Project M 3.6 Online via Dolphin Netplay Setup + Optimization Guide

[Y-L]

Unfortunately that advice is a no-go. This is a Dell laptop, which means its graphics drivers haven't seen updates in years. Not to mention that this issue only came up with this iteration of Dolphin- I think the specificity of the problem is really what's driving me bonkers.

Graphics driver updates are dependent on hardware, not the brand of laptop. So there most likely is a driver update. I don't even know what your pc specs are though. If you are using Intel hd 4000 or lower graphics, they can cause issues because they are on the border of the minimum requirements. It makes sense that it only occurs in the newer revisions of Dolphin because it has become more accurate and relies more heavily on the GPU than it did before.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Btw my redownload of the ISO builder plus a new dump of brawl (same md5) proved fruitless. I have absolutely no ideas as to what the problem could be.

 

[Thorsson]

Graphics driver updates are dependent on hardware, not the brand of laptop. So there most likely is a driver update. I don't even know what your pc specs are though. If you are using Intel hd 4000 or lower graphics, they can cause issues because they are on the border of the minimum requirements. It makes sense that it only occurs in the newer revisions of Dolphin because it has become more accurate and relies more heavily on the GPU than it did before.

Nah, dude- if you made the mistake of getting a bad laptop, you'd know that some laptop manufacturers alter hardware in a way that basically makes it unsafe to use the hardware provider's driver updates. Dell is one of these manufacturers. If you try to download and install driver updates from anything but the Dell website, the driver basically says "Sorry- you have a Dell laptop, so we can't install this. Go to Dell's website." Then Dell says "Hey, we don't care about this laptop anymore because it came out a few years ago, get a new one you sheeple." Then you go sob quietly in a corner.

tl;dr: One of the first things I did was check for driver updates. There aren't any.
On the bright side, the graphical quirks don't cause desyncs. Or if they do, it's at a rate of less than once every four hours of play. So it's pretty much a non-issue.

 

[Page Won]

My Dolphin 6554 consistently crashes at a consistent point in all the brawl games, vanilla brawl, 3.5 and 3.6, using Direct3D graphics (OpenGL just gives a black screen). It happens exactly the moment you get past the luigi unlock screen, or in brawl when the start menu is supposed to come up.

It works completely fine on my older Windows 7 laptop, but the it crashes consistently on my desktop. It probably doesn't help that it's running a preview build of Windows 10 (build 10162), but this is the only thing I know of that I can't get to work.

 

[Raph_the_Great]

Chrome Absolutely refuses to download anything from Mega

I have no Idea what to do.

 

[Y-L]

My Dolphin 6554 consistently crashes at a consistent point in all the brawl games, vanilla brawl, 3.5 and 3.6, using Direct3D graphics (OpenGL just gives a black screen). It happens exactly the moment you get past the luigi unlock screen, or in brawl when the start menu is supposed to come up.

It works completely fine on my older Windows 7 laptop, but the it crashes consistently on my desktop. It probably doesn't help that it's running a preview build of Windows 10 (build 10162), but this is the only thing I know of that I can't get to work.

Did you get the right md5? Try updating your graphics driver.

Chrome Absolutely refuses to download anything from Mega

I have no Idea what to do.

Go to the downloads page (ctrl j) and manually approve the download.

 

[acesaboluffy]

I have 3.6 beta netplay for my mac, but the md5 is wrong even though I appeared to do everything right with text edit and python, my pm offline works but in the dolphin roms it comes up with the name "super smash bros. brawl" can someone give any advice please so i can play online?

 

[Y-L]

I have 3.6 beta netplay for my mac, but the md5 is wrong even though I appeared to do everything right with text edit and python, my pm offline works but in the dolphin roms it comes up with the name "super smash bros. brawl" can someone give any advice please so i can play online?

Usually means you have a bad brawl iso.

 

[Page Won]

Did you get the right md5? Try updating your graphics driver.

Yup, correct md5 and game id. haven't yet tried updating my graphics driver, but I'll try that in a sec.

 

[Page Won]

Nope, updating that did not work, so now we've got the latest graphics driver, correct checksums, and multiple isos that all crash at the same exact point, right where that start menu is supposed to come up.

 

[acesaboluffy]

Usually means you have a bad brawl iso.

Thank you I'm getting a new ISO, although the one I originally had was from a Youtube link for how to get pm. Can I also point out that earlier on on the day when tt didn't work I played a nuptially match somehow

 

[acesaboluffy]

Thank you I'm getting a new ISO, although the one I originally had was from a Youtube link for how to get pm. Can I also point out that earlier on on the day when tt didn't work I played a nuptially match somehow

NETPLAY not nuptially

 

[Narpas_sword]

NETPLAY not nuptially

there's an edit button...

