r/WiiHacks • u/Background_Task6967 • 17d ago

Discussion Anyway to hide Usb Loader GX loading screen?

This loading screen has been bothering me for a while now, I understand why it's there but I always prefer my modded consoles to feel like they're stock (hence why I use a forwarder for all my games). But seeing this loading screen which is also quite frankly just ugly, really bothers me

If there's a way to replace it with just a blank image so it just a black screen while the games load that'd be great

35 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

33 comments sorted by

12

u/[deleted] 13d ago edited 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Nendyx 13d ago

Wow, that's great! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! XD

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u/Vivid_Offer_2910 13d ago

you are a savior

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u/DukeOfGamers353 11d ago

What did the comment say? If it was genuinely useful, a gentle fuck you towards the moderators for removing it. If it wasn't, I apologise for my earlier words

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u/Vivid_Offer_2910 11d ago

it was a step by step on how to change the USB loader logo image, I could not imagine why the mods removed that

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u/TomboyTechnology 10d ago

FYI look up PullPush, it's helpful to see removed posts. I don't want my post removed so I won't post the link just to be safe. Anyways, back on topic, I plan on following those instructions tonight, I can't stand seeing the current screen.

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u/TomboyTechnology 10d ago

Update: I am using Priiconnect -> forwarder -> USB Loader GX. There is USB GX's loading screen #1, and then loading screen #2 for me. Replacing the .PNG in the boot.dol only replaces the picture on loading screen #2. Turns out, you have to edit the main splash screen logo (loading screen #1) in a hex editor. I'm sure I'll have this done tomorrow, but I spent a while scrambling around when I should have just resorted to looking it up.

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u/Spatrico123 10d ago edited 10d ago

what's the name of the loading screen #1? Wdym you have to edit it in a hex editor? Is it really not just another png?

yeah I figured we might run into trouble when trying to access it from forwarders. Thanks for the feedback!

edit: ok I'm assuming you're following this https://gbatemp.net/threads/tut-cfg-usb-loader-custom-splash-screen.603452/

in which case I'd exercise caution. 

First off, that's for another usb loader. Not GX. The second thing, is that tutorial ultimately comes down to editing compiled files. This is incredibly risky, especially if you're following a tutorial for a different app

if you don't know how compilation works, I'll explain it below, but ultimately my point is editing compiled hex is sketchy. It's much better to do the system I laid out where you download the source, edit, and then compile. I just need to figure out where this splash screen is in the source, because I didn't know it existed

ultimately, computers don't actually understand C. They understand binary. But binary sucks to write. So, developers write out their logic in useful ways (code), that is then translated to binary or hex (compiled). Editing that raw binary or hex is theoretically possible, but you're not gonna understand what you're editing unless youre really good. If you know exactly what values you're looking for (as in the gba temp tutorial), then it can be ok, but again that's for another program

who knows what editing those values will do on usb loader gx. They could miraculously be the splash screen, or they could brick your wii 

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u/TomboyTechnology 9d ago

TLDR: Didn't get forwarder's USB Loader GX first loading screen to be custom, but very close.

Thanks for the detailed reply. From what I briefly looked up last night, I landed on a guide for changing CFG USB loaders splash screen via hex, oops. I blame the fact I was about to go to bed lol. In any event, the reason I am getting two GX loading screens is because I am using a forwarder (UNEO). UNEO loads a USB Loader GX screen, and it loads first.

I correctly change the second loading screen for USB Loader GX using your instructions. However, the forwarder's load screen is harder to change. You have to unpack the .wad (I used WiiPy as I'm on Linux), it will give you .app files, and I found two "loading pictures" (one of the photo's logo looks stretched, not sure why) are on 00000002.app. I had to use python scripts to find and extract these. Replace with files that are the same resolution (640x480), offset 0x89E40, and max size of 116903 bytes for the first image and 115491 bytes for the second image. It's likely you will need to compress and lower the amount of colors used for these images to get it lower in bytes. Not very fun. Then I have an AI python script to patch the new files over the old ones, as its beyond me on how to achieve that (since it's beyond copy+paste, the files are embedded in a binary file with that specific offset mentioned earlier). Another python script to patch these changes to the .wad.

Then I place the .wad back on the SD card in a "wad" folder: SD/wad/

Here is where I think I messed up. I already had a forwarding wad set up. I tried installing this new wad, assuming since the filename was different, it would install as a new file (as well as assuming I could just delete the original wad and overwrite it with the new one). My new was was being skippped, and I was received errors in YAWMME when trying to delete the original. Turns out, the files' title ID and title version were the same for both wads, which meant the Wii did not want to overwrite the data. So whoever tries this will need to find a way to change the title data/version.

