Hacking Fixing vWii Mode

[NoobletCheese]

I think @Extrems might also also be in a position to potentially tackle this one, if he is interested. He did the "480p pixel fix" as well and seems to have a deep understanding of the low level stuff. Wish I could do more to help, but this stuff is above my head. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

666 result in a odd viXOrigin, which could result in a chroma shift depending on the implementation. We had this problem before with GCVideo.

 

[Fesku]

The Gamecube IPL(bios) also causes color-bleeding, you should skip the IPL or not have it on your SD card in the first place (if you don't want color-bleeding).
Because I no longer let the IPL load and set the video width to "auto", most of my Gamecube games run without color bleeding only a handful like Mario Strikers and Mario Sunshine continue to have the problem.

For the handful of games with color bleeding, I recommend playing the games on the Wii U gamepad, which makes the color bleeding barely noticeable.
You can easily install your Gamecube and Wii games as a forwarder on your Wii U Menu (with gamepad compatibility) using teconmoon wiivc injector, however newer Nintendont
versions no longer work with the Gamecube forwarders. I added my working Nintendont version.

 

[DragonW]

The optimal solution lies in the DMCU

Do we just have no way to access/manipulate the DMCU right now?

 

[DDnuclear]

I really wish there was a full and easy fix for this. vWii has a ton of potential but I'm really not happy with how Wii and GC games look. Sadly playing on the Gamepad is not a good solution for me, because I absolutely hate how that screen looks. It's a very low-quality TN panel and it looks worse than just playing on most modern IPS, VA, or OLED televisions.

 

[NoobletCheese]

I really wish there was a full and easy fix for this. vWii has a ton of potential but I'm really not happy with how Wii and GC games look. Sadly playing on the Gamepad is not a good solution for me, because I absolutely hate how that screen looks. It's a very low-quality TN panel and it looks worse than just playing on most modern IPS, VA, or OLED televisions.

Not sure if you've played on Dolphin, but once you get used to Wii games running at 3x native res (1920x1440p) with 16xAF and 60fps cheat code, there is no going back to 480p. Even if it is a nice clear HDMI digital signal from vWii, there is still no comparison, it's a different world on Dolphin. There are things in the textures we aren't seeing at 480p. It feels like the textures are "unlocked" or something, showing hidden detail that wasn't there.

So I feel that even if we somehow fixed this vWii issue, I'd still be just as dissatisfied knowing how much clearer the image can be on Dolphin.

 

[DDnuclear]

Not sure if you've played on Dolphin, but once you get used to Wii games running at 3x native res (1920x1440p) with 16xAF and 60fps cheat code, there is no going back to 480p. Even if it is a nice clear HDMI digital signal from vWii, there is still no comparison, it's a different world on Dolphin. There are things in the textures we aren't seeing at 480p. It feels like the textures are "unlocked" or something, showing hidden detail that wasn't there.

So I feel that even if we somehow fixed this vWii issue, I'd still be just as dissatisfied knowing how much clearer the image can be on Dolphin.

Dolphin is very good and I enjoy it for a quick fix since 2010. Games look fantastic, but I still won't replace the native hardware for me, for a long time. I value accuracy above all else and no post 16- bit generation emulators are on par with original hardware in that regard at least. And likely won't be for a very long time due to the insane amount of processing power required. Plus with any Emulator post PS2, there is always some shader compilation stutter that I have to deal with. It can be very minor or a major issue depending on the system emulated or game on my PC.

Emulation is nonetheless still very good, but I still prefer going with original hardware most of the time. Even though Image quality doesn't compare or will ever compare to emulation. However assuming that the source signal is good and properly scaled on the tv, then 480p can still look pretty nice overall and good enough IMO.

That's my biggest issue with Wii U right now. It has the potential to be as good if not better than the Wii when displaying Wii and GC games, but it trips up in a few places making it pretty frustrating.

 

[NoobletCheese]

the insane amount of processing power required...there is always some shader compilation stutter that I have to deal with

I'm using a mid tier dual core CPU from 2013 (i5-4570 @ 3.2ghz) and a 2016 mid-high tier GPU (GTX 1070). With the right settings I am able to achieve stutter-free performance with the games I've tested so far. But it has taken an excruciating amount of trial and error to learn how various settings solve different problems. The shader compilation stutter issue was mostly solved with Exclusive Ubershaders, but not all GPUs play nice with it & there can still be other causes of stutter.

