Having everything playable on the Gamepad - what are my options and their pros and cons?/

clandestine · Jan 26, 2023

Hi everybody.

I have a hacked Wii but I'm interested in hacking my Wii U that I inherited from my brother. I have read a bunch about this and realize there's a bunch of different ways I could set this up. I wanted to get some insight from you guys before going forward.

So the main advantage for me to hacking the Wii U is playing Games portably on the Gamepad. Outside of playing Wii U games... The Wii U offers nothing to me that my hacked wii doesn't. But I also want the experience to operate in a seamless fashion. I do not want to have to swap drives depending on what games I'm playing.

It seems like a surefire way to do this is to install all of the games using injection and WUP installer, so that my GameCube, Wii, and U games are all on the Wii U home screen. However that has its limits it seems since you can only install so many at once. Not to mention it's a very manual process to create the injections and install them. And also it would get kind of difficult for me to navigate through all the games. I really do love the USB loaders interface.

Can I setup my Wii / GC / emulators Just like how I have them on my regular Wii and then use forwarders on the Wii U home screen to play them on my Gamepad?

Is there a disadvantage of using an SD card versus using a hard drive for vwii stuff? I mainly ask because it seems like a pain in the ass to have to use two separate hard drives for vwii and Wii U modes. So having all my vwii on the SD card seems like a way to mitigate this problem. Are speed significantly slower? I have read about ustealth. Does this let you use two drives at once or do you still need to swap?

Another reason I ask about the SD card is because I heard that you can get a forwarder for USB loader GX on the U home screen, But it won't work with HDs except for GCN games. So no wii.... I would preferably like to have all my Wii and GCN games in USB loader GX. It's such a nice user interface. Do other USB loaders have the same limitation like wiiflow and CFG?

Please note that I haven't done any actual modeling yet. I have only read about it at this point.

I am essentially interested in having all the games I can playable on the gamepad with minimal setup. Since I already have things set up for my Wii it seems like it will be copy and paste. Setting things up for injection seems like a huge pain in the ass since I manually have to create every single title I want to install. Not to mention there's a maximum number of titles you can have on the Wii U home screen as I mentioned.

How do you guys have your Wii U set up so that all your games are playable on the gamepad? What are my options? It seems like there is both more challenges yeah also opportunities for different ways to handle this that there was on the Wii - where the process was relatively more straightforward.

Sorry if this post was a bit too long I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

mrmagicm · Jan 26, 2023

I don't think so many people have a full day to respond to all this being precise.....

xoINARIox · Jan 26, 2023

clandestine said:
Hi everybody.

I have a hacked Wii but I'm interested in hacking my Wii U that I inherited from my brother. I have read a bunch about this and realize there's a bunch of different ways I could set this up. I wanted to get some insight from you guys before going forward.

So the main advantage for me to hacking the Wii U is playing Games portably on the Gamepad. Outside of playing Wii U games... The Wii U offers nothing to me that my hacked wii doesn't. But I also want the experience to operate in a seamless fashion. I do not want to have to swap drives depending on what games I'm playing.

It seems like a surefire way to do this is to install all of the games using injection and WUP installer, so that my GameCube, Wii, and U games are all on the Wii U home screen. However that has its limits it seems since you can only install so many at once. Not to mention it's a very manual process to create the injections and install them. And also it would get kind of difficult for me to navigate through all the games. I really do love the USB loaders interface.

Can I setup my Wii / GC / emulators Just like how I have them on my regular Wii and then use forwarders on the Wii U home screen to play them on my Gamepad?

Is there a disadvantage of using an SD card versus using a hard drive for vwii stuff? I mainly ask because it seems like a pain in the ass to have to use two separate hard drives for vwii and Wii U modes. So having all my vwii on the SD card seems like a way to mitigate this problem. Are speed significantly slower? I have read about ustealth. Does this let you use two drives at once or do you still need to swap?

Another reason I ask about the SD card is because I heard that you can get a forwarder for USB loader GX on the U home screen, But it won't work with HDs except for GCN games. So no wii.... I would preferably like to have all my Wii and GCN games in USB loader GX. It's such a nice user interface. Do other USB loaders have the same limitation like wiiflow and CFG?

Please note that I haven't done any actual modeling yet. I have only read about it at this point.

I am essentially interested in having all the games I can playable on the gamepad with minimal setup. Since I already have things set up for my Wii it seems like it will be copy and paste. Setting things up for injection seems like a huge pain in the ass since I manually have to create every single title I want to install. Not to mention there's a maximum number of titles you can have on the Wii U home screen as I mentioned.

