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GAF Wii Homebrew thread: Homebrew, emulators, USB disc installs! Easy tutorial!

Disguises

Member
Some things is noticed: SNES9x no longer works correctly (can not find ROMS), Rin Doesn't boot at all. Is there a way to uninstall this channel correctly (by uninstalling tickets too)?
 

later

Member
First time I tried to run the twilight hack..

After adding the save file, I put the homebrew channel on the SD card. (boot.elf)

I get the fat_readfile(boot.elf) failed with error -1 as well. I already formatted with the official SD card tool that wiibrew recommended.. Any ideas?

(PAL)
 
The Homebrew Channel is slick and very polished, haven't had any problems with it at all. Very, very cool. Wii homebrew is headed in a great direction.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Disguises said:
Some things is noticed: SNES9x no longer works correctly (can not find ROMS), Rin Doesn't boot at all. Is there a way to uninstall this channel correctly (by uninstalling tickets too)?

Yes. Wad unistaller

launch it with the TP hack or the homebrew channel, create a WAD directory on your SD card and put the homebrew channel wad file there. It will unistall the channel and the tickets. You can uninstall every channel like this so you wipe the tickets from the system. Totally recommended.


First time I tried to run the twilight hack..

After adding the save file, I put the homebrew channel on the SD card. (boot.elf)

I get the fat_readfile(boot.elf) failed with error -1 as well. I already formatted with the official SD card tool that wiibrew recommended.. Any ideas?

(PAL)

Do you have the last version of the TP save? there are different versions, you should use the last.
Do you have your SD card formatted in fat16?
If you have everything and it still does not work, probably your card is not supported. Which brand, size and speed is it?

You can try to use the experimental one that tries to fix the error you mention
 

mandiller

Member
The Homebrew Channel is awesome. Brilliant work by the developers. It looks and feels just like a Nintendo developed channel.
 
Before messing with the Twilight Hack each time to get something running sounded like too much of a hassle, but I'll give this a go.

I don't suppose there are any utilities yet that allow you to bend the Wii's rules in ways other than just running arbitrary programs? Like something to allow you to backup and restore normally uncopiable saves.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
JoshuaJSlone said:
Before messing with the Twilight Hack each time to get something running sounded like too much of a hassle, but I'll give this a go.

I don't suppose there are any utilities yet that allow you to bend the Wii's rules in ways other than just running arbitrary programs? Like something to allow you to backup and restore normally uncopiable saves.


Yes there is :D

Savegame extractor and Savegame installer
 

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
Do we still have any reason to be afraid of updates bricking a Wii that's been using stuff like this?
I'm seriously tempted by some of this stuff (like the pointer-controlled ScummVM and the ability to backup those savegames you couldn't normally copy on SD cards).
 

hirokazu

Member
itxaka said:
That's neat. What about a tool to extract your legit purchased VC/WiiWare purchases and their tickets (and possibly reinstall them with WAD installer)?

After removing the battery, my Weather Channel just says "Start Weather Channel to view current weather" instead of showing the temperature and conditions in the channel preview. I read that formatting the Wii system memory fixes it, but I can't because of the unmovable save files and the VC transaction record.

Pretty stupid that the only fix is to format the memory, which wipes everything out. Seriously.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Jocchan said:
Do we still have any reason to be afraid of updates bricking a Wii that's been using stuff like this?
I'm seriously tempted by some of this stuff (like the pointer-controlled ScummVM and the ability to backup those savegames you couldn't normally copy on SD cards).

No, no problems for the moment as you wipe the tickets, so it´s like nothing happened on your wii.


That's neat. What about a tool to extract your legit purchased VC/WiiWare purchases and their tickets (and possibly reinstall them with WAD installer)?

That is difficult. You have to dump your nand, search for them and convert them to wad.
Much easier to just redownload them again from the store.
 

hirokazu

Member
itxaka said:
No, no problems for the moment as you wipe the tickets, so it´s like nothing happened on your wii.




That is difficult. You have to dump your nand, search for them and convert them to wad.
Much easier to just redownload them again from the store.
Yeah, the thing is, if I were to format the system memory, I would lose all transaction records, which means I'd have to pay for them again! :(
 

itxaka

Defeatist
hirokazu said:
Yeah, the thing is, if I were to format the system memory, I would lose all transaction records, which means I'd have to pay for them again! :(

Really? Didn´t know, then...

Get Wii Filesystem Dumper
You will need a SD card with at least 512MB of free space in the Wii front SD slot.
Launch the program.
Wait until the countdown finishes or press A button in a GC controller.
The filesystem contents will be dumped in a folder called "wii_fs"
Then copy everything to your PC.

Now navigate to WII_FS\TITLE\00010001\*KEY*\CONTENT\
*KEY* is the ID in Binary of the channel.
To know which channel are you creating you can open 00000000.app with the notepad or an Hexadecimal editor to search for it:
m7an8i.png


Then you have to convert them to .wad

Get Waadmaker
Open it, it will ask for the Title.tmd. You can found it in WII_FS\TITLE\00010001\*KEY*\CONTENT\
Select it and press "Make title.wad" it will ask for an output folder, choose one empty folder as it copies the title.wad+all the files

There you go, a wad channel from your nand dump, with your ticket that you can install from the wad installer.
 
