23 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

After searching the net, I've discovered that Nintendo doesn't give out the details of what they change with each Wii firmware update! Anyone know why? Microsoft and Sony don't seem to have a problem with letting customers know what's been fixed and what's changed, so why does Nintendo keep it a secret? I'm one of those curious people who like to know exactly what I'm downloading...

Tempest

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

Well..from what I can remember...

The first two updates at launch had to do with basically making the SD card slot available and something with Parental controls. All the other updates after that, were to allow new channels to show up.

Basically it doesn't make a ton of sense, because the updates essentially add the new channel to the Wii Store or as was the case with the News and Weather channels, the updates basically downloaded them directly to the Wii main menu.

There was also an update to enable the Internet channel to be downloadable through the Wii store, and then later, the Everyone Votes channel. Curiously, the VC games do not require system updates.

These are just the main points of what I know was in some of the updates. I'm also pretty sure that other issues were addressed. I used to have a real nasty issue with the Mii channel locking up on me frequently. But after downloading the Weather channel, those lockups seemed to have fixed themselves.

Aside from this, I really don't know what else Nintendo has in those updates.

[jbanes]

Tempest, on Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:38 AM, said:

After searching the net, I've discovered that Nintendo doesn't give out the details of what they change with each Wii firmware update!

Nintendo sends you a message on your Wii whenever there's a new firmware update. It tells you about major new features, but bug fixes and what-not are omitted. It's not a big deal, though, as each release is pretty solid. (Nintendo's QA and Support departments are second to none.) I wouldn't worry about it.

Quote

Curiously, the VC games do not require system updates.

That's because Nintendo already built the emulators for those into the first revision of the firmware. Updates are only necessary when they need to do a firmware update. For example, the Everyone Votes channel requires the feature that allows you to tell the Wii where you are geographically located. Since the feature didn't exist prior to the last firmware update, Everyone Votes won't run until you perform the update. You can still download the channel, but it just tells you that your firmware is out of date. (I know, I tried. )

[Lord Helmet]

jbanes, on Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:17 AM, said:

Tempest, on Fri Feb 23, 2007 8:38 AM, said:

After searching the net, I've discovered that Nintendo doesn't give out the details of what they change with each Wii firmware update!

Nintendo sends you a message on your Wii whenever there's a new firmware update. It tells you about major new features, but bug fixes and what-not are omitted. It's not a big deal, though, as each release is pretty solid. (Nintendo's QA and Support departments are second to none.) I wouldn't worry about it.

Yup, they do the same thing when they add a channel, since you have to do a software update for those too.

[jbanes]

Lord Helmet, on Fri Feb 23, 2007 9:26 AM, said:

Yup, they do the same thing when they add a channel, since you have to do a software update for those too.

Not necessarily. Like I said, the Everyone Votes channel was downloadable (and runnable to a certain degree) without the update. The only reason why it required the update was so that the user could set their geographical location.

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

Actually...I read somewhere that the emulators for the VC games is in the games themselves. This is why the games are actually quite large in their download size.

For instance, I read somewhere that Super Mario Bros. takes up nearly 150 save blocks on the Wii. This equated to nearly 15megs or actual space or something. And the only explanation for the large size was that the emulator for running the VC game was part of the VC game itself.

This would explain why the games are released at only a few at a time, and also would mean that the emulator being used is specifically designed and more or less tailored to run that game.

[Lord Helmet]

-^Cro§Bow^-, on Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:04 AM, said:

This would explain why the games are released at only a few at a time, and also would mean that the emulator being used is specifically designed and more or less tailored to run that game.

Seems a little rediculous though. Why would you want a seperate emulator for each nes game when you could just have 1 that emulated every nes game? I suppose its so it won't get hacked to play all of the roms we already own...

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

Also..it could be that making a seperate emu for each VC game helps to ensure that the game plays as original as possible. With the NES emus...they have to include all those mappers to make as many NES games work as possible. But if you make a seperate emu for each game, then you only have to include what is needed in the emu to make that game run its best.