 

[Y-L]

NETPLAY not nuptially

Just because you played netplay doesn't mean you had the right iso. It may desync at any point. I wouldn't trust a YouTube link too much anyways.

 

[Luk]

Hmm, I just cannot get the right md5. Could somebody post the md5 of their brawl iso to help me narrow down whether something's broken during the python builder or if I'm just starting out with the wrong brawl iso?

The md5 for my brawl iso is: d18726e6dfdc8bdbdad540b561051087

The weird thing is, out of curiosity, with the netplay build that this generated (md5: b0d605cdcc4f0539c6774c77dacdb21e), I was able to get it up and running in dolphin just fine. Furthermore, played about 10 matches on Anthem's ladder with some guy with no desyncs.

 

[Luk]

As a followup, searching for the MD5 of the netplay build ISO that I get I found this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBPM/comments/3bd77e/36b_netplay_build_for_mac/. Has it been confirmed yet by anybody that the netplay builder works correctly on mac for 3.6b?

Edit: further followup:
I tried this again on windows as the guy in in that reddit thread mentioned and it generated the correct MD5.

This indicates to me that there exists a bug with the python ISO builder since it reliably generates a different output from the windows bat file.

 

[DaBawssMann]

I tried to do this on linux and the terminal told me this

File "/home/(my username)/(the builder folder)/Build_ISO_PM_3.6_Beta_Mac&Linux(Netplay_only).py", line 24
print 'Windows OS Detected'
^
Syntax Error: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'

I deleted all the non linux files from the iso builder, I checked and made sure my brawl iso is ntsc and is functional, so what do I do to fix this

 

[Luk]

I tried to do this on linux and the terminal told me this

File "/home/(my username)/(the builder folder)/Build_ISO_PM_3.6_Beta_Mac&Linux(Netplay_only).py", line 24
print 'Windows OS Detected'
^
Syntax Error: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'

I deleted all the non linux files from the iso builder, I checked and made sure my brawl iso is ntsc and is functional, so what do I do to fix this

Try running "python --version". Parenthesis were optional to the print command in 2.x. In 3.x they became mandatory. My guess is that you're running python version 3.

For what it's worth, I had a lot of trouble getting the python builder to generate the correct ISO. I ended up installing windows in virtualbox and using the .bat file there.

 

[DaBawssMann]

Try running "python --version". Parenthesis were optional to the print command in 2.x. In 3.x they became mandatory. My guess is that you're running python version 3.

For what it's worth, I had a lot of trouble getting the python builder to generate the correct ISO. I ended up installing windows in virtualbox and using the .bat file there.

Thanks for the help, I'll try that

 

[Chu2|DFM]

Is there a way to prevent the Character Select switch music tracks every time you're taken to it? It's kind of jarring when tracks switch like this when they originally didn't, especially since I'm using my own BRSTMs, yet it switches to the ones I thought I deleted.

 

[Notshane]

By any chance, can you make a version of this file where I can just put in my own build of Project M 3.6 into an ISO for Dolphin and, well, any build I want of Project M 3.6? I really want to play it with my original menus, characters and stages in high definition, but unfortunately, upon forcing my own "pf" folder into the source folder that it got its resources to make the ISO from, it only ported over my characters; however, there was no "sfx" folder in it, so I suppose it could never port sounds.

Likewise with menus, as it turns to the Brawl menu upon entering the character select screen. However, I still play it at the time being since I am glad to finally be able to play my custom Project M in glorious color. But, I wish I could navigate it easier, have my original sfx among other things. Until then, I have to stick to the Wii U for a somewhat high definition experience.

PS: Do not really care for Netplay since I usually play with my friends locally due to how horrible my internet connection is at sustaining anything online without input lag, lag spikes or both.

 

[Y-L]

Is there a way to prevent the Character Select switch music tracks every time you're taken to it? It's kind of jarring when tracks switch like this when they originally didn't, especially since I'm using my own BRSTMs, yet it switches to the ones I thought I deleted.

I'm assuming you're playing offline/on console since custom music desyncs Netplay. Make sure you're using the console builder and not the Netplay one.

By any chance, can you make a version of this file where I can just put in my own build of Project M 3.6 into an ISO for Dolphin and, well, any build I want of Project M 3.6? I really want to play it with my original menus, characters and stages in high definition, but unfortunately, upon forcing my own "pf" folder into the source folder that it got its resources to make the ISO from, it only ported over my characters; however, there was no "sfx" folder in it, so I suppose it could never port sounds.

