| Wiinja | ||||
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Wiinja
Introduction Welcome to yall.net hardware review. This time; we're taking a step away from the normal realm of handhelds to review a console modchip. Nintendo left the serial port connections open and available on the Wii DVD drive, much like they did with the Gamecube. All current Wii modchips "attack" the DVD drive via this serial connection. They override code on the drive to "trick" the Wii into believing a game burned onto any regular writable DVD disc is an original. This also allows for playing Gamecube backups on the Wii. Unfortunately, right from the start (and this goes for all the other (3) current Wii modchips) the team have specifically said that this modchip does not implement region free functionality. Due to the methods used by the modchips, it currently seems impossible for them to allow for region free loading. And as the Wiinja is non-updateable, even if a method was found, the Wiinja would still not be able to implement it. So this means you're only going to be able to boot backups from the same region as your Wii console. That means; PAL games on a PAL console, NTSC-U on an NTSC-U console and NTSC-J games on an NTSC-J console. This applies to both Wii games AND Gamecube games. Though, Gamecube game regions can be worked around by booting up a piece of homebrew software that will allow you to swap over discs to boot a foreign game. Official Feature List:
When we first opened the package the Wiinja was inside, we had thought that the team were perhaps trying to bribe us into writing a great review… Don't panic… Because inside was a small presentation box that you normally see jewellery sold in. But when we saw the Wiinja label slapped atop that box, we knew what was inside (and it wasn't jewellery!). 
The Wiinja is packaged in a small red plastic box. Inside the box is a safe layer of fabric/cushion wrapped around the box and the Wiinja itself. The box is strong, and the added protection around the Wiinja is good piece of mind that your Wiinja will arrive undamaged. Even though it is free to rattle around the box, the box is sturdy enough to take any external damage. Inside the lid of the box was a small piece of folded paper. This showed us the schematics of the Wii DVD drive and some short notes on how to install the Wiinja. Both the label on the box and the small leaflet inside, look somewhat low quality. They look like they've been printed on a home inkjet printer and don't really give out a professional feel. Not that this is a crucial criticism, just something we did notice and thought we'd share. The Wiinja modchip is a small chip called a PIC. This tiny microcontroller can hold a small amount of code, and has been used in the modding of games consoles and other consumer electronics for years. Its popularity for this is simple; PIC microcontrollers are extremely low cost. They are cheap to buy, are widely available and are very cheap to mass-manufacture. Many people question this. If the chip is so cheap to produce then why are the modchips being sold for a higher price? Well, that's simple - You're not really paying for the chip, but for the code that is on the chip. As the PIC chip isn't custom designed for installing into the Wii. The Wiinja requires you to solder 5 wires from the chip, and to the Wii DVD drives PCB. 
The Wiinja PIC has 8 legs; you only need to use 5 of them. Our Wiinja arrived with its legs in the normal downward position. We recommend that you bend the legs outward so the chip could lay flat on a surface. This makes the installation later a lot easier. Just be careful when bending those legs! They are quite strong, but if you over bend them or use the wrong tool then you could snap them off, and that would make the Wiinja useless or make for a MUCH harder installation. The Wiinja has a tiny little label stuck on the top with the Wiinja logo on it. The label, again, is low quality and looks like it could have been printed off on a home printer. We were surprised to see the logo wasn't printed directly on the chip, but weren't exactly disappointed either. Before we begin with the installation we need to mention a few things. In recent days, as people have been installing their Wii modchips it has been discovered that one particular model of the Wii DVD drive is currently incompatible with any of the three current modchips. The Panasonic chipset on-board the drive varies between units, and there are currently three known chipsets: (You can find out what chipset your Wii has by disassembling the Wii to its DVD drive PCB and checking the Panasonic chipset). GC2-DMS = Compatible GC2R-D2A = Compatible GC2-D2B = Not compatible 
According to research by some teams, the latter chipset is more likely to be found in Wii units that shipped in late January and early February. It is unknown whether all future Wii units will have this chipset or if it is just luck of the draw, but research is still ongoing and you can find out more information by reading through some of the related threads in our Wii discussion forums. 
To install the Wiinja modchip, you will need the following:
First things first, we need to get to the DVD drive. So we need to crack open that Wii. We placed our Wiinja in a large empty corner of the drive. As we said earlier, we recommend that if you haven't already, that you bend the legs of the Wiinja PIC chip outwards to enable it to lie flat in the DVD drive – just be careful when bending the legs, they're strong, but over bending them or using an improper tool could cause them to snap off. Next, use double sided adhesive to stick the Wiinja down into the corner of the drive. Pay attention to what orientation you place the Wiinja. Make sure you know where pin 1 is. Pin 1 is indicated by a small dot on the top of the PIC (probably covered by the Wiinja label), or; look for the indentation/notch on the end of the PIC chip. When looking at the indentation head-on with the Wiinja the right way up, pin 1 is the leg to the right and closest to you of the indentation/notch. Once the Wiinja is successfully installed, your Wii should recognize and play Wii and GCN backup discs. As simple as it may seem, you need to be quite cautious about the way you burn your games, especially regarding the following factors:
One last thing: it does not matter which burning software you use. Any burning software supporting .iso files will do just fine. Compatibility Tests: For review purposes, we have tested a bunch of Wii games. Let's see how the Wiinja performs in terms of compatibility: Normal 0 7.8 磅 0 2 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:普通表格; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
Concerning disc read errors: these might happen randomly if you're using cheap/low quality media. The cheaper discs generally use a low quality dye such as CMC resulting in inferior burns AND increased difficulty for the laser reading the disc (thanks to Darkforce for the precisions): QUOTE(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd-r) DVD-R discs are composed of two 0.6 mm polycarbonate discs, bonded with an adhesive to each other. One contains the laser guiding groove and is coated with the recording dye and a silver alloy or gold reflector. The other one (for single-sided discs) is an ungrooved "dummy" disc to assure mechanical stability of the sandwich structure, and compatibility with the compact disc standard geometry which requires a total disc thickness of about 1.2 mm. The sandwich structure also helps protecting the data containing layer from scratches by a thick "dummy" disk, a problem with CD's that lack that structure. Double-sided discs have two grooved, recordable disc sides, and require the user to flip the disc to access the other side. Compared to a CD's 1.2 mm of polycarbonate, a DVD's laser beam only has to penetrate 0.6 mm of plastic in order to reach the dye recording layer, which allows the lens to focus the beam to a smaller spot size to write smaller pits. First generations of backup devices or modchips often happen to be rather dodgy, unfinished. Does this apply to the Wiinja? In some extent yes: it is obvious that the design was rushed (what design? oh yeah, the tiny sticker), and no extra features were added. But still, it does the job and it does it perfectly. It is relatively easy to install, has perfect compatibility, and comes with the "audio fix" for GameCube games. If you consider the current technical possibilities of the 1st-gen modchips, you can hardly do better than the Wiinja (to date, no other modchip can bypass the region lock). However, if a way to bypass the region lock were to be found later, you would have no other option than removing the chip as it is not upgradable. The good thing is, removing it shouldn't be too hard if you soldered the 5 wires properly. In conclusion, the Wiinja is a good solution - at least, good for a first solution. Pros: + Perfect Wii & Gamecube game compatibility + Relatively easy to install (and to remove) + No side effect at all (original games still play, you can still use the online channels, etc.) + "Audiofix" is supported + "Stealthy" modchip: the Wiinja team claims it can't be detected. Cons: - Does not bypass region lock - A bit overpriced - Not upgradable
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 05 February 2009 02:59 ) |
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