The GeckoTunnel Thread (Online SFA)

Since it looks like the old forum is lost, I'm creating a new thread for discussion of GeckoTunnel, my tool which allows GameCube/Wii games to be played online (and which HAXage has shown some interest in for SFA purposes).

Current status of GeckoTunnel: the new script format (which is used to add support for new games, e.g. SFA) is still under development, but making lots of progress. It's able to detect the pointers for variables based on a single read/write breakpoint result, and it can write to variables even if those variables are continuously being overwritten by the game (e.g. controller data). The main stuff that's remaining for the script format includes the ability to specify a "packet type" (so that GeckoTunnel knows whether a user is on a menu or in-game), the ability to specify which players are local or remote (the original SA2B script format handled this in a very hacky way, I'm rewriting that), region-free pointer detection (because no one wants to maintain scripts for multiple regions of games), and integration with the actual USB Gecko driver (not particularly hard).

There's also a new awesome feature which is tested and working. It's called player multiplexing; it allows unlimited simultaneous players in a game, regardless of how many players the game natively supports. SFA might be quite interesting with more than 4 players. I have a couple of videos relating to this, but it seems that new members aren't allowed to post links for 7 days... look up my YouTube channel if you really want to see them, my username is biolizard89.

Anyway, anyone here is welcome to ask questions in this thread about the project.

biolizard89 wrote:

Since it looks like the old forum is lost, I'm creating a new thread for discussion of GeckoTunnel, my tool which allows GameCube/Wii games to be played online (and which HAXage has shown some interest in for SFA purposes).

Current status of GeckoTunnel: the new script format (which is used to add support for new games, e.g. SFA) is still under development, but making lots of progress. It's able to detect the pointers for variables based on a single read/write breakpoint result, and it can write to variables even if those variables are continuously being overwritten by the game (e.g. controller data). The main stuff that's remaining for the script format includes the ability to specify a "packet type" (so that GeckoTunnel knows whether a user is on a menu or in-game), the ability to specify which players are local or remote (the original SA2B script format handled this in a very hacky way, I'm rewriting that), region-free pointer detection (because no one wants to maintain scripts for multiple regions of games), and integration with the actual USB Gecko driver (not particularly hard).

There's also a new awesome feature which is tested and working. It's called player multiplexing; it allows unlimited simultaneous players in a game, regardless of how many players the game natively supports. SFA might be quite interesting with more than 4 players. I have a couple of videos relating to this, but it seems that new members aren't allowed to post links for 7 days... look up my YouTube channel if you really want to see them, my username is biolizard89.

Anyway, anyone here is welcome to ask questions in this thread about the project.

Think this could work with ssbm?

Jay Unstoppable wrote:

Think this could work with ssbm?

Yes, I intend to make it support SSBM; in theory most GameCube/Wii games could be made to work with it. In fact, my main source of funding for the project so far has been for the purpose of supporting SSBM -- so SSBM will most likely be the next game which is supported.

many thanks for keeping us updated, biolizard! i may be able to send some donations your way in a little while, and i probably should given our interest in the whole thing... are you taking them at the moment or in the near future, and how can i accomplish this?

HAXage wrote:

many thanks for keeping us updated, biolizard! i may be able to send some donations your way in a little while, and i probably should given our interest in the whole thing... are you taking them at the moment or in the near future, and how can i accomplish this?

Yes, I happily accept donations. I actually have a donation page, but the forum software tells me I have to wait 7 days before I can post links. I'll post the link once the forum software decides it's confident that I'm not a spambot or something.

Thanks for your interest!

biolizard89 wrote:

HAXage wrote:

many thanks for keeping us updated, biolizard! i may be able to send some donations your way in a little while, and i probably should given our interest in the whole thing... are you taking them at the moment or in the near future, and how can i accomplish this?

Yes, I happily accept donations. I actually have a donation page, but the forum software tells me I have to wait 7 days before I can post links. I'll post the link once the forum software decides it's confident that I'm not a spambot or something.

Thanks for your interest!

Donations can be made at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] . I accept both Bitcoin and PayPal, although Bitcoin is preferred as its fees are much lower for me. If you donate, make sure you choose the link labeled GeckoTunnel on that page, so that I know that the donation is GeckoTunnel-related. Obviously the usual disclaimer applies that while donations definitely influence how I spend my time, I'm a full-time college student as well, and if schoolwork demands my attention, it will have priority over GeckoTunnel.

Thanks for your interest!

EDIT: Meanwhile, here's the video of my most recent conference talk: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (new announcement at 16:10). The full video of the first ever 3-player Sonic Adventure 2: Battle match is at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] .

I'm playing around with a Starfox Assault script for GeckoTunnel.  At the moment, the script is able to locate the following variables in the USA version of SFA for each player: pad data, XYZ coordinates, XYZ velocity, and Yaw/Pitch orientation.  I haven't yet tested with the USB Gecko driver enabled, but inspecting the automatically-located pointers via Gecko.NET suggests that everything is working as it should be.

How's this coming along?

Silver Forte wrote:

How's this coming along?

The USB Gecko hardware has become almost impossible to obtain, which has caused me to shift to Dolphin. (I don't see much advantage in developing for hardware that no one can get.) The Dolphin rewrite of GeckoTunnel (named "GeckoTunnel Inferius") is going pretty well -- I had a 5-player match of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle which worked surprisingly well.

I demoed Inferius at the 2014 Heartland Gaming Expo a couple weeks ago. I was hoping to have a SFA demo there, but sadly there were enough unresolved technical issues (they can be resolved, but it takes work) that I didn't demo SFA there (I used Sonic Adventure 2 Battle instead).

Thanks for your interest, by the way.

Wow sounds like it's going well. Here's to continued success, really appreciate you doing this.

Silver Forte wrote:

Wow sounds like it's going well. Here's to continued success, really appreciate you doing this.

That's great. Also SA2B is awesome, especially music. I love metal harbor's song

Any more progress?

Silver Forte wrote:

Any more progress?

Less progress than I would have hoped, but I did manage to patch Dolphin so that I have full independent control of the player aim, camera aim (without culling issues), and weapon aim in SFA. I linked this up with the Oculus Rift's head tracking, and ended up with Virtual Reality SFA. Hoping to also add a Razer Hydra for the weapon aim.

That might be even cooler