Here are my Dolphin configuration tips

Spoiler

1. Use the latest beta version of Dolphin, and prior to installing it delete previous:
Documents\Dolphin Emulator\Config\Dolphin.ini
Documents\Dolphin Emulator\Config\GFX.ini

2. Delete Dolphin's shader cache files every time before launching Dolphin.exe, as it can trick you into thinking you solved stutters when it's just the shader cache from a previous playthrough of that section of the game.
Documents\Dolphin Emulator\Cache\*.uidcache
Documents\Dolphin Emulator\Cache\Shaders\*.cache

3. Restart Dolphin between games

4. Use Exclusive Ubershaders

5. I'm using OpenGL as the renderer

6. Dolphin must be presenting 59.94fps regardless of the game's internal fps, which only occurs if "skip presenting duplicate frames" and "immediately present XFB" are both unticked. Can be verified with RTSS overlay which in my case reports "OGL 59.9fps" (in RTSS untick "integer framerate" to see the decimal place). Dolphin's own fps overlay reports the game's internal fps, not the presenting fps.

7. Monitor's refresh rate must be 59.94hz. I used CRU to fine tune this custom refresh rate & verified with vsynctester.com & MadVR's Ctrl+J debug screen. If your custom refresh rate isn't being applied, try deleting any 59hz & 60hz modes from the CTA extension block if present (both in CTA block's "detailed resolutions" & "TV resolutions" if applicable) and add your new custom mode to a new "display ID 1.3" extension block beneath the CTA extension block. If the new custom mode doesn't appear in NVCP it should appear in Windows display settings.

8. Vsync: enabled in Dolphin & "use application setting" in NVCP. OpenGL triple buffering enabled in NVCP.

9. Don't use any external tools to limit the frame rate, such as RTSS. It seems Dolphin lacks asynchronous rendering so limiting the fps actually affects the whole speed of CPU emulation which can cause stutters and audio glitches -- even when limiting to 59.94fps. CPU usage seems to be a lot higher on one core when RTSS is limiting fps.

10. Progressive scan disabled

11. Audio: DSP HLE cubeb

12. Don't use savestates as they corrupt global graphics settings due to the bugged way they write settings to the savestate and load them back to global settings when loading the savestate, eg. the progressive scan & PAL60 settings, and even the Wiimote settings.

13. Run games from an SSD, preferably not via USB (or try a different USB port)

14. All my games are NTSC versions, except for some PAL-only releases

Per-game settings can be adjusted from right click > properties > game config > editor > user config, into which we can write config values defined here https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=GameINI

If the game won't boot or freezes, try one at a time in this order:

A. If the game's internal framerate is 60fps: [Video_Hacks] SkipDuplicateXFBs = True
B. [Core] SyncOnSkipIdle = True / False
C. [Core] SyncGPU = True
D. [Core] CPUThread = False
E. Check the game's wiki (right click > properties > Wiki)

If the game has performance issues, try in this order:

F. If it's a PAL game: [Core] PAL60 = True
G. Try a different renderer eg. [Core] GFXBackend = OGL / Vulkan / D3D / D3D12
H. Lower the resolution, eg. for 2x (960p): [Video_Settings] InternalResolution = 2
I. Overclock the emulated CPU, eg. for 150% CPU: [Core] OverclockEnable = True, [Core] Overclock = 1.5
J. [Video_Settings] ShaderCompilationMode = 2
K. [Video_Settings] ShaderCompilationMode = 0
L. Disable shader cache for Dolphin.exe in NVCP
M. Try overriding one at a time the default per-game settings listed in right click > properties > game config > editor > default config (override them in the user config section below it)
N. Check the game's wiki (right click > properties > Wiki)

Examples where issues were solved by the above:

1. Donkey Kong Country Returns (A)
2. Battalion Wars 2 (B+J)
3. Wave Race Blue Storm (D)
4. Wind Waker (I)
5. No More Heroes (G+J)
6. Disaster: Day of Crisis (F)

Using RTSS "scanline sync" to achieve low latency for many games:

1. Game's config: [Video_Hardware] VSync = False
2. In RTSS create a profile for Dolphin.exe with framerate limit = 0 and scanline sync = -1 (or whatever value is needed to shift the tear line off screen).

