GAF Wii Homebrew thread: Homebrew, emulators, USB disc installs! Easy tutorial!
- Thread starter radioheadrule83
- Start date
Dragona Akehi
Retired
Marty Chinn said:
Even booting the disc from CFGloader is enough to bypass the updating attempt. But for convenience I'd just install it to the HDD and never have to fuss with it again.
Dash Kappei
Not actually that important
So if I have an old WiiScu in my HBC I'm all set and I can just run that one again to get the latest Shop update?
Due to an early demise, I'm redoing my repaired Seagate 500G HD and was going to update to a newer loader and format. Previously I was using CoverFloader and WiiFlow with a wdfs partiton. I want to be able to use my portable HD on my PC as well as on the Wii (I'm experimenting with Dolphin), so my question is should I format the drive using FAT of NTFS (are Configurable USB Loader and WiiFlow are capable of reading either format)?
Both Configurable and Wiiflow now support both read and write onto NTFS drives. I don't know if Dolphin supports .wbfs files, but if not, then Cfg will also let you rip your games directly to the .iso format in the latest beta releases. You would definitely need to use an NTFS partition if you need the .iso files, as they are too large for FAT32.RavenHawk said:
To support .iso writing, you would add:
install_partitions=iso
ntfs_write=1
to config.txt either by text editing or using the Configurator app.
Depends how old it is. It can't hurt to try it. If it fails, the new methods in the tutorial should work.Dash Kappei said:
FIRST TIME MODDER.
I'll number this so it is easier to answer.
1. So I'm on System Menu 4.3. What exactly will I be missing? The wiki says, "This makes things rather difficult. 4.3 disabled many of the nicer hacks for the Wii."
2. All I REALLY want to do with the homebrew is play SNES and Genesis games that I own already. I have a bunch in the closet, so I want to use SNES and Genesis emulators, AS WELL AS be able to still download from WiiWare (I already bought "And Yet It Moves") and the VC and play retail Wii games. I also need support for the Classic Controller, I have two of them.
EDIT 2: Ok... reading through the topic now, I probably also want to back up the Wii games I buy so they will be easier to access with a menu interface instead of changing discs.
3. I need to use either Smash Bros. or Lego Indiana Jones to install the Homebrew app because I'm on System Menu 4.3, correct?
4. So I have a 1 TB HD, 250 GB HD, and 8 GB USB thumb drive at home. Should I just buy an SD card? I'm reading NOT to buy SDHC, correct? Will I just store all my SNES, Genesis and Wii games on the external drive and the custom firmware is on the SD card in the Wii's SD slot???
5. Should I use BootMii? The wiki says, "Do you want to make a backup of your Wii so that you can recover from a mistake during installation?"
Umm, I dunno? Should I?
Thanks for any input. Never modded a console before but it looks fun. Feel free to add anything I might miss as a first timer.
I'll number this so it is easier to answer.
1. So I'm on System Menu 4.3. What exactly will I be missing? The wiki says, "This makes things rather difficult. 4.3 disabled many of the nicer hacks for the Wii."
2. All I REALLY want to do with the homebrew is play SNES and Genesis games that I own already. I have a bunch in the closet, so I want to use SNES and Genesis emulators, AS WELL AS be able to still download from WiiWare (I already bought "And Yet It Moves") and the VC and play retail Wii games. I also need support for the Classic Controller, I have two of them.
EDIT 2: Ok... reading through the topic now, I probably also want to back up the Wii games I buy so they will be easier to access with a menu interface instead of changing discs.
3. I need to use either Smash Bros. or Lego Indiana Jones to install the Homebrew app because I'm on System Menu 4.3, correct?
4. So I have a 1 TB HD, 250 GB HD, and 8 GB USB thumb drive at home. Should I just buy an SD card? I'm reading NOT to buy SDHC, correct? Will I just store all my SNES, Genesis and Wii games on the external drive and the custom firmware is on the SD card in the Wii's SD slot???
5. Should I use BootMii? The wiki says, "Do you want to make a backup of your Wii so that you can recover from a mistake during installation?"
Umm, I dunno? Should I?
Thanks for any input. Never modded a console before but it looks fun. Feel free to add anything I might miss as a first timer.
1. You won't be missing anything. That is a reference to the fact that you will need a game.Futureman said:
2. Seems like you answered this one yourself.
3. If your Wii is from the US, yes.
4. Yes. Buy an SD card. After you use the SD card to install the HBC, you can put your apps on either the SD card or a FAT32 formatted hard drive. The tutorial always gives instructions to put them on the SD, but you can choose differently if you like. The only part that absolutely requires the SD card will be the HBC installation.
