AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Dolphins, games and HTPC's
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Dolphins, games and HTPC's

post #1 of 6
12/29/12 at 6:26pm
Thread Starter 
Hello all,

We have a wii. Well, to be a bit more specific, my son has a wii. I do not like the wii. I do not like the wii for the following reasons:

1. It's an additional box below my tv (which violates my one box, one remote rule)
2. It requires my son (or my wife and I) to futz around with the TV remote switching the source back and forth between the wii and the htpc. It adds complexity, and that annoys me.
3. The audio sucks. Bad.

So, some googling revealed the existence of an open source application called dolphin (http://dolphin-emulator.com/) that supposedly permits you to play wii games on a PC (read: htpc). I have no experience with this. I installed it a while ago, but I haven't really messed with it much. It appears simple, but so far, it's becoming kinda complicated. For instance, I apparently have to rip the wii games I own (legitimately) into a format readable by dolphin I don't know how to do that. Of course, there's significant upside here. Great audio, fewer boxes, and ease of use.

Before I get too far into this, I pose the following questions to the forum:

1. Is this worth the effort?
2. How do I rip the disks?
3. In the end, will it be as easy for my son to play the games as it currently is with the wii itself?

Thanks in advance for your geekery.
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 6
12/29/12 at 7:53pm
1. I have mine setup through media browser and playing smbw in HD is well worth the effort for my 5 year old and I. YMMV

2.I use this: http://www.wbfstoiso.com

3. No.

3.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 6
12/30/12 at 9:26am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by bluesynk View Post

1. I have mine setup through media browser and playing smbw in HD is well worth the effort for my 5 year old and I. YMMV
2.I use this: http://www.wbfstoiso.com

Well, so far so good. Super Mario Bros is running and my son can't seem to tell the difference. A couple of complaints though:

1. Audio is stereo.. not 5.1. Disappointing.
2. I have to keep reconnecting the wii remote every time I play
3. There doersn't seem to be a menu system like what the wii itself has.

Perhaps I have to research these issues in the forums
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 6
12/30/12 at 5:26pm
I have a Wii. It's in it's box since I hardly touch it. How complicated can it be to switch TV inputs and possibly AVR? A decent universal remote with macros can be programmed to handle it.

I don't see how the audio is going to be that much better on the HTPC from the Wii since the audio programmed on the disc is still the same.

My guess, not worth the time and effect since you still have setup and use the sensor bar. And the Wii it's self is not that big. The only things that sucks about it, in regards to modern home theaters, it has no HDMI or digial audio. Thus, you're having to hook up component or rca video and audio.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 6
12/30/12 at 5:27pm
more on topic, these may have been better asked on the Dolphins forums or help area. Maybe the gaming section of AVS
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 6
1/9/13 at 2:29am
Just moved from a Wii on a crt tv to a wii on a new lcd tv and it looks bad. Going to try component cables, but if that doesn't help I'll also be looking at this dolphin solution slash steam box big picture gaming.

From what I have read in the past GPU doesn't matter as much as CPU? i5 vs i7 ivy bridge? I have a spare case with power, so I would just need a cpu, motherboard and gpu.

I'm hoping $20 component cables will drastically improve the picture.

Edit: Just found out about HDMIKey and other ways to get Wii to output hdmi, need to do more research.
Edited by Amber Ale - 1/9/13 at 3:04am
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Home Theater Computers

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Dolphins, games and HTPC's