Hacking Nintendont

[FIX94]

Which dol packer you using?
softdev's d0lLZ v0.1, v2 or v3
softdev's DOLPAK which has 7zip support
or DolTool v0.3 by loser 2003?

I dont use any dol compression, the loader code itself is clean, dol compression changes the entry point and has problems with arguments so I just stay with the original.

 

[ccfman2004]

I've just got to say, Nintendont is one of the best pieces of homebrew I've used. The fact you can basically control it with anything (in reason) is very impressive, I've personally tried it on both Wii and Wii U with a DS4, regular GameCube controller, GameCube WaveBird controller, Classic Controller, Wii U Pro pad and nothing fazes it, even with GameCube controllers via the Wii U's USB breakout box. Emulation quality is excellent almost all of the time, the times when it hasn't been are issues caused by the loader not handing off properly (USB Loader GX usually - Metroid Prime seems to be a problem game for it).

The actual GameCube game is not emulated, it is virtualized. Very few things are actually emulated like the Memory Card and controllers and some stuff that the Wii/Wi U doesn't have. The Wii and Wii U use the same CPU, GPU architecture as the GameCube so that kind of stuff is not emulated which is why most GameCube game run at native speeds. I say most as there are some games that don't like the faster clock speeds of the Wii/vWii mode.

 

[pedro702]

I've been having trouble with this thing for a few days now.

Game : Super Smash Bros Melee: 20XX Training Hack Pack
Describe Issue : The mod freezes on a black screen after loading.
Region : US
Wii/Wii U : Wii
Nintendont revision : Latest version
Last known working revision (if any) : (none)
Loader used (if any) with revision no. : (no USB loader as I do not know how to use them yet.)
SD/USB Pen/USB HDD : What does this mean?
SD/USB Pen/USB HDD make, model, size, format & cluster size : PNY Premium, 2GB, FAT32, and what the heck is cluster size?
ISO 1:1/compressed : It's a mod, so I XDelta patched a Melee 1.02 ISO and then put that into the games -> dat boi (my folder name in this case) folder and renamed it to "game."
McEmu/Real Mem card and size : Memcard Emulation is set to on.
Native on/off : What?
Controller used if Native off : I don't know what this is, but I use a Gamecube controller.
Composite/Component/HDMI: I don't know what this is either. I'm not an extremely technical guy.
Anything else you want to explain: I even tried an earlier version (v3.something), and that didn't work either. So I'm stuck. Also, bizarrely enough, even though this particular mod doesn't work, Regular Melee, Alpharad's Silly Melee, and SDRemix all work perfectly fine, though Silly Melee freezes up often, ESPECIALLY in Adventure Mode with Fox.

Considering that isnt a game but a game hack is a totaly diferent thing, hacks use hardcoded adresses for GC mode and nintendont runs gc games in wii mode wich shifts alot of the adresses to diferent regions becuase of wiimode and patches to make the games work, so yeah some hacks depending on what hardcoded adresses they use will not work on nintendont and im guessing the 20XX hack is one of themm, they would need to be rewriten using diferent adresses for the wiimode of nintendont, same reason why some cheats dont work because of this very reason.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

I guess my idea was nice but lets not actually do it in the end, good thing I noticed this so quick.
-got rid of the codehandler right before game boot again introduced in the last build, while it might have been useful for some cheats it seems to reduce game compatibility
-zipping the kernel right before building the loader to get the dol size down a little more

Does the "low memory patch for f-zero gx" still work in 4.419?

 

[pedro702]

Does the "low memory patch for f-zero gx" still work in 4.419?

yeah fix94 added an exception for it.

 

[ccfman2004]

I've been having trouble with this thing for a few days now.

