Emulator Arcade Games

[Eustacio Gadit]

Todayis the day I finally ordered my raspberry pi 3 model b, power-supply, and a 32GB SD card. I had an itch to get a bigger card, but then I came across this which led me to believe a 32GB card might be it's max and I don't want to pay more money only to find out it doesn't work.

Last week, while I was on vacation, I got inspired by my Uncle to build an arcade emulator. Then, coming back to work I found a hacker news post about an article from coding horror detailing some of the specifics about raspberry pi based emulators. I figure the first step to see if I want to take on this project is to price out all of the hardware. Then depending on how much disposable income I can afford, I'll hopefully act upon this impulse thought.

#1 The first thing I did was remove the SD card and put it in my computer to load ROMS onto it. Well, immediately, my PC's anti-virus software attacked the SD card and ruined it. I had to contact the seller and I had to download a repair tool. What I learned the hard way is to always turn off my anti-virus software before inserting the SD card into my computer!

#3 It doesn't work well for N64. Many if not most of the N64 games don't work. Or for example Beetle Adventure Racing and Crusin' USA do work, but they freeze up after maybe fifteen minutes of hard racing. You may want to look elsewhere for N64 gaming. I play N64 games on my laptop, instead.

#4 There's no cooling fan inside. You can play maybe up to Sega Genesis all day long and no problem, but if you try to play N64 or above, it overheats and then freezes up. Beware. Actually, so what I did was I added a cooling fan to mine. Maybe I'll share a photo later. N64 still freezes, but now I can play anything on the Arcade Box and it stays at a nice, cool temperature.

#5 A disappointment, the seller said that the emulator software can't be updated. So, not sure which version of the emulator it's using for Atari 2600, but all of the Champ Games demos won't play on it, unfortunately. I play those on my laptop running Stella 6.7.

It only seems to be affected on the FB emulator, but very frustrating!! Do I need to or can I connect another USB device, like a mouse or keyboard so I can actually control button actions and hot keys?

Many people have a Wii console they no longer use, and it can be very quickly and easily modified to become a kick-ass emulation machine. In fact, the amount of cool stuff you can do with a Wii will surprise you. If you have an SD card knocking about then you have everything you need to do the mod in a around 5 - 10 minutes. If you can unzip files on your computer and copy them to an SD card, you can do the mod. It's easy!

This is a long thread, but don't panic, you only need to do the first few steps. I've gone into a lot of detail because Wii modding becomes addictive, and once you done the emulation stuff, you'll want to explore more. How about connecting a USB hard drive full of your Wii and Gamecube games, as well as the arcade versions of F-Zero GX and Mario Kart (if you legally own the arcade machines of course) to your multi-region, Netflix compatible Wii that also plays DVD movies?

You need a Wii, a computer with internet access and an SD card. High capacity doesn't work for the mod process, low capacity SD cards are harder to find new, but you can pick up a 2Gb SD card from CEX for 2. Once the mod is done, you'll be able to use a big capacity SD card for your roms. You'll want a Wii Classic controller because of the button layout (The Wii Remote is fine for 2 button games). You can use Gamecube pads, the Wavebird controller (turn it on before starting up the console or it won't work), but the Wii Classic Controller has the most appropriate button layout. Homebrew doesn't work with 3rd party controllers so make sure you buy official Nintendo controllers.

Perform a system update when prompted to get your console on the latest firmware. This will update you to version 4.3 of the console firmware. (4.3E for a European Console, 4.3U for USA, 4.3K for Korean, etc.)

Turn off the Wii console. Open the flap on the front of the Wii to reveal an SD card slot. Put the SD card in the slot then switch the Wii back on. On the main Wii menu click the icon in the bottom right corner that looks like an envelope.

The screen will go crazy with white text on a black background, then you will get a professional looking welcome screen. This screen stays on for a good 30 seconds or so before telling you to press a key on the remote to continue so please be patient.

Now you have installed "BootMii as iOS" and "The Homebrew Channel" you are all done. Remove the SD card, then you can reset the Wii, or use the Home key on the remote to exit this application.

