Hacking WiiFlow Lite

[darkovo]

are you placing your .dol files in the correct place?

Within the Wiiflow/plugins folder on SD card I assume, that's where all the others are.
The NES games say the plugin to be used is FCEUltraGX and there's an fceugx-mod12.dol file and the fceugx.ini file, which shows:

[PLUGIN]
displayname=FCEUltraGX
magic=46434555
coverfolder=NES
dolfile=fceugx-mod12.dol
romdir=fceugx/roms
filetypes=.nes
consolecoverid=nintendo
covercolor=ff0000
bannersound=nes.ogg
arguments={device}:/{path}|{name}|{loader}


Also Game and Watch uses gw_libretro_wii.dol which is in the 'SD:\wiiflow\plugins\retroarch-wii\' folder.
gw_libretro_wii.ini looks ok to me:

[PLUGIN]
displayname=Game and Watch
magic=4726574e
coverfolder=gameandwatch
dolfile=retroarch-wii/gw_libretro_wii.dol
romdir=gameandwatch
filetypes=.mgw
consolecoverid=
covercolor=ffffff
bannersound=gw_libretro_wii.ogg
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}

 

[fledge68]

The new version v5.4.4 isn't loading any games for me, i mean wii/gamecube/plugins/wiiware or VC i went through the new changes and instructions before posting and didn't notice anything wrong with my setup, everything works as expected, it just doesn't load the games (just shows black screen), previous wiiflow versions loaded games ok.
Any idea about what could this be?

EDIT: I'm starting to think this may be related to the latest video changes made to wiiflow, my wii is connected to my smart tv via a hdmi converter (which i think only accepts 480p), i need to further test this out but i'm open to suggestions.

the pal video changes only effect wii and nand games. not plugin games or gamecube.
so are all your games on usb?
My first logical guess is your usb device is not mounted and your games still show because your lists are cached on SD. but when you go to launch one it can't because its on usb and usb is not mounted.
you try a reload cache and see if your game covers still show.

if not you may need to go to main settings>startup settings and set force cios on or off.

 

[davejsp]

the pal video changes only effect wii and nand games. not plugin games or gamecube.
so are all your games on usb?
My first logical guess is your usb device is not mounted and your games still show because your lists are cached on SD. but when you go to launch one it can't because its on usb and usb is not mounted.
you try a reload cache and see if your game covers still show.

if not you may need to go to main settings>startup settings and set force cios on or off.

Let's analyse in parts:

1: I don't use any SD card and my games are all on USB.
2: I said wiiflow version 5.4.4 wasn't even loading plugins, but i was wrong, sorry my bad, it does load them normally.
3: The first time i tried v5.4.4 wii and nand games didn't load; then reverted back to v5.4.0 tried it, all was good, changed again to v5.4.4 and now wii games load just fine.
4: But nand games still don't load (be it wiiware or VC), they actually show the loading bar for like half a second, it just fills a tiny bit and then gives me a black screen and any connected wiimotes loose their connection and can't sync again, i'm forced to manually shut down the wii.
5: I tried the force cios as suggested to no effect.
6: Plugins work as expected, still haven't tested gamecube games.
7: On a side note, now when starting wiiflow, after the loading icon and before the source menu appears, i get a garbled screen for like a second, which didn't happen before, not that it matters, just pointing it out.

At this point i don't understand why wii games started loading and why nand games seems to freeze the console.
Any more suggestions?

 

[protivakid]

before I commit wiiflow 5.4.4 I would like some people to test some things to make sure they are fixed.

@erket test your pal games video patching
@protivakid test devolution and wii cover downloading

@TRATxSTARS when wiiflow can't find your roms it should display the roms folder path so you know where its looking.

