Hacking emunand online play: why does it only work with forwarder ISO's?

[themanuel]

I'm guessing nobody really knows the answer to this one (yet), since I've asked it already in a few threads, but I'm hoping it is more visible here as a stand-alone and perhaps sparks some discussion.

The issue in question is online play on emulated nand games.
Chances are, if you load WiiWare games from emulated nand, you know that online play does not work. However, as a some are aware, there is a work-around to that. If you create a forwarder ISO, and load the game through it, online will work perfectly fine. I can only confirm that this works with d2x (I'm using v7final) and not with the old Waninkoko cIOS's, but I don't know about the Hermes ones.
davebaol took a look at this some time back, but he could not figure out what it is about the forwarder ISO method that allows online play to work.

I would like to use this thread to draw attention to this issue, enable an exchange of ideas, and hopefully draw the interest of someone that could find a solution. If you think you might have a clue of where to start looking, sound off here. If we seem to be getting somewhere, davebaol might be willing to look into your ideas for a d2x solution.

Regards.

 

[themanuel]

A little bump to try to keep this alive a while longer.

 

[Cyan]

I would like to add that Davebaol discovered that the Tintin problem is also dependent to the way the game is launched.
When it's launched from the Disc Channel, the game is working fine, but it doesn't work with any loaders.
So he suspects that a channel launch affect the game in some way or another, and it could be related to the network on emunand. Maybe a missing variable that no loader are using.

 

[themanuel]

I would like to add that Davebaol discovered that the Tintin problem is also dependent to the way the game is launched.
When it's launched from the Disc Channel, the game is working fine, but it doesn't work with any loaders.
So he suspects that a channel launch affect the game in some way or another, and it could be related to the network on emunand. Maybe a missing variable that no loader are using.

So you think this is probably a question for backup loader authors, more than for cIOS folks?
Has this ever come up in USB Loader GX discussions?

 

[smf]

When it's launched from the Disc Channel, the game is working fine, but it doesn't work with any loaders.

Woul it be possible to add an exit to system menu/disc channel option after you select a game?

 

[VashTS]

I would love to see this resolved a well. Sadly im not skilled enough to help fix it

 

[Cyan]

So you think this is probably a question for backup loader authors, more than for cIOS folks?
Has this ever come up in USB Loader GX discussions?

We talked about it a little on IRC, but nothing more than what Davevaol found.
Tintin problem was also quickly approached in the Beta issue thread between DaveBaol and Crediar, but no solution yet.

It could be a loader problem, as Tintin is a loader problem it means all loaders still are using an incomplete launching method. We can just imagine that more things might be missing. (or only one thing and they are both related).

Would it be possible to add an exit to system menu/disc channel option after you select a game?

I don't know. It could be done. It would be like patching the disc channel to redirect the DI module to USB (what Sneek+DI is doing).

 

[themanuel]

I'd like to expand this thread to include problematic games when run on emunand from d2x.

I've heard it mentioned that some (all?) of the games that don't work with d2x, have compressed dol's.
Is there a way to extract the dol from the wad, "decompress" it and inject it again?
I know the extraction and injection parts are possible but don't have a clue if compression/decompression can be done.

 

[Rail Fighter]

Let me make some questions...

Have ready somewhere that nand backups vary with USB Loader GX versions. This proceeds?

And besides the online play, the WW/VC compatibility is larger with forwarder ISOs?

 

[Sakitoshi]

i've readed than the tintin problem is because the game trackdown from were was launched and if detect that was launched from a loader then activate the AP.
and the forwarder isos for emunand, i use them personally for the convenience of have ios199(waninkoko v17) to launch problem titles and ios249 for all the others, and because my main loader is cfg and does not support emunand.
BTW online is working on emuchannels on neek??

 

[themanuel]

Let me make some questions...

Have ready somewhere that nand backups vary with USB Loader GX versions. This proceeds?

And besides the online play, the WW/VC compatibility is larger with forwarder ISOs?

I'm not sure about your first question, but I'll try to answer the second one. Forwarder ISO's can be set up to launch from different slots, so you can have cIOS 38rev17 on slot 247 and launch the problematic VC games from there to make them work.

 

[themanuel]

Well, so much for the idea of trying to decompress the games and inject them back into the original wad.
sr_corsario suggested that this will probably confuse the emulator because it will expect the rom to be compressed and will try to decompress it again. It makes so much sense that I won't even bother trying.

About why online play only works with forwarder ISO's, I still hope somebody can figure this out.
There has to be something that gets enabled when launching an ISO that does not happen when launching emunand games.
How can one go about figuring this out?
Is there some way to monitor what is going on while launching a game with both methods?

 

[Clarky]

Is there some way to monitor what is going on while launching a game with both methods?

i'm under the impression a gecko usb would do that

 

[themanuel]

i'm under the impression a gecko usb would do that

Aw... I'm screwed. I don't have one.

 

[Sakitoshi]

i noticed that when you use forwarder isos the wii write to the play log that the game was launched but when you use a launcher such as mighty channels the play log is not writed.
can this be the problem??

 

[Cyan]

You can try that with USBloaderGX, it's compatible with play log. (see in settings>features menu).

About USBGecko log, Davebaol has one and he already checked the differences and would certainly have found how to fix it if there were obvious differences between loaders and channels.

 

[themanuel]

You can try that with USBloaderGX, it's compatible with play log. (see in settings>features menu).

OK. I'll try it, for what it's worth.

About USBGecko log, Davebaol has one and he already checked the differences and would certainly have found how to fix it if there were obvious differences between loaders and channels.

Hopefully somebody will find the missing link...

 

[themanuel]

Does anyone know if this might be relevant to getting online to work on emunand?
http://code.google.com/p/triiforce/source/detail?r=96

"Log message

* Writing the title id to 0x80000000, might required for online WiiWare games"

I can't find a built dol of that latest version of triiforce, to test it.
Does anybody have one or can build it?

 

[stfour]

* Writing the title id to 0x80000000, might required for online WiiWare games"

This doesn't solve the online issue.

 

[themanuel]

This doesn't solve the online issue.

Thanks, sftfour.
I take it you tried this or played with this version of Triiforce as part of your postloader work?