How do you guys have your Wii U set up so that all your games are playable on the gamepad? What are my options? It seems like there is both more challenges yeah also opportunities for different ways to handle this that there was on the Wii - where the process was relatively more straightforward.

Sorry if this post was a bit too long I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

I will probably never understand why some people have problems with such banal things as changing a hard drive :wacko:

............I'm serious now all other options have much more disadvantages or are more annoying from the setup than this one.

BTW the latest Aroma update makes UStealth obsolete.......

The Wii HDD has to be in the top port in the back. But besides that, you should be able to use two HDDs at once.
But some apps that read from USB will crash if the Wii U formatted drive is inserted when they try to access them.

A good example is The Homebrew Channel (when selecting the USB option).

My personal setup (I don't use both at the same time):

1st HDD - for Wii U (500GB)
SD Card - for Homebrew/Retroarch and some Gamecube games that I want to use with gamepad support (128GB)
2nd hard drive - for Wii/Gamecube (750GB)

Blythe93 · Jan 27, 2023

clandestine said:
I mainly ask because it seems like a pain in the ass to have to use two separate hard drives for vwii and Wii U modes.

You can try 2 HDD setup in case you don't like switching HDDs all the time. You can find more info about that here and here, but it's basically this:

Both external HDDs need an Y USB cable if you're using regular HDDs (definitely works), or probably just a regular USB cable if using SSDs (they draw less power than HDDs, therefore there's probably no need for Y USB cable; yet to test that).
While Wii U HDD can be within HDD enclosure, Wii/GameCube HDD should be without enclosure and hidden with UStealth to prevent format nag upon boot. Additionally, Wii/GameCube HDD needs to be connected to the port0 (top port if the console is placed horizontally). Wii U HDD can be connected to any port.
On vWii side, I use USB Loader GX and for this to work, Loader IOS and Game IOS must be 249.

The 2 HDD setup works fine for me, no issues so far.
Then, there's this as well, but I'm yet to find an appropriate 2 bay HDD enclosure to test it. It does seem promising, though.

clandestine said:
How do you guys have your Wii U set up so that all your games are playable on the gamepad? What are my options?

That's a tough one. I know that there are games that:

Require both gamepad and TV in order to play (like Game & Wario, Affordable Space Adventures, etc.);
Have the same video output on both gamepad and TV screen (like Child of Light), so you don't need to do anything in order to play them on gamepad only;
Have an option to switch between gamepad and TV screens (like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild) - again, nothing to do here;
Have no option but to play on TV (like Mass Effect 3 Special Edition, though in this case you can chose not to use the gamepad at all) - you can probably use SwapDPC for that, but I haven't tested it personally. Someone on Github reported here that it works with Tiramisu as well.

Hope it helps!

clandestine · Jan 28, 2023

xoINARIox said:
I will probably never understand why some people have problems with such banal things as changing a hard drive ............I'm serious now all other options have much more disadvantages or are more annoying from the setup than this one.

BTW the latest Aroma update makes UStealth obsolete.......

The Wii HDD has to be in the top port in the back. But besides that, you should be able to use two HDDs at once.
But some apps that read from USB will crash if the Wii U formatted drive is inserted when they try to access them.

A good example is The Homebrew Channel (when selecting the USB option).

My personal setup (I don't use both at the same time):

1st HDD - for Wii U (500GB)
SD Card - for Homebrew/Retroarch and some Gamecube games that I want to use with gamepad support (128GB)
2nd hard drive - for Wii/Gamecube (750GB)

I The reason I have an issue with it is because others will be using the Console. I want the setup to be as easy to understand as possible for them so they don't feel discouraged from turning it on and enjoying it. I want the experience to be as seamless as possible... Without having to Switch a HD and knowing to put it which HD in the correct port, etc. Personally it's not a biggie for my own use. So if could mitigate this by just installing all Wii/GC on an SD card I'd prefer to go that route. Is there an issue with sd cards bigger than 128GB? Is there any issue with installing the Wii games to the SD and using a USB Loader forwarder to play them (on gamepad or TV?

godreborn · Jan 28, 2023

clandestine said:
I The reason I have an issue with it is because others will be using the Console. I want the setup to be as easy to understand as possible for them so they don't feel discouraged from turning it on and enjoying it. I want the experience to be as seamless as possible... Without having to Switch a HD and knowing to put it which HD in the correct port, etc. Personally it's not a biggie for my own use. So if could mitigate this by just installing all Wii/GC on an SD card I'd prefer to go that route. Is there an issue with sd cards bigger than 128GB? Is there any issue with installing the Wii games to the SD and using a USB Loader forwarder to play them (on gamepad or TV?

