Hardware Wii Modchip for Gamecube backups with specific requirements.

[PiXi]

Hi All!

I look for Wii modchip that support ALL these GameCube features:

-Full audio streaming playback without glitches

-Solderless installation

-Full support of import backups (on 4.3 firmware)


I think that WASABI ZERO may satisfy the requirements but I'm not sure 'cause I have no any practical experience with Wii modchips.

Is that possible at all to have working audio streaming with any modchip? I know for sure that it's impossible with softmod, so maybe is there a chance with modchips?

 

[Coto]

unfortunately all those chips *not* being directly soldered onto the DVD Drive motherboard, using a flex cable are limited to 3X reading (compared to 6X Full speed read soldered modchips).

Some cheap ones also don't have audio streaming support. You should go with those soldered ones (those handle better pal/ntsc region force too..).

 

[zerofalcon]

Hi All!

I look for Wii modchip that support ALL these GameCube features:

-Full audio streaming playback without glitches

-Solderless installation

-Full support of import backups (on 4.3 firmware)


I think that WASABI ZERO may satisfy the requirements but I'm not sure 'cause I have no any practical experience with Wii modchips.

Is that possible at all to have working audio streaming with any modchip? I know for sure that it's impossible with softmod, so maybe is there a chance with modchips?

Someone found a modchip capable for play streaming audio in gamecube games but I guess it's not solderless as you requested. It's called YAOSM (Yet Another Open Source Modchip) version 3.2

http://www.wiihacks....html#post623156

 

[OSpencerO]

In my opinion it would be better to just replace the DVD drive board or replace the whole DVD drive with an older one that plays GameCube backups & then softmod the Wii.


I want to formally apologize to PiXi for giving the wrong information.

PiXi, I Apologize!

I also want to formally say Thank You to PiXi & Lucif3r for catching the wrong information that I gave.

Thank You, PiXi & Lucif3r!



Spencer

 

[PiXi]

Thank you!

@Coto

using a flex cable are limited to 3X reading (compared to 6X Full speed read soldered modchips).

but as I see here: http://www.wasabi.net.cn/product.html WASABI ZERO has 6X Full speed and 100% solderless installation in the same time.

Aso they had mentioned that WASABI ZERO has "GC Audio fix support".

What's that mean by the way, a "GC Audio fix support"? Is this a simply possibility to launch games that have streaming audio and ignore it or possibility to reproduce music/sounds?


Ok, what modchips (except YAOSM) could play streaming audio?


@OSpencerO

In my opinion it would be better to just replace the DVD drive board or replace the whole DVD drive with an older one that plays GameCube backups & then softmod the Wii.

Unfortunately softmod will never give me a streaming audio support.

 

[Coto]

I stand corrected. Make sure you have the correct DVD drive version matching that "solderless adapter" by wazabi team. They're pretty rare. I've seen by myself that soldered chips directly into the Drive give excellent results, even more than those "feeding from the DVD Drive flex".

"GC Audio Fix Support" is Audio Streaming, but you should check how many games are working first.

edit: and check if they have an, at least updated firmware.

 

[Lucif3r]

Buy a chipped Gamecube
Theyre probably around the same price as a modchip for the Wii by now, and have 100% compability

In my opinion it would be better to just replace the DVD drive board or replace the whole DVD drive with an older one that plays GameCube backups & then softmod the Wii.

Since hes asking about modchips, he probably already have a drive capable of running backups.
So replacing the DVD drive wont help him one bit. In fact - it would just be an unnecessary expense.

 

[wiismodrome]

I look for Wii modchip that support ALL these GameCube features:

-Full audio streaming playback without glitches

-Solderless installation

-Full support of import backups (on 4.3 firmware)

I think that WASABI ZERO may satisfy the requirements but I'm not sure 'cause I have no any practical experience with Wii modchips.

Is that possible at all to have working audio streaming with any modchip? I know for sure that it's impossible with softmod, so maybe is there a chance with modchips?

To begin, it would be helpful to determine the drive type in your Wii: www.wiidrives.com

As mentioned above, YAOSM 3.2 does fully support Gamecube audio streaming. As I understand it, YAOSM borrowed the audio streaming code from the Wiinja, and it works perfectly. Some fairly simple soldering is required for installation and it only works with DMS/D2A/D2B drives.

Although they claim to have it, Wiikey 2 and Wiizard do not have fully functional audio streaming support, so those two are out, as are any of the 3x ribbon cable modchips. As I understand it, proper audio streaming support has to be implemented through the drive controller IC, which explains why ribbon cable chips like Wasabi DX, Wiikey Fusion, etc... don't support it. Some have claimed that the original Wiikey does have working audio streaming, but I cannot confirm this; it is also limited to DMS/D2A/D2B.

