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Author Topic: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay  (Read 3212 times)

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Offline Louis DiasTopic starter

Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« on: November 22, 2006, 10:21:16 PM »
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=12048

now it's a question of doing some speed tests to figure out how much faster it is than a Gamecube...infact I think I will test out Madden 05 to see if the slow-down is eliminated.

Can anyone help JLF65 port AROS to GC/Wii?

Edit:
OK,
I've played for the last hour and there is ZERO slowdown on the running game up the middle or when loading replays from the play selection menu.

I suspected this was the case, like PC's.  The GC's bus and multiplier were tweaked only 4 months before launch from 200MHz and 2x to 162.5MHz and 3x so I imagine all the devkits were designed to not depend on a fixed clock...etc...

So how does a creme de la creme PPC sound running AROS for $250?  It ain't a gimped PPE like the cores in the Xenos and CELL.

What ever changes made for the Wii above and beyond the original Gekko cpu must have been in the floating point or general math processing department as the Wii has to handle input from multiple accelerometers, gyros and compute geometry between the sensor bar and up to 4 controllers.

A cpu optimized for gaming, not a streaming media center.  That's what we have here.  And it's escentially cracked for homebrew NOW.
 

Offline oddmario

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Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2006, 01:28:42 AM »
Correct me if i'm wrong, but the devkits we're the same except for the input method. In this case the motion sensor.
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Offline MskoDestny

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Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2006, 02:11:31 AM »
Quote

lou_dias wrote:
So how does a creme de la creme PPC sound running AROS for $250?  It ain't a gimped PPE like the cores in the Xenos and CELL.

Quote
A cpu optimized for gaming, not a streaming media center. That's what we have here.

Hate to break it to you, but a single PPE core at 3.2GHz is still faster than the Wii's CPU. It doesn't have as high of an IPC ratio, but the fact that it has over 3 times the clockspeed more than makes up for it. The 360 has 3 of these cores and while taking advantage of thread-level parallelism isn't easy the game industry appears up to the task. Alan Wake can apparently use at least up to 4 cores well and Valve has already reworked their Source engine to take advantage of multiple cores.

That said, it's nice to know that the old Action Replay tricks still work (though it's not terribly surprising). I wonder how long it will take for the homebrew scene to get the new controller figured out.
 

Offline Louis DiasTopic starter

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2006, 02:54:28 AM »
The Wii uses a modified 750CL, the latest G3.  It's the sucessor to the GC's 750GX.

Since I have determine noticeable framerate improvement over the GC when running GC software, it's 100% HARDWARE compatible.  There is already a project to create a libowii library as an expanded libogc library.  Libogc exposes all the GC's hardware functionality.

Funny thing is the Wii acts like a GC with a mod chip.  My qoob chip has the option to boot the NGC original IPL and it seems the Wii does the same thing to play GC games.  I bet the Serial Port 1 on the GC that was removed as of Rev B was for the GC-Mote that never was.

The GC's 16MB of auxillary RAM (running at 81.25MHz) got upgraded to 64MB and turned into 1T-SRAM like the GC's main memory (extremely fast).  This leads me to believe the Wii's new main memory is running at 325MHz and the auxilary at 162.5 in order to keep the same 2:1 ratio the GC had.

24MB is not alot but since it can use the auxilary RAM like really fast virtual RAM or a ramdisk, it's not as big an issue as it was on the GC for programmers.

The Wii is a nice tight system, and it's portable.  I'm sure a future WiiConnect24 patch will enable higher resolutions in the future...heck PAL is 576p afterall...
 

Offline Louis DiasTopic starter

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2006, 03:14:58 AM »
Quote

MskoDestny wrote:

Hate to break it to you, but a single PPE core at 3.2GHz is still faster than the Wii's CPU.


I'm just saying it's a better general-purpose cpu compared to the others.  It's a creme de la creme PPC when compared to the now dead G4 and G5.  The G5 tried to do too much...then just got to hot.

It's definitely an improvement over any of these Freescale-based A1-wanna-bee's.  It actually exceeds the A1's processing power.
 

