Author Topic: DS: Online on April 11th? (Read 10770 times)

Noble~Feather · « **on:** April 03, 2005, 02:32:12 PM »

Linky #1.

Linky #2.

Note: the pic was there a few minutes ago. But for some reason ImageShack took it away!

KnowsNothing · « **Reply #1 on:** April 03, 2005, 03:19:42 PM »

Not sure about the dates or whatnot, but PGC reported a little while back that a project like this was in development. So yeah, Mario Kart and Hunters will be online

silentbob · « **Reply #2 on:** April 03, 2005, 03:38:11 PM »

sweeeeeeeeeeeeet

Darkheart · « **Reply #3 on:** April 03, 2005, 04:57:11 PM »

what was the pic of
?

Cleon_I · « **Reply #4 on:** April 03, 2005, 05:08:24 PM »

Without any further details on this project, I'm calling BS.

SM64 might be possible, but I'm fairly certain that tunnelling Pictochat is impossible with just a piece of software. Why? Pictochat uses Nintendo's proprietary wireless protocol, which no wireless cards outside of NCL are programmed to understand. This has been a major problem for the guys over at gbadev.org, who have been trying to achieve the same thing since the DS's release. Why not just reprogram the wireless cards to understand the protocol? Well actually, this is what they've been trying to do, but since every card is different, and many don't even have publicly available source code for the drivers, limiting any success to one particular brand of wireless card. Additionally, most cards aren't even capable of sending the kinds of signals the DS is expecting. So you see, tunnelling is far from being just a simple software problem.

I suspect that if he actually *does* have a working setup, it's tied to a specific make of wireless card, or some other home-brewed device.

Slew · « **Reply #5 on:** April 03, 2005, 08:25:45 PM »

What's different about SM64DS? Doesn't it use the same wireless as pictochat?

And from what I read on the warppipe forums, Nintendo's wireless protocol isn't that much different from whatever the normal protocols are, and they could see the DS broadcasting wireless using a wireless router, so I'm assuming this guy has just finally figured out how to translate the signals or whatever. No?

*Shrugs*

Cleon_I · « **Reply #6 on:** April 03, 2005, 08:50:33 PM »

I don't know for sure whether SM64 uses Nintendo's protocol (which people have been calling NiFi) or if it uses the standard wireless protocol, but if I remember correctly it also uses NiFi. You're right that the two protocols are fairly similar, NiFi is a very stripped-down version of the standard, but the fact is that most wireless cards were not designed to communicate with anything but the standard, and although the packets can be *received* most of the time, there's no good way to *send* packets in the form the DS expects. People have had moderate success with fooling the DS into authenticating with their computers (authentication is the first step in wireless communication) using hacked drivers for some wireless cards, but they're still a long way from being able to actually tunnel games over the internet.

Once Nintendo sets up their online service, this will all become moot except for people wanting to transmit homebrew code and pirated copies of multi-boot games (tsk tsk), since I'm sure all games that are feasible to play online will be online. Online pictochat would be fun, but I bet we start getting simple online chat clients packaged into every game anyway. Basically what I'm saying is at the moment tunneling NiFi looks like a lost cause, so we should all just sit tight and wait for the real thing.

darknight06 · « **Reply #7 on:** April 03, 2005, 08:54:28 PM »

You do know the firmware in the DS has been confirmed to be upgradable right? Who says Pictochat can't be updated for online use with new firmware?

PaLaDiN · « **Reply #8 on:** April 03, 2005, 09:06:44 PM »

"You do know the firmware in the DS has been confirmed to be upgradable right?"

Huh?

Savior · « **Reply #9 on:** April 03, 2005, 09:09:38 PM »

yeah what he said

Shecky · « **Reply #10 on:** April 03, 2005, 09:50:16 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: darknight06
You do know the firmware in the DS has been confirmed to be upgradable right? Who says Pictochat can't be updated for online use with new firmware?

Link? Source?

It would be great if this were possible, but I was under the impression that it wasn't.

Cleon_I · « **Reply #11 on:** April 03, 2005, 10:33:35 PM »

It may be possible to upgrade it, but that doesn't mean Nintendo actually expects to use it. Upgrading firmware can be pretty risky, since if something goes wrong in the process (battery dies, cartridge pops out, upgrade code has an obscure bug) it's very possible to end up with a dual-screen brick. Do you have any links to back this up?

