Hacking A way to rip games without network/playing?

[Subtle Demise]

I'd say the only reason to not do this would be if it would be easier to implement in Wii U mode. I doubt that is the case, but I don't know how much progress is being made on fully hacking apart the Wii U.

I'd say we are closer to a full Wii U hack than trying to break vwii out from its sandbox.

 

[NWPlayer123]

I'd say we are closer to a full Wii U hack than trying to break vwii out from its sandbox.

Yeah, once we have IOSU kernel control which is what chainloads cafe2wii we can do whatever, it isn't that high on the list of priorities but it shouldn't be that difficult to do raw disc dumps, just need a good way to store it since it'd melt an SD card

 

[Elliander]

Yeah, I noticed here that apparently an exploit has been found to give full control. I imagine any delays are related to proper stability tests so consoles don't brick. I'm still on 5.3.2 and don't mind not being able to play online, although I may forget how to actually use the exploits I installed before long

Well, if it is easier to go forward with a Wii U approach obviously no reason to get a vWii approach going unless it's something that can be done right now without any major headache, but if that slows down the work that should be done it's obviously not worth doing.

I'd say the more exciting possibility with a full WiiU hack is not backup loading of games, it's being able to turn WiiU hardware back on for vWii to allow for more robust game play, or maybe using an NFC repeater so the WiiU gamepad is actually playable at an appropriate distance, or maybe using my sony tablet with a PS4 gamepad as a screen in one room (or even remotely over the internet) instead of the gamepad to play WiiU or Wii or even Gamecube games. Emulating the 3DS on the WiiU with the two screens also comes to mind.

Something I have been wondering about that though: I've never seen a patreon page for a team of people working on exploits and homebrew to help the community. I can't imagine how anyone has the time to work, for free, getting so many amazing things going. What if the people actually working on stuff like this organized more like a donation based company, where donation tiers determined what could be worked on and how fast, with special commissions for special requests? For example, hypothetically, if someone wanted a cool new feature that almost no one cared about BUT was willing to shell out the money to pay someone for their time to implement it, that would work. If anyone is doing something like that it doesn't appear to be properly organized though, at least not from what I can see, but why not do something like that? Then if someone like me said, "I want such and so, and here's how I think it could happen!" a developer could say, "Well it would be possible, but I'd say it would take X hours, so if such and so was donated I'd do it" and then I might say "oooh. That is a bit steep. Well, I can donate part of that" and the developer could say "well I'll set up a donation page where you can put your pledge. If enough people pledge a payment will be drawn and after it goes through I will work on it." and maybe someone who just cares about the outcome could say, "Well I can't afford the money, but I can afford the time. If I worked on such and so assets how much would that be worth off the project?" and the time donation would be given a material value based on the time it would take the main developer to integrate those needs. Or maybe someone like me, who has some programming experience, would want to learn how to contribute more, but never has done much with it and is scared to venture on unprepared. A donation page asking for tutors to help walk through the process can work.

Doing something like that, through a patreon type website for developers, would set up a market of sorts for indie developers and people breaking apart the consoles where the content is still open source (or at least has a time table about when it will be open source) while allowing people like me to put their money where their mouth is. I wouldn't dare push for something I want, just because I want it now (people have to work when not working on modding after all) but if such a site existed I'd definitely commission at least a few ideas at least in part. (For example, when an emuNAND comes out I would totally want an option to kill wara wara plaza and would pay for the hit.)

 

[Subtle Demise]

I've never seen a patreon page for a team of people working on exploits and homebrew to help the community. I can't imagine how anyone has the time to work, for free, getting so many amazing things going. What if the people actually working on stuff like this organized more like a donation based company, where donation tiers determined what could be worked on and how fast, with special commissions for special requests?

In many nations, it is now illegal to bypass any form of protection/DRM/whatever. The US's DMCA, for instance, has clear implications for this. Getting paid for it complicates things further, lumping the person working on the exploit together with the guy on the street trying to sell bootleg DVDs.

