Wiiver's USB gamecube loader
Well...it took longer than expected, but it's finally ready for a public release: the very first USB loader capable of loading gamecube games!
History:
As you probably heard many times while whining about an USB gamecube loader, the gamecube mode of the wii automatically shuts down any part of the wii that the gamecube doesn't have (among which the USB-ports, wiimote sensor and the NAND), thus pretty much literally turning your wii into a gamecube.
Overriding or avoiding this mode was (and is) extremely difficult, not in the least part because gamecube games were never designed to run on a wii. As such, progress on this front hasn't improved very much.
The other possible way would be to build a dolphin-like emulator as homebrew. Though theoretically possible, the complexity of the calculations involved would cause the framerate of even the simplest of gamecube games to crawl to an unplayable state. As such, this isn't a serious option.
But while everyone else was thinking in directions of preventing the shutdown of the wii's extra hardware, I was thinking in another direction. In the direction of what the gamecube-moded wii DOES have. In other words: the memory slots and the 4 gamecube connection ports.
I started by redirecting the "gamecube"'s input from the DVD-player to the memory card. Once that was done I started fiddling with output conversions. After all, I wanted to make a USB loader...not a memory card reader (those cards aren't big enough to hold gamecube games, let alone the collection of the average pirate). So I looked into data streams, tinkered with some cables and finally constructed a cable that connected the memory slot to (female) USB.
That cable, in combination with my modifications on the wii's mIOS, allowed me to use any given USB hard disk as a gigantic memory card slot, as well as a storage space for my collection of gamecube games.
Getting it to work decently was a huge task in itself. Gamecube memory cards use some sort of obscure filesystem, so I had to find out how to use that system well enough to make sure that game roms would be able to load from it, savegames would still be accessible AND that gamecube games could be transferred to it without too much hassle.
But hey...I figured it would be worth it. Sure, it required you to have 2 USB hard disks if you wanted USB loading for both wii and gamecube games. But considering how often people ask for USB loading on gamecube games, I was certain I could release my under-the-hood cIOS for free and charge an arm and a leg for my cable. In fact, I even called it "Wever's overpriced GC-2-USB cable?".
...alas. Those wiseguys with their WODE rained on my parade. wii AND gamecube game loading on USB? And reading all sorts of backup discs in the process?
I had to admit...I was beaten.
I was still in the progress of ironing out bugs on my loader, so by the time I was ready to storm the market, all those kids wanting to play their gamecube games on USB would have gotten a WODE already.
Damn...
Of course I continued. Mostly for myself, though. So what if everyone else got themselves a nice-looking WODE? I would at least have made my own way to load games.
...and then, while looking at my 2 hard disks connected to my wii, it hit me. What if I could redirect the memory slot INTO THE USB slot? Would it be possible to create a 3-way cable that connected the wii's USB-slot with the memory slot AND the external USB drive?
It turned out to be not that hard at all: the hardware part was pretty easy, and the software-part almost did itself: when the wii was in normal mode, it would send its data from the USB end to the hard disk and the memory slot. Since I disabled that memory slot in normal mode, it would just act as a normal cable. In gamecube mode, it was exactly the opposite way: the data would come from the memory slot and end at both the USB disk and the wii usb port, but as the latter was disabled, it just did nothing.
All in all, things worked great. My cable wasn't as advanced as the WODE, but the way it worked more than made up for that.
Then I did some more thinking (I do a lot of that, actually. I heard it makes you smart). All I did was just making sure that the data had a way to go from one point to another and back. Sure, the cable consists of different streams, but if I could just convert those streams into one, then...
Even more tests later, I managed to put my idea into practice. It still wasn't a full softmod solution...but it's by far the closest way to get it.
And my secret: bubble gum.
Installation:
Start by reading this thread carefully. It's important not to rush things, as that is a sure-way to brick your wii. Take it slow, read up and follow through.
For starters: there are no requirements. My CIOS will overwrite some stuff under the hood, but no critical IOS will be touched. Likewise, it should be fine on any wii with a modchip, though I admit this isn't tested.
Second: download this package, install it on your SD card and run the wad through wad-manager. If all went well, running "wiiver's USB loader" through the HBC will start with some tests and give you a "all ready...please shut down the wii and insert the cable" message.
From there on, there are two ways to proceed. One way is to order my "Wever's overpriced GC-2-USB cable?" cable and connect that. It's easy enough: one end goes into the memory slot, the male end of the USB port goes in the wii and the female end is there to allow you to plug in your USB disk.
