In late 2012, Dolphin moved to a brand new website - dolphin-emu.org. With complete control of our own home and infrastructure for the first time, we noticed the accessibility to users that it gave us. Not only did we get a new home, but we also got a platform, one that allowed us to communicate directly to our users! We used it to great effect, explaining big changes to the emulator such as tev_fixes_new, getting ahead of controversy when we removed the popular D3D9 graphics backend, calling out broken drivers, and more! The Dolphin Blog was born!
However, we quickly realized that while single dedicated articles were great for big changes, Dolphin was improving all the time and tons of important and/or interesting changes were being overlooked simply because they weren't "big enough" to warrant a feature article. We needed something that would let us cover the continuing development of the emulator. Something like, a periodical article filled with a collection of notable changes, so we could report on the progress of Dolphin within a set window of time. And after much experimentation, we built a format to fulfill this role, and released the first of its kind to the world on the 30th of April, 2014.
Ten years ago today, the first Dolphin Progress Report was launched! Since then, our blog has exploded in popularity, and tens of thousands of people read every Report! And in that time, we've made 79 Dolphin Progress Reports, with 797 Notable Changes, 54 special sections, and 301,807 words! Thanks for reading!
As the writers of the Dolphin blog, we are proud of what we have accomplished here. We've highlighted tons of cool changes, educated our users (and ourselves!) on how Dolphin works, we've helped reel in fresh talent for the emulator, we've helped people get into universities and launch their careers, and even helped a few people meet their life partners! Progress Reports have been so impactful, that they have reached far beyond Dolphin. The once novel concept of emulator Progress Reports has become a standard means of user communication throughout emulation!
But of course, ten years is a long time, and we've changed along the way and will continue to change over time. The Reports may grow or shrink, become more or less frequent, structure and style may change, and writers may come and go. And truth be told, this is hard, and we nearly reached the breaking point a few times along the way. But no matter what happens, as the writers of the Dolphin Blog, it is our goal and our hope that for as long there are Notable Changes being made to Dolphin, there will be Progress Reports to feature them!
Speaking of which, anniversary or not, this is a Progress Report. We have Notable Changes to cover! So without further ado, please enjoy the Tenth Anniversary Dolphin Progress Report, and the last Dolphin Progress Report of the 5.0 era.
