Hacking USB Loader GX

[XFlak]

Now that it's possible to load games directly from SD cards are there any significant disadvantages of using a SD card over using a traditional USB HDD? Are SD Cards less reliable in terms of game compatibility or load speed for example?

If it pretty much behaves the same as the traditional USB HDDs with the newest USB Loader GX, I'm thinking of completely moving everything over to my SD Card and save me the hassle of dealing with the USB drive altogether.

In game access to the SD card is limited when running games off sd, so you won't be able to fully use sd nand emulation, or possibly save ssbb stages to sd. Or play mods like Ssbb infinite won't work, but most things should work fine

 

[Sypherone]

will there come a time that games can be controlled with the GamePad when loaded from USB Loader GX?

Wii games that are injected into WiiU and support nativ classic controller, can already be played with the WiiU gamepad. Some also can be patched :

• GC games : By injecting USB Loader GX with TeconMoon`s WiiVC Injector into WiiU only the SDCard is accessible at all, never the USB drive. This allows to play all GC games on the WiiU gamepad with their controls, not the Wii games. Or they need to be injected one by one to be installed on the WiiU USB drive.
• Wii games : If a Wii game supports classic controller, it can be injected into WiiU and also be played with WiiU gamepad controls. Some games without CC (compatibility list) can be patched with the Injector script through the option "GamePad Emulation"

 

[SolidSonicTH]

Wii games that are injected into WiiU and support nativ classic controller. Can already be played with the WiiU gamepad. Some also can be patched :

So you have to take them out of USB Loader GX to get that kind of support.

 

[LexDG]

for some reason I have two or three games refusing to return to the loader upon exit but it ONLY happens when I use the disc spinning gui.

I redid my entire mod and reinstalled everything to be sure I didn’t change a setting somewhere but no matter what, as soon as I switch back to the spinning disc GUI I can’t get Mario Kart Wii, Super Paper Mario (and maybe another game but I can’t quite remember) to go back to the loader.

 

[vizz]

The previous release can be found You should delete all existing cache related files for it to work.

The behaviour that you're experiencing is certainly odd, so I'd be curious to know if the previous release behaves the same way.


A lot of memory leaks were fixed within the last few years and USB Loader GX r1280 (and newer) can easily handle a huge collection of games.

Are you using Wii Backup Manager to install the games so that title lengths and characters are all valid?

Thanks for the response, so I installed everything through usbloader, but the emunand was actually my original childhood wii, that I migrated over to the wiiu, backed up via homebrew, then mismatched with a blank emunand created on my pc. It is still working perfectly fine, just having trouble with usbloader gx finding the banners all of a sudden.
- I am already using a y-cable with my harddrive and I have done a chkdsk and defragmented too, to no avail, all is apparently ok.
- I have downgraded to v1272 completely and removed all traces of caches and config files, issue still persisting
- I'm now thinking there's an issue with my emunand, so I have a second test one with less wiiware titles and all banners load fine strangely, this would highlight an issue with my intended emunand - however I boot into it using sneek and the wii home menu is showing all the banners perfectly fine and the games load with no issues. There's something wrong with how usbloader gx is getting banners from this one particular emunand but I can't figure it out .

 

[HiddeJ]

The 480p fix does not fix the 480p problem on Wii model revisions newer than rev01. To reproduce: 240p testsuite -> enable 480p 1:1 scale in the option menu -> access the checkerboard menu Without a OSSC or Retrotink5x and optimal sampling/timings enabled you might not see it. This is how it supposed to look like when 480p fix is applied correctly with rev01

See tweet for further details:

 

[bobrocks95]

If this is a dumb question, sorry that I'm not that familiar with USBLoaderGX.

Given all the great video fixes USBLoaderGX has at this point (480p fix, deflicker removal, etc.), are there options available to autoboot a disc game with global patch settings?

I pretty much exclusively use original discs and I'd love if I could just start a forwarded channel for this, and have it launch a disc game with video patches without having to go through any more menus. I think right now you've gotta select the disc icon to "mount" it, then hit 1 or 2 other buttons to actually launch it? Any way to streamline this?