Offline MskoDestny

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Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2006, 04:32:21 AM »
Quote

lou_dias wrote:
I'm just saying it's a better general-purpose cpu compared to the others.

Better how exactly? A single PPE will beat out the 750CL even on general purpose tasks.

I don't really understand the obsession with PowerPC anyway. If you want to run old 68K software you're better off with a JIT on top of x86. If you want new software you're better off switching to something like Syllable ( http://www.syllable.org/ ). It has lightning fast boot times, memory protection, SMP, a 64-bit journaling filesystem, decent hardware support (way ahead of AROS), a modern object oriented API and a KHTML based browser that supports CSS.
 

Offline Piru

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Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2006, 07:58:23 AM »
Quote
Can anyone help JLF65 port AROS to GC/Wii?

Well, I don't see anyone else advertising how great the Nintendo is, so why don't YOU help AROS?

Quote
It's a creme de la creme PPC when compared to the now dead G4 and G5.

Now you're being plain silly.
 

Offline AJCopland

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2006, 11:16:31 AM »
Yeah the Wii is basically an overclocked gamecube from a hardware standpoint, i dont mean that insultingly the GC was a nice little bit of kit so a new one that runs twice as fast is nice to have around.

As for the auxilary ram, it is nice and quick and there's more of it, but it appears to be very slow for random access so it's better to use it for large datasets like models, textures and the like whihc is what i'd assume they had in mind.

Last time i checked into GC modding people were having trouble getting full access to the gfx chip did that ever get sorted out? (yeah i know i could go googling for it but im at work :-D)

THe whole X86 vs PPC argument again? Why? yes look at x86 it's cheap and powerful woo! And people want to run PPC apps/games/whatever on PPC. Or maybe they just feel the love for the PPC because it's warm and fluffy and inhabits their dream. I DONT CARE! Just let 'em, it's a goddamn near-religious argument that's be waging since 1995!

Besides which, we don't have access to the Xbox360 yet and the PS3 Linux initiative currently lacks access to the RSX. Whereas potentially there's an entire GC/Wii available with libs.

Andy
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Offline AJCopland

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2006, 11:25:25 AM »
As far as i know there's absolutely no changes been made to the CPU, it's purely a die shrink and speed ramp. So it has exactly the same instruction as the Gekko. This is all from the doc's that IBM released a little while back that were discussed over at Ars-Technica and what people have been posting about it since getting a hold of them.

It makes sense from the big N's point of view, it means they can maintain totally compatibility with the back catalogue and not lose a moments sleep worrying about it because from an instruction point of view nothing has changed.

Andy
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Offline Louis DiasTopic starter

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2006, 03:50:55 PM »
This is not a PPC vs. x86 thread.  Leave these comments out please.

There is no G5 board for the Amiga or A1 so it's dead and useless to the Amiga.

The G4 is plain dead and has no advantages over the 750CL as the 750CL has SIMD instructions as well, better cache handling and a faster front-side bus.

Now IBM has tweaked the 750CL for Nintendo.  For the 750GX, it was a faster bus and splitting the 64 integer processor into 2 32bit units.  There in no documentation on what IBM has done for Nintendo additionally this time except that when know it can do everything the Gekko did.

I suspect more ALU's to handle all the data it can potentially receive from 4 remotes and 4 nunchuks.

1 year ago, developers were given devkits with 729Mhz Gamecube cpus.  Broadway (the new cpu) was not finalized until around E3 6 months later, iirc.  So something must have changed...

Anyway, when I first started the record-breaking "potential PPC Amiga real cheap" thread and the trolls attacked, there were some valid complaints about using a Gamecube:

1) low memory
2) low cpu power ( :cough: EFIKA (or whatever you call it) :cough: )
3) unable to attach a hard drive easily

Now reponse relating to the Wii:

#1 - Wii has an extra 48MB that we know of right now.  The Devkit GC's had 48MB of main RAM so I don't know if Wii was given the extra 24MB to main memory as well.  Either way, it's all 1T-SRAM now which is access alot faster to parts of that 64MB of aux RAM can be swapped out rather quickly according to ACTUAL Wii developers.

