Nintendont Region Problems

[wiiman1234]

Hi ive had nintendont for a few months and i decided to play super mario sunshine on my usb backup, after a while i realised the graphics were low and researched to find out that on a pal gamecube the graphics are worse. So i researched and found out that nintendont is region free! after this i got an ntsc rom and tried playing it about. The first thing i noticed is that the graphics were a nice and clean 480p but on a few cut scenes the game started slowing down alot, i mean alot. It only lagged on the cut scenes and nonthing else.
Is this because i'm on a pal wii and pal is 25fps while ntsc is 30fps? and are there any good region patchers to fix it? pls help!!!

 

[CheeseBurgerwithLove]

Yes, its due to regional differences. If you can get a PAL backup it would be better but unfortunately PAL game can't be forced to 480p and I don't know if there is a patch to fix that.

 

[wiiman1234]

it seems weird that only the cutscene slows down and not the gameplay itself.

I wonder if you could somehow change the game itself to be 480p.

 

[Ouaz]

Do you use an USB flashdrive ?

I use one only for 2 games on Nintendont (Baten Kaitos US undubbed and Baten Kaitos Origins US undubbed), cutscenes or cinematics not in real time (the opening CG of BK or pre-rendered cutscenes) stutter and sometimes do no play at all (only the sound, until the gameplay resumes).
USB flashdrives seems too slow for reading pre-rendered cutscenes (if I remember well, cutscenes are pre-rendered in Mario Sunshine).

Regarding Mario Sunshine, forcing 480p on the PAL version with Nintendont used to work. But one of the release broke it, and there's only a black screen now (I didn't test it recently, maybe it has been fixed since then).

You can also use Swiss. Unlike Nintendont, it allows to force 480p on any PAL games (and I mean all of them), it's what I use with my PAL discs and a SD Gecko, rather than using US isos.
You can boot it from an USB device, but you'll need a GC memory card to save your progress, and redo the settings each time you launch Swiss (Swiss can't save anything on an USB device, only on an SD card through an SD Gecko).

SD Gecko are a bit hard to find now, but it allows to create a virtual memory card and save swiss settings (global and per game).

How to play Super Mario Sunshine PAL in progressive scan mode (480p) with Swiss on a Wii:
https://www.speedrun.com/sms/guide/sfoz2

 

[wiiman1234]

but i have a wii family edition (no gamecube support)
and i need a gc controller to use swiss

 

[Ouaz]

but i have a wii family edition (no gamecube support)
and i need a gc controller to use swiss

Ah, well... Problem solved then. ^^

You can use US isos then, at least you're sure the image will be in 480p (much much better quality).
And for the slowdowns, it surely comes from the usb device (not from your PAL Wii).

 

[wiiman1234]

Ah, well... Problem solved then. ^^

You can use US isos then, at least you're sure the image will be in 480p (much much better quality).
And for the slowdowns, it surely comes from the usb device (not from your PAL Wii).

will playing the NTSC-U iso ruin my pal wii or will it work fine? and
why would the usb create lag?
Lastly nintendont should be updated to force pal 480p or 576p in any game, it's a shame that the feature was lost.

 

[leejaclane]

Is the NTSC backup you're using the full, uncompressed, 1:1 dump of the ISO? If you got the NTSC ISO online, it's probable that it's either in NKIT format or .ciso, and while I can't speak to .ciso compatibility, Nintendont doesn't much like NKIT for certain games. Super Mario Sunshine in particular is one that I remember having video slowdown issues with in Nintendont.

I forget the exact size that a 1:1 dump of a GameCube disc should be, but check how big the filesize is for the ISO giving you trouble.

 

[Ouaz]

will playing the NTSC-U iso ruin my pal wii or will it work fine?

No risk at all to play NTSC isos on your PAL Wii.

and why would the usb create lag?

if it's a USB stick, there's a chance it is a too slow device. External HDD with power supply are better.
I had the same problem with Wii games when using an USB stick. Cutscenes in many games lagged (in No More Heroes, Fire Emblem). Once I used an external HDD, everything played smoothly, no more lag or slowdowns during custcenes.

Lastly nintendont should be updated to force pal 480p or 576p in any game, it's a shame that the feature was lost.

Yeah, Nintendont is a hit & miss when it comes to force 480p on PAL games. The most glaring ones are Metroid Prime games and Resident Evil games that give a black screen (it works with Swiss).

I forget the exact size that a 1:1 dump of a GameCube disc should be, but check how big the filesize is for the ISO giving you trouble.

1,425,760 Ko if I'm not wrong.

But I think it's the same: I had a 1:1 dump of Fire Emblem - Path of Radiance on a USB stick, and the CG custcenes were lagging (not as much as the opening one in Baten Kaitos though, so maybe it depends the video bitrate?).

 

[wiiman1234]

thanks for the help guys I will test out using a hdd drive. although if i play off my usb 3.1 would that be fast enough? ive tested it and im surprised i have a workng 3.1 usb with nintendont.

PS: the file size is 1.18GB

Post automatically merged: Jul 9, 2023

the usb 3.1 and HDD fixed the problem. I was using a usb 2.0 before.

Thanks for all the help and support!!!