#57588 - maniacdevnull - Mon Oct 17, 2005 4:55 am
If you haven't seen this, drop what you are doing and look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/apreche/sets/1139761/
Now, looking at the pictures, it almost seems like this will store your wifi settings on your DS itself, not the cartridge. While this will make it easier for players to connect, will this have any effect on a FlashMe'd DS?
#57591 - Fhqwhgads - Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:11 am
I have a feeling that maby in November, you can download some sort of update or something for your DS which maby enables Wifi, or gives you those menues.
#57592 - NotSoSane - Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:44 am
While the settings may be stored in firmware, from what I've heard the menus are likely included with the game (though based off of a template program in the official SDK, sort of like Xbox's "Content download", if you've seen that).
Nothing in those screenshots suggest that the menus are included in a firmware update to the DS. The visual style is similiar, but that's kind of to be expected. It's not white though, so it wouldn't blend in with the main firmware menus making it even more unlikely. And heck, I doubt Nintendo would flash the firmware, it could potentially be risky.
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#57595 - tssf - Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:59 am
Heh. I could tell right away by looking at it that it wasn't meant to be stored in the actual DS firmware. For one thing, how would Nintendo have people update it? Would Mario Kart automatically install it in the DS? If that's the case, Nintendo would have to offer a service to those who don't want Mario Kart, but still want wifi support.
Anyway, the settings are probably in-game. All it means is that you have to look for access points for each game that you play that has wireless support. It's not a big deal, but it can get annoying setting up access point profiles each time.
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#57597 - maniacdevnull - Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:19 am
| tssf wrote: |
| Heh. I could tell right away by looking at it that it wasn't meant to be stored in the actual DS firmware. For one thing, how would Nintendo have people update it? Would Mario Kart automatically install it in the DS? If that's the case, Nintendo would have to offer a service to those who don't want Mario Kart, but still want wifi support. |
It doesn't seem too out there to think Nintendo could have Mario Kart (or any other wifi game) install something into the firmware, just as newer Xbox games can install a new dashboard. They wouldn't have to offer any kind of service, because (from what I understand) only wifi-enabled games would need wifi settings.
My biggest issue is bricking my DS. I already know I'm gonna buy Mario Kart the day it comes out, I just want to make sure I'm not also buying a new DS that day as well.
Anyone with the Mario Kart beta want to break the NDA and share on this topic? :-)
#57599 - Joat - Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:47 am
The most likely course of action is for the network setup tool to write the settings to firmware, same as the user name / favorite color / birthday info is stored, it will NOT WRITE ITSELF.
There is no way for nintendo to 'upgrade' the firmware without shorting SL1, the portion that is protected simply wasn't designed to be upgraded or even extended.
As other people have said, developers are probably provided with source code and sample art for the configuration tool (if nintendo wishes to allow them to 'theme' it), or perhaps just a binary module that they're not allowed to change (ala the official arm7 binary). This way, all games can get at the common settings stored somewhere towards the end of firmware, and you won't have to reconfigure each game individually.
Even though the games can't update the booted portion of the firmware, there is a still a very small but finite chance that the wifi games will not work with a flashme'd DS. The most likely potential cause is a security check that CRC's the firmware against a list of known versions, although this limits nintendo's options in the future, if they wish to release new firmware revisions later.
News on this later: I have two DSes, one flashme'd and one original, and will be trying out both with Mario Kart on release day, dumping the firmware before/after running it, and tweaking the config settings to see where it's stored in firmware ^_^
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#57624 - El Hobito - Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:01 pm
the firmware simply isnt large enough to add any features such as this. i believe its only 256KB big? There are videos around of nwc working and its in the game not the firmware, it would be nice if the settings were saved on the ds though
#57628 - Sebbo - Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:14 pm
i've been reading DS IGN alot (who get alot of info straight from nintendo) and they haven't once mentioned that mario kart settings will be stored on the DS
the other thing is that those pictures have no reference to them, and just don't seem to match nintendo's style with the DS...in other words, t3h f4X0rS!!!11!!! sorry, i'm just not convinced
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#57629 - lambi1982 - Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:19 pm
why is everyone so jumpy ;) its not like we cant downgrade.