Quick impressions from someone who hadn't messed with Wii homebrew before: pretty nice. Tried installing at first without reformatting my card, but that didn't go. After the format things went fine. Tried out most of the included applications.

GameCube Linux: Seemed to freeze partway through the loading process, on "Freeing unused kernel memory: 160k init".

SCUMM VM: Copied over Beneath a Steel Sky and it mostly worked fine... however, it couldn't successfully save. Not sure what was up with that.

Tetris: It's... Tetris. Plain, but it works.

Wii64: Doesn't hold a candle to the Virtual Console emulator, but it did actually load Super Mario 64... slowly.


I know a lot of the existing homebrew is in pretty basic shape, or is older and only designed to run from SD cards through GCN's memory card, or installs as its own channel... but any suggestions on other things that are capable of working now through the Homebrew Channel, and worthwhile?
 

itxaka

Defeatist
JoshuaJSlone said:
I know a lot of the existing homebrew is in pretty basic shape, or is older and only designed to run from SD cards through GCN's memory card, or installs as its own channel... but any suggestions on other things that are capable of working now through the Homebrew Channel, and worthwhile?

Snes9x wit 2 wiimote support, direct savegame and long filenames

Genesis Plus


FCE Ultra (Nes)

Hugo (PC-Engine)

RIN (GBC)

WiiWhiteboard (needs 2 remotes) More info

Gecko Free
 

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
I think it could even work if you had a tv remote and made sure the wiimote acting as a camera could see its LED.
It wouldn't be as comfortable as a pen-shaped object though :p
 
Unlimited4s said:
Are those PAL bugs fixed in Snes9x yet? (too slow/fast, black&white in PAL60,..)

That isn't a bug. If your console is in 60hz or 480p, PAL games will play too fast, in 50hz NTSC games will play too slow.
 
radioheadrule83 said:
That isn't a bug. If your console is in 60hz or 480p, PAL games will play too fast, in 50hz NTSC games will play too slow.
Well, the problem is that I can't use the 60hz mode if I want to see colors :(.
(and I don't have component inputs)
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Unlimited4s said:
Well, the problem is that I can't use the 60hz mode if I want to see colors :(.
(and I don't have component inputs)

yeah, it´s fixed now on the link I provided. They had an issue with the 60hz until Emukidd provided the updated source code for proper output recognition ;)
 
itxaka said:
yeah, it´s fixed now on the link I provided. They had an issue with the 60hz until Emukidd provided the updated source code for proper output recognition ;)
Doesn't work :(. Still black&white over here :(.
 
itxaka said:
Nice. Right now one must do a bit of setup work to get them going in the Homebrew Channel, giving them a directory, renaming their ELF, and making sure they have a PNG and description; I just used a generic one copied again and slightly modified for each thing to set them up. I suppose now that the Homebrew Channel is out it will become pretty standard to include that sort of thing from the get-go.

Pretty impressed with RIN/FCEU/SNES9x. Visually they seem a bit behind the Virtual Console emulators due to seeming a bit blurry even with interpolation options turned off. The added options are nice, though, and they pretty much played whatever I threw at it, though I tested nothing for very long. I couldn't get saving to work with SNES9x, though, and I didn't even tried it with RIN/FCEU.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
So does the Homebrew channel's ticket get removed when you delete it like a regular channel? Because that's what it tells you to do when you want to uninstall it.

I don't want to leave any tickets on my Wii for future updates though, and to get it removed you need the WAD file so Wad Uninstaller can find it :(


Lazy version: Is there a .Wad out there for the new Homebrew Channel Beta? :D
 
Easy_D said:
So does the Homebrew channel's ticket get removed when you delete it like a regular channel? Because that's what it tells you to do when you want to uninstall it.

I don't want to leave any tickets on my Wii for future updates though, and to get it removed you need the WAD file so Wad Uninstaller can find it :(


Lazy version: Is there a .Wad out there for the new Homebrew Channel Beta? :D

Unfortunately I think not.

I went ahead and installed it anyway. They mention that just deleting it would leave stuff on your system. They say that should be fine and if its not they'll address it in future (probably by releasing a new version of the channel, or an uninstaller for it).
 
To make your own entries on the new Homebrew Channel beta, you need three files. A boot.dol or boot.elf file (this is what the Homebrew Channel loads), icon.png and meta.xml.

To make meta.xml files for the new Homebrew Channel beta, you can use this handy app

http://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_meta-xml-editor_1028723

To make the icon.png, just use photoshop, save for web and save as PNG-8 file. Dimensions are 128x48

There is a set of pre-made icons for FCEU, Rin, Snes9x and OpenTyrian here - http://uploaded.to/?id=laswxf
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
There's a .wad out for Beta 7 now.

You can get it Here

Simple and easy to get rid of with Wad Uninstaller :) No worry about tickets as far as I know.
 
