People, Aliens and foreign exchange students!
Today we ,finally, release Priiloader 0.10!
not much has changed since the RC3 release, besides fixes.
The (huge) Changelog of 0.10 since 0.9.1 looks as the following:
ok, so.... huge changelog, I know haha
let me guide you guys through it, shall I?
First up: vWii support!
Fucking. Finally. It took the team of @GaryOderNichts, @vaguerant, @Ingunar & myself to get it all working, but here we are!
How does it work?
well, for that I would have to explain how priiloader works on a regular wii.
On a regular wii, Priiloader renames the main System menu executable and writes itself under the name of the main executable. this means that when system menu is started, it will start priiloader itself.
However, this isn't good enough for the wiiu & vwii.
On the wiiu the PowerPC doesn't just boot whatever you throw at it. it needs a special, encrypted, binary to boot. now if we rename the system menu executable and replace it with our own, we are fucked. its not an encrypted binary, the PowerPC cpu rejects it.
but how does vwii boot all those wii related contents then, if none of those are encrypted?
Well, when it boots a title it first boots a special, encrypted, NandLoader which sets up the PowerPC cpu and then boots the content it needs to.
But what does this have to do with Priiloader? Gary and I came with this idea that we could maybe copy the nandloader to system menu and let it boot Priiloader, so that system menu's main executable is still an encrypted image.
This means that system menu now has 4 modifications when priiloader is installed :
* main executable is replaced with the nandloader
* priiloader is added to System menu
* System menu main executable is renamed
* System menu TMD is altered to have changes in the content index' so nandloader boots priiloader
Its complex, we know, but its the only way we found to make this possible so early on in the vwii boot process. We are now the second thing that boots on the PowerPC cpu in vwii mode after the wiiu switches modes.
Many hacks have been ported to vwii, and many are still to come or be tested. You can keep track of these in our Github discussion page : https://github.com/DacoTaco/priiloader/discussions/339
whoop whoop!
Next Feature: loading discs.
Priiloader now has a menu option called 'Launch Disc'. this menu will load the disc inserted into the wii. This launch menu is region free and will load any game from any region, both in GC & Wii mode. It will also apply Video mode fixes which should make it possible to load more games than System menu itself!
However, this menu can not, and will never, load burned discs out of the box.
Other than that, if a game does not load don't hesitate to report it to me on github.
Next up : prioritize usb over sd.
Priiloader up until today was able to access both the USB as SD as a means to load things like the hacks or homebrew. however, it always chose SD over USB if it was available, even if it contained nothing for it to use. this is now changed.
The settings menu now has an option to select the priority of fat device. by default this is set to Auto, which is the old behavior ( SD has priority over USB ). however, there is also an USB option, which makes priiloader load things from the USB drive before checking the SD card. which can be helpful for setups in which the SD is not the primary device the user is using to store things like homebrew and the hacks file. Together with this change however, was a full device mounting rework, and slow responding USB devices might now work better, or still show slowdown when priiloader is booting something, or shutting down. BUT at least the menu will no longer hang because of all cpu cycles going towards the usb mounting code.
Furthermore Priiloader has been changed to allow booting the installed file when restarting System menu. previously you could only do this if autoboot was also set to installed file.
Downloadable from Github : https://github.com/DacoTaco/priiloader/releases/tag/0.10.0 or through the update menu in priiloader
Today we ,finally, release Priiloader 0.10!
not much has changed since the RC3 release, besides fixes.
