Hacking USB Loader GX

[Silterpy]

does anyone know how to use ocarina codes on VC games?
i have ocarina enabled and USB Loader GX downloads the codes for me but none of them work

 

[Cyan]

if they are on EmuNAND, Ocarina doesn't work.
If they are on Real NAND, try switching the "Channel Boot method" in loader's setting : either Content or Main.dol
If still doesn't work, then it's a problem with the loader. I didn't check it yet, but I think Fix94 fixed it on Wiiflow.

 

[j08rebelo]

I have a question. USB Loader GX 3.0 is not showing that disc rotation menu, it just skips directly into the game. Anyone knows how to fix this?

 

[AbdallahTerro]

I have a question. USB Loader GX 3.0 is not showing that disc rotation menu, it just skips directly into the game. Anyone knows how to fix this?

Disable fast or quick or direct boot option in settings can't remember the exact term

 

[Cyan]

in 3.0 there's also a new Game window mode : Banner animation.

You can select between three "Game window" mode when you click on a game (without Direct Boot option) :
- Always display rotating Disc
- Always display Banner animation
- Display banner animation only in Banner layout (added later, use latest beta version for this option)

You can set it in GUI settings.

 

[Chainsawkitten]

Thanks a lot for a great and helpful thread! I managed to get GC games to work thanks to this.

However, I'm having problems getting EmuNand to work.

What I'm doing
I have dumped my NAND to EmuNand and can run PhotoChannel off it, so that works fine.

I install Zelda - Majora's Mask (through the USB Loader GX wad installation, naturally), which has previously worked in Triiforce and run it.

What happens
It installs fine (or at least it says it does) and at first appears to be booting correctly. Then the N64 logo spins around on screen and no controls (using GameCube controller) appears to be working. After a while the N64 logo fades to black and then nothing more happens.

My setup

Harddrive
My harddrive is formatted in 2 partitions. The first one is FAT32 where i keep GC/EmuNand and the second one is NTFS for Wii-games and other files.

sysCheck
http://syscheck.softwii.de/2Ba7ecRT
ModMii suggest I update 249 and 250 to d2x-v8 but I have d2x-v10-beta52 which I presume is better. I also now noticed I have Homebrew Channel 1.1.0 when there's 1.1.2 but that could hardly affect this, could it?

USB Loader GX
DIOS-MIOS v2.9
Rev1213
IOS249 (Rev21010)
(d2x v10beta52 base56)

USB Loader GX Settings
Boot/Standard - IOS 249
Nand Saves Emulation - OFF
Nand Chan. Emulation - Full

Nand Emu Path - usb1:/nand/
Nand Emu Channel Path - usb1:/nand/

Ask if there's any other relevant settings I've missed.


Does Zelda - Majora's Mask work with EmuNand? If not, is there any game that's confirmed to work I can test with and is there some compatibility list I can check? I assumed it would be likely to work if it used to work on Triiforce but I don't really know the workings of either one so that may be incorrect to assume.

 

[Maxternal]

Thanks a lot for a great and helpful thread! I managed to get GC games to work thanks to this.

However, I'm having problems getting EmuNand to work.

What I'm doing
I have dumped my NAND to EmuNand and can run PhotoChannel off it, so that works fine.

I install Zelda - Majora's Mask (through the USB Loader GX wad installation, naturally), which has previously worked in Triiforce and run it.

What happens
It installs fine (or at least it says it does) and at first appears to be booting correctly. Then the N64 logo spins around on screen and no controls (using GameCube controller) appears to be working. After a while the N64 logo fades to black and then nothing more happens.

My setup

Harddrive
My harddrive is formatted in 2 partitions. The first one is FAT32 where i keep GC/EmuNand and the second one is NTFS for Wii-games and other files.

sysCheck
http://syscheck.softwii.de/2Ba7ecRT
ModMii suggest I update 249 and 250 to d2x-v8 but I have d2x-v10-beta52 which I presume is better. I also now noticed I have Homebrew Channel 1.1.0 when there's 1.1.2 but that could hardly affect this, could it?

