My Chip Choice: Wiikey

At the time of writing this, there are a few choices out there when it comes to available mod chips. These include the CycloWiz, Wiinja, Wiikey, and the WiiFree. The first three are developed internally by commercial entities, while the WiiFree is an open source project. The features on the three commercial chips are relatively similar, however the Wiikey stood out because of its ability to reflash the firmware from a DVD. Note: at the time of writing this, there hasn’t been an updated firmware for the Wiikey as of yet, but the developrs say it is coming very shortly. In all honestly, I am sure any of the commercial chips would be fine for a first timer at this point.

On a side note about the WiiFree project - I think this has the most potential and will likely end up dominating the Wii mod scene in the near future. The way it basically works is that you download the ROM firmware, and then flash a $0.89 chip through a serial programmer on your computer. While this may be a turnoff for a lot of people, it sounds like an enticing electronics project for someone like me who has never done anything like that. The programmers can be purchased on eBay for less than $20, and the rest of it is pretty straight forward. At the time of writing this, the WiiFree’s feature list is the most rich, and you know that no matter what happens, there will be support for it. You also aren’t stuck in a dead end as the ROMs are dirt cheap, and can be reprogammed quickly. I know that once my friends see what I can do with my Wii, they are going to want their consoles modded. The WiiFree is definitely to most economical way to go for installing lots of chips.

Pre-installation: The Checklist

Once you have your chip in hand, you will need the following items to successfully install your chip:

• A “tri-wing” screwdriver (more on this later)

• A jewlers style phillips head screwdriver

• Some 30 guage Kynar style wire (This is available at some local RadioShits and through their online store. I suggest calling around first, they have a stock # of 278-501 (*-502 and *-503 also work, they are just different colors)

• A 15 watt soldering iron with a nice clean tip (melting the pads off the board on the wii will happen if you get it too hot)

• Thin electronics grade solder and some flux

• Some hot glue and electrical tape are handy

A tri-wring is a special screw that Nintendo uses on all of their recent hardware. I HIGHLY suggest ordering a screwdriver when you place the order for your mod chip. While many people have said you can use a flathead jewelers screwdriver, we found this to be next to impossible. In fact, we had to cut the end off a flathead with a dremel, and custom shape the stub into a tri-wing for this to work. It sucked, and is not suggested. Spend the $4!

The Installation: AHHHH!

Getting the Wii open is pretty straight forward when you have the right tools. Again, don’t skip the tri-wing purchase. There are plenty of good guides out there on how to crack open the Wii. There are also some good videos of people doing it on Youtube.

Once the Wii is open it’s time for the fun part - soldering it in! The way to do this will depend on the chip that you have, so get some instructions from the manufacturer regarding where point A should connect to point B. Now, I will be the first to admit that my soldering abilities are somewhat limited. I have done quite a few Xbox chips, but those are MUCH larger than what you wil see inside the Wii. With my aging eyes and sometimes shakey hands, I had very little confidence that I would be able to do a good job on it.

I did what I suggest many of you should do - grab a friend who is very experienced with soldering and small electronics. I was fortunate that my friend Aaron (http://www.subresonant.com) fits this bill and was willing to do it. There is a thread on some Wii chip forums that shows graphical horror stories on what some people did to their boards - owch. I repeat - unless you are an intermediate to advanced in soldering electronics, get some help!

Attempt #1 - Yes, thats right, there was more than one attempt for us. On the first attempt, we weren’t really prepared, and had yet to find a user made install guide to follow like this one. While the design of the Wiikey looks like you would be able to quicksolder it in, it really is not the case. We quickly realized that we would need to solder some wire to the pads on the motherboard, and then tack the wires onto the pads on the chip. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any good wire and used some leads from some LCDs or capacitors that Aaron had laying around. After him being surgical with the gun for about 20 minutes, it looked like it was good to go, he used a multi-meter to check the continuity of the connections, and it all looked good.

We hooked it back up, and then gave it a test. Wii booted normally, and original games worked. Then we tried the Wiikey setup disk, and that was a no go. The wii would spin up the DVD for a few seconds, then it would spin down, and give a disk read error (originals did work ok). After trying five different types of media which we burned from a few different burners, we gave up for the day figuring the chip was dead. I spent the next week or so reading the Wiikey forums at PSX scene, and realized that many people were having a hard time getting it going on the first shot.