Scanline sync seems to only work well for games with very consistent render times, eg. Mario Galaxy, NSMBW, Trackmania. As mentioned previously it also increases CPU usage on the main core, and RTSS's "general > compatibility properties > enable passive waiting" doesn't seem to alleviate it on my system.

Alternatively instead of scanline sync: [Video_Hacks] ImmediateXFBenable = True. However this will probably cause Dolphin to no longer present 59.94fps for games that don't render internally at 59.94fps, potentially resulting in stutter.

If you have a game that you cannot get running smoothly please mention it as I'd like to test it on my system. Also if you could share your system specs that would help.

For the authentic controller feel I'm using official Wiimote & Wavebird controllers connected to Mayflash Dolphinbar & GameCube controller adapter.

 

[kingjinxy2]

One thing that I can seemingly never get right with Dolphin is frame pacing, even with 60FPS games. Even with an SSD Ubershaders, there are still hitches every so often, which never happens on real hardware. But I can’t deny the huge benefits that Dolphin brings. It is super nice to play Wind Waker with HD textures.
I just think it’s a real shame that Nintendo’s backwards compatibility video options can’t be more like what GCVideo offers for GameCube and Wii.

 

[Cygis]

My main reason for wanting this to be solved is that I only use my Wii U for CTGP which can only be run on disc, no Dolphin support for piracy reasons. This overscan issue has plagued me for years since it seems to be lowering the resolution of the game. I would play on my Wii but I still like the convenience and quality of HDMI without one of those adapters that isn’t true digital quality. 1080p upscaling is also very nice and I haven’t really had an issue with things looking blurry. I really hope a Homebrew developer looks more into what’s going on with the difference in screen size between Wii U and vWii. Idk why Nintendo would choose to default to overscan considering that the Wii U doesn’t display at the same size since it’s meant for LCD use.

 

[Deleted member 42501]

Do we just have no way to access/manipulate the DMCU right now?

Anything is possible if someone with the know how looks into it. The DMCU can be updated externally, Nintendo have done it previously. Dump its content from an early Wii U and one running a later FW, compare, poke around a bit and flash it back to see what happens. Its an 8 Bit CPU that translates registers from Wii to the Wii U GPU so its all quite similar to ePSP on Vita in that respect which is only about 100k in size (but software calls on Vita vs hardware on Wii U)

The other approach is patching it on the fly using modded Cafe2Wii calls. This should be possible using a CFW environment like Tiramisu but I've gave @Maschell a shout plenty of times with no response so no idea if he is intending to implement it. Or maybe he is and its the surprise gift he doesn't want to talk about... Interesting read on tech specs and development of Wii U:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/wiiu-latte-gpu-die-photo-gpu-feature-set-and-power-analysis.511628/


Contact the people in the threads I linked previously and see what they say because the solution doesn't seem to difficult yet no one has done it. Another option would be speaking to the recent modders of the G&W handhelds as you could dump/mod/reflash the chip the same way they did. Hardware or software, the above two approaches can get it done.

If needs be start a bounty. I'm sure everyone reading would be happy to chip in 10 bucks for the effort required as it would make the Wii U perfect.

 

[Deleted member 586536]

So I feel that even if we somehow fixed this vWii issue, I'd still be just as dissatisfied knowing how much clearer the image can be on Dolphin.

fair, but there are some things that straight up don't run in dolphin... for reasons (I'm looking at you latest ctgpr)
and while of course we won't go higher than 480p, it be at least nice to be a extra crisp 480 instead of what we have now.

 

[NoobletCheese]

fair, but there are some things that straight up don't run in dolphin... for reasons (I'm looking at you latest ctgpr)
and while of course we won't go higher than 480p, it be at least nice to be a extra crisp 480 instead of what we have now.

Yeah I'll never get rid of my original Wii and Wii U consoles because I know there will be games that won't play nice with Dolphin.

Another issue is input latency is higher on Dolphin. I've been trying to play Wind Waker but it feels quite sluggish with vsync. I think because the game itself already has some kind of delay or filtering on Link's movements, and vsync lag on top of that is a bit too much. Dolphin's "Immediately present XFB" reduces it, but then I get that random stutter that occurs when Dolphin is only presenting 29.97fps (or should I say, when Dolphin is presenting less frames than the refresh rate, since that stutter also happens for 59.94fps games at 119.88hz).

