Hacking USB Loader GX

[fandango]

I've finally got my Wii fully setup and would like to say a big thankyou to @blackb0x for providing the enhanced version of ULGX, which is so central to my setup. His numerous enhancements and bug fixes have made ULGX a truly superb, feature rich, and solid application. And he has teased us with a new version and possible new features such as auto cIOS selection. I can hardly wait!

There is one thing that would further improve ULGX for me, which I've mentioned previously, but I don't think I explained it very well. So I will have another go. It is the setting for opening the info page in list view. Currently in list view if you point the Wiimote at the currently displayed cover and press the A button, it opens a dialogue box for downloading covers. To get to the info page requires you to point the Wiimote at the cover and press the 2 button instead. Just try it and you will see how easier it is to press A whilst pointing, compared to pressing 2 whilst pointing.
I would suggest that for most people downloading covers is a one time exercise, whilst viewing the extra info screen is used quite often, because it displays useful info such as; controllers supported, game genre, wifi support, viewing the full cover, etc.

So in view of these two things I would request that when clicking on a cover in list view, the A button be changed from opening the Downloads dialogue to opening the Info page.
The 1 and 2 button functionality doesn't need changing, so would stay as; 1 for cover downloads and 2 for opening info screen.

Previously it was suggested that this change would affect some online guides, but actually I don't think this is true. For example the ULGX guide at wii.guide only mentions using the 1 button to download covers, and that wouldn't change.

I hope you will please consider my request for a ULGX future version, with thanks and best wishes!

 

[XFlak]

I have a small request as well. But honestly please feel free to ignore it as I can live without it. As a former cfg usb loader user, there are 2 features I really miss. One was the ability to change game specific options without saving, so for example I could enable ocarina, play with cheats and exit and when I return to the loader ocarina would be disabled. This way when I'm done playing I wouldn't have to remember to disable ocarina. While this applied to many per-game settings in cfg, I think ocarina is the only one that actually would get used. The other feature I miss is a confirmation prompt when starting a game if it has ocarina enabled, press A to apply ocarina or B not to, or something like that. Especially if the console is shared amongst a few different people it's easy to lose track of which games have cheats enabled and which don't. I don't generally like using cheats so often I find myself exiting out of a game just to disable them (or vice versa when kids are playing).

 

[WobblingPixels]

@XFlak If you're using the standard red, white and yellow cables then in most cases you shouldn't touch the setting since it might make your eyes hurt. There are some exceptions to this recommendation though. For example, the "ON (Low)" or "ON (Medium)" settings will simply reduce the filter strength and one of them might benefit you if your output is 480i.

Be careful when you say "enabling the deflicker option" by the way, since in most cases you'd use "OFF (Safe)" or "OFF (Extended)" and not the ON settings.

Thanks for the explanation. I tested some of the settings. If I am correct the option "OFF (Extended)" is equivalent to patching the dol file as we did here? https://gbatemp.net/threads/possibl...de-flicker-filter.477163/page-28#post-9622591
What about the option "normal"?

@All

Can someone please share the dol file with viWidth to fbWidth patch included?

 

[blackb0x]

Previously it was suggested that this change would affect some online guides, but actually I don't think this is true. For example the ULGX guide at wii.guide only mentions using the 1 button to download covers, and that wouldn't change.

Here's three quick examples.

Spoiler: YouTube videos

To download covers you should just press 1 on your Wiimote or X on a GC controller, since that works with all of the display modes. But for years people have told others that if they want to download covers then they need to go to the list view and click on a cover.

I could make the behaviour of the cover an option, but by default it should download covers so that it doesn't disrupt peoples workflows.

One was the ability to change game specific options without saving

So when you press on the back button the settings are remembered for the session? I guess that would need to be an option, since I'd bet some people go back to undo a setting that they might of set by mistake.

If I am correct the option "OFF (Extended)" is equivalent to patching the dol file as we did here?

Yes, although it doesn't apply to GC games because Nintendont has it's own deflicker setting.

I recommend using the "OFF (Safe)" option as the global setting, since the extended setting might break fade in/out effects or brightness effects in some games.

What about the option "normal"?

The "Auto" option makes it behave as normal.

Can someone please share the dol file with viWidth to fbWidth patch included?

The patch that was shared here previously doesn't work for every game. I fixed that though, but I'm not ready to share a new release yet.

 

[fandango]

Here's three quick examples.

