I originally sent this out in April, but I'm not sure my messages were getting out to AgoraNet. I think I may have that issue fixed.

Recently I decided to mod my Nintendo Wii to get more use out of it. I thought I wouldn't be able to easily mod it since I kept its software up to date - I heard Nintendo put anti-mod protection in its latest updates. I had the 4.3U firmware on it, which I think was the latest, but I was surprised to find that there was an easy software mod for it, and it didn't require any hardware modification. I found a software modding guide here: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/softmod-nintendo-wii-easy/amp/
That guide got the Homebrew Channel installed (which lets you install & run 3rd-party apps). I also found another guide that helped get USB drives going to allow playing Wii games from a USB drive - The guide was similar to this: https://m.wikihow.com/Burn-Wii-Games-to-Disc

I know people have been doing this for years already.. I just recently decided to try modding my Nintendo Wii, and I'm surprised it was as easy as it was.
Now I have some emulators on it (NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafX 16) with some ROMs, and some Wii games on a USB. The Wii homebrew community also has some cool looking games for the Wii. It will be fun to mess with this stuff now..

Nightfox

Nightfox wrote:

I originally sent this out in April, but I'm not sure my messages were

getting

out to AgoraNet. I think I may have that issue fixed.

Recently I decided to mod my Nintendo Wii to get more use out of it. I

thought

I wouldn't be able to easily mod it since I kept its software up to date - I heard Nintendo put anti-mod protection in its latest updates. I had the

4.3U

firmware on it, which I think was the latest, but I was surprised to find

that

there was an easy software mod for it, and it didn't require any hardware modification. I found a software modding guide here: https://www.groovypost.com/howto/softmod-nintendo-wii-easy/amp/
That guide got the Homebrew Channel installed (which lets you install & run 3rd-party apps). I also found another guide that helped get USB drives

going

to allow playing Wii games from a USB drive - The guide was similar to this: https://m.wikihow.com/Burn-Wii-Games-to-Disc

I know people have been doing this for years already.. I just recently

decided

to try modding my Nintendo Wii, and I'm surprised it was as easy as it was. Now I have some emulators on it (NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafX 16)

with

some ROMs, and some Wii games on a USB. The Wii homebrew community also has some cool looking games for the Wii. It will be fun to mess with this stuff now..

I modded my Wii long ago. We then got a Wii-U and I homebrewed the Virtual
WII. Now we have a Switch. My son wanted a Gamecube controleler for some inexplicable reason. I got the controller and converter box but I didn't realize the newer hardware wouldn't play the smaller Gamecube disks, so it looks like I'm going to be dragging out the old Wii again.
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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: Nelgin to Nightfox on Sat Nov 03 2018 05:09 pm

I modded my Wii long ago. We then got a Wii-U and I homebrewed the Virtual WII. Now we have a Switch. My son wanted a Gamecube controleler for some inexplicable reason. I got the controller and converter box but I didn't realize the newer hardware wouldn't play the smaller Gamecube disks, so it looks like I'm going to be dragging out the old Wii again.

When playing games on the Wii, I've noticed there's a slight lag when using the Wii remote controls. It's particularly noticeable when playing games with the emulators. A while ago I bought a couple of Gamecube controllers for the Wii so I could have some wired controllers to plug into the console to avoid lag that could be caused by wireless controllers.

Nightfox

Nightfox wrote:

Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: Nelgin to Nightfox on Sat Nov 03 2018 05:09 pm

I modded my Wii long ago. We then got a Wii-U and I homebrewed the Virtual
WII. Now we have a Switch. My son wanted a Gamecube controleler for some
inexplicable reason. I got the controller and converter box but I didn't
realize the newer hardware wouldn't play the smaller Gamecube disks, so it
looks like I'm going to be dragging out the old Wii again.

When playing games on the Wii, I've noticed there's a slight lag when using

the

Wii remote controls. It's particularly noticeable when playing games with

the

emulators. A while ago I bought a couple of Gamecube controllers for the

Wii

so I could have some wired controllers to plug into the console to avoid lag that could be caused by wireless controllers.

