Hacking Nintendont

[pedro702]

From what I've read of the issue on GitHub, this is simply a limitation of Nintendont.

more like a limitation of the wii itself, the wii is extremely slow to send data and read data, so the more you have the worse it will be, while if you use like a wii and then like pc with dolphin and such it gets much better, its the wiis hardware fault really, since it wasnt designed to do this in the first place.

 

[kingjinxy2]

more like a limitation of the wii itself, the wii is extremely slow to send data and read data, so the more you have the worse it will be, while if you use like a wii and then like pc with dolphin and such it gets much better, its the wiis hardware fault really, since it wasnt designed to do this in the first place.

So is it really a limitation of the USB-Ethernet Adapter? I wonder if an Ethernet port could be modded into a Wii...

 

[pedro702]

So is it really a limitation of the USB-Ethernet Adapter? I wonder if an Ethernet port could be modded into a Wii...

no its not the limitation of the adapter but how the wii reads and sends data trough it, the adapter isnt maxed at all in speed.

remenber that bba was made using a direct link there was no network involved so bba was made using direct connection between 2 consoles, while on wii the wii needs to acess the netwrok to search for pakets then read them and then send them and trough a router to another console, all that is much more work than jsut a gc seeing another and send pakets directly to one another with no router or networks involved.

you will never get the best performance than on a gc using direct cable.

 

[kingjinxy2]

no its not the limitation of the adapter but how the wii reads and sends data trough it, the adapter isnt maxed at all in speed.

remenber that bba was made using a direct link there was no network involved so bba was made using direct connection between 2 consoles, while on wii the wii needs to acess the netwrok to search for pakets then read them and then send them and trough a router to another console, all that is much more work than jsut a gc seeing another and send pakets directly to one another with no router or networks involved.

you will never get the best performance than on a gc using direct cable.

What happens when you hook two Wiis together directly? I've done it before and still noticed some minor stutters.

 

[pedro702]

What happens when you hook two Wiis together directly? I've done it before and still noticed some minor stutters.

direcly doest work very well afaik since the wii is always looking for internet connecting since for the wii firmware to be considered(connected) is if internet is available and if it isnt its always searching for it, like i said the wii wasnt designed for system links unlike gc,ps1,atari jaguars and such consoles were back in the day, it was designed to connect to a server and then to read data and send from a server.

 

[kingjinxy2]

direcly doest work very well afaik since the wii is always looking for internet connecting since for the wii firmware to be considered(connected) is if internet is available and if it isnt its always searching for it, like i said the wii wasnt designed for system links unlike gc,ps1,atari jaguars and such consoles were back in the day, it was designed to connect to a server and then to read data and send from a server.

Let me see if I've got this right.

So in summary, the GameCube's network adapter functionality works so well for multiplayer because was designed for that reason. This may be supported by the fact that it has a custom chipset and the fact that it is accessed via Serial Port 1 and not USB. What's more, the (expensive!) adapter has a custom chipset that, to my knowledge, has never been cloned.

The Wii, on the other hand, does not have Serial Port 1, and I have no idea if some way exists to expose it. Instead, Internet access is the primary focus of the console's network capabilities, so the Wii's IOSes that handle network functionality are not designed for high-speed, low-latency communication. They are what allow games to communicate via Wi-Fi or Ethernet without having to write specific code for each, so they are more of a high-level implementation.

I assume that Nintendont uses IOS to handle BBA emulation, so IOS is the real bottleneck here if I am correct so far. Therefore, the only way to improve BBA emulation would be to use some kind of custom IOS (or driver?) to access the ethernet adapter or Wi-Fi adapter. Of course, Nintendont is basically complete and the BBA emulation is good enough for most people, so I wouldn't expect that to happen.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[pedro702]

Let me see if I've got this right.

So in summary, the GameCube's network adapter functionality works so well for multiplayer because was designed for that reason. This may be supported by the fact that it has a custom chipset and the fact that it is accessed via Serial Port 1 and not USB. What's more, the (expensive!) adapter has a custom chipset that, to my knowledge, has never been cloned.

