First Step In DS Wifi Challenge Complete

josath writes "The DS Wifi Bounty Milestone 1 has been completed! (previously on /.) The hardware registers to use the wifi built into the Nintendo DS has been documented. This is a huge step, as this was done with absolutely no documentation on the hardware. Stephen Stair has received ~$1400 for this milestone, and is working towards getting the other half by creating a tcp/ip stack. Once a TCP/IP stack is implemented on top of the hardware layer, homebrew NDS developers can start using the wifi in their own apps/games! This comes before Nintendo has officially released any wifi-capable games."

Comments

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Stair must pay Nintendo 1000% of that $1400...

Re:In other news

[donscarletti]

By Nintendo standard, having to give them 1000% of your profits for software on their console actually qualifies as a discount.

A serious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doesn't Nintendo create an amateur game development kit? Clearly there is a market, perhaps small but there none the less. It's money they'd probably enjoy having that they don't now.

Re:A serious question

[DavidHOzAu]

Why doesn't Nintendo create an amateur game development kit?
Because that would be too professional. ;-)
Don't you know that vague APIs and equally vauge documentation is rather popular in amateur circles? You must be new here.

Consider the viewpoint of game companies: If an amateur game development kit is available, why bother paying for the full one when the minimal package will suffice?
Consider the viewpoint of Nintendo: They have to get their money out of third-party developers too.

Also consider the cost of making such a kit and the amount of possible buyers: there would be little return for Nintendo. Very few amateur people would pay for an amateur kit when they can just hack their own as featured in the article. Recall that these developers are labelled 'amateur' because they don't have vast sums of money at their disposal. It's not like we are talking about professional OSS software developers who see no harm in paying for something that's truly worth it and will advance OSS more than it hinders.

It's money they'd probably enjoy having that they don't now.
Considering the expected losses they'd incur making such a kit, I doubt it.

Re:A serious question

[m50d]

They're traditionally strict on their licensing (remember mortal kombat with the blood removed?), and only want high-quality games released.

Re:A serious question

[DrXym]

Why doesn't Nintendo create an amateur game development kit? Clearly there is a market, perhaps small but there none the less. It's money they'd probably enjoy having that they don't now.

The same charge could be levelled at Sony and the PSP. The only legitimate reason people have for breaking Sony's copy protection is to produce homebrew stuff. So why not release some APIs that allow people to produce homebrew legally? Hell, they could even release a Linux UMD and let people develop apps to run from their memory sticks. Given a legal outlet, most of the issues with firmware cracks (and people returning PSPs bricked by the process), would go away.

Re:A serious question

[Coeurderoy]

It's the business model stupid!

The gaming consoles are tools to sell games, their costs are subsidised and professional development kits are licenced to "authorized" developpers, this enables the game companies to control the market.
They do not want somebody to make a game that could potentially compete with theirs.

An amateur development kit generates a risk of loss of customer control for the editor, and this is insufferable for them.

Once upon a time I worked with a group that wanted (with the support of a very large UN funded NGO) to develop a literacy program for a cheap gaming machine.

After six month of trying to get to "the right person(s)" it was clear that there was "zero" interest in this, (in all companies).

Actually I personally strongly disagree with the "mod people", from my point of view it is similar to trying to be the slightly independent sidekick of the big bully at school.

If the effort done to enhance "closed" consoles would be put into creating "open platforms", we might have a much more diverse and creative ecosystem for kids (and other gamers) to play with.

Re:A serious question

[ThJ]

It's a nice thought, but what happens when somebody starts using the kit to make mod-chip-free copies of licensed games?

Re:A serious question

[MadCow42]

What could Sony possibly gain from opening up the PSP hardware to homebrew apps? Sure, they may sell a few additional PSP's to the homebrew market, but they don't make any money on those anyways (likely they lose money).

They're much more likely to LOSE game revenue to freely available (or cracked) software than anything else.

Don't expect Sony to be happy or helpful with this. They have no reason to.

MadCow.

Re:A serious question

[chris_eineke]

The gp2x might just be what you're looking for. Doesn't have wireless, but full disclose. That reminds me of something...

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame. :>

Re:A serious question

[Jonny_eh]

Why would Sony want an end to users making PSP bricks? That way users have to buy another device!

Unless of course it's true that they make a loss on each unit sold, which I doubt.