Sometimes you have to give something up to have another
(example: XBOX Live & Homebrew/modded Xbox) Some people do it, and others dont.
If itt is the case where you cannot have a changed firmware, I would bet that most of use would revert back to the original firmware.........
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#57644 - El Hobito - Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:51 pm
| El Hobito wrote: |
| There are videos around of nwc working |
i've seen the videos so i can tell you they are real, they show the spanish version of mario kart ds and look identical bar the obvious change of language. The idea is supposed to be absolute simplicity
#57669 - JaJa - Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:34 pm
What makes everyone think it can't just save it to a cart?
IMO the DS will save wifi information to some of the unused firmware.
Nothing else. Those screens are from The US/Eurpoean Mariokart. At least they look very similar to the japanese ones.
Nintendo won't update the firmware, because what if someone turned it off half way throught the update? Bricked DS. People wouldm't like that.
Or if the battery died? Nintendo make games consoles elegantly and simply. They won't want to do things like crazy firmware flashing. They have probably planned it all out from the beginning. Also what if people don't get mario kart? Then they would have an out dated firmware. This does mean that they could CRC check the firmware though. Unless the further update like the japanese Blue/Red, Nintendodogs thing. But unless they could write new CRC checks to carts....
#57700 - tepples - Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:46 pm
| JaJa wrote: |
| Nintendo won't update the firmware, because what if someone turned it off half way throught the update? |
If you close the DS, you can't hit the power switch. Instead of going to sleep mode, the program could use the lid sensor to start the rewriting.
| Quote: |
| Or if the battery died? |
At least the PSP waits for the player to connect the system to the AC adapter before beginning the firmware update.
| Quote: |
| Also what if people don't get mario kart? Then they would have an out dated firmware. |
Unless they do like Sony and put the new firmware on every game. Given that Nintendo DS games are 8 MiB to 64 MiB in size, and the firmware is likely less than 1 MB (see size of FlashMe)...
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#57708 - Joat - Mon Oct 17, 2005 9:15 pm
No-one ever seems to listen...
Nintendo cannot update the firmware without requiring you to short SL1. They didn't design it correctly! The BIOS will refuse to run a firmware that fails CRC check and most of the checked code (but not all, hence the ability to brick an unmodified DS, yet another stupid design flaw), lies within the 64 KB protection watershed (this applies to *BOTH* ST and sanyo flash DSes, there aren't any with only 256 or 512 bytes of protection). This checked code contains a second check for the remaining portion of firmware, which could in theory be updated, except that the CRC for this portion is (you guessed it) stored below 64 KB also.
Now, CRC16 isn't very secure, and you should be able to engineer a collision for a modified binary, but this will require N different versions of the firmware update in your game, where N is the number of existing firmware revisions. And you still can't update most of the bios, just the secondary load binaries (dunno what they do, haven't traced it out that far yet, but I'm guessing probably pictochat and the settings menu. loopy probably knows). Also, there really isn't very much room left in the firmware to put new features in.
Nintendo *could* have designed a core firmware that boots and runs DS and GBA games and fit within 64 KB, but also ran plugins from above 64 KB, to provide both security (against brickers) and expansion (for stuff like the wifi menu), but they did not. End of story.
Like a lot of other features (e.g. XKEYS, rather than putting the damn buttons in KEYS, and thus giving you no interrupt on them, and added complexity), this just reeks of rushing the DS to production (don't get me wrong, most of the flaws in the firmware and BIOS probably would have been fixed had they taken more time on it, and made homebrew much harder, also we would have had to wait longer for mario 64 ds ^_^).
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#57723 - joebob180 - Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:22 am
Or maybe the wifi settings are stored in the users mind using the secret "GhostPipe" chip that will be included in all the wifi games.