That's the mod all done. Told you it was easy! You don't need the SD card files any more, so if you want to use that SD card for emulation, just delete the files from it. I would suggest using a 32Gb SD card from this point, because this is going to become addictive.

Running the Homebrew Channel now will display a screen with animating bubbles, but nothing else. This is because you have a blank SD card in the console and the Homebrew Channel is for running Emulators and Applications that you copy onto your SD card into the APPS directory. So now we need to download some emulators, copy them onto the SD card and play some games.

When you download an emulator, it's usually in a zip/rar file. When you unzip it there are usually 2 directories that you copy exactly as they are to the root of the SD card. The Wii looks in an APPS directory for the emulator itself, while your roms, screenshots, cheat files etc go in a separate directory in the root of the SD card.

What follows is completely optional, but Wii modding becomes addictive! Once you start, you'll find there's loads of other cool stuff you can do. The trouble is, many of the guides online are out of date now, so what follows is a current method to make your Wii the most valuable device under the telly.

(Note - The following sections are written in the same order I would recommend you install (for example, by installing Priiloader before a custom iOS, you get brick protection so you can fix it if anything goes wrong. Also you need custom iOS installed before you start doing WII/Gamecube games from USB, for example. I don't recommend picking and choosing here - it's all dead easy, so you might as well do it all. I have written out all the steps in extra detail and it looks like a lot of words, but the entire rest of this guide will take you about half an hour, so please do every step in order, and don't skip bits.)

Highly recommended- Priiloader is an app that replaces the first part of the system menu that gets booted. This loads before the actual Wii menu appears on the screen, allowing installation of custom themes, region free gameplay and brick protection. I recommend installing this before you continue down this list because if anything did go wrong and you break your console, it's easy to repair it by booting the bricked console into Priiloader. As well as all this, Priiloader does the best thing ever - it lets you turn off that annoying music on the Nintendo Menu! You can easily make the entire console region free, and ignore OS updates from disk games - Priiloader does it all!

Priiloader also allows you to boot the Wii directly into an app. For example, you could tell Priiloader to boot directly into MAME instead of the Wii Menu, if you were putting your Wii in an arcade cabinet, or boot straight into a USB loader, as covered later in this guide.

Install Priiloader by downloading it from the link above. As with the emulators you already downloaded, the zip file contains an APPS folder, and you need to copy the contents into the APPS folder on your SD card. That puts the Priiloader installer program in your homebrew channel. Run the installer, and follow the prompts on screen (just just press + to install Priiloader). If you get any errors about loader.ini or password.txt, don't worry, these can be ignored. Your Wii will reboot in the Priiloader menu. If it doesn't, power off the Wii, then power it back on and hold reset while it's booting until you see it.

Now you have installed Priiloader, you can change any of its settings by holding the reset button whilst turning on the Wii. Should you break your console, just do this and select the option to repair.

So far, we've been loading our emulators and apps from within the homebrew channel. A "WAD" file is a program that appears on the Wii main menu, instead of in the Homebrew Channel. These can include Virtual Console Games, Apps and 'Forwarders' that bring your Homebrew forward to the main menu. You'll download some great looking forwarders later in this guide, but first we need to know how to install these WAD files. Luckily, there's a program called "Multi Mod Manager" and it's really easy to use.

The zip file contains everything in the correct folders, so just drag the apps folder across to your SD card. Or, drag the MMM folder into the apps folder on the Wii SD card. Put the SD card back in the Wii and MMM will appear on the list in the homebrew channel and you simply run it from there.

If you start installing WAD files from the murky corners of the internet (for example, pirate Virtual Console games) you could theoretically damage your console. I recommend having Priiloader (see above) installed first. If you did break your console by installing a dodgy WAD, Priiloader will allow you to un-brick a bricked console.

Next, we will install a custom firmware. A custom iOS is needed by a handful of applications to work, for example Wii Backup Loaders and unofficial channels on your Wii menu. It's very easy to do this and it opens up so many opportunities to do other cool stuff, you may as well do it now and get it out of the way.

You will see the above screen and the slot you just selected should be blinking. Press "A" to start the installation. Once it finishes, you will see an IOS screen with your own cIOS installed in green. Just press the "A" button to go back to the configuration screen.

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