Re:A serious question

[ThJ]

I meant illegal copies. If there is a copy protected HAL in place, then it could work, as you say. It wouldn't be a true subset of a professional development kit, though, as it would have to be separately developed.

Re:A serious question

[tepples]

The gp2x might just be what you're looking for.

Where will I be able to I walk in to a GameStop store and pick one up? Or how will GPH, the manufacturer of the GP2X system, manage to convince a million people to order one online, especially given that many parents are extremely averse to ordering products online even when the son or daughter has enough cash to pay for the product?

Re:A serious question

[Jacius]

Where will I be able to I walk in to a GameStop store and pick one up? Or how will GPH, the manufacturer of the GP2X system, manage to convince a million people to order one online, especially given that many parents are extremely averse to ordering products online even when the son or daughter has enough cash to pay for the product?

You won't, and they won't. At least not at this point in the game. The stage isn't set for a "mass adoption" of the GP2X by chain retailers and "average Joe" gamers. The risk/benefit ratio is too high for them; the current model of a handful of large, well-known corporations battling it out suits them just fine. Why make it more complicated by throwing in some Korean company that barely anyone has heard of, with a product that might not sell?

Homebrew developers, on the other hand, have a lot to gain: namely, an inexpensive handheld built for homebrew, with a free dev kit, commodity parts (stardard SD cards, AA batteries [even rechargeable from what I hear], USB 2.0 interface), and an already-strong homebrew community (thanks to the success of the GP2X's predecessor, GP32). And homebrew developers are already more keen to use the Internet and other non-mainstream channels to buy, for example, GBA flash carts and other dongles that the Big Guys probably wish did not exist.

In short, GamePark Holdings is putting their money on the homebrew market to pave the way to greater mainstream acceptance. And it can't hurt that the GP2X doubles (or triples...) as a media player and e-book reader, without having to convert everything to some esoteric file format, at a price at least $50 lower than the PSP.

Re:A serious question

[vertinox]

They're much more likely to LOSE game revenue to freely available (or cracked) software than anything else.

If Sony relased their own SDK then they'd have better controls over copy protection with homebrew apps.

If people crack the PSP on their own code then they'll probaly won't have a concern whether or not it can be used to play copied games which it will most likely be used for.

Take the XBox for example... The mod chips allow you to run linux and copied games. Had microsoft provided their own utility in the Xbox to run unsigned software, but at the same time look out for xbox copywrited games then they would cut down on mod chip sales for the legit purposes and make the purpose of the mod chips an exclusive "illegal" activity. Hence easier to crack down on it...

So the moral of the story would be people are going to do it anyways so you might as well fight fire with fire with something that is more managable.

Re:A serious question

[patio11]

Once upon a time I worked with a group that wanted (with the support of a very large UN funded NGO) to develop a literacy program for a cheap gaming machine.

Slightly off-topic, but I don't care how cheap you can make the hardware, there is almost no conceivable set of circumstances I could envision where you wouldn't be better served by books and bodies available for far, far cheaper, at least if we're talking about raising the general level of literacy in relatively poor countries as opposed to dealing with the illiterate outliers in relatively wealthy countries.

Re:A serious question

[DrXym]

Games games are extremely timer & controller sensitive and requiuse high end functionality. It would be fairly straightforward to put various barriers into a homebrew API which would make it impossible for it to be used to play cracked games.

Re:A serious question

[stonecypher]

Well, except that they released the Net Yaroze and the Linux kit with hardware driver libs.

well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Animal Crossing DS an announced DS WiFi game? O_o...

Re:well?

[djsmiley]

Well my GF plays nintendogs wirelessly with her supervisor? Is this some form of wireless which isn't WiFi?

I haven't looked at the specs in the manual or anything, so i have no idea?

Re:well?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually online WiFi code, enabling communication through the Internet, as opposed to adhoc, local WiFi connection code. I've been watching this for a long time, it's good to see that Stephen Stair has almost finished though... It's been a long time coming, heh.

Re:well?

[TheStick]

Nintendo uses a proprietary protocol called NiFi, which is different from WiFi (802.11x). But Software's the difference. Future Nintendo games will use Wi-Fi (that is, 802.11b) instead of NiFi. Why? Because you can't connect to a standard router with NiFi, only to another DS. So to play games (such as the upcoming Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) over the internet, the DS needs to use NiFi. The article, however, is about a home-made (unofficial) wi-fi implementation that will certainly be used by DSlinux and such programs.

