Hacking Nintendont

[uyjulian]

What would be needed is something similar to TWLoader on 3DS: a Wii U homebrew application that starts Wii mode with gamepad controls enabled. This is outside of the scope of Nintendont, but the good news is that, assuming the gamepad controls emulate a Classic Controller, it will "just work" with Nintendont once it's done.

I think since Nintendont takes over the ARM processor, I don't think it would work unmodified if the ARM processor was not in Starlet mode.
There would be some processing required in order to turn Gamepad commands into Wiimote/Classic Controller commands.
Just my thoughts.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I think since Nintendont takes over the ARM processor, I don't think it would work unmodified if the ARM processor was not in Starlet mode.
There would be some processing required in order to turn Gamepad commands into Wiimote/Classic Controller commands.
Just my thoughts.

The main thing here would be some research and documentation on the IOSv1 that the Wii VC use against the IOSv0 which is used when the Wii U boots into Wii Menu.

Basically IOSv1 enables the Gamepad to work on the Wii side of the console as a Classic Controller Pro.
This is used in games like Monster Hunter 3 I believe, and I'm not sure if RE4 does too.
So until some research is done in Cafe2Wii and the IOSv1, theres not much that can be done for playing Nintendont with the Gamepad, other than injecting HBC or an exploitable game into Wii VC.

 

[ccfman2004]

First let me just state that i'm not good with all that technical stuff when it comes to the internal workings of emulators etc...

This might not make any sense and please correct me if i'm wrong.

From my understanding what you mentioned above is that if we were to port nintendont to run on wiiu it would have to become an emulator vs it's current state as an interpreter (without all the technical jargon).

Here's my question, I don't know how Wii VC works (referring to Metroid Prime trilogy and Mario Galaxy1/2 that were released by nintendo, my understanding is that they actually boot vWii from the wii menu, wouldn't we be able to do something like that for the wii homebrew such as nintendont and others to take advantage of the added benefits?

I think the issue is that in order to upscale the games like Dolphin does we would have to create an GX2 GPU emulator to allow the GameCube game to have a higher resolution than the Wii or vWii can provide since the GX GPU cannot go beyond 480p.

As far as I am aware those Wii U Wii games still run in vWii mode so they are restricted to the same hardware that Nintendont is using other than having the GamePad enabled.

One thing I'd love to see is the ability to use the GameCube USB adapter in vWii VC games on the Wii U. It's pretty stupid that Nintendo restricted the adapter to Smash Bros. U only.

 

[uyjulian]

I think the issue is that in order to upscale the games like Dolphin does we would have to create an GX2 GPU emulator to allow the GameCube game to have a higher resolution than the Wii or vWii can provide since the GX GPU cannot go beyond 480p.

As far as I am aware those Wii U Wii games still run in vWii mode so they are restricted to the same hardware that Nintendont is using other than having the GamePad enabled.

One thing I'd love to see is the ability to use the GameCube USB adapter in vWii VC games on the Wii U. It's pretty stupid that Nintendo restricted the adapter to Smash Bros. U only.

Actually, I think it would be possible to feed the GX output to the GX2 and the GX2 can apply filters, in-game menu, etc...

I think GameCube USB -> Classic Controller could be possible but it would require a custom IOS to convert Gamecube USB signals to Classic Controller.

 

[Zonta85]

@FIX94 In Nintendont 4.428 the Bios wont load using any PAL alternate iso that i've tried to load, it happens with Nintendont alone or trough usb loader gx, i think is a Nintendont issue.
It happens with Harry Potter Sorcerers's stone ITA/ESP, Beyond good and evil ITA/DE, The lord of the rings the two twers ITA ecc. ecc.
It seems that it doesn't recognize these isos coming from any region, probably because of the fourth carachter of the title id that is different from the default "P"

A summary of the different PAL title id subregions can be found here and in the posts below:https://gbatemp.net/threads/gametdb-game-information-database-covers.164945/page-66#post-6797785

 

[GerbilSoft]

@FIX94 In Nintendont 4.425 the Bios wont load any PAL alternate iso that i've tried to load, it happens with Nintendont alone or trough usb loader gx, i think is a Nintendont issue.

