Hey Kids: would you like to know what you're gonna do with your wii now that you finally bought it? Welp, you can modify it! I do not have a wii-u, but I see people are using softmodding on it already. Look up the info @ your own risk, I've been working with wii's longer and I can only offer you info. I can't help you if you do not follow people's advice and very detailed tutorials.
I'm only giving you a bit more information that I had to find out myself. This post is long and I hope you can take my advice. I won't include anything about messing around with the cheats on wiiflow or usbloader because I don't fuck with that stuff. It's harder for me to figure out and I put lots of work into my wii, don't brick trying to mess with stuff you don't know.
What is modding?
Modding, or modifying a console makes it run custom firmware so that you can run homebrew games.
If you decide to do this: BACK UP EVERYTHING! keep a copy off your nand, and have a folder for all your emulation needs. Keep copies of your wads (you will regret if you don't)
Should I mod?
The technology for wii is amazing these days. Back when I started-using the internet was a risk of instant brick. Now you don't have to worry about that. There are still risks and I do not wish to tell you whether you should or shouldn't. Weigh your options against the type of wii you have and the amount of money you wish to spend. If you don't want to lose your wii because you can't afford another one-think carefully before modding. Softmods can be debricked and taken off however. If you don't want to put money down on a sdcard and spare usb you should take that into account.
Newer wii means a few less options: Getting games is a little bit harder for newer wii's. some wads that work on older wiis are harder to get working on a newer wii, but finding a legit wad is important. wiiware is the biggest issues i've found, because you can always find an emulator for virtual console.
All the details under a cut! It's long.
General tips
Back everything up! put it on a flashdrive or your computer. Have a folder that you have exclusively for backing up your save data and all emulation and modification programs. if you modify anything you will have a vanilla backup. Don't alter your backups unless you're dumping a version that works best for you. Put that in another place! This can take up space, but it can be really effective if you brick or had some stuff on your old nand you can't find anymore. It's easy to build off of a old nand, it's harder to alter a new one you've messed with.
How much money will I be spending on this?
You honestly can spend as little as 12 dollars us if you have a computer center that sells offbrand usbs. Getting a sandisk SD card is a must- 2gb is the limit the wii can take and you don't need more than that for the SD card. The usb you should get depends on how many games you'll honestly be playing. I have a 64gb usb and I put a ton of wii and gamecube games along with emulators with space to spare. You can get by with a 16gb if you don't mind switching your games out every so often. You can even go to the more expensive end and devote a whole external harddrive to your wii. (some people partition, but my wii is for my family so I need a seperate one)
What's better-soft or hard modding?
I personally believe that everyone chooses to softmod since it's less intensive and you can easily debrick. It also costs way less money. You can just take off the modifications with softmod, a hardmod is forever in most cases.
How much Time does this take?
Just doing a softmod can take anywhere from an hour on up to three hours depending on how savvy you are with formatting, using usbs and how familiar you are with your wii?
Do I have to delete my channels on my wii or restore it to factory settings?
Nope! I actually reccomend keeping any channels you already bought because it can be hell to find virtual console games that work with newer wii's.
How do I softmod?
There are some really good softmod tutes out there! I usually use GBA temp http://gbatemp.net/threads/modify-any-wii-4-3-below.171901/
What are wads?
a .wad file is a file from the virtual console or wiiware for the wii. it will install channels from the wiishop channel onto your wii for you. ios files are also packed as wads. You may use the homebrew channel or the showmiwads desktop application. Sometimes an application will come with a for
What is 'injecting' a wad? I keep seeing people talk about it!
it's a method of making a .wad file that has a game you want to play. I've never injected a wad before and the compatibility rate doesn't seem to be too high, but if you're brave you can test it out. The worst that happens I believe is that you have a unusable .wad file. Personally I like emulating better than injecting because it's more reliable.
I can't find any wads :C
This is the hardest part of owning a wii honestly. Nowadays it's hard to find wads! I can find just about anything else. I found this site though: get it while you can!
http://ravmn.cl/content/wads-wiiware-ntsc (these are US released games, use freethewads if you have a different region wii)
My usb isn't working? Why can't I use two usbs?
You must use port 0 on the wii, the one closer to the edge. This is the only one that recognizes usbs for some reason. You can use both usbs for things like charging phones, but port 0 is the only one that gets read. if you try and hook up a usb hub it won't read a bunch of usbs either. My advice is to get a 16-32 gig stick (you can use a smaller one if you'd like-but less space=less memory.) or a external harddrive.
What are the emulators that work?
Anything With the suffix -gx honestly!
usb loader gx for your wii games.
wiiflow for your gamecube games along with your emulated games. most people can just use wiiflow for everything, but I personally can't get it to work for my wiigames. You must have the latest version of wiiflow : http://gbatemp.net/threads/wiiflow-4-the-masterpiece-pack-by-abz.336543/
There are reports of people being able to play old dos games on the wii, but they chugg. also mame is not usable-don't waste your time.
the ps1 and n64 emulators work, but they chugg so hard it may not be worth it at all. The dreamcast and sega cd may probably give you the same issues.