I use a 256GB one, and I think I heard 1TB works as well. 2TB is most likely the limit.

clandestine · Jan 28, 2023

Blythe93 said:
You can try 2 HDD setup in case you don't like switching HDDs all the time. You can find more info about that here and here, but it's basically this:

Both external HDDs need an Y USB cable if you're using regular HDDs (definitely works), or probably just a regular USB cable if using SSDs (they draw less power than HDDs, therefore there's probably no need for Y USB cable; yet to test that).

While Wii U HDD can be within HDD enclosure, Wii/GameCube HDD should be without enclosure and hidden with UStealth to prevent format nag upon boot. Additionally, Wii/GameCube HDD needs to be connected to the port0 (top port if the console is placed horizontally). Wii U HDD can be connected to any port.

On vWii side, I use USB Loader GX and for this to work, Loader IOS and Game IOS must be 249.

The 2 HDD setup works fine for me, no issues so far.
Then, there's this as well, but I'm yet to find an appropriate 2 bay HDD enclosure to test it. It does seem promising, though.

That's a tough one. I know that there are games that:

Require both gamepad and TV in order to play (like Game & Wario, Affordable Space Adventures, etc.);

Have the same video output on both gamepad and TV screen (like Child of Light), so you don't need to do anything in order to play them on gamepad only;

Have an option to switch between gamepad and TV screens (like The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild) - again, nothing to do here;

Have no option but to play on TV (like Mass Effect 3 Special Edition, though in this case you can chose not to use the gamepad at all) - you can probably use SwapDPC for that, but I haven't tested it personally. Someone on Github reported here that it works with Tiramisu as well.

Hope it helps!

I appreciate your help! thanks for the info about hard drive setups. Very informative.

I'm more interested about getting homebrew software to run on the gamepad though. Wii, GCN, emulators, VC/wiiware games. Etc.

Thanks again to everyone who's replied. It's often hard when you get started with this process because so much information exists but irs all decentralized and it's hard to know what's outdated or not.

Post automatically merged: Jan 28, 2023

godreborn said:
I use a 256GB one, and I think I heard 1TB works as well. 2TB is most likely the limit.

Thank you.

Why is ustealth obsolete? I've searched and can't seem to find this info.

xoINARIox · Jan 28, 2023

clandestine said:
Why is ustealth obsolete? I've searched and can't seem to find this info.

Aroma now comes with the Aroma Base plugin, which checks for Aroma updates on console startup and displays a notification if one is available. The WUPS Config menu ("L" + "Control pad down" + "MINUS") can also be used to disable the messages about formatting an external hard drive and the warning that is displayed when the console is switched off "hard" using the POWER button (when pressed for several seconds). This makes the UStealth obsolete.

Aroma Beta-10 (2023-01-26):

Aroma updates (Download via Base Aroma)

Updated the Aroma Updater to provide more information on error, support updating when not running in "aroma" environment
Added the Notification Module to add support for simple Notifications
Added the CURLWrapperModule to provide a way to use curl with latest CA Carts without bloating binary sizes
Added the Aroma Base Plugin which checks for updates on each boot and provides basic patches for the Wii U Menu

Blythe93 · Jan 28, 2023

clandestine said:
I'm more interested about getting homebrew software to run on the gamepad though. Wii, GCN, emulators, VC/wiiware games. Etc.

You can give Retroarch a try. I use it myself and so far it's been really good.

clandestine said:
I want the setup to be as easy to understand as possible for them so they don't feel discouraged from turning it on and enjoying it. I want the experience to be as seamless as possible... Without having to Switch a HD and knowing to put it which HD in the correct port, etc.

One of the things you can also try is Virtual Console injects with TeconmoonWiiVCInjector, that way you can install both Wii and GameCube games along with Wii U games on the same HDD. I haven't tried it myself, but it might help in your case for making setup as simple as possible. Note that there's 300 tile limit.

JackTheHorse · Jan 28, 2023

mrmagicm said:
I don't think so many people have a full day to respond to all this being precise.....

why not

clandestine · Jan 29, 2023

Thanks for the insights everyone!

ColdBlitz · Feb 21, 2023

clandestine said:
Hi everybody.

I have a hacked Wii but I'm interested in hacking my Wii U that I inherited from my brother. I have read a bunch about this and realize there's a bunch of different ways I could set this up. I wanted to get some insight from you guys before going forward.

