Topic: Is Wii U definitely capable of Gamecube emulation?

II'm not a technology expert but does anyone know for certain whether the Wii U is capable of Gamecube VC emulation? I assume if it does it will let you create a virtual memory card like the Playstation 3 does with the downloaded PS1 games. Are disc based games also capable of save states? That I have not seen with PS1 games downloaded on the PS3.

I'm pretty sure it's capable.

If so, I hope they put out Gamecube VC on it eventually.

It is. Just think how Wii U can read Wii data, and Wii can read GCN data. They said were thinking of adding GCN VC, 2 years ago or so, but N64 hasn't even shown up, yet. I think it will show up, eventually. They just take a long time to do stuff.

I don't think it's possible. If it is, I don't see any logical reason why Nintendo would delay. Same with N64, why delay?

You just contradicted yourself, because the Wii was able to handle N64 games....

I think it should be possible for the Wii U to emulate gamecube games.
Both the Gamecube & Wii U both have Power PC CPU core so in a basic sense gamecube emulator could be more or less a Virtual Machine, In fact no different than the Wii mode.

as for the memory cards, they can be emulated as an image file.

If necessary, Nintendo could just force-Wii Mode for Gamecube emulation, but the Wii U should be powerful enough to emulate without it.

It would be nice to actually see those handful of Gamecube games that supported widescreen and progressive scan, considering that I never did get a component cable for it.

The main reasons for all of the odd restrictions in backwards compatibility mode was to sandbox the backwards compatibility mode. So that exploits from older systems wouldn't open up exploits on newer systems. Which is why you needed Gamecube Memory cards to run GC games and why the Wii U has a dedicated chip that holds Wii save data/downloads. Also part of it is because the older software on the disk wasn't written with the newer controllers in mind. It would be a nightmare to get it working especially when there's no way to patch the game to support it.

But if they're offering it as a download? There's no reason why they couldn't fix those issues. If the Wii U is similar enough hardware wise to be able to run the games natively with a few tweaks or if it's powerful enough that it can emulate it? Then I don't think that'd be a problem. The question is can they do that without having to make it a less than fantastic experience. If they're going to do it they need to let you use the main controller and they'll want to have MiiVerse etc going.

My understanding is that the Wii mode on Wii U are separate (a Wii within Wii U). They have different OS which is why there is a separate Wii Mode.
I am not saying the Wii U is not powerful enough to emulate, but I think they haven't wrote the software to be able to do it. If they can do it, I don't understand why they haven't. The retraction on the game cube controller adaptor (usage other than SSB) tells me this isn't happening anytime soon

The OSes are separate, but it's not a Wii within a Wii U; it's software emulated. N64 VC has been announced, but it's taking a while because Nintendo likes to take their sweet time, (or they're having issues with the VC menu, it's possible).

I don't consider the statement on the Gamecube adapter a retraction. A retraction would be them saying something like this a few months ago, and the now saying that it won't be able to do that. This is misinformation. Everyone started reporting on it, and Nintendo issued a statement about it (and the person who put that there probably got fired).

I don't think Miiverse & VC restoration points needed to be given up upon just needs to how to be figured out.

Example is Virtual Machine software which more or less similar to my proposal on how a Gamecube VC could work.
It allows direct access to certain hardware instead of emulated by software like CPU runtime, memory & certian USB devices (e.g. mice HDD ect) yet certian things like graphics network & sound be done via software emulation.
Like with the Gameube VC the CPU (& possible GPU) RAM can be directly accessed by the software yet memory cards & controller needs to be emulated.

Yet as for Miiverse & savestates that could be done as well.

a PC VM you can still pause the guest OS & even save the RAM state, so a gamecube VC could both save states & Miiverse could still be possible.

As with the Wii mode I do suspect it uses a Virtual Machine to emulate a Wii yet as with update 4.0, it allows the Wii software to be streamed to the control pad so really I don't see any reason Nintendo use a Virtual Machine to emulate a gamecube.

From what I have been able to deduct from all the rumours floating around the 'net, it seems like the Wii mode might use its own 512MB RAM, a dedicated Wii GPU, and sets the CPU to 729MHz. If that's anywhere close to the truth, I'd say it's a Wii within a Wii U.

It is, it has the GameCube internals from the Wii, if you install HomeBrew on the Wii mode you can actually run GameCube games on the Wii U albeit mapping the controller to the classic controller (I guess not really emulation since there is technically a GameCube inside the Wii U). There are videos on youtube showing people doing this.

Am I allowed to mention that (because of the issue I have intentionally ignored) or have I just got the thread and myself canned from the site?

People tend to forget emulation is not as easy to code as it sounds. There are certain aspects of the console that may not emulate properly. Hence the reason why the GBA version of Yoshi's Island is on Virtual Console and not the Super Nintendo version. Majora's Mask on the Zelda collection anyone?

I don't think people do, they just compare what bedroom programmers can do on weaker hardware than Nintendo users and (rightly) come the the conclusion that Nintendo put little effort into the VC or only use poor programmers on it. Both sides face equal difficulties emulating hardware, at worse the bedroom programmers have it harder not being as familiar with the architecture.

I wouldn't say the WiiU is definitely capable, but it certainly has the horsepowers. The whole issue is that you can't just program a general emulator and expect it to run every game flawlessly - some games actually put a lot of strain on a system, and an emulator can't just lag in such cases. As such, the emulator framework has to be customized for every single title, and that's a boatload of work: processing power, digital RAM, controller feedback conversion, analog trigger emulation (if you don't have a GC controller), stability, virtual loading environment, etc. There's so much to take into account, and everything requires a lot of testing to make sure performance is constant. That's part of the reason GBA VC on WiiU often requires four to five times the size of the actual game.

You can already play N64 games on the Wii U by going into Wii Mode and using its Virtual Console.

I don't want them to. I have my Wii next to the Wii U and I bought all these GC games and controllers for it.

I had an old Vista Laptop that could handle it well, so I find it hard to believe the Wii U is less capable than this thing (although we upgraded the RAM to 2 GB).