Re:well?

[TheStick]

Sorry, I made a mistake, you should read "So to play games (such as the upcoming Mario Kart and Animal Crossing) over the internet, the DS needs to use WiFi"

Re:well?

[Pepsiman]

While the documentation sgstair has written will certainly be useful for writing a driver for dslinux, sgstairs wifi implementation can not be simply combined with dslinux to make wifi work.

Re:well?

[aj50]

No, the DS uses standard 802.11b wifi with short preamble, see here: http://www.darkain.com/nintendo_ds/nifi.php

Re:well?

[Edgewize]

Ni-Fi refers to Nintendo's protocol on top of 802.11b. In the same context, Wi-Fi is commonly used to refer to TCP/IP over 802.11b. (We could get pedantic about definitions, but try teaching the layer model to an average consumer...)

In that sense, the DS does not use Wi-Fi, but it does use 802.11b.

Profit!!!

[n0dalus]

1. Buy Wifi chips from Company X
2. Save money by not paying for Company X's drivers
3. Wait for someone to reverse engineer Wifi chips
4. Develop games using free reverse engineered drivers
5. ???
6. Profit!!!

Re:Profit!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

5. Sue the dude that reverse engineered the wifi chips.
6. Double Profit!!!

Re:Profit!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful?! What in the hell?

Are there actually people out there that believe that Nintendo us doing what the parent implies? Christ it was a friggin' joke.

Excellent

[el_munkie]

The DS is the first portable (besides various TI calculators) I've owned since my original Gameboy. I got it even though I assumed it would be mod-proof like the Gamecube, but have been secretly envious of PSP owners that have been playing homebrew (emulated, copywrited, abandonwarez) games. If this thing can be "compelled" to run arbitrary code, it will have been the wisest investment of my life. Props to Stephen Stair.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been possible to run code on the DS for a lot longer than on the PSP...

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been DS homebrew for a while now. Longer than on the PSP.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

If this thing can be "compelled" to run arbitrary code, it will have been the wisest investment of my life.

And beaming mad wein0rpr0n 5pl01tz to your DS will be the comedic highlight of mine, n00b!

Re:Excellent

[stonecypher]

Actually, we had code running on the machine through the PassMe (a custom CPLD, though back then it was on an FPGA) about two weeks after the device was released. The short version: put a chip between a legitimate cart and the device, wait for the cart to authenticate, then take over and branch to the GBA slot on the bottom, where an oldschool flash cart works jus' fine.

These days, we use a patched BIOS written permanently to the device through FlashMe (only works on older DSes, though that's almost fixed) which doesn't perform the fingerprint check, and boot our games through the wireless hardware over the built in wireless multiboot system.

The bounty is about deciphering and learning to use the wifi hardware in a typical fashion, so that the device can be used with an access point as a network device. VNC, maybe web browsing, and of course, network games are on their way.

Hopefully

[mr_pollock]

Hopefully this leads to advancements in tunneling software to enable System-Link-esque games over the Internet.

Re:Hopefully

[Jonny_eh]

Hopefully the discovery of the wifi registers will lead to the use of wireless networking!

Thanks you captain obvious!

BTW, we don't need 'tunneling'. Merely a network connection between 2 IPs would suffice in order to play a game online.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all of you that don't know exactly *why* he did this.
Sgstair has reversed some of the present apps and games that use the wifi capability of the DS in order to get a working homebrew tcp/ip for the community's usage. Nintendo has their own wifi code they they will be using with their games (mario kart, animal crossing, etc) which are due to be released shortly.

Re:Why?

[Agret]

I would've said he did it for the money. :P

Re:Why?

[ParrotAtSlashdot]

Actually, AFAIK, he poked around in the DSes registers until he'd discovered them then started work on his own TCP/IP stack implementation called sgIP.

Re:Why?

[Phisbut]

I would've said he did it for the money. :P

I do suppose he spent quite a lot of time working on this, and all he got was about $1400. That would amount to a pretty low hourly wage. He knew he wouldn't get a whole lot of money out of it, so I say he did it either for fun or for the community (or both), but definitely not for the money.

Explanation for those not "in the know"

[Chapter80]

If you're like me, and not a Gamer, you probably found yourself scratching your head wondering what the heck this article was about (even after reading the links).

