Sneek won't boot 90% of my Wiiware... why?

[Duamutef_MC]

Hi all. I used the excellent ModMii package to do the following:

- create a Sneek foundation;
- create a NTSC emuNAND;

I used ShowMiiWads to install several NTSC wads to the NTSC Sneek emuNAND (my console is a PAL one)

My previous modding path is literally 1-by-1 what described in the Wii Modding Guide.

USB Loader GX works wonderfully with WBFS with 100% success rate. emuNAND apps (WiiWare and VC) are instead a very painful affair.

Why does Neek - which I assumed to be 100% compatible - fails? What am I doing wrong?

Kindly let me have your thoughts.

 

[Duamutef_MC]

I can open most WiiWare title if I load Neek directly via Nswitch. Loading times are atrocious (20 to 45 seconds to start or exit a game!) but they work. How come when starting Neek from USB Loader GX several WiiWare titles do fail to load? I imagined USB Loader GX to simply act as a frontend... what am I missing here?

Post automatically merged: Nov 8, 2024

Also: Neek is very inconsistent. Games will start or will crash/freeze the console without much rhyme and reason. How can I make it more stable?

 

[XFlak]

If it's that slow it could be your physical device that's to blame.

When you say start neek from gx, do u mean actually launching into neek from its features menu? Or launching a title from the emunand directly from gx? If actually launching into neek it shouldn't make a difference what method u use to launch into it, nswitch, bootmii, gx, etc

You could troubleshoot gx... but without getting into more details I think just be a bit more patient and u could avoid having to figure out workarounds that might not be needed for much longer

 

[Duamutef_MC]

Loading a channel from the Channel list (accessed via the '1') button freezes the Console with alarming frequency. I cannot devise a plan to make this stuff work if the same procedure done 4 different times gives 4 different results. How do you people manage to make this?

Post automatically merged: Nov 8, 2024

If it's that slow it could be your physical device that's to blame.

When you say start neek from gx, do u mean actually launching into neek from its features menu? Or launching a title from the emunand directly from gx? If actually launching into neek it shouldn't make a difference what method u use to launch into it, nswitch, bootmii, gx, etc

You could troubleshoot gx... but without getting into more details I think just be a bit more patient and u could avoid having to figure out workarounds that might not be needed for much longer

If you can promise that future features will make a PAL Wii emuNAND 100% compatible with NTSC Virtual Console and WiiWare (much like USB Loader GX and cIos d2x v11 do flawlessly now with WBFS NTSC titles!) I'm ok with shelving all .WADs for a few months. I must confess I am not a great fan of Neek. But I appreciate it was last updated 11 years ago.

Post automatically merged: Nov 8, 2024

In the meantime, what can I do to make Neek a bit more consistent? And what troubleshooting steps you recommend with GX? Thanks in advance.

 

[XFlak]

Neek is finicky, all my tips are listed after using modmii to build neek. Other than that u could try using your own nand extracted as an emunand, or different hardware.

Post loader and joyflow are really old but were built intended to be launched from within neek, those are things you could try too.

Generally you'd want to avoid neek anyway and only use it to launch titles that don't work via traditional cios + usbloader. Like tin tin was problematic for a long time for example.

Be aware some specific titles like Kirby return to dreamlike iirc have unique protection like meta fortress and may require you to disable any special settings when loading like forcing video mode or language, or others may require you force the language to English to launch depending on your wii system settings. And of course some may require you to change cios used, but gx's auto ios setting is pretty good by default. Again, hopefully soon a lot of these things will be better.

There are no guarantees, but I'm optimistic

 

[tmnr1992]

I've used

Generally you'd want to avoid neek anyway and only use it to launch titles that don't work via traditional cios + usbloader. Like tin tin was problematic for a long time for example.

This. Just use regular USB Loader for most games and Neek for the problematic ones, which are very few. You could also try making the emunand through USB Loader GX instead. That shouldn't really affect compatibility as far as I'm aware, but it's another option.

 

[Exidous]

Quick disambiguation. neek is a set of software configurations for Wii emunands. sneek is sd card. uneek is usb drive. neek2o is a more 'full' method that fixes some compatibility issues created by simpler/faster emunand access methods.

you choose sneek or uneek when you build an emunand (based on where it's located). A usb loader can be configured to load individual wiiware games installed to an emunand via CIOS or neek2o.

neek2o is the nuclear option for wiiware/vc compatibility. It runs a bit slower/uglier than CIOS. Usually - like when you search related threads to try to figure this out - when people talk about wiiware/neek they're talking about neek2o.

Please clarify: which games work and which do not. If it's indeed all of them working wrong/not at all from the usb loader, then you have a general issue.

If it's a general issue I have a few ideas. You mention WBFS, and I believe the recommendation is to setup your emunand on a FAT(32) partition. WBFS as a filesystem is outdated. Thanks to region free/force resolution hacks, I'm not sure if your PAL system menu > NTSC emunand setup is at all necessary (and may be a source of instability - I don't think many people have tried that configuration).

If, however, it's only a few games that don't work, specifically like Majora's Mask and Smash 64, then the issue is that those titles need to be individually configured to use neek2o (rather than CIOS) from your usb loader.

See also https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Wii_cIOS_EmuNAND_Compatibility_List

 

[Duamutef_MC]

Quick disambiguation. neek is a set of software configurations for Wii emunands. sneek is sd card. uneek is usb drive. neek2o is a more 'full' method that fixes some compatibility issues created by simpler/faster emunand access methods.

you choose sneek or uneek when you build an emunand (based on where it's located). A usb loader can be configured to load individual wiiware games installed to an emunand via CIOS or neek2o.

neek2o is the nuclear option for wiiware/vc compatibility. It runs a bit slower/uglier than CIOS. Usually - like when you search related threads to try to figure this out - when people talk about wiiware/neek they're talking about neek2o.

Please clarify: which games work and which do not. If it's indeed all of them working wrong/not at all from the usb loader, then you have a general issue.

If it's a general issue I have a few ideas. You mention WBFS, and I believe the recommendation is to setup your emunand on a FAT(32) partition. WBFS as a filesystem is outdated. Thanks to region free/force resolution hacks, I'm not sure if your PAL system menu > NTSC emunand setup is at all necessary (and may be a source of instability - I don't think many people have tried that configuration).

If, however, it's only a few games that don't work, specifically like Majora's Mask and Smash 64, then the issue is that those titles need to be individually configured to use neek2o (rather than CIOS) from your usb loader.

See also https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Wii_cIOS_EmuNAND_Compatibility_List

I am getting a very good percentage of games to run without Neek/Neek2O now. The problem is that I cannot run some titles shown as working on the compatibility list.

Which brings me to my question. Does d2x-v11 completely supersede v10 or should I keep a copy of both just in case?

 

[XFlak]

V8 final, v10 beta 52 and v11 beta 1 are all pretty much the same. Iirc maybe some compatibility improvements for a handful of hdd's, but nothing too material

V10 beta 53 alt is very different, but not recommended unless the others above fail with a particular hdd

Somewhere I quoted blackb0x in a response to you where he was asking for specific titles, to confirm if they're working with his dev build of the loader. So share specifics and he'll either see this message or I'll relay the info on discord

Edit, nvm I see your other thread now