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Hacking USB Loader GX

  • Thread starter Thread starter blackb0x
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blackb0x said:
I understand that some people don't like change, which is why I made the update backwards compatible with older themes.

https://gbatemp.net/download/authors/nully.722380/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/584493/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/534875/
https://yuuiko.github.io/sWiich/

I'd encourage you to try using the updated theme for a while longer though, since it does correct a number of issues while also adding new functionality.
Click to expand...
Appreciate the response! I'll give it some time, always a bit of a shock to see something change after so long. Many thanks for keeping this up to date!
 
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in sd card mode is it possible to use an emunand on usb? this is a viable setup in other loaders (so it's technically possible although i don't know under what cios), but my preference is to use usb loader gx. my game backups are located in sd:/wbfs and my emunand in usb1:/nands/nand1. if there's currently no hack/workaround to use an emunand on usb in sd card mode, is it on the roadmap?
 
Hey there, not sure if it is the right place to post this, but I had a little question about adding both games and mods of said games to the loader.

I use the loader through the forwarder channel on the WiiU, and everything works well, but I recently tried to add mods of some of the games alongside the games themselves, and I can't seem to get them to work. From what I understand, I assume that both games have the same game IDs, leading to the loader not seeing them separately.

Some threads mentioned changing the game ID through Hex Editor, but I am not sure it would work... Any ideas as to what to do? The game is Sonic Riders btw, and the mod was the DX version.

Sorry if this was mentioned before in the thread, I will remove this post if that's the case. Thanks!
 
I don't know if this has been reported before or if it's already been fixed, but whenever I play a Japanese game (NTSC-J) on my PAL Wii, the title field in the Wii Message Board log remains blank and only the time is displayed.



@Nevenanana
I don't know if it'll work, but you could try assigning a CustomID to the modded ISO using Wii ISO Renamer. It might be worth a try?
 
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Northrup said:
I don't know if this has been reported before or if it's already been fixed, but whenever I play a Japanese game (NTSC-J) on my PAL Wii, the title field in the Wii Message Board log remains blank and only the time is displayed.



@Nevenanana
I don't know if it'll work, but you could try assigning a CustomID to the modded ISO using Wii ISO Renamer. It might be worth a try?
Click to expand...
That's because PAL Wii consoles don't recognize Japanese characters, I think :unsure:
 
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stanwebber said:
in sd card mode is it possible to use an emunand on usb? this is a viable setup in other loaders (so it's technically possible although i don't know under what cios), but my preference is to use usb loader gx. my game backups are located in sd:/wbfs and my emunand in usb1:/nands/nand1. if there's currently no hack/workaround to use an emunand on usb in sd card mode, is it on the roadmap?
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that this USB loader was originally designed to work exclusively with USB drives, which is why it's called USB Loader GX. However, people kept asking for the ability to play Wii games from an SD card, so when I implemented "SD card mode" I deliberately made it skip all USB mounting logic because it was easier to implement and it also speeds up the boot process due to the lack of checks and countdowns.

Large SD cards can often be bought cheaply during sales, and the next update will also add support for large (3TB+) USB drives, so I personally wouldn't want to change the way SD card mode works.


Nevenanana said:
I use the loader through the forwarder channel on the WiiU, and everything works well, but I recently tried to add mods of some of the games alongside the games themselves, and I can't seem to get them to work. From what I understand, I assume that both games have the same game IDs, leading to the loader not seeing them separately.

Some threads mentioned changing the game ID through Hex Editor, but I am not sure it would work... Any ideas as to what to do? The game is Sonic Riders btw, and the mod was the DX version.
Click to expand...
I normally recommend permanently assigning modded games a custom ID.

https://gbatemp.net/posts/10610263

Northrup said:
I don't know if this has been reported before or if it's already been fixed, but whenever I play a Japanese game (NTSC-J) on my PAL Wii, the title field in the Wii Message Board log remains blank and only the time is displayed.
Click to expand...
What Japanese games are you trying to play?

The loader is supposed to attempt to get the title from the banner file in your systems language, but since the text is blank for you, it seems like it's using Japanese, which a non-Japanese Wii can't display.
 
Oh yeah, that might be more of an issue with the Wii system menu than with USB Loader GX. I only associated it with USB Loader GX because that's how I launched the games (Ikenie No Yoru & Tales of Graces).
 
