Topic: Nintendont (GameCube for Wii)

[Abnormal Freak]

For some reason, Nintendont has been getting a lot of buzz on Facebook, so I decided to try it out. It's a GameCube ISO loader that supposedly plays games off the hardware and is compatible with the Wii and the Wii U's vWii (Virtual Wii a.k.a. Wii Mode). There are a few little roadbumps here and there but it's otherwise really nice and runs the games smoothly.

Playing it on my Wii U and the thing I'm most impressed with are the Force Widescreen and Force Progressive Scan options. GameCube games that enabled either 480p or 16:9 are few, and games that enable both even fewer, so forcing progressive scan is a nice way to crisp up 480i games; and while forcing widescreen can create some wonkiness (like horizontally squishing the image on the Game Boy Horror screen or revealing the void that exists beyond room walls in Luigi's Mansion), it's nevertheless a cool feature to have a wider field of view in games that are stuck in (well, designed for) 4:3.

Here's a comparison from killer7, though be aware they're just crappy cellphone pics and aren't indicative of video quality (top: Wii playing the disc; bottom: Nintendont):





I think it's rad and can't wait to dig into some more games that aren't natively 480p or 16:9.

Sure, there's Dolphin and ways you can upres games already, but it's cool to easily play this on a TV and apparently off the hardware.

It's also neat having the games show up on the GamePad (also shows the wider field of view compared to the Wii playing the disc on the TV).



One gripe is that the games aren't full 16:9 (1.78:1) but more an aspect ratio that resembles the European movie format of 1.66:1, so there are black pillars on the sides as you can see on the GamePad. Would prefer the full TV space to be used like GameCube games are when played on a Wii.

[Inccubus]

Groovie. I've been thinking of giving this a try for a while now.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

My GCN ISO Loader, for some time, has been Devolution.  I think due to this development, this may change.

The original reason I used to use Devolution was because it was the only loader that would allow you to use Wii Remote+ClassicController.  Every other loader seemed to be geared towards original Wii with Gamecube Ports, so it required wired Gamecube Controllers to work, or it relied on a Bluetooth Stack driver installed on the loader in order to work with non-Nintendo controllers like the Dualshock3, which, while nice, also had the drawback of causing some frameskipping & slowdown on games.

Now that things have progressed, I may switch to this type of loader program instead of Devolution.  One of the annoying things about Devolution is that it requires you to sync your Wii-Remote to the GCN-ISO because the creator of the program is a heavy anti-piracy kinda guy, so once you synced up the ISO to your wii remote, you cannot copy the ISO file as it won't work afterwards (you have to move the file in the Fat32 folder structure).  You also cannot use that same drive in another Wii unless you use the same Wii Remote (again, to prevent people from just downloading ISOs off the net that have been copied).  You also always have to do a one-time 'insert true Gamecube Disc' thing with every new Gamecube ISO, essentially requiring the original disc, something that it's just impossible to feed into the Wii-U.  Thankfully I have an original Wii, but that forces me to use it every time I want to add a new game to the USB hard drive that'll go to Wii-U.  It's annoying.

So Freak, I take it you're not experiencing the slowdown that I'm talking about? 

As Freak said, some things with the force widescreen and force progressive are of note:  Some games do not work well with those features, and other games run into other problems with them.

[Abnormal Freak]

No slowdown or frameskipping that I've noticed. Forced widescreen aside, the only weirdness I've noticed so far are these:

- Sometimes in Luigi's Mansion, the music wouldn't start right away when entering the file select screen, and again when entering E. Gadd's lab after selecting a file. There would be a delay of two or three seconds before music started. Didn't happen every time, and usually seemed to happen when I did have Force Widescreen selected.

- There was a line of subtitles that didn't show up at the beginning of Star Fox Adventures.

Otherwise it's been smooth sailing, and as I told Jorge on FB, the Wiimote+Classic Controller combo actually registers the analog presses of the shoulder buttons (regular Classic Controller only since the Pro revision removed these).

