Hacking Screenshot "Plugin"?

[_eyCaRambA_]

Hi guys,
I'm wondering if there is a screenshot "plugin" for the Wii as there is one for the PSP. I mean, press a button, screenshot is saved as Image to MS (in case of Wii: SD card).
I know there are a few ways for taking screenshots from the Wii:[*]USB Gecko[*]transfer signal to TV card or kinda that[*]In-buildt screenshot feature in the game
I don't want to spend money on an USB Gecko, as around 20€ for just taking screenshots is too expensive in my opinion. And I also don't want to make cheat codes or stuff like that.

For the TV card and stuff: I use this to record videos, and the quality for videos is quite decent. But the quality of single frames from the video is bad! Too much lines and such...

Jup, that's the best solution. Like in SSBB and such. But most games don't have it

So I wanted to ask you if somebody could create such a plugin for the Wii as I have asked in several other Wii Boards if there is one and they said "No". I think lots of people would really appreciate something like that =D
Maybe even with resolution and format settings... that would be uber!

I would do it myself, but I don't have any programming skills at all >_>

best regards

 

[Deleted-171178]

This is impossible at the moment because the Wii works in an outdated way, let me explain.
Most modern consoles have the system software running all the time at a low lever.
The wii doesn't. Whenever you play a game everything is running off the disk, with no trace of the system menu or anything running.
In the future it could be possible with Bootmii I believe but don't hold me to that.

tl;dr
Impossible.

 

[_eyCaRambA_]

Hrm okay...
But then, could this be somehow implented in the ISO or sth like that (lol)?

 

[Deleted-171178]

Probably not as it would require extensive hacking and isn't really worth the effort.

 

[mousex]

In the future it could be possible with Bootmii I believe but don't hold me to that.

Bootmii has nothing to do with games. It replaces the IOS, games need IOS so they won't run on Bootmii, so no Screenshots with Bootmii.
Bootmii wasn't created to work with Nintendo software, it was created to replace Nintendo software, to make Homebrew without using their IOS and code.

 

[OSW]

Well, i don't think it would be impossible.

Look at the DS, they managed to implement real time save, guides and menu, which we once thought was impossible. And we may be able to build a custom IOS to help out.

But, will this likely happen? Probably not for a long time, if ever, but it could be something for waninkoko to look at if he gets bored one day

 

[SifJar]

To the guy saying bootmii replaces IOS - exactly. It aims to fully replace IOS, meaning it should be able to run wii games. IOS can do that, and to be a full replacement it must also be able to do it. Therefore, BootMii should one day be able to launch games (theoretically). And if it can do that, it should be able to have a screenshot function. However thats a long way off, in the mean time, it may be able to patch an IOS to have the function. IOS is the only thing running when a game is running, besides the actual game. That means that if there was the function in IOS, it may be possible to take screenshots in game. This is all just a guess though, I have no idea if this is even possible.

 

[OSW]

To the guy saying bootmii replaces IOS - exactly. It aims to fully replace IOS, meaning it should be able to run wii games. IOS can do that, and to be a full replacement it must also be able to do it. Therefore, BootMii should one day be able to launch games (theoretically). And if it can do that, it should be able to have a screenshot function. However thats a long way off, in the mean time, it may be able to patch an IOS to have the function. IOS is the only thing running when a game is running, besides the actual game. That means that if there was the function in IOS, it may be possible to take screenshots in game. This is all just a guess though, I have no idea if this is even possible.

You have misinterpreted some things at least.

Bootmii is intended for homebrew ONLY. It is built from scratch, and was never designed to be compatible with official Wii software and games, and hence never will work with them.

The whole concept implies that they want complete freedom with what they (the developers) create and work from, hence the backbone (bootmii) works only in relation to their code.

Any cIOS intended to play games should really be modelled on an official IOS, as waninkoko has done.

 

[Kwartel]

But someone could make a change in the IOS that loads games, so it takes a screenshot and place it on the SD when you press for example the reset button on the Wii?

 

[Law]

For the TV card and stuff: I use this to record videos, and the quality for videos is quite decent. But the quality of single frames from the video is bad! Too much lines and such...

Deinterlace the video before taking a frame from it. http://lparchive.org/techsupport/guide-deinterlace.html

 

[aabbccdd]

Build your own USB Gecko, the schematics were released.

 

[Deleted-171178]

But someone could make a change in the IOS that loads games, so it takes a screenshot and place it on the SD when you press for example the reset button on the Wii?

No because the Reset button is hard-coded to reset the Wii

 

[bdr9]

If it happens, it would probably be a combination of buttons.