Northrup said:
I don't know if this has been reported before or if it's already been fixed, but whenever I play a Japanese game (NTSC-J) on my PAL Wii, the title field in the Wii Message Board log remains blank and only the time is displayed.



@Nevenanana
I don't know if it'll work, but you could try assigning a CustomID to the modded ISO using Wii ISO Renamer. It might be worth a try?
Click to expand...

blackb0x said:
Keep in mind that this USB loader was originally designed to work exclusively with USB drives, which is why it's called USB Loader GX. However, people kept asking for the ability to play Wii games from an SD card, so when I implemented "SD card mode" I deliberately made it skip all USB mounting logic because it was easier to implement and it also speeds up the boot process due to the lack of checks and countdowns.

Large SD cards can often be bought cheaply during sales, and the next update will also add support for large (3TB+) USB drives, so I personally wouldn't want to change the way SD card mode works.



I normally recommend permanently assigning modded games a custom ID.

https://gbatemp.net/posts/10610263


What Japanese games are you trying to play?

The loader is supposed to attempt to get the title from the banner file in your systems language, but since the text is blank for you, it seems like it's using Japanese, which a non-Japanese Wii can't display.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the replies, I did use Wii ISO Renamer and I managed to change the game IDs, and everything works fine now, I manage to get both the games and the mods working side by side. Just a quick question, I know each part of the ID means something, but is there some global rule of thumb that you use for renaming the game IDs for mods? Thanks again!
 
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Nevenanana said:
Thanks for the replies, I did use Wii ISO Renamer and I managed to change the game IDs, and everything works fine now, I manage to get both the games and the mods working side by side.
Click to expand...
You should check that game saves still work, since that's sometimes a problem.

Nevenanana said:
Just a quick question, I know each part of the ID means something, but is there some global rule of thumb that you use for renaming the game IDs for mods? Thanks again!
Click to expand...
Code: 
X_____ = System code
_XX___ = Title code
___X__ = Region code
____XX = Publisher code
I recommend only modifying the publisher code, otherwise the game might not identify itself or it's region correctly to the loader.

The post that I linked to explains how to avoid selecting an ID that already exists in GameTDB and why that matters.
 
Last edited by blackb0x,
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Ok , next question :)

Hi, I have some questions around running Wiiware games in USB GX (latest), I tried the emunand version from the latest Modmii, so the games show up in GX v4.1283, but i am unable to play them as they all return back to GX,
if i install a game directly onto my SD card so on the main Wii screen the game runs fine. Is there any way to debug this ?
I also tried two older version (1281/1282) but the same problem is also there. This is a PAL region Wii modded with the
latest patches from Modmii. Let me know how I can help in resolving this issue.


I have added my syscheck.txt in case anybody is interested


Settings in GX which are set in screen;

loader settings

Loader IOS 249

Games IOS Auto

return to usb loader gx

emunand save mode off

emunand channel mode full
 

Attachments

Hello! I am currently using USB Loader GX through my Wii U to the vwii menu and it has been amazing when I had my wbfs and games folder on my sd card but then I upgraded to a HDD to get more games but now usb loader GX will not recognize it, I get the message after 20 seconds of (Drive not initialized returning to channel list) HOWEVER Nintendont on its own recognizes my GameCube games but they won’t show up on usb loader GX along with my Wii games. Am I missing something that needs to also be on my new HDD other than my wbfs and Games folder? Did I miss an update? Please help! Thank you!
 
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Firestarhi said:
Hello! I am currently using USB Loader GX through my Wii U to the vwii menu and it has been amazing when I had my wbfs and games folder on my sd card but then I upgraded to a HDD to get more games but now usb loader GX will not recognize it, I get the message after 20 seconds of (Drive not initialized returning to channel list) HOWEVER Nintendont on its own recognizes my GameCube games but they won’t show up on usb loader GX along with my Wii games. Am I missing something that needs to also be on my new HDD other than my wbfs and Games folder? Did I miss an update? Please help! Thank you!
Click to expand...
Hello,

External hard drive with a Y-cable or an external power supply (better connectivity).

FAT32 formatted drive.

Is your charger and your hack up to date?
 
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Sander1974 said:
Hi, I have some questions around running Wiiware games in USB GX (latest), I tried the emunand version from the latest Modmii, so the games show up in GX v4.1283, but i am unable to play them as they all return back to GX,
Click to expand...
Rename your existing EmuNAND to something else, then go to the miscellaneous settings in the loader and select Dump NAND to EmuNAND. Then use the loaders WAD manager to install some files.

