Requesting some opinions on a problem: Drivekey and NTSC-J games
Good day to everyone on the forums.
I got myself a Wii in the last week of the previous month (June, 2009), which is quite recent, and applied a Drivekey chip. It does well with pretty much most of the games I tried on it. But a few games didn't; they DO show up on the disc channel, but then show a black screen and hangs up. Not even the Wii Remote responds; it just blinks lights with keypresses as if the Wii is off.
I have a PAL wii with system menu 4.0E. I updated immediately after I plugged my Wii to the power source and TV, so I actually didn't get to try the chip on v3.x. My Drivekey settings are pretty much default:
- Drivekey ON, of course.
- Region Override ON
- Update Blocker IMPORT
- Wii Disc Autoboot OFF
- Full GC Region Free ON
My Wii isn't bricked yet, thanks to the Update Blocker.
Out of the games I tried and didn't work, most of them are Japanese. Haven't found a lot of games that didn't work, but it's still a bit unsatisfactory considering what all the reviews say about NTSC-J compatability, so I wanted to find out what the cause is. They all had the same problem: the logo screen showing up well and then showing black screen and hanging up after I started.
- Arc Rise Fantasia (J)
Didn't work, which was quite a bummer because I've been looking forward to it.
- Bokujo Monogatari: Waku Waku Animal March (J)
Arc Rise Fantasia didn't work, so I thought it might have been some difference in system between EU and JP, and I decided to try an earlier game released in 2008. No luck.
- Mahou Sensei Negima!? Neo Pactio Fight!! (J)
Animal March didn't work either, so I tried an even earlier game. Still no luck.
- One Piece: Unlimited Adventure (U)
The only non-JP game so far that didn't work. No idea why about this one, because pretty much everything non-JP worked fine... Could have been a scrubbed image, though, so I might need to reconfirm it. Sadly, there are very few torrent sources on this.
Games that actually worked:
- Rune Factory Frontier (U)
- Ghost Squad (U)
- Mario Kart Wii (U)
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (E)
- One Piece: Unlimited Cruise Episode 1 (E)
- Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (U)
- Okami (E)
- Mario Strikers Charged Football (E)
- Battalion Wars 2 (E)
- Pokémon Battle Revolution (E)
There are a couple more JP games I wanna test on Drivekey, but I don't have high hopes from how things go. I browsed some of the threads and some users apparently had a few problems with the Drivekey. But mine may be a bit different, I think, because it seemingly affects only JP-region games, for one thing.
Another thing is... on the Drivekey official website, in the "How it works" section, there's a picture showing how to set the jumpers. Around the jumpers, the numbers 6&6 stand vertically and 1&2 stand below each jumper. From what I noticed, it wasn't exactly like that on my Drivekey chip. I've forgotten how it was by now, but I DID remember that there IS a difference before finishing installing the chip. I'll confirm it later though, just to be sure. So I wonder if I got a fake? But I got it from chipspain.com, and they're recommended by both Drivekey AND Wasabi official websites. I'm quite helpless now because I'm out of ideas, so... I'd like to hear opinions on the problem.
Thank you very much. Sorry for the long post, but I thought I'd drop in any info on my side in order that it'd be easier to understand.
I have a PAL Wii with DriveKey, too. I have tested a large number of games under 3.4E, 4.0E and now 4.1E. My experience is that all in-region games (PAL/EUR) work fine. Most USA/NTSC games I have tried work fine, too, with a few exceptions (WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Ghostbusters and a couple of others). The Korean version of WarioWare: Smooth Moves didn't work. I haven't tested any Japanese games.
From my own experience and other user reports it seems that DriveKey (and perhaps other modchips, as well?) is 100% region free in the sense that it can start playback of all games no matter which region the game is from. However, technical limitations in the Wii itself result in some out-of-region games not working - they show up it the disc channel, but they hang when you try to start them. Most user reports relate to playing PAL/EUR games on a NTSC/USA Wii or vice versa, but it may be the same issue you are experiencing with the JAP games.
If you search this forum section you will also come across a few reports about other Japanese games not working.
Generally, a quick fix is to download another a version of the game from the same region as your Wii, but I realize that this is not possible with many of the Japanese games.
