[Feature Request]: Release current master and keep rebasing onto dolphin-emu/dolphin

[ronyeh-verbit]

Description

Two things are out of date, and they are separate:

1. Publish a new UWP/Xbox release from the current master tip. The latest GitHub release is v1.1.9 (27 April 2025). master has moved since then; the tip is a80c7b28da (5 November 2025, "ImGuiFrontend: Seperate settings from main file"). Anyone installing from Releases is not getting the November 2025 frontend, ubershader, and manifest work that is already committed.
2. Rebase this tree onto current dolphin-emu/dolphin master, and repeat that on a regular cadence (for example after each upstream stable, or monthly). This repository is not a GitHub fork, so the "Sync fork" button does not exist. The last shared commit with upstream is e6ed939952 (7 August 2025, upstream PR #13839, "Merge pull request #13839 from Tilka/videosw3"). As of 21 September 2026, dolphin-emu/dolphin master is about 1,981 commits and 2,920 files ahead of that point. Because master has not moved since November 2025, the Xbox-only delta on top is a fixed 85 commits / 169 files (+14,420 / −387).

None of the eight forks of this repo have done that rebase. Seven still branch from e6ed939952; thartplay91/dolphin sits on an older base still (8ee64a84c7, 26 April 2025). Two are ahead of this master, but only with port-local work: elias1731/dolphin by 3 commits (submodule/CI repair and "Customizing Pt. I"), and fffathur/dolphinuwp-flipper by 20 commits (frontend themes and backgrounds, through 19 February 2026). The rest are even with a80c7b28da or behind it. The older UWP lines are not a shortcut either: SirMangler/dolphin uwp (last commit 21 June 2024) and worleydl/dolphin-color oct2024-rebase (last commit 24 October 2024) each carry commits this repo does not, so they are diverged rather than simply behind — but they branch from upstream at September 2023 and October 2024, both older than this repo's August 2025 base.

Reason

• Release users are stuck on April 2025 even though the fixes and frontend work through November 2025 are already on master.
• Upstream fixes for rendering, input, IOS, memcard, and DSP never reach Xbox until someone rebases. Several open bugs here ([BUG]: Compiling Shaders before starting a game on D3D12 does not work #9 shader compile on D3D12, [BUG]: Twilight Princess: Missing Shadows #11 missing shadows, [BUG]: Black screen after clicking 'Start' in Soul Calibur II #2 black screen, [BUG]: Controller Input not registering even after binding #19 / [BUG]: Controller Input Gamecube Missing #21 controller binding) are the kind of thing upstream changes every week. Without a rebase there is no way to tell which of those are already fixed in dolphin-emu/dolphin.
• The history of this repo is already "rebase, then fix UWP" (Rebase to 5.0-20109, Cleanup rebase on the oct2024-rebase line, UWP: Rebase to 2503-204). The whole UWP stack was last replayed onto e6ed939952 on 8 August 2025 — that is the August 2025 base. It has not been repeated in the 13 months since.
• A written contribution path lets someone other than the maintainer do the next rebase and open a PR, instead of only asking for a new build.

Examples

Upstream does this continuously: dolphin-emu/dolphin master was updated on 21 September 2026 (tip 233b2dfe6d). This port's own history already records the workflow the next update should follow: 72a4edf6f5 "UWP: Rebase to 2503-204".

What "up to date" means here:

• master contains current dolphin-emu/dolphin master, plus the UWP/ImGui commits replayed on top.
• A GitHub Release is cut from that master, with a version newer than 1.1.9, so Xbox users are not pointed at the April 2025 build.
• The rebase is repeated, not left for another year. A short note in the README (upstream commit, date, and the command below) is enough for the next person.