There are some other things that could be fixed, particularly with the interface. Pressing the Home button brings you back to the loader (in my case, Homebrew Channel) instead of back to the Nintendont startup, which is annoying having to restart it each time you load a game. Also, settings are universal, so you can't have saved settings for each ISO. It also froze for whatever reason when I selected a PAL ISO for Luigi's Mansion, forcing me to actually unplug my Wii U (frightening; I always fear I'll break something). Did anybody know the PAL version for this game has a mirrored mode???


Here's something interesting: I played Resident Evil 3 for a bit, which looks awesome on the GameCube except for one major problem: it's interlaced and blurry. What makes it better than the PSX version is the graphics being much less compressed and higher res, so you can actually read the text on signs; however, being that it's so blurry, I opted to play the PSX version on my PS3 upscaled to 1080p for my first playthrough this past summer.

Well, Force Progressive Scan really makes it look smokin'. Hard to tell from these cellphone pics, but it's much, much sharper now than when playing the disc on my Wii. Peep out the texture on Jill's face and the text on the sign.

GameCube (via Wii)


Nintendont (via Wii U)


PSX (via PS3)

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Otherwise it's been smooth sailing, and as I told Jorge on FB, the Wiimote+Classic Controller combo actually registers the analog presses of the shoulder buttons (regular Classic Controller only since the Pro revision removed these).

That's pretty sweet.  I'm not sure if Devo did that and I do use the oldschool ClassicController with the analog shoulder buttons.

There are some other things that could be fixed, particularly with the interface. Pressing the Home button brings you back to the loader (in my case, Homebrew Channel) instead of back to the Nintendont startup, which is annoying having to restart it each time you load a game. Also, settings are universal, so you can't have saved settings for each ISO. It also froze for whatever reason when I selected a PAL ISO for Luigi's Mansion, forcing me to actually unplug my Wii U (frightening; I always fear I'll break something). Did anybody know the PAL version for this game has a mirrored mode???

Wait, you're using Nintendont as a standalone app?  No wonder.
You wanna use Nintendont as a dedicated GCN Loader for another better loader.  I use USB Loader GX, which has a great interface and many toggle options that you can set to global or tweak for individual games.

Here's how it's done.
-You already did the legwork and installed Nintendont, so Kudos to you on doing that and getting it working.
-I am guessing that you're either using an USB Hard Drive or have the ISOs in your card.  You really should get a drive if you haven't done so already.
-Get either USB-LoaderGX, or Wiiflow.  Both of these are very sweet, super-configurable (globally or on a per-game basis) game loaders that work with quite a lot of USB Hard Disks.
-Tell the loader that your Gamecube Loader is Nintendont.  You will be able to add the tweaks you need individually to the game (for example, games that won't load in your region, since the Wii system video needs to match the game's disc video, such as any PAL game, need their settings tweaked in order to work with the proper Wii/vWii version).

The bonus is also that once you set up the loaders, they will also set up a file structure in your USB HDD such that you can easily drop Wii ISOs in there as well.  They can also rip game ISOs right to the drive (Wii ISOs, Gamecube ISOs can be dumped only if you're using a Wii, not a Wii-U) for easily backing up your game library like I did.

The big reason I did this is because two years ago I had a huge scare: my DVD drive for my Wii stopped functioning and I couldn't load any of my discs.  While waiting for the replacement, I looked up ways to circumvent the problem and learned about USB Loaders.  Haven't looked back since (even though I fixed my DVD, nowadays it's mostly used to back up Wii/GCN games).

[Abnormal Freak]

I'll hafta do that.

I dunno if Devolution required a lengthy install, but Nintendont is as easy as putting a few files in the apps folder and voila, time to play some muh-fudgin' games.

And yeah, just playing games off the SD card (fills up quick despite being 32 GB). Not sure how crazy I'll go with loading up on ISOs so not sure I'll need a heckuvalotta space. I need to get an external HDD for my Wii U (eShop) games, but that has to be formatted to the Wii U and I dunno if I can partition space for homebrew or just have a separate drive.