FYI, I've also heard that rumor but haven't seen anything to convince me that it's anything more than just a rumor.

KnowsNothing · « **Reply #12 on:** April 05, 2005, 01:18:37 PM »

Hmmm....assuming this is true, how would it work? I don't mean all the technical crap that I don't understand, but I mean play-wise. How would you know who you're playing against? Would you? I *believe* that the DS has it's own MAC address, would there be just a list of these on differnet servers or whatnot? If you wanted to know who you were playing against you'd have to match these up?

I've never played an online game before, because I've never really been interested until now. Having your DS name as a username would be groovy, but I bet 10000 DS owners have named theirs "Reggie."

Cleon_I · « **Reply #13 on:** April 06, 2005, 05:45:34 PM »

Chances are it'd be a setup similar to Warp Pipe or Xlink; i.e., you run an app on your computer that serves as the connection between your DS and some central server through which you've registered your screen name. Of course, I will be *very* surprised (and impressed, I suppose) if they actually do produce a working piece of software on the 11th. If not, I'm curious what their excuse is going to be when the time comes.

Additionally, it's poor style to not release any info on whatever "discovery" they may have made. If they *have* managed to come up with something that works, then it no doubt is built on the information collected by the several people who have generously made the results of their research known. I assume they're not releasing info because they want to make money off of it, which is pretty disrespectful to the DS community.

UncleBob · « **Reply #14 on:** April 06, 2005, 06:45:09 PM »

I theorized that the firmware within the DS could be upgradable in order to allow whatever needs to be done to fully utilize the DS's on-line abilities.

How to do it? I'm thinking something similar to what Nintendo did to patch Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire - You can download the upgrade (via wireless connection) from a Demo Unit loaded with some kind of upgrade card that's in the Demo Unit. Big first party titles launched around the same time could also come with the upgrade pre-loaded (Say, for example, the online launch titles could have the first firmware upgrade loaded in them) - the first time you put one of these cards in, you get an "Updating firmware... please wait" message. The third route could be like what was done for Ru/Sa where you have to physically send the unit into Nintendo or bring it by an offical repair center for free upgrade. Finally, if the DS cards are really as cheap as it's believed they are, let's have DS demo cards given away in Nintendo Power (or other sources!) that... have the firmware upgrade on them!

As per how touchy the upgrade process is... well, it all depends on how the software is written. First, remember that the power button is just that - a button. I see no reason that the software that works the firmware upgrade couldn't be written to ignore commands from the power button during the upgrade process. As for battery power running out, perhaps the software could run a battery check before upgrading - if the battery isn't at 50% power or some such, then the unit won't upgrade and will give a message saying that the battery needs to be recharged before continuing. The card popping out should *not* be a problem. I'd think it'd be written where the DS downloads the code into it's internal memory, instructs you to remove the card and then does a soft boot, then loading the firmware upgrade.

Software bug? Well, crap happens I guess...

Noble~Feather · « **Reply #15 on:** April 06, 2005, 07:41:32 PM »

DS demoes in Nintendo Power would seriously kick ass. I had Nintendo Power for one year (thanks to the Zelda Collector's Edition

), but if they had that then I would gladly subscribe again.

Mario · « **Reply #16 on:** April 06, 2005, 08:08:08 PM »

Is it possible they can add this extra stuff on the DS through a GBA cart?

Shecky · « **Reply #17 on:** April 07, 2005, 05:51:52 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Mario
Is it possible they can add this extra stuff on the DS through a GBA cart?

That was my guess as well, way back before the DS even came out (see thread) - and I still think it's the most likely.

Picture it this way... you pick up this "online kit" (or whatever you want to call it) for the DS. I comes with a GBA cart and a headset.

You load both into the DS. Now when you start up.... you pick the GBA slot not the DS game.
From this app on the GBA cart you can set up all kinds of wireless settings IF YOU WANT. Knowing nintendo they probably want to keep it simple but they had better have something to handle those folks that have to enter WEP keys/etc... similar to what the PSP has currently if you power up and go to wireless settings (although you could do even better). You should be also able to tell it to just dump out of infrastructure mode and go "ad-hoc" as most people like to call it.