Game : Super Smash Bros Melee: 20XX Training Hack Pack
Describe Issue : The mod freezes on a black screen after loading.
Region : US
Wii/Wii U : Wii
Nintendont revision : Latest version
Last known working revision (if any) : (none)
Loader used (if any) with revision no. : (no USB loader as I do not know how to use them yet.)
SD/USB Pen/USB HDD : What does this mean?
SD/USB Pen/USB HDD make, model, size, format & cluster size : PNY Premium, 2GB, FAT32, and what the heck is cluster size?
ISO 1:1/compressed : It's a mod, so I XDelta patched a Melee 1.02 ISO and then put that into the games -> dat boi (my folder name in this case) folder and renamed it to "game."
McEmu/Real Mem card and size : Memcard Emulation is set to on.
Native on/off : What?
Controller used if Native off : I don't know what this is, but I use a Gamecube controller.
Composite/Component/HDMI: I don't know what this is either. I'm not an extremely technical guy.
Anything else you want to explain: I even tried an earlier version (v3.something), and that didn't work either. So I'm stuck. Also, bizarrely enough, even though this particular mod doesn't work, Regular Melee, Alpharad's Silly Melee, and SDRemix all work perfectly fine, though Silly Melee freezes up often, ESPECIALLY in Adventure Mode with Fox.

It's quite possible that the patch you applied messed up the ISO. I'm sure the patch is version and region specific. I am also sure that you are supposed to use a full 1:1 ISO with a certain MD5 hash.

Also Latest version is not a version number like 2.345. SD/USB Pen/USB HDD is where the game is located (SD Card Slot, USB Flash Drive or USB Hard Disk Drive, USB Flash drives are known to have issues. Cluster size refers to the size of the clusters such as 32Kb or 64Kb, anything other than those will most likely cause issues. Native Control is if you are using a GameCube Controller on a Wii with GameCube ports, this allows the GameCube Controller not to be emulated. A 1:1 ISO means an ISO that is 1.35GB on Windows or 1.46GB on a Mac. It has not been run through DMToolBox or another ISO shrinking program. Composite/Component/HDMI is asking what type of Audio/Video cable are you using.

 

[YershiBear]

Ah, thanks for the definitions, ccfman2004. Maybe its because I was trying to use v1.02 with Melee with the XDelta patch, but said patch is probably for v1 of Melee. I'm going to try applying the patch to a v1 Melee ISO and see if its any better.

 

[ned]

Here's some codes to try on the nddemo,
I only managed to find the height value but these increased the height in dolphin when flicking between the video modes.

Render_in288i/p
02081048 00000120
0208104C 00000120
02081054 00000120
020A8B96 00000120
020A8BA6 00000120
020A8BAE 00000120
021B1466 00000120
021B1468 00000120

Render_in_576i/p
02081048 00000240
0208104C 00000240
02081054 00000240
020A8B96 00000240
020A8BA6 00000240
020A8BAE 00000240
021B1466 00000240
021B1468 00000240

Render_in960i
02081048 000003C0
0208104C 000003C0
02081054 000003C0
020A8B96 000003C0
020A8BA6 000003C0
020A8BAE 000003C0
021B1466 000003C0
021B1468 000003C0

Render_in1152i
02081048 00000480
0208104C 00000480
02081054 00000480
020A8B96 00000480
020A8BA6 00000480
020A8BAE 00000480
021B1466 00000480
021B1468 00000480

 

[ccfman2004]

Ah, thanks for the definitions, ccfman2004. Maybe its because I was trying to use v1.02 with Melee with the XDelta patch, but said patch is probably for v1 of Melee. I'm going to try applying the patch to a v1 Melee ISO and see if its any better.

Make sure to verify the ISO is a good dump before applying the patch.

 

[zekepliskin]

The Wii and Wii U use the same CPU, GPU architecture as the GameCube so that kind of stuff is not emulated which is why most GameCube game run at native speeds.

This part I knew. :-D

I say most as there are some games that don't like the faster clock speeds of the Wii/vWii mode.

This part I didn't - which games are those and why, out of interest?

---

Actually while I'm here I'd like to note that Metroid Prime does not show video correctly if Nintendont is launched from USB Loader GX. It does fine if launched from CFG USB Loader, the Homebrew Channel or a custom forwarder. Please note this on U vWii - problem didn't exist for me on the Wii. All you get is a couple of green boxes, or lots of little green lines depending on which video settings I choose. Any pointers here?

