Hacking emuNAND issues with USBLoaderGX and Neek.

[portugeek]

Apologize in advance. I'll probably be all over the place with this post.

I've recently been wanting to run my emuNAND from my SD card, but I've started to come across some issues when trying to play N64 VC titles.

I moved my emuNAND over to the root of my SD card and when I'd try to run an N64 VC title via USBLoaderGX the game would just hang on a black screen. With others, the game would freeze when I'd press the "Home" button. I don't understand why I'm getting compatibility issues.

==
I also have questions about the various USBLoaderGX's emuNAND settings.

I have both "Nand Saves" and "Nand Chan." Emuation set to FULL. I understand what that does. But, I'm curious as to why there are different paths for "Nand Emu" and "Nand Emu Channel." Does this mean I can use the saves and settings from one emuNAND while accessing the Channels stored on another?

Also, I recently noticed that there's a "Neek" option found in the Game Load settings, under Nand Emulation. What does this allow for?

I'd really like to use a neek2o configuration but it effects my N64 VC titles because they require the use of a non-d2x cIOS to run properly. But whenever I try to run N64 VC titles from an emuNAND that's stored in a subfolder I get an error because the cIOS that it's trying to load isn't a d2x.

The Uneek+DI configuration, that I'm currently running, is allowing me to load up N64 VC titles from either USBLoaderGX or an neek environment without issues. But I decided that I wanted to mess with a good thing and have my emuNAND running off my SD card instead of my USB Drive.

Anyone have any ideas? Because I'd really like to have my emuNAND stored in a subfolder, while running off my SD card. While still maintaining compatibility with my N64 VC software.

 

[Cyan]

Does this mean I can use the saves and settings from one emuNAND while accessing the Channels stored on another?

yes, you can save your wii game's save data to a path, and have your wiiware/VC installed on another one, this way if your wiiware has any issue you won't lose your wii savegames. (or vice versa)

issues when trying to play N64 VC titles.

N64 are not (or rarely) compatible with d2x cIOS and cIOS EmuNAND mode.
you need either :
- cIOS rev17 or 19
- sneek or neek2o

Also, I recently noticed that there's a "Neek" option found in the Game Load settings, under Nand Emulation. What does this allow for?

This option is used to autoboot the channel in neek environement, instead of using a cIOS redirection (see above, it's useful for N64 games and problematic Wiiware like castlevania, bonsai barber, etc.)
If you have neek2o installed, it will auto-boot that channel instead of launching the neek's system menu.

But whenever I try to run N64 VC titles from an emuNAND that's stored in a subfolder I get an error because the cIOS that it's trying to load isn't a d2x.

Like said, to play N64 you need an old cIOS.
old cIOS has a lot more restriction, like being on the root of the SD card, on first partition, etc.
that's just the issue of using old programs which didn't had the latest features and compatibility.

If you use Neek, the EmuNAND path also needs to be on root.
if you use Neek2o, the path can be in subfolders !
that's another advantage to neek2o and the interest of using the neek option in the loader.

The Uneek+DI configuration, that I'm currently running, is allowing me to load up N64 VC titles from either USBLoaderGX or an neek environment without issues. But I decided that I wanted to mess with a good thing and have my emuNAND running off my SD card instead of my USB Drive.

just create a Neek2o for SD card (using modmii, select Sneek or Sneek+di), and place both the emuNAND path and the /sneek/kernel.bin on SD card.
You don't need the "+di" if you don't launch disc based games from neek2o.


SD path is not supported with vWii.
but if you have a Wii, it should work fine.

 

[portugeek]

N64 are not (or rarely) compatible with d2x cIOS and cIOS EmuNAND mode.
you need either :
- cIOS rev17 or 19
- sneek or neek2o

I use rev19 with base38. And it works when I run the N64 games through USBLoaderGX, but the emuNAND has to be on the root of the USB drive.

just create a Neek2o for SD card (using modmii, select Sneek or Sneek+di), and place both the emuNAND path and the /sneek/kernel.bin on SD card.
You don't need the "+di" if you don't launch disc based games from neek2o.


SD path is not supported with vWii.
but if you have a Wii, it should work fine.

I created Neek2o files for the SD card the way you mentioned, but now I'm receiving this error.. "Neek2o does not support 'Emulated NAND Channel' on SD! Please setup Uneek2o instead." and I'm using a regular Wii not vWii.

UPDATE1: So I made a version of Sneek without Neek2o enabled to see if I could finally getting it running from the SD card and 'now' it says "Current neek files are not neek2o. Game autoboot disabled."

 

[portugeek]

Something weird just happened. I'm messing around with Neek2o by booting directly into it. I was trying to launch a disc game, I saw the list, but couldn't access the game.. So I refreshed the games cache and when Neek2o loaded back up.. the disc channel now has "Wii System Update". Why in the heck is it asking me to do that?! LoL!

UPDATE: All I had to do was switch to a different game then and the disc channel went back to normal.