#57724 - Sebbo - Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:27 am
apart from booting the actual game, the only thing that the firmware will handle with mario kart is the identification for each DS (including that 12 digit code to give to your friends). all user settings, friend lists etc will b stored on the DS card...unless someone wants to write a patcher that loads friend lists from the GBA MP into mario kart DS
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#57725 - TJ - Tue Oct 18, 2005 12:38 am
| Quote: |
| all user settings, friend lists etc will b stored on the DS card... |
The friend list is held on the Nintendo servers (60 friends can be stored per user). Nintendo has said this before, as the friend list is global, and obviously cannot be stored on individual cards.
I also find it hard to believe that you will need to manually setup [/i]every game. Why would they have 3 connection profiles, if every game had it's own connection profile anyway?
Normal DS user settings are held in battery-backed RAM, why couldn't the WiFi settings be stored there as well? And the language setting is held somewhere non-volatile (as the DS will retain it's language setting even without the battery), where is that data stored?
#57737 - Darkwind_776 - Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:37 am
| TJ wrote: |
| Quote: | | all user settings, friend lists etc will b stored on the DS card... |
The friend list is held on the Nintendo servers (60 friends can be stored per user). Nintendo has said this before, as the friend list is global, and obviously cannot be stored on individual cards.
I also find it hard to believe that you will need to manually setup [/i]every game. Why would they have 3 connection profiles, if every game had it's own connection profile anyway?
Normal DS user settings are held in battery-backed RAM, why couldn't the WiFi settings be stored there as well? And the language setting is held somewhere non-volatile (as the DS will retain it's language setting even without the battery), where is that data stored? |
This is just a theory, but what if there's a certain server that has all of your player info, stats, and friends, and as your DS connects to that account it loads up all of those settings and info?
#57771 - NoMis - Tue Oct 18, 2005 9:58 am
| Darkwind_776 wrote: |
| This is just a theory, but what if there's a certain server that has all of your player info, stats, and friends, and as your DS connects to that account it loads up all of those settings and info? |
You need the network settings set up befor you can even connect to the server. So storing them on the server would not be possible.
But I hope they have a reserved space in the DS. The same space that holds the personal information could possibly be used to store the wifi settings. The game would just provide the userinterface to edit these settings.
NoMis
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#57792 - Mr. Picklesworth - Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:07 pm
The game Nintendogs appears to write bits of data to firmware, so I imagine that there's a bit of space reserved for WFC.
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#57795 - knight0fdragon - Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:30 pm
What does it write to the firmware?
#57800 - Ilomoga - Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:14 pm
Why shouldn't there be any space left on the DS RAM? Only because we can't see it it doesn't mean it's not there ^^
But what does Nintendogs write to the DS firmware?
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#57808 - nman - Tue Oct 18, 2005 5:49 pm
It writes some bits to prevent cheating (that's why you can't set the clock to cheat).
#57813 - josath - Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:26 pm
How can you set the clock to cheat? And what could it write that would stop that, that it couldn't just write into its own eeprom save?
#57850 - Sebbo - Tue Oct 18, 2005 9:44 pm
you can only teach a dog 3 new tricks a day, and only enter 3 contests a day. thus, you'd think if you could set the clock forward a day, you can teach more tricks and enter more contests (setting the clock forward doesn't work, unlike animal crossing)
what if you had 2 DSs? it wouldn't know the difference then
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#57856 - Ilomoga - Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:16 pm
I thought that there's a clock in the cartridge which is set on first start of the game and then compared everytime you play ^^
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#57862 - agentq - Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:55 pm
If I had to work out a way of stopping people cheat, I would write some code which stores how much the clock had been changed by, so I could add that on to the internal game timer. The code would have to be patched into the BIOS. Then the game would be able to continue as if the time had never been touched. Of course, that would rule out any major BIOS updates. Unless later versions have that check built-in and Nintendogs doesn't attempt to update them.
I hope Mario Kart stores it's wifi settings into the BIOS RAM, or it's going to be really annoying to set it all up for each game.
#57864 - AnalogMan - Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:00 pm
When you switch DS's it assumes you've taken a walk and makes you wait 30 mins and I have a feeling you can't teach anymore tricks that day (as I switched DS's without teaching a day's trick and it said he was too tired to learn anymore) However... I was able to do the 3 contests for that day.
