WAD loader... possible?

Hi friends!

I have had something in my mind, and maybe some of you can clarify it (for me?)

I can not install on my Wii more WADs, since the memory is full. Ok, no prob with that. A solution for me could be use WAD Manager to add/remove wads. But it is a slow process. You have to load HBC, load WadManager, remove a wad/channel, add the new wad/channel, exit,...

I got a program to convert a .dol to .wad, so I though that the reverse solution could be my solution: extract the .dol from a .wad a run it from Homebrew Channel...

Investigating it more deeply, I saw that a .wad it is not just a .dol with the channel info for the wii, but somekind of .zip file. So, even if I extract the .dol (something like the .exe of a PC?), the program will fail to load (from HBC) since some other datas (grpahics, musics,...) are not inside the .dol and so, they can not be found.

If I am correct about this previous info, you really can not convert .wads to .dol and run them from HBC... so a new idea come to my mind in order to directly load&run wad channels, without installation.

So, here comes the idea: WAD LOADER CHANNEL

It has 2 programs:
-installer
-launcher/loader

-Installer is something like current WAD Manager. You choose a WAD, it "decrunchs" to a normal (or something like) wii wad channel. The it copies the (nand?) memory where it was installed to the SD (sd:\wii-chan\...*.wwc?). After copying this channel to SD, the channel is removed (uninstalled) from the Wii memory.

-Launcher/loader is a new channel. Once installed as ordinary wii wad channels, it reserves around 500 memory blocks. When you run it, it checks the SD card for .wwc files. You choose one and it load the .wwc on the previously reserved memory (ok, it can be even dinamic reserved). Once loaded, it launch the wad/wwc as if it was installed on the Wii.

Think about loader as somekind of HomeBrew Channel, but instead of loading .dol files it load previously prepared .wad files (.wwc). With this solution, you can have "infinite" number of wads/channels on your Wii without wasting anymore memory than the launcher reserved one.

BTW, Nintendo would have to make someking of similar solution, as we know, the Wii has a very little memory for channels...


So, here is my idea. I have no C/C++ programming knowledge, but I can not stop thinking about solutions. If someone with the knowledge saw it as a feasible idea, take it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2008 12:21PM by ampos.

The only legal WADs you can obtain are off the update partition on Wii Discs. These contain IOS etc. and thus would not "load" like this anyway. Also, they would be signed by nintendo, so would be valid and still work.

Your illegal WADs won't work, and don't expect any help here

who's saying about illegal wads?

If you just bought 4 or 5 Wiiware games, your Wii could not store all of them.

Your solution, I see, is uninstall one of them and download the new one from the store, a even slower process.

In Spain (I am not sure about USA laws) it is a legal issue to store backups of your originals, and to keep a WAD on a SD is a backup of such original.

So, I am trying to find a solution to have just one channel on my wii that is capable of loading my previously bought wiiware stuff.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2008 09:58PM by ampos.

If you pay for and download the channels, then you can use the system menu to copy them to the SD card. No WADs are involved in this process. You can also copy them back via the system menu without any problems or the need for homebrew

Nintendo will be releasing something like this in January or so, hopefully they'll be a way to download that update and not the others.

You mis-understand me. This feature has always been in the original Nintendo Wii System Menu. It isn't anything new

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agoaj
Nintendo will be releasing something like this in January or so, hopefully they'll be a way to download that update and not the others.

What your referring to is a system menu update that allows you to play your games off of your sytem menu or your SD card. Also, January is only fanboy speculation. Late spring is a much more likely time.

LOL, whodares. You are right, I didnt though about it.

Now we have 3 ways of playing chhanels:

1.- Launch HBC, launch Wad Manager, remove an old channel, add new channel, exit, play. Long and boring process.

2.- Copy channel to SD. Remove channel. Load from SD a new channel. Not very long, but a bit tedious.

3.- Launch "Load Channel" channel. Load&run channel. The easiest and faster. Currently it does not exist. Cool if Nintendo does it. Cooler if someone did it before Nintendo.

I see what ampos is saying... couldn't a dev make a similar app that had the copy protection that Nintendo has to stop pirating?

also, why can't we hard mod more space into the wii? Like a 2 gig flash space. and then soft mod the Wii to accept the extra space?

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DrLucky
I see what ampos is saying... couldn't a dev make a similar app that had the copy protection that Nintendo has to stop pirating?

What copy protection? :D