IMPORTANT! when installing this download you must replace your bins and imgs folders. please back them up or rename them in case you need to go back to your previous version. the imgs folder contains some images that were converted from jpg to png and other images were optimized to be smaller in size.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/te0er8x7g25ze47/wf5.4.4test1.zip/file

Apologies @fledge68 GBA Temp never sent me an email about a reply to this post! I see it was already pushed but still I will test this weekend and report back. I saw this comment "fixed launching GC games via devolution. (if you still use it)" and wanted to let you know that there was one "wooo!" from the back of the room haha

 

[fledge68]

Let's analyse in parts:

1: I don't use any SD card and my games are all on USB.
2: I said wiiflow version 5.4.4 wasn't even loading plugins, but i was wrong, sorry my bad, it does load them normally.
3: The first time i tried v5.4.4 wii and nand games didn't load; then reverted back to v5.4.0 tried it, all was good, changed again to v5.4.4 and now wii games load just fine.
4: But nand games still don't load (be it wiiware or VC), they actually show the loading bar for like half a second, it just fills a tiny bit and then gives me a black screen and any connected wiimotes loose their connection and can't sync again, i'm forced to manually shut down the wii.
5: I tried the force cios as suggested to no effect.
6: Plugins work as expected, still haven't tested gamecube games.
7: On a side note, now when starting wiiflow, after the loading icon and before the source menu appears, i get a garbled screen for like a second, which didn't happen before, not that it matters, just pointing it out.

At this point i don't understand why wii games started loading and why nand games seems to freeze the console.
Any more suggestions?

@blackb0x any thoughts on this?

 

[blackb0x]

@blackb0x any thoughts on this?

#4 sounds like it'd be video mode related, although WiiWare shouldn't have it's video modes overwritten.

I'll need to install a WiiWare title to check.

@davejsp Do you have any video mode settings set for these games? Like maybe you set everything to progressive?

If you did change the video mode then try changing it back to "game" and see if that works.

 

[tontonsonic]

hello everyone, just for my understanding : can someone explain or point to the doc on how magic numbers are used in wiiflow ?

For Wiiware black screens, some things to check:
- path is set to the right emunand? Emulation settings have not been overwritten ?
- video modes ?

5.4.4 just solved my bubble bobble plus black screen problem; I think, tried so many things that it might be something else But now it works like a charm.

 

[davejsp]

#4 sounds like it'd be video mode related, although WiiWare shouldn't have it's video modes overwritten.

I'll need to install a WiiWare title to check.

@davejsp Do you have any video mode settings set for these games? Like maybe you set everything to progressive?

I have wiiflow set to progressive in general settings, everything else is set to default.
I have actually tried changing video modes, to no avail, but if this is video mode related, why the wiimotes get out of sync?...

hello everyone, just for my understanding : can someone explain or point to the doc on how magic numbers are used in wiiflow ?

For Wiiware black screens, some things to check:
- path is set to the right emunand? Emulation settings have not been overwritten ?
- video modes ?

5.4.4 just solved my bubble bobble plus black screen problem; I think, tried so many things that it might be something else But now it works like a charm.

In theory everything is right because if i change back to wiiflow v5.4.0, everything loads fine (v5.4.2, v5.4.3 too), for me it's happening only in v5.4.4

 

[blackb0x]

I have wiiflow set to progressive in general settings, everything else is set to default.

If you change the setting back to "game" then it should allow the games to launch.

The progressive setting previously didn't really do anything, but with v5.4.4 it was changed so that when you set the video mode to progressive the games DOL file is patched. This then allows PAL Wii games to be played at 480p instead of 576i, but I guess that's a problem for WiiWare and VC games and they should be excluded.

I'm going to have to test with PAL and NTSC WiiWare before I decide on what to do about this.

I have actually tried changing video modes, to no avail, but if this is video mode related, why the wiimotes get out of sync?...

If the screen remains black then it's likely crashed due to the DOL file patching. That can cause your wiimotes to go out of sync.

 

[davejsp]

If you change the setting back to "game" then it should allow the games to launch.

The progressive setting previously didn't really do anything, but with v5.4.4 it was changed so that when you set the video mode to progressive the games DOL file is patched. This then allows PAL Wii games to be played at 480p instead of 576i, but I guess that's a problem for WiiWare and VC games and they should be excluded.

I'm going to have to test with PAL and NTSC WiiWare before I decide on what to do about this.


If the screen remains black then it's likely crashed due to the DOL file patching. That can cause your wiimotes to go out of sync.

I didn't know about that, give me some hours to test this out and change video modes, thank you for the help.
So, my Wii console is set to 480p, which is what i need for the hdmi converter to function, and on wiiflow i want everything to use 480p too (i really have no other option as a different the signal won't get through), theoretically what configuration should i use? "System" in general settings and "default" on everything else?