My theory on Ndogs is that it keeps track of the time, synching every now and then ,and keeps time in an internal clock. When it turns on it compares time with the DS and if it's off by more than say.... 30 seconds, it tells the game you just took a walk and taught all your tricks, then synchs the time. That's why when you set the clock ahead or switch DS's you can't walk for a while and can't teach that day's tricks. Even if you switch to another DS that is on the same time, it'll be off by anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple minutes.
#57866 - TJ - Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:14 pm
| Quote: |
| The same space that holds the personal information could possibly be used to store the wifi settings. The game would just provide the userinterface to edit these settings. |
That is exactly how I am thinking. Much like on the PS2, where you have a singular network setup file, but any game can edit the file because every online game also contains the setup program (or some version of it).
Here though, there is no file to speak of, just a few bits of data held in RAM.
I don't see how it is any different to store the player's username in RAM, and have it globally available to all games, then it is to have a WEP key similarly stored. It's not like we are talking about a lot of data here.
We are talking about, I would think at most, 1 KB of plain-text data. Probably less, depending on your actual setup.
Now I don't think that the DS keeps power to all of the system's RAM, but there is at least some portion that is always kept powered to store user data. Who is to say how large this portion is, and if Nintendo didn't allocate room there in the first place for WiFi settings (WiFi was one of the core design elements of the system), I have never seen it referenced in the Wiki or any other technical documents (though maybe I have missed it).
#57885 - Mr. Picklesworth - Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:33 am
I forgot to explain... Nintendogs appears to write to firmware for some kind of Pictochat option, which alerts you when someone enters Pictochat and also has a copy of the game.
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#57887 - Sebbo - Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:38 am
there won't be any setup involved other than setting a computer as an internet gateway for the DS. most 8 year olds don't even know what a DNS server is or what the word gateway means. all you'll have to do is choose multiplayer from the main menu, then choose online, then choose if you want to play with friends, evenly skilled opponents or anyone. read the two pages on DS IGN on the service in the US and Japan.
US: http://ds.ign.com/articles/656/656195p1.html
Japan: http://ds.ign.com/articles/656/656124p1.html
or, if you want to check it out for yourself, head to Anaheim, California for IGN Live, cos Mario Kart DS will be fully playable (not sure if they'll have a Wi-Fi Access point set up tho). other than, you can wait 26 more days to buy it for yourself (lucky me, girlfriends birthday and mario kart DS on the one day :-P)
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#57891 - Sebbo - Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:43 am
| Mr. Picklesworth wrote: |
| I forgot to explain... Nintendogs appears to write to firmware for some kind of Pictochat option, which alerts you when someone enters Pictochat and also has a copy of the game. |
either that, or when you turn the picto-search option on in nintendogs it looks for pictochat packets being sent around. nintendo originally wanted this to be a feature that was built into the DS, but it was either really annoying or they didn't have enough time...or a combination of both
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#57924 - NoComply - Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:07 am
| Sebbo wrote: |
| lucky me, girlfriends birthday and mario kart DS on the one day :-P) |
That's horrible, you are going to get your girlfriend mario kart for her birthday so you can play it! Thanks for the great idea, my girlfriends birthday is just 6 days before, I can just give her the pre-order receipt in a card. Lol just kidding, only if I drop hints about it and she asks for it. Like I could leave a preview page open on the computer for her to read about it.
#57925 - notb4dinner - Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:41 am
| NoComply wrote: |
| Thanks for the great idea, my girlfriends birthday is just 6 days before, I can just give her the pre-order receipt in a card. Lol just kidding, only if I drop hints about it and she asks for it. Like I could leave a preview page open on the computer for her to read about it. |
Someone posted this on another forum, I think it's relevant:
| naz@farkin.net wrote: |
| The girl who replies to the question "What do you want for Christmas?"with "If you loved me, you'd know what I want!" gets an Xbox. End of story. |
#57929 - Sebbo - Wed Oct 19, 2005 11:01 am
well, lucky for me i have enough money to get two copies. unfortunately for me i live in australia so the november 14 release doesn't apply to me :-(
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#57934 - Fatnickc - Wed Oct 19, 2005 11:34 am
Fortunately for you, Lik Sang exists!
