Hacking Coding vWii 3-core support - everything you need to know.

[obcd]

I vagualy remember the mentionning of the development of a microkernel ecosystem for the wiiu. Maybe one of the 30 with the knowledge still thinks it's worth his time? Besides that, wouldn't the linux be a usable system on it's own, specially if we could use all the wiiu memory? After all, other open platforms like the raspberry and steam use linux as well. A decent stripped optimised linux can still boot in a fraction of a minute, and I don't think it's usefull for piracy.
Besides that, if we look in the past, how many consoles had a decent homebrew ecosystem?
On the first xbox, everybody used the official M$ sdk.
Wasn't libogc also based on the official ninty libraries or did I got that wrong?
I wasn't really following the progress on that during the time. Wasn't mini supposed to be the homebrew ecosystem?

Besides that, the Wiiu is again using the PPC architecture which is unknown to most. With the mac's that moved to Intel, and the nextgen M$ and Sony consoles also being x86 based, we could wonder if we need archeologists or high skilled developpers to do the job...
This doesn't mean that knowing how it's security was broken isn't interesting. It just could explain the general lack of interest for most, (sadly) including the game development companies.
Team f0f is probably already working on the next M$ and Sony consoles for the 31C3? Hacking can have as much addiction as gaming (if not more...)

 

[mcchase]

Guys, let's be realistic here. At the glacial speed at which this project has been moving, if we were to release the Wii U mode exploit, it would take 3 years before a viable, legal homebrew ecosystem existed (and by then nobody would care and we'd have had 2.75 years of piracy).

I appreciate the effort and congratulate Maxternal and co. on getting as far as they got, but getting SMP Linux running (which is still a long way off - the trickiest issues around SMP are with coherency, locking between cores, interprocessor interrupts, etc., and not just turning the other cores on) isn't going to convince us that there is enough developer interest in Wii U mode homebrew. I do encourage you to keep going if you're interested in learning (and I'm sure this will be a great learning experience for all involved), but please do not expect me to go "oh, sorry, I was wrong, here's the Wii U exploit" the minute 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' shows 3 CPUs. I would've been impressed if it happened within 2 weeks, maybe a month, but it's been 6.5 months to code a trivial exploit and get basic Linux brought up (nevermind actually getting SMP to work). I appreciate your perseverance, but you have to realize that this doesn't demonstrate that there is enough developer manpower to make homebrew useful.

Maybe the 30c3 talk will gather more developer interest.

That is rather contrary to what you mentioned in your 'shot of espresso' post. I myself am simply interested in a new PPC Linux system to play with, something with a good amount of memory than neither the Playstation 3 or Xbox can offer, and something different from my collection of old Macintosh hardware. Certainly, you don't need me to tell you that PPC is on it's last legs - and people like me are few and far between but please don't assume most of the interest in a Wii-U exploit will based around piracy because I believe there is ample genuine interest by people who go unvoiced. Maxternal (and the rest of the tri-core team) should be congratulated on their efforts, and i sincerely hope when they can demonstrate progress towards functional SMP Linux you reconsider your stance on the exploit release.

 

[Vappy]

Can appreciate your stance, Marcan, and tbh I'm inclined to agree with you. I don't see a viable homebrew scene happening any time soon at all, if ever, which is a damn shame. The gamepad stuff will hopefully at least lead to something publicly useable. Further for Maxternal though, the work he's done has been without actually owning the console himself, which is probably a big part of why it's taken quite as long as it has. Massively thankful for the work he and the people he's working with have done, hoping they can work a bit more efficiently once Max has his own console to test on.

 

[Ray Lewis]

Viable legal ecosystem. My glass was 2/3 full and Marcan drank half of it. Xbox one can be its own dev unit. The One and ps4 have architecture that is easier to dev for. Wii U gamepad seems opened with "stuff" to utilize it. A friend pointed out you cannot simply use fingers to zoom in and out; why cut that corner?

