XBox360 joypad analog stick setting on Dolphin 4.0-8542

The more I use Dolphin the more I impressed by it.

I tried some GameCube games that are from USA, Japan and Europe, and I found that Dolphin was smart enough to create separate virtual memory card for each of these locale.

But in order to play GameCube and Virtual Console (like Nintendo 64 and Super Nintendo),  I need to set the WiiMote setting to Hybrid Wiimote  (I bet this is the setting for Virtual Console, as it simply take whatever was set at GameCube Controller setting).  So far so good ... except that in Pokemon XD, I found my character started sliding for no good reason.

It seemed like the Radius and Dead Zone setting for Control Stick and C Stick were not set properly.  After reading some post like this one and this one, I ended up set the Radius as 90 and Dead Zone as 30 for both of them.  So far it works pretty OK.  Also, I need to forfeit the save state that I created before, as they seemed to still using the old XBox360 joypad setting.  Once I started from loading save game from memory card, everything seemed to work fine.

How to get WiiWare DLC working on Dolphin 4.0-8542, and more ...

I didn't realize I spent more than 5 hours this morning messing with Dolphin 4.0-8542, but at least I got my problems solved one way or the other.

My first problem was trying to get those Virtual Console games to show with proper screen ratio.  It turns out that none of the setting, like "Force 4:3" and so on, works.  I ended up did this work around:

• Right click on the game title under game list, and select "Properties"
• Click "Edit Config"
• On the text file, add these at the top
• [Video_Settings]
• AspectRatio = 3
• Now start the game.  Resize the window to the proper ratio.

This is not the perfect solution since I have to manually resize the windows to the 4:3 proportion, but at least I am able to find a way to play these Virtual Console games with proper screen ratio.

Other related links: 

• Setting fille: link1
• How to use GameCube controller with Dolphin

Next I was trying to find out how to run WiiWare games with DLC, like "Arkanoid Plus! DLC.wad".  The proper way is to simply use the "Install WAD" feature to install the "Arkanoid Plus! DLC.wad" file, and then start the "Arkanoid Plus!.wad" game from the game list.  With that "Zone 2" will show up inside the game.  However, in order to make it make, both the game and the DLC has to be in the same locale.  That means they have to be both US, or Europe, or Japan version.

Other related links:

• -Install DLC WAD 

Throughout that process, though, someone suggested me to install Wii Menu, and then install both the game and DLC to the Wii Menu.  That turns out to be unnecessary.  In fact, thru out that process I got the Wii Menu hung and had to manually remove some setting files to make Wii Menu work again.  But I found having a Wii Menu interesting enough a thing that I want to document it.

I actually puzzle for a while as I saw the "Run Wii Menu" entry on Dolphin greyed out all the time, and was not interest enough to try to figure out why.  It turns out that I have to explicitly download a tool called NUS Downloader (v.1.9 is the one I got) and then download the corresponding Wii Menu wad. There's an instruction here that I have to follow when I download these Wii menus.  Mainly, I had to "Open it (NUS Downloader) and go to Database > System > System Menu > v513. Check "Pack WAD" and start the download." The download archieve is here.   

Some people said that only v2.0 of Wii Menu can be used to launch games.  I did tried 4.0 and it failed (simply load back the wii menu after I tried to start a game), while v.2.0 Europe version worked fine, so I sort of believe in that assumption.  Also, make sure the game locale matches the menu, or you will get "This Channel can't be used" error message.

I also got into this problem after I use the Wii Menu to uninstall some WiiWare that I installed to the menu.  I ended up getting "System files are corrupt" error.  Someone experienced the same problem and found out that the solution is going to delete the files in "Y:\Dolphin\User\Wii\title\00010001....".  I didn't have patient to find out exactly which folder to delete, so I ended up deleted folders that created today.  It worked out fine.

Other related link:

• video: how to install Wii Menu
• NUS Downloader instruction
• [Howto] Wii System Menu + Channels

One thing that still irritates me is that I have to have a real physical Classical Controller in order to play some of the Virtual console games, like Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 emulators.  Lame.

No wonder there was no GOOD game for Wii U Balance Board

For some strange reason, I always wanted to try out Wii/WiiU Balance Board.  Or maybe in general I just love to try out new way to experience gaming. However, US$89.99 was too expansive to me back when it was released, so I left it behind.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I saw WiiU Fit with Balancing Board on sale for $19.99 at an online store.  So I snapped one up.

After trying it on both my WiiU and my much older Wii console, I figured out a few thing:

• I cannot pair the Wii Balance Board to both WiiU and Wii.  I have to re-pair the device once I paired with one machine.
• The Balancing Board is reasonably heavy.  

But ere's most important thing related to gaming: games that support Balancing Board feature ain't fun with Balancing Board.  I tried the following 2 games:

• Punch Out
• Wii Music

They made me experience how inaccurate Balancing Board is when dealing with fast pace response.  I constantly found my action on Balancing Board has some obvious delay when compare with the result on the screen when I played Punch Out.  And when I tried to use Balancing Board to simulate bass drum kick on Wii Music, the latency totally reminded me some bad experience dealing with some malfunctioned electronic drum set.   At the end, I gave up.

Still, for $20, it't ok to continue using it with WiiU Fit software.  No way, however, I will use it for gaming again.  It's a Kinect experience all over again.  At the end, it's the latency that takes me out of the gaming experience.  Good concept, but the technology with the right price point is just not there yet.

Some hard drives are better than the others

Continue my journey of experimenting with WiiFlow on WiiU (vWii side): I found that while my 80Gb works great everytime, my 1Tb (drive U) harddisk has problem being recognized by my WiiU.  I don't know if the problem is my that specific harddisk or not.  More test in progress.

DOK220U3P, a US$30 hard drive dock that works

There's nothing particularly awesome about this Iview 2.5in / 3.5in SATA to USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station, Model: DOK220U3P, besides the fact that it simply works.  I hooked it up to my Dell XPS 8700, and the copy of 250Gb of files take 30 minutes or so, a definitely respectable speed.  If the USB 3.0 dock works fine for another one week, then may be I'll just get another one.

It is because it's USB3, or because it's a portable harddisk?

I started to found myself spending more time to test various configuration of harddisk, disk partition, and other setup with WiiFlow on WiiU, then actually playing games on it.  Ironic.

By the way, a side note: I just realized that my Dell XPS has serious problem recognizing or maintaining connection with USB2 harddisks, but seems to have no problem with USB3 harddisk what so ever.  Very strange.

So I tried using various USB2 portable 2.5 inch harddisk, including a 320GB USB2 harddisk, a 1Tb USB3 hard disk, and all of them failed.  On the other hand, the USB2 3.5 inch harddisk dock that I have works fine with WiiFlow.  So I guess I'll just have to stick with the non-portable harddisk then.

To be fair, the was ONE time that WiiFlow recognized and showed up the right game list, but obviously it's not consistent enough for me to consider using it daily.

STill can't move New Super Mario Bros Wii save file around

I had problem moving New Super Mario Bros Wii save file around.  At first I thought it was because I was using a PAL version of the game, but then I tried the NTSC version, and it still fail.  So I am pretty much give up now.