Do Nintendo's new broadband adapters work?

[enemyfan]

Nintendo just released a new shipment of broadband adapters last week, after the big dry spell.

I'm just now learning about this loader stuff and getting all the parts I need, do I need to track down an old adapter, or are the new ones the same.

The reason I ask is because people on Ebay seem to be specificly asking for, or claiming to have, older versions of the broadband adapter. Do the new ones not work?

[Arakon]

I doubt the BBA could prevent the exploit in PSO from working, since the exploit is in the software, and the hardware has to work with the old software too. the BBA is a single chip solution anyways, there isn't any firmware on it that could block something, from what I have seen.

[andreo]

I received my BBA straight from Nintendo's on-line store last Friday ($35.00). I've had no problems. I would order from them since everyone on Ebay want's an arm and leg for one and it will only get worse from here on out.
Check the Nintendo store. Great prices and fast delivery.

[RicersEDGE]

Just an update on buying the BBA direct from nintendo. Its now on back order and theres no def date on when there gonna get more. I just ordered one from lik-Sang ( cost 49.99- 58 with shipping) Id say if u dont mind waiting then go for nintendo, but if u need it right now , hit up Lik-sang

[Prozak]

I wouldnt know about future BBA's lads. My mate is a manager of a big name game retailer store and he was telling me that nintendo have no more plans to ship BBA's to retailers at the moment. The last ones they sold they had to tell the people buying them that Nintendo might not be releasing software that takes advantage of the BBA in future. If you try and order one of amazon.co.uk they can't give any kind of delivery estimate - heres what they say we are currently unable to offer this item. It may be out of stock at the manufacturer. If you would like to purchase this item, we recommend that you occasionally check this page to see if it has become available.

As i understand it, Nintendo have had a hardware backlog and i would assume this wasnt limited to gamecubes only. The big N have felt reasonably safe until now that the cube has remained copy free and no doubt this hardware exploit will be scaring the **** out of them so put yourselves in their shoes. Would you sell an accessory that allowed you to play copies if you were them?

If nintendo want to make any other games with online capabilities (and i wouldnt hold my breath for one) they'll need to make sure the software cant be exploited in this way and that any new BBA's they make are strictly 10Mbps.

[Shakey_Jake33]

Thing is, one area of Nintendo say one thing, while another say a different thing...

What Nintendo *did* officially say tho was that BBA production will be increased, what with Mario Kart and 1080 around the corner with LAN capabilities... whether these will be altered in some way to combat the piracy aspect or not I don't know... Nintendo don't appear to have *officially* aknowledged it...

Realistically tho, the current method of booting games will not really harm sales... 'normal' people will not want to have to use a BBA and boot from their computer like we do... it's not the simple task to them that it is to us... I do wonder whether Nintendo even care.

[Z80]

Nintendo would most definitely be concerned about this, however I seriously doubt Nintendo would can the product over this.

Afterall, there are many other ways to stop any illegal behavior which don't require cutting out the BBA entirely.

Anyway, I'm certain if you live in USA that you can order a BBA from NoA online or by mail.

[Prozak]

I'm not saying they'd can the product, merely change it by setting a 10Mbps limit on their BBA adaptor, enough speed to play on a LAN but too little to boot back-ups. I know if i was CEO at Nintendo i'd be nipping this in the bud before it got any worse. Granted there are plenty of people out there who couldnt be bothered to go to the lengths required to boot back-ups but then again there are plenty of people who would....

Besides the BBA exploit is just the tip of the iceberg. Nintendos disc technology has been cracked, ie data can be ripped from the discs and distributed over the internet. I don't know about everyone else, but i remember a certain device for the N64 that played rom images from a cd, i can't see why a similar device or even a new network adaptor couldnt be made to boot backups/homebrew. Granted there'd be no internal technology in the cube that would allow such an interface but If Datel can make their own unlicensed disc for cube i'm sure some clever engineer in a Hong Kong workshop could do the same. Anyway going a bit OT there :eek:

[CZroe]

The chip inside (Macronix?) is said to be totally incapable of 100Mbit operation regardless. I believe initially that it simply negotiates with the connected hardware for 100Mbit operation for some strange reason and then renegotiates at 10Mbit. This is probably the root of the compatability problems with some Linksys routers.

