Hacking USB Loader GX

[TecXero]

@tswntk anyone using hacked consoles should not be afraid by a command-line tool
WIT is NOT hard to use, and it's even easier when someone give you a little batch to drag n' drop Wii ISO on it (mine is working beautifully) ! And anti-command-line users can download GUI for it. In this case, you'll need latest WIT builds, because preallocation is ON by default (all WIT GUI I have tried do NOT allow to activate it, and old builds do not use it by default).


WBM should have use preallocation since the beginning, too bad the developer disappeared just after I have reported the issue
and even if loaders can use fragmented files, I had a lot of issues especially with in-game videos (like the opening FMV of Metroid Other M) because of WBM


ps : of course your drive is not fragmented, because you write the game twice ! The fragmented one is on your computer, then when copying it to your external drive, everything is "back to normal" (which also proves that WBM does NOT use the standard read/write of the OS). But do you think that writing a game twice to correct a bad behavior (not using preallocation to write on a HDD) is better/easier than using a single command-line to write it in one shot ? Yes, WBM is great, nicely done with a wonderful interface...but finally, what is it used for ? Basically, writing Wii games, without any "fancy stuff".

Don't misunderstand on what I'm saying, I'm not trying to convince anyone to use anything, but facts prove that WBM is not able to write anything without dozen of fragmented blocks, and this is a problem (for me at least ).

I just use the full ISOs on an EXT2 partition. I haven't had any issues.

 

[Cyan]

I still use WBFS partition
I never formated/converted to FAT (I don't play a lot, so I don't care about old corrupted games)
fragmentation use bigger clusters (clusters are span over multiple sectors instead of real clusters like FAT system)
Wiimms did some tests and found that the fragmentation wasn't a big issue with wbfs partition.
I never had any issue with Metroid M, Xenoblade or other reported games.

I can't say for FAT as I didn't use it.
If Badablek says it's fragmented, he's right.
now, like he said, he doesn't try to make you change, just stating facts.
If it works fine for you, don't change. if you have lag issue in video, defrag or use wit.

 

[Badablek]

@TecXero and so your New Super Mario Bros. ISO uses a full 4.3GB 1:1 dump for a 400MB game ! nice
everyone have its own habits, but wasting a lot of data with garbage is not for me. For GC games, I can understand (because Nintendont/Devolution neeed full untouched 1.5GB ISO), but for Wii games, you can save at least 1GB of dummy data per game ! (NSMB size is divided by 10 !)

Of course you don't have any issues...you're not even using WBM (which is the main thread of what I'm talking about), so your drive is probably already "fragmentation free"

ps : BTW, I keep all my 1:1 dumps on another drive...so, basically, I'm also wasting a lot of data (but in another manner) because I could just use this drive on my Wii



@Cyan, WBFS partitions were designed to be strong against fragmentation ! This was one of the good features of this kind of partition (based on EXT2 if I remember correctly ?)

 

[tswntk]

@tswntk anyone using hacked consoles should not be afraid by a command-line tool
WIT is NOT hard to use, and it's even easier when someone give you a little batch to drag n' drop Wii ISO on it (mine is working beautifully) ! And anti-command-line users can download GUI for it. In this case, you'll need latest WIT builds, because preallocation is ON by default (all WIT GUI I have tried do NOT allow to activate it, and old builds do not use it by default).


WBM should have use preallocation since the beginning, too bad the developer disappeared just after I have reported the issue
and even if loaders can use fragmented files, I had a lot of issues especially with in-game videos (like the opening FMV of Metroid Other M) because of WBM


ps : of course your drive is not fragmented, because you write the game twice ! The fragmented one is on your computer, then when copying it to your external drive, everything is "back to normal" (which also proves that WBM does NOT use the standard read/write of the OS). But do you think that writing a game twice to correct a bad behavior (not using preallocation to write on a HDD) is better/easier than using a single command-line to write it in one shot ? Yes, WBM is great, nicely done with a wonderful interface...but finally, what is it used for ? Basically, writing Wii games, without any "fancy stuff".

Don't misunderstand on what I'm saying, I'm not trying to convince anyone to use anything, but facts prove that WBM is not able to write anything without dozen of fragmented blocks, and this is a problem (for me at least ).

I wouldn't argue command-line is not difficult to use but have you seen noobs who come here and asked how to bring up the "console thingy" to run a command line?
And how about checking what ios the game is using? View covers and accessories on the fly?
I don't write games twice to correct the bad behavior, but I would like to check the sha-1 and create par set for all my games. Doing these things over usb is sloooow,

In the end, its all personal preferences and don't over-estimate how a noob could be.

PS. I just finished Xenoblade a few weeks ago as spitted .wbf on FAT32 without any problem.

