Hacking USB Loader GX

[Soplox]

channel animations instead of boxarts (read the Opening.BNR from the ISO)

That will be awesome

 

[r-win]

The deal is this: we try to detect if you have stubs installed. The only way to detect that is to check the revision of 249 and 222.

Can we disable this in the settings? Most users here have GX running and don't need the stub detection I guess.

Who was there first, the chicken or the egg? Before we can load the settings, we have to have cios 249 and/or 222 loaded. So no, you can't. But then again, it won't bother you, and it takes only a few milliseconds.

 

[wiiesel]

i have a problem with the newest rev.

i updated my usb loader gx and now all my covers are gone.
i also cant download new covers because he says that i shall insert a sd card which is inserted already.
my sd card is working correct because the HBC works perfectly and i start the loader from sd.

anyone know this problem or any help??

thx in advance

 

[r-win]

channel animations instead of boxarts (read the Opening.BNR from the ISO)

That will be awesome

Yes, it would. Unfortunately, the format of BNR files is unknown for a big part. We can extract the images, we can extract the sound, but we are missing the relation.

 

[hdhacker]

No, there should be no difference whatsoever. I tried this yesterday with a new harddrive (partitioned it like you did), but I cannot reproduce this behavior.

Just to make sure...

First partition is FAT32 and second is wbfs. Both are primary. Games are only on the wbfs partition and the FAT32 isn't being used for anything USBLoader GX related.

 

[wiiesel]

now i have another problem that is surely related to the other one.

when i want to update, the loader tells me "console locked, please unlock...."
and when i try to change the gameload settings he tells me the same

the parental control in my wii is off....i dont know what to do

 

[r-win]

now i have another problem that is surely related to the other one.

when i want to update, the loader tells me "console locked, please unlock...."
and when i try to change the gameload settings he tells me the same

the parental control in my wii is off....i dont know what to do

That one is easy: USB GX has it's own parental control. You can find it in the settings, where you can also unlock it. The default password is aabbaa (I think). The parental control settings of the wii are not used yet, but I have a version in test (expect a commit tonight), which will use them.

 

[kedest]

In another topic I read that installing to a fat partition is broken in the latest revisions. In the rev i'm using (i believe 843) it's still working.
Is this a known issue / is there a fix yet?

 

[mousex]

The deal is this: we try to detect if you have stubs installed. The only way to detect that is to check the revision of 249 and 222.

Can we disable this in the settings? Most users here have GX running and don't need the stub detection I guess.

Who was there first, the chicken or the egg? Before we can load the settings, we have to have cios 249 and/or 222 loaded. So no, you can't. But then again, it won't bother you, and it takes only a few milliseconds.

No need to be so arrogant, you are just modding code others made.
Why do we need a cios to load settings? I'm fairly sure that a normal ios is adequate to read this little file on the sd card. And how do you load cios 249 and 222?
And the "few milliseconds" are a ugly console which stays there at least 2 seconds. I thought GX wants to have a nice GUI as it can't reach CFGs features but this console at the beginning does not fit into the nice gui.
But don't bother, FileMerge removed this silly check nice and quick.

 

[XFlak]

I renamed my cios version numbers to = the version number of the stub (so that I can overwrite the stubs without using ATD first, and it will also prevent ninty from updating those IOSs if for some reason some1 manages to update my wii). So basically I have wanin's IOS249 rev14 renamed to be rev 3XXXX (w/e the stub version # is), and I did the same for hermes.

With this check in place, I dont think my IOSs will work... its not a huge deal, but I will have to reinstall the original IOSs

 

[giantpune]

no need to go rearranging any of your IOSes right now. this check is still new and may be changed around. just wait a few revs and then decide if you still need to do something to get shit to work.

 

[XFlak]

will do! thx 4 the advice

 

[Daviii]

Hello all

I have been using gx since it came out and have managed to get most games working but I just cant get modern warfare or nsmb to work. I am using the latest rev and cios 12 when I use cios 14 or 15 the rest of my games stop working(they work fine with cios 12). Iv tried everything can someone please post settings where these games work(especially modern warfare). Im on waninkoko,s 4.1 update.

 

[r-win]

Is update broken for usb loader gx. Don't flame.., but whenver i try to update it won't. And I used a newer revisoin. and when a new one came up I tried to update and it still didn't work?Any help:?

No, it's not broken. But there is a difference between revisions and versions. The versions on the update server are tested version, while the revisions on the google download page are automatically compiled from our commits into source control.

Why do you need to initialise the CIOS before showing the menu anyway?
It seems to be starting up alot slower than before & the console output is annoying.
Initialising SD & WBFS when I'm not using them seems pointless.
Actually, we do initiliaze them when showing the menu. That is the whole point of starting up. USB GX is designed to be an USB Loader which is able to run games from USB. Therefor, it's first thing is to access the drive, and search for games. So we added the check right before.

Btw, about the slower load time. It seems that way, because you saw console output now. Reloading into 36 and 236 doesn't cost a thing. Checking costs something, but the longest reload is into 222. And the fact that we show console output now, and the menu a bit later, makes it "look" longer. Anyway, the console output will only visible when booting from HBC.

Putting the CIOS to use in the config would be good, you should be able to read the config using a standard IOS.
Not true. A lot of harddrives are not supported by libogc, while they are by using a cios. We would drop support for those drives. Making an exception for such drives is useless and a waste of our time, since we can make it generic. The cost is a few milliseconds, over which this discussing goes.

QUOTE(smf @ Dec 9 2009, 09:19 AM) Relying on 236 is only good until Nintendo stubs that. If Nintendo stubs everything then you're back at square one.

