Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hi there,

Regarding your guide on backing up Wii channels. Here something I want to ask.

You know how that we can purchase Wii games from the Wii U Virtual console? If I'm not mistaken, the only way to play the games I purchased from the Nintendo eShop channel is to play it via the vWii app.

If I did plan to back up the Wii games and use it on Dolphin Emulator in the future, is it possible to back up the Wii games that are located on the vWii? I never seen anyone try to backup a Wii games they purchased form the Nintendo eShop. The only games I did back up was the older NES, SNES, GBA, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 64 games I purchased from my Wii U. For thous wondering, I homebrew the Wii U and used an application called the DDD. The DDD allows me to dump whatever games I wanted form my Wii U menu. All I need to do is to establish connection to my PC (make sure firewall is whitelisted/disabled), select whatever game I want to boot up. Wait for it to dump. Download a couple official emulator software for N64, GBA, etc. Try to load the emulator with an appropriate rom file. And... Profit.

The reason why I want to purchase the Wii games from the Nintendo eShop channel is because I want to save some money as opposed to purchasing a retailer copy on Ebay. For example, if I were to try to buy Metroid Prime Trilogy on Ebay (from the US), it would cost me around $50-100 USD. While the eShop digital version only cost me $20. I could make the smart choice to purchase the game from the eShop. Plus, I get to save money. Anyone see the patter in Behavioral Economics? Hm?

This is possible, but you have to run the game through a converter program before Dolphin will be able to run the game. I haven't tried doing it myself (haven't actually bought any Wii games from the eShop...) but I had this link saved: https://gbatemp.net/threads/semi-working...ck.455812/

Also, in case you care about netplay, keep in mind that you might get desyncs if one player has gotten the game from the eShop and another player has gotten the game as a disc.

(10-28-2019, 02:45 AM)JosJuice Wrote: [ -> ]This is possible, but you have to run the game through a converter program before Dolphin will be able to run the game. I haven't tried doing it myself (haven't actually bought any Wii games from the eShop...) but I had this link saved: https://gbatemp.net/threads/semi-working...ck.455812/

Also, in case you care about netplay, keep in mind that you might get desyncs if one player has gotten the game from the eShop and another player has gotten the game as a disc.

Very interesting. 

Hmm. I'll look into using a converter tool the next time I pick up a Wii game from the Nintendo eShop.

So I was digging into my directory files on the dump I used to dump my vWii NAND. The part where it mentioned the 'wiikey' files, is it meant to refer to the 'keys.bin'?

(10-28-2019, 06:47 AM)LDClaudius Wrote: [ -> ]So I was digging into my directory files on the dump I used to dump my vWii NAND. The part where it mentioned the 'wiikey' files, is it meant to refer to the 'keys.bin'?

Open keys.bin in a hex editor, find the part that starts with EBE4 and is 16 bytes long (should start at 0x114 and end at 0x124), and copy it into a new file. That new file should be the file that the program is expecting.

Are you referring to an HxD application? I'll look for the keys file.

(10-28-2019, 07:29 AM)LDClaudius Wrote: [ -> ]Are you referring to an HxD application? I'll look for the keys file.

Oh, sorry, I said text editor when I meant hex editor. Yes, HxD is a hex editor that you can use for this.

Haha, don't worry. I got back from taking Hardware and Software class from college before. I'm familiar with using Hxd.

Anyways. So I was looking at the Hexadecimal you told me to look up. I think I found the 'EBE4' you were referring to. Do I simply copy the hexadecimal and create a new '.bin' file from scratch using Hxd or make a copy from the 'keys.bin' file?

(10-28-2019, 07:49 AM)LDClaudius Wrote: [ -> ]Haha, don't worry. I got back from taking Hardware and Software class from college before. I'm familiar with using Hxd.

Anyways. So I was looking at the Hexadecimal you told me to look up. I think I found the 'EBE4' you were referring to. Do I simply copy the hexadecimal and create a new '.bin' file from scratch using Hxd or make a copy from the 'keys.bin' file?

I guess you could do it either way? But I think it's easier to create a new file from scratch.

I decided that I wanted to do a quick test to see if I will be able to test the simple programmer using the 16 bit common key I found from the HxD. This is what it looks like.

Only thing I need to do is to simply purchase a Wii game from the Nintendo eShop and see if I could get the file to be converted to an .iso format.

Edit: Here how I found the common key on the 'common key' section: https://hackmii.com/2008/04/keys-keys-keys/