Hacking The protection in NSMB ...

[AdamBrunt]

Hi all,

Thought it might be best to start a new thread rather than post in the "mega" NSMB thread which is mainly about getting the patch to work.

So it seems the new protection method was detecting how the game was being run eg via homebrew, usb loader, modchip, etc and throw an error if it wasn't being run "normally". In hindsight, once the protection was found the fix seemed reasonably easy.

The noob questions I have are ... in the future

1) Will Neogamma, or any of the loaders, be able to apply similar fixes on the fly ? Or will the fix always have to be applied proactively ?

2) Will Neogamma, or any of the loaders, be able change the way they work so that patches aren't needed ? I guess this depends on when/if it is discovered what the protection was actually checking for.

3) If this is what the protection was doing why (and I might be wrong here) does the patched version not work with a modchip ? As I understand it, using a modchip (and nothing else) should enable you to play a backup via the disc channel in the "normal" way ie the way the protection is expecting the game to be played.

Thoughts anyone ?

 

[buffdog]

good thinking like to know that too

 

[metroid4life14]

Well, supposedly the wii2 is coming out in about a year from now, and only Nintendo released games have had AP Protection... so I'm not too worried.

 

[PainToad]

Answers to all those questions are in the other thread, do what I did (and everyone else) and spend 15mins reading it. Your not special requiring your own support.

 

[AdamBrunt]

Erm, I did ... and I certainly couldn't find the answers to any of those questions. Hence why I started the topic.

 

[cojiro]

I'd like to know exactly what this protection does, and how it works.

 

[PainToad]

I'd like to know exactly what this protection does, and how it works.

Seriously mods please close this.

 

[VicViper206]

Erm, I did ... and I certainly couldn't find the answers to any of those questions. Hence why I started the topic.

Then look harder.

 

[iNFiNiTY]

You won't be any info here because nobody here knows, the crack was just taken from a chinese forum it looks like to me.

 

[s3phir0th115]

Hi all,

Thought it might be best to start a new thread rather than post in the "mega" NSMB thread which is mainly about getting the patch to work.

So it seems the new protection method was detecting how the game was being run eg via homebrew, usb loader, modchip, etc and throw an error if it wasn't being run "normally". In hindsight, once the protection was found the fix seemed reasonably easy.

The noob questions I have are ... in the future

1) Will Neogamma, or any of the loaders, be able to apply similar fixes on the fly ? Or will the fix always have to be applied proactively ?

2) Will Neogamma, or any of the loaders, be able change the way they work so that patches aren't needed ? I guess this depends on when/if it is discovered what the protection was actually checking for.

3) If this is what the protection was doing why (and I might be wrong here) does the patched version not work with a modchip ? As I understand it, using a modchip (and nothing else) should enable you to play a backup via the disc channel in the "normal" way ie the way the protection is expecting the game to be played.

Thoughts anyone ?

1. If you mean alternative dol loading, this has been a feature of several loaders for a while now. You can simply extract the dol, patch it, and then use the alternative dol while you launch the game. So you could have burned the game before it was fixed and have it working simply by using the patched dol.

2. Yes, and they've been able to do this for a while, or at least Neogamma has been. There was even a release of Neogamma made very recently that is suppose to load NSMB without patching anything or using alternative dol loading.

3. Loading from the disc channel and loading from a launcher are 2 different things. Modchips are able to load the game fine through a loader with the patch applied. (Or supposedly with Neogamma, not a patch at all.)

My guess is the game also has modchip protections that just aren't fixed yet because the majority use software modifications to load their copies now.

 

[ether2802]

AdamBrunt
Hi all,

Thought it might be best to start a new thread rather than post in the "mega" NSMB thread which is mainly about getting the patch to work.

So it seems the new protection method was detecting how the game was being run eg via homebrew, usb loader, modchip, etc and throw an error if it wasn't being run "normally". In hindsight, once the protection was found the fix seemed reasonably easy.

The noob questions I have are ... in the future

1) Will Neogamma, or any of the loaders, be able to apply similar fixes on the fly ? Or will the fix always have to be applied proactively ?
This is not the first problematic .iso file, and it wont the be the last for sure, a few games like CoD3 just don't work at all on any USB loader alt.dol, patching, you name it, simply because if the older construction of games that used to reload the IOS in use, this (I'm guessing) is not fixable or patcheable by any USB loader, the only solution is to burn a copy and play it straight from the DVD, so I really think that when the time comes, we will see the fix for it.......or not.


