Hacking USB Loader GX

[bryceshaw06]

So when you put your SD card into your USB adapter that setting was still enabled and that's most likely why the game didn't boot.

Yeah, that seems to be the case. I guess I'm just wondering if there's a way to get it to dynamically change that setting based on what's connected, or to fallback to sd if usb isn't connected or vise versa. So if the Nintenont boot directory in the USBLoader settings is set to USB://apps/Nintendont/boot.dol and it's not found, it could fallback to SD://apps/Nintendont/boot.dol.

which if enabled prevents that message from being seen again until the setting is disabled.

I could just be misunderstanding or doing something wrong, but that popup appears every time that I boot my Wii game forwarders from SD, even if I don't use anything on USB.

I might be able to change some things so that the games might boot if you're always using forwarders. And I might be able to remove the countdown for you, although you'd need to recreate your forwarders.

Yes, that would be amazing! My goal is to be able to boot up the wii and play games from forwarders, and for it to not matter if it's loading from SD or USB as long as all the needed files are there. I'm fine recreating my forwarders, but I don't quite understand why they would need to be remade though. If it makes any difference, the Wii forwarders were made with WiiGSC, and the GameCube ones were very hackily put together by me.

 

[Sypherone]

@Nomado Just check if you can disable the spin down internaly in the drive -> Drive Spin Down

 

[blackb0x]

I could just be misunderstanding or doing something wrong, but that popup appears every time that I boot my Wii game forwarders from SD, even if I don't use anything on USB.

With your setup it might not behave as intended, but on a normal setup where people are going into the loaders GUI it'd behave this way.

I'm fine recreating my forwarders, but I don't quite understand why they would need to be remade though. If it makes any difference, the Wii forwarders were made with WiiGSC, and the GameCube ones were very hackily put together by me.

My current idea is that you'd pass a parameter to the loader so that it knows that you want to skip the countdown. Since I can't make that the default behaviour without potentially breaking things for anyone who has a USB storage device that's slow to initialise.

Is there any way to use IOS58 but have it also prevent HDD spin down?

I could just have the loader read random sectors every 60 seconds or so. But I don't know how reliable that'd be.

 

[r1vver]

@Nomado Just check if you can disable the spin down internaly in the drive -> Drive Spin Down

I think the USB enclosures themselves also have their own idle timer. For example Asmedia ASM1051 MP Tool has such options for configuring the firmware:

 

[alcab]

Okay, that's good to know. But using IOS58 might cause your HDD to stop responding if you let the loader idle for a while and the loader might also fail to create game backups.

If you were to use the second cIOS configuration from the loaders github page then you could try using 251 (base 58).

Done! Thanks for your piece of advice! LAN Network still working when using this parameters!

 

[Nomado]

Mortal Kombat Armageddon seem to be problematic game. It used to work fine and be able to return back to the loader before. But now if I try to return back to the loader after launching it, it freezes at black screen. So far other wii games I tried return back to the loader just fine. I tried installing previous cIOS and new v11 cIOS. I checked the backup with Wii Backup Manager. Any solutions?

 

[vbarros22]

You're using the vWii package that's attached to my post, right? Since outdated installers or incorrect DNS settings can cause that -6 error.

correct Im using

Post automatically merged: Jan 22, 2023

hi again @blackb0x
so I made it work by downloading the d2x cIOS installer from the vwii guide here: https://wiiu.hacks.guide/#/vwii-modding
seems to be a 2.2 version modified by fix94 and dragbe (I was using the 3.1 from google docs like your readme file recomends)
placed the beta1 files from your download on the installer and worked on my vWii
Thank you again for usb loader and this

 

[Nomado]

@Nomado Just check if you can disable the spin down internaly in the drive -> Drive Spin Down

Unfortunately none of the HDDs I have support that.
Can anyone test MK Armageddon and see if it freezes after pressing HOME button and selecting Wii Menu?

 

[blackb0x]

(I was using the 3.1 from google docs like your readme file recomends)

If you had of used the vWii installer attached to my post then it would of already been the correct version.

Mortal Kombat Armageddon seem to be problematic game. It used to work fine and be able to return back to the loader before. But now if I try to return back to the loader after launching it, it freezes at black screen.