_________
I wonder whether you can use two DSs with Mario Kart DS in each of them, online, with the same internet connection.
It should work I suppose, because each DS is addressed by its own personal code. However, whether the servers will allow this or not is another question.
#57938 - Sebbo - Wed Oct 19, 2005 1:00 pm
well isn't that exactly like using a hotspot in town?
yeah, i already have a lik sang account...i won't actually be home on november 14 tho, and the australian release might happen while the game is shipping
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#57999 - tepples - Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:38 pm
| notb4dinner wrote: |
Someone posted this on another forum, I think it's relevant:
| naz@farkin.net wrote: | | The girl who replies to the question "What do you want for Christmas?"with "If you loved me, you'd know what I want!" gets an Xbox. End of story. |
|
I kinda always knew I had an Xbox girlfriend (whoa)
All she does is get on Live with the rest of them...
(Anyone who played Frequency will get it.)
| Fatnickc wrote: |
| Fortunately for you, Lik Sang exists! |
Unfortunately for you, Mario Kart Advance's multiplayer protocol was region-coded. The same is likely to be true of the DS games, especially given the higher ping times from region to region.
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#58013 - El Hobito - Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:31 am
it shouldnt make much difference since you can use nintendo wifi connection to play anyone in the world and it also has single cart multiplayer for 8 people. you may find that multicard play over lan wont work though
#58028 - tepples - Thu Oct 20, 2005 6:26 am
| El Hobito wrote: |
| it shouldnt make much difference since you can use nintendo wifi connection to play anyone in the world |
You can play anyone in the world who is running the same program, or at least programs that use the same protocol (e.g. Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue). Japanese and North American versions of GBA games rarely used the same protocol.
| Quote: |
| and it also has single cart multiplayer for 8 people. |
Single-cart multiplayer does not work over the Internet, as single-cart multiplayer needs DS Download Play of the firmware, which works only over Ni-Fi, not IPv4.
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#58032 - Mithos - Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:43 am
Playing Mario Kart (US) against Mario Kart (JAP) or Mario Kart (EURO) will be possible over Internet.
NiFi is another issue, will that be regionfree or not, maybe, maybe not.
#58035 - Sebbo - Thu Oct 20, 2005 10:39 am
well my Japanese DS can do single cart multiplayer with Mario 64 DS (US) to an aussie DS, and there's certainly no problem with pictochat or me download-playing from aussie DSs...haven't had the chance to try it out with multicart multiplayer yet tho (except for nintendogs, but i have the aussie version of that)
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#58036 - Mithos - Thu Oct 20, 2005 11:15 am
| Sebbo wrote: |
| well my Japanese DS can do single cart multiplayer with Mario 64 DS (US) to an aussie DS, and there's certainly no problem with pictochat or me download-playing from aussie DSs...haven't had the chance to try it out with multicart multiplayer yet tho (except for nintendogs, but i have the aussie version of that) |
Thats is beacause you only need 1 Mario 64 cart, and the DS:es are the same in the intire world..
Try some multicart games instead and you might not be able to play a US game vs a JAP or a EURO game..
#58044 - Sebbo - Thu Oct 20, 2005 12:44 pm
well, i guess i'll have to find someone with the aussie version of NFSU2...
i know that different regions have different standards/restrictions on the wi-fi protocol, but wouldn't some of these be hardware based instead of software? (transport layer in a network is linked to hardware isn't it?) is it the actual packets of data that wouldn't be cross-region compatable?
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#58046 - Fatnickc - Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:01 pm
I have an American DS, which I imported. When I go into Pictochat, people cannot 'see' me until they join the chat I'm in. For example, where it says x/16, even if I am in Chat Room A, and someone with a European DS (which is everyone I've ever played with) goes to Pictochat, they see 0/16 for Chat Room A. Then, when they join the chat room it shows up to them as them joining and then me joining straight away.