Even if Maxternal had a Wii U he could test quickly but is missing the specialists to do the heavy lifting parts that are missing. I hope the heavy hitters step to the plate after 30c3. Thanks for effore tri core team.

 

[Ninja_Carver]

If 30+ people have access to the WiiU exploit? why not add one more. Maxternal has proven his trustworthiness. Besides, this console is dead. Come on guys, once PS4 and XBONE are in full swing who's going to even look at this piece of crap? I haven't touched my U in 2 months until last weekend. How much damage could releasing an exploit to a community trusted individual who clearly has interest and enjoys a challenge do? Make him sign a NDA or something, gawd. I'm actually starting to feel bad that so much work and effort has gone into this. I have to stay I am so utterly shocked at the persistence Max has. I would have given up (and have to some extent) long ago. Max- you must be one hell of a dude in real life

EDIT: and by the way marcan/f0f he shares the same views as most of you do. Throughout this project he's been very diligent addressing potential piracy issues. Let him see what he can do with a working exploit please.

 

[the_randomizer]

If 30+ people have access to the WiiU exploit? why not add one more. Maxternal has proven his trustworthiness. Besides, this console is dead. Come on guys, once PS4 and XBONE are in full swing who's going to even look at this piece of crap? I haven't touched my U in 2 months until last weekend. How much damage could releasing an exploit to a community trusted individual who clearly has interest and enjoys a challenge do? Make him sign a NDA or something, gawd. I'm actually starting to feel bad that so much work and effort has gone into this. I have to stay I am so utterly shocked at the persistence Max has. I would have given up (and have to some extent) long ago. Max- you must be one hell of a dude in real life

EDIT: and by the way marcan/f0f he shares the same views as most of you do. Throughout this project he's been very diligent addressing potential piracy issues. Let him see what he can do with a working exploit please.

At this point, only time can tell what will happen, but I too wish for better emulators on the Wii U, I couldn't give a damn about game backups on this thing.

 

[Deletedmember331810]

We are going to get Max a Wii U, don't worry, Carver... This is far from over...

Maxternal, as you stated, has more persistence than most and I am also quite surprised as to his unwillingness to give up! I am amazed at at how much he has accomplished without even ever laying his hands on the console...

 

[Ray Lewis]

If 30+ people have access to the WiiU exploit? why not add one more. Maxternal has proven his trustworthiness. Besides, this console is dead. Come on guys, once PS4 and XBONE are in full swing who's going to even look at this piece of crap? I haven't touched my U in 2 months until last weekend. How much damage could releasing an exploit to a community trusted individual who clearly has interest and enjoys a challenge do? Make him sign a NDA or something, gawd. I'm actually starting to feel bad that so much work and effort has gone into this. I have to stay I am so utterly shocked at the persistence Max has. I would have given up (and have to some extent) long ago. Max- you must be one hell of a dude in real life

Yes, you get it. x86 is easier to dev for as there are a LOT of "things" that translate into that platform. Nintendo is so propietary with the Wii U that the SMP and other stuff Marcan mentioned seems to be years away. It also seems to need to be made from scratch, unlike other architectures that might need tweaking but the bulk of the work is likely already in linux or even another os or two. Marcan did mention others becoming interested after 30c3. Marcan also mentioned this taking YEARS.

The gamepad seems to have been broken wide open in every single way. Sharing this does not give an open key to piracy (that I can see). This is why I referenced the PS4 and Xbone. It seems we get the gamepad (firmware not encrypted per posts I've read, upgradeable also), and no Wii U dev ecosystem within reach short of several years at this pace unless others get involved...who have little to no interest right now. Maybe this will change?

I get the Wii U exploit part will lead to piracy. Ironically, dev work from the Wii U side seems like the only way this will get done. Wii U side uses three cores already, has full access, and my gut says that would make it a lot easier. Instead of going the route of racing attack, program this, trying to get three cores running from scratch, getting SMP working, getting around to other parts of Wii U hardware like the ram, it might shorten the trip. ios on Wii U mode has a lot of what is needed. People act like they developed everything from scratch when it really ends up as a cut/paste/modify as needed type of picture. Unfortunately, that route through Wii U mode makes it to where Marcan said it would go, which is piracy. Loaders, security bypassed, and no guarantees of homebrew at all.

