[Media] Another Gecko, the GameCube and Wii emulator, update: texture packs, easier setup and tons of improvements!

TLDR: Gecko is my GameCube and Wii emulator written in Rust. This update adds texture packs, easier setup and more fixes for graphics, audio and performance. Mario also gets his eyes back :)

This release is especially interesting for the ones that were bothered by the system files (DSP, IPL) requirements! No more!! :)

It's been a while since my last update, where I shared about recent performance improvements, savestates and freecam support. I've since been working through more improvements and making Gecko easier to get started with!

For anyone new to the project: Gecko also includes a debugger, a GPU FIFO recorder/player (and a dedicate debugger for it) and various other tools for exploring how these games work!

Some highlights from this update:

Easier setup: A guided setup for game folders and optional system files! Thanks to Dolphin's DSP replacements and Hazel's GameCube IPL HLE, most games can boot without supplying console system dumps. Real dumps are still supported and may also be required for some games!
Texture packs: Gecko now supports Dolphin-style texture packs. It's just a matter of dropping the pack into a folder and starting up the game :) Here's an example of Final Fantasy!
Lots of graphics fixes: Tons of games got fixed, and by tons I really mean a lot this time! Some noteworthy bugs that got fixed: Mario's eyes are back in Super Mario Galaxy, Sunshine's save selection background ocean is blue again and Mario Golf's menu signs no longer disappear behind the sky. Games like Wind Waker, Mario Superstar Baseball and Cel Damage also got graphical accuracy improvements!!
More performance work: Once again, tons of games work much better, though I only optimized for one game in particular: Sam & Max: Season One (it was a WebGPU regression introduced in version 28 in relation to a Vulkan upload path lol)! Fixing it improved performance from 15% to 70%, usually closer to the latter. I also improved CPU emulation which FMVs can benefit a lot from, for example Mario Kart Wii's menus with those gameplay videos baked into the scenes. Also made texture decoding run on the GPU, with improvements to uploads and shader caching as well.
Audio and Wii compatibility: Fixed audio issues in games like Crazy Taxi and an issue blocking Metroid Prime. This update only affected GameCube games, tho quite a lot of them. Also, Mario Kart Wii can now start with a fresh NAND and Wii motion and pointer fixes help games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. There are also separate upright/sideways Wiimote presets and configurable Nunchuk attachment options.
More debugging tools: FIFO Player now has an interactive 3D depth view, which helped investigate why geometry was being hidden or drawn in the wrong place. Had to do some hardware research for this one :

Something unique for this update: I recently started writing blog posts about the bugs behind these fixes, aimed at future emulation developers incl. lots of interactive visual explanations. If you enjoy the technical side of emulation, these might be interesting:

Mario's Missing Eyes and Sunshine's White Ocean: how overflowing alpha values caused two very different looking bugs
z-freeze and Mario Golf's Disappearing Menu: why the sky was covering the menu signs and how one triangle can reuse another triangle's depth
vertex-skip: The Case of Luigi's Extra Triangle: a weird feature I found a patent for :)
WPAR: Why Metroid Prime's Geometry Exploded: a bug I investigated while helping with Lazuli (a GameCube emulator made by a friend of mine that was showcased here a while ago, go check it out!)

As usual, the useful links:

As always, thanks a lot to everyone that provided valuable feedback, tested things on their hardware, encouraged me with this project and let me pick their brains! We'll see each other next time!

PS: I spoilered the release of Sly, my take on modern multi system emulation (also written in Rust, incl. the GUI!) in the last post. It's going public in the next days, so stay tuned for that :) It will also release with a 3 part blog series explaining how GBA graphics work!!