Running WADs from SD card / USB?

Discussion in 'Wii - Hacking' started by peaceburn, Jan 18, 2009.

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  1. peaceburn
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    peaceburn Member

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    Hi guys,

    for some days I have this idea in my head, that it should be somehow possible to lunch WADs from the SD directly. What I mean by this is the following steps

    1) Unpack wad to sd card
    2) run the unpacked stuff without installing it to the wii nand (not sure channels/content is saven on a nand memory)

    In my head it's something like gecko os, however with the extra step of the unpacking the wad added.

    I'm not very well into the wii hacking, trying to gain some knowledge, but basically couldn't find much info on this topic as of now.

    Do you think such thing is possible at all?
     
    #1 Jan 18, 2009


  2. dmonkey21

    dmonkey21 GBAtemp Fan

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    I don't really understand why you would want to do this... A WAD is used to install a channel on your Wii, and even if this is possible having it run from just the SD card seems redundant and a step backwards from what WAD's were made to do. If you want to run a program off of your SD card, just use HBC to launch the .dol...
     
    #2 Jan 18, 2009
  3. IcyVeins

    IcyVeins Member

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    He wants to load VC /WiiWare Games from his SD-Card.
     
    #3 Jan 18, 2009
  4. WiiBlaster

    WiiBlaster GBAtemp Maniac

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    Well i beleive Wanioko released a program called channel Loader, you might be able to edit the source code and recompile it read off of a sd card, but the wad would have to be unpacked, and not sure if it even possible though, well have fun
     
    #4 Jan 18, 2009
  5. dmonkey21

    dmonkey21 GBAtemp Fan

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    Ya, I understand that I just think it is pretty pointless. I mean, I have no clue as to how you could make this work, but why would you want to? The Wii System memory is pretty much ONLY used for channels (VC,WiiWare too, obviously) and saves, so why not utilize it for that? I'm sure you wouldn't be able to do this easily, and it seems like wasted effort to me. Just my opinion though.
     
    #5 Jan 18, 2009
  6. defrb

    defrb Advanced Member

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    I think nintendo themselfs will be the first hwo introduce this. (ive heard rumors..)
    Within a kopple of months you will be able to save wads on your sd.

    Till that time, try to run emu's for all the vc games.
    Saves a lot of space for me.

    G'day!

    [​IMG]
     
    #6 Jan 18, 2009
  7. tj_cool

    tj_cool Site dev

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    Yes, you will be able to save channels directly onto SD from the shop channel
    The prob is, you can't load them from there...
     
    #7 Jan 18, 2009
  8. Lumstar

    Lumstar Princess

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    What about finding out where the internal memory is located, remove it, and solder on a larger chip? Has that been tested?
     
    #8 Jan 18, 2009
  9. screamq3

    screamq3 GBAtemp Regular

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    i think this is a while off yet. It has been mentioned on this forum a number of times but no solution so hopefully someone will have the head to make it happen
     
    #9 Jan 18, 2009
  10. franky86

    franky86 Advanced Member

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    I can guess where the desire for this comes from:

    He wants to have more than 5-6 Wiiware/virtual consoles on his Wii at one time. Instead of having to install/uninstall whenever he wants to play something different.


    I don't think it'd be possible without nintendo or a serious programmer actually doing a lot of work.

    The WAD would have to totally taken apart. The WAD would have to be converted to a .dol or something. And a new wad would have to be made with copied banners/icons and have it direct to the DOL on the SD card.

    You'd have to do it for every wiiware/virtual console game you want to do this too.



    The only reason to do this would be to have access to a lot more wiiware/virtual console games at one time without having to install/uninstall them. Compared to that little bit of work, I don't see anyone taking the time to go through the trouble of all this.(As much as I'd like having more than a handful of my wiiware games available at a time)
     
    #10 Jan 18, 2009
  11. sr_corsario

    sr_corsario GBAtemp Fan

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    In my modest opinion...

    we just need to install the wad as usual with a moddiffied dol (00000001.app) with changed path where the dol call files...
    After that... some way to delete the "unnecesary" files from NAND 2.app, 3.app, etc because that files can be stored/linked on SD
    Keeping 0.app and 1.app on NAND

    Obviouslly xD the "problem" is moddiffy it XD


    Im just dreaming? XD
     
    #11 Jan 18, 2009
  12. raulpica

    raulpica With your drill, thrust to the sky!

