gc-forever - Gamecube/Wii Forums

Hey Everyone,

My DOL-001 has become rather picky about reading discs over the years and I've been wanting to use my Wii for playing Gamecube backups (the Wii has a much more reliable drive). A couple of months ago I installed a Wiikey 2, which is supposed to have an audio fix, but it DREs with Gamecube games which use streaming audio (Eternal Darkness, Ikaruga, Wave Race: Blue Storm, 1080° Avalanche, Star Fox Adventures, etc...). None are playable.

I've read that the Wiinja's audio fix works, so was wondering if the Wiizard might work as well, given that it comes from the same developer. My drive is a D2C2, so it requires one of the newer generation Wii modchips.

Does anyone know of a Wii modchip with a working Gamecube audio fix?


Thanks!

nothing on such a new Wii drive You have no option other than to revive that Gamecube.

too lazy to edit post, but you can get an older wii drive and try a 1st generation drive chip, they work with audio streaming games

emu_kidid wrote:nothing on such a new Wii drive You have no option other than to revive that Gamecube.

Thanks for the reply! It is helpful to get a response from someone knowledgeable on the subject.

Wiizard/D2Pro/Wiikey 2/Wasabi Zero/etc.... all claim to have an integrated Gamecube audio fix. What you've written implies none of the "second generation" (D2C => D2E) Wii modchips have a working audio fix, which would mean that they are all basically being dishonest about their products.

I suppose I can see if I can find an older drive. My sister's first Wii isn't working, so I might be able to use the drive out of it, provided it is old enough. Her new one is unlikely to read DVD-Rs at all.

Do you know if this a drive limitation, or just that the modchip programmers never got around to properly implementing Gamecube streaming audio support on the newer chips?

As for my Gamecube, it used to read a variety of media quite well, but has become more more picky over the last while. I've spent a few hours trying to fine tune the laser potentiometer into the "sweet spot". It used to be pretty happy at 195 ohms, but now seems to want around 160-170 ohms.

Oddly, I'm working an another DOL-001 for a friend's son and it originally had the laser set at 533 ohms. After installing a Xeno GC, it booted a backup without any adjustment. I set it to around 422 ohms, thinking that it would help it read DVD-Rs. As it turns out, it actually reads them better set even higher (around 560 ohms). This particular drive can even read DVD+RWs if the laser is set for around 170 ohms.

Finicky things those Gamecube drives....

What I find confusing is that there are reviews of the "newer" Wiikey 2, Wasabi, and others which claim that these chips do have a working GC audio fix. So, that leaves me wondering if some of them actually do have the fix, or if the reviewers did not test the right games (i.e. games that actually use streamed audio).

Knowing why they don't work would help to understand the problem....

ah, totally scratch what I said. The Wiikey 2 should support audio streaming games, you might need to run the config disc to enable it!

Plug-and-play modchips for the later drives which "intercept" requests to the drive and make them use the internal DVD Video functions don't support audio streaming. In your case, the Wiikey2 should be ok.

emu_kidid wrote:ah, totally scratch what I said. The Wiikey 2 should support audio streaming games, you might need to run the config disc to enable it!

LOL... Wiikey 2 claims to.... but there's no working audio fix if enabled or disabled in the menu. I spent a good while testing. Games like Eternal Darkness and Wave Race will DRE right after booting, games that the Xeno GC will play perfectly.

emu_kidid wrote:Plug-and-play modchips for the later drives which "intercept" requests to the drive and make them use the internal DVD Video functions don't support audio streaming. In your case, the Wiikey2 should be ok.

The "plug-and-play" modchips you're referring to, are those the ones that connect to the drive cable that only read at 3x (like Wiikey Fusion)? If I'm reading you correctly, these chips cannot support streaming audio due to a hardware limitation.

From what I understand the 5-6 wire, 6x modchips (like Wiikey 2, D2Pro, Wiizard, etc...) patch the DVD drive to make the Wii think it has a retail disc. If I'm reading you correctly, the 6x drive-patching mod chips should have the necessary hardware for playing streaming audio in Gamecube games, at least if the programmers know what they are doing. The older Wiikey (1) apparently does have a working audio fix in one version of the firmware, but won't work on newer drives. I have not been able to confirm that any of the Wiikey 2 firmware versions have a working audio fix, even though Wiikey advertises it. Even Wiikey support could not (or would not) say if any Wiikey 2 firmwares have it working properly.

That's why I'm trying to find it if any of the D2C2-compatible modchips have a working audio fix. From what you've written, the drive-patching 6x chips should be able to do it if the programmers have done their job properly.

