Hacking Devolution

[Jacobeian]

Glad somebody noticed that: 007: Nightfire, MOH:EA and the zelda collection all use chain loading. Devolution keeps the game running in a sandbox and patches code on-the-fly, so multiple .dol/.elf files aren't a problem.

It runs under IOS like any other wii homebrew. It could be modified to run under MINI but then would only support SD, which would more or less be the same thing as DML.
It doesn't need to use MIOS/BC/GCmode or emulation, since all the GC hardware is already there. It doesn't even need AHBPROT if you're loading from USB/SD.
The apploader runs from the game disc image, it doesn't really do much besides load the FST and main .dol file into memory.

Sandboxing is easy for CPUs that support protected mode.

I would love to know how this technically works...
I think understand the principle but need confirmation: does it mean you are configuring the CPU before "loading" the game exe so that it generates an exception each time the code is trying to access GC specific memory mapped hardware (such as DVD drive, EXI, ARAM, SI, etc) ? And then your exception handler is basically "emulating" low-level hardware access using Wii hardware access instead and specific code? Special code is probably needed for ARAM so that audio streaming still work I guess, using custom Audio DMA maybe ? Off course, the Wii CPU speed boost helps to keep the original code running at acceptable speed, while having interleaved exception processing running...
Or is it a totally different concept ?

 

[AbdallahTerro]

The new Wii doesn't have GC controller slots, Memory card slots and doesn't read GC discs. Was the other hardware related to the GC also removed?
I hope we can use backup iso's because we already have'em ready for DML.

 

[ploggy]

We need an alpha/beta to try (Wishful think i know) and about the AP, I dont see the point. the Wii's days are numbered officially, so I dont see the point of wrapping protection around the loader. But if he does decide to do it it's up to him and I'll support it

 

[IceIceBird]

We need an alpha/beta to try (Wishful think i know) and about the AP, I dont see the point. the Wii's days are numbered officially, so I dont see the point of wrapping protection around the loader. But if he does decide to do it it's up to him and I'll support it

Let him work on it to the point that he feels it's ready (maybe may as he said). One of the reasons (I think) he made everyone aware of the ongoing development of the app was to save us all some money from buying expensive SD cards to use with DML. -"Thanks"

 

[crwys]

Glad to see Tueidj has answered some of our questions.

The anti piracy only benefits second hand sellers of gamecube games. I have several GC games that won't play and I can only hope I don't have to re-purchase them for devolution.

If Devolution does take this path. As long as you already have all your GC games backed up then instead of re buying the GC games you may be better off with just getting a WODE.
Not sure how many GC games you have and how much they cost but you could figure out which would cost loss.

I'm just hoping we only have to insert the disc once (assuming this is how the anit-warez is going to be done) to play it from USB or SD because if we end up having to have the original disc every single time we play it from USB or SD it kinda defeats the purpose.

 

[deakphreak]

Can newer wiis read a orginal gamecube disc? I was under the impression that they couldn't, I have a old one myself so never tryied it.

The new Wii will load GC games using DML but there is no way to play them since it doesn't work with the wii remote + classic controller. It does not read them from the disc though

 

[OriginalHamster]

Hey, here's a suggestion: Let's stop with the anti-piracy talk. I remember it basically ruining the Riivolution thread a back when it was announced and I would actually like to hear about how tueidj did this. Whatever he does or doesn't do he made it clear he hasn't decided on what it will be yet anyway so you should all stop jumping to conclusions.

Yeah it's pretty sad that someone is working in such a great project, and the only thing that people cares if it will allow their warez.

 

[IceIceBird]

Can newer wiis read a orginal gamecube disc? I was under the impression that they couldn't, I have a old one myself so never tryied it.

The new Wii will load GC games using DML but there is no way to play them since it doesn't work with the wii remote + classic controller. It does not read them from the disc though

Thank you for trying to understand my question my question but I had already received an answer to my question. I knew that you could not play gc games on the new Wii since they lack ports for the memory card and game controls. What I wondered was whether the new Wii could READ a retail gc disc. There were many who at the time speculated that the Devolution app would be used to rip the original games you have directly to the USB hard drive via your own wii and these games could only be played on this particular wii (anti-piracy method). But since Devolution main purpose is to enable the playing of GC games even on the new models of wii (no GC memory card slots or GC game controller ports) I found this statement seemed to be illogical, because I thought that these new Wii could not read the gc discs. So my question was really only one way to double check if this was true.
edit: and the answer was no.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

I honestly would love for someone to send me one of the new 'horizontal' wii's for me to test with. I've got a couple of dead wii boards here that I could easily add in all the components and header i/o's to convert a newer board to use a gc controller. All of the solder pads for the GC stuff are still available on the 'horizontal' boards, but they are just unpopulated. It should not be too hard to swap the components to make it work.

So if anyone would like to send me their wii for me to test with, then I'd greatly appreciate it and you will likely get more functionality out of your newer wii.

