Hacking iPlayer experiment

[jayx3m]

I'm not really sure if some had notice this on iPlayer. I've been messing around with iPlayer trying to load some games with it. Its pretty strange how they got to allow homebrews to run and block commercial games.

I've found out that iPlayer will never load an ".nds" file 4MB and up. It will only prompt you that it's not a homebrew file. So I've unpacked a game to trim it down to 3.5MB and tried it on R4. Success!!! the game worked as plan. I've manage to load the game.

Now, I tried loading it on iPlayer's homebrew launher. And to my surprise, it was not detected as homebrew. However, it was a white screen of death after that. There must be a second line protection for the iplayer to limit games from loading. I'm now wondering what does a commercial game have that triggers this protection. I've tried editing the game code and internal title but it's still not working.

If only someone can modify the 4MB limit. Then maybe...

 

[Jakob95]

Maybe the Iplayer knows its not a homebrew for four reasons... This is the dumbest question ever...

1st: The code of the game will tell that the game is commercial since they have headers.
2nd: A commercial game has a Game Id. But a homebrew does not. When Iplayer detects a game ID it won't boot up the game.
3rd: No loaders. How will it run the game when it has no commercial loaders for it to work on.
4th: The iplayer wasn't meant to play commercial games.

 

[jayx3m]

Yeah, I'm well aware that iplayer wasn't meant to play commercial games. That's why customizing it's programming will possibly make it to load games.

 

[SifJar]

This wont work. Several reasons:

1. Its possible to tell (quite easily apparently) from the banner of the .NDS file that is a hombrew or ROM.
2. There needs to be a special loader for ROMs. If there didn't, it'd be easy to make a ROM Loader, yet the only two unofficial ROM Loaders for any cart are AKAIO and YS Menu. You have to know exactly how the card works for it to load ROMs. Homebrew loaders wont work for loading ROMs. Sorry.

 

[Jakob95]

Actually Ysmenu loaders are DSTT loaders...

 

[SifJar]

Actually Ysmenu loaders are DSTT loaders...

Whats your point exactly? YSMenu is for DSTT. I know that. My point is, there are very few ROM loaders out there, and most homebrew apps that can load ROMs do so through YSMenu, therefore only work on DSTT, R4 or AK2i (YSMenu supported cards). If it was as simple as the OP thinks, homebrew apps would be able to easily load ROMs without using YSMenu, and people would be making ROM loading homebrew left right and center. See, to be able to load a ROM, you need to know a LOT about how the card works, its not just a case of bypassing a few checks. If it was, you could easily write a homebrew which loaded .NDS files WITHOUT those checks. The 4MB limit thing is in case some managed to slip some sort of loader INTO the ROM. For example, they could patch the ROM someway to work with the card. The 4MB limit is an extra layer of protection. It'll also check the banner, and see if its a homebrew. (But that's easy to bypass, just swap the banner.bin with a homebrew). So basically, you'd need to know exactly how the card works, and then write a ROM loader for it.