Planet Descent

Community => Mess Hall => Topic started by: Jayman on September 24, 2010, 12:46:38 PM

Title: wii + pc
Post by: Jayman on September 24, 2010, 12:46:38 PM
I was wondering could you use your wii's resources (cpu ,graphic, bluetooth, ect.) to en enhance a pc. what I mean is to do some thing like start a program on a wii and on a pc connect a wii remote to the wii and have it be like you connected it to the pc plus have your pc's cpu / gup be inhancd by the wii's and also make it so the monitor hooked up to the wii is like it was hooked up to the pc.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Foil on September 24, 2010, 02:09:15 PM
You can certainly hook up a WiiMote to a PC.  Just get a USB Bluetooth adapter, and enjoy!  [I believe you can also use something like a Wii sensor bar on top of your PC monitor for 'pointing' control.]

As to the rest (using the Wii graphics/cpu resources to "enhance" the PC), that's not a good idea.  Nearly any PC will far outperform the Wii in graphics and cpu power, unless the PC is very old.  The Wii would hold the PC back.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Jayman on September 24, 2010, 02:22:05 PM
well I know about the bletooth adapter but with win 7 its really hard to do but what about the monitor thing could a pc send the image to the wii useing the pc's gpu/network conection?

oh and btw, yes you can pointing control. you see the sensor bar only admits IR light, the wiimote has a IR sensor in the front.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Matthew on September 24, 2010, 07:54:54 PM
You can't do those things any more than you can connect 2 PCs together and expect them to run faster.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Scyphi on September 25, 2010, 05:55:22 AM
Not unless you dismantled them both and fused the hardware together, and even then, I have no clue how much a difference that would make.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Matthew on September 25, 2010, 06:40:41 AM
That still would only partially work (Video card, ram, hard drive, might work, but not processor, etc. that can only be one of)
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Ronin RedFox on September 25, 2010, 10:23:08 PM
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/14838-8k-to-17k-big-o-quad-sli-pc-rigs-features-built-in-xbox-360-slim/

If this is possible, Then go ahead and make a 17k wii machine.  :P
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: NUMBERZero on September 26, 2010, 05:57:52 AM
Only if I win the lottery and get at least 1,000,000 from it.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: TechPro on September 26, 2010, 08:37:29 AM
That still would only partially work (Video card, ram, hard drive, might work, but not processor, etc. that can only be one of)

Still, the idea of "There can be only one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_%28film%29)" does not need to apply to computer processors.  Multiple processor systems have existed since before Windows 3 (AFAIK) but always carried one stipulation:  The processors all had to be identical to each other.

If you can figure out a way around that limitation ... then there is no limits!  :)
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: -<WillyP>- on September 26, 2010, 02:55:58 PM
I would guess the processors needed to be identical only because of how the motherboard uses them.

IIRC, early pc's (xt?) could have two, disimular proccessor, the main processor and an optional math co-proccesser.

And video boards and sound boards have their own proccessers, don't they?  And you can even add another graphics proccesser with it's own proccerer. So the ide of using a wii as an external proccessor is not so far fetched.  You'd have to make some hardware and write some code to do it.

Of course, why you'd want to is another question altogether.  But hackers don't ask why, they just do.   ;)
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: TechPro on September 26, 2010, 03:54:39 PM
Oh yeah, forgot about the days of the optional Math Coprocessor.   (ah, the memories ...)

Today, your computers all have the "Math Coprocessor" functions built in to the processor itself, and of course, the dual, quad, etc. "core" processors are nothing more than multiple processors in the same chip, sharing the same I/O, cache, buffers, etc.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: -<WillyP>- on September 26, 2010, 05:15:30 PM
True mostly, but there are server boards that have multiple processor chips, so you could have say, 16 cores running on one motherboard.

(http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-151-204-TS?$S300W$)

Quad AMD 45nm Quad-Core Opteron 8300/8400 Series Processors Server Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813151204)
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: TechPro on September 26, 2010, 06:12:12 PM
Yeah, those are pretty nice.  Where I work uses a few of those in their VM arrays.

Getting back on topic (guess we drifted a bit) ... If one figured out how, it may be possible to and the processor power of the Wii to a PC, but it most likely wouldn't benefit the combined system much.  Perhaps the combined platform would be more compatible with both PC and Wii functions, but that's about it.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Matthew on September 28, 2010, 12:18:56 PM
The only potential use I could see would be having the PC take care of graphics processing for the wii, perhaps? Or as an input tool?
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Teh poke man on September 28, 2010, 09:23:20 PM
There is no way to do what you said, Jayman, but I might be able to offer some solutions if you provided why you want to put a Wii in a PC.
Title: Re: wii + pc
Post by: Jayman on September 29, 2010, 03:28:46 PM
There is no way to do what you said, Jayman, but I might be able to offer some solutions if you provided why you want to put a Wii in a PC.
well I really would use it for is bluetooth, useing the tv as the display and the game cube controller ports.