It's not a hardware limitation of the Wiikey 2, it just uploads "patches" to the drives memory so that it will accept backups. It's possible no one bothered to make the necessary patches for audio streaming on every drive version. The early drive versions definitely have it (up to D2B I can confirm that personally as I have a Wiikey 2 on a D2B drive)

emu_kidid wrote:It's not a hardware limitation of the Wiikey 2, it just uploads "patches" to the drives memory so that it will accept backups. It's possible no one bothered to make the necessary patches for audio streaming on every drive version. The early drive versions definitely have it (up to D2B I can confirm that personally as I have a Wiikey 2 on a D2B drive)

Thanks for the reply!

What I meant was that the plug-and-play 3x read limited modchips which use the drive cable have a hardware limitation which prevents them from working with Gamecube audio streaming games. The Wiikey 2, and other full 6x speed chips, attach directly to the drive board and do not share this hardware limitation.

Thanks for personally confirming that the Wiikey 2 does have a working audio fix with D2B drives. Can you also confirm the firmware version on yours? Mine has firmware 1.3 'Odyssey', and the GC audio fix definitely does NOT work with D2C2. I'm wondering if any of the earlier firmware versions might work?

Out of curiosity, I connected points D, E, and F to the Wiikey 2 to see if it would enable the audio fix. The 9-wire connection did not make any difference - the Wiikey 2's GC audio fix remains non-functional.

With Wiikey 2's audio fix enabled (ON) in the menu:

When a backup game like Wave Race: Blue Storm or Eternal Darkness is launched, the Wii produces a blast of static when the audio stream starts and then stops and displays a disc error. This is exactly what a Gamecube will do if the L button is pressed while booting a backup with a Xeno GC installed (disabling the audio fix).

With Wiikey 2's audio fix disabled (OFF):

The Wii stops and displays a disc error, but there is no blast of static.

Additionally, I tried enabling and disabling GC region free in both the Wiikey 2 menu and Priiloader. Neither made any difference. I also tried MIOS v4 and MIOS v10 (not CMIOS) with no difference in behavior. The Wiikey 2 refuses to load the older v1.2 'Asgard Core' firmware, so I have no way to test the audio fix on older firmware versions to see if it ever worked with a D2C2 drive.

Good news!

Removing the Wiikey 2 and replacing it with a Wiizard has fixed the problem with Gamecube audio streaming. No more disc errors. Backups like Ikaruga, Eternal Darkness, etc... all work perfectly just like they do on a Gamecube (discs are read at 6x on the Wii, so load times might actually be a bit faster). This means that I don't need to worry about the increasingly finicky laser on my Gamecube, because the Wii can now play all of my Gamecube games. Although the Wiizard is not a very common modchip, apparently the programmers knew what they were doing with the audio fix, unlike the Wiikey team.

Perhaps I spoke too soon....

While the Wiizard does allow audio streaming games to play, it isn't without quirks. If the streamed audio is something like a song, it will play normally. However, if the audio is a small piece of dialogue (like when Eternal Darkness boots or when you talk to the characters in Star Fox Adventures), then the audio repeats over and over unless you hit start or stop it some other way. So.... the Gamecube audio fix is still not completely fixed. My next attempt will be to try to find an older drive like a D2A or D2B and see if it will work properly with either modchip.

noobcube wrote:If the streamed audio is something like a song, it will play normally. However, if the audio is a small piece of dialogue (like when Eternal Darkness boots or when you talk to the characters in Star Fox Adventures), then the audio repeats over and over unless you hit start or stop it some other way. So.... the Gamecube audio fix is still not completely fixed. My next attempt will be to try to find an older drive like a D2A or D2B and see if it will work properly with either modchip.

A couple of days ago I picked up an old and broken down Wii to fix up for my friend and her kids for Xmas. As it turns out, this Wii has the D2B chipset on the drive logic board. It's also fully of dust bunnies....

Anyway, I installed the Wiikey 2 on D2B and emu_kidid is correct; the Wiikey 2's GC audio streaming fix does work with the older drive.... sort of. Unfortunately, just like the Wiizard, the Wiikey 2 endlessly repeats segments of streaming audio dialogue. To be sure, I also installed the Wiizard and confirmed the audio glitch with D2B. Both chips have a botched GC audio fix.

A Gamecube with a Xeno GC boots up Eternal Darkness normally after playing the poem only once. As far as I can tell, the Xeno GC has a correctly implemented audio fix.