I tried to use RTSS's scanline sync to reduce Wind Waker's lag but the game's render times aren't consistent enough to keep the tear line hidden in the vertical blanking at all times. Like I'll swing the camera around on a complex scene and the tear line will flicker near the top of the screen for a split second. It'll go straight back into blanking, but for a split second it grabs your attention and ruins the immersion.

RTSS has another mode called "hybrid scanline sync" which combined with "front/back edge sync" alleviates the high CPU usage I mentioned earlier, but render times are even more inconsistent in that configuration as it relies on the frame limiter doing sleeps instead of an active wait loop. And frame limiting is bad with Dolphin anyway as it affects the whole speed of emulation due to Dolphin's lack of asynchronous rendering.

If your TV doesn't have component inputs or looks soft/blurry with them, I reckon the Mayflash HDMI adapter is the best affordable option currently. Otherwise Retrotink 5x or OSSC if you can get them.

But there's another issue -- capacitor aging. Over time I think the Wii's component signal degrades and starts crushing shadow details. Then at some point after that the whole picture might start getting progressively dimmer. So the consoles might have a death timer on them unless you know how to fix them at some point in future. Wii U seems to have more life left in it so if we can get this issue fixed then Wii U would be the best option imo.

 

[Nomado]

I have 2HDDs with Y-cable occupying all my 4 USB slots so I couldn't use my official GC adapter without unplugging HDDs first so I instead used it with Dolphin to play using Gamecube controller on my PC. I started Gladius on it and the game has attack mini-game similar to paper mario where a cursor runs from left of a bar to the right end and you have to press A button to press it exactly in the red section for higher damage. That red section is quite small but when I press A there is input latency and also hitches for a bit at the exact moment. So that made playing that game and consistently scoring higher damage with each turn quite difficult. But no such thing happens with Nintendont.
So I think Dolphin is nice to have but WiiU with fixed vWii images would be quite nice. I have Wii with GC ports but with my hacked WiiU setup the way where I can enter and turn off Gamepad screen automatically without having to standup. vWii image leaves lot to desire.

vWii at 480p looks good but washed out but at 1080p it appears more colorful but looks wrong. Is that supposed to be colorful or is it just that color shifting causing it to appear so?

 

[DragonW]

Dump its content from an early Wii U and one running a later FW, compare, poke around a bit and flash it back to see what happens.

How would one go about dumping it's FW?

 

[Deleted member 42501]

You'd have to speak to someone who knows the insides of the Wii U and how they're put together. See previous posts for who to ask. I'm unfamiliar with the machine and just offering inspiration for areas worth looking into to find solutions.

 

[TheDemonicBore]

Hello, I have been watching this forum thread unfold for a while now. I had around a year ago bought a Wii HDMI mod (similar to wiidual but is just digital) based on a Shuriken V3 board by Arthimus, which I bought on eBay from a reputable modder. I had been thinking that the information that we have been presented with has been relevant since 2014, the information that the 8-bit CPU inside of the Wii u chip runs the vwii environment, or the DMCU/Cafe2Wii calls. I have a very limited understanding of the Wii U and how it handles vwii so please correct me if I'm wrong. Anyways, I would think that the people from GCvideo would know why this issue (color banding, overscan issues with differing effects at different resolutions, and aspect ratio misalignment) happens on the Wii U. It is virtually impossible to show these differents between a Wii u and my HDMI modded Wii outside of screenshots due to YouTubes compression algorithm. I do think that this issue could be solved but it would just require someone with extensive knowledge of how the Wii's frame buffer works, and how vwii's software interpretation differs or tries but fails to replicate in software. After all, these same issues were also plaguing the original release of Wii dual and other GCVideo mods anyways. This was the case until Version 3.0c when they finally allowed a toggle to fix chroma interpolation and some resolution bugs found in the original FPGA solution. While I do think that most people wouldn't pay the money I had to get this "purest" level of image quality, I do wanna try and help get to the bottom of this issue so that people who have Wii U can finally make the most of what they have. to be able to play 3 generations worth of Nintendo consoles without compromises.

 

[trogdon]

Aside from the chroma issues, you are still looking at solving scaling issues in all output resolutions (with 1080p being the most accurate scale). If you are looking for the best native hardware experience for Wii titles, it’s going to be on a Wii with a dedicated upscaler like the Retrotink 5x. You won’t be able to get vWii to look that sharp or have the same control over scaling.