5. There's no harm in using it, so you might as well.
Affeinvasion
Member
so...I'm trying to run the whole ConfigUSBLoader thing and I have a few questions:
First off the bat: is it possible to use a usb flash drive...I got an 8GB one when the Xbox 360 began to allow saving to one.
If not then my problems make a lot more sense.
Basically usbloader freezes on the loading screen where it says configurable loader and then in the bottom corner says v57 and under that it says 249[frag].
It boots properly when I don't have the usb flash drive plugged in and then it obviously goes onto the countdown where it can't find a drive. If I stick it in then, it will say OK and then freeze again. During these freezes the light on the flash drive is flickering on and off...so I figured it was working.
Anybody have any insight?
edit: figured it out. I updated to the 60 version and tweaked the config file.
First off the bat: is it possible to use a usb flash drive...I got an 8GB one when the Xbox 360 began to allow saving to one.
If not then my problems make a lot more sense.
Basically usbloader freezes on the loading screen where it says configurable loader and then in the bottom corner says v57 and under that it says 249[frag].
It boots properly when I don't have the usb flash drive plugged in and then it obviously goes onto the countdown where it can't find a drive. If I stick it in then, it will say OK and then freeze again. During these freezes the light on the flash drive is flickering on and off...so I figured it was working.
Anybody have any insight?
edit: figured it out. I updated to the 60 version and tweaked the config file.
Little Green Yoda
Member
Clipper said:
Thanks. What makes the SD better than the SDHC? Just because it's cheaper or some technical reason?
viciouskillersquirrel
Member
Is SCU still an acceptable method of updating the shop channel without having to do things manually?
Can I put everything on the SD card and skip an external HD entirely, or is it recommended to use an external for faster loading times?
I was thinking of getting a 16GB SD card and putting SNES, Genesis, and Wii games on. How many Wii games would that roughly fit?
edit: If I do decide to use an external HD to put everything on, can I do the hack with a 256MB SD card, or is that too small?
I was thinking of getting a 16GB SD card and putting SNES, Genesis, and Wii games on. How many Wii games would that roughly fit?
edit: If I do decide to use an external HD to put everything on, can I do the hack with a 256MB SD card, or is that too small?
256MB is big enough only if you don't want to make a NAND (the Wii's internal memory) backup when/if you install bootmii. I think the bare minimum should be 1GB since the NAND backup will take up 512MB of that.Futureman said:
I keep all my homebrew on the same external HDD as my Wii games.
Fuzzy said:
I bought my Wii for $80 so I think I'll just risk it and not do a NAND backup. It sounds like reading through the wiki that this is all pretty safe and you would never really need the backup anyways. Yes?
Just bought Indiana Jones used and got a save file on my Wii. I'm going to start the process now.
QUESTION.
I'm doing the Indiana Jones exploit.
On this page, http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns , step #2 says, "Take your homebrew and put it in the ROOT of your SD card as "boot.elf"."
I'm not 100% clear here. Does this just mean that I put the .elf file from the HackMii installer I just unzipped on to the SD card?
I'm doing the Indiana Jones exploit.
On this page, http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Indiana_Pwns , step #2 says, "Take your homebrew and put it in the ROOT of your SD card as "boot.elf"."
I'm not 100% clear here. Does this just mean that I put the .elf file from the HackMii installer I just unzipped on to the SD card?
and am I reading this correct? From here on, if I want to install further stuff like the SNES emulator, I need to get a copy of Twilight Princess to install the SNES emulator as a channel?
EDIT: is that only if I want the SNES channel to be an actual channel on the Wii menu? I can just launch the SNES emulator from the Homebrew Channel, correct?
EDIT: is that only if I want the SNES channel to be an actual channel on the Wii menu? I can just launch the SNES emulator from the Homebrew Channel, correct?
Vampire Lord
Neo Member
So I haven't been updated on the Wii homebrew scene since for a few several months. Today, instead of playing old games, I decide to finally pop in my copy of Metroid Other M. After reading this thread, I realize I could have bypassed the update with several different ways, but that's too late now. HBC is deleted and several of my custom channels are busted, probably because the IOS changed from 249 to something, not too sure.
Anyways, I've done this several times, so I figure no big deal. Never used it before, but Smash Stack works fine and I get HBC back. I figure I'm in the clear now, but when I try to run the IOS236 installer, and it tells me it can't initialize the patching. I've tried both online and offline methods for downloading the IOS file.
So I guess what I am trying to say is, is there something wrong I'm doing? I can provide more details, but I am basically following the installation properly, but I can no long change my IOS files. Should I reinstall HBC/BootMii, even though AFAIK, all my other homebrew runs. From what I can see, not many people seem to have such a problem.