I stand corrected!

I could make the behaviour of the cover an option, but by default it should download covers so that it doesn't disrupt peoples workflows.

Yes an option would be good idea.
If you could consider making the change sometime that would be superb!
Many thanks!

 

[WobblingPixels]

The patch that was shared here previously doesn't work for every game. I fixed that though, but I'm not ready to share a new release yet.

Sounds great.Can't wait

 

[Maeson]

I have a small question. Is there a way to pair another controller to an Emunand?

I have a pair of Wiimotes, and whenever I play something on Emunand, the second one needs to be synced every time when I want to use it (outside of Emunand). On Neek it also happened to me, but I could boot Neek and sync the second controller there and it went okay it seems.

I saw that on USB Loader GX there's an option to copy the console's system config. Could that grab whatever saved data for the wiimote sync?

It's rather annoying having to sync it every single time it happens.

Also... When I set Neek everything seemed to work fine, but now sometimes when I try to boot a game that needs Neek, sometimes a black screen with a few lines of white text appear instead.

First line says nSwitch 2.2, the second line says "Switching to neek2o", and the third says "rebooting to "realnand".

I don't remember this happening before, and I haven't touched anything related to Neek since I initially set it up. Anyone knows what could be happening? Only happens sometimes, others games boot normally, and others it boots to the Wii menu of the Neek nand.

Edit: I've just noticed that for some reason USB Loader GX created an empty "nand" on a folder called default. Inside there's the usual folders, (import, meta, shared1, shared2 etc), but they're empty. Might be related to this issue, they were created a couple of days ago.

I guess I'll have to redo the neek nand or something... What a pain.

 

[fledge68]

Also... When I set Neek everything seemed to work fine, but now sometimes when I try to boot a game that needs Neek, sometimes a black screen with a few lines of white text appear instead.

First line says nSwitch 2.2, the second line says "Switching to neek2o", and the third says "rebooting to "realnand".

this sounds like my issue in the modmii thread. i created a sneek and emunand via modmii. the problem was the nswitch channel couldn't detect the neek kernel bin correctly so i got the black screen with white text and then it would just return to real nand. I looked at some old code of wiiflow that fix94 wrote to launch neek2o back then and he had a couple more options to launch neek in case the first one failed. so in other words the nswitch 2.2 channel code isn't perfect.

I saw that on USB Loader GX there's an option to copy the console's system config. Could that grab whatever saved data for the wiimote sync?

yes i would sync my wiimotes on real nand and then use that option in ULGX to copy the config to your emunand.

 

[godreborn]

I have a small question. Is there a way to pair another controller to an Emunand?

I have a pair of Wiimotes, and whenever I play something on Emunand, the second one needs to be synced every time when I want to use it (outside of Emunand). On Neek it also happened to me, but I could boot Neek and sync the second controller there and it went okay it seems.

I saw that on USB Loader GX there's an option to copy the console's system config. Could that grab whatever saved data for the wiimote sync?

It's rather annoying having to sync it every single time it happens.

Also... When I set Neek everything seemed to work fine, but now sometimes when I try to boot a game that needs Neek, sometimes a black screen with a few lines of white text appear instead.

First line says nSwitch 2.2, the second line says "Switching to neek2o", and the third says "rebooting to "realnand".

I don't remember this happening before, and I haven't touched anything related to Neek since I initially set it up. Anyone knows what could be happening? Only happens sometimes, others games boot normally, and others it boots to the Wii menu of the Neek nand.

Edit: I've just noticed that for some reason USB Loader GX created an empty "nand" on a folder called default. Inside there's the usual folders, (import, meta, shared1, shared2 etc), but they're empty. Might be related to this issue, they were created a couple of days ago.

I guess I'll have to redo the neek nand or something... What a pain.

yep, inject the syscon into the emunand/neek after you've synced the controller on the real nand. then, you won't have to do that anymore.

 

[Maeson]

Great to know about the Emunand thing! I'll do it as soon as I can.

About Sneek, I really dont' know. It worked perfectly fine before.

I tried creating a new sneek but now stays black when trying to boot it for the first time...

 

[godreborn]

Great to know about the Emunand thing! I'll do it as soon as I can.

About Sneek, I really dont' know. It worked perfectly fine before.

I tried creating a new sneek but now stays black when trying to boot it for the first time...

It takes longer at first boot, and boot time is relative to the number of games on it.