I've not used the emulators so I wouldn't know, but never had problems with
the original Wii remotes.
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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: Nelgin to Nightfox on Sun Nov 04 2018 08:12 pm

When playing games on the Wii, I've noticed there's a slight lag when
using the Wii remote controls. It's particularly noticeable when playing
games with the emulators. A while ago I bought a couple of Gamecube
controllers for the Wii
so I could have some wired controllers to plug into the console to
avoid lag that could be caused by wireless controllers.

I've not used the emulators so I wouldn't know, but never had problems with the original Wii remotes.

I don't think the lag is really noticeable when playing Wii games (maybe there is a slight lag but I just haven't noticed it).

Nightfox

On 11/04/18, Nightfox said the following...

I don't think the lag is really noticeable when playing Wii games (maybe there is a slight lag but I just haven't noticed it).

There's some degree of input lag inherent to the remotes and modern digital displays but Wii games will have been designed with this in mind. Older games made for hardwired controllers and analog TVs expected the hardware to
respond in nanoseconds rather than milliseconds, so are a little less
forgiving of such lag.

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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: Static to Nightfox on Mon Nov 05 2018 05:20 pm

There's some degree of input lag inherent to the remotes and modern digital displays but Wii games will have been designed with this in mind.

I wonder how the Wii games deal with it.. Perhaps by not having situations that require input within nanoseconds, I suppose. Also, the Wii has analog outputs, and considering the Wii came out in 2006, was it really designed with digital TVs in mind?

Nightfox

On 11/05/18, Nightfox said the following...

I wonder how the Wii games deal with it.. Perhaps by not having situations that require input within nanoseconds, I suppose. Also, the Wii has analog outputs, and considering the Wii came out in 2006, was it really designed with digital TVs in mind?

Even CRTs over analog inputs had pretty bad latency if they did any
sort of scaling of the picture such as on older widescreen or HDTV sets. Ultimately it would have been up the game developers to tackle rather than the Wii itself, since they control how many frames of animation you get before Little Mac gets a boxing glove to the face. Maybe they could have just been made easier in general but I can't recall much on the Wii needing the sort of reflexes I remember. Wii Punchout I found incredibly forgiving compared to the NES title.

You also have to figure Nintendo had some idea, considering the remotes deliberately use a sensing mechanism that doesn't depend on the TV picture itself.

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Nightfox wrote to All <=-

I know people have been doing this for years already.. I just recently decided to try modding my Nintendo Wii, and I'm surprised it was as
easy as it was. Now I have some emulators on it (NES, SNES, Sega
Genesis, TurboGrafX 16) with some ROMs, and some Wii games on a USB.
The Wii homebrew community also has some cool looking games for the
Wii. It will be fun to mess with this stuff now..

Nightfox
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I modded my son's Wii U a month or so ago - was extremely easy to do. My original reason is because he doesn't take good care of his discs and I was tired of replacing them. Then I got around to installing Nintendont and now it'll play Gamecube games and more. Pretty sweet setup.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
___ MultiMail/Win v0.51

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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: deepthaw to Nightfox on Sat Nov 10 2018 03:58 pm

I modded my son's Wii U a month or so ago - was extremely easy to do. My original reason is because he doesn't take good care of his discs and I was tired of replacing them. Then I got around to installing Nintendont and now it'll play Gamecube games and more. Pretty sweet setup.

That's cool. I was hesitant to mod my Wii when Nintendo was still releasing updates for it, but now that their support for the Wii is ending soon and there are no more firmware updates, I like it being modded.

Nightfox

deepthaw wrote to Nightfox <=-

I modded my son's Wii U a month or so ago - was extremely easy to do.
My original reason is because he doesn't take good care of his discs
and I was tired of replacing them. Then I got around to installing Nintendont and now it'll play Gamecube games and more. Pretty sweet
setup. ... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline
reader! ___ MultiMail/Win v0.51

I'm going to have to try that - doesn't the Wii play gamevube games
already?

I brought my Wii up to our family cabin, the kids like playing older
games up there that they wouldn't play when there's an Xbox in the
house. It might be fun to mod it and see what else it could do. I'd
love to get some more mileage out of it.





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Nightfox wrote to deepthaw <=-

That's cool. I was hesitant to mod my Wii when Nintendo was still releasing updates for it, but now that their support for the Wii is
ending soon and there are no more firmware updates, I like it being modded.