The second way is to make your own cable. This is where the bubble gum part comes in. You need a decent amount of it, chew it carefully and then roll it to a long "snake". Let it dry out a time (it shouldn't be dripping with saliva, but at the same time, the gum needs to be soft enough to mold easily). Then, carefully jam one end of the gum into the memory card slot and the other end in the outer USB slot. Make sure both slots are completely covered with gum, so add more gum if you don't think you have enough. Then proceed by slowly inserting the (male) end of the USB loader into the gum-covered USB slot of the wii. Once done, make sure you let the gum dry out COMPLETELY (at least half an hour, but 2-3 hours is best).
This USB hard drive should, of course, contain your gamecube games. These should be in .iso format and placed in the folder USB:\GC_DISC. Don't ask for links or downloads here. Besides...you don't need them. The loader (Wever's Awesome Gamecube USB Loader, or "WAGUL" for short) has a way to rip gamecube games from disk to .iso file on your USB drive.
So...that's basically it. gamecube savegames and configuration thingies are automatically saved to the hard disk (USB\GC_DISC\SAVES). When you start a gamecube game (either from the disc channel or the loader), you'll get a list of all the iso's on your disc. Furthermore, all regular gamecube devices are (probably) supported.
Happy gaming!
Warnings:
-chewing bubblegum or any other action described in this thread may brick your wii. When this happens, I refuse to take responsability for your (most likely extremely stupid) mistakes.
-your brand of bubble gum may be incompatible with Wiiver's USB loader.
-bubblegum tends to stick. In case you plan to use multiple USB-hard disks or want to connect the hard disk to your PC (or any other device) after installing it through the bubblegum-method, it's probably best not to connect the disk to the bubblegum directly but use a male-to-female USB cable to connect to the bubblegum (obviously: plug the MALE end into the bubblegum, so the female end can be used to properly connect your USB-disk).
Wishlist / To do:
-ability to read gamecube discs while in gamecube modus (no idea why I want that, but it frustrates me that I can't read from both the DVD-drive and the memory drive)
-ability to rip backups from disc while in gamecube modus
-a GUI for WAGUL that doesn't suck
-find a way to make wiimotes work...I can get them to work if I smother them with a string of bubble gum that runs from the wii, but it defeats the point of a wireless device.
-find a way to make games with 2 DVD's automatically switch to the second game (it currently boots back to the intro screen).
Well...it took longer than expected, but it's finally ready for a public release: the very first USB loader capable of loading gamecube games!
History:
As you probably heard many times while whining about an USB gamecube loader, the gamecube mode of the wii automatically shuts down any part of the wii that the gamecube doesn't have (among which the USB-ports, wiimote sensor and the NAND), thus pretty much literally turning your wii into a gamecube.
Overriding or avoiding this mode was (and is) extremely difficult, not in the least part because gamecube games were never designed to run on a wii. As such, progress on this front hasn't improved very much.
The other possible way would be to build a dolphin-like emulator as homebrew. Though theoretically possible, the complexity of the calculations involved would cause the framerate of even the simplest of gamecube games to crawl to an unplayable state. As such, this isn't a serious option.
But while everyone else was thinking in directions of preventing the shutdown of the wii's extra hardware, I was thinking in another direction. In the direction of what the gamecube-moded wii DOES have. In other words: the memory slots and the 4 gamecube connection ports.
I started by redirecting the "gamecube"'s input from the DVD-player to the memory card. Once that was done I started fiddling with output conversions. After all, I wanted to make a USB loader...not a memory card reader (those cards aren't big enough to hold gamecube games, let alone the collection of the average pirate). So I looked into data streams, tinkered with some cables and finally constructed a cable that connected the memory slot to (female) USB.
That cable, in combination with my modifications on the wii's mIOS, allowed me to use any given USB hard disk as a gigantic memory card slot, as well as a storage space for my collection of gamecube games.
Getting it to work decently was a huge task in itself. Gamecube memory cards use some sort of obscure filesystem, so I had to find out how to use that system well enough to make sure that game roms would be able to load from it, savegames would still be accessible AND that gamecube games could be transferred to it without too much hassle.
But hey...I figured it would be worth it. Sure, it required you to have 2 USB hard disks if you wanted USB loading for both wii and gamecube games. But considering how often people ask for USB loading on gamecube games, I was certain I could release my under-the-hood cIOS for free and charge an arm and a leg for my cable. In fact, I even called it "Wever's overpriced GC-2-USB cable?".