 

[blackb0x]

theoretically what configuration should i use? "System" in general settings and "default" on everything else?

Are most of your games PAL or NTSC? If they're NTSC then they're going to be 480p anyway, but you could try setting the default video setting to NTSC.

Personally I like to keep the WiiFlow's default video mode at it's original setting (game) and then configure the video mode for each game.

 

[davejsp]

Are most of your games PAL or NTSC? If they're NTSC then they're going to be 480p anyway, but you could try setting the default video setting to NTSC.

Personally I like to keep the WiiFlow's default video mode at it's original setting (game) and then configure the video mode for each game.

Most of my games (around 95%) are PAL, why would they benefit from NTSC? So the original "game" setting won't do any patching?

Blackb0x, i was always curious about the various video modes on wiiflow, can you please briefly explain what each one does now?

 

[blackb0x]

why would they benefit from NTSC?

NTSC is always 480p at 60Hz where as PAL is normally 576i at 50Hz.

So the original "game" setting won't do any patching?

If it's set to "game" then it'll basically do nothing for most games.

can you please briefly explain what each one does now?

It's difficult to explain every setting when you factor in regions and DOL patching. But as you're using a PAL console and you want your games to display at 480p then you should try using NTSC or progressive and set your WiiWare games to use "game" instead.

If your Wii games work with "progressive" and your WiiWare games work with "game" then I'll make WiiFlow's progressive setting exclude WiiWare games in the next release.

The few PAL WiiWare games that I've got here already run at 480p with the default WiiFlow settings.

 

[davejsp]

NTSC is always 480p at 60Hz where as PAL is normally 576i at 50Hz.


If it's set to "game" then it'll basically do nothing for most games.


It's difficult to explain every setting when you factor in regions and DOL patching. But as you're using a PAL console and you want your games to display at 480p then you should try using NTSC or progressive and set your WiiWare games to use "game" instead.

If your Wii games work with "progressive" and your WiiWare games work with "game" then I'll make WiiFlow's progressive setting exclude WiiWare games in the next release.

The few PAL WiiWare games that I've got here already run at 480p with the default WiiFlow settings.

I've done some testing, this new wiiflow version 5.4.4 really changed video modes around, here is what works for me:

NOTE: My Wii console video output is set to 480p, as it's the only mode my hdmi converter cable supports.
In wiiflow general settings i now changed video mode to "system" for v5.4.4

- PAL Wii games load with either progressive, system or default ("system"), doesn't load if i set it to NTSC, haven't tested other modes.
- NTSC Wii games don't load with progressive, system or default ("system"), but do load if i set them to NTSC.
-WiiWare games either PAL or NTSC now load with system, NTSC or default ("system"), don't load with progressive and crash the wii, haven't tested other modes.
-Virtual Console games don't load with "progressive" or "game" video modes and crash my wii, but since i changed the video mode to "system" on general settings and default on game settings, they do load fine, haven't tested other video modes.
- Gamecube games loaded as expected with "system" video mode on general settings and "default" on game settings, haven't tested other modes.
- Plugins work just fine.

Conclusions so far:
For me, Pal Wii games don't accept NTSC mode, and NTSC Wii games don't accept progressive or PAL modes.
Setting to "progressive" breaks Wiiware and Virtual Console, and "game" mode also crashed the wii for me.

Bottom line: I can play everything now, just had to find the correct modes for each type of game.

 

[fledge68]

Within the Wiiflow/plugins folder on SD card I assume, that's where all the others are.
The NES games say the plugin to be used is FCEUltraGX and there's an fceugx-mod12.dol file and the fceugx.ini file, which shows:

[PLUGIN]
displayname=FCEUltraGX
magic=46434555
coverfolder=NES
dolfile=fceugx-mod12.dol
romdir=fceugx/roms
filetypes=.nes
consolecoverid=nintendo
covercolor=ff0000
bannersound=nes.ogg
arguments={device}:/{path}|{name}|{loader}


Also Game and Watch uses gw_libretro_wii.dol which is in the 'SD:\wiiflow\plugins\retroarch-wii\' folder.
gw_libretro_wii.ini looks ok to me:

[PLUGIN]
displayname=Game and Watch
magic=4726574e
coverfolder=gameandwatch
dolfile=retroarch-wii/gw_libretro_wii.dol
romdir=gameandwatch
filetypes=.mgw
consolecoverid=
covercolor=ffffff
bannersound=gw_libretro_wii.ogg
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}

fceugx-mod12 might have issues with the games being on usb. or are you using source menu? maybe your nes source button is using a different nes plugin. not fceugx.