It seems to work perfectly from a Wii. I can't comment on if it works correctly from a Wii U though.

 

[vbarros22]

If you had of used the vWii installer attached to my post then it would of already been the correct version.

I was using the github one that should be ok too

 

[blackb0x]

I was using the github one that should be ok too

Yea, that'll be okay.

The d2x installer isn't included on GitHub because it's a separate app and I didn't compile it. But to simplify the installation for people I did upload repackaged installers here at GBAtemp

 

[Nomado]

@blackb0x On vWii, I reinstalled v10 beta52 d2x-v10-beta52-vWii and tried wtih USB Loader GX 7th release. It is able to return to the loader without issue.

With v10 beta52 d2x-v10-beta52-vWii and v3.0-r1281, It freezes when trying to return to the loader. Pressing HOME button and selecting Wii Menu, just freezes vWii without anything displaying.

 

[blackb0x]

@blackb0x On vWii, I reinstalled v10 beta52 d2x-v10-beta52-vWii and tried wtih USB Loader GX 7th release. It is able to return to the loader without issue.

So it's not an issue with d2x v11, but you only experience it with the new version of the loader.

I assume you're using the loaders default settings and have only configured the loader to return to the UNEO channel?

I'd like to know if anyone else can play Mortal Kombat Armageddon on a vWii and then return to the loader without it freezing, since that'll let me know if this is an isolated issue or if there's some sort of a memory conflict that occurs on vWii.

 

[Nomado]

So it's not an issue with d2x v11, but you only experience it with the new version of the loader.

I assume you're the loaders default settings and have only configured the loader to return to the UNEO channel?

I'd like to know if anyone else can play Mortal Kombat Armageddon on a vWii and then return to the loader without it freezing, since that'll let me know if this is an isolated issue or if there's some sort of a memory conflict that occurs on vWii.

Yes, i used default setting and set return to UNEO loader. I checked my backups SHA-1 hash. I tried installing v11 and using older version of the loader but it showed unexpected error screen and reset after 20 secs back to vWii menu.
So v11 seem to conflict with older version of the loader?

 

[blackb0x]

So v11 seem to conflict with older version of the loader?

It'll work for older versions of the loader and other USB loaders too.

If you want to downgrade from r1281 to an older release you should delete the usbloader_gx directory instead of replacing the DOL and XML file, otherwise older versions of the loader will crash.

 

[Nomado]

Yes, currently I have set up d2x V10 and downgraded to r1272. I have deleted USB loader folder and is setting up the loader from fresh. I would help with testing if you need me to test builds.

 

[rigbone]

I have a similar issue with Trackmania in VWii. When I close out of the game, it just black screens on me, but now way to recover unless I actually pull power in order to reset the WiiU. Not a big deal by any means, just figured I'd mention as similar - think it's the only game for me that does it. USA/default USBLoader GX settings, recommended CIOS/slots/bases.

 

[zfa]

So it's not an issue with d2x v11, but you only experience it with the new version of the loader.

I assume you're the loaders default settings and have only configured the loader to return to the UNEO channel?

I'd like to know if anyone else can play Mortal Kombat Armageddon on a vWii and then return to the loader without it freezing, since that'll let me know if this is an isolated issue or if there's some sort of a memory conflict that occurs on vWii.

Could be the latter (memory confict) as I know I'm not able to return to UNEO for some games with the new release on vWii either. Only tested a couple but Mario Kart Deluxe is an example that black screens and needs power pulling (tbf, it's all my kid plays so he's moaning about it a lot, lol).

 

[blackb0x]

Thanks for the info guys.

Unfortunately this isn't an issue that I can debug with Dolphin emulator and I don't own a USB Gecko or a Wii U either, so I'm currently making some blind (but good?) guesses. That'll eventually change once I hit my donation goal though as the first thing I'm going to get is a Wii U.

I'll message you if I think I need another tester

 

[kobeskillz]

Kirby doesn't freeze anymore with the deflicker turned off. Thats cool!

But for the life of me i've never been able to get 007 working! It always freezes at some point no matter what combination of USB loader settings i use. : (

Anyone have any suggestions?