USB Loader GX
DIOS-MIOS v2.9
Rev1213
IOS249 (Rev21010)
(d2x v10beta52 base56)

USB Loader GX Settings
Boot/Standard - IOS 249
Nand Saves Emulation - OFF
Nand Chan. Emulation - Full

Nand Emu Path - usb1:/nand/
Nand Emu Channel Path - usb1:/nand/

Ask if there's any other relevant settings I've missed.


Does Zelda - Majora's Mask work with EmuNand? If not, is there any game that's confirmed to work I can test with and is there some compatibility list I can check? I assumed it would be likely to work if it used to work on Triiforce but I don't really know the workings of either one so that may be incorrect to assume.

Majora's Mask is one of those that only works in emuNAND from a xNEEK environment or from Triiforce/Mighty Channels (and even then, only with old cIOS 17 or 21 IIRC) and it might also work with uLoader if you're using the right cIOS (but it uses a completely different emuNAND format)

With other emuNAND methods what you're getting is the normal reaction, unfortunately.

 

[Cyan]

a lot of N64 VC require an old cIOS (often rev19).

You can try with cIOS rev17 or rev19 in USBloaderGX, but you will have to put the EmuNAND on the root of your device (not in a subfolder).
Rev17 can only list WBFS partitions for Wii games, so it's best to not launch the loader with rev17 as main cIOS if you only have FAT/NTFS.
Just install it in another slot and set this game's settings to the slot where rev17 is installed.

I don't know if it will work, like he said, that game may require a xNEEK environment.

 

[Chainsawkitten]

Thanks for the answer! So I guess I just chose the worst candidate for testing EmuNand, eh?

Is there a good way to check if a game works or should I just test each one manually?

What's xNEEK and what's the difference between the different methods (if that's even possible to explain in a relatively simple way)?

Edit: cIOSx rev19 + EmuNand at root did seem to do the trick (although with audio stutter problems)!

In the end I guess I'll do a mix of NAND and EmuNand and hope the troublesome games will be few enough to fit in NAND.

 

[Cyan]

Here is a quick difference between the different EmuNAND :

EmuNAND from a loader : The loader, booting from the real NAND environement, launch the game using a cIOS. the custom IOS is redirecting all call from NAND to EmuNAND. It can be full or partial (only specific NAND folders are redirected to keep few data from Real NAND, like settings/Mii/etc.)

xNEEK : The Wii boots fully in an emulated NAND environment from the start. The System menu is loaded from the EmuNAND, There's no cIOS to redirect NAND Access, all is done using Retail IOS. You boot the game as if you were on a real NAND, using your System menu. everything acts as if it was the real NAND, except it's loading from SD or USB.
As everything work on official IOS, all games are working like they should using official Nintendo game/channels booting method.

Neek2o : This one is a modified version of Neek, allowing argument on initialization.
Loaders can reboot the Wii in Neek environment with a gameID as argument and neek will boot that game automatically. It's like the USBLoader is loading the game, but it's in fact booting Neek+GameID transparently. It has the best compatibility, but USBLoaderGX does not support Neek2o yet.

note:
SNEEK (NEEK from SD)
UNEEK (NEEK from USB)
NEEK2o (modded version of NEEK by another developers)

 

[Magnus87]

You want a way to copy the content of a channel from RealNAND to EmuNAND? dumping only a channel+corresponding save instead of the full nand.
yes it's possible. I can add the option to copy to EmuNAND.

Yeah! Thanks Cyan

 

[Spittal]

Hey Guys,

Pretty new to this stuff, but I'm looking to run GC games off usb. So I have the correct Dios Mios (not lite) and everything works great through their launcher. But I'm hoping to get it working on usb loader gx. I understand I need to update to a beta version of the software the supports the latest Dios Mios.

I found the update a few pages back (r1213) and downloaded it. This is where I got stumped, I'm not sure what I have to do with those files (the boot.dol and .elf files). I'm assuming I need to install them on their corresponding IOS slots, based on their folder name. But I thought if I do that I would lose the other custom IOS's I have loaded in those slots.

Any help would be a MASSIVE help. Thanks!

 

[Shiranui-san]

Hey Guys,

Pretty new to this stuff, but I'm looking to run GC games off usb. So I have the correct Dios Mios (not lite) and everything works great through their launcher. But I'm hoping to get it working on usb loader gx. I understand I need to update to a beta version of the software the supports the latest Dios Mios.