For those having trouble with save states in snes9x, just make the folder \snes9x\saves on your SD card (NOT in the "apps" folder, but in the snes9x folder in the root of your card). It doesn't make the folder automatically for you, so you have to create it - after that, you shouldn't have any errors and it will write and read saves from that folder.
 
Okay, so I'm trying to boot Snes9x. It works. I'm using the current version above. For some reason, it won't read my SDCard or ROMs folder (yet it picks up the emulator .elf file, go figure).

Is there any reason for this? And what are slots A and B? What slot A and B? Lol.

Help, prease? :)
 

hirokazu

Member
itxaka said:
Really? Didn´t know, then...

Get Wii Filesystem Dumper
You will need a SD card with at least 512MB of free space in the Wii front SD slot.
Launch the program.
Wait until the countdown finishes or press A button in a GC controller.
The filesystem contents will be dumped in a folder called "wii_fs"
Then copy everything to your PC.

Now navigate to WII_FS\TITLE\00010001\*KEY*\CONTENT\
*KEY* is the ID in Binary of the channel.
To know which channel are you creating you can open 00000000.app with the notepad or an Hexadecimal editor to search for it:
m7an8i.png


Then you have to convert them to .wad

Get Waadmaker
Open it, it will ask for the Title.tmd. You can found it in WII_FS\TITLE\00010001\*KEY*\CONTENT\
Select it and press "Make title.wad" it will ask for an output folder, choose one empty folder as it copies the title.wad+all the files

There you go, a wad channel from your nand dump, with your ticket that you can install from the wad installer.
Awesome, thanks!
 

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
I would install the channel... but I fear Nintendo =S.

Also is it just me or is this thing exploding real fast?!? I am kinda worried that they will get pirated games to run on the Wii, with such an easy method it would be a bad thing for Nintendo. Meeeeeh..... the homebrew sure looks nice, and very happy that Snes9x is perfectly functional now.
 

Speevy

Banned
Nintendo's not going to brick anyone's Wii. I mean they will, but far more people will do it to themselves because they have no idea how these files work.

Nintendo did not create the Wii for the purpose of installing buggy software.
 
Scalpel Knight said:
For those having trouble with save states in snes9x, just make the folder \snes9x\saves on your SD card (NOT in the "apps" folder, but in the snes9x folder in the root of your card). It doesn't make the folder automatically for you, so you have to create it - after that, you shouldn't have any errors and it will write and read saves from that folder.
Ahh, thanks. Speaking of directory finickiness, FCEU freaked out when an drive:/fceu/roms/ directory didn't exist. Once I created it, it even allowed me to navigate to other directories, but without finding its default location to begin with I couldn't get anywhere.
Crouching Zebra said:
Okay, so I'm trying to boot Snes9x. It works. I'm using the current version above. For some reason, it won't read my SDCard or ROMs folder (yet it picks up the emulator .elf file, go figure).

Is there any reason for this? And what are slots A and B? What slot A and B? Lol.
It gave me FCEU-like troubles as well; ROMs need to be in drive:/snes9x/roms . Slots A and B refer to the GameCube slots; the one you probably want is called "Wii SD" or "Wii Front", or something like that. Though I did notice in at least one place where after flipping through the options it never presented the front Wii slot as a choice again.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
Crouching Zebra said:
Okay, so I'm trying to boot Snes9x. It works. I'm using the current version above. For some reason, it won't read my SDCard or ROMs folder (yet it picks up the emulator .elf file, go figure).

Is there any reason for this? And what are slots A and B? What slot A and B? Lol.

Help, prease? :)

You can try the official versions

Slot A and B are the gamecube memory slots, be sure to have no GC memory cards inserted as there is a bug with that.

Also is it just me or is this thing exploding real fast?!? I am kinda worried that they will get pirated games to run on the Wii, with such an easy method it would be a bad thing for Nintendo. Meeeeeh..... the homebrew sure looks nice, and very happy that Snes9x is perfectly functional now.

Well, almost everything is the source code of the gamecube compiled using the wii libs, so it´s been an easy upgrade. It will take long to really take use of the wii hardware. And it really doesn´t matter the pirated games, I mean, there has been modchips available since a long time, people that want to use them will have a modchip installed.
Plus, while bushing, marcan and friends from wiibrew.org are developing everything, it will take veeery long for it, they are totally against piracy, and in fact some advancements of wii hardware had taken some more time for that.
 

Ramenman

Member
C.T. said:
he basically copied the head tracking guy, who showed it first.

Yeah, I know it's a Johnny Lee thing, it's written in the video description. But this was the vid attached to the Wii Port so I just linked to it instead of searching the original video from JL.
 

Ramenman

Member
later said:
I'd much rather see a head tracking demo , is that available as well?

You missed that ? Well actually it's not head tracking, but rather "point of view" tracking.

Which is far more awesome IMO. Stereoscopic 3D without stereoscopic 3D.


I hope someone does a .elf port of this one too, just like this guy did for the WhiteBoard app.
 
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