2) Will Neogamma, or any of the loaders, be able change the way they work so that patches aren't needed ? I guess this depends on when/if it is discovered what the protection was actually checking for.
What are you talking about...?? the latest construction of NeoGamma, CFG and Wiiflow loaders, already have a patcher inside the loader that makes the alt.dol or cheat unnecesary...!!

3) If this is what the protection was doing why (and I might be wrong here) does the patched version not work with a modchip ? As I understand it, using a modchip (and nothing else) should enable you to play a backup via the disc channel in the "normal" way ie the way the protection is expecting the game to be played.
Hence you are modifying an .iso file, 2 IOS on the Wii will check if it is trucha signed, the one for the SysMenu and the one for the game (4.1 so IOS60 and IOS53) if they don't have the trucha bug inserted, or better said, if they are trucha fixed, they both will refuse to read a modified-trucha .iso file


...!!

 

[Jaz808]

New protection means shit all, if a game can be cracked before its officially released


Edit: spelling

 

[AdamBrunt]

1. If you mean alternative dol loading, this has been a feature of several loaders for a while now. You can simply extract the dol, patch it, and then use the alternative dol while you launch the game. So you could have burned the game before it was fixed and have it working simply by using the patched dol.

No I don't mean alt dol loading - as that still requires modifying the main.dol before it's loaded on the wii or SD card. I am talking about whether loaders are able to the "in a hex editor replace all .... with ..." bit on the fly ?

QUOTE(s3phir0th115 @ Nov 10 2009, 03:46 AM) 2. Yes, and they've been able to do this for a while, or at least Neogamma has been. There was even a release of Neogamma made very recently that is suppose to load NSMB without patching anything or using alternative dol loading.

Interesting - wonder how long it will take for the other loaders to follow suit.

 

[Bladexdsl]

it's been cracked already so don't worry about it. and no i dont mean the alt dol method.

 

[jap0knees]

New protection means shit all, if a game can been crack before its officially released

I think this man just won himself a cookie

if you can crack it you can hack it

 

[Jaz808]

Thx dude, can that be a hash cookie

 

[simexi]

is it really fully cracked? coz i've problems after playing the game. i get black screens from hbc apps, internet channel gives me an error("an error has occured..." etc)!

 

[tj_cool]

Well, supposedly the wii2 is coming out in about a year from now, and only Nintendo released games have had AP Protection... so I'm not too worried.

Its Piracy protection, not Anti-Piracy Protection

And the Wii2 is only a rumor btw.

Anyway, there is no need to worry about anything
Fixes have been found and more will be found

 

[bazamuffin]

There seems to be little faith in the coders that have bailed us out soooo many times before. Sit back, relax and play the games you already have.

QUOTE: "I find your lack of faith disturbing..."

 

[WiiPower]

Since the game did not work for modchip users who reached the following requirements:
- Correct region
- Updated via disc
- Did not patch the disc in any way. (at least there are people claiming they tested with a real 1:1)
- Played via disc channel

The only thing left i can imagine that it uses some new dip command. Well nintendo can't just develop a new dip command, since the drive's firmware can't be updated, ALL drives have to handle ALL dip commands correctly. It could be some dip command the drives understood from the beginning, but were never used or it's a dip command that is used all the time, but the problem is a little detail. A dip command usually returns a buffer and a return value, und it could be that everything only checked for the return value until now, but NSMB also checks the buffer. Since that was ignored anyways until now, it could be that modchips and cIOS return something wrong here.

In short, to me it looks like the modchips and cIOS will get an update the sooner or later and NSMB and all games using the same protection will instantly work without any patches. Ok, that's just my theory, i could be wrong.



In more detail about the patch. I heard that it patches the error function in the game, where it already knows that something is "wrong", to just continue the game instead of throwing the error message. The game is not an IOS Reloading game! It really looks like nintendo did not see that this would make playing backups at least more difficult.

And about future patching. We could even be lucky that the same patch code that is implemented in the most recent loaders would work on new games.(if it would try to do them, NeoGamma checks for the disc id) Even if not, if it's the same protection, there will always be somebody finding how to patch it the same way as NSMB and all loader teams will be able to put that patch in within 10 minutes.