If you want Dolphin to handle compressed games directly without extracting every time, use:
Common archive contents and how to handle them 7z file dolphin emulator 2021
While .7z files are excellent for saving bandwidth during downloads, they are not a playable format for Dolphin Emulator. The standard practice for 2021 is to use to extract the archive into a standard .ISO file. This ensures the highest compatibility and the smoothest performance. If you want Dolphin to handle compressed games
