Homebrew Project [RELEASE] FriishProduce - multiplatform WAD injector

[SaulFabre]

how do i make it?

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-...ls-of-your-favorite-retro-games-d-wii.602640/

 

[grandosegood]

how do i make it?

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-...ls-of-your-favorite-retro-games-d-wii.602640/

here is the original forum to get you started. essetnailly, you will have the game + emulator dol in your apps and install a forwarder wad to the wii itself or your emunand to launch it. you can also not use a forwarder wad and launch from homebrew channel.

 

[CatmanFan]

I have released v0.26-beta now.

Not much of value other than Sony PlayStation added support via forwarders (experimental), however it's been marked as a pre-release on GitHub since I have not tested it enough myself (granted it's been six months to the day since I last made a new version public).

 

[Mixtape]

Just to provide a quick data point regarding compatibility, I was recently able to inject the NA release of Brain Lord via VC over a Super Metroid base and boot it successfully. When attempting to do the same over a Super Mario RPG or Kirby's Dream Land 3 WAD, the game itself would fail to boot. The VC "You will need a Classic Controller" message would appear though.

I'm not sure whether this is related to injecting a non-SA1 ROM into an SA1 WAD, the game itself, FriishProduce, or something else entirely. Regardless,I figured it was worth mentioning. It's also entirely possible that I missed a warning somewhere so let me know if that's the case. I can also to do some more testing or file a commit with an appropriate warning to the wiki if it helps. Let me know how I can help and thanks for your work on this tool!

 

[SaulFabre]

Just to provide a quick data point regarding compatibility, I was recently able to inject the NA release of Brain Lord via VC over a Super Metroid base and boot it successfully. When attempting to do the same over a Super Mario RPG or Kirby's Dream Land 3 WAD, the game itself would fail to boot. The VC "You will need a Classic Controller" message would appear though.

I'm not sure whether this is related to injecting a non-SA1 ROM into an SA1 WAD, the game itself, FriishProduce, or something else entirely. Regardless,I figured it was worth mentioning. It's also entirely possible that I missed a warning somewhere so let me know if that's the case. I can also to do some more testing or file a commit with an appropriate warning to the wiki if it helps. Let me know how I can help and thanks for your work on this tool!

Super Mario RPG and Kirby's Dream Land 3 are SNES SA-1 chip games.
I tried injecting some non-SA1 games in those bases so far but i have the exact same issue here.

Solution: don't use these SA1 bases if the game you want to inject doesn't use SA1.

 

[CatmanFan]

Update
I've recently started work on a new MDI design for the app and porting features over. This is how it looks so far.

Obviously, everything is very much still work-in-progress, again, and will be subject to change.

In the meantime, I have also opened a Crowdin for translating this design which can be found here.

 

[Fludd-Stop]

Loving this utility, I love the ability to launch pre-Gamecube games via USB Loader GX! I'm having an issue though with N64 forwarders however; I understand the virtual console compatibility for injects is relatively low, which is why I opted to use the Not64 injection method. I tried injecting Mario Party 3 into a USA Sin and Punishment WAD via Not64 injection; the game runs perfectly fine via Not64, but when launching the WAD channel after installing it just takes me back to the Wii's home menu. Is this normal, or am I making a mistake? Or does the VC compatibility extend to the Not64 injection method as well?

 

[SaulFabre]

I tried injecting Mario Party 3 into a USA Sin and Punishment WAD via Not64 injection; the game runs perfectly fine via Not64, but when launching the WAD channel after installing it just takes me back to the Wii's home menu. Is this normal, or am I making a mistake? Or does the VC compatibility extend to the Not64 injection method as well?

Mario Party 3 doesn't even boot in Sin & Punishment VC WAD.
Also, i've only got it booting on VC with a specific rom (Mario Party 3 (U) [f1].z64) injected on Mario Party 2 but it crashes on intro when it fades to Mario and his lawn chair, and if you try to skip intro, if crashes at the title screen.

It's better to make a SRL for that game using Not64.

In other words: this is normal cause VC compatibility is so low.

 

[epicmartin7]

Sooooo, question. I tried making a forwarder for both a NES and SNES game using the homebrew emulators, and it seems like it's not able to save both games? Trying to save to sram in the emulator menu makes it come back with "Directory Listing Not Found". Is there anything I need to do to make those games save?

 

[SaulFabre]

(Sooooo, question. I tried making a forwarder for both a NES and SNES game using the homebrew emulators, and it seems like it's not able to save both games? Trying to save to sram in the emulator menu makes it come back with "Directory Listing Not Found". Is there anything I need to do to make those games save?

You need to make a folder in the root of your SD card or USB drive called:
NES: "fceugx" (for FCE Ultra GX) or "fceuxtx" (for FCEUX TX)
SNES: "snes9xgx" (for Snes9x GX) or "snes9xtx" (for Snes9x TX)

And inside that folder you need to create another folder called "saves".

Ex.: sd:/snes9xtx/saves/

 

[epicmartin7]

You need to make a folder in the root of your SD card or USB drive called:
NES: "fceugx" (for FCE Ultra GX) or "fceuxtx" (for FCEUX TX)
SNES: "snes9xgx" (for Snes9x GX) or "snes9xtx" (for Snes9x TX)

And inside that folder you need to create another folder called "saves".

