v20250329

Because I've seen some confused users, the symbols zip is for debugging purposes, you don't need it if you don't intend to do kernel debugging with a USB Gecko.

Now for the release notes:

• Bug in GDI drivers fixed, horizontal scrolling in notepad (for example) now works correctly

Additionally, the main news:

• The DirectX distribution has been updated to include DirectDraw 7 and Direct3D 7, working under NT 4!

It has been tested with some older PopCap games (~2002 era) which work fine (running the game executable directly, the ~2007-era copy protection wrapper uses functions introduced in win2000 and does not work), screenshots here are frame grab from my wii through a capture device:

As usual, your mileage may vary, some games may not work, may have too low framerate to be playable, may need additional patches etc.

v20250316

Display drivers now support 8bpp and 16bpp colour depths (and 320x240 letterboxed for those games that require it to go fullscreen); some bugs have also been fixed (mode testing in display properties works now, etc).

Additionally, NT 4 beta 2 (build 1314) now works.

Starting from this release, a patched up copy of DirectX 5 x86 that can run under SoftWindows 32 is present inside the release zip as nt4dx5.ppc.zip - check the install.txt inside for installation instructions, and please note that some games will not work or will require patches to work due to game-specific bugs. Your mileage may vary!

From what minimal games I have tested, I have encountered the following issues:

• games (I suspect any in this category are early DirectX games, from around 1996 or so) that attempt to lock the primary surface, have no fallback for if this operation does not succeed, and just keeps trying to do so
  • One example of this is DX-Ball (1996) which just repeatedly tries to lock the primary surface in a loop until it succeeds, which shows up here as the game just hanging on a black screen when you run it
• games that use Pentium-only instructions (cpuid, rdtsc, cmpxchg8b) - Insignia's emulator in SoftWindows 32 appears to emulate an early 486 that has no cpuid instruction, so therefore such games need patches to run
  • some in this category use rdtsc for trying to measure processor speed only, and with this patched out should run fine in the emulator!
• games that check specifically for NT4 SP3 or higher when in reality it just wants DirectX 3 or higher
  • there are many in this category, they would need the buggy version check patched out
• games that try to check for the DX version it wants, but do so incorrectly, or otherwise check for a later DX version than the functionality that it actually uses
  • some in this category allow the version check to be skipped by a command line argument, for example Age of Empires 1 has /nodxcheck
• games that want 800x600 or higher resolution, these would probably require extensive patches to get in game.
  • one example is Age of Empires 2, minimal patching allows this to run to the menu but crashes when trying to get in game without more extensive patches

v20250307

• arcfw, iosusb: fix some usb mass storage issues

This fixes issues with some cheap no-name USB mass storage devices, for example: vendorID=0xABCD,productID=0x1234.

v20250303

• arcfw: fix some issues with USB hubs
• arcfw: ensure IOS USB is in the correct state when handing over to NT
  • should fix USB driver hanging on init
• arcfw: fix some issues with USB mass storage devices
• iosusb: fix some issues with USB mass storage devices
• arcfw/arcldr: minor fixes for fixing build on later toolchain versions
• arcldr: try to ensure IOS58 is loaded

Updated release zip to ensure fpsi.sys loads after iosusb.sys when needed (by renaming fpsi.sys, it was the only way)

v20250302

• work around GDI bug on NT 3.51
  • bug also present in some NT4 betas, still not worked around there
• fix fpexiblk, no longer bugchecks when no devices are present/other init failure
• remove a debug print in hal that could be annoying when doing kd

v20250301

• Fixed file copy errors when installing from/to Wii SD card
• Fixed issue where Wii SD card driver would not load under NT 3.51
• Removed return-to-loader support from ARC firmware, it was broken and would just hang the system
  • (return-to-loader support under NT is fine)

v20250228

• Fixed some issues with USB mass storage driver.
  • There are still issues present meaning one cannot yet install OS or boot from USB mass storage, but it is possible to use USB mass storage as a secondary drive.
• Fixed GDI rendering issue with drawing failing to occur if the operation starts off the screen to the left or top.
• Optimised GDI rendering code to draw two pixels at a time if possible.
  • Fixes speed issues with some GDI-intensive applications

v20250226

Initial release.

Release zip updated on 2025-02-27, to add missing snap.dll into drivers.img.