Can you test this build? https://github.com/GerbilSoft/Nintendont/raw/v4.428/loader/loader.dol

I changed region detection to use bi2.bin instead of the Game ID.

 

[Zonta85]

Can you test this build? https://github.com/GerbilSoft/Nintendont/raw/v4.428/loader/loader.dol

I changed region detection to use bi2.bin instead of the Game ID.

It works perfectly! P.S can you remind me what the different coloursnon the list mean?
I have some games in red.

What is the compatibility rate of cISO compared to the other methods? I think that in the past, like in the Gamecube/Wii modchip era i downsized some games to make multidisc games (first with the Gamecube viper chip in mini dvd and after in fullsize dvd with the wiikey v1) and then i resized them to 1,35 gb to be sure that they work with Nintendont.
I know that they can't match your md5 check, but since they work fine with Nintendont i would know if i can reduce them using cISO.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Never mind about the first question, i've just seen the colour scheme on the first screen.

 

[GerbilSoft]

What is the compatibility rate of cISO compared to the other methods? I think that in the past, like in the Gamecube/Wii modchip era i downsized some games to make multidisc games (first with the Gamecube viper chip in mini dvd and after in fullsize dvd with the wiikey v1) and then i resized them to 1,35 gb to be sure that they work with Nintendont.
I know that they can't match your md5 check, but since they work fine with Nintendont i would know if i can reduce them using cISO.

If your disc images were already shrunken, converting them to CISO format won't improve anything. You need to convert the original 1:1 disc image to CISO.

The major advantage of CISO is that it removes empty blocks while maintaining the original file offsets. That's the main reason why shrunken ISOs break; some games expect certain files to be located at an exact location on disc. This also preserves disc seek timing, which is necessary for speed runs in e.g. Metroid Prime.

 

[Zonta85]

If your disc images were already shrunken, converting them to CISO format won't improve anything. You need to convert the original 1:1 disc image to CISO.

The major advantage of CISO is that it removes empty blocks while maintaining the original file offsets. That's the main reason why shrunken ISOs break; some games expect certain files to be located at an exact location on disc. This also preserves disc seek timing, which is necessary for speed runs in e.g. Metroid Prime.

I know that anything changes converting a shrunken iso to a cISO, but probably i haven't explained well.
In the past, to make multigames iso for both my chipped Gc and Wii, i reduced the iso size of my games ripped trough BBA and PSO 1&2.
Then, when Nintendont came out, i resized back to full ISO to improve compatibility, and in fact they works great, even if (obviously) the md5 doesn't match (i've just tried a fullsize ISO of Mario Sunshine with wrong md5 that works great)
Can i convert these working sISOs with wrong md5 to working cISOs?

 

[GerbilSoft]

I know that anything changes converting a shrunken iso to a cISO, but probably i haven't explained well.
In the past, to make multigames iso for both my chipped Gc and Wii, i reduced the iso size of my games ripped trough BBA and PSO 1&2.
Then, when Nintendont came out, i resized back to full ISO to improve compatibility, and in fact they works great, even if (obviously) the md5 doesn't match (i've just tried a fullsize ISO of Mario Sunshine with wrong md5 that works great)
Can i convert these working sISOs with wrong md5 to working cISOs?

Yes, you can convert those to CISO. They should act identically to the resized images. (I'd still recommend reripping a 1:1 image via CleanRip sometime if possible.)

Use Wiimm's ISO Tools: http://wit.wiimm.de/

 

[Zonta85]

Yes, you can convert those to CISO. They should act identically to the resized images. (I'd still recommend reripping a 1:1 image via CleanRip sometime if possible.)

Use Wiimm's ISO Tools: http://wit.wiimm.de/

Thank you.
P.S. it seems that your mod has some problems with my hdd if don't do anything for some minutes (it fails sometimes to open the ISO for the ms5 check), probably related to the hdd sleep, but i had no problems with this hdd with anybloader and i use it since Waninkoko's first usb loader (wbfs formatted at the time, now is fat 32).