EDIT: Adding a setting for autobooting discs and advancing to the menu automatically was quite simple. However, I'd like to start the disc drive init as soon as possible to cut down on loading times- any advice from USB Loader GX devs?

EDIT2: Using code very similar to the quickboot code that's already in place, I can boot straight to a disc without having to enter the USB Loader GX menu at all. However, I can hear the drive start up, then reset, then start up again- anybody know what all functions reset the disc drive fully? I'm thinking this may be from an IOS reset...

EDIT3: Drive reset behavior is the same when launching a disc from the USB Loader GX GUI normally.

Is there any way to avoid this extra drive reset? Is it because the IOS is being reloaded to the one the game is requesting? If that's the case, why does the native system menu not require a secondary drive reset when launching a game? Is compatibility poor if I just force USBLGX's IOS?

Or to cut to the chase and be clear here: does USB Loader GX always reset the disc drive twice to load a game?

 

[YukidaruPunch]

When loading Wii games from SD card where do you place them? Is it in a WBFS folder?

Also what do you do about games that exceed 4GB? There aren't a ton of them but they're out there.

Create a folder called "wbfs" in the root of your SD card and put your backups there. The backups in there must be named with their ID Codes.

Example: if you have a NTSC Twilight Princess backup, call it RZDE01.wbfs and put it in the wbfs folder. Make sure in the options that loading from SD is checked, and that Wii games are visible (not only wads) - you can change this setting on one of the top icons on the main menu.

 

[r1vver]

Also what do you do about games that exceed 4GB? There aren't a ton of them but they're out there.

The same thing we've always done before - use that crafty program called Wii Backup Manager.
It splits the game file automatically and also it gives them the correct folder and ID.

 

[Sypherone]

@blackbox Found something, maybe your interrested and have time to make this work. I searched once and found this issue from 2014 on sourceforge where it seems to be possible to use one hdd for WiiU and vWii. But never finished, because it was sayed to hard to setup it by enduser and because Linux is neccesarry (Nowdays windows has WSL).
Using the Backup GPT - allowing to use a Hard Drive for both WiiU and vWii

Simple sayed: It needs to create a "hidden protected area" by changing the hidden attribut in the backup gpt. That can be identifyed like a stealthed MBR Attribut (Ustealth) and accessed, read and written on the partition by USBLoader GX.

 

[Ouaz]

Simple, maybe stupid, question.

How to run Wii game in 4:3 pillarbox mode (console is set to 16:9 and I don't want to change TV settings everytime I run such game) - like WarioWare Smooth Moves or Opoona? I've tried some options, but every try gives 16:9 streched output.

Simple, maybe stupid, answer.

You mean not changing the TV display itself to 4:3 ? I think this is not possible.

The only thing you can do is:

Enter the game settings, and set the Screen Format to "Force 4:3", then Save.
Even if your console is set to 16:9 and your ULGX global setting is "Console default" for the Screen Format, this particular game will be forced to 4:3.
You still need to switch your TV display itself to 4:3.

 

[rexus_pl]

Even if your console is set to 16:9 and your ULGX global setting is "Console default" for the Screen Format, this particular game will be forced to 4:3.
You still need to switch your TV display itself to 4:3.

Well, then what this option really does for 4:3 only games? What if I set it to 16:9?

 

[Alexander1970]

Good Evening.

Since the main event is continuous rain at the moment, I might dig up/reactivate my Wii(s) again this weekend.
Did I miss something ,@blackb0x ,my Friend ?

I have heard something like "Wii Games from SD Card".

 

[Ouaz]

Ah, I read to fast, I didn't see you meant 4:3 only games.

Well, then what this option really does for 4:3 only games? What if I set it to 16:9?

Nothing! (either you set the console or ULGX to 4:3 or 16:9)

4:3 only games (like Ghost Squad) doesn't switch to anamorphic widescreen when the console is set to 16:9.
The image will be only stretched and you have to set your TV display itself to 4:3, to get back the correct aspect ratio.

The only workaround would be to have a wiird code to display these games in anamorphic widescreen (like the infamous Ralf did for most of the 4:3 only Gamecube games).

 

[estbgti]

Am I being stupid or does setting SD Card Mode to ON not persist after closing the app? I seem to have to go into settings and manually turn it on again every time I load it.