Is there an advantage to dumping my own Wii and GCN ISOs? Aside from the legality of it being more sound than downloading.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Wii-U formatted drives cannot have more than one partition.
So you're stuck if you're gonna be doing Wii-U HDD gaming, as it'll be either-or.

I would LOVE for it to work otherwise, though.  My 1TB drive has enough space for Wii-U titles.  But as of now, it can only be used for Wii/GCN/etc. gaming on vWii.

There's no real advantage to dumping your own Wii and GCN ISOs aside from the convenience to do so if you already own it.  It's a nice feature but if you're going Full-Pirate it doesn't make a difference... though when you rip them using USB Loader GX's "Install to Drive" feature, it does the legwork for you and sets up the proper folder/file structure in the drive, which is kinda nice.

Devolution did not require a lengthy install, but it required the "Install to Drive" nonsense I just mentioned, because the creator of the frontend is a heavy Anti-Piracy guy.  It just so happened that he was the first to figure out a bridge from Gamecube Controllers to WiiRemote Controllers, so it was necessary to use his program and real disc backups.  But now that (it appears as if) Nintendont has caught up, I may be dumping his frontend by the wayside and migrating to Nintendont.

[Abnormal Freak]

Wii-U formatted drives cannot have more than one partition.
So you're stuck if you're gonna be doing Wii-U HDD gaming, as it'll be either-or.

I was worried about that. The thought of having two wall outlet HDDs hooked to my Wii U pisses me off a little. :p

[Lelygax]

I've used a lot of loaders and like Jorge said, Usb Loader GX and Wiiflow are the best ones. In Wiiflow you can even use some plugins so you can load another system ROMs from it, pretty sweet.

What about memory cards, how Nintendont does this job and save games? I've never used any GC Loader before because you needed to change your MIOS, use DIOS-MIOS and shit. Since I had only MGS: Twin Snakes, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and RE3: Nemesis and didnt had a external HDD yet, I didnt took a time to meddle with this, running wii games from a SD card was ok to me at time.

[Inccubus]

Damnit. Now I regret getting rid of my Classic Controller with analogue.
The remake of Defender is one of my favorite GC games but the digital shoulder buttons don't register when I press them.
Just another reason for me to get a Wii U Pro Controller I guess.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Wii-U Pro Controller doesn't have Analog ZL/ZR Triggers.
Neither does the Wii Classic Controller Pro.

You want the good ol' Wii Classic Controller.  The white one that plugs to the Wii Remote.
It's also the cheapest.  But yes, this one has the analog L/R buttons (the ZL/ZR buttons are in a weird location but it suits my Gamecube needs regardless).

[Inccubus]

Yeap, that's the one I got rid of.
The only alternatives would be the ps3 & ps4 pads, right?

[Abnormal Freak]

What about memory cards, how Nintendont does this job and save games? I've never used any GC Loader before because you needed to change your MIOS, use DIOS-MIOS and shit. Since I had only MGS: Twin Snakes, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and RE3: Nemesis and didnt had a external HDD yet, I didnt took a time to meddle with this, running wii games from a SD card was ok to me at time.

Nintendont gives the option for a multi-card (multiple saves on a single card like actual memory cards) with a choice of what size, or you can have space allotted for each game, which is apparently what you need to do if you're going to have saves for one game but in different regions (a Luigi's Mansion NTSC-U, NTSC-J, and PAL save cannot be on the same card, apparently).

I would assume Nintendont would register the DualShock 3's analog buttons. I haven't tried tinkering around with it yet.

[Lelygax]

How do you use a DS3 on a Wii U? Unofficial adapter magic?

[Abnormal Freak]

Nintendont is configured for Bluetooth controllers and I guess it's set up to get the right serial numbers for automatic sync. It might be corded, I don't know. I'll need to tinker with it.