...alas. Those wiseguys with their WODE rained on my parade. wii AND gamecube game loading on USB? And reading all sorts of backup discs in the process?
I had to admit...I was beaten.
Damn...
Of course I continued. Mostly for myself, though. So what if everyone else got themselves a nice-looking WODE? I would at least have made my own way to load games.
...and then, while looking at my 2 hard disks connected to my wii, it hit me. What if I could redirect the memory slot INTO THE USB slot? Would it be possible to create a 3-way cable that connected the wii's USB-slot with the memory slot AND the external USB drive?
It turned out to be not that hard at all: the hardware part was pretty easy, and the software-part almost did itself: when the wii was in normal mode, it would send its data from the USB end to the hard disk and the memory slot. Since I disabled that memory slot in normal mode, it would just act as a normal cable. In gamecube mode, it was exactly the opposite way: the data would come from the memory slot and end at both the USB disk and the wii usb port, but as the latter was disabled, it just did nothing.
All in all, things worked great. My cable wasn't as advanced as the WODE, but the way it worked more than made up for that.
Then I did some more thinking (I do a lot of that, actually. I heard it makes you smart). All I did was just making sure that the data had a way to go from one point to another and back. Sure, the cable consists of different streams, but if I could just convert those streams into one, then...
Even more tests later, I managed to put my idea into practice. It still wasn't a full softmod solution...but it's by far the closest way to get it.
And my secret: bubble gum.
Installation:
Start by reading this thread carefully. It's important not to rush things, as that is a sure-way to brick your wii. Take it slow, read up and follow through.
For starters: there are no requirements. My CIOS will overwrite some stuff under the hood, but no critical IOS will be touched. Likewise, it should be fine on any wii with a modchip, though I admit this isn't tested.
Second: download this package, install it on your SD card and run the wad through wad-manager. If all went well, running "wiiver's USB loader" through the HBC will start with some tests and give you a "all ready...please shut down the wii and insert the cable" message.
From there on, there are two ways to proceed. One way is to order my "Wever's overpriced GC-2-USB cable?" cable and connect that. It's easy enough: one end goes into the memory slot, the male end of the USB port goes in the wii and the female end is there to allow you to plug in your USB disk.
The second way is to make your own cable. This is where the bubble gum part comes in. You need a decent amount of it, chew it carefully and then roll it to a long "snake". Let it dry out a time (it shouldn't be dripping with saliva, but at the same time, the gum needs to be soft enough to mold easily). Then, carefully jam one end of the gum into the memory card slot and the other end in the outer USB slot. Make sure both slots are completely covered with gum, so add more gum if you don't think you have enough. Then proceed by slowly inserting the (male) end of the USB loader into the gum-covered USB slot of the wii. Once done, make sure you let the gum dry out COMPLETELY (at least half an hour, but 2-3 hours is best).
This USB hard drive should, of course, contain your gamecube games. These should be in .iso format and placed in the folder USB:\GC_DISC. Don't ask for links or downloads here. Besides...you don't need them. The loader (Wever's Awesome Gamecube USB Loader, or "WAGUL" for short) has a way to rip gamecube games from disk to .iso file on your USB drive.
So...that's basically it. gamecube savegames and configuration thingies are automatically saved to the hard disk (USB\GC_DISC\SAVES). When you start a gamecube game (either from the disc channel or the loader), you'll get a list of all the iso's on your disc. Furthermore, all regular gamecube devices are (probably) supported.
Happy gaming!
Warnings:
-chewing bubblegum or any other action described in this thread may brick your wii. When this happens, I refuse to take responsability for your (most likely extremely stupid) mistakes.
-your brand of bubble gum may be incompatible with Wiiver's USB loader.
-bubblegum tends to stick. In case you plan to use multiple USB-hard disks or want to connect the hard disk to your PC (or any other device) after installing it through the bubblegum-method, it's probably best not to connect the disk to the bubblegum directly but use a male-to-female USB cable to connect to the bubblegum (obviously: plug the MALE end into the bubblegum, so the female end can be used to properly connect your USB-disk).
Wishlist / To do:
-ability to read gamecube discs while in gamecube modus (no idea why I want that, but it frustrates me that I can't read from both the DVD-drive and the memory drive)
-ability to rip backups from disc while in gamecube modus
-a GUI for WAGUL that doesn't suck
-find a way to make wiimotes work...I can get them to work if I smother them with a string of bubble gum that runs from the wii, but it defeats the point of a wireless device.
-find a way to make games with 2 DVD's automatically switch to the second game (it currently boots back to the intro screen).