I did ignore a few people, but those who I actually care about can see I am taking a macro view here. I hold out hope, but realism must at some point. Maxternal wants homebrew, has interest, not like it matters, but I agree 100% with Ninja. Privately give him the exploit and get him INTO the Wii U side. Maybe give some guidance from there (a little if he asks). Maybe a few trustworthy people may help and be in that inner circle. I am thankful people came to help, but Marcan is the expert and something needs to change for serious progress to be made.

 

[delroth]

He might have a lot of persistence, but the results aren't really there, tbh. As Marcan said, it's been a long time since he started working on this exploit, and nothing came out of it yet.

The gamepad stuff is going to get released soon (guess what would be a nice milestone for releasing this kind of stuff?), mostly because as you said there is no piracy implications to releasing it (unfortunately there are still some bad implications - ex. counterfeited hardware and controllers with cheats/macros for online games included, but they are minor enough to not care about them in my opinion). It will be interesting to see what people will do with it, especially since in my opinion it's basically the only interesting part of the Wii U for homebrews.

 

[Ray Lewis]

He might have a lot of persistence, but the results aren't really there, tbh. As Marcan said, it's been a long time since he started working on this exploit, and nothing came out of it yet.

The gamepad stuff is going to get released soon (guess what would be a nice milestone for releasing this kind of stuff?), mostly because as you said there is no piracy implications to releasing it (unfortunately there are still some bad implications - ex. counterfeited hardware and controllers with cheats/macros for online games included, but they are minor enough to not care about them in my opinion). It will be interesting to see what people will do with it, especially since in my opinion it's basically the only interesting part of the Wii U for homebrews.

Thanks for that and the work you've done. The write up I did read was a blast to check out. I did not even consider the conterfeit hardware angle with your work. Looking forward to your presentation.

EDIT: thanks to Sven, Marcan, Comex, and others not known/named for the work Marcan has shared. I do apologize if this post is flaming anyone. Just to get ahead, sorry for flaming you with this post delroth. This is sarcasm for when people accuse me of flaming when I thanked delroth and said his work was cool.

 

[Maxternal]

Well, I'm glad to see an increase in activity on this thread (even if some of that is off topic) To tell the truth, yes, I DID originally hope that creating this thread would end up attracting more interested developers to it so that this could be done in a GROUP effort. I didn't originally consider myself capable of doing anything more than a simple ASMP 3-core library for vWii to help developers add SOME 3-core functionality to existing libogc apps while the more experienced developers worked on the more complicated Linux stuff. It's ended up, though, that while many others devs voiced interest, finding/making time to help out never really happened. (Although I sometimes wonder if I didn't scare people off by starting right with Assembly from the beginning. There IS a LOT of C programming involved in this as well.) Don't get me wrong, though. There HAVE been other devs involved with this. Joostin has added a few pieces and done a lot of code cleanup. Crediar also gave us a useful bit of code and there were others who I get the feeling prefer not to be mentioned. Otherwise, yes, I do admit this has mostly been me, myself, finding small pockets of free time to read up on things, do some coding, send a little test file over to my trusty testers and wait for a response (and repeat).

No worries, though. I DO find that this has been and will continue to be a great learning experience and do plan to continue. I find the process intriguing. Even if a more experienced dev were to come along and wanted to take control and dive into the more complex parts of this themselves, I would still be very interested in helping out with what I can. If this doesn't end up happening (I somehow doubt it but I can always cross my fingers) I think I'll still have lots of fun trying to figure this out with only the present level of help I have now right down to a fully working Linux kernel ... even if that does take years.

( truthfully, if there were a way to make a full time job out of writing Wii/vWii homebrew, I'd do it ... but unfortunately that's not gonna happen )

 

[the_randomizer]

Maxternal, keep up the good work, I love reading about your guys' findings when it comes to Wii U hacks and the inner-workings of Linux.

