Hacking Homebrew Misc Just for curiosity ¿What do you guys think is the most complicated and confusing way of adding homebrew to a videogame console?

[lucasfergui]

Any consoles are allowed Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, Xbox... I just think it's interesting

 

[tech3475]

This one will be very much YMMV depending on circumstances.

Personally I'm inexperienced with hardmods, especially with small solder points, so that's relatively complicated but I'm generally comfortable with softmods, hacked a Wii once when I was drunk.

I also knew someone who knew someone who refused to hardmod PS2s but gladly did OG Xbox's.

However, I've also known people who would find any kind of modding 'difficult/complicated', even with the best of instructions.

 

[Dust2dust]

Not so complicated anymore, but back in the infancy of 3DS hacking, installing a9lh was a really long and a bit risky process, taking a couple of hours, but the rewards was great. You could probably find old posts here about that era.

 

[lucasfergui]

As the OP I think it's the Xbox 360's Kamikaze Method

 

[Kioku]

Anything that relies on save exploits.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re not complicated in any regard, but if you’re constantly using them instead of installing a more permanent exploit or even opting for a hardmod, I don’t get it.

I can’t attest to any hardmodding as I’ve only done two. My GameCube with picoboot, and a couple of TSOPs on the OG Xbox. They’re both pretty low in terms of difficulty…

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Anything that relies on save exploits.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re not complicated in any regard, but if you’re constantly using them instead of installing a more permanent exploit or even opting for a hardmod, I don’t get it.

Tedious and boring. But what is alternative on old consoles without own permanent storage? Not everybody is able and/or willing to solder. I looked into Modbo installation for PS2… and got scared away (while successfully having installed modchip into GC and PS1)
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Problematic way of homebrew loading: Multiple hotswap method on PS1

Turn on with legit disc, wait for SCEx authentication
↓
Hotswap to homebrew disc for reading TOC
↓
Hotswap back to legit disc for second SCEx authentication
↓
Hotswap to homebrew disc again for actually loading homebrew software.​

That is not good for either the hardware or the hands.

 

[Latiodile]

getting a softmod on the original xbox where you needed to get a usb to xbox port adapter with a save file to get the exploit on
anything that requires soldering like a billion wires to a chip
modchips that cost an excessive amount of money

 

[lucasfergui]

back in the infancy of 3DS hacking, installing a9lh was a really long

Yea I heard of it

 

[hippy dave]

Not so complicated anymore, but back in the infancy of 3DS hacking, installing a9lh was a really long and a bit risky process, taking a couple of hours, but the rewards was great. You could probably find old posts here about that era.

Yeah I didn't wait for the automated method and did it manually as soon as it was available, I forgot one command line step, and bricked the console. Oh well, I obviously ran the NAND backup first. Opened it up to hardmod for NAND restore, and in the process I broke a connector for a ribbon cable, because I thought it was the type where you lift the thing to release it, and it wasn't. Gave up and got a new console. I should replace that ribbon connector one of these days.

 

[Darkshadow1997]

For me, The early days of 3DS hacking especially needing to downgrade to 2.1 firmware for dumping special keys. It was even riskier on the N3DS/XL as going to sleep mode would brick those devices (I believe it was because N3DS/XL never had 2.1 firmware).

 

[lwiz]

For me it was the PS2 disc swap method with "Agent Under Fire" to get the FCMB up and running. Of course, once you get it on MC, you can pretty much pwn any PS2.

I'm planning to RGH3 my XB360 and that needs then completely different skillset and tools

 

[doctorgoat]

At the start of accessible Vita hacking, you had to send over binaries from an external client. The android client I used would flood the output with gibberish while it went. If the program crashed (somewhat likely) or you had to put it into sleep mode (sometimes crashed) you'd have to boot up another device to connect to the Vita to send the binary back over.

 

[ChiefReginod]

SBI injections for Dreamcast homebrew and emulator discs. It was confusing to begin with and then the format changed at some point so that older SBIs didn't work with the new format. I always ended up with semi-coasters where some of the injections worked and some didn't. Getting the official Sega Genesis emulator to work with the unofficial loader was a huge pain, too. So many coasters.