#58048 - Sebbo - Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:05 pm
yeah, i noticed that ppl don't see me in chatrooms while they're in the selection screen until i send a message...i think its cos pictochat doesn't send out packets unless its told to (ie. you send a message)
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#58053 - Ilomoga - Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:30 pm
| Fatnickc wrote: |
| I have an American DS, which I imported. When I go into Pictochat, people cannot 'see' me until they join the chat I'm in. For example, where it says x/16, even if I am in Chat Room A, and someone with a European DS (which is everyone I've ever played with) goes to Pictochat, they see 0/16 for Chat Room A. Then, when they join the chat room it shows up to them as them joining and then me joining straight away. |
That's true, but it's not because of your imported DS. It's like Sebbo said.
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#58054 - Fatnickc - Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:32 pm
Terrible, terrible design there.
#58056 - maniacdevnull - Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:40 pm
Saw this on the original flashme thread (http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=5419&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=330)
| Gunnme wrote: |
Once flashme is applied... if it was an older version, May I apply new flashme versions? without shorting SL1 again, so only overwrites the rest..
maybe with the recovery utility? I did read some time ago there was a new flashme ver. so... what exactly changes?is it really important? could be released a new flashme when Mario Kart gone out, so DS firmware doesn't get banished? (some info I know: a flashed DS went to brick after test a LEGITIMATE Mario Kart DS unit; need to confirm). |
Not good. Hopefully you can play the game if you remove FlashMe
#58062 - tepples - Thu Oct 20, 2005 4:27 pm
You can't go on Xbox Live with modded firmware either.
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#58063 - El Hobito - Thu Oct 20, 2005 4:27 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| El Hobito wrote: | | it shouldnt make much difference since you can use nintendo wifi connection to play anyone in the world |
You can play anyone in the world who is running the same program, or at least programs that use the same protocol (e.g. Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue). Japanese and North American versions of GBA games rarely used the same protocol.
| Quote: | | and it also has single cart multiplayer for 8 people. |
Single-cart multiplayer does not work over the Internet, as single-cart multiplayer needs DS Download Play of the firmware, which works only over Ni-Fi, not IPv4. |
i didnt say you could use it over the internet. The nwc wont be region encoded because that would totally defeat the point in it. No doubt the reason why it existed in the first place was due to lazyness more than anything since theres little reason to try and make the european versions backwards compatable with the us version. The euro ones are sometimes significantly changed (advance wars 1 even had a different title screen) over the us ones and the jap ones are even more different.
#58079 - Mithos - Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:52 pm
Would be sad if Mario Kart or any other WiFi-games did not work on FlashME'd DS:es.
#58080 - tepples - Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:59 pm
| El Hobito wrote: |
| The nwc wont be region encoded because that would totally defeat the point in it. No doubt the reason why it existed in the first place was due to lazyness more than anything |
So would North American and European games have to have a hiragana/katakana font in order to be compatible with player names in Japanese? This is the big reason why the Pokemon games are incompatible, as the system designed to handle ASH and PIKACHU can't handle さとし and ピカチュー. Super Smash Bros. Melee has both Latin letters and kana in one game, but it might confuse a lot of people who wonder what these "funny hieroglyphics" are. Or would it transliterate player names into romaji whenever at least one Latin-only player is joined?
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-- Who?
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#58091 - Mithos - Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:41 pm
I agree...
Putting regioncode on WiFi enabled games kinda defeats the whole idea about Nintendo WiFi Connection.
But, I don't think putting WiFi in a game will be something you do at the last second if games are not to be regioncoded, so developers have to think first and act later.
#58092 - maniacdevnull - Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:41 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| So would North American and European games have to have a hiragana/katakana font in order to be compatible with player names in Japanese? This is the big reason why the Pokemon games are incompatible, as the system designed to handle ASH and PIKACHU can't handle さとし and ピカチュー. Super Smash Bros. Melee has both Latin letters and kana in one game, but it might confuse a lot of people who wonder what these "funny hieroglyphics" are. Or would it transliterate player names into romaji whenever at least one Latin-only player is joined? |
The DS already has a Japanese character set available to it in both Pictochat and the user setup screens (user name and such), so it isn't unreasonable to think most games would also support japanese characters. I think players would be smart enough to figure out that the wierd squiggles are japanese.
