Emulation I noticed there is WonderSwan Emulators for Wii

[raxadian]

I noticed there is no WonderSwan Emulators for Wii, but there is one for the Nintendo DS that's still getting updated. I guess that's only being less that twenty games that can ve played in English, including fan translations; there is just no interest?

Edit: To just get an emulator that works for Wonderswan, see the WiiMednafen 0.3 threadmark. To make something with better emulation see the How to turn turn a RetroArch Wii / RA-HEXAeco core into a standalone emulator threadmark.

 

[r1vver]

None at all? How about Mednafen as WiiMednafen and as the core for that RA crap?

 

[TheDerpyDolphin]

https://wiibrew.org/wiki/WiiMednafen
This can emulate WonderSwan, along with a few other consoles.

 

[raxadian]

https://wiibrew.org/wiki/WiiMednafen
This can emulate WonderSwan, along with a few other consoles.

That an alpha release that has not updated since 2015., unfortunately. Also almost everything else that it can emulate has more recent emulators for the Wii.

 

[JuanMena]

I've been playing Megaman Battle Network WS and Rockman & Blues in my wii with the WonderSwan core in RetroArch.

In my opinion, WonderSwan is still an almost exclusively Japanese Handheld, and while there are no important WS US games, the only reason why I'm keeping the corr is for MegaMan BN WS.

If I'm not mistaken, it was supposed to compete with GameBoy which surpasses in every way the poor WS.

 

[raxadian]

In my opinion, WonderSwan is still an almost exclusively Japanese Handheld

There are about 20 games in English, counting fan translations and two releases that were actually in English. And there are several non translated games that are simple enough to be played even without an English translation.

If I'm not mistaken, it was supposed to compete with GameBoy which surpasses in every way the poor WS

Correction the Wonderswan series of consoles was actually more popular in Japan that the aging Gameboy, they were kind of in a draw when the Gameboy Color was around and it was the GBA that actually killed the Wonderswan. Nintendo was lucky Pokemon was such a big hit because otherwise they might actually have lost their mobile game market in Japan.

 

[Maeson]

The RA-Hexaeco core that I've used for a long time works fine, as long as yo turn off VSync so the audio runs normally. I get a sharper picture from that compared to the WiiMednafen version, which hasn't been updated in way too long, but it is functional.

I wish Virtual Boy could run on RA as well as the WS...

And the Wonderswan was quite a bit better from a technical standpoint compared to the GB, which wasn't hard as it appeared a decade after the GB, by that point there wasn't much about competing with the GB as it was trying to get whatever niche you could hold on, that's probably why the system has the Horizontal and Vertical (cool) gimmick too.

It was an honestly neat little device, and the Color version was superior to the GBC too, and both took a single battery instead of two, or the four of the original GB. It's just that by the point these systems appeared, Nintendo already dominated basically the entire handheld market, thus third party developers stood on the GB/C, and not long after, the GBA was set free to keep the domination. There was nothing to be done.

Still got a few cool games, although yeah, a good chunk of the best ones are only in Japanese. But it's far, far away from being the disaster some people think it was... Such people certainly did not know about the Game.com.

At least there's a couple of fan translations, like for the Sa Ga remake, which is quite nice compared to the GB original.

 

[raxadian]

RetroArch

On a Wii? You want the thing to melt?

 

[JuanMena]

On a Wii? You want the thing to melt?

WonderSwan in RetroArch melts the Wii?

 

[raxadian]

WonderSwan in RetroArch melts the Wii?

No, RetroArch itsels melts the Wii.

The thing barely works on a Vita, I can't imagine the Wii version works very welll.

 

[JuanMena]

No, RetroArch itsels melts the Wii.

The thing barely works on a Vita, I can't imagine the Wii version works very welll.

While I agree RetroArch is broken, older versions are working properly with Wii.
If you're curious, I'm currently using 1.9.0 for NES, SNES, GBA, GB, NXEngine, Turbografx, SEGA, NEOGEO Pocket, WonderSwan, FBA and MAME2000 cores.
While CPS1, CPS2, CPS3, NEOGEO and MAME2003 Plus are in 1.7.6.

It's the sweet spot.

 

[SaulFabre]

That an alpha release that has not updated since 2015., unfortunately. Also almost everything else that it can emulate has more recent emulators for the Wii.

No updates since 2015? Nah, that's not true.

I had contact with the author @raz0red time ago on GitHub and he gave me a latest build of 0.3-SNAPSHOT with the latest changes from year 2020 (the last update year).

And it's so much improved comparing to 0.2-pre.

Look on my Downloads section on my profile, i have uploaded it for people having a hard time finding it.

Another alternative is RA Mednafen WonderSwan but i prefer using WiiMednafen 0.3-SNAPSHOT.

Post automatically merged: May 15, 2023

@raxadian my upload of the latest 2021 build of WiiMednafen 0.3-SNAPSHOT
https://gbatemp.net/download/wiimednafen.37238/

 

[raxadian]

RA Mednafen WonderSwan

Link?