 

[Elliander]

That's why you use a donation based system and have the organization itself non profit. It's perfectly acceptable for an individual to profit as long as the organization does not. and rather than buying a product, the donations are not for anything at all since the end product would be released open source to the public.

DMCA certainly does make circumvention illegal, rather than the backups themselves, but this actually has more to do with - specifically - circumventing copy protection. The only thing giving Nintendo exclusive licensing rights over their console is the proprietary code, but if you can figure out how to license your own code that works with their console that is completely legal. If, as a consequence of this effort, it becomes known how to circumvent the copy protection that in and of itself is not illegal. Of course, that still depends on you actually owning the game. Piracy is illegal no matter how you go about it, and all modding arrests actually are centered around piracy not modding. That's why I make sure to show the physical game when I demo anything in one of my videos to prove I own the product.

To give an example: Electronic Arts actually negotiated better game contracts with Sega by using one team to crack the console. This team was considered "dirty" and would pass on notes to another team who would write new code from scratch and when they told Sega what they did there was no lawsuit because it's completely legal. This is an over simplification, but there are ways to go about this.

If a company can get away with making and selling hardware modifications for the express purpose of promoting piracy I don't see how a company to promote open source development on consoles would be any worse.

 

[apachehavok]

Going into Vwiimode loads a completely different hardware bios. Its like hooking up a completely different console. Its not that writing the software to access a blu laser partition is hard inside the Wii OS, its a matter of it not even seeing it on a hardware level. Its not a software emulation. Its like trying to hook up a Vive to a mac from 1995. Sure there are a few out there that could get the mac to detect it, but on a hardware level, it just cant use it. Unless you flash a custom BIOS into it, nothing in software is gonna give you access to the WiiU side of things on the drive.

 

[Subtle Demise]

If a company can get away with making and selling hardware modifications for the express purpose of promoting piracy I don't see how a company to promote open source development on consoles would be any worse.

AFAIK modchips are illegal in the USA. That's why they need to be bought overseas and American resellers have been raided as if they were child pornographers or something.

That's why you use a donation based system and have the organization itself non profit. It's perfectly acceptable for an individual to profit as long as the organization does not. and rather than buying a product, the donations are not for anything at all since the end product would be released open source to the public.

DMCA certainly does make circumvention illegal, rather than the backups themselves, but this actually has more to do with - specifically - circumventing copy protection. The only thing giving Nintendo exclusive licensing rights over their console is the proprietary code, but if you can figure out how to license your own code that works with their console that is completely legal. If, as a consequence of this effort, it becomes known how to circumvent the copy protection that in and of itself is not illegal. Of course, that still depends on you actually owning the game. Piracy is illegal no matter how you go about it, and all modding arrests actually are centered around piracy not modding. That's why I make sure to show the physical game when I demo anything in one of my videos to prove I own the product.

Loopholes will only get you so far, and corporate lawyers are difficult to win against even if they are wrong

 

[Maschell]

There a temp folder that can be used. I don't know how much data you can store there.
In theory, you could copy the disc data to this temp folder, and then (back in mii maker) copy the files to a SD Card. For big games that would be probably a pain in the ass (I don't think the folder can hold more than 1-2 GB). But that could be a "network-less" way of dumping

 

[Elliander]

Going into Vwiimode loads a completely different hardware bios. Its like hooking up a completely different console. Its not that writing the software to access a blu laser partition is hard inside the Wii OS, its a matter of it not even seeing it on a hardware level. Its not a software emulation. Its like trying to hook up a Vive to a mac from 1995. Sure there are a few out there that could get the mac to detect it, but on a hardware level, it just cant use it. Unless you flash a custom BIOS into it, nothing in software is gonna give you access to the WiiU side of things on the drive.