 

[Fishaman P]

I know we should stop talking about AP, but I think it would be a good idea if dumps were tied to the target medium (i.e. HDD or SD), not the Wii. I have 15+ GC games, and 15+ Wii games. The main reason I use USB loading is to not have to carry around 15 cases full of air.

EDIT: Also, NTFS support would be great. The functional 32GB limitation on FAT32 means that we can only store about 20 games on that partition, and that's when the partition is otherwise empty. I don't want to have more than one FAT32 partition.

 

[obcd]

Since when is fat32 having a 32GB limitation?
I have a 320GB drive that is partitionned as just 1 fat32 partition used for homebrew, backups, emulator roms and neek2o nands.

 

[JoostinOnline]

I know we should stop talking about AP, but I think it would be a good idea if dumps were tied to the target medium (i.e. HDD or SD), not the Wii. I have 15+ GC games, and 15+ Wii games. The main reason I use USB loading is to not have to carry around 15 cases full of air.

EDIT: Also, NTFS support would be great. The functional 32GB limitation on FAT32 means that we can only store about 20 games on that partition, and that's when the partition is otherwise empty. I don't want to have more than one FAT32 partition.

It has an 1 8 terabyte limitation moron.

Edit: Fixed a typo

 

[ShinyLatios]

Since when is fat32 having a 32GB limitation?
I have a 320GB drive that is partitionned as just 1 fat32 partition used for homebrew, backups, emulator roms and neek2o nands.

about that, see I learnt that 32GB limit thing in my class today... but I was like "then how the frig is my 1TB drive FULLY Fat32 O.o
friggin IT school is teaching me worse than the internet and just practicing =.=

Also, most of my gamecube games that I still have are unplayable due to scratches (I have a little brother...), and they're not exactly available EVERYWHERE (not where I live anyway, and I cant import. parents, y'see)... Also I had a US Animal Crossing (parents wanted to play it so badly they couldnt wait ) and all I can buy here is the PAL version, and I would hate to lose my saved game over this... Sure I can just keep on using DML, but I likey classic controller
to me, the AP seems like a bad idea. this still is a very, VERY nice project, and I will surely have to dust off the classic controller once more

as long as this supports gameboy advance connection I'll be happy

 

[tmv_josue]

I know we should stop talking about AP, but I think it would be a good idea if dumps were tied to the target medium (i.e. HDD or SD), not EDIT: Also, NTFS support would be great. The functional 32GB limitation on FAT32 means that we can only store about 20 games on that partition, and that's when the partition is otherwise empty. I don't want to have more than one FAT32 partition.

It has a 1 terabyte limitation moron.

FAT32 can handle drives up to 8TB.

 

[obcd]

There is a limitation that windows refuses to create a fat32 partition bigger than xx Gb.
It could also be refuses to create a fat32 partition on a drive bigger than xx Gb.
But that's mostly a commercial issue. NTFS (what windows will insist to use) is a M$ format.
So likely firms need to pay M$ to use that.

It's not having the 4 Gig file size limit I know. It's not having a limited number of root folder entries either I think.

And, don't go into discussions. Teachers are always right. (They are like bosses.)

 

[Lucif3r]

EDIT: Also, NTFS support would be great. The functional 32GB limitation on FAT32 means that we can only store about 20 games on that partition, and that's when the partition is otherwise empty. I don't want to have more than one FAT32 partition.

You, sir, just made a fool out of yourself. However, you are in one way correct. Its just, youre 12 years too late

You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Windows 2000.

taken from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006

 

[Zetta_x]

I thought it was you can't use a boot drive as fat32 if it was greater than 32gb (and that was before XP days). However, this is completely unrelated to this, I have formatted a 2tb drive to fat32 so I know definitely it can go up to there in one partition.

 

[RODAuOM599]

The AP issue... Just shut up. To me it does seem like a BAD IDEA, since not just for me it's difficult to get a gamecube game since it's a little "old" for the salesmen. And if you find any, it's very expensive.

But I'll just shut the heck up, since it's not my project and tueidj can do as he pleases, it's his project, and if he decides that it'll have some AP stuff, THEN IT WILL BE THAT WAY.

 

[obcd]

The quote from Lucif3r is probably still present in our modern windows os.
Also note that with 512 byte sectors you have another limit with big drive. It's the maximum number of adressable sectors.
For that reason, drives bigger than 1.5 TB use a 4KB cluster size. Some applications have problems with that as well.
In xbox 1 days (and windows 2000 days) sector numbering was done with LBA32. That gave a limit of 127GB
Later on, LBA48 was introduced to be able to use bigger drives.

 

[tmv_josue]

The quote from Lucif3r is probably still present in our modern windows os.
Also note that with 512 byte sectors you have another limit with big drive. It's the maximum number of adressable sectors.
For that reason, drives bigger than 1.5 TB use a 4KB cluster size. Some applications have problems with that as well.
In xbox 1 days (and windows 2000 days) sector numbering was done with LBA32. That gave a limit of 127GB
Later on, LBA48 was introduced to be able to use bigger drives.

2TB is the limit of the device with 512 byte sectors, is the maximum number of sectors that can be obtained:
((1