I found the update a few pages back (r1213) and downloaded it. This is where I got stumped, I'm not sure what I have to do with those files (the boot.dol and .elf files). I'm assuming I need to install them on their corresponding IOS slots, based on their folder name. But I thought if I do that I would lose the other custom IOS's I have loaded in those slots.

Any help would be a MASSIVE help. Thanks!

Rename the .dol file to main.dol boot.dol (if necessary) and it should be placed in SD/apps/"name_of_the application"/boot.dol and launched from the Homebrew Channel. In this case, "name_of_the application" is "usbloader_gx". In any case, you don't have to install any .dol/.elf files in any IOS slot.

If you choose the .dol inside the folder named 249: this means that the program will use by default the cIOS you installed in slot 249.

 

[Kittymat]

Rename the .dol file to main.dol (if necessary) and it should be placed in SD/apps/"name_of_the application"/main.dol and launched from the Homebrew Channel. In this case, "name_of_the application" is "usbloader_gx". In any case, you don't have to install any .dol/.elf files in any IOS slot.

It should be named boot.dol - do not change the name or it will not work

 

[Spittal]

Rename the .dol file to main.dol (if necessary) and it should be placed in SD/apps/"name_of_the application"/main.dol and launched from the Homebrew Channel. In this case, "name_of_the application" is "usbloader_gx". In any case, you don't have to install any .dol/.elf files in any IOS slot.

If you choose the .dol inside the folder named 249: this means that the program will use by default the cIOS you installed in slot 249.

Fantastic!

That's a lot of help! If I launch this from the Wii Channel menu (From the wad that I installed) will that work as well, or will it only work when used through the homebrew channel?

 

[Shiranui-san]

It should be named boot.dol - do not change the name or it will not work

Yeah, you're right. It should be "boot.dol". I got confused with Wii games' main.dol.

Fantastic!
That's a lot of help! If I launch this from the Wii Channel menu (From the wad that I installed) will that work as well, or will it only work when used through the homebrew channel?

If the channel you installed is a full channel you don't need the boot.dol. If it is a forwarder (direct access to a .dol), then you need to store the boot.dol in your SD.

 

[Spittal]

Yeah, you're right. It should be "boot.dol". I got confused with Wii games' main.dol.


If the channel you installed is a full channel you don't need the boot.dol. If it is a forwarder (direct access to a .dol), then you need to store the boot.dol in your SD.

Hey, I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by this... if I have the full channel I don't need the boot.dol, which is fine, but what do I need to do to get the functionality of loading GC games of a USB drive?

 

[VashTS]

Neek2o : This one is a modified version of Neek, allowing argument on initialization.
Loaders can reboot the Wii in Neek environment with a gameID as argument and neek will boot that game automatically. It's like the USBLoader is loading the game, but it's in fact booting Neek+GameID transparently. It has the best compatibility, but USBLoaderGX does not support Neek2o yet.

so then when will it?
and btw, did you fix the install wad to emunand option?

 

[Cyan]

yes, the Wad install is fixed.
There were two problems :
1- I introduced this bug in r1203, when I added the Korean key (because pirated WADs from release groups have a bad and wrong header which make them looks like Korean title, it was using the korean key!).
2- An old bug nobody detected which added more data to extracted files (Sha1 was incorrect, but the loader didn't care). It affected the Shared folder and could make previously working titles not working anymore after installing new Wads.
This bug affected legal/retail Wads too.

These two bugs are fixed in r1208, it also fixed some games which didn't work before.

So, if a channel doesn't work you can fix it by either :
- Make a new EmuNAND (because the file in the Shared folder is maybe incorrectly extracted)
- reinstall the Wad (it will overwrite the file in the shared folder with a clean one)

The korean detection is not fully fixed, as I still didn't add a Sha-1 verification but only added a check for both header+GameID's region code. It can still happen (because release group make wrong headers!) but it should be rare now.


Sorry for other requested features, I don't work on it a lot.
I know a lot of people are waiting for the next stable/official release, fixes or features, but I don't find the will to work on it after work or weekends (I'm playing/watching TV too much).

 

[VashTS]

no problem d00d, everyone loves your work. sit on your ass and enjoy your time, you deserve it!

gx is the most stable loader out there.