The Wii, on the other hand, does not have Serial Port 1, and I have no idea if some way exists to expose it. Instead, Internet access is the primary focus of the console's network capabilities, so the Wii's IOSes that handle network functionality are not designed for high-speed, low-latency communication. They are what allow games to communicate via Wi-Fi or Ethernet without having to write specific code for each, so they are more of a high-level implementation.

I assume that Nintendont uses IOS to handle BBA emulation, so IOS is the real bottleneck here if I am correct so far. Therefore, the only way to improve BBA emulation would be to use some kind of custom IOS (or driver?) to access the ethernet adapter or Wi-Fi adapter. Of course, Nintendont is basically complete and the BBA emulation is good enough for most people, so I wouldn't expect that to happen.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

preety much that, we just use the ios designed for wifi codding being it wired or wireless, its the same ios that handle the connection, we cant connect directly to serial port 1 , dont even know if the wii was made inside with such connection, probably not.

 

[MetoMeto]

If this was possible, it would make your games look like absolute trash. Unlike the Wii U, the Wii's native aspect ratio is 4:3 and it uses anamorphic widescreen to display 16:9 content in the 4:3 area. Then the TV or monitor is in charge of correcting back to the intended 16:9 display.

People sometimes describe this as being "fake" widescreen, which, not really, it's still widescreen, but you're not gaining any additional resolution when you run the Wii in widescreen, which is what people actually mean.

Because this is how the Wii works, you can't "add" black pillars to the sides of the image, but rather you have to subtract from the total (4:3) resolution in order to black out the edges. You'd be losing a full quarter of the image resolution just to display empty black bars.

This isn't a problem on the Wii U because the Wii U is essentially taking over the job of your TV and adjusting the image scaling between 16:9 and 4:3. It's not so much "adding" black bars as it is not stretching the 4:3 image out to 16:9.

My GPU does this all the time on a PC, in scaling options.
I just cant understand "not possible".
Im sure if someone really want they would make it, but i think no one ants to bother with the wii anymore.

Like your explanation though!

 

[ccfman2004]

Nintendont is not an emulator. It plays GameCube games natively in Wii mode and is limited to Wii hardware

 

[Vague Rant]

My GPU does this all the time on a PC, in scaling options.
I just cant understand "not possible".
Im sure if someone really want they would make it, but i think no one ants to bother with the wii anymore.

Like your explanation though!

I mean, there's a lot of things you can do on a modern GPU that you can't do on a Wii, which is from 2006 and based closely on the GameCube hardware from 2001. Factoring in the time to finalize the console and finish production, these are almost certainly designs that are 20+ years old.

The embedded framebuffer of the Wii and GameCube is exactly the same size, only 640 pixels wide. GameCube games are already using those 640 pixels to display GameCube games; there's no extra space left over for black bars. Since you can't just add more pixels, if you want black bars, they have to use some of the pixels that are currently displaying your games, sacrificing image quality.

Your PC is probably running in at least 1980*1080, so you can fit a GameCube game running at 640*480 twice or more into that space with room to spare for black bars: e.g 1280*960 leaves you with 700 pixels you can use for black bars or anything else you want. A Wii can't do any of that.

 

[ccfman2004]

I mean, there's a lot of things you can do on a modern GPU that you can't do on a Wii, which is from 2006 and based closely on the GameCube hardware from 2001. Factoring in the time to finalize the console and finish production, these are almost certainly designs that are 20+ years old.

The embedded framebuffer of the Wii and GameCube is exactly the same size, only 640 pixels wide. GameCube games are already using those 640 pixels to display GameCube games; there's no extra space left over for black bars. Since you can't just add more pixels, if you want black bars, they have to use some of the pixels that are currently displaying your games, sacrificing image quality.

Your PC is probably running in at least 1980*1080, so you can fit a GameCube game running at 640*480 twice or more into that space with room to spare for black bars: e.g 1280*960 leaves you with 700 pixels you can use for black bars or anything else you want. A Wii can't do any of that.