 

[portugeek]

So I did a bunch of testing and found out a lot of stuff. None of which is what I was ideally hoping for. -- I focused primarily on Sneek since I've been trying to run my emuNAND off of my SD Card.

Modmii has a few different Neek settings that you can enable/disable via Modmii's options menu. The two that I played with were Neek2o & SD Access.

With SD Access ENABLED, I could never seem to get Sneek to boot up. It would just hang forever in a black screen. It took a while for me to figure out that this option was the main cause of a lot of my headaches. I kept it on because it states online that SD Access allows Neek to write to the SD card. I figured I needed that option enabled so that games could save their progress to the emuNAND, which was located on my SD Card. I eventually learned that it's not necessary. With SD Access DISABLED, games still save and write to the emuNAND located on the SD card.

Then I tried the different combinations of Sneek/Sneek+DI, with and without the Neek2o modification.

• Sneek
  • emuNAND has to be stored on the SD's root.
  • Runs fine when booted directly.
  • USBLoaderGX returns a warning that.. "Current neek files are not neek2o. Game autoboot disabled." If you then press 'Continue' USBLoaderGX boots directly into the Sneek environment. Which is exactly the same as booting directly into the emuNAND using any other method.
• Sneek+DI
  • emuNAND has to be stored on the SD's root.
  • Hangs on black screen when trying to boot directly.
  • USBLoaderGX returns a warning that.. "Current neek files are not neek2o. Game autoboot disabled." If you then press 'Continue' USBLoaderGX hangs on a black screen.
• Sneek2o
  • emuNAND has to be stored in subfolders.
  • It ran once without an issue when booted directly. In all other instances it returns the error "Your Wii System Memory is full. Use the Data Management screen to manage your save data." -- (EmuNAND should never have an issue with memory being full.) -- Upon receiving the error, a screen prompts you to press OK so you can manage your game data and make room. This screen doesn't allow you to select any of the channels on the menu. Snort48+ is installed on the emuNAND so I'm not sure what's causing the space issue.
  • USBLoaderGX returns a warning that.. "Neek2o does not support 'Emulated NAND Channel Path' on SD! Please setup Uneek2o instead." If you then press 'Continue' the game DOES autoboot, effectively bypassing the "System Memory is full" error experienced with direct boot. If you exit back to the Wii Menu while in-game, it kicks you back to the Sneek2o environment rather than back to USBLoaderGX. Once back in the Sneek2o environment you're free to select another title, this time, without interference from the "System Memory is full" error.
• Sneek2o+DI
  • emuNAND has to be stored in subfolders.
    
  • Hangs on black screen when trying to boot directly.
    
  • USBLoaderGX returns a warning that.. "Neek2o does not support 'Emulated NAND Channel Path' on SD! Please setup Uneek2o instead." If you then press 'Continue' USBLoaderGX hangs on a black screen.

I have no idea why the SD version of Neek+DI isn't working. I tried renaming the kernel.bin as suggested on some tutorials. I tried with the emuNAND installed both in the root of the SD card, and in subfolders, with both yielding the same results. Maybe it's because it doesn't detect any Wii/GC games folders located on my SD card. I'm not sure. All I know is that I'll probably avoid trying to run Neek on an SD card all together.

If not for the "Wii System Memory is full" error, I would say that Sneek2o is the best SD card method. But rather than try to figure it out I'll probably just go back to Uneek. I just figured I'd try Sneek because I assumed it would allow for better compatibility and speed than the USB drive.

UPDATE: So I just setup Uneek2o+DI and it's doing everything I was hoping for!! It's faster than my SD card which is weird. Everything else loads faster off my SD card than it does off my Harddrive. It works as expected when booting directly into the emuNAND. It works far better than expected when loading games from USBLoaderGX. USBLoaderGX makes it so fast!! You don't have to deal with the long load times associated with booting directly into the Neek environment, and you still get all the compatibility advantages of Neek.

All in all, I'm pretty excited. And I wish I hadn't wasted an entire day on trying to get Sneek to work when I could've just went with Uneek.

 

[Cyan]

the "SD Access" option is not used to allow Sneek to save the games on SD, but to use the SD card for two different things at the same time :
1 . the EmuNAND
2. The filesystem for all other homebrew (HBC, emulators, forwarders, etc.)

so it's an option to allow SD access from other homebrew, not for neek itself.

I can't check the neek2o version, and r96 beta 9.6 is not compatible with SD card. but if you use r96 (not beta) then it's fine.
I could remove the warning if it's on a Wii console, as I can "expect" the user is using the correct version and not the vWii compatible one (even though some users are using the beta even on Wii ....)

note that it's only a warning and not an error, you can still launch the game.

It ran once without issue when booted directly. More often than not, it returns the error "Your Wii System Memory is full. Use the Data Management screen to manage your save data." EmuNAND should never receive this error so I'm not sure what's causing it. Upon receiving the error, a screen prompts you to press OK so you can manage your data and make room. This screen doesn't allow you to select any of the channels on the menu. Snort48+ is installed so I'm not sure what's causing the issue.