 

[GerbilSoft]

Thank you.
P.S. it seems that your mod has some problems with my hdd if don't do anything for some minutes (it fails sometimes to open the ISO for the ms5 check), probably related to the hdd sleep, but i had no problems with this hdd with anybloader and i use it since Waninkoko's first usb loader (wbfs formatted at the time, now is fat 32).

There's no HDD sleep prevention in the loader right now. I can add it in after v4.428 is merged into master.

 

[Zonta85]

There's no HDD sleep prevention in the loader right now. I can add it in after v4.428 is merged into master.

I had to reboot the wii because just exitingng to hbc doesn't help, once i reloaded Nintendont it showed me a message saying it was unable to open the ISO folder.

The major advantage of CISO is that it removes empty blocks while maintaining the original file offsets. That's the main reason why shrunken ISOs break; some games expect certain files to be located at an exact location on disc. T

Last question, this means that the games that are listed as not working in the compatibility list will work resized with cISO because of the original files offset maintained?
Or they need to be tested? In case i can help and report in Nintendont compatibility list.

 

[GerbilSoft]

Last question, this means that the games that are listed as not working in the compatibility list will work resized with cISO because of the original files offset maintained?
Or they need to be tested? In case i can help and report in Nintendont compatibility list.

I haven't actually tested the specific games marked as not working when shrunken, but they "should" work. I'll try it out tonight. (Do note that the compatibility list isn't up to date.)

 

[Zonta85]

I haven't actually tested the specific games marked as not working when shrunken, but they "should" work. I'll try it out tonight. (Do note that the compatibility list isn't up to date.)

Yeah i know, i tried to do my best in mantaining it updated, testing things like proper working, widescreen hack and progressive, most of the PAL games in the list that report v4.xxx were tested by me recently.

 

[Zonta85]

@GerbilSoft i've found a bug, don't know if related to your mod or Nintendont: if bios is present the progressive patch is isgnored. The bios is booted at 720x576 and the game too.
If i remove the bios from the hdd root the games correctly boot at 720x480 with the progressive patch enabled.

 

[GerbilSoft]

@GerbilSoft i've found a bug, don't know if related to your mod or Nintendont: if bios is present the progressive patch is isgnored. The bios is booted at 720x576 and the game too.
If i remove the bios from the hdd root the games correctly boot at 720x480 with the progressive patch enabled.

IIRC when using NTSC games, the progressive patch does apply correctly, but only to the game itself. (IPL still runs at 480i.) Haven't tested PAL, but wouldn't be surprised if the IPL was interfering with it. (Related: PAL IPL is disabled if running on Wii U because it uses some weird video mode that Wii U doesn't like, but PAL games don't have this problem.)

 

[Zonta85]

IIRC when using NTSC games, the progressive patch does apply correctly, but only to the game itself. (IPL still runs at 480i.) Haven't tested PAL, but wouldn't be surprised if the IPL was interfering with it.

I've done some tests (Wii configuration in my signature using your mod directly from HBC).
With NTSC JAP games forced in progressive the bios boots at 720x480i @60hz then the game loads at 720x480p @60hz
WIth NTSC USA games forced in progressive the bios boots at 720x480i @60hz then the game loads at 720x480p @60hz
With PAL games (every single one that i've tried) the bios boots at 720x576i @50hz and the game loads at the same resolution.

Something is messed up with PAL: It seems that while using the iplpal.bin the loader ignores the progressive patch because of an ipl interference.

@GerbilSoft i've edited the results, when i wrote this message i was busy and i didn't think carefully at what i was writing.

 

[Blade12337]

So I was trying to install Nintendont and run it but it got stuck on Initializing IOS58... The thing is, it's literally stuck on this screen no matter what I do. I've unplugged and re-plugged my wii, removed the SD card, and just turned it on and off but whenever it turns on it is just instantly on the Nintendont screen saying Initializing IOS58... Is there are way to fix this? To be honest, I'm not that adept with all this Homebrew stuff so possibly it conflicted with past files I've installed (I've been using Dios Mios for about year and a half or two years but decided I want to upgrade today).

 

[Zonta85]

Are you sure that you have the IOS58 (unpatched) on your wii? If you're not sure, make a syscheck scan.