I have no experience with Wasabi Zero. It appears to use a push-on clip to solderlessly attach to the drive controller chip. My experience with Wii-Clips is that they can be somewhat less than perfectly reliable; the Wasabi Zero's clip may be a better design. At this point, Wii modchips are becoming somewhat rare. Wasabi DX is still fairly easy to source, but I am unsure about the availability of the Wasabi Zero. It may be a good idea to do more in-depth research to see if anyone can confirm audio streaming support on the Wasabi Zero with your particular drive.

As for imports, my understanding is that 4.3 blocks the region-free feature of all modchips, so something like Priiloader or reverting to 4.1 is necessary for playing import games.

 

[wiismodrome]

This thread suggests that the Wasabi DX can be used as a Wasabi Zero, thus giving audio streaming support: http://www.wiihacks.com/wasabi-1-2-wasabi-zero/19015-wasabi-dx-zero-may-1-chip.html

May have to be soldered in for that to work, however.

 

[Coto]

I'm one of those lucky guys having a DMS Drive (brand new lens, too!) & Wiikey v1 (the one looking pretty much similar to a XenoGC v1) flashed with the latest firmware.

- It has 6X (loudly drive and fast loading!)
- Audio Streaming Support (SSX: Tricky, Tony Hawk`s 4/3, Tales Of Symphonia, Smash Melee, Sonic Adventure [those i've tested]..)
among other things.

It's the best Wii chip i've seen among others.!

And flex wii chip solutions:

They "eat" bandwidth, because they "interfere" with the full-speed DVD Bus, they do some kind of "on-the-fly" patching which makes thing go slower on data transfer.

hence why not 6X support.

I wonder where do that Wazabi Zero modchip plugs by using the "solderless solution"...

 

[PiXi]

Thank you guys once more!

I had checked the chip version by myself just in case

Here the photo:

http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/68301670@N02/6813961088/

I have the D2B, with 3 cut pins and according to wiidrives.com WASABI ZERO should work perfectly.

So now I need a person who have WASABI ZERO to confirm working audio streaming.

 

[WiiPower]

Finding a modchip that plays audio streaming correctly will prove difficult, even if you just take that condition. The last info i had was that it depends on the chip and the drive, the wiikey v1(not sure if it was that one...) for example supports audio streaming on older drives, but not on newer ones.

About import games:
I'm not sure if a modchip can achieve that, for wii games that's surely impossible. On gamecube games it might work, but it might also mess with the game'S disc id, and cause some odd trouble. As long as you don't play japanese games, i'd trust on NeoGamma to load games region free. And then you "only" have the problem with the video modes left, if your tv does not support both PAL&NTSC, you are running into trouble anyways.

@[member='Coto']:
The flat cable modchips run at 3x speed, because they use the same exploit as the softmods. That's why they only work on the same drives as the softmods do. They set the dvd drive into dvd video mode, and that's not playing gamecube audio streams, and it's limited to 3x.

 

[PiXi]

Thank you WiiPower! That's bad news...

Looks like I need to buy WASABI ZERO test it by myself and hope for luck.

 

[Coto]

The flat cable modchips run at 3x speed, because they use the same exploit as the softmods. That's why they only work on the same drives as the softmods do. They set the dvd drive into dvd video mode, and that's not playing gamecube audio streams, and it's limited to 3x.

I've read on some pages it's due to DVD Video-mode patches happening on-the-go, in the drive bus. Softmods hack IOS, while cheap flat solderless modchips patches Drive calls through the so busy drive bus (and the flex coming from the motherboard, towards the DVD Drive), at hardware level.

http://www.wasabizero.com/product.html

Full 6X read speed unlike mods patching drive bus (such as Wasabi DX)

And I suspect a cheap sunkey lite I have (solderless, being the same as a Wasabi DX) which, also runs at 3X and limited GC audio streaming.

Why Wasabi Zero runs at 6X? I suspect because it doesn't fed from the drive bus directly, but rather the dvd-video patching happens while on the very DVD Video chip.

 

[PiXi]

WOW! Never say never!

Just discovered that some awesome project is in development: http://gbatemp.net/topic/322284-devolution/

 

[wiismodrome]

There are a few people presently trying to find a way to get GC audio streaming working with USB/SD. Whether or not they will be successful is unknown at this point. I spent several months trying to find a working audio streaming solution for my Wii. Backup discs and a modchip with proper audio streaming support are the only presently known working solution.