 

[TecXero]

@TecXero and so your New Super Mario Bros. ISO uses a full 4.3GB 1:1 dump for a 400MB game ! nice
everyone have its own habits, but wasting a lot of data with garbage is not for me. For GC games, I can understand (because Nintendont/Devolution neeed full untouched 1.5GB ISO), but for Wii games, you can save at least 1GB of dummy data per game ! (NSMB size is divided by 10 !)

Of course you don't have any issues...you're not even using WBM (which is the main thread of what I'm talking about), so your drive is probably already "fragmentation free"

ps : BTW, I keep all my 1:1 dumps on another drive...so, basically, I'm also wasting a lot of data (but in an other manner) because I could use this drive on my Wii

I have a 250GB HDD which is more than enough. The amount of Wii games I care for I can count on one hand, and NSMB isn't on there. I mostly just use it for Project M and NGC through Nintendont. I doubt WBM will fragment files any further than if you just manually copied them over. Windows formats generally don't bother with preallocation, they just write to the first available set of sectors without looking to see if the set could hold the file, just continuing to write it to the next set if it doesn't fit.

Sure, it's a minor hassle, but once those ISOs/WBFSs are on there and defragmented (if fragmented), that should be it. There aren't new Wii games popping up nor should you be deleting and writing your ISOs/WBFSs from and to your HDD. They shouldn't need modified for as long as you're going to use the Wii/vWii once they're good to go.

I'm not saying it's not an issue that couldn't have been improved, just that it's a very minor issue. WIT seems fine, even has a linux port which is always good in my book, but WBM works fine for most users and is more friendly.

 

[Badablek]

And how about checking what ios the game is using? View covers and accessories on the fly?

- checking IOS ? what's the point when using USBLoaders ? Wiiflow can select the correct cIOS, and 95% of the games can run nicely with a base 56 cIOS. On USBLGX, if you have a black screen, you force the cIOS to 250 (base 57 IOS) and here we go.
- covers ? All loaders can download covers, and even use the beautiful channel mode and extract banners from ISO.

WBM is a great tool, but the way it fragments the drives is a fact (and a big problem for me).



that's funny, because even if my initial talk was about fragmentation (and nothing else), we are now talking about things that "affect" USBLoader GX : the download cover issue...and my little dream to see, one day, the auto cIOS selection in USBLGX (Xmas is soon, I'm still believing in Santa )


I should say also : don't UNDER-estimate how a noob could be (for free stuff especially). It's all about the point of view of everyone, some see the glass half full, some half empty

Windows formats generally don't bother with preallocation, they just write to the first available set of sectors without looking to see if the set could hold the file, just continuing to write it to the next set if it doesn't fit.

Then WBM should do the same. Did you ever try to put games with WBM, then do the same, with the same drive, on the same partition, with the same game, but by copying it directly with your OS ? There is a BIG difference ! Even Windows does NOT fragment drive easily, especially on NTFS partitions, and even without preallocation (and you're free to use some nice programs like supercopier to add this feature)

 

[TecXero]

Then WBM should do the same. Did you ever try to put games with WBM, then do the same, with the same drive, on the same partition, with the same game, but by copying it directly with your OS ? There is a BIG difference ! Even Windows does NOT fragment drive easily, especially on NTFS partitions, and even without preallocation (and you're free to use some nice programs like supercopier to add this feature)

I used it a couple of years back. I didn't really check the level of fragmentation. I just defragmented it afterwards, as I generally did anyway whenever I moved large files to FAT32 partitions and it wasn't going to have much else written to it in a while. Once defragmented, those files remained defragmented until I decided to delete them, shrink the FAT32 partition, and setup the EXT2 partition. Even if it does fragment them further than they normally would be, defragmenting doesn't take that long and once you have all your ISOs/WBFSs on there, you don't have to worry about any of those becoming fragmented again.

You have your setup, so stick to it. I'm not telling you to change your setup, just don't try to get others worked up on here over it, or else we'll have endless basic questions about the tool and people paranoid about some possible fragmentation that Windows Defragmenter should take care of just fine.

Now, a separate thread might be appropriate if you genuinely think this is a topic worth pursuing.

 

[Badablek]

again, the main thread of my talk was about FRAGMENTATION, nothing else, nothing more. People should be aware that fragmentation can be a problem. But I'm not trying to "convert" or scare anyone...as I already said.

BTW No need to talk anymore : WBM is dead and the issue was already reported in WBM official thread, its developer is not here anymore (too bad) and the Wii is almost retired.






back to USBLoader GX

 

[Clutz450]

I found your guy's conversation very interesting. I used Wii Backup Manager to copy all my games over and loved it. I have heard of WIT but didn't really understand how to use it. I'm going to be setting up another Wii for a friend as a Christmas gift so maybe I will try out WIT and see if I like it. Would you be able to link me to the official forum for it so I can try and learn more there and not keep this thread off topic?

