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World's First Custom Firmware For Wii Released
Posted by
timothy
on Thursday July 17, @03:21PM
from the how-to-quantify-spare-time dept.
from the how-to-quantify-spare-time dept.
Croakyvoice writes "Waninkoko has released the world's
first custom firmware for the Nintendo Wii, which is installed using the twilight
hack; among its features is the ability to allow writeable DVDs to be read
in emulators. From the readme: 'The Custom Firmware installs as IOS249 and it does not modify
any other IOS so it is secure to install and has been made to be used ONLY with
homebrew
software. This is a custom IOS, an IOS modified to add some new features not
available in the official IOS.'"
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But can it... (Score:5, Insightful)
... play DVD's?
That's the only feature missing on the Wii, in my opinion, anyway.
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Re:But can it... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's get this straight.
The drive in the Wii is NOT a DVD drive. In a DVD drive, the speed changes so the laser reads at the same speed all throughout the disk. This puts a strain on the motor (different speed and etc)
A Wii drive does NOT spin at different speeds, only one. The laser reads at variable speeds all throughout the disk. This makes the drive like a tank.
One is not the other, at least not without a firmware mod.
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Parent
Re:But can it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? At home, I've got two laptops, a desktop, a PlayStation 2, and a DVD/VCR combo -- all of which play DVDs. The fact that my Wii does not also play DVDs has not been an issue.
Hell, I didn't even find out that it doesn't play DVDs I read it on the 'net, months after having purchased my unit.
Are there really that many people who would purchase Wiis that don't already have a DVD player set up? When you can pick one up at Wal Mart for $40 or less...
IMO, the biggest thing working against the Wii is that it's being treated as a last-gen console by many developers. The Wii port of Guitar Hero 3 had graphics worse than the PS2 version of GH2. Rockband for Wii has no online capability whatsoever, even though GH3 had some, and GH4 is planned to have full online capability on Wii.
It seems like the development process these days is:
Which really shortchanges Wii owners. Yes, the console is far less capable by the PS3/Xbox360... but it's far more capable than the PS2. Try to fully utilize the hardware. Please.
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Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:But can it... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's made up crap you read on the Internet. Like most made up crap, though, there's a grain of unrelated truth. The Wii's firmware drives the disc at a constant velocity, no matter what track is being read. This is different from regular DVD drives that spin the disc faster or slower depending on the track. The latter puts more strain on the motor, which often causes the drives to fail faster. Thus the Wii's design is for reliability purposes.
Remember all the drive failures in PS2 models? Well, we'd definitely see a higher rate of drive failures if Nintendo supported DVD playback. In addition, Nintendo would need to add MPEG decoder hardware or software. At a minimum that would be additional licensing fees that would drive up the cost of each unit. At a maximum, that would mean licensing PLUS extra decoder chips.
So in effect, no DVD support is a practical measure. With DVD drives being plentiful, there's no realistic reason why anyone actually needs their Wii to support such a feature.
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Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. The Wii spins the disc at Constant Angular Velocity, which means that it is far better designed for constant reads. DVDs are spun up and down at Constant Linear Velocity. Which makes the electronics simpler, but puts a lot more wear and tear on the motor. Thus the PS2 drives that failed during its early lifetime vs. the low rate of Wii drive failures.
Re:But can it... (Score:4, Informative)
Which is why the Wii has proper ventilation. There are large vents out the back and bottom of the unit. These allow heat to be dissipated while hiding the bottom vents with a stand underneath the unit. (Check it out sometime. The stand has a huge hole in it and notches on the side.)
Heat with the Wii is primarily a problem when it's "turned off" in WiiConnect24 mode.
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Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Uh. Wii carries Dolby ProLogic 2, like the GameCube.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A PAL DVD is 576p.
This is not the first custom firmware for the Wii (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
so, reading R/RW media is a feature? (Score:3, Insightful)
The "features" that this firmware enables that were not present in the official firmware..
These are not features. If your hardware can read the disc, then the manufacturer specifically disabled the ability to read from writable media. This firmware disables a form of DRM.