Why else would something like Super Mario Bros. that isn't a large game at all in cart form take up soooo much space now as a VC title

[figgler]

Tempest, on Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:38 PM, said:

After searching the net, I've discovered that Nintendo doesn't give out the details of what they change with each Wii firmware update! Anyone know why? Microsoft and Sony don't seem to have a problem with letting customers know what's been fixed and what's changed, so why does Nintendo keep it a secret? I'm one of those curious people who like to know exactly what I'm downloading...

Tempest

Nintendo doesn't want you to worry or even think about technical details. Even the word Firmware update is scray territory for people who don't understand these things (like me).
MS and Sony love to spit up specs and tech jargon all the time, because a lot of the users of those machines like that stuff. Nintendo though, wants to make things easy for everyone to grasp and do, and thus "Wii Update" is about the only info they are going to give out. Works for me personally as I just want to play and mess around, not so much worry about what ever is going on in the background. I trust that Nintendo is serving me well, and if it turned out that they weren't, I'd just make them fix it.

[Shannon]

Don't forget guys that the VLC games also include game documentation.

[rockman_x_2002]

-^Cro§Bow^-, on Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:17 PM, said:

Also..it could be that making a seperate emu for each VC game helps to ensure that the game plays as original as possible. With the NES emus...they have to include all those mappers to make as many NES games work as possible. But if you make a seperate emu for each game, then you only have to include what is needed in the emu to make that game run its best.

Why else would something like Super Mario Bros. that isn't a large game at all in cart form take up soooo much space now as a VC title

Well I'm not so sure that would entirely explain the large file size, either. If the emulator is specialized to support only those features a particular game needs, then it goes to follow it should be smaller than the more general emulators that we're all familiar with. Now an emulator like FCE Ultra, for example, has a total file size of about 615kb. And that's for an emulator that includes all kinds of mappers for nearly every kind of NES game, right?

So why would a simple emulator for SMB take so much space or time to download? Way I see it, an emulator with the rom combined, and maybe some extra security code or whatever, shouldn't run you but about 1MB or so, I wouldn't think.

[Shannon]

I'd be willing to bet the emulators store the "save state" as well as any SRAM in the file as well. Unless these are stored seperately.

[rockman_x_2002]

Shannon, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 12:36 AM, said:

I'd be willing to bet the emulators store the "save state" as well as any SRAM in the file as well. Unless these are stored seperately.

Even then, you'd only be adding about 8kb for an NES game's SRAM save data, and with savestate data, probably around 14 or so kb for a savestate.

So if you took, for example, Super Mario Bros., which doesn't use SRAM save data, then you add rom size (about 41kb), and the savestate data (about 14kb, we'll say). Surely the emulator (designed to run a single game) encryption, and an electronic e-manual (even one with lots of nice pictures) shouldn't take a whole lot of space, I wouldn't think. Not as much as implied, at least.

So there has to be something more, right?

[Shannon]

Regardless... I was just mentioning those since they were not initially being taken into account. I was not saying the explain the file sizes.



I'll have to copy a couple games to an SD card and see just how big they are.

[Tempest]

I'm not worried that Nintendo is somehow harming my Wii, I'd just like to know what they fixed. I like to see what all the bugs were, even if they never affected me. I guess it's because I did technical support for so long.

Tempest

[AtariJr]

Tempest, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 9:53 AM, said:

I'm not worried that Nintendo is somehow harming my Wii, I'd just like to know what they fixed. I like to see what all the bugs were, even if they never affected me. I guess it's because I did technical support for so long.

Tempest

like the others said.. less problems fixed, more additing features so that channels work with new settings.. only time its really had to update itself for hardware related things was for sd card support. I dont think that theres really been any "problems" so far that the updates have had to fix.

[rockman_x_2002]

Shannon, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 5:21 AM, said:

Regardless... I was just mentioning those since they were not initially being taken into account. I was not saying the explain the file sizes.



I'll have to copy a couple games to an SD card and see just how big they are.

