Unable to run WADs directly anymore

Megapsychotron · 09-04-2018, 02:35 AM #1

So it's been awhile since I've played some WiiWare games. I've been running the latest Dolphin using the auto-update. I'm finding that I can't run WiiWare games from the gameslist anymore. I can play them if I install to NAND, but the Wii NAND is not large enough to hold all my WiiWare files. If I move the installed WiiWare games to the SD card, Dolphin asks again to install the WiiWare title to NAND. I can play them going into the Wii Menu first and selecting them from the SD card channel, but some games require specific settings in the game to run correctly.
What happened to running wads from the gameslist?

**JMC47** · 09-04-2018, 06:33 AM #2

Your NAND is full, so, maybe you need to setup another NAND to hold some of them. Dolphin's HLE launch may not check the SD card...

Megapsychotron · 09-11-2018, 09:46 AM #3

(09-04-2018, 06:33 AM)JMC47 Wrote: Your NAND is full, so, maybe you need to setup another NAND to hold some of them. Dolphin's HLE launch may not check the SD card...

You can have multiple NANDs in Dolphin?
Also, you're saying if I run in LLE, the Wii menu will see the SD card?
More importantly, why can't I simply run the wads from the gamelist anymore?

Thanks for your help

**mbc07** · 09-12-2018, 07:35 AM #4

Directly booting WADs was a hack that got dropped. In current Dolphin builds, when you launch a WAD from the game list it'll actually get installed to your NAND and then Dolphin will boot it from there. Since your NAND is full (it's now hard-coded at 512 MB just like a real Wii to prevent issues with IOS emulation), the WAD can't be installed and thus the game can't be booted directly from the game list.

Megapsychotron · 09-15-2018, 01:29 PM #5

(09-12-2018, 07:35 AM)mbc07 Wrote: Directly booting WADs was a hack that got dropped. In current Dolphin builds, when you launch a WAD from the game list it'll actually get installed to your NAND and then Dolphin will boot it from there. Since your NAND is full (it's now hard-coded at 512 MB just like a real Wii to prevent issues with IOS emulation), the WAD can't be installed and thus the game can't be booted directly from the game list.

OK, I see. So I need to load the system menu first to play the games. How does this affect the games that need certain settings in their INI files to run correctly (Contra, for example)

**mbc07** · (This post was last modified: 09-15-2018, 04:16 PM by mbc07.)

Just to be clear, you can still boot WADs directly from the game list, but you must be sure you have free space in your NAND if the WAD you're launching isn't already installed there...

About the Game INIs, Dolphin has now the ability to detect when you boot something different and load its settings, if possible. For example, by booting the System Menu then launching something from there, Dolphin will detect the ID of the title you've launched and load its INI settings, but some options which can't be changed while emulation is running (e.g. CPU/DSP Emulator Engine, MMU, etc) will be left the same as they were when you booted the first software (on this case, the System Menu), even if you've set them to something different in the Game INI.

Directly launching a WAD from the game list will load all its INI settings right at boot time, but if the title isn't already installed in your NAND and you don't have free space, you'll be taken to the System Menu instead (AFAIK).

Dime333 · 02-23-2019, 11:49 PM #7

I'm a little confused by this. So it should be possible to load Wiiware titles from the games list? Whenever I try that, Dolphin always launches the Wii Menu. So I guess that should mean that my NAND is full but I can still install the games in the Wii menu so I guess it's not. So what am I doing wrong?

trihy · (This post was last modified: 02-24-2019, 03:59 AM by trihy.)

I get the wii menú instead of the launched wad on many many games.

When changed bt passthrough from libusbk to winusb this improved a lot, but still some launch to wii menú.

**JMC47** · 02-24-2019, 04:00 AM #9

Just as an update - It's not hardcoded to 512 MB, that's just what the System Menu supports. If we cheat/lie you get instability/crashes. If someone modified the System Menu to support bigger NANDs, then it should theoretically work.

Dime333 · 02-24-2019, 09:43 PM **#10**

OK. I changed from libusbk to winusb and tried 4 random wiiware titles. All of them still went straight to wii menu. I also tried turning off bluetooth passthrough and just used my dolphinbar. Same problem. What's going on here? Am I the only one having this issue?