Attempt #2 - After reading all of the posts regarding the install being even more delicate that it looked, Aaron was nice enough to give it a second shot. This time, we went out and got some good 30 guage wire and decided to do the install a bit different. Instead of placing the chip directly over the board in the way the install guide recommended, Aaron moved the chip to a neutral location a couple of inches away. Then, he installed a slightly longer wire to each point on the board. This is a great idea for a couple of reasons. First, the chance of shorting something on the board is far less, as the chip sits somewhere neutral. Second, with the solder points being so small and delicate, if you need to change the chip, redoing them to the board would suck ass. Now, if the chip dies, or we change it, we only need to resolder to the pads on the chip which is much better.

After an hour and a half of removing solder from the first attempt, and wrestling with pubic hair sized wires, the installation was complete. Aaron hot glued down the chip and the wires, keeping them nice and secure. A little electrical tape was also put over it all for good measure.

We went and plugged in the Wii, and it still had one of the Wiikey setup disks that we burned for the first attempt in there. Sure enough, the Wii fired right up, and detected a gamecube disk! Success!! The next part came easy - and that was figuring out which media and burner to use.

Making it happen: DVD media is important!

Color us kind of lucky on this one. When we did the first installation attempt, we burned probably six different versions of the Wiikey setup disk, figuring it was a media problem and not our Install. Having these available to test out probably saved a ton of time and headaches in the future.

After we confirmed that the chip worked with one of the setup disks, I went in and started to test the other disks to see if the media would make any difference. Sure enough, it made a huge difference! It quickly became apparent that we made perfectly working setup disks from Aaron’s burner and my burner, but anything made with some of the media I had laying around didn’t work. I believe the media that I was using are Sony DVD-Rs. These didn’t work a bit - some were burned at 4x, some at 8x, some on a Plextor, and some on my crappy lite-on. It became apparent that the media was simply crap, and the laser on the Wii just hated it.

Fortunately, Aaron is also a man of quality! The working setup disk that we used was burned on Taiyo Yuden media. If you don’t know what or who Taiyo Yuden is, go hitup Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiyo_Yuden). They manufacture the best media in the world, and this was just another example of why.

I grabbed a few more of the Taiyos from Aaron, and went and burned a couple of game backups that I had. Sure enough, they worked perfectly on the first shot! After playing a few of them for a couple hours, I have experienced no problems whatsoever. There is no difference between playing a backup game or an original.

Conclusion: What I learned

With any project, be prepared when you go in. I can honesty say to myself that in this situation, I didn’t put in the research until after the first installation that maybe I should have in the first place. Had I done the research, the first installation attempt would have been pretty much avoided. I also would have purchased the necessary things from the start (no more dremmel tooling tri-wing drivers and using cutup LED leads). But, in the end it all worked out, and it’s fun to learn from your mistakes. Got questions, post em up here or visit PSX Scene Wii Forums!

I can’t blame it all on gamefly either, I am using it for my Wii.. and right now there isn’t a ton of releases coming out to keep me satisified..

so, I ordered a modchip =) more to come with that.

If you have been looking at the weather in the country in the recent weeks, there are already temperature records being broken.. friggin Chicago pretty much dinged 80 degrees in mid-march. Even the temps here in Buffalo have seemed a bit ahead of schedule. The cycle of days is one of those things where the human mind processes it, but it is much more subconscious than conscious. By making the days longer earlier in the year, many people won’t make the connection of the world getting warmer because the temperature seems to be following the light cycle that they have been used to for their entire lives.

Now, it just seems normal to people even though flowers are blooming early and people are getting a tan in the north east in March. I can’t wait to see what August looks like.

This article tries to break down the best way to buy a new computer, and keep a computer current so that you aren’t stuck in some of the situations that I mentioned above. One of the most common things that I see are gamers who want to go out, drop $3000 on their dream system. Then, within the next couple of years, the system becomes just as average as everything else thats out there, and then its obsolete at pretty much the same time. It will happen, and history can pretty much guarantee it. There are ways of buying or building a computer that makes sense, and that is what I am going to attempt to address in this article.

Beyond that, I have also been using a method for buying new hardware that has kept me pretty close to the bleeding edge of gaming, without having to fork out thousands of dollars every couple of years. In fact, I usually end up averaging about $250 a year to keep a system that will run the latest and greatest games very well. Even if your a big baller, and have a budget that could feed a third world country for a year to spend on your new rig, there are ways of doing it smarter. Trust me.

Buying the absolute latest hardware is a terrible idea.. seriously..

Computers are about the second worst investment next to a car. Anyone that has bought a new car knows that as soon as you drive it off the lot, its worth about 20% less than it was a few seconds before. Computers can be the same way if you buy the wrong parts. According to Moore’s Law (which has been damn close for a 40 year old prediction), computers processing power will nearly double in speed every 18 months. The $3000 beast of a machine that has all of the latest and greatest technology that you buy today will inevitably cost much less in 6-12 months.