I had a look in GXGlobal.cfg and can't see the SD Card Mode setting in it.

 

[blackb0x]

for some reason I have two or three games refusing to return to the loader upon exit but it ONLY happens when I use the disc spinning gui.

I redid my entire mod and reinstalled everything to be sure I didn’t change a setting somewhere but no matter what, as soon as I switch back to the spinning disc GUI I can’t get Mario Kart Wii, Super Paper Mario (and maybe another game but I can’t quite remember) to go back to the loader.

Did you try using the previous release? You'd need to delete TitlesCache.bin for it to work without crashing, but if it works then my next release likely fixes the issue.

Given all the great video fixes USBLoaderGX has at this point (480p fix, deflicker removal, etc.), are there options available to autoboot a disc game with global patch settings?

Hey, I assume you're the guy who's sent me a pull request on GitHub? I'll need to test it out when I've got a little more time, but at a glance it looks okay. I'd just need to check if it behaves correctly on both my Wii and Wii U.

Simple sayed: It needs to create a "hidden protected area" by changing the hidden attribut in the backup gpt. That can be identifyed like a stealthed MBR Attribut (Ustealth) and accessed, read and written on the partition by USBLoader GX.

Yeah, I'm aware of that kind of setup. It was never adopted though because even if someone were to create a script or an application to partition the storage device correctly you'd still need to make changes to the loader and maybe even the d2x cIOS. So that's a lot of work for a setup that'd be less flexible than using 2 separate storage devices.

Maybe if I'm bored during a rainy day I'll look into it, but you shouldn't expect that to happen any time soon.

Am I being stupid or does setting SD Card Mode to ON not persist after closing the app? I seem to have to go into settings and manually turn it on again every time I load it.

I had a look in GXGlobal.cfg and can't see the SD Card Mode setting in it.

Are you launching the loader from a forwarder? If you are then you likely need to update your forwarder.

Here's the Wii forwarder and here's the vWii forwarder.

 

[bobrocks95]

Hey, I assume you're the guy who's sent me a pull request on GitHub? I'll need to test it out when I've got a little more time, but at a glance it looks okay. I'd just need to check if it behaves correctly on both my Wii and Wii U.

Yup! It definitely needs Wii U verification since I can't test that, particularly to see if removing the extra drive reset causes problems there.

 

[LexDG]

Did you try using the previous release? You'd need to delete TitlesCache.bin for it to work without crashing, but if it works then my next release likely fixes the issue.

All is well in the test version now. Is there perhaps a way to make a custom scaling option for wii games like there are for GC games in Nintendont? It’s probably not the biggest deal anymore but if I could easily crop the overscan for each individual title I’d be ecstatic

 

[PsOmA]

Tried all combinations and permutations before reaching out...

Running v1281 on a WiiU, trying to get Skylanders Spyro's Adventures to load through USB Loader GX to take advantage of the various graphics tweaks. Tried "pre-canned" NTSC and PAL wbfs options to no avail (it just goes to a black screen after launching and freezes the WiiU), so tried my physical disc which launches from the vWii Menu just fine but behaves the exact same way as the wbfs rips in USB Loader GX.

Using IOS249 = 56 (recommended for Spyro's Adventures), but have also tried with 57 and 58 with no change to behaviour.

Any thoughts as to what might be causing this (and what else I might be able to try to get it working)?!?

Cheers!

 

[CoolMe]

Tried all combinations and permutations before reaching out...

Running v1281 on a WiiU, trying to get Skylanders Spyro's Adventures to load through USB Loader GX to take advantage of the various graphics tweaks. Tried "pre-canned" NTSC and PAL wbfs options to no avail (it just goes to a black screen after launching and freezes the WiiU), so tried my physical disc which launches from the vWii Menu just fine but behaves the exact same way as the wbfs rips in USB Loader GX.

Using IOS249 = 56 (recommended for Spyro's Adventures), but have also tried with 57 and 58 with no change to behaviour.

Any thoughts as to what might be causing this (and what else I might be able to try to get it working)?!?

Cheers!

Verify the hash in WiiBackupManager to make sure the wbfs file is not corrupt. Also check the video mode setting in USBLoaderGX, it should be set to "disc default" or "global".