So the main advantage for me to hacking the Wii U is playing Games portably on the Gamepad. Outside of playing Wii U games... The Wii U offers nothing to me that my hacked wii doesn't. But I also want the experience to operate in a seamless fashion. I do not want to have to swap drives depending on what games I'm playing.

It seems like a surefire way to do this is to install all of the games using injection and WUP installer, so that my GameCube, Wii, and U games are all on the Wii U home screen. However that has its limits it seems since you can only install so many at once. Not to mention it's a very manual process to create the injections and install them. And also it would get kind of difficult for me to navigate through all the games. I really do love the USB loaders interface.

Can I setup my Wii / GC / emulators Just like how I have them on my regular Wii and then use forwarders on the Wii U home screen to play them on my Gamepad?

Is there a disadvantage of using an SD card versus using a hard drive for vwii stuff? I mainly ask because it seems like a pain in the ass to have to use two separate hard drives for vwii and Wii U modes. So having all my vwii on the SD card seems like a way to mitigate this problem. Are speed significantly slower? I have read about ustealth. Does this let you use two drives at once or do you still need to swap?

Another reason I ask about the SD card is because I heard that you can get a forwarder for USB loader GX on the U home screen, But it won't work with HDs except for GCN games. So no wii.... I would preferably like to have all my Wii and GCN games in USB loader GX. It's such a nice user interface. Do other USB loaders have the same limitation like wiiflow and CFG?

Please note that I haven't done any actual modeling yet. I have only read about it at this point.

I am essentially interested in having all the games I can playable on the gamepad with minimal setup. Since I already have things set up for my Wii it seems like it will be copy and paste. Setting things up for injection seems like a huge pain in the ass since I manually have to create every single title I want to install. Not to mention there's a maximum number of titles you can have on the Wii U home screen as I mentioned.

How do you guys have your Wii U set up so that all your games are playable on the gamepad? What are my options? It seems like there is both more challenges yeah also opportunities for different ways to handle this that there was on the Wii - where the process was relatively more straightforward.

Sorry if this post was a bit too long I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

so for gc injects on wii u hdd gamepad is always supported wii barely many games have gamepad support but some people have made patches for gamepad support with SMG2 so who knows but for most wii games might aswell just use a 2nd hdd and If you have alot of gamecube games store on an sd card and play with the nintendont forwarder
I think since the wii u has wii compatiiblity by default couldn't someone make a way to play wii games via homebrew but for now the answer is no sadly

V10lator · Feb 22, 2023

As others said: You want to inject the games. This enables gamepad support + eliminates the second HDD.

clandestine said:
However that has its limits it seems since you can only install so many at once.

Are you really going to play around 300 games in parallel? If not the limit doesn't affect you.

clandestine said:
And also it would get kind of difficult for me to navigate through all the games.

The Wii U menu supports folders, like this:

ColdBlitz said:
wii barely many games have gamepad support

Any game that supports classic controllers can use the gamepad as a controller. For other games the gamepad has a build in wiimote sensor bar, so it's possible to use the gamepad as screen and wiimote as controller - No TV needed.
So 100% of all games is "barely"?

mrmagicm · Feb 22, 2023

JackTheHorse said:
why not

"I am essentially interested in having all the games I can playable on the gamepad with minimal setup"

Cause this explains all: Like all of us, when want everything to work via ALL peripherals, except it's not possible even with a futur aroma version or any other, it would have to be a change at the firmware level.

ColdBlitz · Feb 22, 2023

V10lator said:
As others said: You want to inject the games. This enables gamepad support + eliminates the second HDD.

Are you really going to play around 300 games in parallel? If not the limit doesn't affect you.

The Wii U menu supports folders, like this:
View attachment 354802
View attachment 354803

Any game that supports classic controllers can use the gamepad as a controller. For other games the gamepad has a build in wiimote sensor bar, so it's possible to use the gamepad as screen and wiimote as controller - No TV needed.
So 100% of all games is "barely"?

I wouldn't say using the gamepad as a display is the sort of playable on gamepad OP mentioned also just because a game has cc support doesn't always mean it supports the gamepad you could say any game that uses a horizontal wiimote also has support for gamepad but its not as simple as that for all games for most yea

taz26 · Feb 22, 2023

I'm only playing on the gamepad (bed).
The problem with wii games is that you need a wiimote to lauch the games. And the same with wii homebrew (launchers).
If the hdmi cable is plugged you need a sensor bar. Else you can aim at the gamepad.
Injected wii games with gamepad set as controller can be launched without wiimote.
Nintendon't is fine.

Having everything playable on the Gamepad - what are my options and their pros and cons?/

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