 

[Maeson]

I know. At the second attempt of booting an *empty* sneek it went fine, I got to do the initial set up... and then add games to it with ShowMiiWads. It's all working now, I booted games a couple times and nothing weird did show, I hope it stays that way.

I only want it for the very specific things that need it, but I like having something like Mario Golf and Tennis ready but I rather have empty memory on the Wii. They never left my console's memory after buying them back in the day, we played them quite often, but then I wanted to try Emunand to liberate space on the system.

I also did the sysconfig thing for Emunand, and no desync is happening now. Awesome! Now it works for normal use, Emunand and the Neek.

Thanks to both of you, godreborn and fledge68!

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

I just read that uncompressed RVZ (rather than compressed) would actually be theoretically possible to run on real hardware.

Unless that's the secret big new thing in the next big ULGX update, I don't suppose blackb0x could at least chime in with his knowledge on USB loader matters just to at least quickly confirm/refute whether the theory has any merit?


EDIT: And to clarify, uncompressed RVZ is not the same as uncompressed ISO - you still can get substantial space savings with RVZ even when uncompressed, and it's of course lossless and therefore can be easily turned back into a clean redump-verified ISO.

 

[ber71]

I just read that uncompressed RVZ (rather than compressed) would actually be theoretically possible to run on real hardware.

Unless that's the secret big new thing in the next big ULGX update, I don't suppose blackb0x could at least chime in with his knowledge on USB loader matters just to at least quickly confirm/refute whether the theory has any merit?


EDIT: And to clarify, uncompressed RVZ is not the same as uncompressed ISO - you still can get substantial space savings with RVZ even when uncompressed, and it's of course lossless and therefore can be easily turned back into a clean redump-verified ISO.

I just read that uncompressed RVZ (rather than compressed) would actually be theoretically possible to run on real hardware.

Unless that's the secret big new thing in the next big ULGX update, I don't suppose blackb0x could at least chime in with his knowledge on USB loader matters just to at least quickly confirm/refute whether the theory has any merit?


EDIT: And to clarify, uncompressed RVZ is not the same as uncompressed ISO - you still can get substantial space savings with RVZ even when uncompressed, and it's of course lossless and therefore can be easily turned back into a clean redump-verified ISO.

I don't get the point about the RVZ format.

WBFS is nearly as ideal for space saving, plus is already playable on hardware. If properly converted from iso (wit tools, not WiiBackupManager), it can be restored back to redump verified iso with the nkit utility, even if the update or other channels were stripped (you have to provide them to inflate again).

 

[ChibiMofo]

I don't get the point about the RVZ format.

WBFS is nearly as ideal for space saving, plus is already playable on hardware. If properly converted from iso (wit tools, not WiiBackupManager), it can be restored back to redump verified iso with the nkit utility, even if the update or other channels were stripped (you have to provide them to inflate again).

WBFS is a lousy, lossy format, and why has been discussed in these forums many times. ALL of us that are still in this scene pray that someone with cIOS skillz will come along and rescue us from that dreaded format and allow us to use RVZ like Dolphin users. And that is the problem. It is not something that can simply be done by the dev of USB Loader GX, unfortunately. It's a cIOS-level issue, and no one is left in the scene who does that kind of work.

(I have my 2TB drive full of lossy WBFS files like everyone else. Would love to propery convert -- AND FIX the conversions -- to RVZ. Went through this with Nintendont and all my GC games a couple of years ago with that new and improved format.)

 

[NoobletCheese]

WBFS is a lousy, lossy format, and why has been discussed in these forums many times. ALL of us that are still in this scene pray that someone with cIOS skillz will come along and rescue us from that dreaded format and allow us to use RVZ like Dolphin users. And that is the problem. It is not something that can simply be done by the dev of USB Loader GX, unfortunately. It's a cIOS-level issue, and no one is left in the scene who does that kind of work.

(I have my 2TB drive full of lossy WBFS files like everyone else. Would love to propery convert -- AND FIX the conversions -- to RVZ. Went through this with Nintendont and all my GC games a couple of years ago with that new and improved format.)

Curious to know what data gets lost with WBFS -- surely it can't be anything in the disc image otherwise it would be corrupted and could crash?

 

[ber71]

Curious to know what data gets lost with WBFS -- surely it can't be anything in the disc image otherwise it would be corrupted and could crash?