One of the common arguments that I hear from people that want to spend $3000 for a gaming computer is that “they want it to last for the next three-four years”. With technology changing so quick, anyone that promises you that is pretty much a liar and a good salesman. You cannot future proof your computer by throwing more money at it from the start – but you can by adding to it over time (more on that later).

Price vs. Performance is something that you need to take into serious account when buying a gaming computer. When new hardware is released, it costs a lot of money to make. Usually a new breakthrough in hardware goes hand in hand with a new breakthrough in chip fabrication or other forms of R&D. It is always going to cost more in the beginning as the processes are refined, and the production ramps up. Companies also know that there are people out there are willing to spend that extra money just to brag they have the latest and greatest. Likely within 6-12 months there will be a drastic reduction in the cost of that same part.

When it comes to Price vs. Performance, an easy example to demonstrate is the dollars-per-gigabyte calculation. Go pull up your favorite hardware retailer (I <3 Newegg.com) and take a look at the hard drive selection they have. For this example, I pulled up the Seagate Barracuda line of drives. I examined the price of a 250GB, 500GB, and 750GB drive. If you were building a new machine at the time of writing this, you may opt for a 750GB drive because it is the latest and greatest. But if you look at the dollars-per-gigabyte, you will see something very interesting. The 250GB drive averaged at $0.29/GB, the 500GB at $0.289/GB and the 750GB at $0.50/GB. As you can see, the 750GB drive, while bigger is going to cost you more than $0.20 more for that same GB of storage. Similar calculations can be done for the cost of memory, processing power, and video processing capability – you will almost always find the same type of difference.

Another common thing that happens is that the software that is out and available right now may not even take advantage of the features that your hardware has built into it. I can give you a ton of examples to illustrate this. Let’s start with 64-bit processors – they have been out for a couple of years now, and have pretty much replaced all 32bit processors. There are thousands of people who rushed out to get them because they were 64-bit man and thats better! Wrong =/ 64-bit processors give the computer the ability to address more memory and perform calculations on larger numbers. To add insult to injury, I would bet that 95% of gamers are still running a 32-bit operating system. It sounds cool, but if you bought a 64-bit processor a few years back for a premium, you definitely got burned.

Here is another real world example that should make sense for you. About six months ago, NVIDIA released the 8800GTX GPU – its a technical marvel and is definitely an amazing piece of hardware. It boasts 768MB of RAM, and was the first card on the market with DirectX10 support – which is the latest 3D graphics API that Microsoft is releasing. This card didn’t come cheap, it came in at around $500-$650. I heard numerous people tell me six months ago that they would get it simply for the fact that they wanted DirectX10. I’m going to shrug my shoulders at this one, because DirectX10 is only supported by Vista and there aren’t even any games out right now that are taking advantage of it. Now currently, you can get a cheaper 8800GTS which in the benchmarks is very close all for less than $300. By the time a game comes out that requires Vista and DX10, you can bet that there will be ton’s of cheaper options out there that perform just as good as these cards do today. Owch.

Dual core processors are similar, but not nearly as bad as some of the earlier examples. Just understand that only today, applications and games that the average person uses are JUST starting to support the ability to use two processing cores at once. Fortunately, there were still some performance benefits, but not to the extent that most people were led to believe.

This leads me to my second point..

Start with the right hardware, not the absolute fastest that you can buy.

It has always been my belief that when building or buying a new gaming computer, it’s far better to get the 6-12 month old technology. That may sound like you are going to be way behind the curve, but usually that is not the case. Many games that are coming out now will play very well on hardware that is 1-2 years old without a problem. The goal of game publishers is usually to sell as many copies of a title as possible, they know that if they release a product that will only run on machines that were built in the past six months, the game is going to flop and they are going to lose tons of money on it. For a good example of this, look at World of WarCraft – its now one of the top selling PC games ever because even your typical two year old Dell can give the user a great experience. Many of the MMO players I know haven’t wanted to try other games like Vanguard simply because they don’t want to shell out the money for new hardware just to try the game out.

What people don’t often realize about PC gaming is that many hardware reviews are based on artificial benchmarks that really don’t serve to show how playable a game is. This is for numerous reasons, the first being that its easy to show the difference between products when there is a set function to perform and the data can be easily collected. The other major reason is because playability is a highly subjective thing to rate. What you or I consider playable may be completely different. A quick look at the Tom’s Hardware VGA charts (http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html) reveals that the fastest card on there will get 169.9 FPS in a specific Half-Life 2 benchmark. Many of the middle of the road cards on there only get 80-100FPS. Well, what good is that extra FPS when most LCD monitors won’t correctly display more than 60-75FPS? Even worse – most gamers will hardly notice a difference between 30-60FPS in most situations.