A quick way to tell if a modchip has a fully working GC audio fix:

Boot up a backup of Eternal Darkness:
- If the machine immediately reports a disc error or plays garbled audio, the audio fix does not work at all
- If the machine plays audio normally and continues to the opening screen, it has a proper audio fix
- If the machine repeats audio in an endless loop, it has a botched audio fix

Thus far I've determined that the Wiikey 2 and Wiizard both have a botched GC audio fix and that the Wiikey 2's audio fix doesn't work at all with D2C2. Now I'm wondering if any of the Wii modchips have a proper audio fix like the Xeno GC. I'm considering trying an original Wiikey to see if the Wiikey/Xeno team managed to implement the fix correctly on the older chip. If not, I may have to try to fix up the old Gamecube.

Anyone here have any experience with other Wii modchips and GC backups with streaming audio?

original Wiikey might have it, I recall various people testing that specific feature quite thoroughly.

emu_kidid wrote:original Wiikey might have it, I recall various people testing that specific feature quite thoroughly.

Thanks emu_kidid.

Was thinking about trying Wiikey (1) now that I have a D2B board to work with. Coincidentally, just a few days before finding the sickly Wii on Kijiji I had ordered a D2B logic board on eBay, so soon I'll have two D2Bs to work with. The older drive chipset opens up a lot more modding opportunities. Another idea I've been considering is building my own Yet-another-open-source-modchip (YAOSM) with an inexpensive PIC chip.

http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Yaosm

Would be nice to find out of any of the first and second generation Wii modchips have a 100% working Gamecube audio fix. At this point, I'm wondering if it isn't possible to make it work perfectly. Surely some of the users out there know the answer to this....

Good news!

Just installed a new modchip on my D2B drive logic board which has a perfectly functional GC audio fix. It's a PIC 16F630 which a friend of mine programmed with YAOSM v3.2. Where two other mochips have failed, YAOSM has come through. Funny how the open source community got it right while the commercial modchips botched Gamecube audio streaming support.

No more repeating audio problems with Eternal Darkness, Star Fox Adventures, etc.... The PIC might be slightly slower to boot up than the Wiizard and Wiikey 2; but if so, the real world difference in disc recognition time is negligible. While the Wiizard had no reading issues, the Wiikey seemed to have DRE problems with GC audio streaming games. YAOSM appears unproblematic thus far, which suggests that the code was well written.

My main goal behind the modchip is to use the Wii for playing all my old backups of Gamecube games, as my Gamecube can no longer read them reliably. Now that I've found a chip with a working audio fix, it looks like the Wii is finally up to the task. YAOSM gets my recommendation for any Wii owners who want to be able to play all their favorite Gamecube backups.

When you were trying Wiikey/etc, were you running their config discs etc to toggle audio fix?

emu_kidid wrote:When you were trying Wiikey/etc, were you running their config discs etc to toggle audio fix?

Yes.

The Wiizard had no config disc - audio fix always on. With the Wiikey 2 audio fix disabled, audio playback was distorted, much like a Gamecube if you disable the Xeno GC audio fix. With Wiikey 2 audio fix enabled, streamed audio would play clearly, but certain audio segments would repeat endlessly. Wiizard behaved the same.

With Wiikey 2 and Wiizard, Eternal Darkness stays stuck repeating the intro poem over and over until a button is pressed. With YAOSM the poem plays once before moving on through to the intro screen, just like a Gamecube with Xeno GC. Not sure about the difference in coding, but it would appear that the programmer for YAOSM knew what he was doing, while the other commercial coders did not.

Even used the Wiikey 2 1.2 recovery disc to downgrade the firmware. Both 1.2 and 1.3 behaved the same - endlessly repeating audio and random DREs on streaming audio games.

Never did try the original Wiikey, and probably won't as YAOSM works perfectly.

YAOSM was based on reversed Wiikey v1 code, I'm pretty sure you'd find that works too, but it's awesome that yaosm works

I've had my YAOSM for many years now and no problems apart from my launch date drive struggling with Smash Bros. Brawl :\

emu_kidid wrote:YAOSM was based on reversed Wiikey v1 code, I'm pretty sure you'd find that works too, but it's awesome that yaosm works

I've had my YAOSM for many years now and no problems apart from my launch date drive struggling with Smash Bros. Brawl :\

What the heck? I wrote a detailed reply and it disappeared...???

