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Topic: Is anyone interested in a Wii port?  (Read 9609 times)

Offline TDRR

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Is anyone interested in a Wii port?
« on: December 10, 2018, 00:07:14 »
I figured that since there's already two ports of other PC games running directly in Wii Linux, i have thought about making some sort of modern Doom for it. And what better modern Doom than online Doom?

I have some questions, though, first, how would i go about creating a online play launcher for it? I'm not very knowledgeable on networking and haven't seen yet what master server keeps the list of servers in it, nor what are the commands for joining a game. There's already a nice launcher i could simply modify to do different stuff but as i said i don't know what server do i have to request the list of games from, so if anyone could point me to the right direction that would be nice.

The only bad things is that right know i only have the know-how to do a port that supports SD cards, not USB, which may come later. And the Wifi chip isn't supported unless you start up the game via BootMii instead of the homebrew channel, this isn't too much of a problem but it's quite bothersome. If you have a ethernet adapter for the Wii, i highly recommend using that instead of booting from BootMii.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2018, 00:09:17 by TDRR »

Offline HyperEye

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Re: Is anyone interested in a Wii port?
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2018, 13:26:04 »
I actually worked on porting to the Wii shortly after I completed the Xbox port. You can find the Wii directory in the source code. It has a Makefile to build with DevKitPro. It works quite nicely with a pro controller or gamecube controller. The Wiimote works sort of. You can not turn fully with the wiimote. I added some code to initialize networking but I don't think it is functional. You can use a keyboard to try to connect to a server from the drop-down console but it does not connect. Music works if you have soundfonts installed correctly. I would have to look at my SD card to see exactly where they have to go. As for the launcher, the Xbox uses ag-odalaunch which is a libagar based GUI. It builds against the odalpapi networking code, just as odalaunch does, which means it does not need to change to support the current launcher protocol. libagar is SDL based, making it an easy target for game console use, but it provides widgets that are typical of desktop GUI toolkits. For that reason it is not the best choice for controller driven UI. Getting it running on the Wii is going to be the quickest approach to a working launcher though.

Here is the last build I made for the Wii: http://www.huntsvegas.org/files/Odamex-wii.rar
Here are the soundfonts and timidity configuration that works with it: http://www.huntsvegas.org/files/timidity-wii.rar

It should still work from the homebrew channel. Plug in a pro controller and you should be able to play fine with a nice framerate.

Offline TDRR

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Re: Is anyone interested in a Wii port?
« Reply #2 on: December 20, 2018, 12:31:45 »
I actually worked on porting to the Wii shortly after I completed the Xbox port. You can find the Wii directory in the source code. It has a Makefile to build with DevKitPro. It works quite nicely with a pro controller or gamecube controller. The Wiimote works sort of. You can not turn fully with the wiimote. I added some code to initialize networking but I don't think it is functional. You can use a keyboard to try to connect to a server from the drop-down console but it does not connect. Music works if you have soundfonts installed correctly. I would have to look at my SD card to see exactly where they have to go. As for the launcher, the Xbox uses ag-odalaunch which is a libagar based GUI. It builds against the odalpapi networking code, just as odalaunch does, which means it does not need to change to support the current launcher protocol. libagar is SDL based, making it an easy target for game console use, but it provides widgets that are typical of desktop GUI toolkits. For that reason it is not the best choice for controller driven UI. Getting it running on the Wii is going to be the quickest approach to a working launcher though.

Here is the last build I made for the Wii: http://www.huntsvegas.org/files/Odamex-wii.rar
Here are the soundfonts and timidity configuration that works with it: http://www.huntsvegas.org/files/timidity-wii.rar

It should still work from the homebrew channel. Plug in a pro controller and you should be able to play fine with a nice framerate.

Ah, that sucks because i completely lack a pro controller so i can't try it out. Still, Wii Linux is the fastest way (framerate isn't as great as native but it's something i can deal with) The fact that i don't have to mess with joystick support means i can easily add support for the Wiimote, most USB HID controllers and Keyboards. And writing a text launcher is a piece of cake in Linux (SRB2Wii did a good launcher) so online play would be easier.

I thought, booting from BootMii really isn't an issue, because from the Homebrew Channel you can press home > "BootMii IOS" and use BootMii even without installing it on boot2, (or you can replace ppcboot.elf with the one from Linux and turn that BootMii IOS button into a Odamex button :D  )

Being able to compile directly from the Wii is also very useful.

Now that i'm seeing a dev, i want to request some stuff: A_Jump (A_RandomJump in certain sourceports) A_Spawn, A_CustomMissile, A_FireCustomMissile and A_FireBullets (I don't know how the monster variant is called) and free states and thing IDs. That would make Odamex perfect for a mod i'm doing.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2018, 12:39:23 by TDRR »

Offline Hekksy

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Re: Is anyone interested in a Wii port?
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2018, 20:34:06 »
You are still welcome to work on the wii port. It works well offline but online needs some work. It shares the launcher with the Odamex Xbox port.

Feel free to put your request in the bug tracker.
Join the Odamex Steam group! http://steamcommunity.com/groups/odamex
Check out the Odamex Discord as well: https://discord.gg/vHUu236

Offline Ch0wW

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Re: Is anyone interested in a Wii port?
« Reply #4 on: January 22, 2019, 11:50:15 »
For those being still interested in making this port a reality, there is one HUGE thing that should be done.

The most important element to fix is related to this Bug Report #1241 :

Using the latest DevKitPro installer, I noticed that you cannot be able to compile it, as it is stuck saying that "gctypes.h" is nowhere to be found, despite being able to see it in this following folder :
Code: [Select]
<DEVKITPRO DIRECTORY>\libogc\include
This is happening to me on Windows 10 and on WSL with Debian 9.0. Other OSes should act the same way. I checked the Makefile several times, and I'm definitely clueless.

Anyway, it is said that recent DevKitPPC builds have broken several other Wii homebrews, so I have seriously no idea how to fix this mess.

That said, there are still a few issues to fix with this port, and, if we have something too, be able to compile it to WiiU (for better options).
Your friendly BaseQ admin. :P

Offline Hekksy

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Re: Is anyone interested in a Wii port?
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2019, 19:35:08 »
Perhaps reach out to prominent members of the wii modding community?
Join the Odamex Steam group! http://steamcommunity.com/groups/odamex
Check out the Odamex Discord as well: https://discord.gg/vHUu236

Offline Ch0wW

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Re: Is anyone interested in a Wii port?
« Reply #6 on: January 23, 2019, 06:18:42 »
Yup, this could be a nice idea. Or to even reach out to the DevKitPro forum, could maybe give us a hand.

EDIT : I managed to fix the build with the latest Devkitpro, and has been done as a pull request + guide.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2019, 11:08:44 by Ch0wW »
Your friendly BaseQ admin. :P