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    Sure. Ch0p did that with a 512mb compatible NAND chip, just to find that the IOS doesn't recognize more than 256mb anyway.
     
    #12 Jan 18, 2009
  13. peaceburn
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    peaceburn Member

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    yep, the main reason is to be able to run more vc/wiiware games than the internal memory allows you to install. I've been a bit sleepy the other night when I posted this, so I used WADs but what I meant was wiiware/vc running from SD card.

    Also, if we have this, it'll be easy to move around consoles, and have everything on your sd card - for example like the stuff everyone has in their homebrew channel - once any wii has the HBC installed you can put your sd card and have access to the homebrew collection you've compiled.

    The same with wiiware will be nice to have. Well having them as channels is not that important I believe , some simple homebrew that just lists the WADs from the sd and you select which one to execute would be ok I believe. The idea is not to install them at all to the wii system memory, but rather only running them, and probably getting the saves on the sd too. That really seems as lot of work.
     
    #13 Jan 18, 2009
  14. WiiCrazy

    WiiCrazy Be water my friend!

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    The neatest implementation would be to replace the /dev/es device in ios and redirect all content open/read calls to sd calls only for the running title...

    So then games could be patched to use this very ios...

    And now it becomes ios hacking... pretty hard stuff...

    Another approach would be to patch the main.dol of the channel for the redirection... that's a bad approach and besides being hard compatibility will suffer... still a hard job... few people out there can handle such code and I don't think they would be willing to do it...

    Do not expect it to happen soon...
     
    #14 Jan 18, 2009
  15. japzone

    japzone Member

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    It is now possible to run WADs off your SD card Thanks to System Menu 4.0 and by following these VERY simple instructions.

    Note: Must have Wii Menu Version 4.0 or above for this to work.
    1. Download the latest GeckoOS off the Homebrew Browser[Utilities Category].(Should be v1.9.2 or Higher)
    2. Install the WAD to the WII.
    3. Copy the WAD's channel to your SD card.
    4. Delete the WAD's Channel off the WII. DO NOT UNINSTALL THE WAD!
    5. Now Open GeckoOS and select "Launch Rebooter". DO NOT CHANGE ANY SETTINGS!
    6. Now Open the SD card Menu and Load the Game like usual.
    -Repeat Steps 5 and 6 whenever you want to play the WAD.

    TaDa!! You are now playing your WAD off Your SD.

    PS: If you want you can Install a GeckoOS WAD to your WII for ease of use.
     
    #15 Oct 31, 2009
  16. olliepop2000

    olliepop2000 GBAtemp Fan

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    wow, you've really dug deep through the archives to bump this thread lol
     
    #16 Oct 31, 2009
  17. japzone

    japzone Member

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    Not Really. [​IMG] Something I do is search google once I figure something out to see if anybody else could use what I've learned. That way I'm not the only one that benefits from hours of work. [​IMG]
     
    #17 Oct 31, 2009
  18. longtom1

    longtom1 Keep an eye on my posts cause I quick edit frequen

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    why not just use triiforce???
     
    #18 Oct 31, 2009
  19. xzxero

    xzxero ♥bong milk does good for the brain♥

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    i think the best way to go right now would be to write a program which install WAD data onto your SD card and install the ticket and title onto your Wii.

    That way, its like installing the WAD like normal, then already having it moved to the SD card.

    better than manually moving each game from the NAND to SD card.

    i mean, the data is already on the SD card, why install it to the NAND then move it back?

    installing the ticket and title takes no time at all, and unpacking a wad file on the SD card to its sd card location should be quick also.

    for now, installing the WAD to the NAND, then moving it to the sd card, and using a trucha'd system menu IOS works just fine.
     
    #19 Oct 31, 2009
  20. johnnyl11

    johnnyl11 Newbie

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    so how do you delete the channel without uninstalling the wad?
     
    #20 Jan 6, 2010
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