No significant data is lost. NKitRecover can bruteforce the missing bits to get back a redump iso, 1:1.
WBFS was loosy until recently when the nkit utility was released. A wbfs made carefully should be considered lossless.

 

[N7Kopper]

No significant data is lost. NKitRecover can bruteforce the missing bits to get back a redump iso, 1:1.
WBFS was loosy until recently when the nkit utility was released. A wbfs made carefully should be considered lossless.

I presume it's junk data not useful for typical play. Die-hard preservationists might care, but my preservationist desires are more practical. Preserving all the words and punctuation in an ebook is more important than replicating the creases on the paper.

If there are no compatibility issues, it's important to specify so as to not spook casuals.

 

[ChibiMofo]

Wrong! WBFS is the SAME lossy format it has always been. The format has not changed at all. A WBFS by definition cannot be considered lossless. Sorry, no. The fact that you can take one of the many circulating corrupt WBFS files (which are mostly due to some of the poor WBFS tools from a decade ago, and no WBFS tools have been written for a very long time), convert it to ISO, fix it, and then convert it back to the lossy WBFS format does not change that one bit. It's still lossy. Perhaps not in a meaningful way to non-preservationists, but don't claim something that is lossy as lossless. That's misleading and inaccurate.

There are also a lot of corrupt (in a meaningful way) WBFS rips still circulating, and using the NKit tools to fix them would be an excellent time to put them in an actual lossless format that is better for preservationists, result in smaller sizes than WBFS, and is already preferred on Dolphin for obvious reasons. The only problem, and it's a deal killer, is the lack of support for this new, proper lossless format is that it currently cannot be used on real hardware. I recognize that so long as that is the case, we are going to be plagued with awful WBFS rips that have been with us for a about a decade.

The lossless Nkit format saved me a ton of space on my Gamecube rips, and I was hopeful it would be able to be adopted by the Wii via a cIOS hack, but no. Of course I am going to leave my many Wii rips in WBFS so long as the Wii cannot read the superior (in every way) new format. As casuals don't read GBATemp, especially regarding a dead console like the Wii, I am not concerned about spooking them.

 

[fandango]

Wrong! WBFS is the SAME lossy format it has always been. The format has not changed at all. A WBFS by definition cannot be considered lossless. Sorry, no. The fact that you can take one of the many circulating corrupt WBFS files (which are mostly due to some of the poor WBFS tools from a decade ago, and no WBFS tools have been written for a very long time), convert it to ISO, fix it, and then convert it back to the lossy WBFS format does not change that one bit. It's still lossy. Perhaps not in a meaningful way to non-preservationists, but don't claim something that is lossy as lossless. That's misleading and inaccurate.

There are also a lot of corrupt (in a meaningful way) WBFS rips still circulating, and using the NKit tools to fix them would be an excellent time to put them in an actual lossless format that is better for preservationists, result in smaller sizes than WBFS, and is already preferred on Dolphin for obvious reasons. The only problem, and it's a deal killer, is the lack of support for this new, proper lossless format is that it currently cannot be used on real hardware. I recognize that so long as that is the case, we are going to be plagued with awful WBFS rips that have been with us for a about a decade.

The lossless Nkit format saved me a ton of space on my Gamecube rips, and I was hopeful it would be able to be adopted by the Wii via a cIOS hack, but no. Of course I am going to leave my many Wii rips in WBFS so long as the Wii cannot read the superior (in every way) new format. As casuals don't read GBATemp, especially regarding a dead console like the Wii, I am not concerned about spooking them.

So how much space would be saved by having a game in RVZ, instead of in WBFS with just the game partition?

Update - A quick google suggests about a 10% to 20% saving on average. So a complete collection of Wii games in WBFS is about 2.6 TB and would be reduced to about 2.2 TB. A saving of 400gb.

I have a complete collection of Gamecube games in ISO's that was 860gb, and after converting to NKIT.ISO it shrunk to 620gb. But it was a lot of hassle to gain just 240gb! In fact it turned out that NKIT.ISO's start quicker, which was an unexpected benefit over the original 1.5gb ISO's, so I'm glad I did it for that reason and because they can be converted back to ISO's if needed.

But I'm not sure I would do it again with WBFS to RVZ just to save 400gb and to make them able to convert to ISO if needed. Anyway, we are talking hypothetically as it's unlikely anyone is going to make a new cIOS that supports RVZ.