State of Wii Hacking in 2020

[ldeveraux]

Nothing even remotely astounding about that. I think most people I know fall in two categories: Highly technical and wouldn't touch Windows with a stick and so non-technical that they don't need a computer and just use an iPad/smartphone.

I think most people you know don't have a normal office job then, with a company issued Windows laptop. Like most non-software based jobs.

[RocketBelt]

There's still a few things unclear to me. I just bought a 64GB SD card. It's less than 10EUR and I figure 64GB should be enough for a dozen Wii/GC games or so, fine for me. But some here say that's not a good idea? Online I've read reports of people storing & loading games from SDXC cards formatted FAT32 just fine, I figured that would be the cleanest, simplest solution. I guess FAT32 has a 4GB limit, which might not be enough for Wii games and I guess I can't format my internal SD card as exFAT. Also, should I get PAL or NTSC ISOs? I'll be getting a PAL Wii and hook it up over SCART RGB. From what I understand basically all Wii games support PAL60 so that 50Hz slowdown crap shouldn't be an issue and 576i > 480i. So PAL ISOs it is?

Pal or Ntsc disc images will do it. Fat32 is what I'm using. If you need to split the wii isos into chunks wiimms tools will do it. It's in the debian and arch repos. This command will make a copy of wii disc images it finds in the folder you're in, and split the copy into 2gb chunks. You can look up the documentation for wiimms tools, it's very well written.

wit copy . --dest %X --verbose --wbfs --progress --update --diff --split --split-size 2 --psel data --recurse .

[ASDR]

Pal or Ntsc disc images will do it. Fat32 is what I'm using. If you need to split the wii isos into chunks wiimms tools will do it. It's in the debian and arch repos. This command will make a copy of wii disc images it finds in the folder you're in, and split the copy into 2gb chunks. You can look up the documentation for wiimms tools, it's very well written.

wit copy . --dest %X --verbose --wbfs --progress --update --diff --split --split-size 2 --psel data --recurse .

Oh, that's super neat, thanks. Good to know both PAL/NTSC will work fine and the Wii is one console where I don't have to worry about that crap.

So I'll be fine just using the internal SD card? 64GB is plenty for me and I don't want to attach more storage unless there's a compelling reason to do so. The splitting tool seems perfect. I'm a bit confused about WBFS as I've read some tutorials that indicate that this is some kind of filesystem that you need to format an entire drive with. But here it is just a file format that I can convert my ISOs into?

[Lawfer]

I definitely don't have a nand backup from the very beginning,

Can't you fix all that by updating your Wii to the lastest firmware? It should fix all the issues from the software side if you could do that.

There's still a few things unclear to me. I just bought a 64GB SD card. It's less than 10EUR and I figure 64GB should be enough for a dozen Wii/GC games or so, fine for me. But some here say that's not a good idea?

It's not a good idea because the performance will be horrid, you can, it just won't play games like it does from a disc or from an external hard drive, just use the SD Card to boot the loader (Nintendont etc.), use an external hardrive to store the games in, preferably make the External Hardrive in ExFat (both Nintendont and Usbloadergx support ExFat) so that you can play both GameCube and Wii games from the same drive.

Oh, that's super neat, thanks. Good to know both PAL/NTSC will work fine and the Wii is one console where I don't have to worry about that crap.

Can confirm, Project Zero 2: Wii Edition and Disaster: Day of Crisis which where only released in Japan and Europe, can play on a US Wii, same thing for Japanese games which got an english fan-translation.

[ASDR]

There's still a few things unclear to me. I just bought a 64GB SD card. It's less than 10EUR and I figure 64GB should be enough for a dozen Wii/GC games or so, fine for me. But some here say that's not a good idea?

It's not a good idea because the performance will be horrid, you can, it just won't play games like it does from a disc or from an external hard drive, just use the SD Card to boot the loader (Nintendont etc.), use an extetnal hardrive to store the games in.

Oh, that's super neat, thanks. Good to know both PAL/NTSC will work fine and the Wii is one console where I don't have to worry about that crap.

Can confirm, Project Zero 2: Wii Edition and Disaster: Day of Crisis which where only released in Japan and Europe, can play on a US Wii, same thing for Japanese games which got an english fan-translation.

Too bad about the SD card. It was less than 10EUR, so not a huge investment, guess I'll just buy a USB stick. I'm surprised the SD card is too slow, though. I mean the DVD drive is not going to be faster than 10MB/s, and that shouldn't really be an issue even for a crap SD card and reader.

Can you play rare EU-only PAL games? JPN/US is both NTSC so I wouldn't imagine that there's an issue. Can I force PAL games to 480i on a PAL Wii and will NTSC games play on my PAL Wii in 576i or 480i? Everything goes like on OGXB?

[Lawfer]

Too bad about the SD card. It was less than 10EUR, so not a huge investment, guess I'll just buy a USB stick.

USB Sticks are also not advised as well, stick with an external hardrive that has it's own external psu.

I'm surprised the SD card is too slow, though. I mean the DVD drive is not going to be faster than 10MB/s, and that shouldn't really be an issue even for a crap SD card and reader.

The SD Card slot is just not good, playing games from an external hardrive from the USB slot is just as good as playing from a disc, no issues.

Can you play rare EU-only PAL games?

Like European-developed games like Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis and So Blonde: Back to the Island, I presume? I actually haven't tried it (I pretty much only play japanese games), I don't see why not though, some PAL version of games like Project Zero 2: Wii Edition (it's a japanese game that only came out in Japan and Europe) won't even let you play in 576/50Hz mode, it will only do 480/60Hz, if you try it you'll get a message telling you to set you Wii for 480/60Hz because the game doesn't support 576/50Hz, the US Wii does not have an option for 576/50Hz (unlike PAL Wii's), but I doubt that EU-only PAL games do not support 480/60Hz.

