Guide

Installing GameCube and Wii Texture Packs

Add a texture pack to Dolphin in three steps

  • 3 StepsTo Install
  • DolphinEmulator
  • 31 Oct 2026Page Updated

GameCube and Wii texture packs on this site are made for Dolphin. Dolphin swaps a game’s own textures for the pack’s files while the game runs, so the disc image is never changed and a pack can be removed at any time.

Note

Each pack page has the short version of these steps, with the exact folder name for that game. This page explains them in more detail.

Step 1 Find Dolphin’s Load/Textures folder

In Dolphin, open File > Open User Folder. Inside it, open Load, then Textures. Create the Textures folder if it isn’t there yet.

Every texture pack goes in its own folder inside Load/Textures/.

Step 2 Extract the pack into a folder named after the game ID

Dolphin only loads a pack from a folder whose name matches the game’s ID. The pack pages name the folder to use, for example GAF for Animal Crossing or RMC for Mario Kart Wii. When the extraction is done, the pack’s files should be directly inside Load/Textures/<ID>/.

  • A three-character ID, such as GZL, covers every release of the game: the USA, Europe and Japan versions share those first three characters. A full six-character ID, such as GZLE01, covers one release only.
  • The game ID is shown in Dolphin’s game list (the Game ID column) and under Properties > Info when right-clicking a game.
  • Wii Virtual Console games have their own IDs. A pack for the Virtual Console release of an N64 game, such as Paper Mario (NAE), goes in the folder for that ID.

Watch out

Some archives already contain the ID folder, and some contain the texture files on their own. Check that the extraction does not create an extra folder level, such as Load/Textures/GAF/GAF/.

Step 3 Turn on custom textures

Open Graphics > Advanced and tick Load Custom Textures. Dolphin then loads the pack the next time the game starts.

Tip

Prefetch Custom Textures loads the whole pack into memory when the game starts, which stops the short pauses that can happen as new textures are first loaded. Large packs need a lot of RAM for this, so leave it off on computers with little memory.

When a pack doesn’t load

  • Check that the folder name matches the game’s ID, and that the textures sit directly inside it.
  • Check that Load Custom Textures is ticked, then restart the game.
  • A pack made with one release of a game can miss some textures on another release or language, where the game’s textures differ.