Wii - USB Loader GX Channel v3.0.

USB Loader GX v3.0 released, New in this rel: USB Loader GX Version 3.0 introduces a new auto-update mechanism which is not compatible with old versions, (The old host is offline).. Added a lot of new feature,.. read the Change Log below...

This USB Loader GX is based on the original usb loader by Waninkoko's with many features of his v1.5 and made with LibWiiGui by Tantric... This is a program to be loaded on a Wii console, the main purpose of this program is to load Wii games from a USB hard drive on WBFS, FAT32 or NTFS partitions! So far SD card support is not implemented.

Features:

• Backup and play your Wii games using an external USB device.
• Backup and play your GameCube games from SD card using DML (big thanks to the DML team!).
• Homebrew & Channel launcher: Launch you favorite homebrew apps and channels from within the loader.
• Supported Hard Drive format: WBFS, FAT32, NTFS, Ext2/3/4, Supports multiple partitions at the same time.
• 4 different display modes: Game List, Game Cover Grid, Game Carousel, and Channel Mode.
• Display the banner animation like on the Wii System Menu.
• Custom game sorting and advanced filtering (game title, game genre, favorites level, user defined categories, etc.).
• Native widescreen detection/support.
• Multiple languages support.
• Supports custom themes you can make or download from inside the loader. (Custom themes support images, sounds and fonts).
• Supports all controllers (Wiimote, Nunchuck, GameCube controller, Classic Controller, etc.).
• Internal update function: Update to the latest version from inside the loader (Requires active Wi-Fi connection).
• GameTDB: Automatically renames all game titles correctly and retrieves game's details (developer, publisher, genre, year, rating, etc.).
• Cover download: Download custom or original flat covers, 3D covers, and disc images.
• Play stats: Shows you how many times you played a game and adds its title and playtime to official Wii Message Board.
• Supports Gamer's Tags: Sends your last played game to websites which create dynamic tags and forum's signatures.
• Global settings and individual game's settings.
• NAND Emulation: Emulate your Wii internal memory and store the save games and channels to SD or USB (unlimited Wii memory space).
• Alternative dol loading: most alt dols are automatically loaded when necessary.
• Supports dol-reloading games.
• Ocarina support: Download and enable cheat codes for your games.
• Full parental controls.

Choosing the Best File system.

There are 3 possible File systems to choose from: WBFS (Wii Backup file system, specially made for Wii USB loaders), FAT32 and NTFS.

WBFS: If you choose for WBFS, you'll have to make some partitions if you want to use your drive for other data. After you made all your partitions, you can format one of them to WBFS with a WBFS manager or the USB loader. Now you can start adding your games and play them!

FAT32/NTFS: If you choose FAT32 or NTFS, you will not need to repartition your drive. Just put a WBFS folder in the root of the partition and place your games using the loader or Wii Backup manager.

Installation:

Note: This software is free, and comes with no warranty, it has been tested and it has work, however I am not responsible for any bricked, so please try this at your own risk!

There are 2 options to use USB Loader GX:
Apps Loader: The loader is normally placed on the SD card. You can also use the USB device for this if you made a second partition.. Place the dol at sd0:/apps/usbloader_gx/boot.dol.

Launch the HBC or another method of booting homebrew, then, load usb loader gx.. On the first boot up the Loader will be asked to format a partition to WBFS. Choose your partition and press A. If your partition already formatted, you are ready to use all functions of this apps! You can also format a partition to WBFS by using a WBFS manager.

USB Loader as Channel: If you don't like going to the HBC to load the loader every time, you have to install USB Loader GX as channel or forwarder channel.

There is a very difference between channel and forwarder! The channel contains the all apps and can boot directly without the SD card, and the forwarder required SD card to loads the loader from sd0:/apps/usbloader_gx/.

Create a new folder called WAD to the root of the SD card (or USB), sd0:/WAD/. then copy USBLoader GX v2.2 Channel.wad or USBLoader GX v2.2 forwarder 3.0.wad to sd0:/WAD/.

Install usb loader using Wad Manager or MultiMod Manager. When its done, reboot your wii and you are ready to use all functions of USB Loader GX.

*Download: ( AIO included Apps, Forwarder, and channel wad installer.)
*USB Loader GX_Installer.exe v1.8.

