About USB Loder GX and loading games from SD card..

ThaKarra · Feb 6, 2023

Hi all,

I was wondering if someone could please help me clear up some confusion.

I've been browsing around the internet on various forums and Reddit because I was looking for a way to load games off my SD card rather than USB drive. -- Almost every post I came across basically stated that it was impossible to do this with USB Loader GX and I'd have to instead use something different like WiiFlow etc.

So I gave up on this idea until I was looking around the USB Loader GX settings and came across an option where I could turn "SD Card Mode" on. -- I copied across one of the wbfs games on my USB drive (Wii Sports), to my SD card, to see what would happen. Much to my surprise it worked! The game booted just fine.

So I guess my question is, are all those "impossible" posts that I've been reading outdated? Have the devs recently added this feature to USB Loader GX? What's the deal with this? -- I'd love a solution where I could just buy a giant SD card and store all my games there, rather than having to plug an external drive in.

What are everyone elses thoughts?

CoolMe · Feb 6, 2023

ThaKarra said:
Hi all,

I was wondering if someone could please help me clear up some confusion.

I've been browsing around the internet on various forums and Reddit because I was looking for a way to load games off my SD card rather than USB drive. -- Almost every post I came across basically stated that it was impossible to do this with USB Loader GX and I'd have to instead use something different like WiiFlow etc.

So I gave up on this idea until I was looking around the USB Loader GX settings and came across an option where I could turn "SD Card Mode" on. -- I copied across one of the wbfs games on my USB drive (Wii Sports), to my SD card, to see what would happen. Much to my surprise it worked! The game booted just fine.

So I guess my question is, are all those "impossible" posts that I've been reading outdated? Have the devs recently added this feature to USB Loader GX? What's the deal with this? -- I'd love a solution where I could just buy a giant SD card and store all my games there, rather than having to plug an external drive in.

What are everyone elses thoughts?

Yes, It's possible now to play a selection (but not all) of wii games from the sd card, thanks to @blackb0x for his continuous efforts trying to improve usbloadergx with each revision. Btw, make sure yours is updated to this.
Though it's still recommended to use an external hdd to play wii games.
For GC games you can play from the sd card just fine..

ThaKarra · Feb 6, 2023

CoolMe said:
Yes, It's possible now to play a selection (but not all) of wii games from the sd card, thanks to @blackb0x for his continuous efforts trying to improve usbloadergx with each revision. Btw, make sure yours is updated to this.
Though it's still recommended to use an external hdd to play wii games.
For GC games you can play from the sd card just fine..

Ah okay!

So if the compatibility is still quite low, probably best to use USB then? -- Might purchase a large USB thumb drive off Amazon. That way I don't have to deal with the additional cables of an external HDD.

Thanks for the reply!

CoolMe · Feb 6, 2023

ThaKarra said:
So if the compatibility is still quite low, probably best to use USB then? -- Might purchase a large USB thumb drive off Amazon. That way I don't have to deal with the additional cables of an external HDD.

Actually there's a reason why i said external hdd, as usb flash drives are known to cause issues to users.. and there's drive compatibility, means your usb flash drive might not work at all, without mentioning the occasional game compatibility issues.
If you still want to use a usb flash drive instead of an external one, i'm not gonna stop you, who knows? you might have no issues when using one.. but know that there'd always be some potential problems..
Also, on a separate note, check the usb flash drive with h2testw before you start loading it with games, as there's a lot of fakes out there with fake storage capacities, use the tool to know for good.

Fishaman P · Feb 6, 2023

ThaKarra said:
Ah okay!

So if the compatibility is still quite low, probably best to use USB then? -- Might purchase a large USB thumb drive off Amazon. That way I don't have to deal with the additional cables of an external HDD.

Thanks for the reply!

Wiiflow has had 100% compatibility loading games from the SD Card for me. I would think learning a slightly different (and very customizable!) GUI would be preferable to buying a $50+ flash drive.

ThaKarra · Feb 6, 2023

Thanks for the input guys! I'll have a ponder over it all and think about my options.

Either way, you've both answered my question perfectly!

blackb0x · Feb 6, 2023

ThaKarra said:
So I guess my question is, are all those "impossible" posts that I've been reading outdated?

All of them posts are now outdated.

ThaKarra said:
So if the compatibility is still quite low, probably best to use USB then?

I've found compatibility to be pretty good with a 256GB Amazon Basics microSDXC card. There's just a few games like Excite Truck and Kirby's Return to Dream Land that have issues when they're played from an SD card, but these issues exist no matter what loader you use.

I added automatic cIOS and language selection for Wii games to USB Loader GX r1280, which drastically improved game compatibility when compared to any other USB/SD loader. And my next release will only continue that trend as you'll be able to play some games that were previously unplayable or were very problematic.

There are some limitations when you're playing games from an SD card. For example, you won't be able to use EmuNAND saves because the d2x cIOS doesn't allow writes to an SD card while a game is being read from it. So in most cases I'd still recommend using a hard drive enclosure with an old 2.5" laptop HDD.

estabravo · Apr 23, 2023

blackb0x said:
All of them posts are now outdated.

