[Link]

Hi guys,well, I recently got a USB Gecko - and well, kenobi and me are developing WiiRd - same as GCNrd just for Wii (and yes, Parasyte approved the name!). For more details go to http://www.usbgecko....hread.php?t=347What's actually sticking out.. right now we're in basics.. and Mario & Sonic has that stupid cddata.dig file nobody understands yet (I can read the header but do not know where filenames are stored and so, how it's compressed/encrypted...). Well, and as usual.. SEGA left stuff in the game: the character ovverides made some nice things visible:First of all, for no reason I post the list of character IDs:

#00000000 Mario#00000001 Luigi#00000002 Peach#00000003  Daisy#00000004 Yoshi#00000005 BIRDO!!!!#00000006 Bowser#00000007  DK!!!! #00000008 Wario#00000009 Waluigi#0000000A Sonic#0000000B  Tails#0000000C Knuckles#0000000D Amy#0000000E Shadow#0000000F  Eggman#00000010 SILVER!!!! #00000011 Vector#00000012  JET!!!! #00000013 Blaze#00000014 Shy Guy#00000015 Toad#00000016  Cloudy#00000017 Charmy#00000018 Espio#00000019 Cream#0000001A  Boo#0000001B Bullet Bill#0000001C Goomba#0000001D Heroes Enemy  1#0000001E Heroes Enemy 2#0000001F SA1 Monkey#00000020  Big#00000021..24 Mii#00000025.. (tested up to 30) CRASH

Well, seems interesting.. while 14 to 20 appear in the game (jurists, mini games, background, whatever), the following 4 obvoiusly caught my eyes:#00000005 BIRDO!!!! #00000007 DK!!!! #00000010 SILVER!!!! #00000012 JET!!!! To make it short - they are playble up to a specific point: Birdo:DK:Silver: Jet: Well, the tool can be used to do general character overrides.. anyone of you having a USB Gecko can btw use the regular Gecko tool to override characters (North America version - yes, I am German, but I do not have the EU version):#override player handler - means you override your player character - select anyone in the menu, it won't do anything!POKE 801CD914 60000000#override CPU handler - now even the random generator won't do a thing anymore - you can freely select ALL charactersPOKE 801CDE70 60000000the first character is:POKE 80553454 XXXXXXXX (XXXXXXXX see list above)the second is 80553458 .. then 8055345C and so on until 80553490 (16 characters - now you might wonder, hoo, 16, why not 8? It includes things like 4x100 meter swimming where all 16 chars are in use).More screenshots at http://l0nk.org/mschar/?offset=0 - for more research requests: I cannot promise I'll look into them as right now, WiiRd is still in development and I actually am a main developer so I have to sort out many programming things too!

[IUG]

That's some cool stuff. Any way you could get more pictures of Birdo? Since it looks like they didn't even bother to finish that character's model. The mouth looks entirely fucked.

[Zeck]

.......SA1 Monkey?! Very nice find.

[GrandMasterJimmy]

SA1 monkey looks weird D: http://l0nk.org/msch...=RWSE8P_123.jpgEDIT: Does this need a modchip to work? Just asking, since a lot of stuff doesnt need 1.

This post has been edited by GrandMasterJimmy: 15 May 2008 - 10:57 AM

[Link]

A modchip is not needed for the USB Gecko - you need either a modchip or Zelda Twilight Princess.. later on the Gecko server should also run via channels so you can simply install a channel for it (Twilight Hack still needed - but you'll need Twilight Princes only ONCE(!!) then)

[Titan]

Um, guys, the SA1 monkey is in the counting mini-games in the gallery mode. That's why Goomba is there too.

[Link]

Titan, on May 15 2008, 08:19 PM, said:

Um, guys, the SA1 monkey is in the counting mini-games in the gallery mode. That's why Goomba is there too.

I did say this:

Link said:

Well, seems interesting.. while 14 to 20 appear in the game (jurists, mini games, background, whatever), the following 4 obvoiusly caught my eyes:

[Link]

Self bump: some video: http://l0nk.org/msfun.avi - 5 scenes, a little mash-up

[ultima espio]

Kiki and Espio are in the DS version, but the others don't appear to be there.

[SMR]

Link, on May 16 2008, 12:39 PM, said:

Self bump: some video: http://l0nk.org/msfun.avi - 5 scenes, a little mash-up

Very nice; were you ever able to find out why Cream doesn't function properly when Goomba, of all characters, seems to work almost perfectly and even includes some animations?Also, your Wiird project has me very interested; I'll be picking up a USB Gecko for sure. Now if only someone could make something that would allow us to load burnt commercial games without the need for a hardware modification.

[Link]

The gamecube and the Wii have a proprietory DVD drive system and they are very similar. This is basically why it didn't take too long until Wii drives were able to play burnt data. The modchip (simply spoken) analyzes the disc and switches the drive in either "Nintendo disc" or "DVD Rom" mode. The modchip is directly connected to the drive interface and can therefore send the switch command to this control chip. You could theoretically also send this switch command from software - this is done by programs like GCOS on the Gamecube. However... the Wii has a filter chip which analyzes which commands are sent by the software to the DVD drive - if a debug command is sent it will filter it and it will never arrive. A software switch will only be possible if you bypass that filter chip -which would again require a hardware modification and I'd say: BAD BAD BAD idea - when you do that, Nintendo can also send other debug commands - modchips are a good solution simply because they hide themselves. If you remove the filter chip games or the Wii software could simply check whether everything's in order by sending debug commands themselves.Therefore: it is more likely that you'll be able to run copies and homebrew from external USB harddrives as those are already accessible - the DVD drive - my guess is no!

