Hacking Update a Wud with NUS updates?

do.ob

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Hi,

As the title say, I was wondering if it is possible to compile downloaded NUS updates into an existing Wud. Either direct - like Winrar, let's say, or by first extracting everything, adding the update and then re-compile a new .Wud.

TIA
 
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do.ob

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The short :D
The long version is you can't repack or create a wud Image.
Wud images are disk dumps and afaik there are no tools available to create them on your own.

Too bad. To me they come across like any archive and organisation package format such as iso and rar and it would be nice to work with them as such. Too bad they cannot be handled in the same manner to add, delete and thus effectively update them with, like I said, for example NUS updates.
I guess not enough people see a need for that, then (?).

The current workflow now to archive an updated .wud dump every time a game update comes out would be to update the game with the Wii-U, re-dump and re-compress it again?
 

Net-KILLER

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re-compress it again?
A wud isn't compressed. On the contrary, it's always 25 GB sized no matter what size the game is.
As example nsmb is about 1.5 GB i guess. The wud is still 25 GB.
The current workflow now to archive an updated .wud dump every time a game update comes out would be to update the game with the Wii-U, re-dump and re-compress it again?
As I said the wud is a disk image and you can't update a disk.
So there is no way to have an updated version of the game as wud file.
 
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charlieb

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As I said the wud is a disk image and you can't update a disk.
So there is no way to have an updated version of the game as wud file.

You cant update a disc (because normally RO), but you CAN update an ISO. The request is NOT unreasonable, maybe not possible as no tool available.
 
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do.ob

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A wud isn't compressed. On the contrary, it's always 25 GB sized no matter what size the game is.
As example nsmb is about 1.5 GB i guess. The wud is still 25 GB.

Yes, I know. But I was describing the workflow assuming most people storing .wux's instead of .wud's ;)

As I said the wud is a disk image and you can't update a disk.
So there is no way to have an updated version of the game as wud file.

That it is not possible at the moment I understand. But the fact that at this moment "you can't update a disk." would not be an argument that it potentially would not be possible - after all, an .iso is also a disk image, right? And still it is possible to both extract and update it.

I'm just sowing an idea in the hope it makes sense and any of the tool-developers will pick it up and implement it into their tools ;)
 

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Hi,

As the title say, I was wondering if it is possible to compile downloaded NUS updates into an existing Wud. Either direct - like Winrar, let's say, or by first extracting everything, adding the update and then re-compile a new .Wud.

TIA
My first question for you is why do you even want to do this? Extract your monstrous WUD file and then delete it. Why keep a WUD around?

Now having said that, here's something that might work for what you want to do.

1. Extract WUD to a "ready2play" loadiine version of the game.
2. Update that using new-nusgrabbergui
3. Put back in WUD format using http://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-u-image-wud-compression-tool.397901/

So yes, there is a WUD compression tool available. I just don't know why anybody would want WUD files. You can't play them, or do anything with them besides extract. Plus they're 25GB in size!
 
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Net-KILLER

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My first question for you is why do you even want to do this? Extract your monstrous WUD file and then delete it. Why keep a WUD around?

Now having said that, here's something that might work for what you want to do.

1. Extract WUD to a "ready2play" loadiine version of the game.
2. Update that using new-nusgrabbergui
3. Put back in WUD format using http://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-u-image-wud-compression-tool.397901/

So yes, there is a WUD compression tool available. I just don't know why anybody would want WUD files. You can't play them, or do anything with them besides extract. Plus they're 25GB in size!
I'm not sure if the wuds are the same after compress and decrompress again because they are disk sector dumps.
Maybe the size is the same as before but idk if the structure is the same.

But if this works it's probably ok for @do.ob :)

Thx for the link and the information.
 
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do.ob

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My first question for you is why do you even want to do this? Extract your monstrous WUD file and then delete it. Why keep a WUD around?