What apps do I use?
make sure that you have the apps for emulators you wish to use on your usb when you load wiiflow's plugins.
showmiiiwads (puts virtual console games onto your nand for you)
wiibackupmanager (puts your wii games onto your usb for you)
dios mios (puts your gamecube games onto your usb for you)
multimodmanager/wad manager. i personally prefer wad manager but mmm is a good program too
cover 2 rom for all your emulated game covers
Wiiflow is making my life hell! (These tips are for Wiiflow 4.0)
Here are some tips that are general
the all in one pack really does have everything you need. figuring it all out is a pain. Getting covers is the worst part i think. Custom covers for your emulated games can be found here: http://www.thecoverproject.net
cover 2 rom is your friend
be sure to thoroughly read the guide for wiiflow, please don't wing it. you can brick yourself or mess up wiiflow really easily
downloading gamecube covers sucks if you aren't using the internet, but possible-put the files in the main folder for the boxcovers for wiiflow.
I reccomend using the default theme, I only had issues using the other theme and could never use it.
Do not try and load the disk from the wiiflow channel
Gamecovers do not go into the flat or 3D folders, it goes against how usb loaders usually work, but it works.
You MUST have the emulator app for your games in your wii SD card. You can turn off the plugins that you'd like to, but the plugins will not work without the apps. The plugins are basically like minature forwarders.
If you choose to use the n64 emulator and it works for you try to use it without wiiflow.I find that it tends to interact with my wii oddly making my wii freeze when used alongside with wiiflow. It may work as a standalone channel. The controls may be slippery-it is not a 1-1 emulator, but it works well with Mario 64 at least on wiiflow. Here is a compatibility list for you for the wii64:http://emulatemii.com/wii64/compatList/
Here is a compatibility listand how to for injecting wads(forcing games into other liscened titles)
NAND MUST be on your usb in order to load your emulations. copying your nand after you dump it is a 1-1 process, don't be afraid. Just do not delete your backup on your computer. let your computer's version of the nand be in a folder called 'backup' in case you mess anything up.
You must use the DIOS MIOS program to transfer your gamecube games over to your usb. http://www.maxconsole.com/maxcon_forums/threads/195461-DIOS-MIOS-v2-9-released!
About Game covers
You will need to name your game cover file the same name as your game. In gamecube's case it will be the game ID number. This file will be in PNG format in the main folder for boxcovers. ie: 246810.png
For all other games the name of the file will be the same as the game rom you have for example- if you've got 'Game(Explosion)' your file name should be 'Game(Explosion)'.png
thecoverproject.net is great for all your game cover needs. http://www.gametdb.com/ is okay too but it doesn't have every console's covers.
When you first load usb loader, it will show you every single channel installed to your wii. It will indeed play emulated nand games (games on your nand) but not your emulation games (anything that needs another application to run). You may want to make game lists to get make the blank slots only show when you want them to. They will be on the the default 'ALL' list and you should not delete any blank channel that you don't know. Check your showmiiwads to see if it's an invisible channel that usbloader is showing you.
Some games will chugg on usbloader. emulated nand games might chugg, if you find your game running too fast, too slow or too slippery and you installed it to the nand, try installing it to the wii with a wad installer.
Hm How do I play wii/vc games that are of a different region?
Some games are region locked and you may need to go into the options for the game and fiddle around with the video settings. Some games are weird like skyward sword for me which always needs ntsc forcing. Always save your settings when you find the right region! Some games will play fine, but have weird text errors without the right region such as Rhythm Paradise in Japanese. Some play perfectly fine and are just in their native language such as the Taiko no Tatsujin games. If you get screen flickering or it does the thing where it flickers too fast-it's in the wrong region.
usb loader isn't showing my games from my usb!
Don't panic, you must go into the settings and alter the custom paths. Make sure that the usb it reads from is port 0 and make sure that you have followed usb loaders instructions! your nand copy MUST be on your usb.
How do I get game covers with usb loader gx?
I personally like the look of the wii channel option usbloadergx gives you (it shows you what you want to see-the boxart tends to show channels that are blank), but you can use the wii backup manager to download all your covers for you when you're putting them onto your sd card. Basically you need a folder named boxcovers and inside there will be:
Flat, 2D, Full, Disk, HD You download the covers from your database of choice and put it into the folders. Putting your covers onto the SD card is a necessity. In Usbcovergx's settings you must alter the path at which it reads the covers.
Can I play gamecube through usbloader? I don't want to emulate anything else
You need DIOS MIOS and DIOS MIOS lite: http://www.maxconsole.com/maxcon_forums/threads/195461-DIOS-MIOS-v2-9-released!