Do most Japanese players take Japanese-character usernames, or do that take westernized usernames? Either way, I think Nintendo would not allow Japanese players to play US players, simply because of the lag.
#58124 - Sebbo - Fri Oct 21, 2005 2:37 am
thats only a particular font tho, the fonts that are used by games are stored on the cards aren't they? since the game will probably allow for all the european characters, then its only another 100 or so characters to include japanese hirigana, katakana and maybe some basic kanji
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#58128 - tepples - Fri Oct 21, 2005 3:32 am
| Sebbo wrote: |
| since the game will probably allow for all the european characters, then its only another 100 or so characters to include japanese hirigana, katakana and maybe some basic kanji |
ASCII + kana = 8-bit encoding.
ISO 8859-1 (ASCII + Western European accented characters) = 8-bit encoding.
ISO 8859-1 + kana = too big for an 8-bit encoding.
ISO 8859-1 + kana + Jouyou grade 1-6 kanji = way too big, and you still can't write 塊魂 (Katamari Damacy) or 塊頻度 (Katamari Frequency) because they include middle-school characters.
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#58175 - dXtr - Fri Oct 21, 2005 2:26 pm
but wouldn't hiragana, katakana and romaji be more then enough to write your name?
edit:
after thinking about it.. sure, it would be enough for japanese and western language.. but what about china, russia, korea and all other countries? I don't really think that including every possible alphabet in the world is a solution.. probably we will se some f-ed up text on people with other charsets or possibly the nice boxes you often see on asian homepage if your browser don't support the charset ^^
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#59362 - TJ - Mon Oct 31, 2005 10:01 pm
Bit of a bump here, I know, but in a recent interview with Jim Merrick, the European director of marketing for Nintendo, he confirms that WiFi settings will be stored on the DS itself, and not on the games.
Here is the article, in Spanish:
http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_articulo.php?pic=NRV&id=cw4364e1acb0d17&&iframe=1
The important bit translated:
| Quote: |
a little on Mario Kart and the WiFi subject. We already know that the game will bring the configuration options. It will be necessary to make these changes with each game or once done with Mario Kart they keep automatically in the console?
Indeed, the console remembers it. We have up to 3 different configurations, 3 totally configurables profiles individually, and to choose the one that comes in each occasion: the one of house, the one of the work, and the one of hot-spots, to put an example. |
So it looks like each game contains the WiFi setup utility, but the settings are written either to the DS flash or the RAM.
#59368 - Habeeb1000 - Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:09 pm
Jim Merrick seems to always have better technical knowledge than any other Nintendo executive. It's nice to know we won't have to configure each game.
#59407 - JaJa - Tue Nov 01, 2005 5:08 pm
| TJ wrote: |
....
So it looks like each game contains the WiFi setup utility, but the settings are written either to the DS flash or the RAM. |
It's hardly going to be RAM. That's lost at poweroff :)
#59463 - CubeGuy - Tue Nov 01, 2005 11:54 pm
It has been confirmed in an IGN article that (at least for Animal Crossing) the Nintendo WiFi Connection will work across regions that have the same keyboard layouts.
So Europe, Australia, and the US will be able to connect, but not with Japan and so forth.
I'll try to hunt down the article.
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#59474 - TJ - Wed Nov 02, 2005 3:51 am
| Quote: |
| It's hardly going to be RAM. That's lost at poweroff :) |
That is where the DS stores all of it's settings, in battery backed RAM.
#59479 - Sebbo - Wed Nov 02, 2005 4:31 am
| Quote: |
So Europe, Australia, and the US will be able to connect, but not with Japan and so forth. |
unless they change their language to english...japanese DS has this, i know cos i own one ;-)
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#59518 - Mr Snowflake - Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:16 am
| Sebbo wrote: |
| Quote: |
So Europe, Australia, and the US will be able to connect, but not with Japan and so forth. |
unless they change their language to english...japanese DS has this, i know cos i own one ;-) |
I hope they put japanes characters in the us game and vice versa, because they did that with animal crossing: ww. So we can connect with the whole world.
