator back..

this was discussed so many times for PCSX2 also....

[P4T0U]

mabye not create... but modify? like we can modify Arch Linux x86_64 which is very small.. (30 MB) and downloadable here: http://www.archlinux.org/download/

sighs... what a waste of CD's.

[ector]

I'm currently porting Dolphin to Linux, so soon you will be able to do something like this by creating a bootable live-cd, with a stripped down 64-bit linux on it, containing only Dolphin and it's dependencies (wxWindows, GLEW).

This will probably be the best solution for those stuck on 32-bit Windows, although the 32-bit build isn't as slow as it used to be, it's now about 60% of the speed of the 64-bit build.

I'm not going to create this live cd, but if anyone wants to volunteer, PM me after we've released the next Dolphin, probably within the next few months

[Toasty]

Ohhhhhh... a Dolphin LiveCD. Well, I guess I can see the benefit of that. I thought the OP just meant another regular Linux distro that you install.

[Cyberman]

That's actually a decent idea, with a bit of database twiddling etc. it could work well. Although if you are using IMAGES on a mountable volume there might need to be some sort of USB support to get the /etc data to mount your drives in a sane manner.

IE
mount /etc /dev/hdXX-usb -f fat32
or somesuch to have the FS setup consistantly for dolphin64 to function well. Nice thing is that if you have a truely monstrous machine say 16G unit entire disk images could be safely stuffed into a RAM drive, scarey huh?

Anyhow that would be an interesting project to work on. The big issues is GLX and drivers for most available cards. Perhaps a dual boot CD image so that you could start a util to setup a USB drive for the primary boot?

Cyb

[p_025]

This will probably be the best solution for those stuck on 32-bit Windows, although the 32-bit build isn't as slow as it used to be, it's now about 60% of the speed of the 64-bit build.

Many of us are on 64-bit capable processors without the OS to fill it. Though we are stuck on 32-bit windows, this "lite" 64-bit version of a Linux based Dolphin could fill that need, without the hassle of getting new drivers and buying an expensive operating system.