Let’s look again at the example of spending $3000 on a PC today and putting no upgrade money into it for the next three years. History shows us that a $3000 computer a three years ago would have gotten us a system that performs reasonable well still – maybe a 3000+ processor, or an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra. But now, that hardware is likely not upgradeable (No more AGP?!? What?!) and is worthless trying to resell to the gamer kids of the world. Your pretty much stuck with a computer that is past it’s lifespan, that is only going to become more and more pitiful as the months roll by. BTW, it’s time to shell out $3000 for another one, sucker.

Now, lets say you took that same $3000 that you wanted to spend and broke it up over the three year period. You could build a really nice mid-range PC for $1500, and then 18 months later, built a second $1500 computer. If you go forward to the three year mark, what you are then left with is a 3 year old computer that will not have much upgrade life to it, but still performs decently at some of your old favorite games. Even better, let’s not forget the 18 month old computer that is faster than anything that was out three years ago, and still has a pretty solid upgrade path that won’t kill you for another $1500 dollars immediately at the 3 year mark.

One of the primary things that happens in computers is what’s generally referred to as a platform shift. I will use the different NVIDIA based NFORCE boards as an example. Over four years ago, NVIDIA released what was called their NFORCE 2 based chipset. This could be found on motherboards with DDR memory, AGP, and AMD Socket A slots, which held their Athlon XP line of processors. Go forward about 18 months, and NVIDIA released what was called the NFORCE 3 line. This used DDR memory, AGP, but now had a Socket 754 for the first AMD Athlon 64 processors. Flip forward one more year, and we see a bit more drastic change with the NFORCE 4. This chipset used PCI-Express, DDR Memory, Socket 939 sockets, and also allowed dual video card SLI – a pretty big leap. Finally, we look at the newer generations of NFORCE based boads, which include the NFORCE 5XX series. These boards use PCI-Express, newer DDR2 memory, and have a completely new socket type called the AM2.

Now, that example can be hard to follow, but what it comes down to is that the technology is changing and what was standard a few years back is completely non-existant on modern hardware. Want the latest and greatest video card for your three year old PC? Too bad, your PC doesn’t have a PCI express slot – only AGP. Want to have that fast DDR2 memory? Same problem dude.

Every platform that is released will have it’s prime time. The cycle kind of resembles this:

1. Brand New Platform (new platform at premium price for latest technology, previous platform now in its prime as the newest technology emerges)

2. Almost Prime Platform (new platform being adopted by mainstream, price begins to level out, price and sales levels on par with previous platform)

3. Prime Platform (new platform bottoms out on price, previous platform falling off quickly and goes up in price)

This process will repeat itself every 12-18 months

Again, this cycle isn’t perfect, but it gives you an idea of how things work. One important part to pay attention to is that when a new platform reaches its prime, the previous platforms stuff gets more expensive. This is because it’s no longer manufactured and people will pay premium dollars for it because they often want to extend the life of their machine.

If you are smart about watching the prime time, you can get the maximum life out of your PC.

Keeping up the investment.

Once a year, I upgrade my PC. I have been doing this for about the last eight years or so, and it has saved me a ton of money. Now, this takes a little bit of work, time, and the ability to watch some trend shifts in the industry. Needless to say, you may be better off just getting a new PC as money and time permits if you aren’t as adept. But for those who have the savvy to do it, and want to save some loot, here are my methods.

First, when I buy new hardware, I always wait until the current platform has been out for about 6 months. This allows time for the kinks to be worked out, and for the cost to be significantly lower than it was when it was first released it moves into it’s prime. At that point, I will perform all the Price vs. Performance calculations that I mentioned in the first section to see what parts will give me the most bang for the buck. If something is only a little bit more expensive, I will spend an extra couple bucks on it – but nothing more. Doing this usually ensures that there will be an upgrade path available for me in a year (the parts that were really expensive now will be much cheaper in a year).

Then, I happily use the hardware over the next year. As this machine still uses the latest platform, I rarely have problems running games to their maximum capability. New computers are always great for the next year or so =). Then at the year mark, I begin to look at what the new emerging platforms are going to be. The current platform should still be in it’s prime, and a new platform should be on the horizon, with many details already released. This is the time to start looking at upgrades.

At the one year mark with a new PC I will usually replace the video card, processor, and add extra memory if needed. Again, I perform the same Price vs. Performance calculations as I did the year previous. I also spend about the same amount of money as I did the year previous on the new components (if your original processor was $150, get a new $150 processor). When you look at the difference between now and then, you will likely be shocked at how more performance you will get for the same money.

