Hello. Can someone explain to me how the plugings system works and if what I have in mind is possible or not?
I haven't used WiiFlow before and it seems I'm very late to the party. I use USB Loader GX and standalone apps until now with a custom Homebrew Channel theme; all well organized and suited to my likings. Recently I've been updating my Wii setup and many things have changed. I wanted to give Wiiflow a try and use it as a frontend from which select the game and forget about choosing the better app or configuration because that was done beforehand. After all was ready and set, I also wanted to make a custom theme and probably organize things in a different way.
I downloaded the latest Wiiflow Lite (v5.6.1 December 22nd, 2025), Rhapsodii Shima 5.5.4 (16:9 version) theme and the WiiFlow Plugins Pack Complete (Updated May 30, 2025). I'm running Wiiflow from the SD.
Wii and Gamecube games work fine. EmuNAND probably too, but I haven't tested it. It's the plugins where I'm totally lost.
First I thought I could edit the ini files and link the source menu buttons to my existing apps and avoid duplicated *.dol. But I haven't found how to do it. It seems I have to stick to what the Plugins Pack delivers.
So I tried Nintendo 64 and it said "No plugins found" or something like that. Pressing the home menu on the N64 icon and searching for the plugin didn't work. When I chose 'Nintendo 64', Wiiflow freezed and I had to shut down the console manually. I took a look in the ini files and saw that the magic number didn't match. So I set everything to the Wii64 magic number 57493634. Then it worked.
The question is, if everything is related to the same Wii64 magic number. Do I have to create a separated button to use wii64_rice and not64? That kind of defeats the purpouse of using Wiiflow as a frontend instead of standalone applications.
I also downlodad a few covers from the Cover Collections—part 2 thread and stored them in the HDD. I had to change the path for them to show. And they short of do. The problem is that the texture doesn't wrap around the box and the full texture displays in the "front cover face" and leaves all the other faces in black. Furthermore, it isn't the right box format. Instead of the N64 thick horizontal box is the tipical DVD case. How can I fix that? Have I broken something while editing the ini files?
It's getting very frustrating not knowing how the folder structure should be, what do the different files do, what data and files do they expect, what options do I have, trying things blindly and not knowing if that's the expected behaviour or it's broken. I can't find any guide or instructions. I have read several pages of the threads but I couldn't find any tutorial. I tried youtube but everything is from many years ago and doesn't match what the Plugins Pack has.
So what I specifically want to know is:
1. Can I use custom paths for the apps or should I use the plugins pack .dol and have duplicates?
If it's customizable, what files do I have to edit and how?
2. Can I use custom paths for the roms/isos/games? Is it possible to have the dol in the SD card and the games in the HDD or should they be in the same device?
If it's customizable, what files do I have to edit and how?
3. What about the save files?
4. Taking N64 as an example... I navigate through Wiiflow -> source menu -> Consoles -> Nintendo 64 -> boxes of games... Can I set it so some games run with Not64, others with Wii64 and others with Wii64_rice? If not, is there any alternative?
5. Let's say I don't like the box proportions and how the current covers look and want to make my own. What files do I need to change?
Sorry for the long post.
so if you look in the wiiflow plugins folder you should find a N64 folder. inside it should be three plugin ini files - not64.ini, wii64.ini, and wii64_rice.ini. here they are:
[PLUGIN]
arguments=rompath = "{device}:/{path}/{name}"|SkipMenu = 1
bannersound=ZZ--Sounds/N64.ogg
consolecoverid=Nintendo
covercolor=000000
coverfolder=Nintendo/N64
displayname=Nintendo N64 (Not64)
dolfile=N64/not64.dol
filetypes=.n64|.v64|.z64|.zip
magic=4E4F3634
romdir=not64/roms
rompartition=-1
********************************************
[PLUGIN]
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}
bannersound=ZZ--Sounds/N64.ogg
consolecoverid=Nintendo
covercolor=000000
coverfolder=Nintendo/N64
displayname=Nintendo N64 (Wii64 glN64)
dolfile=N64/wii64.dol
filetypes=.n64|.v64|.z64|.zip
magic=57493634
romdir=wii64/roms
rompartition=-1
**********************************************
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}
bannersound=ZZ--Sounds/N64.ogg
consolecoverid=Nintendo
covercolor=000000
coverfolder=Nintendo/N64
displayname=Nintendo N64 (Wii64 Rice)
dolfile=N64/wii64_rice.dol
filetypes=.n64|.v64|.z64|.zip
magic=57523634
romdir=wii64/roms
rompartition=-1
they all have different dol files and different magic numbers. they should also all have different romdir.
romdir is the folder where the roms go (without the device SD or USB)
if you want to use all 3 because some games work with wii64, some with wi64 rice, and some with not64. if this is the case then you should have a different romdir for each one and put the proper games in the proper rom folders.
now you can have source menu button for N64 with magic=4E4F3634, 57493634, 57523634
when you click on the n64 source button all your n64 games will show without duplicates. and when you click a game to start it the game will start with proper emu (not64, wii64, or wii64 rice)
hope this helps
, start collecting, with original consoles (super famicom, pal ps1, sega saturn jap, and jap gamecube switched) and games.