[SMR]

Link, on May 23 2008, 07:37 AM, said:

The gamecube and the Wii have a proprietory DVD drive system and they are very similar. This is basically why it didn't take too long until Wii drives were able to play burnt data. The modchip (simply spoken) analyzes the disc and switches the drive in either "Nintendo disc" or "DVD Rom" mode. The modchip is directly connected to the drive interface and can therefore send the switch command to this control chip. You could theoretically also send this switch command from software - this is done by programs like GCOS on the Gamecube. However... the Wii has a filter chip which analyzes which commands are sent by the software to the DVD drive - if a debug command is sent it will filter it and it will never arrive. A software switch will only be possible if you bypass that filter chip -which would again require a hardware modification and I'd say: BAD BAD BAD idea - when you do that, Nintendo can also send other debug commands - modchips are a good solution simply because they hide themselves. If you remove the filter chip games or the Wii software could simply check whether everything's in order by sending debug commands themselves.Therefore: it is more likely that you'll be able to run copies and homebrew from external USB harddrives as those are already accessible - the DVD drive - my guess is no!

Oh really? I knew some of that, but I honestly didn't expect the filter chip to be the problem; most of the time, bypassing a check for authenticity (and region, usually) is all that's involved. Well, thanks for the explanation, I'm glad to have learned about that.Now, I'm sorry if this goes too off-topic (and let me know if it does), but you mentioned loading copies (and therefore I assume homebrew as well) from an external hard drive, but has anyone been able to do that yet? I know there is some work in progress towards detecting USB mass storage devices connected to the Wii, but from what I've read, it's still very much in a prototype stage right now.

This post has been edited by SMR: 23 May 2008 - 04:43 PM

[khorney]

kinda off topic, but how do they dump Wii games? i know for the GC, you have to use the drive from the console and send it over a LAN, much like the dreamcast, how do you do it with Wii games, does the PSO method still work?

[biggestsonicfan]

khorney, on May 24 2008, 12:37 AM, said:

kinda off topic, but how do they dump Wii games? i know for the GC, you have to use the drive from the console and send it over a LAN, much like the dreamcast, how do you do it with Wii games, does the PSO method still work?

Ahaha, oh wow. In short, no. That's not how it's done anymore. Basically you take LG-8164b or LG-8163b DVD-ROM drive which can be forced to spit out data it reads using DVDInfo, .NET framework 2.0, and Rawdump. This works for both Gamecube and Wii games. Initially it took around 50 hours to rip a Wii disc, then the program Rawdump was refined and is able to do it in around 3 hours now.Someone please correct me if this method has been made obsolete, I was only following it's developments when Wii discs were first being dumped, so around April last year. However, I've also heard that the USB Gecko can also dump games.

This post has been edited by biggestsonicfan: 24 May 2008 - 03:59 AM

[SMR]

biggestsonicfan, on May 24 2008, 02:59 AM, said:

However, I've also heard that the USB Gecko can also dump games.

According to the website, the USB Gecko is currently the fastest way to dump a Wii DVD.

[Link]

there are 3 ways to dump:1. either as bsf mentioned using a modified LG drivepositive: works in all PCsnegative: PC drivers have major problems with the BCA data of Wii/GC discs and dumps are therefore horribly slow (3 hours single layer, 8 double) 2. dump to SD card:positive: much faster than the LG disc method (1 hour for single layer)negative: requires SDGecko, modified Wii (no homebrew yet for the job), dumper not DL compatible, requires to dump discs partially carry SD card to PC and dump there and do that all the time3. USB Gecko dump:positive: much faster than LG method (45 to 75 minutes for SL, about 2 hours for DL)negative: USB Gecko required...so.. the LG method had its reason for existance because the SD dump method didn't work for LG drives and for one Wii Disc you needed to go at least 3 times to your Wii and back to your PC (parts can only go up to 2 Gigs).. the currently best method without doubt is the USBGecko method - it's even the only method so far which absolutely safely dumps the Freeloader without any problems (SD dump randomly fails, LG drive dump succeeded after developing special software just for that disc - but even then it randomly fails)

This post has been edited by Link: 24 May 2008 - 03:44 PM

[paris]

Long time no see!!!! Awasome job link!!!!!!. (One more tiome proves sonicteam's lazyness)

[SMR]

paris, on Jun 10 2008, 12:16 PM, said:

Long time no see!!!! Awasome job link!!!!!!. (One more tiome proves sonicteam's lazyness)

You mean that it shows your lack of knowledge, because Sonic Team didn't make the game.

[weso12]

Well you can tell that Silver and jet was taking out relatively late in the game development and birdo was taken out extremely early in game development and donkey kong somewhere just before model complemet (do to textures

[paris]

oh sorry... well my bad. but sega developed the game isn't it?. I only have played the game, not own it.anyway I admire Link for his work and foundings.the point is that companies nowadays are going after the money.This applies to sonic team, sega and many others. thats why we are not going to see games with "soul" as it was back in the 16bit era.They don't take the time to finish the game properlly, because they must meet the deadlines.