[CZroe]

Originally posted by Prozak
I'm not saying they'd can the product, merely change it by setting a 10Mbps limit on their BBA adaptor, enough speed to play on a LAN but too little to boot back-ups. I know if i was CEO at Nintendo i'd be nipping this in the bud before it got any worse. Granted there are plenty of people out there who couldnt be bothered to go to the lengths required to boot back-ups but then again there are plenty of people who would....It always has been only a 10Mbit-capable device :(
Besides the BBA exploit is just the tip of the iceberg. Nintendos disc technology has been cracked, ie data can be ripped from the discs and distributed over the internet. I don't know about everyone else, but i remember a certain device for the N64 that played rom images from a cd, i can't see why a similar device or even a new network adaptor couldnt be made to boot backups/homebrew. Granted there'd be no internal technology in the cube that would allow such an interface but If Datel can make their own unlicensed disc for cube i'm sure some clever engineer in a Hong Kong workshop could do the same. Anyway going a bit OT there :eek: Hmm, you could make a killing selling DC BBAs on eBay if it were that simple. I did hear about a company that says they can do it and will if they get 1,000 preorders, but that's a heavy percentage of the users of an EOL console (End of Life) considering some will already have it and others never wanted it AND Sega canceled Seganet. Of course, I believe the interest in the GC will be great enough to spur development of a high-speed port device also. As for that N64 CD-ROM device: I own two of them. Bung's "Doctor V64 256m" was nothing more than a cartridge simulator. The port on the bottom of the N64 is just a redesigned cartridge slot. The CD-ROM was totally independant of the N64. Once you loaded a game into the unit's DRAM, you'd turn on the N64 and play. You could load them into the DRAM from CD or over the parallel (AKA Printer) port. The unit had it's own on-screen menu and could even play VideoCDs with no N64 attached at all (Has a built-in video switch if you want to run the N64 through it). It is inferior to the parallel-only V64jr 512m (I also own two of these). It's the only unit capable of playing all games and has much better parrallel speeds (Though CD-ROM is faster for the original).

[jabb]

Originally posted by CZroe
The chip inside (Macronix?) is said to be totally incapable of 100Mbit operation regardless. I believe initially that it simply negotiates with the connected hardware for 100Mbit operation for some strange reason and then renegotiates at 10Mbit. This is probably the root of the compatability problems with some Linksys routers.

Hmmm... If you start PSO, the network link stays as 100Mbit all the time UNTIL you start the online mode. I would have imagined if what you say is true the renegotiation down to 10Mbits would happen immediately after the first 100Mbit connection. Still, it might not be too difficult to write a homebrew app to test making a 100Mbit link and see if it works (if that has already been done then I stand corrected)

[Prozak]

I was under the distinct impression that the cubes BBA was a 10/100 device that PSO limited to run at 27Mbps once online mode is selected, (i think i read that on another topic in this very forum). Jabb has an interesting idea of a sort, but if PSO does restrict the bba from working at max then a homebrew app would be pointless as it too would be limited to 27Mbps :(

[Arakon]

27 mbit per sec is more than enough raw speed to stream data, it's faster than the GC drive can read.
I don't think it's a matter of speed, but of optimizing the protocol and reads of the loaders.

[vexation]

The new BBAs work just fine. I just snagged the last remaining one at my local Electronic Boutique (EB Games) store had last week, and immediately went home and tested it out on PSO. Works fine, the usual stuttering/slowness bandwidth/latency issues aside.

