Homebrew Super Mario War and NEC PC8801 Emulator

[jpsm]

Hi all,

I whould like to share some Nintendo Wii homebrew I recently started to develop.

The first project I call Wii88 [0] and is a port of the latest version (0.6.4) of the NEC PC8801 emulator QUASI88. For now, it supports up to two Wii Remotes and it is possible to configure the keyboard keys mapping in individual files for each game image.

The second project is a port of Super Mario War Wii [1]. It's a interesting fan made game but all Nintendo Wii ports I tried constantly freezes with DSI errors. After some research I found some memory leak problems and solved almost all of them. It seems the DSI errors are possible gone. I started with the code base from Tantric Wii port version 1.2 (which is based on the official latest stable version of SMW, i.e. 1.7 AFE).

Best regards!

[0] https://github.com/jpzm/wii88
[1] https://github.com/jpzm/smwwii

 

[Sticksandstones]

Ah, how I love Super Mario War. Best of luck to you.

 

[sabandellos]

I'll publish this at @SoloEmuladores (twitter) this sat/25/08/2017 and sun/26/08/2017
Thanks a lot for this great work!!!!!

 

[Maeson]

Man, I remember wanting to like Super Mario War, but those freezes made it impossible. I can't believe this is happening!

 

[niuus]

New homebrew for the Wii? Amazing, i say! Best of luck for your projects. I'll be trying them later.

 

[jpsm]

Thank you all.

I appreciate if you can give feedback about SMW port and Wii88. The SMW port is ready to play and I tested it with my son this week. No DSI errors or any other problems until now. The Wii88, as well as QUASI88, need some files in order to work properly. There is a ready-to-play package, and nice tutorial, based on first release of Wii88 made by Rogério Torres [0] (in Portuguese). You may use it as a basis and overwrite with new version.

Best regards!

[0] goo.gl/pNP2mn

 

[SANIC]

Does the Super Mario War port have Wiimote + support?

 

[jpsm]

Does the Super Mario War port have Wiimote + support?

Yes. It was built with the latest versions of libogc and devkitPPC.

 

[marmalade]

Awesome, Super Mario War is at long last functional on the Wii, thanks! I'll mention some other Wii homebrew that could use some tweaks to be optimal:

Wolfenstein 3D + Spear of Destiny Wii doesn't have classic controller support and brightness is overly high

Retroguru games like Xump have overscan issue where image is larger than TV display and cuts off

WiiMednafen is the same as above where the screen is too big for certain TVs, most noticeable when game screen size is set to full screen or fill screen

 

[niuus]

WiiMednafen is the same as above where the screen is too big for certain TVs, most noticeable when game screen size is set to full screen or fill screen

I would say the big weakness of WiiMednafen right now is the lack of Wii U Pro Controller support (and 3rd party Wiimotes of course), which could be fixed by recompiling it with the latest libraries. The thing is, it stopped compiling since devkit r26 and upwards.

 

[Flo_o]

Hi João, thank you so much for your hard work on Super Mario Wars! The crashes are totally gone, i only have a few problems, i hope they can be fixed:

- Sometimes (especially in the menu section), the audio is glitched-up, always when press start to start a new battle or tournament, is that because the game is a bit heavy for the Wii? Or can this audio glitch be fixed?
- A huge request; the audio does not loop gapless, there is always a 1 second pauze after a music track when it is finished, is it possible to make it loop gapless?
- Also, i saw that the music tracks are in .MP3, is it possible add a feature so that the tracks can be in .WAV instead of .MP3?

Thanks again João for improving this awesome game!

 

[Maeson]

Certainly, it feels like it freezes, whenever tries to load something in the menu (for example, when you push 2 to start a game, and I guess it loads the map, characters, etc), it stops for a few seconds, the sound freezes too, and then the game proceeds to work again.

I don't know if it could be fixed (maybe a "Now Loading" popping up and the sound being muted during that load would make it feel better?).
Though, sometimes it does not happen at all. it's weird...

That said, I did not experience a crash yet; so that's great news! Which is not great is the AI. It's RUTHLESS, damn. I didn't remember it being so effective at making me angry!

 

[Jasjar]

SMWW doesn't seem to work on Dolphin, oh well. It just exits for some reason. Well at least Dolphin can handle memory leaks so the original one works...

 

[jpsm]

Thank you for the feedback.

Awesome, Super Mario War is at long last functional on the Wii, thanks! I'll mention some other Wii homebrew that could use some tweaks to be optimal...

Thanks, I will take a look at these.

Hi João, thank you so much for your hard work on Super Mario Wars! The crashes are totally gone, i only have a few problems, i hope they can be fixed...

Probably it is a natural time to load maps. The audio problem(s) are possible easy to fix. I will see this in one week, probably. It is easier to remember If you post an issue on GitHub page. You want to use .WAV format for better quality?

Certainly, it feels like it freezes, whenever tries to load something in the menu (for example, when you push 2 to start a game, and I guess it loads the map, characters, etc), it stops for a few seconds, the sound freezes too, and then the game proceeds to work again...

Interesting, it does happen to me either. It will be nice if you could describe this problem on GitHub issue page.

SMWW doesn't seem to work on Dolphin, oh well. It just exits for some reason. Well at least Dolphin can handle memory leaks so the original one works...

I did not tested on Dolphin, but I think I could try it in the near future. This is probably related to my TV overscan adjustment code, which is possible not necessary when using Dolphin.

 

[Flo_o]

Probably it is a natural time to load maps. The audio problem(s) are possible easy to fix. I will see this in one week, probably. It is easier to remember If you post an issue on GitHub page. You want to use .WAV format for better quality?

Hi João, awesome to hear! Well, i'm not familiar with GitHub, so posting it here is easier for me. Yes, WAVE for better music quality, this combined with a gapless loop will be perfect

 

[xXJMcCarthyXx]

I'm getting the Exception (DSI) occurred! Error. I'll load it from the HBC, it'll boot up all the way to the loading title screen then crash to the Exception (DSI) occurred! screen then freeze. Again I have tried several different SD cards, all formatted to FAT32. I've also have tried this on two different WII consoles (4.3U) same problem occurs on both. and I have re-modded multiple of times. Any Idea what would be causing this ?

 

[jpsm]

I'm getting the Exception (DSI) occurred! Error. I'll load it from the HBC, it'll boot up all the way to the loading title screen then crash to the Exception (DSI) occurred! screen then freeze. Again I have tried several different SD cards, all formatted to FAT32. I've also have tried this on two different WII consoles (4.3U) same problem occurs on both. and I have re-modded multiple of times. Any Idea what would be causing this ?

Hi! Are you using the version from my GitHub? I'm using 4.3U too. Did it crashed in the loading screen with game title graphics and credits or before that?

 

[markehmus]

i loved SMW on xbox back in the day... jpsm could you look into the new WiiVC injection like nintendont so we can have a channel on WiiU of this and use gamepad as a controller against the kids using WiiMotes

 

[xXJMcCarthyXx]

Hi! Are you using the version from my GitHub? I'm using 4.3U too. Did it crashed in the loading screen with game title graphics and credits or before that?

Yes, I am using the one from your Github, and yes it crashes in the game title credits.

 

[xXJMcCarthyXx]

Hi! Are you using the version from my GitHub? I'm using 4.3U too. Did it crashed in the loading screen with game title graphics and credits or before that?

So by any Chance is there anything I can do to fix this ?