Hacking USB Loader GX

[ca032769]

WBFS is a lousy, lossy format, and why has been discussed in these forums many times. ALL of us that are still in this scene pray that someone with cIOS skillz will come along and rescue us from that dreaded format and allow us to use RVZ like Dolphin users. And that is the problem. It is not something that can simply be done by the dev of USB Loader GX, unfortunately. It's a cIOS-level issue, and no one is left in the scene who does that kind of work.

(I have my 2TB drive full of lossy WBFS files like everyone else. Would love to propery convert -- AND FIX the conversions -- to RVZ. Went through this with Nintendont and all my GC games a couple of years ago with that new and improved format.)

Funny, I'm quite a fan of how good of a job Wii Backup Manager handles things and love the WBFS format. To each his own, but I prefer the WBFS format. It converts back to a verifiable ISO just fine.

So how much space would be saved by having a game in RVZ, instead of in WBFS with just the game partition?

Update - A quick google suggests about a 10% to 20% saving on average. So a complete collection of Wii games in WBFS is about 1.5 TB and would be reduced to about 1.25 TB. A saving of 250gb.

I have a complete collection of Gamecube games in ISO's that was 860gb, and after converting to NKIT.ISO it shrunk to 620gb. But it was a lot of hassle to gain just 240gb! In fact it turned out that NKIT.ISO's start quicker, which was an unexpected benefit over the original 1.5gb ISO's, so I'm glad I did it for that reason and because they can be converted back to ISO's if needed.

But I'm not sure I would do it again with WBFS to RVZ just to save the same amount and to make them able to convert to ISO if needed. Anyway, we are talking hypothetically as it's unlikely anyone is going to make a new cIOS that supports RVZ.

Actually a complete NTSC Wii collection along with the PAL & JAP titles not offed in NTSC compressed by WBFS is over 3TB. Add to that the almost 1TB needed for all the GameCube titles (full ISO) is why you need a 5TB hard drive if you want everything on one drive.

 

[godreborn]

there's gonna be a lot of shit on that drive. lmao I have a 1TB drive, and there's already a lot of shitty games on it.

 

[ca032769]

there's gonna be a lot of shit on that drive. lmao I have a 1TB drive, and there's already a lot of shitty games on it.

Nothing truer has ever been spoken. But as a collector my OCD overrides my ADD and I've gotsta have it all.

 

[godreborn]

I'm ocd too, but after losing an hdd with lots of ps3 games and one with lots of 360 games, I decided to get only the games I cared about, then back them up on to some 10TB hdds. I already had a backup of the wii/vwii drive, so I still have lots of games for it.

 

[fandango]

Actually a complete NTSC Wii collection along with the PAL & JAP titles not offed in NTSC compressed by WBFS is over 3TB. Add to that the almost 1TB needed for all the GameCube titles (full ISO) is why you need a 5TB hard drive if you want everything on one drive.

Oops sorry I got my figures wrong! I've now corrected it in the original post. But in summary:

For me a complete WBFS collection is 2.6 TB. That's every NTSC-U, PAL exclusive, and NTSC-J exclusive Wii game as long as they are English language or have patched English subs. My collection might be smaller than your 3 TB collection because I've stripped out the update partitions, which reduces the game size, but makes restoring to ISO more difficult? Anyway they are both in the same ballpark.

My GameCube collection in NKIT.ISO is 620gb and was 860gb previously with full ISOs, as I stated.

So I use a 4 TB drive with about 3.2 TB used. So a theoretical conversion to RVZ would reduce this to about 2.8 TB, so it may just fit on a 3 TB drive instead. Hmmm, maybe it would be worth it after all?

 

[ber71]

I've stripped out the update partitions, which reduces the game size, but makes restoring to ISO more difficult?

You can still restore to verified iso.
If you didn't save anywhere the update partitions, you can search for them on Google, look for 'nkit recovery partitions'. These are shared along many games so their size is lower than would be if not stripped.

You need a Wii redump datfile too, can get one from dats.site

Put these things together with RecoverToIso and you're set for 1:1 redump isos.

Keep in mind that if you've used WiiBackupManager (instead of wit) to create your wbfs files, some of them would have suffered from data loss beyond repair. E.g. smash.

 

[ca032769]

You can still restore to verified iso.
If you didn't save anywhere the update partitions, you can search for them on Google, look for 'nkit recovery partitions'. These are shared along many games so their size is lower than would be if not stripped.

You need a Wii redump datfile too, can get one from dats.site

Put these things together with RecoverToIso and you're set for 1:1 redump isos.

Keep in mind that if you've used WiiBackupManager (instead of wit) to create your wbfs files, some of them would have suffered from data loss beyond repair. E.g. smash.

Unless you know about the extra data partition needed for the handful of games (3 or 4?) and changed settings to keep those extras intact when converting to WBFS. But yes, that's an easy mistake to make if you don't know about them.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

...can I just say that seems like quite a bit of hoop-jumping just to have a guaranteed 1:1 verified clean rip without using plain uncompressed & unscrubbed iso?

This is the main reason for my interest in RVZ in the first place. I'm not an OCD preservationist... at least I didn't think I was, but ever since I had some data corruption with some unknown Super Metroid Green Brinstar song remix that I downloaded 15 years ago from a site that no longer exists anymore (therefore I've no way to even identify the remix in order to look for it elsewhere), I've been a bit more OCD at least with regards to data integrity - nothing crazy, but mainly just being able to make sure that data copied and moved around has not been altered and/or corrupted (which is presumably how the 15 year-old song got corrupted as it's been transferred to and from like 5 different PCs).