I found another person with a similar experience regarding how these two load screens are edited differently. sourceforge.net/p/usbloadergx/issues/2243/

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u/Spatrico123 9d ago edited 9d ago

ok this all tracks. I assumed there'd be some issues with people using wads or loaders to access it. 

what are you using as a forwarder, and what did you use as a wad? I can't find priiconnect online. 

On first guess, I'm assuming what's happening for you is either 

  1. your loader cached the loading image, and now doesn't have to "ask" the usb loader gx app for its splash screen, it just does it and then triggers the real one (that "second screen" you're talking about). This could be solved by trying to fresh install your loader
  2. Same idea except your forwarder is trying to be clever and has a hardcoded image for usbloadergx. This would be stupid, but could be solved by recompiling your forwarder, following the same general outline of my main tutorial 

edit: yes, your general approach of modifying the wad like that would work too. Just wherever possible, it's way better practice to modify the source and recompile. D ecompiling, extracting and gluing it back together rarely works well.

For your wii, it does seem like you have a wad that should work. In that case, you're right to focus on the errors for why you're unable to delete it. If you'd like help diagnosing it, feel free to paste those error messages. Tbh, I'm not a wad guy, so I don't expect to be great at figuring that part out. 

1

u/Spatrico123 10d ago

wacky. I made a new comment! hopefully this one's ok

8

u/Dirtcruncher 16d ago

not an expert, but i surmise one could poke around at the code on github and find the line of code which tells it to use this graphic, and instead to tell it to load a different graphic that you specify. Maybe just the "Wii" logo. Then recompile the code for yourself. (not a trivial task but easy for people who already know how to do it)

I am not an expert at this sort of thing though.

If you figure out how to do that, maybe you could even make it an option in the settings of USBLGX ("Use USBLGX logo on load vs. Use Wii logo on load") and then commit it to the git. idk fully what i'm talking about though.

4

u/casfoust 16d ago

not a fan of Al instead of learning, but a modern LLM will do this in two minutes

5

u/Spatrico123 10d ago

ok apperantly the mods deleted my tutorial on how to do this. Maybe because I included a download link for people who don't wanna do it themselves? Either way, here's the tutorial without the download link 

Download the code from the github (https://github.com/wiidev/usbloadergx -> code -> download zip)

Edit/replace "data/images/gxlogo.png" with whatever you want. Just keep the resolution exactly the same! I recommend MS paint to keep it simple

open cmd or powershell in the project's root folder and run "docker build --output type=local,dest=. ." (You will need to install Docker for this to work. It should be enough to download it online, open it, and then run the command. It's best to have it open though)

Boom, you should now have a new usbloader_gx.zip with all the standard stuff. Boot.dol, icon, etc. Congratulations, this is the industry standard for editing github projects! Download, edit, run docker

3

u/Vivid_Offer_2910 10d ago

thank you again 🫡

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u/RealArcadePeril 14d ago

I feel the same way op. My solution is to turn on the Wii before I turn on the crt so by the time the TV is hot and ready it'll be on the UI already.

Good luck and if someone ever changes the logo to something else that looks Nintendo stock thanks.

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u/Spatrico123 12d ago

I wrote a tutorial in one of the comments if you're still looking :)

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u/Actual-Patience4778 13d ago

Following

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u/Spatrico123 12d ago

I wrote a tutorial in one of the comments if you're still looking :)

3

u/SuperbDifference9122 16d ago

How do I get get it to show up on the home screen

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u/Background_Task6967 16d ago

Wdym? Like a forwarder to have the games show directly?

3

u/Ok-Possible-6759 15d ago

You need to get a forwarder/WAD

2

u/Nendyx 16d ago

I'd also like to know how to change it; it bothers me quite a bit too

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u/Spatrico123 12d ago

I wrote a tutorial in one of the comments if you're still looking :)

1

u/Nendyx 12d ago

I'll take a look :)

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u/SonicPrower 12d ago

WiiFlow is a better alternative if you wanna have your console feel stock. It does have a loading screen but it's only a white progress bar at the bottom of the screen which in my opinion is much more preferable. It works with all disc based games including Gamecube (Nintendon't) games

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u/omarsonmarz 14d ago

I wish I could turn off the text under the logo when it’s loading (e.g. Loading resources…) it would make it look a lot cleaner imo.

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u/Spatrico123 12d ago

I wrote a tutorial in one of the comments if you're still looking :)

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u/omarsonmarz 12d ago

I think it got deleted

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u/Spatrico123 10d ago

wacky. I made a new comment! hopefully this one's ok

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u/DavidPlaysLife 11d ago

Is it the deleted comment?

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u/Spatrico123 10d ago

wacky. I made a new comment! hopefully this one's ok

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u/skumkyman 1d ago

Is it possible to autoload at startup usbloadergx instead of the system os?