Anyway, to summarize, my research suggests that Bell (YAOSM developer) used a variety of sources along with his own ideas to create the YAOSM code. Apparently Wiinja was the first modchip with GC audiofix. Wiikey advertised this functionality upon release, but only delivered it in later firmware releases. So, I'm not sure whether Bell used Wiinja audiofix code, Wiikey audiofix code, or code from some other source. He did share the identity of his audiofix code source in the old archived YAOSM forum (using Wayback Machine), but the name was deleted in the post, apparently because the source requested to remain anonymous.

What I don't understand is this:

Xeno GC has a fully working audiofix - put in any audio streaming game and it plays perfectly. The people behind the Xeno GC moved on to Wiikey, presumably taking the working Xeno GC audiofix code along with them. Subsequently Wiikey 1 was released, but without the GC audiofix, which was added in later firmware. Then Wiikey 2 was released, but with a GC audiofix solution that was botched and not functional at all on some newer drives. What I don't get is why Wiikey/Xeno team had a working GC audio fix and then messed it up on later modchips? Then there's Wiizard/Wiinja. From what I understand, the Wiizard modchip was made by the Wiinja team. The question here is similar. If this team programmed a fully working GC audiofix for the Wiinja, why did they botch it in the Wiizard?

What I'm left wondering is if there might be something unique about the way the earlier modchips and drive controllers (DMS/D2A/D2B) communicate which is necessary to make the GC audiofix work properly, and perhaps this was broken with the later modchips designed for D2C/D2C2/D2E? Or was it simply a matter of poor programming? At this point, I cannot confirm that either the original Wiikey or the Wiinja did in fact have a fully working GC audiofix. What I can confirm, however, is that the YAOSM appears to be working perfectly, exactly the same as the Xeno GC. And that makes me happy!

Instead of finishing my term papers, I did a little more forensic work finding the original source of YAOSM's Gamecube audio fix. By the time Wayback Machine archived the relevant page on the old Wiinewz YAOSM forum, Bell (YAOSM developer) had removed the credit information for the reused audio fix code. However, I was able to find a French website which still has this information.

http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... 28&act=url

The addition of this support could be achieved through disassembled code included with Biinja. Biinja is a program to load the cable through the Wiinja Drivecode DVDTool. In short, Bell shows that all the credit is therefore for the Team Wiinja.

Interesting... because Wiizard was released by the same people as Wiinja, and Wiizard's GC audio fix does not work correctly. Why did they mess up the audio fix with the Wiizard? This, plus the Wiikey 2 issues, leads me to wonder if there's something about later modchips/drive revisions which makes the audio fix difficult/impossible to implement correctly (except DMS/D2A/D2B using original drive controller serial port)?

FWIW, I also found some information on how to turn a Xeno GC into a Wiikey (1), so I may experiment with that at some point. At present, I still have no confirmation that Wiikey ever had a properly functioning GC audio fix, so I'm somewhat curious to see if I can test that feature using a Xeno GC flashed with Wiikey firmware.

YAOSM is still awesome!

Quick update:

Tried Wiikey 2 with another Wii - this time D2E. GC audio fix does not work at all with D2E, just like D2C2. On/Off with setup disc made no difference. Immediate DRE when audio starts. The Wiikey 2's audio fix only sort of worked with D2B, but with intermittent DREs, so I'd say that it would be a poor choice for anyone interested in GC audio streaming support.

Before installing Wiikey 2 I tried a Wiizard with D2E firmware. Couldn't even get it to light the status LEDs..... both chip and drive were dead while installed. Removed it and installed Wiikey 2 and the drive spun right up. Oddly, Wiikey 2 did not like the alternate clock point suggested for the "eject fix". The LEDs went crazy and it wouldn't load discs. Switched to the recommended clock point and it worked fine... except the failed audio fix. Ended up taking it out and just going with a softmod, using Neogamma R9 beta 53. At least it loads audio streaming games... even if the streamed audio is not played.

Neogamma (and now Swiss) disables audio streaming commands to the drive so that the drive will not complain. A proper audio fix would've be nice

Quick update to an old thread:

emu_kidid wrote:original Wiikey might have it, I recall various people testing that specific feature quite thoroughly.

Using the XenoGC Clone information and Wiikey_1_9s_AutoProgrammer, I was able to transform a Xeno GC into a Wiikey. After reprogramming with a homemade SP12, I updated it via disc to the latest 1.99 Beta firmware.

I can now confirm that the GC audio fix does work properly with Wiikey (1). Eternal Darkness booted up, played the poem once, and continued loading as it should, just like YAOSM/Xeno GC. The Xeno's two status LEDs still function with the Wiikey firmware, which implies that the Wiikey team left the LED code intact from the Xeno GC (original Wiikeys don't have LEDs).