EZ-Flash USA Forum

Ive been wanting to get a modchip pretty much since i got my wii but haven't for whatever reason. Which is the best one to get or should i not even get one and just wait for a newer model? Thanks

CycloDS seems to be the "winner" if you don't have the time/tools/ability/patience to implement one of the free/open source solutions.

I am in the process of writing an "ultimate guide to erm running backups: nes through to 360" so you can have what I have done for the Wii, naturally it will be more presentable in the final draft (the first person will go for a start and I will detail some more on homebrew, dumping games and have some pictures):

So you want to play copies on a Wii:

All current modchips (there is one slight tweak that has had some photos, no word on a timeframe for release yet) are so called drive chips in that they rely on exploits in the drives setup to work. As such they are pretty much all the same, a rundown of the sales patter:

"stealth": not really a feature as it is a drivechip: if one can be detected (which as yet they have not been) then they all can, "disabling" can also be done with a switch if the option to do it "onboard" does not exist.

Wii games: Despite what some fanboys might say all chips will play Wii games as good as the next, disc read errors (normally abbreviated to DREs) should be a thing of the past with good media, current updates and good program to burn it with (imgburn (made by the same guy as dvd decrypter) is my preferred app here). Some say adding a capacitor (picoFarad range) to the clock lead (thereby lowering clockspeed) can help but that is disputed.

Gamecube games: The only issues here really are "audiofix" and multi disc games, various games such as Eternal Darkness stream audio from the disc, this can lead to crashes if audiofix does not exist.
[hide=incomplete list of titles with streaming audio, click to reveal]
Ace Golf (Swinger's Golf)
007 Agent Under Fire
1080
Alien Hominid
Amazing Island
Bloody Roar Primal Fury
Bomberman Generations
Crash Bandicoot
Crazy Taxi
Dakar 2
Darkened Skye
Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure
Dragonball Z Sagas
Dragon's Lair 3D
Dream Mix TV World Fighters
Eternal Darkness
Freestyle Metal-X
Go Go Hypergrind
GT Cube
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters
Harvest Moon (in certain areas)
Ikaruga
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Lost Kingdoms
Lotus Challenge
Mario Kart Bonus Disc
Master Quest
Monster Jam Destruction
MX Superfly
Naruto 1,2,3
Pool Paradise
Pro Rally
Red Faction 2
Resident Evil 4 Preview Disc (w/ RE4 Demo)
Speed Kings
Splinter Cell: Pandora's Tomorrow
Starfox
Summoner: A Goddess Reborn
Super Monkey Ball
Tak And The Power Of Juju
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4
Top Gun: Combat Zone
Universal Studios:Theme Park Adventure
Urban Freestyle Soccer
Virtua Striker 3 Ver. 2002
Wave Race: Blue Storm
Worms Blast
XG3 Extreme G Racing
Zelda: Bonus Disc (with Ocarina of Time)
Zoids Battle Legends
original post: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic= ... ntry643725
[/hide]
It is a rapidly changing sector (some chips do not have it, some have it but it does not work and others have it) so if I say something now in 14 hours it could well be wrong, forums (be they official or 3rd party) for your prospective chip are the best route here. Chips have just about everything sorted now so if audiofix does not exist it should do shortly, multi disc games should not be an issue anymore.
I also suggest you dig up a link on how to pull off multiple GC games one disc: GC games are on small size DVDs (1.4 gigabytes at most and it is a shame to waste a 4.35 gig disc on one game)

Region free: The big one as far I am concerned, Gamecube should be fine across the board (you may need a own region disc and then to swap if you want to play an import at worst). Note also that the swap trick (where you swap a import for a real one right after it boots (I am afraid you will have to search for this one)) enables you to play import GC games, you have to be damn fast though.
Wii region free is not so good, most NTSC games can be played via this (i.e. it is likely I could play the latest and greatest out of Japan on my US Wii) but NTSC to PAL and vice versa is less than brilliant.
All region free uses the same method (a small tweak right at the start of the iso, it can be done on chip or via a patching tool (there is a windows and Java implementation)) therefore each is as good as the next, it also seems to be the case that until unsigned code can be run you are out of luck.
Region free for real games is a tricky area, if your chip does not have it onboard then it is not going to happen (some that claim to may not work either) but as mentioned isos can be patched, have a read here for more:
http://wiki.gbatemp.net/index.php/Wii_R ... ility_List

Chipset support: there was a new chipset that appeared shortly after the first chip known as D2B, the first chips did not support it but they all should now. Word out of Japan/China also says some of the very newest consoles ship with pins cut (meanig but nothing has made it to Europe or the US yet, picture here:
[hide][/hide]
courtesy of http://www.atvgc.com/
Source
http://www.hacken.cc/bbs/viewthread.php ... pid1668552

