I bought a Wii U off of eBay that plays Wii U games on an USB stick, so how do I add more games exactly?

[MisterHouseNV]

Hey everyone,


like the title says I have bought an used Wii U from eBay that came with an USB stick that had a bunch of games on it. I thought I could just add the games I'd like to that USB stick, but when I plug it into my PC it says that I have to defrag the stick before I can use it. So how can I add more Wii U (and Wii) games?

I know there's complete guides for stuff like that, but I'm confused as to where I'm supposed to start. Plus I don't want to mess up my console and end up not being able to play these games any more.

Also I don't know how 'hacked' my console already is. I'm assuming it is to a certain degree because otherweise I wouldn't be able to play games off of a USB stick like that, right? Or does Nintendo let you do that (my last Nintendo console was the N64, so I have absolutely no idea about any of this).

When I turn on the system it says that the firmware version is 5.5.5 and I can't see any other externally installed hacking software. That's all I can really say about the console, I hope that's enough.


Thanks in advance.


Greetings

 

[godreborn]

You can play games off USB officially. Don't initialize the disk in windows.

 

[MisterHouseNV]

What disc? You mean the stick?

And how do I add more games?

 

[E1ite007]

Yeah. Using USB sticks for storage in consoles is common now and since the Wii/Xbox 360/PS3 gen has been a standard.
To know if your console is hacked check in the settings app the version number. If it is something along 99.99.99, is definately hacked. If it's something else, it's not.

If your console isn't hacked, use this guide to install some CFW: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/#/
We recommend the Tiramisu option.

After that, installing games should be as simple as moving the games to the 'install' folder in the SD card, opening the Homebrew Launcher, running WUP Installer and selecting the WUPs from your SD card to install.
To get WUPs I could recommend USB Helper, or just installing the games from the console with NUSspli (bare in mind that it's not as fast as USB Helper and could have glitches even after almost 2 years of development).

And... I would ditch the USB stick and connect an HDD with a Y USB cable. USB sticks are not made for how the console reads and writes data to the external storage device, and it's known that they could lead to corruption with time. There's nothing written, as some folks have said that after a couple of years their USB stick still works, but some other have said that just after a couple of days suffered corruption and loss of data.

 

[MisterHouseNV]

Yeah. Using USB sticks for storage in consoles is common now and since the Wii/Xbox 360/PS3 gen has been a standard.
To know if your console is hacked check in the settings app the version number. If it is something along 99.99.99, is definately hacked. If it's something else, it's not.

Do you mean the number on the top right of the screen after you clicked on settings? It says '5.5.5 E' so it's not actually hacked? But how can it play games from an USB stick then? And why do I need to install a bunch of stuff just to add more games

 

[Noctosphere]

I would highly suggest not to run demanding games on an usb stick
usb stick are made to stock data, not to run programs
Better go for a ext. hdd

 

[MisterHouseNV]

I would highly suggest not to run demanding games on an usb stick
usb stick are made to stock data, not to run programs
Better go for a ext. hdd

And what about SD cards?

 

[Hayato213]

And what about SD cards?

No get a HDD instead

 

[Noctosphere]

And what about SD cards?

If you talk about games on Switch's mSD, I don't think they run directly on the mSD unlike what big consoles do with their usb drive

 

[The Real Jdbye]

And what about SD cards?

SD cards aren't supported in Wii U mode, you can use a USB SD reader but it's the same as using a flash drive.
The Wii U really wears out flash drives quickly, apparently.

Do you mean the number on the top right of the screen after you clicked on settings? It says '5.5.5 E' so it's not actually hacked? But how can it play games from an USB stick then? And why do I need to install a bunch of stuff just to add more games

They probably used the browser exploit to run homebrew and install games with WUP Installer GX2. Retail games don't need a CFW in order to work, just a way to get into homebrew and install the games, then they can be launched after without the need for homebrew. The limitation is that eShop exclusives, Virtual Console and DLC all require CFW, only games that have a physical disc release can be ran without homebrew. The proper way to hack the console would be using Haxchi/CBHC or TIramisu (probably TIramisu is the better option now) that would allow you to install/play anything and enable easier access to homebrew launcher. Though you could get by by doing what the previous owner did and just launching the browser exploit when you need to run homebrew (such as to install more games)

 

[V10lator]

how can it play games from an USB stick then?

Simple: These games have been purchased from the eShop.

And why do I need to install a bunch of stuff just to add more games

You don't have to install anything. Just continue buying games from the eShop if that's all you want to do.

 

[MisterHouseNV]

Oh, I see. I always assumed these were downloaded Roms. Isos or whatever it's called on Wii U...


Now it all makes sense... Thanks alot

 

[OldWiiGamer]

I would highly suggest not to run demanding games on an usb stick
usb stick are made to stock data, not to run programs
Better go for a ext. hdd

While I agree with you, your reasoning is wrong.

It's actually the exact opposite re: modern usb sticks are designed to read data. Flash memory is non-volitile and is either NAND or NOR. Most modern flash memory is NAND which measures it's longetivity in WRITE cycles. It is by it's very nature designed to optimally write data and then read it as many times as you want. If you are constantly writing to it then you will be slowly approaching it's time to failure.

A modern USB stick outperforms the built in drive of the Wii U significantly. In both read and seek times. It has nothing to do with games being "demanding".

The reason you need to be concerned about flash drives themselves is the varying quality of both the flash modules and the controller chips. They may also not implement all the feature sets you get on modern SSD or even some HDD. If you HAVE to use a flash drive then make sure you are using a trusted brand i.e. Sandisk and avoiding any sticks that don't review well.