It was sad seeing all of the social network aspects of the Wii going
away, but glad the hardware is still capable. It was a great Netflix
station for the kids when they had an SD TV.

If someone made VLC or a similar media player for it, I'd love it -
could bring a hard drive full of movies up to the cabin where the Wii
lives (no internet access there)



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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Mon Nov 12 2018 09:19 am

It was sad seeing all of the social network aspects of the Wii going
away, but glad the hardware is still capable. It was a great Netflix station for the kids when they had an SD TV.

If someone made VLC or a similar media player for it, I'd love it -
could bring a hard drive full of movies up to the cabin where the Wii lives (no internet access there)

A media player would be interesting for the Wii.
Currently I have my Wii connected to a 4K TV via a 5-cable component adapter and I think the picture quality is actually not bad. I've seen HDMI adapters for the Wii, but those are probably just analog-to-digital converters.

Nightfox

Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: poindexter FORTRAN to deepthaw on Mon Nov 12 2018 09:16 am

I modded my son's Wii U a month or so ago - was extremely easy to

I'm going to have to try that - doesn't the Wii play gamevube games already?

The Wii does, but I don't think the Wii U does. My understanding is that Nintendo's consoles these days only provide one generation of backward compatibility. So the Wii U might play Wii games but not GameCube games.

Nightfox

Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: Nightfox to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Nov 12 2018 12:34 pm

Currently I have my Wii connected to a 4K TV via a 5-cable component adapter and I think the picture quality is actually not bad. I've seen HDMI adapters for the Wii, but those are probably just analog-to-digital converters.

I had one of those once - it put out 480p versus 480i, or something like that? I didn't see a huge difference but it did help.
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|08·── |15Nightfox |07Said |08──·|07
When playing games on the Wii, I've noticed there's a slight lag when using the Wii remote controls. It's particularly noticeable when playing games with the emulators. A while ago I bought a couple of Gamecube controllers for the Wii so I could have some wired controllers to plug into the console to avoid lag that could be caused by wireless controllers.
|08·── |15Nightfox |07Done |08──·|07

I chased the NES emulator lag around for quite some time this year hehe. I've been working on collecting the complete NES cartridge library but still like the convenience of having the entire collection on one rom cart or sd card. The RetroUSB AVS system plays on HDMI monitors with 99.9% compatibility and has no discernible lag. Hooking the Wii up to an analog monitor also removes the emulator lag for me. Ended up getting an almost new 27" for $20 on craigslist so I could play the actual NES side by side for comparisons, and the only real test I needed was jumping in SMB1.

I was even able to get the RetroPie to run fast with the quicknes emulator.
But don't waste your time with the default NES emulator on the rpi, way too laggy.


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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: Darkwing to Nightfox on Fri Dec 14 2018 07:18 am

I chased the NES emulator lag around for quite some time this year hehe. I've been working on collecting the complete NES cartridge library but still like the convenience of having the entire collection on one rom cart or sd card. The RetroUSB AVS system plays on HDMI monitors with 99.9% compatibility and has no discernible lag. Hooking the Wii up to an analog monitor also removes the emulator lag for me. Ended up getting an almost new 27" for $20 on craigslist so I could play the actual NES side by side for comparisons, and the only real test I needed was jumping in SMB1.

I've heard of people having problems with lag using LCD TVs, but I'm still not sure that's entirely the problem. With the wired GameCube controllers plugged into the Wii, I don't think there's any discernable lag, from what I remember, and I have it hooked up to a 4K flat-panel TV. I do have the Wii connected to my TV using analog component cables rather than HDMI. Perhaps the TV is able to convert the analog signal to digital fairly quickly. Also, more recently I bought an SNES Classic, which uses wired controllers and has 720p HDMI output, and I've played it on our 4K TV without much of any noticeable lag.