My Gamecube has a XenoGC and it plays audio streaming games perfectly; unfortunately, this unit is becoming increasingly unreliable at reading discs. Thus, I wanted to find a way to play all games in the Gamecube library on my D2C2 Wii. Initially I purchased a Wiikey 2 which works well with Wii games, but is incompatible with audio streaming GC games, giving "an error has occurred" message. My second attempt was with the Wiizard, which does play audio streaming games, though not correctly - segments of streamed audio are erroneously repeated. Next I tried swapping in a D2B drive board. Unlike with D2C2, Wiikey 2 is able to play audio streaming games with D2B, but still causes intermittent errors and exhibits the same repeating audio issue as the Wiizard.

Finally, I had a friend flash a PIC chip with YAOSM 3.2 and did a wired install. YAOSM 3.2 has no issues with audio streaming games - everything works perfectly.

A quick way to tell if a modchip has a fully working GC audio fix:

Boot up a backup of Eternal Darkness:
- If the machine immediately reports a disc error or plays garbled audio, the audio fix does not work at all (Wiikey 2 with D2C2)
- If the machine plays audio normally and continues to the opening screen, it has a proper audio fix (YAOSM 3.2)
- If the machine repeats audio in an endless loop, it has a botched audio fix (Wiikey 2 with D2B, Wiizard)

A D2B drive with cut pins may pose a bit of a challenge because Nintendo severed the serial port connection points needed for modchips like the original Wiikey and YAOSM 3.2. One solution is to carefully cut away the drive controller chip to expose the internal wiring and reconnect the required pads on the PCB. Another is to use a modchip which employs different connection points. At this point, it may be difficult to find anyone who can confirm that the Wasabi chip works with audio streaming, so you may have to simply bite the bullet and try it yourself.

 

[PiXi]

@[member='wiismodrome']

Thank you! I had ordered the Wasabi Zero for 40$ already, wish me luck

 

[DjoeN]

For GC backups i always go back to my Wii with latest YAOSM on it (got myself a pic programmer, specially for that, back then)
(ok, the other wii i can't use for GC backups, my DVD drive is broken on that)

 

[wiismodrome]

Thank you! I had ordered the Wasabi Zero for 40$ already, wish me luck

Hope the Wasabi Zero works out. Please post your results after you get it installed.

This thread got me doing some research and what I found was inconclusive. Some people have reported that Wasabi's GC audio streaming works and others have had issues with certain audio streaming games. One interesting finding is that the Wasabi DX can optionally be installed as a Wasabi Zero, complete with full 6x read speed and audio streaming support.

Although my understanding is fuzzy, what I gather is that in order to properly support audio streaming, a modchip has to correctly point the drive controller chip to the location of audio streams on the disc so that they can be played back as requested by the software. Thus far, the only chips that I know that do this correctly use the "secret" serial port (which uses the pads connected to the missing pins on cut-pin D2B drive boards). If Wasabi does work with audio streaming, then the Wasabi team must have found another way, as the Wasabi chips do not use the normal serial port connections.

 

[PiXi]

So here I am!

Had received the Wasabi Zero yesterday and unfortunately it was wasted money. WiiPower was right as usual!

- GameCube games with audio streaming plays garbled audio and playback of a correct sound only possible after pressing reset button
- Issues with some games (Eternal Darkness NTSC has endless repeated audio in very beginning (can be skipped); MGS Special Disk NTSC-J just gives black screen when you press something in menu)
- It's impossible to run import games without MultiGame ISO Creator (I guess it's because of 4.3)
- No 480p or 576i support, only 480i is available, all other modes just shows green or black screen (and again maybe because of 4.3)

...and of course NeoGamma doesn't works with installed modchip


Anyway I'm still not giving up and have some perverted ideas but I've realize that these ideas are perverted so I need advices from people that have some more knowledge.

1) Downgrade from 4.3 to 4.1, looks like it's possible using DOP Mii -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o2EqynOcZw

, it must help to restore RegionFree and maybe unlock 480p and 576i modes

2) Remove softmod after downgrade, maybe some bugs was induced by software modifications


...but if these two steps are just my pure fantasy then I must admit modchips are worse than even emulators and much worse than softmod and only chance to get fully working audio streaming is to get GameCube console!


Nota bene: just compared work of Wasabi Zero with Dolphin x64 3.0-424 and it's funny but they have almost the same behaivor, same endless repeated audio in Eternal Darkness, same freeze in MGS Special Disk... etc.
NeoGamma works far more better and accurate, except audio streaming of course...