Needed: Help for creating an ASM SD Loader - usable for any game

[Tempus]

Hello to any prospective help out there, I'll try to keep this neat and clean.

Backstory: I'm in charge of a three man team who have hacked and are translating the game Zero4 for the Wii, better known as Fatal Frame 4. You can find a link to our project back a few words where it said link. Homebrew discussion forbidden on the previous forum, keep it here, please. Now, many of our prospective audience have clean Wiis, and do not want to modify their Wiis at all. With the advent of bannerbomb, I imagined it might be possible to create an on-the-fly patcher using the cheat codes in GeckoOS and replacing data, though it was a little hazy. See this topic for the first try and a little bit of information. It seems like it might be possible, though difficult, so here I am and here you are. My gecko should be arriving any day, and I'm hoping things will go well.



What we are hoping to achieve

What we are hoping to achieve is an SD loader ASM code, which can be applied through either gpf or a more standard code method (whichever works better). This ASM code would:

• Search the RAM for file references with specific parameters (i.e. files on the game disc or parts thereof)
• Replace those files in the RAM with files located on an SD card

More about the hack

The hack itself is reasonably straight forward in concept, but as far as I can tell difficult in execution. Most games do not call the SD card itself, so it's impossible to use premade code. This holds true for Fatal Frame 4, the case I am concerned with.

This means that we would be required to either reverse engineer or locate and steal code from another game with SD loading capabilites (such as Brawl), and use that as a base for our code. We would then be building in some searching functions and replacement functions. One concern may be optimizing the code for a minimum of data transfer and a maximum of speed, in the case of needing to load a large amount of files.

The hack, when finished, would allow for on-the-fly patching of all files for any game. This means texture hacks, music hacks, data hacks, and (of most importance to me) text hacks from files based on the SD card with no need to imput them as codes or burn games.

The second part of my project would be to create a loader app which could either be installed as a channel through banner bomb or run directly by bannerbomb, which would execute a USB gecko engine to region-free load legal games on any Wii with the patches contained on an SD card, which could be easily distributed. In other words, User-friendly, Legal Wii, Any Region, patch applying to play any game with any modification.


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   Ways to Help
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Below are some ways experienced coders can help. Ideally, I'd like to get an experienced ASM hacker willing to work with me on this project from start to finish. Otherwise, I'll have to start reading as I know very little assembly!

If not, you could always:

• isolate the Brawl SD loading code for porting (or another game)
• provide assistance if I have questions about using the Gecko, or contribute rare tips that are hard to find on the forums
• tell me more about gpf patches, or link to resources
• donate general data about SD loading on the Wii
• tell me how you would go about doing this hack (new approaches may prove fruitful)
• help interpret or isolate data dumps from Fatal Frame 4
• explain more about the Brawl file replacement code (I can provide this on demand)
• throw in your two cents
• reem me out for being an idiot and tell me the proper way
• help discuss issues with banner bomb, or provide a wrapper for gecko for the final product

And of course, should this project succeed, I will be releasing this patch with documentation for those who interested in hacking or patching other games. This includes any code which may be developed for the gecko wrapper or user friendly patch application methods.

Thanks in advance for all your replies!

[wiiztec]

Oh god why hasen't anyone responded to this already? he's probably dead by now

[wiiztec]

Did this guy end up making Riivolution?

[Romaap]

Yep