Hacking Possible to Disable the Wii's (De)Flicker Filter?

[ReveriePass]

It's around 50% complete but I stopped working on it as blackb0x has already implemented all the Wii vfilter patching methods discussed in this thread for their upcoming release of ULGX. Test builds have been compiled and tested, and I imagine it will drop any day now.

I'll probably start working on the tool again though as it might still be useful for a few things:

• removing vfilter from a few Wii games which launch their own dol's causing ULGX patches to be lost, eg. Metroid Prime Trilogy
• removing vfilter from Wii games where the user needs to use the HOME > Reset functionality as that can also cause ULGX patches to be lost
  
• removing dark/epilepsy filter for VC games
• removing region restriction for WADs using custom NAND loader
  
• removing vfilter from a few GameCube games which Nintendont fails to remove
  
• adjusting viWidth for GameCube games which Nintendont fails to patch

Please continue working on it! It will be very helpful to those of us who use WiiFlow!

 

[WobblingPixels]

Please continue working on it! It will be very helpful to those of us who use WiiFlow!

Thats is exactly my thought. As WiiFlow and SD card user I would love to see your tool in action

 

[XFlak]

I could be wrong, but I suspect/hope the video filter option may eventually also get added to Wiiflow. I know blackb0x and fledge often collaborate with each other, so maybe once the feature is officially added to gx and considered stable we could see Wiiflow follow suit

 

[Selim873]

Hi! I really hope this works out! I'm having issues patching Ocarina of Time VC though. I've tried some of the methods on this forum and it still looks identical to unpatched. I've tried both the US and JPN versions, and I make sure they boot in Dolphin first before installing on the Wii as well. Also if I try to unpack 01.app using wwPacker, it says unknown file structure, so maybe it's already uncompressed? I've just been editing it the way it was extracted using ShowMiiWads.

 

[Maeson]

Chances are that it is uncompressed yes.

What are you trying to do? N64 VC are not filtered and only a few have a dark filter, OOT isn't one od them if I remember correctly.

Do you want to artificially brighten them up like SaulFabre did?

 

[Selim873]

Chances are that it is uncompressed yes.

What are you trying to do? N64 VC are not filtered and only a few have a dark filter, OOT isn't one od them if I remember correctly.

Do you want to artificially brighten them up like SaulFabre did?

N64 VC isn't deflickered? That's interesting. It seems blurry, but that may be entirely placebo. Brightness is fine, and I already saw OOT doesn't have the dark filter.

EDIT: I currently don't have any Wii games so I can't test with anything else other than the priiloader patch for sysmenu which made a massive difference

At least the next best thing I'm hoping we can do is change the width to 640 instead of the awkward 704. On Swiss, you can force the gamecube version to output at 640 pixels, which is pixel perfect for that game. Doesn't make that much of a difference on an LCD when recording/streaming, but playing on a VGA CRT, you get these half-pixels in some columns, which actually might be one of the causes of a blurry output.

 

[Maeson]

With other systems it varies, but as far as I have seen N64 games do not have flicker filters on them and it's easy to spot on 3D assets.

2D assets might be smoothed by the game itself though, but that's intentional and happens on real hardware too.

Nonetheless I could check if OOT is different.

 

[Cifer037]

Hi! I really hope this works out! I'm having issues patching Ocarina of Time VC though. I've tried some of the methods on this forum and it still looks identical to unpatched. I've tried both the US and JPN versions, and I make sure they boot in Dolphin first before installing on the Wii as well. Also if I try to unpack 01.app using wwPacker, it says unknown file structure, so maybe it's already uncompressed? I've just been editing it the way it was extracted using ShowMiiWads.

Ocarina doesn't use the epilepsy filter

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

With other systems it varies, but as far as I have seen N64 games do not have flicker filters on them and it's easy to spot on 3D assets.

2D assets might be smoothed by the game itself though, but that's intentional and happens on real hardware too.

Nonetheless I could check if OOT is different.

Just checked with a modified wad on my wii. Flicker filter is enabled on n64 vc games.

It looks sharper with the filter disabled on a crt, but there's a lot of flickering

 

[Cifer037]

Also tested the same wad on dolphin, but I don't see a difference on 480p. It's possible that the filter only kicks in when using 480i.

