DevKitPro, game engines, and official SDK

First off, no, I will not tell you how to obtain anything illegal! That should allow this post to cruise just barely within forum guidelines...

Let's say, hypothetically, someone got ahold of the official Nintendo Wii SDK - but, naturally, not the special hardware to go with it. But theoretically, it should still be able to compile .elf/.dol files from source. From just a software perspective, using Visual Studio 2005, would one be better off attempting to utilize the official SDK, or DevKitPro? I've yet to see a working 3D homebrew app, is DevKitPro missing some crucial parts that could prevent it from compiling a legitimate full game? And if one had access to the official libraries, could these be swapped in and out with the homebrew libraries, to utilize whichever is easier/more powerful?

Also, game engines. I have no idea how they work, other than that, on the PC, you drag, you drop, you script, it puts out a .exe. I assume it's at least a bit more complicated on a console, but if someone were to obtain something like Torque for Wii (yeah, I wish), would it be at all able to work with DevKitPro? Would it even need an additional SDK?

You should use devkitPro for multiple reasons, unless you're going commercial and publishing something.

1) Legality. You really don't need it anyway >.>
2) The power of open-source. The community contributes to it, it gets better, etc. All that FOSS crap. If you make a game, share its source for others to learn from and don't require a propietary SDK just to build it. You really don't need it anyway >.>
3) Who said libogc can't be used for working 3D homebrew games? And that's coming from someone who's never touched C++ or 3D programming before in his life until a month or so ago. People are just lazy, I don't know what to say :P, it's capable of most anything the real SDK can do. You really don't need it anyway >.>
4) Depends on how said game engine were built.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2008 05:15AM by AerialX.

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AerialX
it's capable of most anything the real SDK can do.

Bingo, then that'll work for me! That was my main concern. I know it's completely impossible to find assistance with the official SDK - you should see the responses I got asking for help with the GameCube SDK a while back!

Only problem is, it seems - based on what I've heard, you know - the official SDK has some major documentation included with it. Every single function and instruction is covered in detail on what variables it takes and what it does. Allegedly there's over 21MB of .html files, arranged very much like the Java references I'm used to. I have another topic asking for help on where to find such a reference for DevKitPro, but more relevant to this topic: are the functions the same? That would be incredibly useful.

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DigitalMan
more relevant to this topic: are the functions the same? That would be incredibly useful.

I've heard that many are similar. Anything that refers to an IOS function (Most of the Wii functions) are going to be mind-numblingly similar, although I'm not sure how many of these are exposed to developers under the official SDK.

There had been some accusations of devkitpro taking functions directly from the SDK, but I'm not sure this holds water. The Wii functions most certainly are not cloned from any sort of proprietary SDK.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2008 11:14PM by tona.

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tona

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DigitalMan
more relevant to this topic: are the functions the same? That would be incredibly useful.

I've heard that many are similar. Anything that refers to an IOS function (Most of the Wii functions) are going to be mind-numblingly similar, although I'm not sure how many of these are exposed to developers under the official SDK.

There had been some accusations of devkitpro taking functions directly from the SDK, but I'm not sure this holds water. The Wii functions most certainly are not cloned from any sort of proprietary SDK.

A lot of functions were written by reversing the code within, eg, Twilight Princess where a map file was left on the disc which revealed the function names and their locations in the dol. Thus, these functions were written for libogc by looking at the code at the address of the given function and duplicating its functionality by rewriting the assembly in C code. So, they didn't simply rip the code out of the SDK or even out of released game, but rewrote their own versions based on what the functions did in the released games.

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DigitalMan

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AerialX
it's capable of most anything the real SDK can do.

Bingo, then that'll work for me! That was my main concern. I know it's completely impossible to find assistance with the official SDK - you should see the responses I got asking for help with the GameCube SDK a while back!

Only problem is, it seems - based on what I've heard, you know - the official SDK has some major documentation included with it. Every single function and instruction is covered in detail on what variables it takes and what it does. Allegedly there's over 21MB of .html files, arranged very much like the Java references I'm used to. I have another topic asking for help on where to find such a reference for DevKitPro, but more relevant to this topic: are the functions the same? That would be incredibly useful.

The key word is capable. DKP provides you with a way to compile a program that will run on a Wii. Technically, that's all you need to do everything the official SDK can do - it all boils down to poking this and that hardware register, calling a certain IOS function, etc to perform any given task. The question is how much high-level stuff each SDK provides; for example, is there a convenient function to play a sound, or do you have to talk to the sound hardware yourself? My understanding is that the official SDK provides a lot of such high-level routines. DKP probably doesn't have as many of these. Of course, nothing stops you from figuring out how to do it the low-level way, and then writing your own high-level routine so you only have to deal with that once. :)

Also, AFAIK it's illegal in the USA and probably many other countries to distribute programs written with an unlicensed copy of the official SDK. Not to mention you obviously won't have much luck getting questions answered - the DKP users won't know and the licensed users will be bound by NDAs. That's really about all the reason you need.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2008 02:35AM by HyperHacker.

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HyperHacker
My understanding is that the official SDK provides a lot of such high-level routines.

Well, that depends on what you consider "high-level". Sure, there's a function to create a sphere, with a variable number of segments, but that's not very useful to me. A .3DS file loader, however, would be quite nice - but I don't think either kit supports that natively.