Now, the reason you want a HDD for the Wii/WiiU modding is related to Wii/vWii CIOS. As Cyan has stated many times if you are writing (i.e. ripping disks) then you will likely encounter some issues.

The WiiU's internal NAND is no different from using a good quality USB flash drive apart from it not having to transfer data over the USB interface.

In some countries it is very difficult to source HDD with an external power supply. Things like Ebay, Amazon etc are often not available or very expensive. I would say - go with a HDD if you can but use a GOOD QUALITY flash drive if you can't afford a HDD or have no space for one AND you are aware of the limitations.

 

[wolf-snake]

Ohh that's easy... You but them off the Eshop.

 

[V10lator]

@OldWiiGamer The Wii U is known to do excessive writes to the USB device (updating statistics and stuff like that) even when you don't do anything. Also the filesystem is designed to write to the same spot all the time. Now combine this filesystem with a USB stick (which doesn't do wear leveling) and... Yea... Wii U is simply designed for HDDs, not for NAND and even Nintendo tells to not use flash drives:

Can I use a Flash/Thumb drive as an external storage device?​

Because these devices have a limited number of rewrites and are not suited to long-term storage of important game data, we do not recommend the use of Flash/thumb drives as an external storage device solution. For best results, we recommend using a external storage device with its own power supply that connects to the Wii U via the USB port on the console.

Commercial Flash memory has a limit on the number of times you can write over it and we don't recommend flash memory devices for long-term storage of important save data.

Source: https://en-americas-support.nintend...ii-u-internal-storage-space-information#s1q10

Nintendo recommends using self-powered hard disk drives

Source: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Support/...es/Compatible-USB-storage-devices-676063.html

The internal NAND is ofc. a different story as Nintendo does not do these excessive writes there.

//EDIT: Also the USB drive is limitted by USB 2.0 bus speed, so internal flash will always be faster and you don't gain any speed improvements compared with a slow HDD. USB 3 sticks or fast HDDs are nothing but a waste of money when combined with the Wii U.

//EDIT²: So @MisterHouseNV I would suggest buying a cheap, slow drive from a trusted manufacturer (I for myself am using a WD Blue notebook drive) then combine it with some cheap SATA to USB adapter (got mine from Alibaba. These are hit or miss through so I wouldn't suggest them) or enclosure (my HDD is just sitting in the antistatic bag it came with), copy the data from the stick to the HDD and use the stick for other purposes (with your PC).

 

[OldWiiGamer]

@OldWiiGamer The Wii U is known to do excessive writes to the USB device (updating statistics and stuff like that) even when you don't do anything. Also the filesystem is designed to write to the same spot all the time. Now combine this filesystem with a USB stick (which doesn't do wear leveling) and... Yea... Wii U is simply designed for HDDs, not for NAND and even Nintendo tells to not use flash drives:

//EDIT: Also the USB drive is limitted by USB 2.0 bus speed, so internal flash will always be faster and you don't gain any speed improvements compared with a slow HDD. USB 3 sticks or fast HDDs are nothing but a waste of money when combined with the Wii U.

Have you got any more detail on writing stats etc? What kind of volume are we talking about here? MB's? GB's? This would be assumbing the drive is not being used for anything apart from loading games. re: wear leveling - I don't believe that is actually correct. Some reputable brands actually have Wear leveling on their USB sticks. Sandisk even has it on their "extreme pro" SD cards now! (and others I believe)

In regards to your final point around speed comparison I was referring to USB flash vs WiiU built in Optical Drive. But if you are talking HDD then yes, transfer speed would be limited by USB2.0 (although some older HDD can't even saturate USB2.0) but seek times would be significantly better with NAND.

And like I said before. I actually agree I would always recommend a HDD over a flash unless there are some restrictions which prevent it. Where I live a second hand HDD of questionable quality with the storage required costs over 70 (USD), A Y cable would cost about 20 dollars (shipping) + another 70 for a new HDD. Meanwhile a good flash drive with 128GB+ storage is 20 dollars. It just doesn't stack up when I can buy a WiiU for about 100 dollars.

 

[V10lator]

Have you got any more detail on writing stats etc? What kind of volume are we talking about here? MB's? GB's?

Sadly no. This is just what other devs told me. Anyway, from a quick look there are multiple folders beside what you install:
/usr/boss
/usr/packages
/usr/tmp

This would be assumbing the drive is not being used for anything apart from loading games.

The save file has to be on the same storage medium as the game (/usr/save) an there's even a CafeOS save folder not used by games (/usr/save/system).

Some reputable brands actually have Wear leveling on their USB sticks. Sandisk even has it on their "extreme pro" SD cards now! (and others I believe)

Not sure if this is true but I guess such sticks would be pretty expensive.

seek times would be significantly better with NAND.

Never found a case where seek times seem to matter except Namco Triforce Injects (the Namco Triforce used CF cards instead of a disc drive, so you get micro stuttering when running such games from a HDD). So I'm installing these games to internal NAND (Nintendont puts the save files onto the SD card anyway).

 

[OldWiiGamer]

Not sure if this is true but I guess such sticks would be pretty expensive.

Thanks for all the information. I am a little bit concerned and I might try and switch out my current one that is going on four years.

Re: Wear leveling. You can easily check for yourself using one of these: https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/Flash-Drive-Information-Extractor.shtml or https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/ChipGenius.shtml.

I use Chip Genius myself and it is pretty straightforward. The only thing is it doesn't tell you whether the controller supports dynamic or static write leveling. If you are unsure I recommend doubling the size provisionin case it is dynamic.

 

[V10lator]

Thank you, too. Maybe the reason why some sticks work for years while others die fast is wear leveling.