Likewise with menus, as it turns to the Brawl menu upon entering the character select screen. However, I still play it at the time being since I am glad to finally be able to play my custom Project M in glorious color. But, I wish I could navigate it easier, have my original sfx among other things. Until then, I have to stick to the Wii U for a somewhat high definition experience.

PS: Do not really care for Netplay since I usually play with my friends locally due to how horrible my internet connection is at sustaining anything online without input lag, lag spikes or both.

Maybe if you use the console builder you'll have more success.

As for sounds, that's a limitation of using an iso builder. It converts a brawl iso into project m and brawl doesn't have a sounds folder. It uses the smashbros_sound.brsar so that has to be used during the process. You need to get super sawndz and inject the sound files into there to get them to work properly.

 

[Chu2|DFM]

I'm assuming you're playing offline/on console since custom music desyncs Netplay. Make sure you're using the console builder and not the Netplay one.

I should have clarified, I AM using the Console Builder.

 

[TyDee]

Might be a weird question, but how do I exit out of the project M emulation and keep my data? Everytime I close it I have to make a new Controller Layout for example.

 

[Y-L]

Might be a weird question, but how do I exit out of the project M emulation and keep my data? Everytime I close it I have to make a new Controller Layout for example.

If you are playing on Netplay, you can't do that or you wouldn't be synced with your opponent.

 

[TyDee]

If you are playing on Netplay, you can't do that or you wouldn't be synced with your opponent.

So I guess there is a different ISO for non-netplay PM if I wanted to save my Data?

 

[BlackPhantom]

What specific computer would you recommend to play PM? I would like to keep it cheap however.

 

[Notshane]

Maybe if you use the console builder you'll have more success.

As for sounds, that's a limitation of using an iso builder. It converts a brawl iso into project m and brawl doesn't have a sounds folder. It uses the smashbros_sound.brsar so that has to be used during the process. You need to get super sawndz and inject the sound files into there to get them to work properly.

I see. But, is there a way I can do it like I do it with my Wii? I still want to be able to edit my files and such, rather than make a permanent, final build at the moment. Mostly because there is a character I have been looking forward to for many months that is possibly releasing this month and I am also horrible at sawnd files, inserting sounds or anything of the sorts. If I knew how to do this, I would replace all my announcer calls right away and give some sounds to some other characters. There truly is no simple way to do this for me. And, I have not found any solid tutorials online, either.

Is there a way I can use a virtual disc drive to load Brawl onto so that I can just open the Project M "boot.elf" in Dolphin and, when I click "Play Game" it loads the virtual drive and just loads up my Project M that way as it does on the Wii? I tried Daemon tools for this method, but it said there was no disc image on my copy for some reason. I would just use the regular disc for testing, if Dolphin can read them, but I have no disc drive on my computer.

 

[Life]

I built a PM netplay build ISO on my Macbook using the .py with "Fix" at the end of the title and got the following checksum:

f02a613fe5f792b4312199e2300ee642

This doesn't match the one in the guide. Everything appeared to work correctly; has anyone else gotten this checksum?

 

[Y-L]

So I guess there is a different ISO for non-netplay PM if I wanted to save my Data?

you can just use the console builder.

What specific computer would you recommend to play PM? I would like to keep it cheap however.

Definitely build a pc. You get the best value that way. What is your budget? Does that include an OS/monitor/keyboard/mouse ect?

I see. But, is there a way I can do it like I do it with my Wii? I still want to be able to edit my files and such, rather than make a permanent, final build at the moment. Mostly because there is a character I have been looking forward to for many months that is possibly releasing this month and I am also horrible at sawnd files, inserting sounds or anything of the sorts. If I knew how to do this, I would replace all my announcer calls right away and give some sounds to some other characters. There truly is no simple way to do this for me. And, I have not found any solid tutorials online, either.

Is there a way I can use a virtual disc drive to load Brawl onto so that I can just open the Project M "boot.elf" in Dolphin and, when I click "Play Game" it loads the virtual drive and just loads up my Project M that way as it does on the Wii? I tried Daemon tools for this method, but it said there was no disc image on my copy for some reason. I would just use the regular disc for testing, if Dolphin can read them, but I have no disc drive on my computer.

This is what you're looking for: http://afriendlyfox.com/2013/07/22/project-m-super-smash-bros-brawl-mod-on-the-dolphin-wii-emulator/

I built a PM netplay build ISO on my Macbook using the .py with "Fix" at the end of the title and got the following checksum:

f02a613fe5f792b4312199e2300ee642

This doesn't match the one in the guide. Everything appeared to work correctly; has anyone else gotten this checksum?

