wraggster
December 30th, 2013, 23:07
http://hss-prod.hss.aol.com/hss/storage/adam/1662210eb2ea6f73c56516276b941afa/wiiustreamingpcemu.jpg (http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/29/hackers-reverse-engineer-wii-u-gamepad/)Thought using the Wii U GamePad as a simple PC controller (http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/05/wii-u-gamepad-as-a-pc-controller/) was a neat trick? Try this on for size: a small team of hackers has figured out how to stream PC games to the tablet-esque controller natively, circumventing its host console. The hack was shown this week at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress (http://www.engadget.com/tag/ChaosCommunicationCongress/), where the group revealed how it reverse engineered the GamePad controller. After weaving a complex tale of dumped firmware, decoded video and buggy streams, the team showed a simple drawing app streaming from a laptop to the Wii U GamePad. Impressive? Sure, but the crowd didn't erupt into applause until they booted up aGamecube (http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/18/nintendo-gamecube-turns-ten-years-dead-still-in-denial-about-th/) emulated (http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/31/emulator-runs-wii-games-in-720p-while-we-wonder-what-might-have/) session of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.
Despite some crashes, the demo appeared to be fairly playable -- though the team warns that the available code (http://libdrc.org/index.html) is aimed primarily at developers. The group eventually plans to build user-friendly tools for Windows and OSX, as well as an Android port designed to allow users to substitute the Wii U GamePad with their own tablets, streaming from the console to the slate of their choice. It's not quite ready to replace your NVIDIA Shield (http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/31/nvidia-shield-review/), but the project is brimming with potential. Check out the presentation's slides at the source link below, or read on for a video of the hack in action (the fun starts about 47 minutes in).
http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/29/hackers-reverse-engineer-wii-u-gamepad/
Despite some crashes, the demo appeared to be fairly playable -- though the team warns that the available code (http://libdrc.org/index.html) is aimed primarily at developers. The group eventually plans to build user-friendly tools for Windows and OSX, as well as an Android port designed to allow users to substitute the Wii U GamePad with their own tablets, streaming from the console to the slate of their choice. It's not quite ready to replace your NVIDIA Shield (http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/31/nvidia-shield-review/), but the project is brimming with potential. Check out the presentation's slides at the source link below, or read on for a video of the hack in action (the fun starts about 47 minutes in).
http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/29/hackers-reverse-engineer-wii-u-gamepad/