On Thursday, March 6th, Ced, the creator of the Fenrir Optical Drive Emulator released a the long-awaited Beta Preview Build of his WiFi SMB Firmware via the Fenrir Discord Server that finally enables stable game streaming over WiFi via an SMB network share!
WARNING: This is a BETA preview build, and some folks are experiencing issues connecting to their SMB network shares. The ESP32 WiFi module is 2.4Ghz only, and it does NOT support SSIDs that are hidden or contain spaces and/or underscores. Please be sure to change your wireless gateway’s SSID if you wish to use this Beta Firmware. Also, CDDA audio streaming is not yet stable.
Fenrir Wi-Fi SMB Beta FW
Here are the Beta Preview Firmware files to download as of the writing of this article.
For further updates, you may want to check the Fenrir Discord instead.
Unified Beta FW: Download (try this first)
20-Pin Specific FW: Download
21-Pin Specific FW: Download
Duo Specific FW: Download
While Fenrir has always been an excellent ODE at a competitive price, the far-off promise of streaming games over WiFi is something we’ve talked about for years, and it’s something ONLY Fenrir is capable of at the moment, thanks to the ESP32’s onboard WiFi module. Network streaming nice to have in any gaming setup, but it’s also game developer’s dream. Just overwrite a few lines of code, and you can stream the result instantly from your work machine, and with plug-n-play solutions like Satiator & SAROO to compete with, this feature carves out a very important niche for Fenrir!
Streaming over WiFi has actually been a work in progress for at least a few years now, with Ced showing early demonstrations all the way back in 2021, albeit not without issues… While this functionality has been available for the past 3 years as an unstable alpha build, most of Ced’s attention has clearly been focused on perfecting game compatibility and eliminating any lingering bugs.
2021 Early Alpha Build Demo
Now that Fenrir is a much more mature project having seen multiple PCB revisions, Ced has turned his attention back to network streaming, and it’s finally time for the community to take part in helping to test this amazing feature.
On February 6th, Ced released the initial beta preview build citing the following issues:
- Loader is still WIP (no save, bugs, no advanced features)
- Audio/CDDA streaming isn’t stable yet
- Game loading seems stable with router nearby
- Loading big shares will crash listing (don’t use a directory with more than 200 files)
- FMV exhibits playback issues
A week later, he released an update that fixed several games and got FMVs playing correctly, however, only 21 pin boards seemed to be supported at that time.
By March 6th, it seems most known issues have been addressed, and Ced claims to have tested popular first party titles such as Daytona USA & Burning Rangers, leaving them running/streaming for up to 4 to 5 hours with no freezing or crashing issues.
In the days that have followed, several folks in the Fenrir Discord have cited connection issues, and it seems that these problems could be rooted in the inherent limitations of the ESP32’s WiFi support. Apparently the ESP32 is 2.4Ghz ONLY, and it seems to be a bit selective about what SSIDs it will connect to. It does NOT support SSIDs that are HIDDEN or contain spaces and/or underscores, so folks will need to consider this when editing their configurations.
WIFI SMB FW Instructions:
In the fenrir.cfg file, please edit the following settings:
wifi_ssid
The Wi-Fi network identifier (SSID) to which the device should connect.
Example: “SSID” *NO SPACES, UNDERSCORES or HIDDEN networks
wifi_password
The password for the Wi-Fi network corresponding to the specified SSID.
Example: “WPASS”
smbhost
The IP address of the SMB (Server Message Block) host to which the device should connect to access shared files.
Type: String (IP address)
Example: “192.168.1.54”
smbuser
The username for authentication on the SMB server.
Type: String
Example: “fenrir”
smbpass
The password for authentication on the SMB server.
Example: “fenrir”
smbpath
The path to the shared directory on the SMB server that the device should access.
Example: “/saturn/”
Then in the file broswer menu, use L/R to switch between SMB and SD Card
NOTE: SMB file browsing is currently limited to around 200 to 300 files.