The (huge) Changelog of 0.10 since 0.9.1 looks as the following:
Code:
v0.10 : Version Kappa
* New Features
** Add vWii compatability !
** Add ability to load Wii and gamecube discs
*** this ignores region of the discs
*** this also does not apply any hacks
** Add setting to prioritize USB access over SD
** Priiloader can revive your plants through zombism
** Added Support for System Menu 1.0
** Show Priiloader after installation
*** Priiloader will launch when booting System Menu
** Added new hacks
*** Block disc autoboot
*** Remove Deflicker
** Refactor device access
*** Priiloader no longer waits for the usb drive to respond when mounting
** Added Return to installed file
* Fixes & Improvements
** Fix launching channels from another region
*** this only applies to channels launched by priiloader
** Refactor the region free hacks on SM < 4.3
** Fix Online updates after my host broke it (again)
** Correctly check for the gamecube shutdown flag
** Fix clearing bss section with .elf files
** Fix typo in installer
** Fix launching SM on IOS < 28
** Fix dvd active check
** Refactor meta.xml parsing
** Refactor versioning in priiloader
** set screen to black before loading title or binary
** fix hacks randomly not being loaded correctly
** various hacks_hash changesok, so.... huge changelog, I know haha
let me guide you guys through it, shall I?
First up: vWii support!
Fucking. Finally. It took the team of @GaryOderNichts, @vaguerant, @Ingunar & myself to get it all working, but here we are!
How does it work?
well, for that I would have to explain how priiloader works on a regular wii.
On a regular wii, Priiloader renames the main System menu executable and writes itself under the name of the main executable. this means that when system menu is started, it will start priiloader itself.
However, this isn't good enough for the wiiu & vwii.
On the wiiu the PowerPC doesn't just boot whatever you throw at it. it needs a special, encrypted, binary to boot. now if we rename the system menu executable and replace it with our own, we are fucked. its not an encrypted binary, the PowerPC cpu rejects it.
but how does vwii boot all those wii related contents then, if none of those are encrypted?
Well, when it boots a title it first boots a special, encrypted, NandLoader which sets up the PowerPC cpu and then boots the content it needs to.
But what does this have to do with Priiloader? Gary and I came with this idea that we could maybe copy the nandloader to system menu and let it boot Priiloader, so that system menu's main executable is still an encrypted image.
This means that system menu now has 4 modifications when priiloader is installed :
* main executable is replaced with the nandloader
* priiloader is added to System menu
* System menu main executable is renamed
* System menu TMD is altered to have changes in the content index' so nandloader boots priiloader
Its complex, we know, but its the only way we found to make this possible so early on in the vwii boot process. We are now the second thing that boots on the PowerPC cpu in vwii mode after the wiiu switches modes.
Many hacks have been ported to vwii, and many are still to come or be tested. You can keep track of these in our Github discussion page : https://github.com/DacoTaco/priiloader/discussions/339
whoop whoop!
Next Feature: loading discs.
Priiloader now has a menu option called 'Launch Disc'. this menu will load the disc inserted into the wii. This launch menu is region free and will load any game from any region, both in GC & Wii mode. It will also apply Video mode fixes which should make it possible to load more games than System menu itself!
However, this menu can not, and will never, load burned discs out of the box.
Other than that, if a game does not load don't hesitate to report it to me on github.
Next up : prioritize usb over sd.
Priiloader up until today was able to access both the USB as SD as a means to load things like the hacks or homebrew. however, it always chose SD over USB if it was available, even if it contained nothing for it to use. this is now changed.
The settings menu now has an option to select the priority of fat device. by default this is set to Auto, which is the old behavior ( SD has priority over USB ). however, there is also an USB option, which makes priiloader load things from the USB drive before checking the SD card. which can be helpful for setups in which the SD is not the primary device the user is using to store things like homebrew and the hacks file. Together with this change however, was a full device mounting rework, and slow responding USB devices might now work better, or still show slowdown when priiloader is booting something, or shutting down. BUT at least the menu will no longer hang because of all cpu cycles going towards the usb mounting code.
Furthermore Priiloader has been changed to allow booting the installed file when restarting System menu. previously you could only do this if autoboot was also set to installed file.
Downloadable from Github : https://github.com/DacoTaco/priiloader/releases/tag/0.10.0 or through the update menu in priiloader
