Earlier this month, a fresh build of the long-abandoned Windows NT for PowerPC made a surprising reappearance. This time, it’s been tailored for the Nintendo GameCube and Wii, capitalizing on their underlying PowerPC architecture that echoes the original Windows NT PowerPC releases. Dubbed Entii for WorkCubes and available on GitHub, this build even teases some potential—albeit limited—support for the Wii U. Unfortunately, it doesn’t leverage the Wii U’s extra PowerPC cores, expanded RAM, or beefier AMD GPU. Instead, it uses the Wii’s virtualized function. Early development boards, meanwhile, remain mostly untested, with support being a theoretical concept at best.
For those intrigued by the potential of seeing Windows NT alive on a Nintendo GameCube, YouTuber @emukid_id steps in with a treat. They have captured footage showcasing the Windows NT installation process, basic operations, and impressively, a low-res playthrough of The Ultimate Doom at a mere 320 x 200 resolution. While these clips are silent, watching Doom run on such a platform is a spectacle in its own right.
Despite the lack of audio, Windows 95 largely performs as expected. Users can relish in setting classic Windows NT 3D wallpapers like 3D Maze, jotting notes with Notepad, or even navigating a basic Internet Explorer homepage. What really elevates the experience is thoughtful support for PC-adjacent peripherals. Imagine a GameCube controller transformed with a built-in full-sized keyboard, providing unique input options. Moreover, the standard USB ports on the Wii and Wii U expand the horizon into greater USB peripheral compatibility.
However, limitations persist. Even if you’re using a standard Windows NT PC in 2025, finding useful web pages on today’s internet would be challenging. As for GameCube or Wii’s Ethernet adapters, online ventures appear highly constrained.
Yet, this setup offers a nostalgic glance at Windows NT and PowerPC from before Windows NT 3.5 supported PowerPC. You’d still find Doom playable on GameCube—a remarkable achievement. The Wii, in contrast, acts as a supersized sibling, essentially an overclocked GameCube with a fresh GPU.
Dreaming of full-fledged Wii U support for NT 3.5 or beyond could elevate possibilities by tapping into its 1GB of DDR3 RAM and triple PowerPC cores—quite the jump from the single-core setup of the Wii and GameCube. Not to mention, the GameCube operated with just 24MB of RAM, supplemented by smaller dedicated RAM allocations for video and input/output tasks.
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