It is somewhat hard to troubleshoot the issue though, as it seems that some of the cases are due to DriveKey blocking out-of-region updates from the game discs (to prevent bricking the Wii), but in your case it seems that this is not the problem. You could try updating your Wii to 4.1E (DriveKey is not affected by the update), but most likely it will not solve the issue. Also, in some cases the problems seem to be caused by scrubbed games (although my own experience is that scrubbed games work fine) or bad burns (I haven't personally had any of those, either).
Wrt the jumpers, I don't think you should worry too much. For some reason the DriveKey team has changed the design of the chip 3-4 times already (trial-and-error manufacturing?), so it could very well be one of the slightly changed models you have.
I see. Thank you very much. So what you mean to say is that it's pretty common at this stage, yes? Maybe a new firmware update from Drivekey team can fix it, hopefully. Speaking of which, have they released any yet? How will one update the Drivekey? Through DVD, or the JTAG cable?
By the way, does the Wasabi series have the same problems? Especially Wasabi Zero. I snooped around a bit and, admittingly, I'm a bit inclined towards the Wasabi series now, because the team seems to have released firmware updates. I guess it'd be unfair to judge Drivekey at this point though, since it's a fairly new product. So, I suppose I'll wait for now. I just hope the updates won't go stale at a still-early point, like the R4 team.
Thank you very much for sharing your time for this thread.
(P.S: I just found out that Arc Rise Fantasia and Harvest Moon: Animal Parade are getting localized for US. Thank god. ^o^ If Drivekey can run the US versions, that is.)
However, technical limitations in the Wii itself result in some out-of-region games not working - they show up it the disc channel, but they hang when you try to start them.
By the way, if you don't mind, can you explain what you meant by "technical limitations", please? A console's hardware is quite enough to run its own games smoothly most of the times, isn't it?
So what you mean to say is that it's pretty common at this stage, yes?
Yes, quite a few users have reported to have problems playing certain out-of-region games on their Wii.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinix
Maybe a new firmware update from Drivekey team can fix it, hopefully. Speaking of which, have they released any yet? How will one update the Drivekey? Through DVD, or the JTAG cable?
No updates have been released yet. From the official DriveKey homepage:
Quote:
Two parts of DriveKey can be updated: The FPGA and the SPI Flash. Most updates only need to write to the SPI Flash, meaning that they can be applied via DVD. However, if an FPGA update is needed, it will be necessary to connect the d2prog JTAG programmer to DriveKey.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinix
By the way, does the Wasabi series have the same problems? Especially Wasabi Zero. I snooped around a bit and, admittingly, I'm a bit inclined towards the Wasabi series now, because the team seems to have released firmware updates. I guess it'd be unfair to judge Drivekey at this point though, since it's a fairly new product. So, I suppose I'll wait for now. I just hope the updates won't go stale at a still-early point, like the R4 team.
IMO the Wasabi DX has three advantages over the DriveKey: (1) There are no reports about problems playing original games with silver cable LU models, and all the confusion about different diode versions. (2) The Wasabi DX chip can be changed into a fully functioning Wasabi Zero chip (soldered or via a clip), which does not have the general limitations of the ribbon type modchips like Wasabi DX, DriveKey and FlatMod - in particular you get rid of the choppy video playback issue. But this is only relevant for you if you have an older model of the Wii without epoxy on the drive chip. (3) We know for sure that the Wasabi team stands behind their chip and is developing new firmware versions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinix
By the way, if you don't mind, can you explain what you meant by "technical limitations", please? A console's hardware is quite enough to run its own games smoothly most of the times, isn't it?
What I mean is that I don't think the problem you are experiencing have anything to do with the DriveKey chip. In an unmodded Wii the ability to play out-of-region (import) games is blocked. DriveKey and other modchips open up for this functionality, but sometimes these out-of-region games makes the Wii crash. My impression is that this is caused by differences in the various Wii models (the European PAL version of the Wii is different from the NTSC version sold in the USA, which again is different from the NTSC version sold in Japan etc.).