 

[davejsp]

By the way, where can one find the latest moded versions of these emulators for wiiflow?

 

[fledge68]

By the way, where can one find the latest moded versions of these emulators for wiiflow?

As for the gx emus just use the latest releases. They work as plugins. Even the rx one.

 

[protivakid]

@fledge68 On my Wii, every time I load WFL from my forwarder (like I always do) the big WiiFlow logo shows, then the wait imgs,...then DSI occurred. and it dumps to "Reloading in 10 sec" it reloads on its own, and goes into sourcemenu. If I load a game and exit the game, I usually come back to WFL, but it shows the wait imgs,.. then DSI occurs and dumps to reload again.

Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated,.. Also, I deleted the entire wiiflow (.ini included) directory from apps so it's a clean install as far as the app goes

So I just tried v5.4.4 and am having a similar issue but don't get as far as you. I launch it from my forwarder, the same forwarder that worked with 5.4.3, I see the WiiFlow Lite logo, then it sits there 5-10 seconds and sends me to the homebrew channel. This is odd since I wasn't even launching WFL from HBC but still this is where I end up. I first thought it was perhaps something from the "Danimal Master Pack (v5.4)" mentioned in the WFL setup tutorial so I decided to completely delete both the root WiiFlow & App WiiFlow folders, and copy them fresh from v5.4.4. Still even with crispy new folders the behavior is the same.

I also tried Launching WiiFlow from HBC and saw "DSI occurred".

I then thought why not try the other USB port, the one that internally seems to be called USB1. I usually use the top USB port on the back of the Wii and on all other versions of WFL this worked fine. I moved the drive to the bottom port and boom WFL works haha. It looks like there is some odd dependency for the bottom USB in ver 5.4.4.

Is there some sort of debug logging I can grab or enable to help see what's going on?

Anyways I tested the devolution & cover downloading as requested. Devolution still just gives me 4 blinks meaning it can't find the games directory. Covers also still locked up my Wii. It took several hard reboots to get them all to download. The one time it did finish afterwards the buttons as well as my cursor were completely gone off the screen. 5.2.0 was the last version that cover downloading seemed to work smoothly in.

 

[fledge68]

the bottom or left usb port is the one you are supposed to use. strange wiiflow worked for you before unless you had force cios set to off which meant wiiflow was booting and running with ios58.

as for the other things that sounds like you might still be using 5.4.3 and think you are using 5.4.4. just guessing.
other than that i have no idea why devolution and cover downloads are not working for you.

edit: by the way where is your devolution games directory? on usb or sd?

 

[protivakid]

the bottom or left usb port is the one you are supposed to use. strange wiiflow worked for you before unless you had force cios set to off which meant wiiflow was booting and running with ios58.

as for the other things that sounds like you might still be using 5.4.3 and think you are using 5.4.4. just guessing.
other than that i have no idea why devolution and cover downloads are not working for you.

edit: by the way where is your devolution games directory? on usb or sd?

I have had my USB drive in the top port for years without issue. In fact I am pretty sure v5.4.3 even worked in the top port.

Anyways, I checked the time stamp on my files and saw 4-20-2020 for the boot.dol so I'm pretty sure it was 5.4.4 but still I didn't want to be a fool so I cleared the drive and tried again. I still saw the exact same behavior with both the covers freezing when making the cover file and devolution still giving me 4 blinks. I tried twice, one with plan vanilla Wiiflow folders from your build, and a second time with the "Danimal Master Pack (v5.4)" files from the WFL tutorial put in place. Both were the same except one time I didn't even get the devolution blinks for whatever reason.

I appreciate your hard work but I'm not sure what's going on with my Wii if both worked for you. I'm using the latest Devolution build I found dated 8-16-2015 with the loader.bin in my Root/wiiflow folder.

All of this is on my USB flash drive. I haven't used an SD card since I originally modded the Wii years ago.