I'm not entirely convinced on that. Do you have any sources? The reason I doubt it is because, regardless of where it is, the device is using the same physical connection and the WiiU IOSU is always running even in vWii mode. Also, I had no problems uploading the NAND from a Wii into vWii. It seems like in order to have a custom BIOS they would have needed to change something about the Wii mode. It makes more sense that the IOSU is just telling the BD drive which laser to use depending on what mode it is in. So to get it to use the BD laser in that case would probably only require finding out which code the IOSU uses when telling it to use blue or red lights, and then just having it load the code for the blue light when it is in vWii mode. Obviously if that would work you wouldn't want it to be stuck like that or you won't be able to play Wii discs at all anymore so it would still require a custom IOSU or a way to switch back and forth. That's just the way I reason it though and could be wrong.

AFAIK modchips are illegal in the USA. That's why they need to be bought overseas and American resellers have been raided as if they were child pornographers or something.

Loopholes will only get you so far, and corporate lawyers are difficult to win against even if they are wrong

Oh, obviously, and there is a difference between something being illegal and being subject to civil damages as well. Nintendo technically broke DMCA law when it started sending take down notices for Mario Kart videos - since the users have a contract right to make those uploads since it's a designed part of the software. In practice though you would need money and resources to actually fight them over it, illegal or not. Having a company that specifically does console modding would naturally create a target which is probably why it's not happened yet, but there are websites that dedicate themselves to hiring programmers so I think there is still a way to do it. Maybe a layer of removal from the actual people doing it? For example, a company that helps connect people to programmers and treats them as contractors despite having a more active role in coordinating projects? If it's not publicly searchable that would also make it more difficult.

Right now my company is focused on expanding my Spirulina farm, and it's still really small, but I am entering a global market worth billions so this is something I'd seriously consider in the future after my farming and biotech operations take off.

There a temp folder that can be used. I don't know how much data you can store there.
In theory, you could copy the disc data to this temp folder, and then (back in mii maker) copy the files to a SD Card. For big games that would be probably a pain in the ass (I don't think the folder can hold more than 1-2 GB). But that could be a "network-less" way of dumping

That's actually a very good idea, and would solve problems where the connection might get interrupted while it's loading a file that took a while to reach. Since most of the data is loaded at the start it would be a good work around at least, but would there be any way to use this to backup files not actively loaded in memory towards a 1:1 backup?

 

[Cyan]

I think that temp folder method is a good idea.
it would be faster, even if you have to exit/reboot the game multiple times. it probably can't auto-reboot so the game will start and the user will have to exit and reboot manually.

A sever side on computer should still be used to log and "skip" the already dumped files, as we don't have SD access while in game to check which file to skip or retry.
that could be an issue with game's file bigger than the temp folder size, and dumping split files could be a solution. once completed, a simple batch on computer (or an option in the dumper server) could binary merge split files, like on PS3 scene. .66601 .66602 etc.

 

[worm28]

Something like cleanrip would be ideal or better yet have a game ripper integrated into LoadiineGX2 so it can rip games directly to your SD card like Wiiflow or USB Loader GX or would that require the magical IOSU exploit.

 

[Deleted User]

Something like cleanrip would be ideal or better yet have a game ripper integrated into LoadiineGX2 so it can rip games directly to your SD card like Wiiflow or USB Loader GX or would that require the magical IOSU exploit.

Yes. Yes it would. The current method of dumping games doesn't even get access to the SD Card, so we must transfer it over a network to a PC. We can;t access the raw disc, we can only access the already-mounted file system.

 

[7Robins]

As to why you'd want to have that built into GX2 makes no sense, since all the loader does is play games; you can't even access the disc in the drive.

 

[Neouni]

Going into Vwiimode loads a completely different hardware bios. Its like hooking up a completely different console. Its not that writing the software to access a blu laser partition is hard inside the Wii OS, its a matter of it not even seeing it on a hardware level. Its not a software emulation. Its like trying to hook up a Vive to a mac from 1995. Sure there are a few out there that could get the mac to detect it, but on a hardware level, it just cant use it. Unless you flash a custom BIOS into it, nothing in software is gonna give you access to the WiiU side of things on the drive.

Not completely sure about the vWii not having access, there was a linux project for a while that tried to use 3 cores from the Wii U.
They seemed to get it to start, had some issues with drivers.
But somehow it's gathering dust now.