JPN/US is both NTSC so I wouldn't imagine that there's an issue.

Japan is NTSC-J while US is NTSC-U/C and technically the Wii like the Wii U is region locked, meaning it won't play NTSC-J games on an NTSC-U/C console and vice versa, at least not on an unhacked Wii.

Can I force PAL games to 480i on a PAL Wii and will NTSC games play on my PAL Wii in 576i or 480i? Everything goes like on OGXB?

PAL games already support 480/60Hz (dunno if they ALL support it, but all the ones I tried did, which were PAL version of japanese games), however I dunno if you can do 576/50Hz on a hacked NTSC console, that option is just not in these consoles settings, dunno if you can force it from USBLoaderGX.

[Guspaz]

I definitely don't have a nand backup from the very beginning,

Can't you fix all that by updating your Wii to the lastest firmware? It should fix all the issues from the software side if you could do that.

So I should just go into the system menu and let it install the latest official update, and that'll undo all the softmodding stuff, and then I do a system menu format to bring it back to stock (having backed up my saves, I suppose), and then I can re-softmod it in a cleaner way?

[fernan1234]

I use an HDD without external power connected to a single USB port, never had issues.

USBLoaderGX can indeed force PAL50, as well as PAL60. Also, the Wii's region is set at the software level, so it's possible to swap around the different regions using some homebrew called something like Wii RegionChanger, don't remember exactly. But it's also necessary to change the system menu to the corresponding region. Should only do this if you're comfortable and prepared for dealing with a potential semi-brick.

[Lawfer]

I definitely don't have a nand backup from the very beginning,

Can't you fix all that by updating your Wii to the lastest firmware? It should fix all the issues from the software side if you could do that.

So I should just go into the system menu and let it install the latest official update, and that'll undo all the softmodding stuff, and then I do a system menu format to bring it back to stock (having backed up my saves, I suppose), and then I can re-softmod it in a cleaner way?

Normally that undo all the hacking that was done to it, so it should work again as itended, that is as long as the hacking didn't cause any hardware defect.

You can update it two ways, either try to update from the internet (the latest is 4.3, but there are many revisions of the 4.3 firmware, the one you download online is not the final revision) or you put in one of the latest Wii games released such as Rodea: The Sky Soldier (this one was only available together with the Wii U version) or something like Just Dance 2020 which should have the latest revision of the 4.3 firmware, update when prompted.

[ASDR]

Seems like Wiis are pretty good about the whole region thing and PAL60 is good and supported anyway. Nice.

You can update it two ways, either try to update from the internet (the latest is 4.3, but there are many revisions of the 4.3 firmware, the one you download online is not the final revision)

Could you explain why I need the absolutely latest firmware? Is having the online update one an issue with homebrew or is there any other advantage?

[Lawfer]

Seems like Wiis are pretty good about the whole region thing and PAL60 is good and supported anyway. Nice.

Yes, this does not seem like it was for older consoles where you had to deal with crystal oscillators or whatever.

Could you explain why I need the absolutely latest firmware?

You don't, I did it for my console before hacking it, poped in the latest Wii game ever released I had in my collection (Rodea: The Sjy Soldier which came out in November 2015) and updated it (as a matter of fact the Wii won't let you start a game if it detects that you inserted a disc which requires a system update) so yeah if you decide to pop in the disc of some of the latest Wii games, they could ask you to update your console, if you go ahead with it you'll lose the hacking and will have to dit again. If you just hack your Wii with the version of the 4.3 firmware available online, then never insert a disc for some of the latest Wii games, you should be fine, dunno if the latest Wii games will work as intended though.

Is having the online update one an issue with homebrew or is there any other advantage?

No there is no disadvantage I think, what you can download online right now is version 4.3, but it is not the first revision nor is is it the last, see here:



There is three revisions of the 4.3 Firmware that were available to download online, so let's call the one that is available online right now version 4.3c, however if you pop in the disc for Rodea: The Sky Soldier you will be prompted to update your console, it will still be at version 4.3 after you do that as this is yet another revision of the same firmware, not sure if it is the fourth or the fifth or whatever so you could call it version 4.3d or version 4.3e.

[fernan1234]

Technically you don't need to update the system menu. There are exploits available for earlier versions that work just as easily, but if you want to follow the guide to the T then might as well update it. I do recall though that updating can make you lose boot2 as an option if your console was early enough and still on a non-patched system menu version.

[ASDR]

I think I would just want to update the menu to have the latest one to use, if I just use it as a regular Wii. Good point about a few late releases requiring the new firmware. I remember this was a constant struggle with PSP homebrew during the active days of the console. I also vaguely remember that Rodea game looking kinda neat. IIRC Priiloader let's you disable disc firmware updates so you can't accidentally bork your homebrew install. Seems useful.

If I understand the guide correctly not having the boot2 install doesn't even matter if you install Priiloader since it runs right at startup and lets you restore a NAND backup, hence you can recover from a messed up state?

[orange808]

Priiloader is much later in the boot sequence. Put Bootmii in boot2 if you can and (of course) make a backup before you change anything. I would install both when possible.

[ASDR]

Priiloader is much later in the boot sequence. Put Bootmii in boot2 if you can and (of course) make a backup before you change anything. I would install both when possible.

So Priiloader is before the system menu but after boot0-2. If I can't install Bootmii as boot2, does the NAND backup even help me? If something breaks, will I even have the chance to pull up any kind of recovery menu and restore it from a backup?

[cools]

You'd need to install some software for it to be usable, look into what they do for the portable wii conversions/mods

Aha, nice pointer. Thanks!