Homebrew: Wii homebrew, courtesy of the fact Wii code has to be signed Wii homebrew does not exist at present (flash games aside) and until either the signing key gets cracked (not likely) or the bios gets circumvented (likely but nothing has been heard) it will not.
Gamecube homebrew however does exist, I have not the time or experience really to get into it but some things you should know:
To save and for some homebrew to load from it will require a memory card to SD adapter (which you can make or purchase, making guide here: http://gc.scorpei.com/GUIDE-SD_adapter.html ) and a lot has been tweaked to work with it. Dumping Wii/GC requires one of these or a specific DVD drive (list below).
Other homebrew requires either an image to be made or a simple add them to the iso and have it read off it arrangement, readmes and forum/site guides should help here. The only site I have in my current set of bookmarks (I am not at my main PC right now) is French but you should still be able to navigate it: http://www.nintendomax.com/ The usual suspects of DCEmu, maxconsole, QJ.net, gbatemp..... should also be able to drum up some stuff.
The main sorts of homebrew are emulators (16 bit and older although some (read about 30 reasonable quality) games can be injected into Nintendo's emulators that were made for the Zelda collectors pack, saving with them is not possible though) , GCLinux (linux for the gamecube although it has been heavily tweaked of late) and there is a really nice version of mencoder (search for MFE).

It is also worth noting that cube homebrew has had somewhat of a resurgence of late with a lot being tweaked to better take advantage of the Wii's ability to read full DVDs (unlike the cube) as well as the widespread memory card to SD adaptors. Chips are easier but some codebreaker discs can also enable homebrew to run.

Quicksolder: I say do not do it, you basically get sections added to the surface of the PCB so you can dribble the solder in/on them and thereby solder the chip to the board. Suffice it to say there is a reason it is not known as easysolder, especially if you want to remove it. One or two people have been experimenting with sticking chips to the board with glue/sticky plastic as well.

Updates: most commercial and now one of the DIY do it by a DVD, older chips and some of the DIY you need to do it by getting the chip and sticking it in a programmer, of course you could run some wires to the outside of the case as seen here: http://wii.scorpei.com/Guides_external-TSSP.html
(one of my many ongoing projects is to see if I can sacrifice a USB port on the Wii for the task: USB has 5 wires as do most chips)

That should cover any marketing speak you may have thrown at you so here we go, about 3 months ago it was chaos in Wii chip world but it seems to have settled down for now.

Furthermore there are two sorts of chip, both will require you to solder or get someone else to (make sure whoever does the deed has a triwing screwdriver). Here is one of the many videos detailing a route for disassembly of a Wii:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8epujddQTc&eurl=

Commercial: The big four in no order whatsoever

Wiikey: This one is probably the one you will get suggested in most places, the only real advantage is that dual layer support is supposed to be coming soon (an approximate date was announced that has since been passed by a while, you can also bet such an update will be mimicked as soon as it appears too), it has some nice menus for updating and apps but 20 minutes will probably net you a better set of apps for you to use. There are numerous very high quality clones of this chip which are 1:1 clones (same actual chip, code and PCB layout) and damn cheap in comparison.

Cyclowiz: This company made a supercard clone and are supposed to get a new DS card out soon as well. As for their Wii chip it is top notch but so is everything else.

WiiD: OK this may not be that popular but feature wise it holds its own, review (for it and a few more) here: http://wii.scorpei.com/WiiD.html

WiiNinja:
This was the first chip made although it got a v2 very shortly thereafter (for the d2b chipset mentioned above) and has since been superseded by the deluxe version.


DIY: I have been around modchips since the PS1 and this is a fairly new one on me, very much appreciated though.
Some have their source released while others just have binary code released. You buy yourself a programmable chip and a programmer (or build one). Note also that DIY chips are made and sold by various people (online and installers that are dotted around everywhere) for prices often much below commercial chips.

First I will mention the parallel port method, it works like a chip but using your computers parallel port, not favoured so much anymore but it is good to know about it. If you have parallel leads and some wire you can probably pull of it all for what a quick lunch may cost. The major downside is you will need a powered PC near at all times.

On to the actual chips, I will probably miss one or two here as I have not been following everything as close as I would like. It will likely be cheaper than a commercial offering (it will probably cost more in food/fuel to get to the shop to buy the bits) and you will want to put in the time and read the support forums for each chip here if you wish to get the most but they are just as functional if you know what you are doing as a commercial offering:

OpenWii, Wiifree and yaoasm are probably the most popular but if you speak to me next week that will likely have changed.