Also, about the fragmentation issue. I haven't run into any issues yet but after reading all this I was thinking of defragmenting my drive anyways. Is the normal Windows Defrag good enough or should I download and use another program? And is there any chance that defragging could actually mess my drive up? Thanks.

 

[Cyan]

, the auto cIOS selection in USBLGX

Personally I don't see the usefulness for that feature.
you set the default IOS slot to base57 and all your games are working. problem solved?
You don't need to use a cIOS base 36 for games using IOS36, or a cIOS with base 9 for zelda, etc.
There's not even a cIOS base 9, what would the loader select for zelda ?
IOS57 plays all games.

The only games which would require a different base are usb accessories games, which needs base58, right?

It could be used for users who messed their install and placed the base56 and 57 in slot other than the common location (installing base57 in slot 240 ?) and the loader will detect it.
But what if the user has different cIOS version (like me?), one slot with rev17 (base38), one with rev19 base56, one with d2x v8 base56, one with d2x v10 r53 base56 for dual port... there would be different base56, which one would be picked by the loader?
Ok, the users with unusual install should be the one who knew what they installed, and shouldn't use auto-cIOS slot selection. but like you said, don't underestimate the noob, they can also have weird setup without knowing it.
But I still don't see the purpose to use a base37 for games requesting IOS37 ... except maybe for perfectionists ?

To me, it's enough to pick one slot for all games. Maybe I don't see all the use for that option.

 

[Clutz450]

@Cyan I did some more testing for you. Some of these tests were a bit redundant but I did them again anyway in case that it might be able to better pinpoint exactly where these bugs happened. I delete my entire images folder again and I also deleted my cache_bnr folder as well which is something I didn't do with my last test. I'm assuming the cache_bnr folder is where all the GameCube Custom Banners are stored. I never really knew where they were stored before. lol.

First, I was testing on 1259mod01 and tried downloading all the images again and I let it run overnight. Woke up and saw that my Wii U was turned off just like it had done before. Started it back up and tried downloading again and watched it. I noticed that as soon as it got to downloading the first custom banner is when I got the code dump and it kicked me back to the system menu.

Next I used 1256-1257 because I was curious to see if the bug about the progress bar going all the way to 100% right away and all network functions not working was during the custom banner downloads as well. Started downloading everything again and it was too fast to tell but it did appear that once it got to the Custom Banner downloads is when the progress bar went right to 100% and network stopped working. Just to confirm I restarted and this time only selected to have Custom Banners download. It actually started to download a few Custom Banners but about a minute or so later it went right to 100% again and all network stopped working. It actually looked more like once it came to a Custom Banner that it was able to download is when the bug happened. I think that because it said I was missing 1888 files and it went through about 10 or so before the bug happened. Then when I tried again, it still said I was missing 1888 meaning that it didn't download any Custom Banners.

I went back to 1259mod01 and tried downloading again. This time I chose to only tick the box to have Custom Banners downloaded. As soon as the download tried to start the code dump error came up and kicked me back to the system menu. It didn't run through the first 10 or so banners like it did in mod01

Finally I used 1259mod02 and again clicked to only download Custom Banners. It said I was missing 1888 and actually started downloading them. It is still currently running right now and I am assuming that this is going to finish without any issues but I will let you know when it is done.

In conclusion, I believe that the bug I saw in 1256-1257 (and I'm assuming this would be the same since the first version you added SSL support. 1253 I think it was) happened when it got to the Custom Banner download part. This is just an assumption though because I think I would need to do more testing to be positive but as of right now I believe this to be the most logical guess. Whatever you changed in 1259mod01 removed that bug but it seemed to introduce a new bug where I would get a code dump error and be sent back to the System Menu. But I can definitely say that this bug occurred right when it would try to download Custom Banners. The change you made in 1259mod02 removed the code dump bug and appears that everything is working as it should as far as downloading images goes. I'm assuming that the reason why I saw a 1 item change in my previous test was because they must have added a new Custom Banner since the last time I tried downloading the images. Maybe with all this new information you will be able to recreate the bug yourself if needed since you never saw it happen yourself before.

Please let me know if there is anything else you would like for me to try on any of the versions to further help pinpoint any issues.

 

[tswntk]

I found your guy's conversation very interesting. I used Wii Backup Manager to copy all my games over and loved it. I have heard of WIT but didn't really understand how to use it. I'm going to be setting up another Wii for a friend as a Christmas gift so maybe I will try out WIT and see if I like it. Would you be able to link me to the official forum for it so I can try and learn more there and not keep this thread off topic?

Also, about the fragmentation issue. I haven't run into any issues yet but after reading all this I was thinking of defragmenting my drive anyways. Is the normal Windows Defrag good enough or should I download and use another program? And is there any chance that defragging could actually mess my drive up? Thanks.

