Is Dolphin legal?

[Luigi__]

Hello,

I'd like to know if Dolphin is fully legal.
Is it using a BIOS from a Wii? Or is it using an HLE BIOS?

I'm asking these questions because I think I maybe could contribute to the project (mostly the Wii emulation part) in some way, and I'd like first to be sure Dolphin is legal. For the ISOs, I can dump my games myself.

Thanks in advance for replying

[Unknownforce]

(04-17-2009, 08:34 AM)Luigi__ Wrote: Hello,

I'd like to know if Dolphin is fully legal.
Is it using a BIOS from a Wii? Or is it using an HLE BIOS?

I'm asking these questions because I think I maybe could contribute to the project (mostly the Wii emulation part) in some way, and I'd like first to be sure Dolphin is legal. For the ISOs, I can dump my games myself.

Thanks in advance for replying

Dolphin is 100% legal.

[Luigi__]

It's using an HLE BIOS, right?

Thank you!

EDIT: I read on some forum that Dolphin was using the Wii BIOS... apparently it isn't true.

[Runo]

It's using HLE BIOS, I'm glad that more people want to contribute to this great emu!

[Luigi__]

Yeah. I think I could contribute in some way... but first I'd need time to understand the code.

I am already working on DeSmuME, which is a Nintendo DS emulator, so you see that I've some coding skills.
I've the game Zelda Twilight Princess, so I can install the Homebrew channel on my Wii through the Twilight hack, then I can run a program to dump my games, so I should never be "red-handed with games I don't own" (like the rules say). But I'll do all that only once I've understood the code enough.

[Unknownforce]

(04-17-2009, 09:34 AM)Luigi__ Wrote: Yeah. I think I could contribute in some way... but first I'd need time to understand the code.

I am already working on DeSmuME, which is a Nintendo DS emulator, so you see that I've some coding skills.
I've the game Zelda Twilight Princess, so I can install the Homebrew channel on my Wii through the Twilight hack, then I can run a program to dump my games, so I should never be "red-handed with games I don't own" (like the rules say). But I'll do all that only once I've understood the code enough.

http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/w/list

This is where to start...

[shuffle2]

The bios is HLE'd: http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/source/browse/trunk/Source/Core/Core/Src/Boot/Boot_BIOSEmu.cpp

Dolphin is always open to more people of course. If you are serious about contributing, get in touch with ector or F|RES and let them know - or just post back here and I will.

As for understanding the code...it's pretty much a continuous project. Since there are so many people and the codebase changes rather frequently. However, the layout of the svn should be enough to give you an idea how things work.

p.s. you have a decent chance of being able to run the wii menu and related apps if you dump your NAND and plop it in the ./User/Wii folder. Probably that's what people meant by "wii bios"....

p.s.s. - #dolphin-emu on efnet is the most convenient place, or the dev message group...once you're added to the group :p

[Luigi__]

Wow! There are rules for coding. I perfectly understand it since it's the best way to keep the code clean.
DeSmuME doesn't have coding rules and sometimes the code is really messy.

I'll do my best to apply the coding rules. These rules also give me ideas to make DeSmuME's code cleaner.

[nosound97]

Hey, I remember you from DeSmuME project. DeSmuME advanced a lot. I hope you can make some good changes in Dolphin too Dolphin is legal and open source

[Luigi__]

Yeah, I'll try to do my best. Once I've understood the code enough, of course.
I needed understanding code for DeSmuME too. Even now, some parts of it are still obscure to me.