Hardware Useing Starlet for preformace boosts?

[Anxiety_timmy]

Hi.I wanted to know if it was possible (it most likely isn't) to use the starlet core for performance boosts or some other functionality.This may be like dual core (I dunno). This may be used to make n64 emulation better?

 

[GerbilSoft]

The Wii's ARM CPU is an ARM9 running at 243 MHz. The overhead of inter-process communication between the PowerPC CPU and the ARM CPU would vastly outweigh any benefits you'd get by offloading code to the ARM CPU.

 

[Anxiety_timmy]

So then its impossible

 

[ChibiMofo]

Here's a quote from the Dolphin emulation team:
"For a quick aside, on top of having faster variants of the GameCube hardware, the Wii also had a bunch of new hardware related to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, the SD Slot, etc. The PPC can't directly access the new hardware and instead talks to a small ARM coprocessor (Starlet) which manages access."

So the Starlet is already quite busy as you are using your Wii handling all hardware communication.

 

[nitr8]

Anyway, the ARM isn't even able to access Video hardware.
It's simply a security processor (or it's purpose) - nothing more.

 

[ChibiMofo]

Anyway, the ARM isn't even able to access Video hardware.
It's simply a security processor (or it's purpose) - nothing more.

Wrong. Read my message above yours. It's a lot more than just a "security processor." Without it the Wii could not even talk to a Wiimote, let alone communicate with USB devices or do networking.

 

[nitr8]

Wrong. Read my message above yours. It's a lot more than just a "security processor." Without it the Wii could not even talk to a Wiimote, let alone communicate with USB devices or do networking.

Yeah, that is true. But it's pretty much useless without being able to talk to the GPU. ‍