Nightfox

|08·── |15Nightfox |07Said |08──·|07
I've heard of people having problems with lag using LCD TVs, but I'm still not sure that's entirely the problem. With the wired GameCube controllers plugged into the Wii, I don't think there's any discernable lag, from what I remember, and I have it hooked up to a 4K flat-panel TV. I do have the Wii connected to my TV using analog component cables rather than HDMI. Perhaps the TV is able to convert the analog signal to digital fairly quickly. Also, more recently I bought an SNES Classic, which uses wired controllers and has 720p HDMI output, and I've played it on our 4K TV without much of any noticeable lag.
|08·── |15Nightfox |07Done |08──·|07

It took me awhile to notice it too. Like I never noticed a thing playing Zelda on my Wii via HDMI, but there was a definite timing impact which was most easily noticed here by trying to do a split second in SMB1 where I'd need to run/jump onto a green pipe and jump off again before i ran off of it. As long as nothings bugging you I say it's all good. It was almost like I jinx'd myself by getting the original analog TV and hooking the NES up via AV out and running it side-by-side with my digital TV hahaha. Could not unsee! :D


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It took me awhile to notice it too. Like I never noticed a thing playing Zelda on my Wii via HDMI, but there was a definite timing impact which was most easily noticed here by trying to do a split second in
SMB1 where I'd need to run/jump onto a green pipe and jump off again before i ran off of it. As long as nothings bugging you I say it's all

I've always used Punchout for testing of those things since the timing can really be felt, but maybe that was just because I played it so much when I
was younger that I have a feel for it. That and Super Punchout on the SNES.

I can usually tell if there is lag in that game when I can't in other games.

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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: Darkwing to Nightfox on Sat Dec 15 2018 10:32 am

It took me awhile to notice it too. Like I never noticed a thing playing Zelda on my Wii via HDMI, but there was a definite timing impact which was

Are you using one of those aftermarket Wii-HDMI adapters? I've heard the Wii doesn't support HDMI natively, and it originally came with analog A/V cables (and you could optionally use the 5-plug analog component cables).

most easily noticed here by trying to do a split second in SMB1 where I'd need to run/jump onto a green pipe and jump off again before i ran off of it. As long as nothings bugging you I say it's all good. It was almost like I jinx'd myself by getting the original analog TV and hooking the NES up via AV out and running it side-by-side with my digital TV hahaha. Could not unsee! :D

By "analog TV", I'm assuming you mean a CRT TV? Even most flat-panel TVs these days still have the analog video inputs, as far as I know (mine do anyway).

Nightfox

|08·── |15Nightfox |07Said |08──·|07
Are you using one of those aftermarket Wii-HDMI adapters? I've heard the Wii doesn't support HDMI natively, and it originally came with analog A/V cables (and you could optionally use the 5-plug analog component cables).

By "analog TV", I'm assuming you mean a CRT TV? Even most flat-panel TVs these days still have the analog video inputs, as far as I know (mine do anyway). |08·── |15Nightfox |07Done |08──·|07

Sorry, I said HDMI but I was thinking digital TV :) I have a component cable for the Wii that I tried on several digital TVs, but currently have hooked up to a 27" CRT TV. I've even got some adapters from RetroUSB to connect a wired original NES controller to the gamecube ports on the original white Wii. But really even with the wiimotes, just switching from the digital TV to the analog TV removed all the lag I noticed. If you've got the room, it's a decent $20 spent for an analog TV. The one I got off craigslist was almost brand new, some lawyer rolled up in a BMW to sell it to me in a parking lot hahaha


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Nightfox wrote to Darkwing <=-

Are you using one of those aftermarket Wii-HDMI adapters? I've heard
the Wii doesn't support HDMI natively, and it originally came with
analog A/V cables (and you could optionally use the 5-plug analog component cables).

True - they came with analog cables that did 480i, and component
cables could get you 480p. Still low-res, though. I wonder if a HDMI
adapter could upscale it to 720?




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Re: Re: Modded Nintendo Wii
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Nightfox on Mon Dec 17 2018 11:08 am

True - they came with analog cables that did 480i, and component
cables could get you 480p. Still low-res, though. I wonder if a HDMI adapter could upscale it to 720?

No matter what you're upscaling it to, the original image is still a relatively low-resolution image. I don't think upscaling will improve the image quality. Whether you're connecting a Wii via one of those HDMI adapters or via component etc., the image will end up being upscaled to whatever your TV's native resolution is.

Nightfox