 

[Elliander]

A sever side on computer should still be used to log and "skip" the already dumped files, as we don't have SD access while in game to check which file to skip or retry.
that could be an issue with game's file bigger than the temp folder size, and dumping split files could be a solution. once completed, a simple batch on computer (or an option in the dumper server) could binary merge split files, like on PS3 scene. .66601 .66602 etc.

What about a log file somewhere to tell it what to skip? Is there anywhere that such a file could be stored locally to be loaded during the dumping process? Maybe stored in a WiiMote or something? Or perhaps loaded into memory before the game loads?

 

[brienj]

There a temp folder that can be used. I don't know how much data you can store there.
In theory, you could copy the disc data to this temp folder, and then (back in mii maker) copy the files to a SD Card. For big games that would be probably a pain in the ass (I don't think the folder can hold more than 1-2 GB). But that could be a "network-less" way of dumping

Yes. Yes it would. The current method of dumping games doesn't even get access to the SD Card, so we must transfer it over a network to a PC. We can;t access the raw disc, we can only access the already-mounted file system.

I haven't tried to see how much space is available in a temp directory yet, but do either of you know how much space is available for saves? The folder for the saves of the game is mounted as if it was the save folder on the Wii U filesystem, so don't we have access to that folder? What I'm saying, is can't files be saved in the "save" folder, which is really on the SD card? And if it the space available is big enough for say 1GB or something, couldn't you save 1GB, then change the symbolic link to a different folder on the SD card and continue? Or every time you know that the system is going to check for available space, you change the symbolic link to an empty folder, and then back? I really haven't looked at the FS functions too closely, but there has to be some way to do this, unless the save folder allocation is very, very small.

Edit: And nevermind, I just remembered that you have to run a legit copy to backup, sorry, please disregard. LOL

I don't know why I was thinking Loadiine is running while you dump a game. Long day maybe.

But my question still stands, anyone know how much space is available for save folders?

 

[Maschell]

Super Smash Bros WiiU has ~100MB for saves, other games more like <50MB. So no pratical use.
I also had a similiar idea month ago. Placing whole game into the save folder thats moved to a big HDD. That would be kinda USB support, but the maximum quota of the save folder won't allow that.
The savefolder size is saved in one of the .xml files, I tried to modify them while loading, but no success. I guess its complety handled by the IOSU.

 

[Cyan]

What about a log file somewhere to tell it what to skip? Is there anywhere that such a file could be stored locally to be loaded during the dumping process? Maybe stored in a WiiMote or something? Or perhaps loaded into memory before the game loads?

that's right, a file could be written to the temp folder, but I don't know if the folder is cleaned at game launch or not. if it's cleaned at title launch, then launching MiiMaker/ddd again would clean the dumped data too before we could move it to SD.

 

[Elliander]

The savefolder size is saved in one of the .xml files, I tried to modify them while loading, but no success. I guess its complety handled by the IOSU.

What about using a memory edit to make the game load a different .xml file? Or rather, have a copy of the .xml file elsewhere and and when the game loads it have it load that one instead. Similar to how some people have been modding Mario Kart by replacing game assets in memory. If you can do that you don't need to change the .xml file at all, and even if the .xml file is very different for each game I imagine the portion that tells it about the file size will be in a predictable location.

Alternatively, although this idea is more out there, what about spoofing the file size? A trick similar to how fake SD cards will make the OS thing it is larger or smaller than it actually is.

that's right, a file could be written to the temp folder, but I don't know if the folder is cleaned at game launch or not. if it's cleaned at title launch, then launching MiiMaker/ddd again would clean the dumped data too before we could move it to SD.

Well it sounds like that's something worth testing If not there what about the save folder? Just to store a document to keep track of what files go where and what needs to be skipped.

 

[Maschell]

@Elliander
We are already spoofing (somewhere in the kernel) some values in loadiine, but no one that help us with stuff like that. I know where in the XMLs the SD Access is stored, but you can't just modifiy the XML, they are loaded and handled by the iosu.