Ex.: sd:/snes9xtx/saves/

Ah, cool. Thanks for that!

Also, side question. I noticed when putting in the game name into the Channel Banner, after a certain character length, 2Spieler is automatically added to the end. Is there anyway to fix that?

 

[Plaxaris92]

Is it possible to add gamecube support? Or is there a way to make wads for gamecube games? I've seen videos showing that is possible but can't find any tutorial or any info

 

[ShantaeFan123]

Is it possible to add gamecube support? Or is there a way to make wads for gamecube games? I've seen videos showing that is possible but can't find any tutorial or any info

I found a post that might answer your question called “Custom Nintendont System Menu Channels for Wii/vWii” which is basically GameCube games on the Wii menu and if that doesn’t help then sorry, SaulFabre might be able to answer your question though

 

[SaulFabre]

Is it possible to add gamecube support? Or is there a way to make wads for gamecube games? I've seen videos showing that is possible but can't find any tutorial or any info

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-...ader-for-games-skip-the-emulator-menu.520525/

in this post by @libertyernie explains how to use Nintendont for autolaunch GameCube roms at startup.

 

[CatmanFan]

I have just released v1.1 preliminary version, this one now includes a project format similar to NSUI and custom VC manual support.

---

Is it possible to add gamecube support? Or is there a way to make wads for gamecube games? I've seen videos showing that is possible but can't find any tutorial or any info

I've been considering adding such a thing, but I would most likely need to create a custom banner (brlyt + images) for GameCube games if it happens. I may look into it eventually though. Thank you for the suggestion

 

[Mixtape]

Is it possible to add gamecube support? Or is there a way to make wads for gamecube games? I've seen videos showing that is possible but can't find any tutorial or any info

This is slightly off-topic from this thread, but what you're asking for can be done without FriishProduce. I have channels with a custom GameCube VC banner that forward to Nintendon't via USBLoaderGX on my NAND right now. I've been meaning to write a blog post about it for a while (about three months, apparently) and just haven't had the time.

In short, here's how I did it:

• Add the desired game to your USB drive. Make sure that your Nintendon't settings are configured correctly in USBLoaderGX, since that's what will be handling the loading process rather than Nintendon't directly.
• Grab a copy of GXForwarder.dol. WiiGSC comes with it, so check Wiidewii\WiiGSC\loaders if you have that already. By diffing that with a game shortcut produced by WiiGSC in HxD, I was able to find the following changes from the base DOL:
  • 0003EA15 (0x50 -> 0x00)
  • 0003EA17 (0x41 -> 0x30)
  • 0003EA98 - 0003EA9D (AnsiChar CRAPPY -> game ID)
• In effect, this means that addresses 0003EA98 to 0003EA9D indicate the game that the forwarder will load. Shockingly enough, swapping those out with the plaintext ID of a GC game (e.g. GALE01 for SSBM) works just fine. WiiGSC won't let you do that natively, but USBLoaderGX doesn't seem to care.
• From there it's really just a matter of swapping out the assets of the VC banner. I used a tool called "VC brylt editor" (can't recall who made it off the top of my head) to get the layout right, CustomizeMii to swap some assets, ShowMiiWads to swap the DOL, and Wii Layout Editor to analyze some things. This was hands-down the most intensive part of the process and took several late nights to get right.

Again, I'll probably get around to making a proper write-up/guide on how everything came together at some point, but the ideas are all there if you'd like to get a head-start on tackling it yourself.

I have just released v1.1 preliminary version, this one now includes a project format similar to NSUI and custom VC manual support.

---

I've been considering adding such a thing, but I would most likely need to create a custom banner (brlyt + images) for GameCube games if it happens. I may look into it eventually though. Thank you for the suggestion

Referring to that last part there, I would be happy to provide my shortcut WADs with their modified brylt if it would help move the project forward. I do have two concerns though:

1. if you choose to forward to USBLoaderGX in the manner that I described above, what you're doing technically isn't injection anymore. You're more in the realm of shortcut creation, a la WiiGSC. IMO you'd be better off creating a new tool specifically for it and reusing the FriishProduce UI. Having an all-in-one tool would be nice, but it would probably be a huge pain to maintain two very different codebases in one product.
2. To redistribute the custom VC banner, you'd need to redistribute the GameCube logo as an asset, which could technically venture into the realm of legal liability. Is it likely that anyone on Nintendo's legal team would care? No, but it's one of the main things that's been holding me back from outright distributing what I've made. Maybe someone with more experience in the area could weigh in, but I figured it was at least worth mentioning ahead of time.

See below for a screenshot of what my banner looks like. Bear in mind that the background logos move in the same way as other VC banners. Iirc I fixed the sizing of the purple strip at the top to better fit the "GAMECUBE" text, but I don't have a screenshot of that on hand unfortunately. I'll try to remember to get one later tonight.