While I agree RetroArch is broken, older versions are working properly with Wii.
If you're curious, I'm currently using 1.9.0 for NES, SNES, GBA, GB, NXEngine, Turbografx, SEGA, NEOGEO Pocket, WonderSwan, FBA and MAME2000 cores.
While CPS1, CPS2, CPS3, NEOGEO and MAME2003 Plus are in 1.7.6.

It's the sweet spot.

I want the one were Wonderswan works best, but thanks.

 

[SaulFabre]

Link?

It's included on RetroArch Wii (https://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/1.15.0/nintendo/wii/)

Or better use RA-HEXAeco by @SuperrSonic, this core is also included in there.
Since SuperrSonic doesn't redistribute these cores anymore, i have archived some RA-HEXAeco versions here https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1aqh6plc1cifd/RA-HEXAECO+SuperrSonic+archives

 

[raxadian]

It's included on RetroArch Wii (https://buildbot.libretro.com/stable/1.15.0/nintendo/wii/)

Or better use RA-HEXAeco by @SuperrSonic, this core is also included in there.
Since SuperrSonic doesn't redistribute these cores anymore, i have archived some RA-HEXAeco versions here https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1aqh6plc1cifd/RA-HEXAECO+SuperrSonic+archives

I have no clue how to use RetroArch on the Wii. How the heck do I use cores manually?

Also how hard is to take a core and just turn it into a proper emulator? They tend to work much better that Retroarch.

 

[JuanMena]

Link?



I want the one were Wonderswan works best, but thanks.

It's difficult to know what you mean by "works best".
New versions of WonderSwan cores has broken controls.
So I'm using a more stable (but older) set of cores.

RetroArch 1.9.0 + Beetle WonderSwan is the current version I've been using for Mr.Driller, Megaman Battle Network WS and Rockman & Bass.

Sidenote: Rockman EXE WS... not "Battle Network WS"

Post automatically merged: May 16, 2023

I have no clue how to use RetroArch on the Wii. How the heck do I use cores manually?

Also how hard is to take a core and just turn it into a proper emulator? They tend to work much better that Retroarch.

@raxadian
https://gbatemp.net/threads/retroarch-wii-setting-it-up-mini-tutorial.590900/

Post automatically merged: May 16, 2023

@raxadian
But take my thread for granted, it's highly outdated on terms of errors I've found with different SD's and USB's.

In case you want to set up RA, let me know any questions you might have.

 

[raxadian]

It's difficult to know what you mean by "works best".

Better/more accurate emulation and nothing being broken.

 

[JuanMena]

Or just PM me and I'll share my RetroArch folder so you don't have to set up anything.

 

[SaulFabre]

I have no clue how to use RetroArch on the Wii. How the heck do I use cores manually?

Also how hard is to take a core and just turn it into a proper emulator? They tend to work much better that Retroarch.

For turn a RetroArch Wii / RA-HEXAeco core into a standalone emulator, there's different methods.

For RA-HEXAeco, @SuperrSonic explained it in an old post:

All cores will write to /private/other/ paths are still configurable but to change the path of the main.cfg file you need to use one argument pointing to the file and the core needs to be launched on its own (as seen in the video). For example:

You take the core you want to make standalone, name it boot.dol and give it a meta.xml and add this:

  <arguments>
    <arg>sd:/private/wii/title/SonicTT</arg>
    <arg>Sonic Triple Trouble.gg</arg>
    <arg>sd:/path/to/config/config.cfg</arg>
  </arguments>

Or if you just want the core without a specific game:

  <arguments>
    <arg>sd:/path/to/config/name_of_cfg.cfg</arg>
  </arguments>

If it's from a usb device change sd to usb1

For official standalone RetroArch Wii, i have explained it in this post:

1. Take the dol file of the core you want to use (for example, for PokeMini core, take the pokemini_libretro_wii.dol file) and rename it as boot.dol
2. Make an "info" folder inside the folder (directory) where your core renamed to boot.dol is stored
3. Open the "info" folder
4. Take the the info file of the core you want to use which you have renamed it as boot.dol (ex. i'm using PokeMini, so i'm taking the pokemini_libretro.info file), and copy it and paste it into the "info" folder of your SRL
5. View attachment 316971
6. Once copied and pasted the files you need in the "info" folder, rename the .info file of your current core you want to use for your SRL as "boot.info" (the core info detection won't work if not renamed to boot.info, it must match with the name of the dol file you're currently using)
7. View attachment 316972
8. Then return to the folder (directory) where the boot.dol file is stored, then copy and paste the retroarch-salamander.cfg file (download it in the attachments below this post) into the same directory where the boot.dol of your core is stored, then open it wit Notepad and edit the value with the full path of the boot.dol that will be loaded.
9. View attachment 316973
10. Save the changes made to the retroarch-salamander.cfg file.

Hope this helps

 

[raxadian]

Hope this helps

I threadmarked it, so if anyone wants to do it they can.