The DS is a Nintendo portable game system.

Re:Explanation for those not "in the know"

[ThJ]

I guess Slashdot posts are sometimes unfair to newer readers. An article was probably posted here back when the DS was announced. Perhaps an archive search would've helped you out.

Re:Explanation for those not "in the know"

[The Notorious ASP]

Maybe you should consider just keeping up with technology? If you're passionate about technology you really should have at least heard about things like the DS, PSP, GBA, iPod, Tivo, XM Radio, the list goes on... I'm no gamer either but hey, it never hurts to understand things outside your specific area of interest. It's like flair I suppose, do you just want to do the bare minimum?

A bunch of URLs...

[aliquis]

Some random urls:
teh skeen
ds dev
supercard (can't find the M3 and G6 pages longer)
wifime
some info about m3
Emulators for NDS
whatever

Re:A bunch of URLs...

[aliquis]

M3 was here btw: m3adapter.

Doubt it'll be much longer until completion

[ParrotAtSlashdot]

I doubt it'll be much longer until SgStair completes Milestones 2 and 3. See his progress at http://akkit.org/dswifi/. Now I'm just wondering which homebrewer will put it in their game or app.

Re:Doubt it'll be much longer until completion

[I(rispee_I(reme]

It'd be real nice if there was a port of Super Mario War that took advantage of the wireless adapter.

Re:Doubt it'll be much longer until completion

[Trinn]

I'll pass along that idea to the developers (I host their cvs at the moment), though I don't know if any of them has a DS...

cheap wifi phone ?

[free2]

I wonder if the DS will be also used as a cheap wifi phone. I will probably buy one.

Re:cheap wifi phone ?

[stonecypher]

Getting OpenH323 running would be relatively trivial, but the DS wouldn't make a much better phone than the NGage did, and you'd be tied to an access point.

I mean, I might do it for fun, but I doubt it'll be practical.

Ni-Fi

[tepples]

BTW, we don't need 'tunneling'. Merely a network connection between 2 IPs would suffice in order to play a game online.

Existing Nintendo DS games use "Ni-Fi", which is not a globally routable protocol, instead of IPv4. In order to route Ni-Fi, you would have to tunnel it inside routable packets.

Re:Ni-Fi

[Tidal Flame]

Yup. And has anyone else here ever played the original Halo over XBConnect (tunneling software for XBox games)? It was laggy. Very, very laggy. So very laggy. :'(

I was wondering what's the difference...

[hackwrench]

between games that communicate wirelessly now and WiFi...Then someone said that current games use NiFi, but that didn't help much. There's still the question as to why it matters that N isn't using WiFi (yet) when they have released wireless games.

Re:I was wondering what's the difference...

[cgenman]

Then someone said that current games use NiFi, but that didn't help much. There's still the question as to why it matters that N isn't using WiFi (yet) when they have released wireless games.

NiFi is a latency intolerant local communication protocol. WiFi is a long-distance routable protocol. WiFi is a lot more intelligent. NiFi connects to whatever is around. WiFi games would require a server infrastructure somewhere to route people's games properly. NiFi is local area and forms a game with whoever is handy.

NiFi is a lot simpler for Nintendo. WiFi implies a lot of backend stuff that the didn't want to deal with for the first generation.

apparently the ds can only manage slow wifi

[tedmg09130913]

Did anyone notice that he apparently couldn't get more than a 2Mbit connection going on the nintendo ds. this is a very slow top connection speed. Hopefully some of the registers he doesn't know about will allow the nintendo ds to use wifi at much faster speeds.

Re:apparently the ds can only manage slow wifi

[Chromatic Aberration]

Welllll... while a high speed would be good for portable media streaming and so on, you have to wonder if perhaps the hardware was never built to that spec because it's so far beyond the DS's intended function. It is a handheld, self-contained gaming platform, not a customizable computer -- 2Mbit/s should be more than enough to play Mario Kart DS with a friend.

Re:apparently the ds can only manage slow wifi

[goathens]

it has to do with battery time. I read on a site somewhere ( google for "nintendo wifi" and its in that somewhere) that the speed is intentionally limited to reduce battery drain from networking use. i don't know if this is limited by the software or the hardware tho. also, the speed/throughpt/whatever isn't really needed in this case.

Re:apparently the ds can only manage slow wifi

[assassinator42]

It would be nice to multiboot games faster. For games such as Mario 64 DS, Metroid Pinball, and all the other games that use single cart multiplayer.