Well yeah, but that's the curiosity talking mostly, being a grad student in computer science and whatnot. Like Tempest said, I'm just interesting in finding out what makes these downloads tick, in particular the VC games (since the file sizes, in my mind, don't logically add up, even taking into account all the extra goodies). Since I'm unable to download the extra channels that can be placed onto an SD card myself (stupid dialup), the best info I can gather is from those people on here and elsewhere on the Internet that are able to get them, at least until I'm better priviledged to have a nice Internet connection.

And also as Tempest said, I'm not concerned with the possibility that Nintendo may be pushing harmful stuff down to our Wiis. Mostly because it wouldn't make sense for them to send us a download that would break something, because they would then have to go back and fix the problem, costing them more money in the long run as well as good bit of grief from customers.

[Shannon]

Yeah I thought of starting a poll...

Which company will be the first to screw up on a firmware update?

Sony
Microsoft
Nintendo

[AtariJr]

rockman_x_2002, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:36 PM, said:

Shannon, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 5:21 AM, said:

Regardless... I was just mentioning those since they were not initially being taken into account. I was not saying the explain the file sizes.



I'll have to copy a couple games to an SD card and see just how big they are.

Well yeah, but that's the curiosity talking mostly, being a grad student in computer science and whatnot. Like Tempest said, I'm just interesting in finding out what makes these downloads tick, in particular the VC games (since the file sizes, in my mind, don't logically add up, even taking into account all the extra goodies). Since I'm unable to download the extra channels that can be placed onto an SD card myself (stupid dialup), the best info I can gather is from those people on here and elsewhere on the Internet that are able to get them, at least until I'm better priviledged to have a nice Internet connection.

And also as Tempest said, I'm not concerned with the possibility that Nintendo may be pushing harmful stuff down to our Wiis. Mostly because it wouldn't make sense for them to send us a download that would break something, because they would then have to go back and fix the problem, costing them more money in the long run as well as good bit of grief from customers.

people have to remember that these arent sony firmware updates here.. nothing to really be afraid of, or bitch about for functionality or whatnot. its simply really to make the settings of the new channels compatible.. i really dont see what all the concern is, there havent even been that many and take just a couple min to dload unlike some on the 360 which i heard can take hours (if i heard right).

[Albert]

It is strange now that this generation of video game consoles all come with internet connectivity built-in and that all of them can be "patched". I guess it's only natural with the complexity of video game systems these days. Having worked at TiVo and experienced the enormous amount of testing that takes place before software is updated on customers' boxes, I personally would not worry too much about "firmware" updates causing problems.

Remember when the only ports on a game system were the controller ports? And maybe an (often unused) expansion port? Oh, wait, that wasn't really that long ago.

..Al

[Tempest]

Shannon, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 7:19 PM, said:

Yeah I thought of starting a poll...

Which company will be the first to screw up on a firmware update?

Sony
Microsoft
Nintendo

Umm didn't Nintendo already screw one up and cause a whole bunch of Wii's to brick?

Tempest

[jbanes]

Tempest, on Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:53 AM, said:

Umm didn't Nintendo already screw one up and cause a whole bunch of Wii's to brick?

According to Nintendo, it was actually a hardware problem. The first update enabled various Wireless Internet features, which just didn't work on some machines. While Nintendo was replacing the machines (as opposed to upgrading them again), it now sounds like the problem was that the Wiis could only use certain wireless channels, rather than the entire spectrum. Several people "fixed" their machines by changing the wireless channel. Of course, it worked long enough to download the update, soo.... *shrug*

It was certainly only some machines that had the problem, and it always happened after the first update. So it doesn't seem unlikely that there was a flaw in some of the hardware.

[AtariJr]

on a totally unrelated note.. whats with the "this is your chance to get rid of me" shit you got going? you planning to leave?

[jbanes]

AtariJr, on Sun Feb 25, 2007 10:50 AM, said:

on a totally unrelated note.. whats with the "this is your chance to get rid of me" shit you got going? you planning to leave?

Click on the link.