ETA:

As promised, here are a few screenshots from my current nand image, freshly imported into Dolphin:

Unfortunately I'm now realizing that the alignment of the top line isn't quite right when widescreen is enabled, so I'll have to fix that at some point. Things slip under the radar when you test on a CRT, I guess.

 

[RunningSnakes]

This latest 1.1 version does not work for me on Windows 7.

I did not test 1.0, but .26 is working fine. Net Framework and Visual Studio requirements are installed but loading the program stalls.

Am i missing correct folder structure? The program is still compatible with Windows 7 correct?

 

[ShantaeFan123]

This is slightly off-topic from this thread, but what you're asking for can be done without FriishProduce. I have channels with a custom GameCube VC banner that forward to Nintendon't via USBLoaderGX on my NAND right now. I've been meaning to write a blog post about it for a while (about three months, apparently) and just haven't had the time.

In short, here's how I did it:

• Add the desired game to your USB drive. Make sure that your Nintendon't settings are configured correctly in USBLoaderGX, since that's what will be handling the loading process rather than Nintendon't directly.
• Grab a copy of GXForwarder.dol. WiiGSC comes with it, so check Wiidewii\WiiGSC\loaders if you have that already. By diffing that with a game shortcut produced by WiiGSC in HxD, I was able to find the following changes from the base DOL:
  • 0003EA15 (0x50 -> 0x00)
  • 0003EA17 (0x41 -> 0x30)
  • 0003EA98 - 0003EA9D (AnsiChar CRAPPY -> game ID)
• In effect, this means that addresses 0003EA98 to 0003EA9D indicate the game that the forwarder will load. Shockingly enough, swapping those out with the plaintext ID of a GC game (e.g. GALE01 for SSBM) works just fine. WiiGSC won't let you do that natively, but USBLoaderGX doesn't seem to care.
• From there it's really just a matter of swapping out the assets of the VC banner. I used a tool called "VC brylt editor" (can't recall who made it off the top of my head) to get the layout right, CustomizeMii to swap some assets, ShowMiiWads to swap the DOL, and Wii Layout Editor to analyze some things. This was hands-down the most intensive part of the process and took several late nights to get right.

Again, I'll probably get around to making a proper write-up/guide on how everything came together at some point, but the ideas are all there if you'd like to get a head-start on tackling it yourself.


Referring to that last part there, I would be happy to provide my shortcut WADs with their modified brylt if it would help move the project forward. I do have two concerns though:

1. if you choose to forward to USBLoaderGX in the manner that I described above, what you're doing technically isn't injection anymore. You're more in the realm of shortcut creation, a la WiiGSC. IMO you'd be better off creating a new tool specifically for it and reusing the FriishProduce UI. Having an all-in-one tool would be nice, but it would probably be a huge pain to maintain two very different codebases in one product.
2. To redistribute the custom VC banner, you'd need to redistribute the GameCube logo as an asset, which could technically venture into the realm of legal liability. Is it likely that anyone on Nintendo's legal team would care? No, but it's one of the main things that's been holding me back from outright distributing what I've made. Maybe someone with more experience in the area could weigh in, but I figured it was at least worth mentioning ahead of time.

See below for a screenshot of what my banner looks like. Bear in mind that the background logos move in the same way as other VC banners. Iirc I fixed the sizing of the purple strip at the top to better fit the "GAMECUBE" text, but I don't have a screenshot of that on hand unfortunately. I'll try to remember to get one later tonight.

View attachment 435984


ETA:

As promised, here are a few screenshots from my current nand image, freshly imported into Dolphin:
View attachment 436055View attachment 436056
View attachment 436057View attachment 436058

Unfortunately I'm now realizing that the alignment of the top line isn't quite right when widescreen is enabled, so I'll have to fix that at some point. Things slip under the radar when you test on a CRT, I guess.

That is just... beautiful! Very well done!

 

[SaulFabre]

Unfortunately I'm now realizing that the alignment of the top line isn't quite right when widescreen is enabled, so I'll have to fix that at some point. Things slip under the radar when you test on a CRT, I guess.

that's oddly cutted.
I could recommend using the original Nintendo 64 banner instead for short names of the systems.
I also used the N64 banner for make my custom GB/GBC/GBA/SGB banners.
oh and also Pokémon Mini banners.

 

[Mixtape]

that's oddly cutted.
I could recommend using the original Nintendo 64 banner instead for short names of the systems.
I also used the N64 banner for make my custom GB/GBC/GBA/SGB banners.
oh and also Pokémon Mini banners.

It's funny that you responded when you did. I was just working on a resolution. I've been modifying the brylt with HxD since neither Benzin nor Wii Layout Editor have been particularly cooperative. So far I've managed to find the width parameter for the PFLine material and modify that. My go-to was to roughly double the width of the thing, which fixes the crop issue but either misaligned or distorted the VCLine TPL. My guess is that there's a grouping issue, so I'll need to investigate a bit further.

See below for current status.

As an aside, if this is too off-topic for this thread, I'd be happy to make a new one to discuss things in more detail.

ETA:

Yep, it's a grouping issue. Scaling down the PFLine scales the VCLine tpl as well. I'll keep researching and see what I can come up with.