That said, I agree wholeheartedly with the intent of this firmware!
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Not a custom firmware. No DVDRs on unmodded Wiis. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. This is not a "custom firmware". It is a hacked copy of an official IOS. IOS is the code which runs on one of the sub processors on the wii, it has nothing to do with the main firmware you see that shows channels, launches games, etc
2. You still CANNOT read dvdr's on an unmodified Wii. On an unmodified Wii, this modified IOS lets you only do one thing: dump commercial wii discs.
3. To read dvdr's in wii homebrew, you need a drivechip (a modchip attached to the DVD drive in the wii)
Conclusion: This is pretty much useless for homebrew, unless you are in the small minority who installed a modchip for piracy, but are still interested in homebrew. Even then, burning DVDR's is much more hassle than using SD's.
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There is so much factually wrong in this story... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:I just don't understand. (Score:5, Informative)
There is the Mt Everest answer and there is the "it isn't as weak as you make it out to be" answer. I don't plan on installing this firmware (not till the first wave of guiniea pigs test it for me ^_^), but I do have several Wiibrew games installed, some of which are WiiPorts of old games that have been released to the wild (GPL'ed or put in the public domain) and though the Wii homebrew scene isn't quite as polished as say the DS homebrew scene, they still have some impressive things out already.
In the end though, the real question is "why not?" Do you only drive your car from home to work and back again? Sometimes something doesn't have to have a strict utility or direct benefit to have fun doing it.
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Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Do you only drive your car from home to work and back again?
These days I sure do!
Really now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see:
- The Wii has a nifty built-in remote that can do all sorts of things... and homebrew offers learning coders the chance to play with it and come up with innovative ideas and neat tricks.
- A codebase set up to allow you to run burned discs with homebrew will hopefully be expanded to allow using the old (and quite solid) emulators that ran on the Gamecube. Being able to run my SNES/NES/Genesis/etc libraries from a burned CD rather than wasting space in the Wii's highly-limited 512MB of internal RAM would be a major benefit.
In fact, word behind closed doors indicates that Nintendo is going to HAVE to open up something to allow games to read the external SD card reader as normal storage shortly. Anyone who's spent any amount of money in the Wii online store is getting pretty close to the limitation as-is even without the ever-expanding savegame files eating it up. It's one of the Wii's few major mis-design problems (the other being the incredible dead-zone that prevents the wii from detecting small motion, like trying to putt a short put in Wii Sports Golf, reliably).
- The Wii has more than enough power to become a pretty nice streaming media player (say, a MythTV frontend) if you can build it properly. The original Xbox is nearing the end of its usable lifespan (unable to handle 720p or higher content and a few of the newest and most processor-hungry video codecs with its processor) and both the Xbox360 and PS3 are locked in ways that opening them up for homebrew code is far more difficult than rewriting something (though rumors have it that PS3 custom firmware is being worked on). While it's true the Wii couldn't put out a true 720p signal, it could very likely process high-def content and display it in extremely pretty 480p, which would put it a step above the aging Xbox.
And before you say "but the PS3 allows you to run linux natively"... no. It doesn't. It allows you to run a very stripped-down Linux, and segregates hardware control to prevent Linux from being able to do most of the things that you'd want Linux and associated programs to be able to do. For example, the XBMC team (who are porting to both Windows and Linux right now) have already said that the PS3 will not allow them enough direct access (processor, video, RAM writes) to do what the software needs to do.
- The Wii is in more homes. That means that more people are able to enjoy the fruits of their work when they get the nifty home-brewed programs running.
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Parent
Re:I just don't understand. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually no you can't. It was even stated in the summary this only works for homebrew software, not comercial rips, and on purpose. The people who are doing most of the cool stuff in the Wii Homebrew scene are fairly ethical folk.
What this should mean however, is now people can start making DVD's of their homebrew software and popping it in like a normal game instead of having to cram everything in a 'small' memory card.
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Parent
Re:IT'S ABOUT TIME (Score:5, Informative)
Jail? Your not serious are you?