Well, I thought that the reasons to keep (compressed so not monstrous) .wux files around are the same as why to keep an .iso file around after you burned a physical disc from it - archival. Plus the fact that you can use it to test, for instance, Cemu. But then the updated ones.

http://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-u-image-wud-compression-tool.397901/

This is to (lossless) compress/decompress an already existing .Wud (uncompressed) / .Wux (compressed) - not to compile files into a .Wud.

But now I come to think about it - from Exzap's explanation (in the above release-post of the (de)compression tool) I understand that for a .Wux, no data compression is being performed, only empty sectors are striped-off.
Which means that an an extracted .Wud should theoretically occupy the same amount of space as a .Wux..

Which also means that, when we would like to have an archival duplicate copy of the game, we could capture in any archive format - whatever compresses the best. I'm going to test that with .7z, rar and Gzip (with Gzip from experience compresses PS2 isos the best)

Just thinking "out loud"..

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I'm not sure if the wuds are the same after compress and decrompress again because they are disk sector dumps.
Maybe the size is the same as before but idk if the structure is the same.

From Exzap's release post of the (de)compression tool:
"It is lossless, meaning you can compress and uncompress a file and the outcome will still be the same. This is different to tools like WiiScrubber which actually modify the data
(https://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-u-image-wud-compression-tool.397901/)
 

do.ob

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Okay, some test results:

Super Mario 3D world (US) - unpacked .Wud with Uwizard, then compressed it with 7-zip / WinRAR
  • Wud: 25,025,314,816 bytes
  • Wux: 2,804,613,120 bytes
  • .7z (Ultra): 1,097,111,768 bytes
  • .rar (RAR5): 1,416,623,273 bytes
  • .tar.gz: 1,465,158,477 bytes (7-zip; first to .tar, then to gzip)
So, assuming (?..) there is not any data-loss when extracting the Wud with Uwizard (I tested the unpacked game only a bit with Cemu and the game started and went into a level) - it seems (could be depended on game data contents) that keeping an .7z Ultra compressed archive takes up the least disk space.

For what it's worth ;)
 

NWPlayer123

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Not really, a) because there's no tool outside of the SDK that can let you repack disc images (the SDK does let you do that, only they call it "wumad") b) because that's technically making a new disc, if you have the original release, the wii u installs updates virtually under a different title (0005000E instead of 00050000) and the Wii U maps those new files and code over the ones on the disc when the game loads, which is how it's "updated", everything's still mapped to /vol but it just loads the new stuff instead of the old stuff when the filesystem asks for it, that'd be like going from Mario Kart 8 revision A with 4.1.0 or w/e to revision C with 5.4.0, just rebuilding the game with the latest files and putting it back into a disc
 

do.ob

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Not really, a) because there's no tool outside of the SDK that can let you repack disc images (the SDK does let you do that, only they call it "wumad") b) because that's technically making a new disc, if you have the original release, the wii u installs updates virtually under a different title (0005000E instead of 00050000) and the Wii U maps those new files and code over the ones on the disc when the game loads, which is how it's "updated", everything's still mapped to /vol but it just loads the new stuff instead of the old stuff when the filesystem asks for it, that'd be like going from Mario Kart 8 revision A with 4.1.0 or w/e to revision C with 5.4.0, just rebuilding the game with the latest files and putting it back into a disc

When I open a .Wud with VGMToolbox, Super Mario 3D world in this case, I see 3 partitions called:

1. "SI" - what is extraced as the "system" folder, I gather;
2. "UPnnnn" (to lazy to type over the long hex number) - Some sort of update folder, I gather
3. "GM0005000010145C00000000000000" what is extraced as the "data" folder, containing the actual game exec, data and meta

I tried to find the file structure and explanation of .wud files but wasn't able to. If anyone knows, could you please point to / share?


A few questions:

a) Now, ,if my above assumptions are true, 1 & 3 are clear. 2 - the "update" partition doesn't seem to be extracted, does it?
b) Is it a NUS update downloaded before the dump was done?
c) If it's indeed a (NUS) update, how would one go about integrating this into the unpacked game?
d) (according to c) - instead of this, is it preferable to download the most recent NUS update and integrate that into the unpacked game?

TIA :)
 

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