 

[WiiPower]

You have a tv card? Set the video mode to progressive (480p), maybe you need to connect with a component cable. And then you will be able to make good screenshots.

A mod that allows screenshots looks complicated to me. Theorectically you could mod the IOS to do that, but i have no idea if the arm 1. has access to the video RAM, and i guess it does not(it would be highly dangerous) and 2. has access to the controls, which i doubt, since libogc has a libary for the wii pad==>It's running on the ppc.
Other way would be by ocarina codes. There are codes already that do certain stuff on button pressing, and it would be more or less always be the same code for each games, press buttons (A+1+2 for example) and it dumps the part on the video RAM where the current output image is. The only problem i see if there's ocarina code to write files to sd card.

To the guy saying bootmii replaces IOS - exactly. It aims to fully replace IOS, meaning it should be able to run wii games. IOS can do that, and to be a full replacement it must also be able to do it. Therefore, BootMii should one day be able to launch games (theoretically). And if it can do that, it should be able to have a screenshot function. However thats a long way off, in the mean time, it may be able to patch an IOS to have the function. IOS is the only thing running when a game is running, besides the actual game. That means that if there was the function in IOS, it may be possible to take screenshots in game. This is all just a guess though, I have no idea if this is even possible.

BootMii replaces IOS, ... by allowing the ppc to access all hardware, and then the arm goes to sleep. Wii games have lots of commands they send to the IOS and they want a result there. That's why you can play backups when modifying the IOS only. You have NO idea how complicated it would be to rewrite the IOS so that mini can play games.

 

[ddp127]

couldn't it be implented in the usb loader/cios?

the reset button isn't hardcoded, i thought, because when i have a code dump/dsi exeption, i can't reset using the reset button

 

[Kwartel]

and Bootmii boot 2 AND IOS, uses it to navigate.
By the way, whats the point of the reset button? The only time I want to use it is when something freezes and at that point it doesn't work anymore...

 

[Hells Guardian]

Ok please correct me if I'm wrong after all this is all simply speculation as I have no fucking clue how IOS works with the games and I'm not a real dev.......

First of all you must create a very small wii app that can actually run in the system memory while a game or other app is running. This will be fairly useless for the time being though as there is no way to call on the functions of another app in memory while the game is running....... So you must patch IOS to look somewhere else for a bit data. The IOS will always load this from the disk while playing a game. /The home menu code must be included in all wii releases for this reason. However if we could patch the IOS to look for the home menu in a different location we would be able to have it call on that small running app that we will have loaded into memory as we load the game. We would have to create a loading tool that would load this small app into memory and protect it from being overwritten by the game as it loads into memory.

Or an alternate option would be to physically inject the app into IOS it's self since the IOS is running at all times even during gameplay. It's quite clearly possible as that is basically what bootmii as IOS is. Same with the Backup loader. As for the GC backup loader that is just an app injected into the MIOS. from there you would just have to force the game and/or tool to load from the patched IOS with a patch applied to call on the functions of the app in IOS with the press of a button. I would almost just patch the home menu loading in IOS to instead call on this. that will solve the issue of continuing data changes in the field we are dumping from. as when the home menu loads it frezzes all other function in the game. Now we need to remove the home menu GUI so it doesn't load over the screen we want to dump. We would have to somehow disable that...... This would bassically have to be a completely home made home menu. It would be a completely transperant app that will freeze the game data and dump the screen shot data at the press of a button and then return to gameplay with the home button. This would be the only way to make this work that I could think of. If such a hack is even physically possible it would be a monumental task. It would literally enable us to use homebrew apps while playing games and such. Honestly if we were to develope an open source template for people to use we could also enable people to make in game music players that can also play during game play. It's an impressive concept really.

 

[Deleted-171178]

The home menu is hard coded into games.

 

[WiiPower]

First of all you must create a very small wii app that can actually run in the system memory while a game or other app is running.

That's how ocarina works, there's VERY little memory you can use while a game is running. Ocarina's code handler is written there, and the hook you select in Gecko OS is where the game is patched to run the code handler. Let's say you choose the Hook for the video refresh function, then that function is patched to run the code handler, and every time the video refresh funtion is executed, the code handler runs.

There are only the options this or something in the IOS when you want to run code while the game is playing.

 

[_eyCaRambA_]

Build your own USB Gecko, the schematics were released.

Ergh, I never heard of VHD, POF, QSF etc. files lol
But do you have a video tutorial some where? Just curious how it is done.

@WiiPower: What is the problem with writing to the SD card? An ocarina code for this would be super comfortable and I think it would work for most games without being changed...