If that works then either the EmuNAND that ModMii created is missing something, or it's got something to do with how you installed the games to the EmuNAND.

Firestarhi said:
Am I missing something that needs to also be on my new HDD other than my wbfs and Games folder? Did I miss an update? Please help! Thank you
Click to expand...
As noted by @jeannotte, the Wii U requires a Y-cable to power most USB HDDs.

WiiUPorts.png
 
Last edited by blackb0x,
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@blackb0x So I followed your steps , but still no luck
Let me explain what i did, so i renamed the folder tot nandsold, than followed the steps of dump NAND to emunand, I tried starting two games which are directly copied from the main Wii menu. This is boulder dash and Swords and Soldiers, but both do not start form the emunand menu selection. I also tried installing another game and this one also did not start.

What works from the main Wii screen, both games boulderdash and Swords and Soldiers work from here. Once i go into GX and make a selection for the NAND and start the games they do work (but after a couple of reruns this also fails) so not sure why it started once and afterwards seems to always fail.

At this point i am not sure if it is USB GX or it is the Modmii installer. Any tips or suggestions are welcome. My end goal would be to get the Emunand running.

Thanks in advance
 
Sander1974 said:
At this point i am not sure if it is USB GX or it is the Modmii installer. Any tips or suggestions are welcome. My end goal would be to get the Emunand running.
Click to expand...
This might not work for all games, but from the loader settings set Channel Launcher to Main DOL. If this still doesn't work, then is the drive that the EmuNAND is located on using 32KB as the allocation unit size?

Swords and Soldiers is known to be a little slow to load to the title menu, but it should work.
 
Last edited by blackb0x,
Hi, some positive and negative news

So I checked my SD and SSD-2TB and for some unknown reason the SSD-2TB is in the wrong cluster size, that is the reason it doesn't run the wiiware games all other games do seem to work. As i dumped now the emunand onto the SD card which is 32k and most of the games are working, which basically means i need to reformat my SSD-2TB and move all the stuff off and on this storage once again, so let me find some time for that. :)

Thanks for the help @blackb0x
 
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@blackbox, I have an old Wii mod install with USBLoaderGX r1272 (last updated in 2021) on it and I see this app is now at r1283, any issues if I up date from 1272 to 1283?

Also, I think my CIOS are v10, looking to update to v11 using yawmME, installing cIOS250[57]-d2x-v11-beta3, cIOS249[56]-d2x-v11-beta3, cIOS250[57]-d2x-v11-beta3, cIOS251[58]-d2x-v11-beta3. Updating to the latest should not cause an issue I assume?

Sorry, it has been a few years and I am working to setup someone else's Wii and thought to update mine. :)
 
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ngs428 said:
@blackbox, I have an old Wii mod install with USBLoaderGX r1272 (last updated in 2021) on it and I see this app is now at r1283, any issues if I up date from 1272 to 1283?

Also, I think my CIOS are v10, looking to update to v11 using yawmME, installing cIOS250[57]-d2x-v11-beta3, cIOS249[56]-d2x-v11-beta3, cIOS250[57]-d2x-v11-beta3, cIOS251[58]-d2x-v11-beta3. Updating to the latest should not cause an issue I assume?

Sorry, it has been a few years and I am working to setup someone else's Wii and thought to update mine. :)
Click to expand...

It's recommended to update as there are new improvements and bug fixes. It's pretty easy and you won't regret it.
 
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Covers are not loading on my new install. I have the covers in the apps folder under usbloader_gx, when I got o custom paths is shows the correct SD card path. But when i click on the path, it only gives me an option to select the USB stick. There is only and OK and Cancel at the bottom of the custom paths screen, not a icon to select the SD card.

I wouldn't need to have SD card mode on would I? I have my games on the USB stick and they load fine.

Edit: I moved the images to my USB stick, changed to those paths and they load. Not sure why they were not loading from the SD card.

Edit2: it seems the SD card was a bit flaky. New one worked well.
 
Last edited by ngs428,
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Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is it safe or even advisable to install the USB LoaderGX Forwarder on vWii (specifically for just returning to USB Loader GX on vWii instead of vWii home, not to get there from the Wii U menu or anything)?

I've thus far limited any WAD installs to the EMUNAND out of caution based on things I've read about the possible unfixable issues installing right to the NAND. Figured I'd double-check before doing anything, thanks!
 

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