This is exactly why we keep telling people to stop comparing Nintendont to Dolphin as they are completely different. Just because you can do something in Dolphin doesn't mean it can be done in Nintendont. Computers from 20 years ago are more powerful than the Wii. The Wii has the same 24MB of T1-SRAM the GameCube had with an additional 64MB of GDDR3 RAM. The CPU is only slightly faster than the GameCube, 724MHz vs 486MHz. All in all the Wii is very weak compared to computers of that time.

 

[revvv]

Hi, I have forked Nintendont to support my XBOX360 controller:

https://github.com/revvv/Nintendont-XBOX360

Unfortunately I could not use the USB API. I tried, but after messing around with the Makfiles my conclusion was that the binary gets too big. (cannot move location counter backwards) Now I use ioctls just like Nintendont...

It works fine with Super Mario Sunshine on Wii.

 

[cimerio]

for me, didn't work. the nintendont doesn't show in Homebrew Channel.
I have the usbloadergx too. it doesn't read my sd card. actually, it try and exit so fast that I can't read the message. it goes to try read a hdd drive.

I can't access my sd card from wii menu. it is right? "that device can't be used"

I have a external hdd. I wonder if should try the nintendont there

 

[ccfman2004]

for me, didn't work. the nintendont doesn't show in Homebrew Channel.
I have the usbloadergx too. it doesn't read my sd card. actually, it try and exit so fast that I can't read the message. it goes to try read a hdd drive.

I can't access my sd card from wii menu. it is right? "that device can't be used"

I have a external hdd. I wonder if should try the nintendont there

Sounds like your SD card is defective or too big. I believe the Wii can only read cards 32gb or smaller with the FAT32 format.

 

[cimerio]

Sounds like your SD card is defective or too big. I believe the Wii can only read cards 32gb or smaller with the FAT32 format.

hummm. actually I was using a samsung evo 64gb micro sd with adapter. the format, I don't know. its a smartphone card. maybe in ntfs

 

[ccfman2004]

hummm. actually I was using a samsung evo 64gb micro sd with adapter. the format, I don't know. its a smartphone card. maybe in ntfs

MicroSD cards are known to have issues in the Wii due to needing an adapter. I have issues with certain mircoSD cards being read in my computer. I have this Sandisk mircoSD card that does not work with any of my Samsung adapters for no apparent reason. NTFS formatted SD cards will not work. Homebrew Channel will read apps from a FAT32 formatted USB HDD.

 

[BadPeach]

Hi guys.
I'm having some troubles with Nintendont and the PS4 controllers. The wii freeze when i try to press any button or move it only. I ve tried another one, with another cable , same result.
I also connect it in the port where i used to connect my HDD with the wii games: at first it worked then after 15 minutes of playing the wii freezed again . I really don't know what to do anymore, i tried to play with PS3 controller, no problems and no issues, but all my PS3 controllers have some problems with the analogic stick , so for me it is really impossible to play with them

Could you help me?

Thanx

 

[ca032769]

MicroSD cards are known to have issues in the Wii due to needing an adapter. I have issues with certain mircoSD cards being read in my computer. I have this Sandisk mircoSD card that does not work with any of my Samsung adapters for no apparent reason. NTFS formatted SD cards will not work. Homebrew Channel will read apps from a FAT32 formatted USB HDD.

Probably the adapter causing issues.

I use 64GB, 128GB, 256GB & 512GB SDXC cards all the time without issue. Any Wii with a system menu 4.0 & above can read these larger cards.

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XJRX01M/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_7?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

 

[cimerio]

I managed to do it...
with a Toshiba sdhc 4gb class 4.
later, I will try a Sandisk Extreme sdxc V30 that I own.
4gb is little for GameCube games

 

[Spearel18]

Can the alpha dither removal (like the one from SWISS) be implemented in Nintendont?
I just started playing Windwaker Randomizer and the dithering and screen-door effect(vertical lines) are REALLY noticeable every time the screen fades to white or in dark environments and it bugs me a little.
Would be awesome if this option was in Nintendont as well.