I've found compatibility to be pretty good with a 256GB Amazon Basics microSDXC card. There's just a few games like Excite Truck and Kirby's Return to Dream Land that have issues when they're played from an SD card, but these issues exist no matter what loader you use.

I added automatic cIOS and language selection for Wii games to USB Loader GX r1280, which drastically improved game compatibility when compared to any other USB/SD loader. And my next release will only continue that trend as you'll be able to play some games that were previously unplayable or were very problematic.

There are some limitations when you're playing games from an SD card. For example, you won't be able to use EmuNAND saves because the d2x cIOS doesn't allow writes to an SD card while a game is being read from it. So in most cases I'd still recommend using a hard drive enclosure with an old 2.5" laptop HDD.

Curious, are there alternate paths/locations for vWii saves so that we don’t rely on the SD card if loading wii/gcn games from it?

If one only plans on utilizing external volumes as much as possible such as usb/sd, would the 32GB internal storage suffice for all saves?

blackb0x · Apr 23, 2023

estabravo said:
Curious, are there alternate paths/locations for vWii saves so that we don’t rely on the SD card if loading wii/gcn games from it?

If you're playing Wii games from an SD card then your saves need go to your NAND, so you'll have around 2031 free blocks and each games save could use anything from 1 to ~200 blocks. It varies from game to game, but most saves are on the lower end.

Because Nintendont doesn't use a cIOS it can create save files on your SD card.

estabravo said:
If one only plans on utilizing external volumes as much as possible such as usb/sd, would the 32GB internal storage suffice for all saves?

It wouldn't matter if you've got an 8GB or 32GB Wii U.

BOTTOMFRAGGER · Sep 30, 2023

Hello, quick question: (I use GX-loader through vWii on my Wii-U)
How did you copy the game from USB drive to SD-Card? I found an usb drive with loads of games on it and I want to copy them to my SD card to not have the hastle of unplugging my other USB drive with my wiiu games all the time.

CoolMe · Oct 1, 2023

BOTTOMFRAGGER said:
Hello, quick question: (I use GX-loader through vWii on my Wii-U)
How did you copy the game from USB drive to SD-Card? I found an usb drive with loads of games on it and I want to copy them to my SD card to not have the hastle of unplugging my other USB drive with my wiiu games all the time.

Same directory as they're on the usb. "Sd:/wbfs/game [gameid]" for Wii games, and "sd:/games/game [gameid]"for GC games. You don't need to create these folders manually, Just copy/ paste them from your usb drive. Though if you want to add a new game you'd have to make a new folder for it, i'd suggest using WiiBackupManager (for wii games) it'd create them automatically for you, same for GameCubeBackupManger (for GC games).

BOTTOMFRAGGER · Oct 1, 2023

Yeah, my problem was that my pc (obviously) didnt recognize the USB drive, but wiibackupmanager worked for me, thank you

CoolMe · Oct 2, 2023

BOTTOMFRAGGER said:
Yeah, my problem was that my pc (obviously) didnt recognize the USB drive, but wiibackupmanager worked for me, thank you

It must've been formatted as wbfs..

donka · Dec 1, 2023

Just got round to updating USBLoadergx and see the option to load from SD card. Gave it a quick try with an old SD card and it worked fine although did appear to loader slower than the external USB drive. How do people find using SD for loading games? If the consensus is that performance is pretty good then I may invest in a new, higher capacity SD card instead of an external drive.

CoolMe · Dec 1, 2023

donka said:
although did appear to loader slower than the external USB drive.

That's to be expected as the sd card reader is not as fast as usb in terms of speed, so yes it'll be slow when loading a game and in-game..

morning_glory · Dec 1, 2023

Pending on your Wii - You could use 512gb SD & pile on the games & apps.
I've been using both, 512gb & 256gb SD's without any issues.
I'd still like to try 1tb/2tb Sd, but prices are upsettingly high.

DC79 · Mar 7, 2024

morning_glory said:
Pending on your Wii - You could use 512gb SD & pile on the games & apps.
I've been using both, 512gb & 256gb SD's without any issues.
I'd still like to try 1tb/2tb Sd, but prices are upsettingly high.

Hey buddy, I’m trying to get a 512 micro SD SanDisk to read. No love. What brand are you using? Also anyone know of a usb card reader that would work to read a 512gb micro sd?

CoolMe · Mar 8, 2024

DC79 said:
Hey buddy, I’m trying to get a 512 micro SD SanDisk to read. No love. What brand are you using? Also anyone know of a usb card reader that would work to read a 512gb micro sd?

The Wii doesn't detect the sd card at all? Make sure the lock slider on the sd card adapter is in the unlocked position.
As for brand, you might want to make sure it's not a counterfeit one, check it with h2testw to make sure it isn't.

morning_glory · Mar 26, 2024

I've only used Sandisk as USB Flash Drives.
Never had a fail with Samsung evo+ micro SDXC. I use them in USB adapters & in plain SD adapters. I also buy them from reputable outlets.

yonigold · Mar 27, 2024

Im having an issue on my vWii. I have HDD for my Wii U games and i dont want to have to remove every time i want to play wii games off my sd card however i turn on sd card mode and usb loader relaunches but tries to mount the wii u hdd. Unless i unplug the wii u hdd then it will load the SD card games. can someone advise me what to do?

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