 

[raulpica]

I don't know what you guys' problem with Ray Lewis is, but if you don't like his posts, just ignore them and keep scrolling.

Derailing an entire thread just to express hate and displeasure towards another member is way worse than posting some slightly non-comprehensible posts every now and then.

Keep in mind that not everyone is a native speaker of English, so bear with it.

 

[crono141]

I can second the sentiment on not caring about the ability to pirate WiiU level games. My Wii HDD is full of games I backed up myself, a romhack, and one title that is literally impossible to find in store. The biggest reason I have the Wii hacked is so I can bring my entire library of Wii titles with me wherever I go. What I would hope to get from a WiiU level hack is upscaled Wii software (since, like GC mode on the Wii, Wii mode on the WiiU is just underclocked). And now that I think about it, upscaled gamecube games as well, as my GC library is similarly vast. Don't you think Tueidj would like to play PSO in HD? I'm sure once the exploit is public and the greater community can unleash their imaginations, that the WiiU homebrew scene could get quite active.

To be honest, the thing I want most is DS/(eventual)3DS emulation with the gamepad. I know this will probably be possible (and easier) on PC, but not all of us have 5ghz wireless N routers to be able to connect our gamepads to our PCs with. I also feel that a WiiU implementation would be more elegant in the long run.

I disagree that the WiiU is commercially dead. Nintendo is just getting started this holiday. But if in a year and a half sales are still very bad, I will be inclined to agree that there's no real good reason not to release the exploit at that point.

 

[yuyuyup]

Interest in the Wii U will CERTAINLY pick up for two viable reasons: essential Nintendo titles are coming out, and the eventual repurposing of the tablet controller as a pc input/output device will certainly increase the value of owning the system. It's disappointing to hear further pessimism from Marcan, but whether or not he follows through with sharing an exploit, I do not regret donating to Maxternal (who would probably NOT be asking for donations if we weren't all under the impression that Marcan was going to actually follow through.) The Wii U will eventually be cracked, and he can enjoy a Uk3y with the rest of us.

EDIT: a message to Marcan, please amend your famous "shot of espresso" post to reflect your moving of the goalposts.

 

[jammybudga777]

the thing i like most is the fact that max is open about the project i.e isn't scarried to let somebody else jump in and lead the way or for others to jump in and follow with a little help. its also good to hear your enjoying it and learning as you go along. keep up the great work max and possible co.

 

[Pogostick]

Appreciate your time and Merry f'ng Thanksgiving!

What's the matter? Did we tick you off in any way?

Also Maxternal you should add the links in LastCupOfSorrow's signature to your starting post.

 

[Deletedmember331810]

Actually, MOD, my response was to YUPYUPYUP and was not flaming and was HELPING THE thread so I guess I will just repost it.

@yupyupyup - In all fairness, it was me who asked for you guys to donate to Maxternal, not Max himself. Maxternal is not selfish enough to ask people to donate. I am asking because we need to get this guy a Wii U. The things he has accomplished WITHOUT one are quite amazing indeed. We need to get this guy a Wii U so he can figure this out, plain and simple. This is the biggest roadblock for him in not having a console to actually work on. It is easy for 30+ developers to critique and criticize when they had one another to fall back on when things got tough, plenty of Wii U's and all of the tools in the world to dump chips and the likes. It is easy to talk when you have all of those things...

Regardless, Max needs a Wii U because without him having one, this project will never see the light of day. Get donating, y'all! The elitists need to be proven wrong and their heads need a little deflating...

 

[crono141]

Here's a crazy thought for a WiiU level "homebrew". Port of SteamOS. Even if the apps themselves wouldn't work without being recompiled, I bet the game streaming would.

 

[JoostinOnline]

I appreciate your perseverance, but you have to realize that this doesn't demonstrate that there is enough developer manpower to make homebrew useful.

I don't want to make any assumptions, so I'd like you to clarify something. Are you saying that, no matter what happens now, it's too late for you to release anything?