*USB Loader GX v3.0 AIO Package IOS222.zip.
*USB Loader GX v3.0 AIO Package IOS249.zip.
*USB Loader GX v3.0 AIO Package IOS250.zip.

*Wiitdb (Wii Title Database) and Games Cover. [External Link]

*Wad Manager v1.7.

Files & paths folder structure.

There are other files that are not necessary to the core functionality of this loader, but are used for extra features. The dev. team has defined the following paths, most of which are configurable in the settings.

Update Path - SD:/config/.
This is where the application will create files to save settings and statistics. All the files it makes start with GX to make them easy to find.

• GxGlobal.cfg is the main settings and configuration for the loader.
• GXGameSettings.cfg contains individual settings for games.
• GXGameCount.cfg stores the game play count and favorites choices.

A database of information about each game can be stored in this folder as well. Get you hands on wiitdb and put it here.

Covers Path - SD:/images/
This is where box art is downloaded to and displayed from. All images must be sized in multiples of 4 or they won't show up. Create separate folders for 2D and 3D covers. When you direct each path to the proper folder the default displays are 3D for the List and Carousel views and 2D for the Grid view. Official sizes:

• 2D covers = 160x224.
• 3D covers = 176x248.

Disc Image Path - SD:/images/disc/.
Official size: Discart = 160x160.

Background Music Path - SD:/config/backgroundmusic/.
This is the default folder for custom background music.

Theme Path - SD:/theme/(SD:/ wtheme for widescreen wii).
This is the default theme location.

Cheatcodes Path - SD:/codes/.
This is the folder to put your gct cheat files.

TXT Cheatcodes Path - SD:/txtcodes/.
Here is where you can place the txt files needed by the code manager. Files must have the full game ID (6 chars.) as name. The downloaded txt files (with the code manager) will be placed here.

DOL Path - SD:/.
This is where replacement dols (used to fix certain broken games) go.

Homebrew Apps Path - SD:/apps/.
This is where you can place the Homebrew apps for the Homebrew Loader.


Version 3.0 Change log:
New:

• Added a new Layout: Channel grid mode! Channel grid displays games as channels and plays banner animations like the real Wii System Menu.
• Channel grid mode and banner animation requires AHBPROT flags to load resource files directly from your Wii.
• If you use an old HBC you should use our latest forwarder or update the HBC otherwise you wont have that support.
• Added Channel launching from Emulated NAND. (big thanks to TriiForce guys and Miigotu).
• Added GameCube games launching from SD Card through Dios Mios Lite (DML). (thanks to G0dLiKe, crediar, all DML devs and FIX94).
• Check DML website.
• Added direct install/uninstall of WAD files to the Emulated NAND Channel path in the features settings menu.
• Added a new icon in the toolbar to select the origin of the titles: Wii games, Channels from Wii, Channels from EmuNand, GameCube games.
• Added the possibility to boot USB Loader GX without an HDD connected (It will fall back to "Channel from Wii" title's origin).
• Added an option to choose which Game Window mode to use between the old "Rotating Disc" or the new "Banner Animation".
• Added the favorite level setting to the game settings since it is no longer displayed when using "Banner Animation" game window mode.
• Added an option to adjust the screen size for overscan TVs (Use negative values to shrink the display).
• Added display of game's size from Wii disc games on the game window prompt (Rotating disc mode only).
• Added a button in the search window to switch between "Beginning" and "Content" search methods.
• Added auto-complete function to the search window.
• Added a new GUI numpad for entering numbers.
• Added setting for tooltip delay time.
• Added resize of widescreen screenshots to 768px width.
• Added cover download for the currently inserted disc.
• Added delete of full cover on art work uninstall and game uninstall.
• Added a parental control option to block priiloader override on return to system menu.
• Added a prompt asking for downloading new language files when trying to update and no language files exist yet.
• Added translation parsing for rating descriptors and for genres from wiitdb.xml. Requires a one time update of wiitdb.xml for cache rebuild.
• Added a new option to force reading the game's titles from disc header.
• Added renaming of internal TitleID of all HBC versions to JODI for GameTDB to find it.
• Added a cheat update button to re-download the cheat text file.
• Added a cancel button to several progress bar windows: Game installation, NAND extraction, etc.
• Added separate path and setting for Emulated NAND Saves and Emulated NAND Channels.
• Added per game NAND emulation path setting.
• Added Mii extractor and SYSCONF file extractor to Emulated NAND. It always overwrites old files.
• Added automatic Mii extraction on save game extract if the Mii file does not exist yet on Emulated NAND.
• Added keep of AHBPROT flag on IOS Reload. Homebrews booted now have AHBPROT. (thanks to davebaol).
• Added a new feature to force aspect ratio on games/channels. (thanks to giantpune for help with disassembler).
• Added Zelda Skyward Sword Alternative dol offset (PAL and NTSC-U) for automatic dol selection.
• Added detection of enabled cheat codes from an already created .gct file.
• Added support for 2 USB drives for d2x cIOS (Requires d2x v9+).