It doesn't rely on it, it just checks the options. Btw, stubbing also goes for 222, 223, 249 and 250, so that's not a valid argument imo.

QUOTE(smf @ Dec 9 2009, 09:19 AM)

Also, why can't you load usb loader gx when it can't detect the hard drive?
It seems extra work to put up a menu, when you might want to use the hbc or disc loader functionality.
The options on the menu are all things you can do within the loader anyway.
Can't you just assume 0 games if there is no hard drive? Fine to show an error, but the current behaviour is very restrictive.

Because that's how it's designed. We investigated the time it'll cost us to change that, and I can only say that it changed our point of view about removing that requirement. For now, live with it, USB Loader GX is designed to be a USB Loader, and it's exactly that. We will remove that requirement at one point, when someone is bored. However, just removing it isn't enough. People want to be able to attach it later, to switch drivers, etc.

 

[r-win]

Who was there first, the chicken or the egg? Before we can load the settings, we have to have cios 249 and/or 222 loaded. So no, you can't. But then again, it won't bother you, and it takes only a few milliseconds.

No need to be so arrogant, you are just modding code others made.
Why do we need a cios to load settings? I'm fairly sure that a normal ios is adequate to read this little file on the sd card. And how do you load cios 249 and 222?
And the "few milliseconds" are a ugly console which stays there at least 2 seconds. I thought GX wants to have a nice GUI as it can't reach CFGs features but this console at the beginning does not fit into the nice gui.

I totally miss the arrogance in my response. And no, normal ios isn't adequate to always load the config file. Maybe it is from SD, but the default location of the config file is on USB. And a lot of drives are not supported by ios, but are by cios. That's the whole reason we NEED this.
Anyway, the console print will be only visible when booting from HBC in newer revisions,

 

[retKHAAAN]

@r-win

it really hurts me to see how arrogant you've become. all these people want to do is play their pirated games for free without having to make concessions of any kind. You have no idea how annoying it is to see a few words display on your screen for a few seconds when all you are trying to do is play stolen videogames with free software.

all you're doing is editing someone else's code right? Anybody could do that. I mean, smf and mousex are both fully competent coders...at least they act like they are. i'm sure they both have their own USB Loaders in developement and I'm sure they will be 100 times better than GX!

 

[fullstrength]

Rev847 claims to have "Fixed slow startup when loading from FAT" but that doesn't seem to be the case for me.

Please make sure you have WiiTDB turned on in the settings, AND that you have downloaded the WiiTDB file (settings, 2nd page, update, wiitdb).

Thank you very much...not sure y I hadn't done that....it worked perfectly....feels great to be loading GX again....I sure hope you take no offense to the people that selfishly criticize folks like yourself. Personally I'm grateful for the time that you and others spend contributing to people like myself and others who just need a quick bit of advise. This scene moves fast, a lot can be missed in just a short time. So it's awesome to have people willing to answers some questions here and there. Thanks again!

 

[smf]

all you're doing is editing someone else's code right? Anybody could do that. I mean, smf and mousex are both fully competent coders...at least they act like they are. i'm sure they both have their own USB Loaders in developement and I'm sure they will be 100 times better than GX!

Well, I'm pretty sure I could make it at least try to load the config from the device that you've just loaded the executable from.
Even if that means splitting the IOS to use out from the standard config, so you can keep the game specific stuff with the games.
More of a problem for people who install the channel, but you could fallback in that case.

It doesn't take a competent coder to realise that using IOS236 is a bad idea. I've explained why, if you don't get it then it's not my fault. It's only there to stop crashes for newbies, but there are better ways round the problem.

Time is the biggest hurdle, though if you really think creating a fork of usb loader gx is a good idea then maybe I'll take some time off work to do it.

 

[r-win]

all you're doing is editing someone else's code right? Anybody could do that. I mean, smf and mousex are both fully competent coders...at least they act like they are. i'm sure they both have their own USB Loaders in developement and I'm sure they will be 100 times better than GX!

Well, I'm pretty sure I could make it at least try to load the config from the device that you've just loaded the executable from.
Even if that means splitting the IOS to use out from the standard config, so you can keep the game specific stuff with the games.
More of a problem for people who install the channel, but you could fallback in that case.

It doesn't take a competent coder to realise that using IOS236 is a bad idea. I've explained why, if you don't get it then it's not my fault. It's only there to stop crashes for newbies, but there are better ways round the problem.

Then submit a patch, it's open source.

On the other hand, what we could do (to circumvent the "problem" of stubbed cioses), is to create another application which does a system check, tests the discs, etc. Then we can remove all checks from GX, and it'll save you guys a whopping 2 seconds. It'll cost us some spare time though.

Edit: Now that I think about loading the config from the boot device, I think we already do that. We might as well add some small checks there, so that only for people without a config file, the checks are done. We could also check if the drive works with default libogc, and TRY to load the config file, before running the checks. This will only execute these checks the first time for most people, and always for people with an incompatible drive.
I also still think that using cios 236 is NOT a bad idea. People who softmod their wii and use a newer guide, will have 236 installed, instead of a patched 36. Maybe we *could* inverse the check, first use 36, if that fails, use 236.
And last thought: I don't like the way these discussions are going. Having a constructive thread is more useful than flaming.

 

[T$unami]

It amazes me how ungrateful some people are for all the good work you (r-win) and a great deal of others do to allow us to do these with our Wii's. I for one am very apprceative (sp) of the work that is done buy you and all for free in your own time.

Im sure that most out there feel the same.

Many thanks again