Chiip
http://chiip.descrambler.de/index.php/Main_Page
OpenWii (I believe these are the only one with a DVD upgrade at present).
http://openwii.org/wiki/OpenWii_Wiki
WiiFree
http://psx-scene.com/forums/wiifree/
Wiip
http://www.tcniso.net/Nav/Wiip/
yaosm
http://psx-scene.com/forums/yaosm/


Wii basics (perhaps slightly outdated and missing some of the more interesting gamecube stuff: shrinking isos and multiple games per disc, Wii isos can not be shrunk without breaking the signing).
Wii/GC images
you can get these of the internet or you can get them yourself.
To dump them people use RAWDump with a special drive or an SD adapter and some gamecube homebrew (see above), RAWDump was only programmed to work with certain drives (specialist debugging commands and the like were needed):
* LG-8164b
* LG-8163b
* LG-8162b
* LG-8161b
Anyway you get the rawdump app, it is unfortunately a .NET (2.0) requiring app as well, and set it up as you would any other. Bang in your disc (Wii or cube), fire up the app and hit start dump.
Wait until it is done (a couple of hours depending on game, version you are using, drive and setup)
Right click and hit properties (or whatever method you use to find size):
Nintendo Wii ISO size: 4.37 GB (4,699,979,776 bytes).

Nintendo Gamecube ISO size: 1.35 GB (1,459,978,240 bytes)

Anything else and you have a bad dump.

Burn with your favourite ISO burning app and use good media (some like a slow burn speed as well). My suggestion for a decent burner is ImgBurn (made by the same person who made the legendary DVD decrypter)
http://www.imgburn.com/

Sidenote, Scambled images:

Originally when images were first dumped they were scrambled, it was figured out how to unscramble and here we are. The latest rippers and releases should come unscrambled.
Still if you need to unscramble:
Quote stolen from http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=43289

If it's 4 699 979 776 bytes, it's unscrambled.
If it's 4 700 012 544 bytes, it's unscrambled with unscrambler 0.4 which adds an extra 32 768 bytes to the file (JESUS release)
If it's 4 736 698 368 bytes, it's in raw format and must be unscrambled.

Unscramblers are available for Windows and Mac (wine/cedaga should take care of linux as well).

Sorry I could not provide I buy this, install it or go here type or reply but this is teach a man to catch his own donkey type of thing.

wow thank you for the thorough breakdown of wii modchips, i really appreciate it.

Give a man a donkey, and he'll be kicked for a day...

NICE ONE FAST!


i would got for either the Winja deluxe or the wiikey. (based on the reasons above.)

both can get updated easily, both can be stealthed......

No worries guys, I will however have to go back and clean up that mess of typos.

Edit: Done (I hope), I also fleshed out a section or two.

If you haven't chosen your Wii mod chip, then I'd suggest having a good think. Personally I'd steer clear of the Cyclowiz. Mostly because I don't like Maxconsole, so I'd avoid anything they make.

The Wiikey (which I have), is a good chip, however the GameCube audio streaming fix isn't present, so streaming audio is broken on those few games. The Wiikey team don't seem too concerned and they're almost a month behind their so called update deadline.

The open source chips I believe work quite well. I have a bunch of them here and I'm going to test them soon. I just want to get a new soldering iron tip (a smaller one) to allow me to do a neater solder job. Once I have that I'll be moving to an external install and I'll be testing the few different types of mod chip hexes floating about.

At this stage I'd consider waiting for the Wiip V2, it uses the OpenWii firmware, which is free to get and use, and also can be DVD upgraded.

I will edit the big post later but streaming audio can be helped with FSTfix:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=52676&hl=

I probably should have also mentioned "bricking games", these games try to update the Wii and can screw it up in the process. They are limited to different region titles such as the new paper mario game (which actually works under NTSC to PAL), there is a blocker apparently: http://www.wii-addict.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2017 (see any major news site as well).

I will also throw a link to GCLinux, it has a bunch of stuff that I have not covered on homebrew:
http://www.gc-linux.org/wiki/

Edit: I had also better mention a new type of drivechip called d2c, the new team xecutor (one of the major GC mod chip makers) has a chip in the works that supposedly supports it but none currently do. Cut pins are supposed to be appearing around the US as well now.

I'm going to even quote myself and say I'd even hold off on getting the Wiip. There is nothing wrong with it or OpenWii firmware, however doing some more reading it appears the OpenWii firmware does some significant changes to the DVD's ram. Depending on how Nintendo feel, this could possibly be quite easy to detect. If they start going the way of Microsoft and banning consoles, having a modchip that changes so many things in the DVD's ram could be disasterous.

Then again, Nintendo may do no such thing. And the OpenWii firmware is DVD upgradeable.

Well it appears that Nintendo has in fact blocked OpenWii with its newest update.

Someone has DS on the brain.