 

[ccfman2004]

This part I didn't - which games are those and why, out of interest?

I'd ask @FIX94 for more info on those. I know one of the games ran at at least 1.5x normal speed. Fix had to add special patches so those game ran at proper speed.

Care to chime in @FIX94?

 

[Eurasiam]

Quick question (this thread has gone up 800 pages sinc ei last checked), how do you get your f-zero GX data to be detected by AX? Is there something special you have to do?

 

[RibShark]

In https://github.com/FIX94/Nintendont/blob/master/NEWS.md there is a mention of "Disc Read Limiting" to emulate the correct disc drive speed. Is this always enabled? If not, how can I enable it? I ask this because on the latest version of Nintendont, load times for Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc are still considerably faster than they would be if playing from a disc.

 

[ccfman2004]

In https://github.com/FIX94/Nintendont/blob/master/NEWS.md there is a mention of "Disc Read Limiting" to emulate the correct disc drive speed. Is this always enabled? If not, how can I enable it? I ask this because on the latest version of Nintendont, load times for Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc are still considerably faster than they would be if playing from a disc.

Disc Read Limiting is defaulted to off. Turning it on slows down loading to what the GameCube's optical drive would be. Keep in mind that some games don't like this setting. Faster loads times are not always a bad thing.

 

[RibShark]

Disc Read Limiting is defaulted to off. Turning it on slows down loading to what the GameCube's optical drive would be. Keep in mind that some games don't like this setting. Faster loads times are not always a bad thing.

I know, but I am trying to limit it to the original loads for speedrunning purposes (as fairly-accurate loads are required). I just can't find the option anywhere.

 

[ccfman2004]

I know, but I am trying to limit it to the original loads for speedrunning purposes (as fairly-accurate loads are required). I just can't find the option anywhere.

Just keep in mind that any speedruns done with Nintendont can't be entered officially.

 

[RibShark]

Just keep in mind that any speedruns done with Nintendont can't be entered officially.

That is up to the community of the game, and upon discussion they are probably happy to except any run as long as the load times (and the game in general) are accurate. I just need to be able to time it and see what they are like.

 

[FIX94]

Disc Read Limiting is defaulted to off. Turning it on slows down loading to what the GameCube's optical drive would be. Keep in mind that some games don't like this setting. Faster loads times are not always a bad thing.

that is wrong, its enabled by default. also "some games don't like this setting" is also completely wrong, its a very needed setting and should not be disabled at all.

I know, but I am trying to limit it to the original loads for speedrunning purposes (as fairly-accurate loads are required). I just can't find the option anywhere.

as said its enabled by default, to actually disable it you would have to set "Unlock Read Speed" to On which I would not recommend because it would basically make load times be different each time you run a game, the default behaviour has a very set timing for everything so you can expect very similar loading results by default.

I'd ask @FIX94 for more info on those. I know one of the games ran at at least 1.5x normal speed. Fix had to add special patches so those game ran at proper speed.

I cant tell you a whole list, its patched in this file which gets applied to every single game, its 1.5x faster simply because the wii processor is 1.5x faster than the gamecube one and some games dont base their times on a global time or frames but on processor ticks passed, so that file basically patches all the known tick measurements to be equal to the wii ones so the games run properly.

 

[RibShark]

as said its enabled by default, to actually disable it you would have to set "Unlock Read Speed" to On which I would not recommend because it would basically make load times be different each time you run a game, the default behaviour has a very set timing for everything so you can expect very similar loading results by default.

Hmm... doesn't seem to be accurate to the speed of the drive normally then, as loads are definitely faster on this game by 2 seconds or more.

 

[FIX94]

Hmm... doesn't seem to be accurate to the speed of the drive normally then, as loads are definitely faster on this game by 2 seconds or more.

the data is an approximation on my wii disc drive so yea, it might be different compared to your wii/gc or whatever. also again its just an approximation so keep that in mind.