[REQUEST] DS to Wii connector

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holy_artefact
Is there a way to disassemble the "Nintendo Channel" that can send demo games to the DS?
May be a good place to start....

We'd never get to the raw source code though. And even if we could (seriously, we cant -- Its technically impossible) the functions used would be buried in the Wiis SDK which we dont have access to.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2009 01:15AM by Arikado.

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Arikado
And even if we could (seriously, we cant -- Its technically impossible) the functions used would be buried in the Wiis SDK which we dont have access to.

We may not get the source code in it's raw form, but we will see a functionally identical assembler code.
That will also include anything required from Nintendo's SDK, because it is statically linked into the channel.

Now all that is needed is someone, who can understand disassembled power-pc source
(unless Nintendo uses some major code obfuscation, or the compiler's optimizer did some major abstraction)

bLAStY put a lot of time into this, but I don't think he got anything working.

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Bomber

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daniel_c_w

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Bomber
I can't view the video so I'm just making assumptions. (At school).

Your assumptions are correct. It is communication between 1 DS and 1 Wii game.

Hmmm... so we know that the DS can communicate with the Wii, but we don't know what we can do with it. I think it may only allow the Wii to connect to the DS, and the DS has no 'say' over what happens.

That is absolutely correct. The DS acts like a client to receiving such games. We could in theory monitor all communication from the Nintendo channel with a custom IOS to understand the server communication but in reality there are already servers for the PC world that will let you send stuff to your DS. The communication part is easy, what our biggest problem would be is that the DS will refuse to accept anything that is not signed by Nintendo so we would have to find out how to fake signatures.

Personally I think for this to work you're going to need a hacked DS aswell.

When playing a game nothing in the game is telling the DS to communicate with anyone, therefore even if you have the wii setup to "listen" for the DS, it will never recieve a signal because the DS isnt giving one out.

The only solution I could see for this is to get a homebrew app on the DS which launches the game in your SD slot + sends a sound+vid signal constantly. The problem with this however, as was stated, is that the DS probably won't have enough ressources to power that kind've thing on top of the game without some serious performance issues, since all ressources are geared toward powering the game. Then you'll probably need to keep your DS plugged in the whole time because that will eat up your battery like a mofo.

I think it's definately doable... worth it? I'm not so sure about that.

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ozzadar
Personally I think for this to work you're going to need a hacked DS aswell.

WOW. You're a genius. Don't think anyone had thought of that. *SARCASM*

Anyway, in all seriousness, just shooting here, could we use a packet sniffer to see the communications between Wii and DS, then try and replicate these communications with a homebrew DS app and a homebrew Wii app, then take it from there? This is just a vague sort of idea, I don't really know what I'm talking about here, just know a packet sniffer can be used to watch communications over WiFi, and download data transferred or something. (Read about it for DS Demo Capture, but decided it was too complicated for me to actually try ;))

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SifJar

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ozzadar
Personally I think for this to work you're going to need a hacked DS aswell.

WOW. You're a genius. Don't think anyone had thought of that. *SARCASM*

Not completely true. To hack is to change code or add to code on the system but if we fake a signature there is no need to hack the device.

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SifJar
Anyway, in all seriousness, just shooting here, could we use a packet sniffer to see the communications between Wii and DS, then try and replicate these communications with a homebrew DS app and a homebrew Wii app, then take it from there? This is just a vague sort of idea, I don't really know what I'm talking about here, just know a packet sniffer can be used to watch communications over WiFi, and download data transferred or something. (Read about it for DS Demo Capture, but decided it was too complicated for me to actually try ;))

We already know the data that is sent to the DS. We can even setup our own "demo download station" with PC software and a wi-fi card. See here:[www.pocketgamer.co.uk] the only issue is the makers of the software doesn't make it an open-source app. It is possible to ask around and get the information to see if they would give it up and such.

Yes, but I'm saying what if WE monitored the communications to see how they work and apply it to homebrew. You said the makers of the app didn't make it open-source, but if someone wrote an app themselves, they could make it open-source for use in this.

If you ask them about technical information they will probably give you a start. They are obviously hackers too which usually means if you ask they will tell.

There's an open-source linux wmb host, written by masscat. The linux build doesn't work, but this is only because the program can't always process received packets, in the timeframe required by the official WMB client.(Other processes may be executing, ect) There's also Juglak's NDS WMB Host. These could be used as protocol reference, as well as NDS Tech Wiki, and gbatek. Reverse Engineering Nintendo Channel will not help you find how to send/receive raw packets: WD has iotctls for sending WMB beacons, WMB data frames, and scanning for connection/reply frames from DSes. Nintendo Channel uses only those ioctls, no others.(Other than WD_SetLinkState and WD_SetConfig.) The WD WMB ioctls can't be used without the correct configuration. A proper ioctlv dump containing ioctlv 0x1004 is needed to use those ioctls: with all ioctlv 0x1004 parameters, first 2 are u32, the third and last is the configuration buffer.

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pinball Wizard
Not completely true. To hack is to change code or add to code on the system but if we fake a signature there is no need to hack the device.

No, fake-signing WMB binaries is not possible: Nintendo uses an equivalent of memcmp, not strncmp.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2009 10:28PM by yellowstar.

You could probably get a packet sniffer and take a look at the packets that get sent to and from the wii and DS. You wouldn't have to disassemble the Nintendo Channel (Unless the packets were encrypted or something) I don't think.

From what I understand now,

You can have a DS cartridge like this one : [www.youtube.com] and can send to another DS and act as a download server. Instead of sniffing packets (which will probablly be encrypted), or dissassembling the wii channels that use IOS calls (we don't seem to know how this works for now), why can we take the DS Download server cartridge and dissassemble the DS code to see which frames are sent to wifi (gbatek seems to have covered a big part of the wifi communications of the DS, and also the DS dosen't have IOS or such hidden functions) and replicate these with the wii (thats the part I don't know how to do it on wii : sending raw frames without a wireless router alias ad hoc networking)

That should give us an hint.

(Sorry for my bad english by the way!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2009 04:48PM by holy_artefact.

The Download Station protocol is not encrypted. Writing a homebrew Download Station host would be complicated, since there's still many unknown frames and other data sent. It would be interesting though if it would be possible to use Wii Linux for a Wii WMB host. The key to using the WD Ad-Hoc iotctls is a certain WD configuration set by WD_SetConfig, but I'm stumped as to what Nintendo Channel uses for the config...

I might be wrong. Or somebody else might have stated this... but there is no video output for the ds, wireless or not. The ds simply cannot stream its video. i could imagine someone cracking a ds open, and re saudering it, and connecting it to a tv. But imagine the crappy resolution. ide stick with emulation. Thats your best bet. remember *I could be wrong*



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2009 07:37AM by kingghaffari.