More specifically I think the problem is related to different region versions of the Wii drive chip (not the DriveKey chip but the original chip connected to the Wii disc drive). If I am right you should be able to find similar user reports about problematic out-of-region games in the forums dealing with other modchips than DriveKey.
One thing for you to try out is softmodding your Wii and using USB Loader (or similar homebrew applications) to run the problematic games instead. I have seen reports from other users where they have solved the same problem you have this way. You need to search for guides on how to install the homebrew channel (HBC) via the bannerbomb exploit, since you have upgraded to 4.0, and then further guides on installing the USB Loader (or a clone thereof) in HBC.
I see! So there's a possibility of hardware and/or firmware differences in the three Wii region versions. I kinda thought so, because it's kinda like a game crashing on your PC because you don't have what it needs, hardware or software.
Thank you for your help. I'll try other methods. I found out about USB Loader a few days ago, but I thought I didn't need it, since mine was modded already. To use USB Loader, I'll just need an external Hard Drive hardware-wise, yes?
So there's a possibility of hardware and/or firmware differences in the three Wii region versions.
Actually there are four Wii region versions: (1) Japan; (2) Europe and Australia; (3) USA and Canada; and (4) Korea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinix
I found out about USB Loader a few days ago, but I thought I didn't need it, since mine was modded already.
Yeah, if you have a modchip you would think it should not be necessary to softmod your Wii to play games... But again, it might be necessary in order to play those few problematic out-of-region games. It's worth a try.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinix
To use USB Loader, I'll just need an external Hard Drive hardware-wise, yes?
@ infinix
u did set the dip switches on the chip correctly for ur region right? its like cons said about variables between the regions most likely. ur inclination towards the wasabi now doesnt surprise me. i had a drivekey for about 1 week before i ordered a wasabi dx(which i run in zero mode). the drivekey i consider to be manufacturing fiasco. the points that cons made about the wasabi over the drivekey are accurate. the wasabi team stands by there product and have firmware updates already released whereas the drivekey team have had no updates whatsoever and appear to be going by trial and error manufacturing it seems, which is not a good way to conduct business. i wish i had those jap games u have so i could try them on the wasabi, i know wii sports resort jap started right up no problem and i have 3.2u firmware. however i believe jap video formats are more closely related to usa ones than to pal. i think thats another conflict with playing out of region games. sometimes it comes down to ur tv and video connections from wii, whether u have a hdtv and if its hooked up with composite or component cables. with all the variables its hard to isolate the source problem.
__________________ My Wii System
GC2-DMS Chipset - Wasabi Dx/Zero
3.2u Firmware - HB Channel - Bootmii as Boot2
Cios R14 - Neogamma R8B7
Yeah, I just noticed that yesterday. The video cable thing, that is. I tried to run Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility in 50Hz, and it's more or less fine. But when I tried it on 60Hz and EDTV/HDTV settings (in the Wii settings), it just hangs up after just showing a picture of Harvest Sprites. I tried those 3 JP games with those settings too, but they didn't run. Maybe it's more on the part of firmware than the video codecs...
If you wanna try out those 3 games, try torrentz.com, or just google in case of Negima. I don't care about the other 2, but not being able to play Arc Rise Fantasia is a big letdown for me. I'd be really glad if anyone can try any of these on their Wii and see if it runs or not.
Yeah, I just noticed that yesterday. The video cable thing, that is. I tried to run Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility in 50Hz, and it's more or less fine. But when I tried it on 60Hz and EDTV/HDTV settings (in the Wii settings), it just hangs up after just showing a picture of Harvest Sprites. I tried those 3 JP games with those settings too, but they didn't run. Maybe it's more on the part of firmware than the video codecs...
If you wanna try out those 3 games, try torrentz.com, or just google in case of Negima. I don't care about the other 2, but not being able to play Arc Rise Fantasia is a big letdown for me. I'd be really glad if anyone can try any of these on their Wii and see if it runs or not.
maybe i will get arc rise fantasia and try it out. just for experiment purposes.
__________________ My Wii System
GC2-DMS Chipset - Wasabi Dx/Zero
3.2u Firmware - HB Channel - Bootmii as Boot2
Cios R14 - Neogamma R8B7
Requesting some opinions on a problem: Drivekey and NTSC-J games
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