 

[TheDemonicBore]

Aside from the chroma issues, you are still looking at solving scaling issues in all output resolutions (with 1080p being the most accurate scale). If you are looking for the best native hardware experience for Wii titles, it’s going to be on a Wii with a dedicated upscaler like the Retrotink 5x. You won’t be able to get vWii to look that sharp or have the same control over scaling.

The Retrotink 5x does have amazing scaling with a variety of different systems and should be recommended to those who have a wide collection of consoles before the HDMI era. Things have been integrated into the Wii u such as fix94 implementing auto 480p on vwii and autobooting. A lot of people don't realize these minor issues plaguing the Wii u and it has been shoved under the rug so to speak with the advent of these Wii HDMI mods. However, developers and modders should reconsider that though due to the limited availability of these kinds of mods. Wiidual has been discontinued for some time and the Wii HDMI board (while open-source and anyone could print these boards) have been hard to find on eBay and other reputable sites. I do think it is possible to mod vwii with a custom firmware that could correct issues not only to the 480p option on Wii u, but the 720 and 1080p options as well, it would just take time to implement and change how vwii is scaled. If this issue isn't truly acknowledged (meaning well documented and has conclusive evidence that is recent and up to date on what the underlying issue is in hardware and software terms) and fixed, people will either ignore it (which the issues are already small to begin with but major enough to have a discussion thread talking about) or people will recommend other methods to get around the problem (which come with their own shortcomings, like how the Wii's analog output isn't the best quality compared to the GameCube's digital output, despite multiple 480p fixes in things like USB loader and the advent of newer scalers such as the Retrotink 5x)

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

I really hope this topic gets some more attention. I recently picked up a WiiU and just finished a playthrough of the GC version of Wind Waker and I have some observations from my testing.

480p output is just terrible. It's blurry, cropped and just...not good.
720p and 1080p are almost on par. 720p is a little softer, but that helps to minimise visible dithering, along with some of the artifacts. 1080p is sharper, at the cost of some ringing. Initially this looks like sharpening, but on closer inspection I think it's actually the result of the chroma issue. Neither resolution has the cropping issue seen in 480p, though there are black borders in anything that doesn't completely fill the framebuffer, which is most games of the era due to the prevalence of overscan on consumer sets at the time.

It *can* look good. It's just really context dependant thanks to all the issues with the output. Anything with muted colours tends to look fine, but the moment you get visually striking vibrant hues on screen the chroma offset becomes really obvious, even more so if the hue is a mix of 2 primaries that offset in opposite directions, for example purple or orange.

The biggest question I take away from it is...how did Nintendo not fix this? Are they blind? It's not some niche issue, it's constantly there, in your face. Even when you aren't explicitly noticing the offset itself it always looks kind of like you're looking at the game through chromatic abberation. There's simply no way they didn't notice it. That leads me to believe it might've been intentional...some ill concieved plan to try to mimick the quirks of CRT beam convergence perhaps?

 

[Deleted member 586536]

There's also another aspect that we also need to look at.
The wiiu does not properly communicate to the display it's supported rgb range. On my display I have (which is a monitor and I'm thankful for the settings it has. as I can manually set the range, and flick between them relatively quickly. As a lot of older, and even still newer ones don't have this) the "auto detect" or what the cable is telling the display, is making the display think it's getting a 0-255 rgb color range. Not the clearly intended 16-255 color range. This also adds onto the colors not looking as great as it should as the colors are just getting badly washed out. This apply's to both wiiu and vwii mode and is likely specifically an issue over hdmi
Edit:

So I did some double checking, and... strangely enough, it does NOT apply to vwii mode... Which does mean the system is capable of telling the display the correct rgb range... pain.

The biggest question I take away from it is...how did Nintendo not fix this? Are they blind? It's not some niche issue, it's constantly there, in your face. Even when you aren't explicitly noticing the offset itself it always looks kind of like you're looking at the game through chromatic abberation. There's simply no way they didn't notice it. That leads me to believe it might've been intentional...some ill concieved plan to try to mimick the quirks of CRT beam convergence perhaps?

Nintendo is werid, their decisions never have made sense. I mean, consider the insane dark filter on snes games in wiiu mode. Which is, somehow even worse than the wii counter part.