Also early softmods for the original Xbox. You had to hotswap the hard drive to PC and then run some arcane commands from a custom Linux boot disc, which only worked if your PC was old enough to support it. It was so easy to accidentally lock or unlock a drive improperly, which required even more command line sorcery to remedy. Nowadays you can set up almost any kind of mod directly on the Xbox.

 

[doctorgoat]

God, I don't miss burning discs for any reason. I did my xbox mod by jamming wires into the memory card slot pins and connecting those to a usb drive, then doing the agent under fire exploit.

USB was a godsend, really.

 

[subcon959]

Not particularly complicated or confusing, but it was certainly interesting to mod your actual console battery to homebrew a PSP.

 

[RandomTask37]

Xbox 360 j-tag. Still a hassle I don't want to deal with. Happily paid a guy back in the day to just flash the disc drive so that I could use backups the other way.

Post automatically merged: Apr 19, 2023

And Xbox One. It's basically impossible being that it's Windows 10. Legally you're screwed too quickly or have the skills to be doing more interesting things on a PC

 

[FAST6191]

There are some proof of concept/laboratory grade things involving the decapping of chips (recall reading one for dumping CPU keys from 360s without other hacks), things involving high end side channel approaches on a per boot basis, and things like snaking a wire through a BGA ball nest to get at a certain one on the underside (no alternative points). Mechanically speaking some of the chip quasi decapping things (see kamikaze attack on later 360 DVD drives) I have seen are not that difficult (the spot to hit is huge as far as milling and such operations go) but lack of tooling for it among the hacker and probably even more so forum reader set is going to add things there. Most other mechanical things are not so bad, and usually amount to shorting a few points temporarily. Seen less in the way of trace cutting for hacks compared to repair/diagnosis, circuit modding and similar such things though.

Ignoring that the list of annoyances seems to run

Needs high end electric test equipment, programmable chips or the like. Seen a few that warrant then big boy FPGA chips.

Needs modest programmable chips but associated gear as well (your pic chip might be pennies but the programmer is not, can't we use an arduino?)

Needs basic things you can probably buy from a real world electronics hobby shop.

Soldering seems to trip people up a lot, though I think I also got lucky with my cheap soldering irons (buying them from an electronics shop aiming at return customers was a good plan it seems) and have a fair bit of skill in the matter as well.

Oh getting PCBs ordered even if we give you the gerber files, parts list and a place to go.

Soldering has probably caused more problems than disassembly has but still seen plenty of ripped ribbons and borked sockets.

If you have to install Linux on something that trips people up, even more so if it in turn messed with local networks (still giggling about ARP poisoning attacks for 3ds pokemon scanners and people hoping Windows way past the XP version it was patched out of had raw sockets)

I am not sure what is easier between custom USB/SD drive format and network delivery. If you are familiar with computers in general the network thing is probably easier but if setting a static IP or even getting your router to do it is not something you can possibly do from muscle memory then maybe not.
Related to that might be needing unique per device keys and retrieving them to feed back into the build tools.

Temporary things also seem to frustrate some if they have to be redone. Possibly up there is failure prone methods (still remember doing a friend's PSP with the then new chickHEN package that saw a supposedly 1 in 4 or so success rate but after the initial success and running psp ident to get keys in case they were needed I thought I would be a good boy and reboot despite it only being advised, 20 tries later I get it to work again).

Not following guides and trying to colour outside the lines (usually mixing and matching regions, or trying to skip several steps instead of getting it working first and then doing the fancy stuff) is what causes most drama and trauma though. That and cheap media.
Upgrading from earlier hacks causes some troubles as well if the newer stuff wants a stock machine to start with and hacked versions might not have backups of stock, or backups from a far older version than will do of stock.

Most things also take to homebrew or ROM hacks (assuming they can and are not signed code only) fairly easily, though I have seen a few out there.

https://marcan.st/2011/01/safe-hacking/ is a choice link at this point as well.