Re:apparently the ds can only manage slow wifi

[Bones3D_mac]

It's not surprising really. The DS doesn't exactly have the power to send and receive massive amounts of data while playing a game on it. And, even if it did, how many people really have access to broadband that is significantly higher than 2Mbit/sec? It makes sense that Nintendo is going to try focusing on the least common denominator.

That said though, the faster speeds might be nice for specific tasks like web-browsing, where available.

Re:apparently the ds can only manage slow wifi

[nekoes]

2Mbit really isn't all that slow. For the tasks you'd put the DS to 2Mbit is a lot more than you'll need. Web browsing, Aim, hell even streaming mp3 can all be done at under 2Mbit, for what exactly would you need more?

Re:apparently the ds can only manage slow wifi

[tepples]

It would be nice to multiboot games faster.

The Nintendo DS has 4 MB of RAM. Even at 100% utilization of RAM and 50% utilization of bandwidth, it shouldn't take longer than 30 seconds to fill RAM, and if you set up the loading screen to be entertaining enough, even the effect of that can be reduced.

Ni-Fi is like IPX or NetBEUI

[tepples]

Then someone said that current games use NiFi, but that didn't help much.

"Wi-Fi" is a certification mark for products using IEEE 802.11b, a layer 2 protocol; all multiplayer Nintendo DS games use 802.11b. "Ni-Fi" is the name used by gaming journalism and the DS homebrew community for the non-routable layer 3 protocol that current Nintendo DS games use for wireless communication, as opposed to IPv4. Substitute "IPX" or "NetBEUI" wherever you see "Ni-Fi" and see if things make more sense.

There's still the question as to why it matters that N isn't using WiFi (yet) when they have released wireless games.

Games that don't use IPv4 won't be able to communicate over a network that uses IPv4 for routing.

Awesome News for the DS Homebrew Sites

[Busshy]

Those Slashdotters amongst you and those curious should check out the following sites for the latest in Nintendo DS Emulation and Homebrew news and downloads PDroms.com - Legal Rom Download and news site.
Drunken Coders - DS Homebrew News Site.
Nintendo DS Emulation News - Nintendo DS Emulation and Homebrew News and Downloads Site/Archive.
DS Development Forums - The Hub of the DS Development Scene.
All those sites provide you with everything you need to know about the Nintendo DS and its Legal Homebrew Community.

Re:Awesome News for the DS Homebrew Sites

[ParrotAtSlashdot]

More DS Related sites http://liyeos.sourceforge.net/ dslinux.org/

Re:took FOREVER

[stonecypher]

Three months, actually. The bounty was started in late July. Besides, people have day jobs. The IM clients should be relatively trivial, a port of KHTML would be a few hundred hours, nobody's even vaguely interested in it as a media player, though companies like g6 have had that running since almost month one.

Re:cheap wifi phone ? free calls

[free2]

Using a wifi phone with any public access points is free. Is there a better way to call someone for free, using a pocket size device ?

DSLinux with SSH

[Gen. Rasputin X]

Good. With the Wifi cracked it won't be too long til someone manages to get Wifi working under DSLinux. I'm looking forward to being able to use my DS as a portable SSH terminal with a touchpad. It'll come in handy, being able to login at hotspots to get my mail and my servers. Carrying my laptop with me is too much trouble, but I've almost always got my DS with me now.

Nope. Guess again.

[smilinggoat]

This page explains it all.

Wi-Fi vs Ni-Fi? no. Ni-Fi is not an alternative to Wi-Fi/802.11. Ni-Fi is a layer 3 protocol on top of 802.11.

The Nintendo DS uses IEEE 802.11b for ALL of its wireless communications. The DS operates at a specific subset of the features of 802.11b, including only operating using short preamble (not sure if this is a software option on the DS), and only operating at 1mbps or 2mbps max (to save power).

A goal of homebrew is resume building

[tepples]

Why make it more complicated by throwing in some Korean company that barely anyone has heard of, with a product that might not sell?

Any parallels to Hyundai when it first started selling in the States?

Homebrew developers, on the other hand, have a lot to gain: namely, an inexpensive handheld built for homebrew

On a resume, what will spell "previous console experience" to video game industry HR personnel better: completed GP2X projects, or completed GBA/Nintendo DS projects?