How will this work?

[drakeef]

I own a few gamecube and wii games (also PS1 and 2 but saw a different discussion said its for first two) but how would this let me use those games? Do I put the disk in the drive? Get a digital copy somehow? Never used Dolphin, so unsure how this works.

[Sinister80s]

You must have the games ISO by either ripping the game off your disk or other -legal- ways. You can then simply just use Dolphin to open the ISO.

[CrazyNaut]

The easiest way to load them into Dolphin is to dump them onto an SD card using Wii homebrew. I'd recommend using the website below to learn how to install the Homebrew Channel to your Wii and then use CleanRip to get the ISO file from your discs. You can also use a Wii U through Wii Mode but you won't be able to dump GameCube discs that way.
https://wii.guide/

[Dgo]

Dolphin only emulates GC and Wii. If you want to play PSX and PS2 games (among many systems) use RA instead
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1118310/RetroArch/

[Tapasvi]

Basically, you just play your old console games on PC. With disk or image, whicheves suits you. Emulator is like a virtual console.
Although from the development perspective, emulation is not a simple thing at all. You might read some theory here if interested:
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/High/Low_level_emulation
(but it's absolutely not needed to use any emulator)