Reading documents to figure out how to use WIT would be a "nightmare". You better get a GUI front-end for it like qtwitgui or just use pre-made syntax or batch files like the ones Badablek presented.

 

[Deleted User]

@Wiimm 's ISO Tools is amazing. @Clutz450 it's discussed at the Wii-Homebrew Board. Also, copying the files over in explorer is the same - WIT is more for copying into new formats, extracting, etc.

 

[Cyan]

Thank you for taking time to do all this.

you should have skipped the mod1 completely, it's not to be taken in account, it has a different bug.
So, I'll compare the versions between 1256 and 1259_mod2.
you are telling that the network freeze issue happened only when downloading banners? not the covers pictures?


if the banners have an issue, it's not due to the banners themselves (the loader doesn't care what it's downloading, it's just a data stream saved to a file).
So I thought, maybe it's due to the banner size? the banners should be bigger filesize than the pictures.

I checked again the sources to find if there's a download size limit, but didn't find any issue.
Maybe there could be an issue if the server returns a bad header (wrong file size, wrong http code 200/404/302 etc.)
I could try something else and let you test it.

 

[Clutz450]

I didn't know I should have skipped mod01. As I said, I don't know definitely if in 1256-1257 if the network bug happen ls only at the Custom Banner download. Just an assumption based on everything else I saw.

I guess what I will have to do next is to delete everything again and this time only download a cater gory one at a time. As in only download 3d covers first. When that finishes try and download only flat covers. And so on until I find exactly where it always happens. I just hope it's not some random bug that just happens randomly for no reason. Because when I deleted everything the first time, 1256-1257 actually downloaded for a very long time before the bug happened so I concluded that it happened while downloading a certain category.

But I will do some more testing when I get the time and report back my findings.

 

[Cyan]

no, don't delete all your covers.
you said the bug was with banners, so try with banners only.
if you can find which banner is triggering the network issue, that would be great.

for that, it's easy :
test1
delete 1 banner and try again, if it happens, try another banner and see if the bug happens too. see if any banner trigger it.
if not any banner, then it's a specific one, do second test.

test2
delete half your banners and download them. if the bug didn't trigger, it means the trigger is in the other half part.
from the other half, cut it in half again (quart of your total), see if it happens or not, etc.
cut in half each time until finding the bad one.

the issue could be the size, or something else.

When found, try few times to be sure this is that file and it's not a random crash.

 

[TecXero]

no, don't delete all your covers.
you said the bug was with banners, so try with banners only.
if you can find which banner is triggering the network issue, that would be great.

for that, it's easy :
test1
delete 1 banner and try again, if it happens, try another banner and see if the bug happens too. see if any banner trigger it.
if not any banner, then it's a specific one, do second test.

test2
delete half your banners and download them. if the bug didn't trigger, it means the trigger is in the other half part.
from the other half, cut it in half again (quart of your total), see if it happens or not, etc.
cut in half each time until finding the bad one.

the issue could be the size, or something else.

When found, try few times to be sure this is that file and it's not a random crash.

Take this as me talking out of my ass mostly as it's speculation with little basis:
USB Loader GX doesn't really like characters that aren't Windows friendly. Like I had Metroid Prime 3: Corruption as "Metroid Prime 3: Coruption [RM3E01].iso", which is fine on an EXT2 partition. It displayed the slot and name but it didn't show the banner or start it up properly. I had to rename it to "Metroid Prime 3 - Coruption [RM3E01].iso". I know it's a long shot and probably not the case as it seems to have only popped up with newer revisions, but it's possible one of those banners being downloaded has one of those characters as part of its name.

 

[Cyan]

I didn't know that character had issue.
I never touched ext library, only recently updated ntfs and fat library. I didn't change any character's behavior.
are you sure it used to work?
is that's the case, finding the first revision with the issue is what you should do so I can check what's different with the previous one.

 

[TecXero]

I didn't know that character had issue.
I never touched ext library, only recently updated ntfs and fat library. I didn't change any character's behavior.
are you sure it used to work?
is that's the case, finding the first revision with the issue is what you should do so I can check what's different with the previous one.

I didn't imply it ever worked (I don't think I did, sorry if it came off that way), just that the first time I switched to EXT2 I noticed it had that issue. I easily changed the name and never thought about it again. I didn't bother to report it as it's easily fixed (by the user renaming the file) and is very niche (I don't think many people are using EXT2/3/4).

EDIT: Oh, I think I know the root of the confusion. I was stating there might be a very small possibility it's related to the banner download issue, but unlikely due to the download issue being more recent, as the character problem with EXT2/3/4 has been around longer.

 

[Cyan]

ah ok
sorry for misunderstanding.

The banner filename shouldn't be the issue, as the created filename only contains the GameID, not the game's title. Same for the downloaded covers from gametdb.