You probably have a bad brawl iso?

 

[Life]

You probably have a bad brawl iso?

I mean, it's possible. I'm using one I ripped from my own Brawl disk back in like November. I'll look at its checksum in a moment...

EDIT: Ooookay, Dolphin locks up when I try to look at the properties of my Brawl ISO (despite the fact that I can look at the PM ISO just fine) so I think a re-rip is in order here.

 

[Notshane]

This is what you're looking for: http://afriendlyfox.com/2013/07/22/project-m-super-smash-bros-brawl-mod-on-the-dolphin-wii-emulator/

I have tried this tutorial so many times that I can not even count anymore. Spent an entire day on the computer trying to figure it out. This doesn't need a text tutorial, this NEEDS a video tutorial.

It is confusing and I keep getting "No SD Codes found" and it just loads regular Brawl and it never works. Is there really no way to just use the "boot.elf" in Project M and launch it through that on Dolphin and have it load the hacked Brawl?

 

[TyDee]

you can just use the console builder.

I looked online for this and couldn't find anything about it. What is the console builder?

EDIT: NVM, I assume you mean to build the game in the Console folder?

 

[Luk]

I mean, it's possible. I'm using one I ripped from my own Brawl disk back in like November. I'll look at its checksum in a moment...

EDIT: Ooookay, Dolphin locks up when I try to look at the properties of my Brawl ISO (despite the fact that I can look at the PM ISO just fine) so I think a re-rip is in order here.

Also see: Project M 3.6 Online via Dolphin Netplay Setup + Optimization Guide. Tl;DR: it seems like the python script and the .bat file generate different things.

If it's helpful, the md5 of my brawl iso that was able to generate the correct PM ISO (when run through the .bat file) was: d18726e6dfdc8bdbdad540b561051087. If you rip your copy of Brawl and get that ISO but don't get the correct PM md5, you're gonna have to either run the .bat file in virtualbox or something or debug what's going on with that python script.

Good luck.

 

[Life]

Also see: Project M 3.6 Online via Dolphin Netplay Setup + Optimization Guide. Tl;DR: it seems like the python script and the .bat file generate different things.

If it's helpful, the md5 of my brawl iso that was able to generate the correct PM ISO (when run through the .bat file) was: d18726e6dfdc8bdbdad540b561051087. If you rip your copy of Brawl and get that ISO but don't get the correct PM md5, you're gonna have to either run the .bat file in virtualbox or something or debug what's going on with that python script.

Good luck.

The new one I just ripped has the same. Will return shortly if I run into more problems.

 

[Y-L]

I have tried this tutorial so many times that I can not even count anymore. Spent an entire day on the computer trying to figure it out. This doesn't need a text tutorial, this NEEDS a video tutorial.

It is confusing and I keep getting "No SD Codes found" and it just loads regular Brawl and it never works. Is there really no way to just use the "boot.elf" in Project M and launch it through that on Dolphin and have it load the hacked Brawl?

Did you set brawl as the default iso?

Using this guide IS what you're wanting. Basically you're making a virtual sd card which emulates how you would do it on console. You run the boot.elf and it loads normal brawl but with the hacked files inside the SD card. Same as using the homebrew full set on console.

The process is pretty simple. Use the latest Dolphin build (you can use 4.0-7161 or the latest if you want, don't get 4.0.2). Download the SD card maker, winimage, GeckoOS, and the Project M Homebrew Full set.

Open the SD card maker and make a 2GB virtual sd card. Extract the homebrew full set then use winimage to inject the contents of the homebrew full set (make sure you inject the root of the folder so the sd card contains all the files and not a folder with all the files) into the sd.raw. Make sure to save the sd.raw in winimage before you close.

Move the sd.raw file to My Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/(HERE!!!)

Extract GeckoOS and place the folder somewhere convenient, I just put mine in My Documents/Dolphin Emulator/

Open Dolphin right click the brawl iso and set as default iso. Go to options->config->wii->enable insert sd card (this option desyncs wii Netplay btw, remember to turn off if you want to Netplay).

Go to file->open in Dolphin and navigate to the GeckoOS folder->HBC->Gecko1931->boot.elf and run that.

You should now be on the gecko booter, you may have to change gecko hook type under config options to VBI. Then just hit launch game and you should be good to go.

I looked online for this and couldn't find anything about it. What is the console builder?

EDIT: NVM, I assume you mean to build the game in the Console folder?

Yes, you go in the console folder and run that one instead.