Changes

• Removed buggy focus system completely and added support to control screen pointer with analog sticks from respective controllers if the wiimote is not pointing to the screen. Compatible with Nunchuk, Classic Controller and GameCube controller. A speed factor is available in the GUI settings.
• Restructured game's settings for different types of games (Wii/GC/Channels).
• Added auto position of progress window messages in vertical direction depending of how many are used at the same time.
• If "Titles from GameTDB" is not enabled the title will be read from the folder name if possible or from the game disc header.
• Title caching can still be used and is recommended in that case.
• Settings title, keyboard text and key color can be changed by themes now.
• Added optional background image for list/carousel/grid layouts (unused by default theme).
• Use of old built-in font for credits window because it doesn't look good with the system menu one.
• Removed the need of a cIOS to launch the loader (if anyone uses it with IOS58 for whatever reason).
• Improved detection of game partition when starting the loader without configs (fresh start).
• Isfs is now initiated once and deinitiated when cleaning up only, instead of the whole init/deinit every single access.
• Updated file system libraries.
• Removed pngu which is not needed, changed screenshot function to use libgd instead.
• Added init of network into background thread so it is cancelable and has a timeout, changed wifi gecko to UDP socket.
• Converted all ogg sounds from 44.1 khz to 48 khz.
• Optimized use of memory: Sizes over 30kb go to mem2 now first till it runs out ; Avoid use of mem2 area used on IOS_Reload (first 2 mb) ; Change font character texture to I4 which uses half as much memory (less cache memory).
• Changed update function to get the files from googlecode website, since old update host website isn't accessible anymore.

New Channel Grid Mode specific features

• New settings section for all banner's settings.
• Use of BNR (banner animation) cache setting to load banners and icon's animation faster. (Enabled by default. Takes ~35MB/100 Banners).
• Wii games/Channels also accept ID3.bnr for custom-made multi-region banners.
• BNR cache path setting.
• Pulsing "new" icon on banner grid layout for new games.
• Centering and size setting for banner's animation resources.
• Channel's zooming speed setting.
• Page's scrolling speed setting.

New GameCube specific features

• Supports Dios Mios Lite (DML) v1.2+.
• Uses of a custom banner for GameCube games which loads the game's internal opening.bnr informations (big thanks to diddy from the wiithemeteam for creating the brlyt/brlan for the banner).
• DML settings editable from the loader (global and per game settings).
• Supported formats for GameCubes are ISO/GCM and GCRegEx.
• Custom game paths. The following paths are accepted:
1. configpath/ID6/
2. configpath/ID6_Title/
3. configpath/Title [ID6]/
4. configpath/gamepath/ (slow loading speed).
• Accepted game's filenames: title.iso, title.gcm, GAMEID6.iso, GAMEID6.gcm.
• DML cheats now work the same way as for other Wii games, gct goes to "GCT Cheatcode Path" as GAMEID.gct.
• GameCube games copy from USB to SD on demand with choice menu to delete SD games to make space, If you want to use this feature then set the "Main GC path" to USB and the "SD GameCube path" to SD card.
• If duplicated games are detected on SD and USB, the games on SD will be prioritized.
• Added GameCube disc dump functionality with multi-disc menu game selection, compress and align support (thanks to FIX94 and Overjoy for their disc dump sources on which this is based).
• Use of the BNR cache path to load ID6.bnr or ID3.bnr if available for custom-made banners. (Loading only).
• Video mode option to force interlace mode on GameCube.
• Fixed force prog mode on DML 1.4.

Author: Team USB Loader GX.
Share & enjoy the Homebrew!