How to contribute the rebase

master is a linear stack of the UWP/ImGui commits on top of e6ed939952 — 85 commits, no merges — so a normal rebase is the right tool. Do this on a fork and a branch. Do not force-push SternXD/dolphin master.

git clone https://github.com/SternXD/dolphin.git
cd dolphin
git remote add upstream https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin.git
git fetch upstream
git checkout -b rebase-upstream-2026
git rebase upstream/master
git submodule update --init --recursive

Git will stop when both sides edited the same file. As of 21 September 2026, 51 files were touched both by the Xbox commits since e6ed939952 and by upstream since that commit. The notable ones:

• Solution and build: Source/dolphin-emu.sln, Source/Core/DolphinLib.vcxproj, Source/VSProps/Base.Dolphin.props, .gitmodules, Externals/SDL (submodule and exports.props), Externals/implot
• Core hooks the port patches: Source/Core/Core/Core.cpp, Source/Core/Common/FileUtil.cpp, Source/Core/Common/Version.cpp, Source/Core/Core/Config/GraphicsSettings.cpp, Source/Core/Core/Config/MainSettings.cpp, Source/Core/InputCommon/GCAdapter.cpp, Wiimote / hotkey files (WiimoteEmu.cpp, IOWin.cpp, HotkeyManager.cpp, HotkeyScheduler.cpp), Source/Core/Core/IOS/IOS.cpp, Source/Core/UICommon/UICommon.cpp, Source/Core/UICommon/GameFile.cpp
• Graphics: Source/Core/VideoBackends/D3D12/, Source/Core/VideoBackends/D3D/D3DMain.cpp, Source/Core/VideoBackends/D3DCommon/SwapChain.cpp, Source/Core/VideoCommon/VideoBackendBase.cpp, UberShaderVertex.cpp, ShaderCache.cpp, OnScreenUI.cpp, AbstractGfx.cpp

Readme.md is in the overlap too, and it is not a small one: the port cut it down (+16 / −245) while upstream kept editing it (+10 / −84). Take the port's version and re-apply anything upstream added that still applies.

118 other files are Xbox-only (mostly Source/DolphinWinRT/, Source/Core/UICommon/ImGuiMenu/, and Data/Sys/FrontendThemes/). Git will not conflict on them. They can still fail to compile, because they call Core, Video, and input APIs that upstream has changed. After the rebase, build Source/dolphin-emu.sln for UWP (see the compiling guide linked from the README) and fix those call sites. That compile is the real test. A conflict-free rebase that does not build is not done.

When you open the PR:

• Start from current master, one rebase branch, one PR. Leave theme-only or unrelated frontend edits for a second PR.
• In the PR body, name the new upstream tip (git rev-parse upstream/master) and list the files you had to resolve.
• Do not add new certificates, .pfx files, or tokens. Source/DolphinWinRT/DolphinWinRT_TemporaryKey.pfx is already in the tree; do not replace it with a personal signing key.
• Say what you actually ran (which UWP build configuration, and whether a game actually booted on Xbox or the build only compiled).

Do this together with the wiki guide

The Dolphin UWP guide sits on the same wiki as the compiling guide the README links, so the release and the guide should move in one pass — with the rebase runbook above hosted there next to CompilingDolphin and linked from Contributing.md.

Netplay with Dolphin PC is a concrete case, and a plain rebase will not fix it: NetPlayServer::OnConnect rejects a client unless its Common::GetScmRevGitStr() matches the host's, and this port hardcodes e6ed939952… (Source/Core/Common/Version.cpp) — an untagged commit no PC build has. Rebasing onto a release tag and hardcoding it (2606 = 6094cfcf7b…) would pair Xbox with official Dolphin 2606; if cross-play is not a goal, worth saying so in the release notes.

Smaller help without the full rebase: add the commands above to Contributing.md (still upstream's coding-style document, nothing about this port), and a workflow that tags master so 1.1.9 is not the newest download.

[SternXD]

I’m working on it :P

I agree that the releases are pretty out of date, but the rebase side of this isn’t quite as simple as just putting the existing commits on top of current Dolphin and fixing a few conflicts.

Upstream has changed a lot since the last rebase, including removing the Visual Studio solutions entirely, so the UWP build has to be moved over to CMake as part of this. A lot of the port was also built around stuff that either no longer exists upstream or has changed enough that keeping the old port going as is would just make every future update painful.

Because of that, I’m basically rewriting a large part of the port while I bring it up to date.

That should also make releases happen more often. Right now updating the port is a pretty large job every time upstream changes significantly, which is a big reason there hasn’t been another release yet.