Now that's not it.

This handy cart also has your matchmaking service, to find other players - locally or online, depending on how your set up in the last step. Once you find your opponents and agree on a game, your asked to insert that game into the DS slot if it's not already in there. Then, your playing via wireless! Enjoy! A key combo could even bring up a interface (provided by the GBA device) to let the user adjust, for example, voice settings - like muting certian ppl you no longer want to hear as they are spamming the voice channel.

Since this is a GBA cart - it's writable... Thus it could store all your settings, your game list, etc.... it could also be "upgraded" by the DS itself, say at a hotspot.

If your really hopeful, Nintendo has already released the standard API this cart will use and third parties have it already ....

And if you really, really, want to take a leap of faith, they're doing the same thing for a DS card, so that you can do the exact thing as above, except for GBA games.

Cleon_I · « **Reply #18 on:** April 07, 2005, 07:51:59 PM »

UncleBob:

Just to clarify, how exactly did they patch Pokemon R/S? You mention that linking with the demo unit works, and then later you say you could also send in your cart for replacement. Are those just two options to acheive the same thing? It's interesting that they could patch it without replacing the cart, since commercial GBA carts aren't usually rewritable (that I know of), and the GBA firmware definitely isn't.

I agree that including the updated firmware on new releases would be a good idea. That way, Nintendo saves $$$ (no need to produce tons of extra cards or pay to ship millions of units back to Nintendo) and the only drawback is it'll take up extra space on the card, but I doubt it'll be big enough to make much difference. Of course, all this assumes that they've made the firmware updateable to begin with...

Shecky:

I suppose having a "wireless option pak" would be interesting, but I don't think it's going to be necessary. If they need extra wireless functionality that isn't already included in the firmware, they can just add it in the DS game. Instead of putting the matchmaking service on a separate GBA pak, why not just include it in every game that uses online features? As for storing personal info (block list, friends list, etc), that's usually handled on the server-side anyway, so no need to store that info client-side as well.

Aussie Ben PGC · « **Reply #19 on:** April 07, 2005, 09:08:24 PM »

From what I understand, the patch for Ruby/Sapphire was written to the cart's EEPROM or battery save or whatever it's called. This was because the bug would effect the game after it had run for a certain time period (a year? ten years? I forget). You were able to link up with Leaf Green/Fire Red to receive the patch, or you could get it from the Jirachi bonus disc if you managed to get that.

KnowsNothing · « **Reply #20 on:** April 10, 2005, 04:04:25 PM »

Note to Jadrule: If you're going to pull a pathetic April fool's joke, at least do it on April fool's day, mmmkay?

ABlueflameA · « **Reply #21 on:** April 10, 2005, 08:02:04 PM »

Wow, that really sucks. Oh well. We'll just have to wait a few more months for Metroid or Mario Kart or Animal Crossing or whatever the first title to feature internet play is. Darn. Oh, if anyone is going to E3...see ya there. :-)

Cleon_I · « **Reply #22 on:** April 10, 2005, 10:02:17 PM »

Gee, such a surprise...

What pisses me off most is he's making ad $$$ off of every pageview. What a jerk.

In other news, *real* progress has been made on communicating with the DS via a hacked wireless card in a PC. I'm not sure if this means that tunnelling the DS is still a possibility, but it's certainly a good sign! Here are some videos demonstrating it:

Video 1
Video 2

Edit: credit goes to Tim Schuerewegen for the awesome hack job

UncleBob · « **Reply #23 on:** April 11, 2005, 07:09:48 AM »

Yeah, what Ben said and more.... You cound download the patch for Ru/Sa via the Pokémon Colosseum bonus disc (that you got from pre-ordering Pokémon Colosseum) along with a GCN-GBA link cable. You could also download the patch from demo GCN units set up that had a GCN-GBA link cable hooked into them while a particular GCN Retail Demo Disc was in it (I only remember seeing this at an EB Games).

The Bug was that the internal clock would stop working after one year meaning certian events (like, for example berries wouldn't grow) were disrupted. I don't know exactly how the patch was applied to the cart to fix it, but it worked...

News:

Author Topic: DS: Online on April 11th? (Read 10770 times)