As for the 27Mbps reference, its apparently the Gamecube's Serial Port that is limited to such speeds, not the BBA itself. But 27Mbps would be more than plenty, since Nintendo's own tech specs says the CAV disc drive maxes out at 25Mbps:

http://www.nintendo.com/techspecgcn

The BBA clearly defaults to 100Mbps mode at Gamecube boot, so its definitely capable of such. My thought is that perhaps PSO only forces it down into 10mbps mode so it doesn't have to worry about any possible bandwidth limitations of the Serial Port itself at 27Mbps? In other words, instead of dealing with any possible flow control routines or data loss concerns, maybe they figured it would just be easier to throttle it down to 10mbps, since thats more than plenty for most consumer broadband connections out there anyway? In which case, there should be some way to throw the BBA back into 100Mbps and deal with the 27Mbps issue, in regards to flow-control routines in the ACL (PC-side) if needs be, and that would be more than plenty for simultaneous audio and video streaming... in fact, data access over the network in such case would be slightly faster than reading from the disc itself.

[cReDiAr]

i just want to say that this PSO exploit is not an exploit !!

it's a feature (^^), so that SEGA can patch the PSO when you want to play only. vs. cheating, bugs, etc...

[DeaZ]

Your wrong - an exploit is using a device/hardware to your advantage which it was NOT spoce to be ment for. PSO was not spoce to allow piracy and it did - its an exploit. Windows NT was spoce to help people and NOT have rooters hack it - its an exploit. In both cases.... nobody is modifying anything to any degree. They are just using tools given to them for wrongful purposes.


About the BBA - I doubt nintendo is stoping the line. This isn't the first time when nintendo didn't make enough for the demand and with their HIGH increase in GCs being sold, you might exsepct these accessorys to be sold also to a higher degree. Not to mention - you have a few titles comming up which promiss online capability. But who knows, maybe they are going to make a new one so the hardware doesn't have the capability to go that fast.

[vexation]

Originally posted by DeaZ
They are just using tools given to them for wrongful purposes.

What wrongful purposes? I spent hundreds of dollars on my Gamecube collection. If I want to back them all up as .GCM ROMs on my laptop so I don't have to risk scratching the original disks, and be able to play them back conveniently via net-link from my laptop, thats my business and falls completely within the "fair-use" policy, the DMCA be damned.

I plan on keeping my game-discs for a long time, and see no point in adding undue wear when I don't have to. Besides, its nice being able to just sit and load the games from laptop without having to get up each and every-time to change disks. Can just leave PSO in there the whole time and keep my lazy ass planted in my seat where it belongs.


About the BBA - I doubt nintendo is stoping the line. This isn't the first time when nintendo didn't make enough for the demand and with their HIGH increase in GCs being sold, you might exsepct these accessorys to be sold also to a higher degree. Not to mention - you have a few titles comming up which promiss online capability. But who knows, maybe they are going to make a new one so the hardware doesn't have the capability to go that fast.

Could be... so snag them while you can.

[DeaZ]

Your missing the point - the ENTIRE reason for that post is to tell you the PSO & BBA is an exploit. Unless you think nintendo wanted that to happen, its being use for a wrongful purpose. Wrongful in the idea that it wasn't ment to be use that way.

Gesh - I said nothing about piracy or legal back up or anything - some people are amazing of taking stuff out of context to argue some point which I never touched apon.

[vexation]

Originally posted by DeaZ
Your missing the point - the ENTIRE reason for that post is to tell you the PSO & BBA is an exploit. Unless you think nintendo wanted that to happen, its being use for a wrongful purpose. Wrongful in the idea that it wasn't ment to be use that way.

"Wrongful" or "unintended"? I just don't see where the moral equivocating comes in. Theres nothing "right" or "wrong" about it -- whether it was INTENDED or not (by Sega not Nintendo BTW) is the real issue here. Some might argue Sega did it on purpose to screw Nintendo over. ;)