Maybe it detects that you installed more than 48 channels and this screen is displayed to delete some games or else you can't (officially) see all your channels on NAND.
Of course, neek and snort can be used, but the system menu is not aware that it's not running from NAND, so it asks you to clean your channel number?
that's what I think. I could be wrong.

If you exit back to the Wii Menu while in-game, it kicks you back to the Sneek2o environment rather than back to USBLoaderGX.

That's what happen if you don't have the "NK2O" channel installed on your emuNAND, and/or don't enable "return to" in the neek settings in USBGX.

So I just setup Uneek2o+DI and it's doing everything I was hoping for!!

Yeah, ultimately, USB is recommended
SD works, but is not "supported" (as in "no support will be provided by the developer", and not as "it doesn't work")

Sorry that SD is not supported as much as USB (not my fault this time ), but I'm glad you finally found a working setup.

 

[portugeek]

That's what happen if you don't have the "NK2O" channel installed on your emuNAND, and/or don't enable "return to" in the neek settings in USBGX.

Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. And yes, I was testing with an emuNAND that didn't have the NK2O channel installed.

It IS installed in the emuNAND that I'm currently using with Uneek2o. The game currently exits back out to the REAL Nand's system menu. Is there a way exit directly back into USBLoaderGX?

Sorry that SD is not supported as much as USB (not my fault this time ), but I'm glad you finally found a working setup.

Thanks! I'm pretty excited, because USBLoaderGX makes playing games in a Neek environment better than it's ever been. Just in how seemlessly it transitions into Neek. I already use USBLoaderGX for everything, so it's nice to no longer have to manually jump between different environments just to play those stubborn games.

You know, Cyan. I've never said it before, because I guess it's just easier to lurk and say nothing , but I've always wanted to offer my thanks and appreciation for the time you devote to the forums. The way you enthusiastically offer help and support doesn't go unnoticed. I'd also like to thank you and your colleagues for the continued development of USBLoaderGX. I use it almost daily, and it's always exciting to hear news of newly released revisions. From one community member to another, Thank You, and I truly appreciate the effort you make around here.

 

[Cyan]

Thank you
I do it for you (all users) I rarely use it or play games myself, and I wouldn't improve it if nobody was still using it.
I try to do what I can, when I can.
But I don't feel like I'm doing a lot. even on the forum, I have less time to read all the thread, do moderation or help users, I feel like power user only. I just try to help when I can. I always feel it's not enough because there are more things I would like to do.

Is there a way exit directly back into USBLoaderGX?

as exiting neek is just a console reboot and not a "reload a specific title on real NAND", it can only return to USBGX if you set your console to auto-load it at launch.
there are two methods :
priiloader
bootmii @boot2

I think that's the only way to return to the loader when exiting neek from that NK2O channel.

edit:
If you plan to test multiple channels, you could temporarily disable the "return to" so you stay in neek and can launch another game without rebooting, relaunching usbgx and reloading neek.

 

[portugeek]

I'm curious about something. I now have my Wii booting directly into USBLoaderGX using the priiloader method. I had to install file and tell it boot the installed file. But which file did it install? Originally I thought it might be installing from the list of channels on my Wii Menu, but I just realized that it's listing all the apps on my SD card. Is it installing USBLoaderGX's boot.dol? And if it is, will this be a problem with newer versions of USBLoaderGX?

 

[Cyan]

yes, if you installed the loader's dol, you will have issues, as priiloader will always launch the same version, even if there's an updated dol on SD.
You need to install the forwarder.dol instead, which always reloads to the correct dol in apps/usbloader_gx/ folder.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/usb...es/Forwarders dols/ForwarderV5.1.dol/download

 

[90180360]

yes, if you installed the loader's dol, you will have issues, as priiloader will always launch the same version, even if there's an updated dol on SD.
You need to install the forwarder.dol instead, which always reloads to the correct dol in apps/usbloader_gx/ folder.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/usbloadergx/files/Releases/Forwarders dols/ForwarderV5.1.dol/download

Good to know. I installed the forwarder and it works, but I can't install the forwarder with Priiloader, it doesn't show up.

Edit: My bad, I installed the wad. Renaming the dol to boot.dol solved the problem.

 

[portugeek]

Good to know. I installed the forwarder and it works, but I can't install the forwarder with Priiloader, it doesn't show up.

Edit: My bad, I installed the wad. Renaming the dol to boot.dol solved the problem.

It showed up for me. Originally I didn't see it because I was looking for it alphabetically, but I had to scroll all the way down. It was at the bottom of my list with the name "ForwarderV5.1.dol"

What name did it show up for you as (in priiloader) after you renamed it? If it showed up as USB Loader GX in the list, then you probably installed the .dol of the actual app and not the forwarders .dol.

 

[90180360]

What did it show up as in priiloader after you renamed it?

I put it in sd:/apps/forward and it showed up as "forward".

 

[portugeek]

Oh alright. I just dropped it into the root of the card, which is probably why it was listed at the bottom.