Here is one of the beauties, if you invested lets say $500 in new parts, you will likely be able to recoup a good deal of that money by flipping your old parts. On average, with a well written eBay auction, I will recoup about 75% of the money that I spent on new parts. If your timing is right, you will sometimes recoup even more. This can always be hit or miss, but in general, you will preserve your investment far more than keeping the part for it’s entire life cycle. I will usually run this current configuration for another year, and again my technology will be current and will continue to run the latest and greatest games.

Now, another year has gone by and you have been running on the same platform for about two years There is probably a new platform that is just hitting its prime, or is about to be in its prime. At this point, I will usually flip the entire computer, or most of its parts on eBay. However, I have found that its usually best to break the machine up into parts, or sets (ie. CPU + motherboard together, video card and RAM separate because they are usually in demand). Often times, you don’t necessarily need to change out your case, optical drives, or your hard drives, so this can be a big savings down the road. Again, because most of your important parts like the CPU, RAM, and video card are only a year old, they will still be very valuable to someone else looking to upgrade. If your timing is right, you may even sell some parts for more than you paid because they will be in demand.

Some of the best examples I have had: Sold a 6800GT AGP card on eBay for 50% more than I paid for it. This was because it was rumored that NVIDIA wouldn’t be releasing anything faster than the 6800s for AGP platforms, and that they were becoming rare and hard to find. I put this information in my eBay auction, and someone went out and dropped $200+ on it. I sold my previous platform (NF3) motherboard + processor combo on eBay for $50 less than it cost for a new NF4 based board and processor which gave me the ability to use cheaper and newer PCI-Express cards. Most recently, I sold my first generation PCI-Express graphics card (6800GS) on eBay for only $20 less than I paid for it originally. I added a much faster video card, and in the end it only cost me $30 out of pocket for a card that has double the performance and will be worth quite a bit a year down the road.

Summing it all up

To sum it all up: Don’t buy the latest and greatest hardware only to toss it in three years. A reinvestment over time is far better. If you are savvy enough, you can save substantial amounts of money by watching whats going on in the industry, and flipping your hardware at opportune times.

Don’t get stuck with old hardware, be smart and reinvest slowely.

(Look for this to be updated with some charts and graphics in the near future)

]]> http://www.7thsphere.com/2007/03/20/the-smart-way-to-buy-a-new-gaming-pc/feed/ http://www.7thsphere.com/2007/03/14/just-signed-up-for-gamefly/ http://www.7thsphere.com/2007/03/14/just-signed-up-for-gamefly/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:24:19 +0000 precursor http://www.7thsphere.com/?p=10 How come they couldn’t have things like netflix and gamefly when I was a kid? It’s definitely better than dropping $50 a month on a new game, or even $50 every other month. The only cons against the idea is that #1 - you don’t own the games, and #2 - you can only have two out at a time.

Well, in response to #1 - ever try to resell a game? You get jack and shit for it. In response to #2 - I don’t have anywhere close to enough time to require an archive of console games to play anymore. If something is that fucking good, I will drop wait until some other poor sap fell for #1 and buy it on eBay for $20.
So yah, I started my trial month today, I will let you know how it goes.. Tiger Woods Golf on the way!

After using some BBS’ in the year before, I was really taken in by the vast world of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). At first I did what any other 15 year old would do - I downloaded a shitload of porn. But after the porn fix was satisified, I found that there were thousands of people all connecting in such a wide open forum [on a side note, this was what the Internet is still all about, but now its through Myspace, MMOs and AIM]. It was amazing, not only were there thousands of people, there were also hundreds of channels on all different topics. As a self-destructive teenager / wannabe hacker, I found myself frequenting channels like #Anarchy, #hackphreak, and many similar ones.

Making friends “on the computer” is pretty much an accepted thing in most circles now a days, but back then, it was completely strange. But, I didn’t care and I got completely sucked in. There were two things that got me. First was the virtual social circles - at that stage in my life, my friends and I were no longer close and I was fairly alone when it came to peers (look for a future post on that whole ordeal). The second thing that got me was the IRC protocol itself - through design, the protocol could be manipulated and abused to cause people grief… It was when the two really met that the fun started to begin and my mind started to run in circles.

More to come..

The only goal I really have for this is to actually use it.. if a thought comes to mind, go ahead and post it.. I think you will get little bits and pieces of my life up here, as well as thoughts and on what 7thsphere.com used to be. The people involved did enough cool stuff back in the day where it still needs to be mentioned..