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#59531 - Ilomoga - Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:43 pm
Nintendogs supports all characters you can use in Pictochat (in the Europe version and in the Japanese version).
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#59550 - Mithos - Wed Nov 02, 2005 4:03 pm
| TJ wrote: |
| Quote: | | It's hardly going to be RAM. That's lost at poweroff :) |
That is where the DS stores all of it's settings, in battery backed RAM. |
You sure... Since you loose all settings if you erase the firmware and have to reflash with FlashME failsafe.
I think settings is in firmware somehow.
#59562 - Joat - Wed Nov 02, 2005 6:17 pm
Nope, the only battery backed RAM in the DS is the RTC, and it only has a couple of bits of free storage, one of which is used to indicate 'has been turned on since the battery was connected'. This is why a DS will ask you for information on first power-on, or after the battery has been disconnected for a while. All of the actual settings besides time/date (which is incrementing) and that bit are stored in the firmware chip near the end.
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#59598 - TJ - Wed Nov 02, 2005 8:59 pm
| Quote: |
| This is why a DS will ask you for information on first power-on, or after the battery has been disconnected for a while. All of the actual settings besides time/date (which is incrementing) and that bit are stored in the firmware chip near the end. |
Removing the DS's battery clears all settings other than inital language.
Username, comment, birthday, everything.
#59638 - CubeGuy - Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:22 pm
| Sebbo wrote: |
| Quote: |
So Europe, Australia, and the US will be able to connect, but not with Japan and so forth. |
unless they change their language to english...japanese DS has this, i know cos i own one ;-) |
The games would have to be the same version, wouldn't they? Or does the DS cart support all languages?
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#59644 - Ilomoga - Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:42 pm
Why should all games need all languages? They only would need all characters (for playing with someone from Japan with Japanese characters in his name)
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#59875 - CubeGuy - Fri Nov 04, 2005 9:43 pm
| Ilomoga wrote: |
| Why should all games need all languages? They only would need all characters (for playing with someone from Japan with Japanese characters in his name) |
I should have been more specific. I was only referring to the Wild World game card, since the game revolves around trading and communication.
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#59878 - Joat - Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:18 pm
No, they do not get cleared, at least not by the removal of the battery. The firmware identifies them as invalid because the RTC bit was cleared, and makes you enter the information. If you ABXY out of flashme and dump the firmware after a battery disconnect, the info is still there.
Repeat after me, there is no battery backed RAM in the DS (except the few bits in the RTC). All of the user settings are stored at the end of the firmware chip (two copies at end-0x100 and end-0x200, I forget how it decides which one to use).
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#60155 - Darkflame - Mon Nov 07, 2005 7:26 pm
| Joat wrote: |
Repeat after me, there is no battery backed RAM in the DS (except the few bits in the RTC). All of the user settings are stored at the end of the firmware chip (two copies at end-0x100 and end-0x200, I forget how it decides which one to use). |
There is no battery backed RAM in the DS (Except the few bits in the RTC).
All of the user settings are stored at the end of the firmware chip (Two copies at end-0x100 and end-0x200)
#60157 - Joat - Mon Nov 07, 2005 7:50 pm
/me pets darkflame and gives him a cookie.
good boy :)
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#60190 - darkfader - Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:33 pm
There is no battery backed RAM in the DS (Except the few bits in the RTC).
All of the user settings are stored at the end of the firmware chip (Two copies at end-0x100 and end-0x200)
Can I get a cookie too?
#60197 - tepples - Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:06 am
You too can have a cookie, although it's a GBA cookie.
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#60222 - Darkflame - Tue Nov 08, 2005 4:49 am
| darkfader wrote: |
There is no battery backed RAM in the DS (Except the few bits in the RTC).
All of the user settings are stored at the end of the firmware chip (Two copies at end-0x100 and end-0x200)
Can I get a cookie too? |
No, you cut and pasted it ;)