Just in case your not kidding, it is not illegal or even close to anything remotely criminal to put custom firmware on ANY PIECE OF ELECTRONICS THAT YOU OWN.
That may just be what Sony is trying to push with their PR campaign throughout the world, which is that they have complete and total control of their equipment everywhere and to go against that is a crime... and kills puppies.
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Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
and kills puppies.
You mean it doesn't?! Damn.
All that wasted time...
Re:IT'S ABOUT TIME (Score:4, Interesting)
Um, doesn't the DMCA make it illegal to circumvent the Wii's anti-piracy protection? I'm no lawyer but this seems blatantly illegal in the US.
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Parent
Re:IT'S ABOUT TIME (Score:5, Insightful)
Good question. That would be a tough argument for the prosecutor. You own the equipment out right, as in TOTALLY YOURS. Your property.
I would say that completely overwriting the base software with your own is not "circumventing" anything and is not physically tampering with the hardware or software to *specifically* achieve the goal of bypassing copyright protection schemes. You would have to prove that the secondary effect of removing the copyright protection provided through factory firmware was in fact the primary goal that the person was trying to achieve. You would have to prove intent. A Modchip is a "blatant" attempt to circumvent copyright protection. You cannot interpret it any other way. Custom Firmware is not even in the same ballpark as a Modchip.
What you also bring up is an underlying misconception that many people have, which is that homebrew and custom firmware's primary goal IS to circumvent copyright protection to facilitate and abet piracy (copyright infringment).
The fundamental purpose of custom firmware is to use any given hardware *exactly* the way that you want to use it. It is not a criminally motivated behavior.
Custom Firmware != Piracy. Custom Firmware != Copyright Protection Circumvention.
In any case, if there was further legislation which provided punishments for you using the software of your choice with the hardware of your choice, I would say that the law itself is an unjust law. I would then wholeheartedly advocate civil disobediance with respect to that law. Yes, as you may already have guessed, I think the DMCA is unconstitutional and ethically bankrupt as far as laws go. However, I don't even think custom firmware for any game console is actually violating it in the first place.
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Parent
Re:IT'S ABOUT TIME (Score:5, Interesting)
You are a total and complete fucking idiot and a coward. I don't care if that completely resets my karma on /. either. Fuck the anonymous posting, I will say it to your face.
You are the reason why some men have the ability to dominate others through fear and violence. Because you are a PUSSY and will not stand up for your rights, or SUFFER FOR THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS.
Thank the Heavens that Ghandi did not have your sentiment. That Martin Luther King did not stay home settling for a little fear instead of fighting for everyone's rights.
It will be people like you that lead us all to oppressive fascist totalitarian governments. Becuase people get the government they deserve, and if you are willing to live in FEAR and SETTLE than you don't DESERVE FREEDOM.
My god, fuck you. Seriously... Just fuck you. This has nothing to do with Sony or custom firmware either. Just your proposition that we live in fear rather than stand up for freedoms, or even our belief in freedoms, to gain temporary safety and security. Wow. Fuck YOU.
You sit at home you little PUSSY. The rest of real MEN (including some pretty awesome Women too) will be outside risking our lives, liberty, and property to make sure little fuckers like you have some freedoms left.
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Parent
Re:IT'S ABOUT TIME (Score:5, Insightful)
> actively supports the installation of alternate operating systems
As long as you can live with a crippled virtual machine that only emulates a dumb framebuffer. No, I won't be buying a PS3 because they allow you to play in a sandbox. If I can't run accelerated 2D I wouldn't even ponder the notion. Notice that Xboxes make great MythTV frontends but the supposedly newer and 'Linux friendly' PS3 doesn't. And without full (3D) hardware access it isn't really an open platform.
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Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly!
I laugh myself silly anytime somebody says that Sony PS3 is an open platform. If THAT is an open platform than I can tell somebody that they can sleep over at my house.... in the backyard ... next to the trash cans, and still seem like a nice and hospitable guy.
Sony is as much an open platform as a public kiosk is a home computer.