#2 - Wii is ATLEAST 1.5x as powerful but rumored to be more so.  Some cpu tests via GC homebrew will answer this question soon enough.  It certainly blows away anything currently available from Freescale and G3-based A1's due to it's faster fsb and larger programmable cache.

#3 - Wii has 2 usb 2.0 sockets


To answer why I don't help port it.  The answer is the same:  I am not an OS developer, nor a C++ programmer.

The only direction this thread needs to take is whether AROS developers see it as a viable platform and who is willing to help.

All other matters of personal taste can be excluded please.
 

Offline adolescent

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Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2006, 04:24:46 PM »
@lou

But for now you can't access any of the new Wii hardware from Gamecube mode.  The BBA is gone, there's no network from GCN mode, so streaming won't work.  And, they've protected against DVD-R loaders like Ananconda, GCOS, etc.  So, for now you have a cripled, $250 Gamecube when it comes to modding.

BTW, it's funny that you call anybody that doesn't agree with you a troll.  But, like I've said before, if providing accurate technical information is trolling, then of course...
Time to move on.  Bye Amiga.org.  :(
 

Offline AJCopland

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2006, 04:26:46 PM »
Whislt i like the idea of AROS/MorphOS or indeed any Amiga/AmigaLike OS running on the Wii there are some points i've gotta disagree with.

Firstly the Gekko was based on the G3, and whilst it does have some SIMD style instructions they're massively different to Altivec. If anything they're more like the PSPs vfpu instruction/unit in that they're highly specialised just for matrix<>matrix, matrix<>vector and vector<>vector operations.

Next; the G4 is dead? Hardly, the G4s used by Apple/A1 etc were all chips based on the e600 core and varied wildly in the performance of those implementations. The 8641D which they're just making available as engineering samples is a fairly high performing version of the e600 core (two of them in fact) with an intergrated DDR2 memory controller and Altivec. So the G4 series of chips is hardly dead.

Also the 750CL is just as i described. It's a die-shrink with a higher clock speed, double i think. Oh and the ram isn't 1T-SRAM, it's GDDR3. Main memory doesn't seem to have changed at all.

Lets make something clear, I think that it'd make another great target for things like AROS and the other to run on. But dont over sell it, it's not as great a CPU as it could have been and the GX doesn't even have shaders like a £20 modern graphics card or run as fast, also the amount of memory is a bit pants.
However it's going to be a very cheap and incredibly popular piece of hardware that everyone and there pet is going to own :-D

Andy
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Offline Louis DiasTopic starter

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2006, 08:26:19 PM »
@AJCopland

So I wouldn't call it a G4.
Again, while the 750CL is documented, the Nintendo specific changes are not yet.  Also, the cpu that you referred to, the 'GX, is not the gpu and would have nothing to do with shaders in the gpu, Hollywood.  I already see higher polygon counts in the Wii as well as much better lighting effects.  The lighting effects leads me to believe it's not just a straight over-clocking there as well.

@Adolescent
State your sources.  For all we know, the built-in WiFi may transparently seem like a BBA to the GC and as long as it's configure within the Wii's system settings, it may just work.  I don't have Phantasy Star 1&2 to test this out with.  
As for accessing the Wii specific functions, I imagine it's extra functions are just extensions of it's current ones.  For instance, I imagine the WiiMote are simply mapped as controller ports 5,6,7 & 8...or it's from the 'Cube's never used Serial Port #1...  But whatever the case, the homebrew community will find it in short order.

Coincidnetally, a Wii dekvit software package was leaked to a torrent site.  So like, I said, it's just a matter of time and alot sooner (and cheaper) than modding a 360 or PS3.
 

Offline AJCopland

Re: Wii already running GC homebrew via Action Replay
« Reply #13 on: November 23, 2006, 09:12:07 PM »
@lou_dias
Good points however the GX is the name of the GPU "hollywood" was its development name. I think that the better lighting effects etc are mostly likely ot do with the extra ram and higher clock speed allowing for better effects though.

Still as you say there's nothing really to go on and i still agree that it'd be an interesting thing for AROS to target.

Along with PS3 of course ;)

Andy
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Offline Louis DiasTopic starter