Thanks in advance
Anyways, I've done this several times, so I figure no big deal. Never used it before, but Smash Stack works fine and I get HBC back. I figure I'm in the clear now, but when I try to run the IOS236 installer, and it tells me it can't initialize the patching. I've tried both online and offline methods for downloading the IOS file.
So I guess what I am trying to say is, is there something wrong I'm doing? I can provide more details, but I am basically following the installation properly, but I can no long change my IOS files. Should I reinstall HBC/BootMii, even though AFAIK, all my other homebrew runs. From what I can see, not many people seem to have such a problem.
Thanks in advance
It should work, just make sure you put the data port into the correct USB slot on the Wii. Also, in answer to your earlier questions, you don't need an SD card for anything else. You can use a hard drive instead (as long as it is FAT32). Do not install any other channels, unless the Wiki tells you too as this process is very dangerous and you risk bricking your Wii. Your mention of the Twilight hack seems to indicate you are looking into some very old and outdated information and you should avoid that. The Homebrew Browser (which is sanctioned by the tutorial) has several emulators that you can install on either the SD or hard drive. Just stick with those techniques and you'll be fine.Futureman said:
Did you copy the meta.xml file of the IOS236 installer zip across? Did you also install the latest version of the HBC? I can't think of any other reason why these patches wouldn't work.Vampire Lord said:
The channel for launching USB Loader is the Forwarder channel. It is the only custom channel, apart from the HBC, that you can really trust. That's why it's in the tutorial. While most forwarders you'll find for other apps are also OK, there are a few bad ones out there and there is no real way to know which are bad, so just avoid them.Futureman said:
Vampire Lord
Neo Member
Clipper said:
Yeah, I copied the meta.xml file into the sd:/apps/IOS236 folder. I used the latest HackMii install package to update HBC and HBC is successfully connected to the internet and not asking me to update. I can look up the HBC version, but I am 90% sure it is the latest version.
Maybe I'll just scrap it all and try a reinstall. How do I check to see what IOS version is currently installed on my Wii? Maybe I can diagnose this better with that bit of info.
Clipper said:
ok... one more question for now.
I have a 320GB Iomega external HD and I want to format it to use with the Wii. The only options are NTFS and exFAT (I'm using Windows 7). Will this work with Wii?
edit: I plugged it into my Mac now and I can format it as "MS-DOS (FAT)" on here.
I don't know if emulator talk is not allowed, but I got an issue. (I have a box full of SNES and Genesis games and that's pretty much the entire reason I bought a Wii - to have an easy and fast way to play my games that don't really work on the aging systems now).
Using Snes9x GX (found on emulator list on wiibrew.org). I loaded up Sunset Riders for SNES. Plays perfect except it runs about 5-10% too slow, just noticeable enough. Is this the preferred SNES emulator? The first post on this topic lists "SNES9X" as the emulator... not sure what the GX version I got is or if it is different?
Anyways, is there a way to boost the speed of an emulated game?
Using Snes9x GX (found on emulator list on wiibrew.org). I loaded up Sunset Riders for SNES. Plays perfect except it runs about 5-10% too slow, just noticeable enough. Is this the preferred SNES emulator? The first post on this topic lists "SNES9X" as the emulator... not sure what the GX version I got is or if it is different?
Anyways, is there a way to boost the speed of an emulated game?
Futureman said:
SNES9XGX is the emulator to have. Are you sure you have the latest revision? If you have your wii connected to a wireless network, snes9x will update automatically.
And as an example of how good snes9x is - it runs Yoshi's Island near flawlessly, and nearly all other games better than their virtual console counterparts - especially here in shitty PAL land.
Marty Chinn
Member
Dragona Akehi said:
Cool, thanks a lot for the help. I was running out of space on my HDD (think it's time to upgrade to something bigger) so I was trying to not install for now. I just barely had enough room so definitely time for a bigger HDD.
Clipper,
I have 2 questions for you if you get a moment:
1. Is there a way to change the default settings for ripping my games to my NTFS drive? Currently they are ripping as: My Drive/wbfs/GAMEID_TITLE/GAMEID.iso and I would like them to rip as My Drive/wbfs/TITLE [GAMEID].iso. I know there are options that allow this to be done for FAT drives, but is it possible for NTFS?
2. Is there a way to not have the GAMEID show up at all in the .iso name, or is this needed for the loader?
I have 2 questions for you if you get a moment:
1. Is there a way to change the default settings for ripping my games to my NTFS drive? Currently they are ripping as: My Drive/wbfs/GAMEID_TITLE/GAMEID.iso and I would like them to rip as My Drive/wbfs/TITLE [GAMEID].iso. I know there are options that allow this to be done for FAT drives, but is it possible for NTFS?
2. Is there a way to not have the GAMEID show up at all in the .iso name, or is this needed for the loader?