 

[Life]

Recreated my Brawl ISO. Came in parts, so I had to figure out how to combine the files on Mac/Unix command prompts, since it's different from the Windows version used in the guide (it's just "cat [filename 0] [filename 1] [...] > [combined filename]"), but once I did that I got the correct Brawl md5. I used the "fixed" Python script and checked the newly built PM ISO.

The resulting md5 is: 1684e833163d994c8734a22a39e1429c

Which matches with the build in the guide on smashladder, so, success, right? It was my Brawl ISO all along.

 

[Chu2|DFM]

Just replace the projectm folder and the rsbe01.gct with the vanilla one from PMs website then run the console builder.

I recently looked at this previous post in the previous page, and tried it three separate times: replacing the rsbe01.gct in just the root folder, just in the console folder, and then replacing it in both, and all three give me the same result. After the "Secure Strap" screen, the Now Loading text flashes, and then the game goes into a permanent black screen.

From what was said in another thread, there's several lines of code in the gct that you can take out in order to stop the soundtrack ****, but I don't have any idea how to edit gct files. Anyone know how and would be willing to put a version of the gct without the following codes?

C2078E28 00000007
809C0178 2C1B0004
40820028 8082FFF0
2C040000 4182000C
2C04278D 4180000C
38802788 3884FFFF
38840001 9082FFF0
60000000 00000000

 

[Y-L]

Recreated my Brawl ISO. Came in parts, so I had to figure out how to combine the files on Mac/Unix command prompts, since it's different from the Windows version used in the guide (it's just "cat [filename 0] [filename 1] [...] > [combined filename]"), but once I did that I got the correct Brawl md5. I used the "fixed" Python script and checked the newly built PM ISO.

The resulting md5 is: 1684e833163d994c8734a22a39e1429c

Which matches with the build in the guide on smashladder, so, success, right? It was my Brawl ISO all along.

Yep, all good.

I recently looked at this previous post in the previous page, and tried it three separate times: replacing the rsbe01.gct in just the root folder, just in the console folder, and then replacing it in both, and all three give me the same result. After the "Secure Strap" screen, the Now Loading text flashes, and then the game goes into a permanent black screen.

From what was said in another thread, there's several lines of code in the gct that you can take out in order to stop the soundtrack ****, but I don't have any idea how to edit gct files. Anyone know how and would be willing to put a version of the gct without the following codes?

C2078E28 00000007
809C0178 2C1B0004
40820028 8082FFF0
2C040000 4182000C
2C04278D 4180000C
38802788 3884FFFF
38840001 9082FFF0
60000000 00000000

There's a program you can find by googling that can convert gct files to txt and vice versa then you can just manually remove them. I believe it's called gctedit.

 

[Notshane]

Did you set brawl as the default iso?

Yes.

Using this guide IS what you're wanting. Basically you're making a virtual sd card which emulates how you would do it on console. You run the boot.elf and it loads normal brawl but with the hacked files inside the SD card. Same as using the homebrew full set on console.

Not the same at all. That actually worked on my Wii, but this did not.

The process is pretty simple.

If it was, I wouldn't be here asking for help.

Open the SD card maker and make a 2GB virtual sd card. Extract the homebrew full set then use winimage to inject the contents of the homebrew full set (make sure you inject the root of the folder so the sd card contains all the files and not a folder with all the files) into the sd.raw. Make sure to save the sd.raw in winimage before you close.

Did this. Have checked on the file multiple times and my main folders were in there and looked the same every time.

The Dolphin folder is in My Documents, but is not listed as such for reasons unknown. But, that is its true directory.

Move the sd.raw file to My Documents/Dolphin Emulator/Wii/(HERE!!!)

No "Wii" folder directly in my Dolphin, as the directory on my opened "sd.raw" above shows. Only exists in My Documents/Dolphin/Sys/Wii for me. So, if this is the reason why it fails to work, I believe newer versions of Dolphin do NOT work with this.

Extract GeckoOS and place the folder somewhere convenient, I just put mine in My Documents/Dolphin Emulator/

Did this.

Open Dolphin right click the brawl iso and set as default iso. Go to options->config->wii->enable insert sd card.

Did both of these.

Go to file->open in Dolphin and navigate to the GeckoOS folder->HBC->Gecko1931->boot.elf and run that.

Did this.

You should now be on the gecko booter, you may have to change gecko hook type under config options to VBI.

Did this.

Then just hit launch game and you should be good to go.

Except, I wasn't. I redid this entire process all over again and it STILL SAYS "No SD Codes Found" and loads regular Brawl.

I have said it dozens of times to other people and I will gladly say it one final time: MAKE A TUTORIAL VIDEO.

There surely is one process you are missing, as I have done this so many times already.