What about the emulators already built in to the Wii?

[wolfeman]

Is there any research or reverse engineering going on to figure out how to access the built in emus on the Wii?

I personally think it's futile to keep using the VC wad inject method. It's clunky, inefficient and goes against the wishes of the main Wii homebrew community.

I've yet to see any articles referring to how the software on the virtual console operates other than as it pertains to wads. Seems to me, virtually flawless emulators are already right there under the hood just waiting to be utilized.

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[Peppers]

the VC channels have the emulators built into then individually and the most likely cheat by heavily patching the ROM's to suet there program. they are not built into the Wii before thy are installed. Its easier to make one game run than trying to make every game work

not to mention reverse engineering VC channels would piss Nintendo off royally and is basically the same thing as ripping off the channels

there are articles on how Wii channels work, VC channels are not different to any other one

[wolfeman]

hmm, so the code for the emulation is built in to the vc game? I can't disagree since I have not seen documentation on the actual emulation process. I'm not a programmer so I probably have not read the technical docs you're talking about.

The main thing I see would be the N64 emulation being far and beyond what is currently capable with homebrew and I certainly was not advocating stealing it but rather reverse engineering it. I don't see how that is any more problematic than the soon to come homebrew channel, which I'm more than happy to wait for as long as it takes.

I mean emulation is emulation and where I can see how Nintendo would not be happy, I fail to see how they can be any more provoked one way or the other.

There seems to be a disconnect within the scene in differentiating between say SNES9X and an injected SNES VC wad. The former seems to be "ok" while the latter is taboo. I find it hard to follow the logic since the homebrew channel will blow away the individual VC channels and allow for all the current VC games and then some to be played and not paid for, not to mention the fact that the homebrew channel will be infinitely easier to use than the few people who are jumping through all the necessary hoops to get illegal wads installed.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by wolfeman

hmm, so the code for the emulation is built in to the vc game? I can't disagree since I have not seen documentation on the actual emulation process.

Yup. It's obvious: Game-specific updates that don't apply until you download the updated VC title. Also, emulator versions are easy to spot: Many N64 games show a black screen when exiting the Wii's home menu while others show a spinning "N" logo (newer, larger, ROMs that take longer to resume from the suspend state).

[ccfman2004]

I can confirm that every VC game has its own emulator.

I have examined several of my dumped VC Games and can see the differences.

(I only have N64 games)

I used to think that games in the same system used the same emu, but I was wrong.

Emulators using the same system are similar but different.

Some ROMs have even been modified in order to properly work (N64 games)

Pokemon Puzzle League has been greatly modified to work on the wii.
The ROM is normally 32mb but it is around 20mb in VC form with lots of supporting files used for the textures in the game as well as other files.

[CZroe]

The Super Smash Bros. Brawl versions of the emulators support 4:3 aspect on 16:9 displays without the display needing horizontal compression (some CRT HDTVs can't adjust the aspect in progressive scan). Those would be the ideal ones to base any work on.

Why would PPL shrink? Did they remove the FMV? The decoder?

Oh! I thought I'd point out that some ROMs were modified for previous Gamecube/GBA emulation releases, like the Legend of Zelda (2002 copyright).

[wolfeman]

The thing that is interesting to me about this is that homebrew emulation has a sort of ethic about it that would completely discount any hacking of the rom to make it work correctly and the commercial approach doesn't have any reservation about cutting corners.

I wonder though if they are are ultimately making more work for themselves by not creating a more complete emulator in the first place...

very interesting.

[niemand0815]

didnt i even read that some roms are even changed to look better on the wii than on the original console?

anyways, delivering a rom together with the suiting emu is good for the commercial approach, as you can modify whatever causes any problem and can tune the system for performance for that specific rom.

this could be the reason why they can publish so many converted roms in such a short time (compared to ps1 emulation on psp, which uses a general emulator in firmware).

also this prevents copyright problems... as there is no emulator you can patch to accept any rom on the system... and extracting the emulator and using it for other roms from the vc game is illegal in most countries :-)

nevertheless, i wonder if its possible to extract the emulator from a vc game and patch it to accept any rom :-)
and giving the community a tool do do this with your own vc games and resulting in a local emu for any rom for that system would propably even be as legal as modifying anything else on the wii.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by niemand0815

didnt i even read that some roms are even changed to look better on the wii than on the original console?

anyways, delivering a rom together with the suiting emu is good for the commercial approach, as you can modify whatever causes any problem and can tune the system for performance for that specific rom.

this could be the reason why they can publish so many converted roms in such a short time (compared to ps1 emulation on psp, which uses a general emulator in firmware).

also this prevents copyright problems... as there is no emulator you can patch to accept any rom on the system... and extracting the emulator and using it for other roms from the vc game is illegal in most countries :-)

nevertheless, i wonder if its possible to extract the emulator from a vc game and patch it to accept any rom :-)
and giving the community a tool do do this with your own vc games and resulting in a local emu for any rom for that system would propably even be as legal as modifying anything else on the wii.

Other than progressive-scan in retro consoles and the bump to 640x480 on N64 (some N64 games were already 640x480), Nintendo promised to leave the graphics alone to preserve "the original presentation."

Also, I was linked to a YouTube video from VGCats.com the other day showing Super Smash Bros. running inside the Sin & Punishment VC channel... so, yes, people have been injecting their own ROMs, just like they have been doing with past commercial emulators (Nintendo's GBA, N64, and NES emulators on the Gamecube... "Joda" made one that injects N64 ROMs into the Zelda Master Quest/Collector's Edition emulator).

[wolfeman]

I can see your point niemand0815 regarding the PSP's PS1 emulator but the thing is, now Sony only has to worry about the distribution contract to release a game since the emulator is universal. The were far too slow to the table with releasing games which definitely led to the homebrew scene busting it open when it did.

The other consideration to factor in is that Sony is selling a hell of a lot of PSPs simply because it CAN run homebrew & hacked firmware. No doubt Nintendo is selling a hell of a lot of DS for the same reason.

I just don't think they are approaching the emulation side of things in a smart way because we all know if they don't do it, the scene will anyway so trying to put roadblocks in the way seems an unlikely reason. Had they sat down in the beginning and worked out a solid N64 emulator, they would be free to release whatever they wanted provided they had the distribution and royalties worked out.

The VC channel is bringing in a ton of free money for them and let's never forget that the reason emulation and classic games are as popular as they are is because of the emulation scene. There is a definite Ying/Yang there you can not discount. I would think Nintendo and Sony are smart enough to realize this and is the main reason, or at least one reason why they do not rush to clamp down all the security holes as soon as they arise.

to CZroe: In ccfman2004's post above, he claims that Pokemon Puzzle League was modified greatly with support files to make it work correctly in the N64 emu... well beyond the video output mode stuff you referred to. Do you agree with his assessment?