Hacking Delete or hide the disc channel?

[SifJar]

So, what do you guys think about it (OTHER than the evil voiceover that is)?

I might make a new thread to post the actual hack in, along with a description of it.

Sounds good, I for one would appreciate that.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

Cool stuff
Can this be done with SM4.1?

 

[SifJar]

Yes, it'll work on any SM.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

Any hacks.ini around?

 

[SifJar]

Not yet, no. Did you read his post? He's going to make a new thread to release the hack.

 

[OriginalHamster]

Interesting app, but why you could need it, if you can boot your retail games just fine on Disc Channel? (region free and all)
Itsn't more simple keep your backups on your HDD? Is not like your original disc will wear off quickly either...

 

[AbdallahTerro]

Not yet, no. Did you read his post? He's going to make a new thread to release the hack.

Thanks Sif. Hope this hack comes out soon

 

[SifJar]

Interesting app, but why you could need it, if you can boot your retail games just fine on Disc Channel? (region free and all)
Itsn't more simple keep your backups on your HDD? Is not like your original disc will wear off quickly either...

Cheats on retail discs from disc channel. Use Gecko OS or NeoGamma as the loader. Probably wouldn't be that hard to mod Gecko OS to autoboot with cheats enabled for use with retail discs.

 

[damysteryman]

Features like video mode patching and cheating can be useful for retail discs too. These features are not normally present in the Disc channel, as shown in the first part of my video where NMH blackscreens unless you use Gecko OS or NeoGamma to load it (the regular region free hack does not fix video mode or language forcing issues, so not all imports are actually compatible; With this though, they are able to load fine).

And this is not limited to just retail discs... you can use priiloader to change "IOS to use for SM" to 249 (does not seem to have any problem affecting SM stability ATM, however... this makes the priiloader menu unstable and lock up... BUT, I tested priiloader r152 (v0.8b2), and it seems to run under IOS249 just fine without locking up. I will also post this version for you guys too).

Also, almost ready to create a new thread... and also SifJar... unfortunately, the hack itself is not as simple as the "Force Discs to use IOS249" hack... so some values will be different for every sysmenu, meaning it will have to be manually ported to every sysmenu... you will see what I mean once I make the new thread...

 

[SifJar]

Ah. But it should still be possible to port to all SMs with a bit of work, right?

 

[damysteryman]

With a bit of work, yes.

What it is, is a custom ASM routine (all it is is 4 commands that assign the title id to the correct registers) that is out into an unused "empty" (all 00) space in the sysmenu dol, then at the offset that it loads the game IOS (where the "Force discs to use IOS249 hack" patches), instead just patching it there, it branches to where I inserted the previously mentioned ASM commands, executes them, then returns to whre it branched from. I did this because there was not enough space to just patch over the top of it (the sysmenu only used 2 ASM commands to load the IOS value into the registers, but I needed to use 4 ASM commands to load an entire title id). That is the main difficulty in porting the hack to other sysmenus.

Then for the GC part of the hack, I had to patch the ASM commands that loaded the value for BC into the register it used, to move the title id value already stored in the other register, over to the register where the value for BC was being put. This had to be done at a few offsets, not just one. (however, this GC move register part should not be hard to port)

 

[damysteryman]

New thread:
http://gbatemp.net/topic/321110-poc-boot-neogamma-via-disc-channel/

 

[SifJar]

I thought this might be the case seeing as it seemed only the second half of the lower and upper title ID was written by the IOS249 patch. Still, it shouldn't be too hard to find a suitable place in other SMs and change the offset it branches to.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

I was thinking, since themes can be applied to system menu and this will change the colors of the disc channel as well, can the disc channel banner (the spinning empty disc) be changed to another custom banner using a theme?

 

[SifJar]

I was thinking, since themes can be applied to system menu and this will change the colors of the disc channel as well, can the disc channel banner (the spinning empty disc) be changed to another custom banner using a theme?

Yes, I believe it can, and is in some themes. Certainly the generic Wii and GC disc images are replaced. Not 100% sure if animation has been replaced before, but it probably could be I'd think.

EDIT: Yeah, it seems "diskBann.ash" in layout\common contains the BRLANs that would need edited/replaced to change the animation of the channel. And if you wanted to change the layout and/or TPLs used, they're both in the same ASH.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

I was thinking, since themes can be applied to system menu and this will change the colors of the disc channel as well, can the disc channel banner (the spinning empty disc) be changed to another custom banner using a theme?

Yes, I believe it can, and is in some themes. Certainly the generic Wii and GC disc images are replaced. Not 100% sure if animation has been replaced before, but it probably could be I'd think.

EDIT: Yeah, it seems "diskBann.ash" in layout\common contains the BRLANs that would need edited/replaced to change the animation of the channel. And if you wanted to change the layout and/or TPLs used, they're both in the same ASH.

So if this is the case we will not need a full theme. just replacing this file will change the banner.
This might also be combined with the new efforts to load neogamma instead of disc channel so that both banner and function of the disc channel are replaced.
Seems interesting hope someone starts testing diskBann.ash files on Sneek nands to see where this goes.

 

[SifJar]

I was thinking, since themes can be applied to system menu and this will change the colors of the disc channel as well, can the disc channel banner (the spinning empty disc) be changed to another custom banner using a theme?

Yes, I believe it can, and is in some themes. Certainly the generic Wii and GC disc images are replaced. Not 100% sure if animation has been replaced before, but it probably could be I'd think.

EDIT: Yeah, it seems "diskBann.ash" in layout\common contains the BRLANs that would need edited/replaced to change the animation of the channel. And if you wanted to change the layout and/or TPLs used, they're both in the same ASH.

So if this is the case we will not need a full theme. just replacing this file will change the banner.
This might also be combined with the new efforts to load neogamma instead of disc channel so that both banner and function of the disc channel are replaced.
Seems interesting hope someone starts testing diskBann.ash files on Sneek nands to see where this goes.

Easiest way to replace that file is via a theme. It is in the SM content that is replaced by theming. If someone does modify it at some point, it'll be distributed as a .MYM for sure. Could be applied after another MYM though to give a complete theme with a separately themed disc channel.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

Hey @Sifjar, Disc Channel is booting neogamma via priiloader.
Time to change that empty disc banner.

 

[SifJar]

Well I'm probably not going to be doing it

EDIT: Well, I'll maybe mess around with it later in the week if I have some spare time. But I won't use it, so I lack the motivation to dedicate much time to do it.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Hey @[member='SifJar'], Disc Channel is booting neogamma via priiloader.
Time to change that empty disc banner.

You would want a theme for that.