 

[totakeke95]

That's true, the filter is enabled when you're using 480i on VC N64 games but at 480p it's disabled. I've done tests with Zelda MM and it looks sharper on 480i. If you are going to use 480p you don't need to disable it manually because the console already does it natively.

 

[Selim873]

Okay. I was under the impression every officially released game left the deflicker enabled on 480p but that doesn't seem to be the case for N64 VC. Thanks though! Can anyone let me know how I can force ViWidth to 640 from 704 or if ULGX will be able to force this in the future as well? That's the only other issue I have

 

[Maeson]

Well, of course, what I said was with 480p on mind, because the flicker filter does have a point with interlaced resolutions.

About the Width, I think NoobletCheese looked at it at one point, but I can't remember what ended happening. I guess it's possible to do something if we managed to do it for Mega Man 9 and 10, but if the process needs to be exactly like those, it's going to be a case by case thing.

Maybe he can refresh my memory...

 

[WobblingPixels]

I made a step by step tutorial video to disable the soft filter in Nintendo Wii Games/Menu + gameplay comparison with filter ON/OFF. I also mentioned you guys in my video and video description for all your work and research Thanks again.

 

[Cifer037]

Nice vid. I was hoping someone would make a video on this topic.

 

[Clector]

Nice video, personally I'm waiting until the next version of USBLoaderGX as that should be more user friendly.

 

[Selim873]

Well, of course, what I said was with 480p on mind, because the flicker filter does have a point with interlaced resolutions.

About the Width, I think NoobletCheese looked at it at one point, but I can't remember what ended happening. I guess it's possible to do something if we managed to do it for Mega Man 9 and 10, but if the process needs to be exactly like those, it's going to be a case by case thing.

Maybe he can refresh my memory...

Yea, I figured it would be possible because it already can be done on the Gamecube version of the game using Swiss. I already know the game uses a 704 width because that's what GCVideo reports as the input resolution and changes to 640 after the patch. Had someone with a WiiDual check it for me and the WiiVC version also reports 704 width so maybe Nintendo uses the same emulator for both versions. I'm looking around 01.app and there are many instances of 704 integer but I don't know where to look when it comes to changing the right instance or instances to 640. I could change it in the same area as the area that has the dark filter in the games that have it, and there's also an area where ViConfigure() is in plain text, but it's about a warning for the DEBUG_PAL video mode. I'll usually try to boot it on Dolphin, and if it boots I try it on real hardware (Unless there's a way to actually check the reported width on Dolphin). Either I get no difference, or a black screen lol

 

[Clector]

Disabled the filter from Nintendo Puzzle Collection manually as Nintendont's patching wasn't working, maybe it works on Swiss? But Yoshi's Cookie text becomes a garbled mess without the Japanese fonts and the Classic controller D-Pad is better for these games.
Still not 1:1 pixels on Dr. Mario and Panel de Pon, probably since those were originally Nintendo 64 games as it isn't 1:1 on Dolphin either.
Original:

Patched:

 

[xLothwenx]

Nice video, personally I'm waiting until the next version of USBLoaderGX as that should be more user friendly.

Any idea when this will be added to USB Loader GX?

Also, it would be awesome if USB Loader GX/Nintendont could disable alpha dithering, like Swiss can on physical Gamecube.

EDIT: The following statement is wrong, see below: (I'm using a Wii U with component cables to bypass the Wii U's wrongly configured scaler to HDMI output... Which still has no fix.)

 

[Extrems]

(I'm using a Wii U with component cables to bypass the Wii U's wrongly configured scaler to HDMI output... Which still has no fix.)

The analog output is the same as HDMI.

 

[xLothwenx]

The analog output is the same as HDMI.

That certainly doesn't align with my observations nor even your own, at least at one point in time: https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=1208779#p1208779

https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=1391828#p1391828

(EDIT: Never mind, not true, since Twilight Princess doesn't render 640 columns; it's more like 608-ish: ) With component cables and 480p on the Wii U, I see the entire 640 columns. And the colors look normal. Unlike the Wii U's crappily configured HDMI scaler.