...and being able to have game discs that are easily verified as clean is one of the easiest ways of being able to confirm if data integrity is preserved.

There's also the whole cross-platform issue to consider with more non-Windows users nowadays, even on the non-mobile side of things with the Steam Deck coming and general increase in Linux interest.

 

[Extrems]

You can use NKit without removing the update partitions. The option to remove them isn't even enabled by default.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

You can use NKit without removing the update partitions. The option to remove them isn't even enabled by default.

That's fine and all for GameCube games, but Nkit can't be used for Wii games on real hardware... (and in general isn't a great option for Wii games even when emulated)

 

[Extrems]

Thanks for editing after I replied.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

Thanks for editing after I replied.

I was already in the middle of the edit, so I never saw your subsequent post (which I believe is also why my own post doesn't even say that it was edited, because my edit was so soon after actually making my post).

 

[blackb0x]

Unless that's the secret big new thing in the next big ULGX update, I don't suppose blackb0x could at least chime in with his knowledge on USB loader matters just to at least quickly confirm/refute whether the theory has any merit?

I don't know if a loader could easily extract the DOL file or retrieve file information from an RVZ file in a timely manner. But even if it could you'd still need someone to release an updated cIOS, which most likely isn't going to happen.

I'm not currently working on the loader since my cat killed my PC by knocking a drink over. And right now money is tight, so I'm stuck waiting for deals on certain parts.

 

[Maeson]

Oh man, I'm sorry about that, blackb0x... Specially now with how beyond ridiculous the pc hardware market is. I hope you did not need it to work.

 

[godreborn]

main that sucks @blackb0x , that's exactly why I don't allow drinks in my room. my mom wanted to bring up her coffee last weekend, and I told her to drink it downstairs, not to bring it up. I'm always afraid of spilling something (especially if it doesn't have a lid), but I do bring water up to my room every night, but it has a lid, and it's no where near the computer.

 

[XFlak]

I don't know if a loader could easily extract the DOL file or retrieve file information from an RVZ file in a timely manner. But even if it could you'd still need someone to release an updated cIOS, which most likely isn't going to happen.

I'm not currently working on the loader since my cat killed my PC by knocking a drink over. And right now money is tight, so I'm stuck waiting for deals on certain parts.

I feel your pain brother. My 1 year old tossed my wife's phone in the toilet, lol. It's currently chilling in a bag of rice to dry out, fingers crossed!

Seriously though, that sucks about your PC, but with black Friday coming up hopefully you can find some killer deals!

 

[blackb0x]

@Maeson Yea, that's the problem right now. The chip shortages and scalpers have made it really difficult to build a good PC for cheap.


@godreborn It would of been fine if I still had my older case, but my current case allowed the water to go through the top and land all over pretty much everything but the CPU. But it wouldn't surprise me if the CPU also got fried when everything else did.

Luckily I have the loaders source code backed up to cloud storage, so at least I didn't lose any progress.


@XFlak Hopefully you'll have better luck than I did and the old rice trick works for you.

I'd hope to find some good deals during Black Friday or Cyber Monday, although I'm sure stock issues will prevent that

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

I know I'm kind of late to this, but I felt the need to chime in because computer electronics hardware is actually my main expertise despite my username (here's a recent example of what I mean over on the Dolphin forum - be sure to click the "show spoiler" link for the full info-dump, though that thread's focus on ITX/STX likely isn't applicable to your specific PC situation)

The chip shortages and scalpers have made it really difficult to build a good PC for cheap.

AFAICT, as long as you don't need a discrete GPU or a really low-end CPU (what was historically sub-$100 in the last decade; nowadays sane pricing with good availability begins with 10th gen i3 chips at a smidgen over 100 UK pounds; if you've not kept up with PC hardware then note that, despite the i3 branding, they're basically an i7-7700), then you can totally build a PC right now with new components at or around MSRP without issue.

Generally it's just the discrete GPU market that's been made completely out-of-whack which is why some people have just going with the Ryzen 5600G or 5700G instead, and of course Intel's CPUs historically in the last decade have always had integrated graphics as well (though nowadays only the non-F chips do). While Intel's integrated graphics are better than they used to be, they still don't hold a candle to the 5600G/5700G (yes this even includes the newer 12th gen Alder Lake CPUs), not to mention Intel's drivers are very lacking and not exactly bug-free as soon as you try running any games or the like (at least on Windows; on Linux the Intel graphics drivers are arguably the best of the three vendors).

Nevertheless, Intel graphics are still perfectly fine on Windows for your usual 2D desktop and video stuff and, if one feels up to up, you could even try a Linux dual-boot for any sort of gaming tasks to take advantage of the superior Linux GPU drivers since things are only getting better and better on the Linux-gaming compatibility front (not to mention the abundance of native emulators for Linux, Dolphin included - heck setting up the official 1st party GameCube USB adapter is actually considerably easier on Linux than on Windows).

 

[blackb0x]

@Nintendo Maniac Yea, I'm aware since I'm mainly a PC gamer and I always build my own PCs.

If I can't get the parts to rebuild a high end PC (I had a Ryzen 9 5900X and an RTX 3080) then I'll get a laptop and wait until it's easier to source the parts that I want for a reasonable price.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

I had a Ryzen 9 5900X and an RTX 3080.

Oh bloody nora, you had that?!

...yeah I don't think I need to say anything more.

I'll get a laptop

So laptops are nowhere near my specialty outside of the ever-popular framework laptop due to having almost desktop levels of hardware flexibility, but I'm guessing a 4c/8t CPU with no discrete graphics isn't exactly something on your radar.