Wii Region hack status, AnyRegion Changer / Gecko OS / GC Booter / Starfall

[Miyamoto_San]

Cheers for all your help guys, going to have a bash at this over the weekend. Just need to find a cheap PAL game so that I can test it!

[Miyamoto_San]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all your help! Worked fine, despite spending a few hours trying to get Preloader to read PAL games, just installed Gecko in the end and it worked fine. Can now use it on my GF's TV which doesn't like NTSC, only niggle is the dash is still NTSC, seen a few apps to change the region of the Wii, but thought this wasn't supposed to be the safest thing to do? Anybody here done anything like this? Any success/horror stories?

[charlesr]

anyregion changer works up to certain firmwares.

[Miyamoto_San]

Cheers Charles, will give it a go!

[Oh_Mutants]

Ok i'm having a nightmare with this! Decided to try to get my 4.0U US Wii set up to run Pal games, so using the savygamer guide i've managed to install the homebrew channel and Boot Mii (at least i'm pretty sure i did, i have since wiped the SD card - is this a problem or once it's installed does it install purely to the Wii??). Tried to install Preloader 0.29, but i keep getting an error message - 'failed to get root, ios(36) has fakesign bug fixed'

A quick google suggested adding a Wad file (IOS36-64-1042) using Wad manager 1.3, but when i do i get another error message - 'installing title... ERROR! (ret = - 1035)'

I'm a total loss where to go from here, and beginning to wish i hadn't bothered now As you can probably tell, i'm not very technically minded when it comes to these things, if anyone can PM me with any ideas on how to get this sorted and get Preloader up and running i'd be hugely grateful...

[Oh_Mutants]

In fact, i've come eo the conclusion i can't be arsed with all this at all. I want to get my Wii back to it's normal, unchanged state before i started messing with it. Is this possible, and how do i go about it? Is it just a case of removing the homebrew channel or do i need to do more? I'm hoping i haven't put my machine at risk of getting bricked by a Nintendo update now...

Esit - seeing as i've had a few beers, i decidede to just remove the homebrew channel in the channel menu and then (foolishly, perhaops) update my Wii via Nintendo to 4.1. Seems to have worked ok, hopefully that's the end of my foolish endeavours now and i haven't set my Wii up for a good bricking... need i be concerned?

[Miyamoto_San]

Think that savygamer guide is out of date, as it didn't work for me either. I ended up using the Ultimate 4.0 Guide on GBATemp which is actually for 4.1 now, and that worked fine for me. Used AnyRegion Changer as suggested by CharlesR as well, and turned my 4.1U into a 4.1E, and have all region-games booting from the System Menu, which is all I wanted to do really. Annoyingly though, all my VC games are American, and launching them from the System Menu crashes my Wii, despite having 'Region Free Channels' enabled in Preloader. And also annoyingly, PAL games seem to launch in PAL 50, rather than PAL 60, so I get borders, but this can be negated by launching them from Gecko.

[Link83]

Think that savygamer guide is out of date, as it didn't work for me either. I ended up using the Ultimate 4.0 Guide on GBATemp which is actually for 4.1 now, and that worked fine for me. Used AnyRegion Changer as suggested by CharlesR as well, and turned my 4.1U into a 4.1E, and have all region-games booting from the System Menu, which is all I wanted to do really. Annoyingly though, all my VC games are American, and launching them from the System Menu crashes my Wii, despite having 'Region Free Channels' enabled in Preloader. And also annoyingly, PAL games seem to launch in PAL 50, rather than PAL 60, so I get borders, but this can be negated by launching them from Gecko.

Just a guess here, but you might not realise that the PAL system menu has extra video settings than the NTSC one. In the settings screen you can choose from the following video modes:-
-576i50Hz
-480i60hz
-480p60Hz
By default the PAL Wii uses 576i50Hz, so you will want to change it to 480i60Hz and then your PAL Wii games should play in 60Hz - it might even fix your US Virtual Console game problem aswell. Hope that helps

[Oh_Mutants]

Think that savygamer guide is out of date, as it didn't work for me either. I ended up using the Ultimate 4.0 Guide on GBATemp which is actually for 4.1 now, and that worked fine for me. Used AnyRegion Changer as suggested by CharlesR as well, and turned my 4.1U into a 4.1E, and have all region-games booting from the System Menu, which is all I wanted to do really. Annoyingly though, all my VC games are American, and launching them from the System Menu crashes my Wii, despite having 'Region Free Channels' enabled in Preloader. And also annoyingly, PAL games seem to launch in PAL 50, rather than PAL 60, so I get borders, but this can be negated by launching them from Gecko.

Ok had another go at it using the GBAtemp guide and have managed to sucessfully instal the HB channel and Preloader However, whenever i turn on my wii now it boots straight into the (awful looking) preloader menu. Is this right? Is there any way to get it boot into the normal system menu and go to the preloader menu if i need to via the HB channel window??

Also, can Gecko not be set up as a channel window or do i always need to load it via the preloader menu then the HB channel, which seems a bit of a pain? I basically only did this to allow me to play Pal games on my US wii and it seems like a bit of a chore currently. Is there a better way of setting it up to do this, as well as getting all Pal games to boot full screen, full speed? Thanks in advance, any help/advice appreciated

[smouty]

If it boots to the normal menu with the SD card removed you need to move/rename the preloader .dol file on the card.
Using Gecko can you not force NTSC? The only game I've found which doesn't work is Madworld.

[Oh_Mutants]

If it boots to the normal menu with the SD card removed you need to move/rename the preloader .dol file on the card.
Using Gecko can you not force NTSC? The only game I've found which doesn't work is Madworld.

Ok, figured out how to get the wii to boot to the system menu etc, thanks.
Have borrowed a couple of my mate's Pal Wii games to test this with, SSBB and Dragonball Z Budokai 3. SSBB boots up fine with Gecko set to force NTSC, Dragonball Z however (a 50hz only Pal game) crashes to a green screen when i set it to force NTSC, and still seems to display in 50hz when i set it to force Pal 60 Can't find a Gecko compatibility list anywhere, have i just been unlucky in trying a game that is not compatible or have i done something wrong? (Before i go on a Pal Wii game buying spree! )

Also, is there a way to get the Wii to boot all region games from the system menu, rather than having to load the Homebrew channel and then load Gecko from that? Seems a long way of doing things...
Thanks in advance guys

[Miyamoto_San]

Just a guess here, but you might not realise that the PAL system menu has extra video settings than the NTSC one. In the settings screen you can choose from the following video modes:-
-576i50Hz
-480i60hz
-480p60Hz
By default the PAL Wii uses 576i50Hz, so you will want to change it to 480i60Hz and then your PAL Wii games should play in 60Hz - it might even fix your US Virtual Console game problem aswell. Hope that helps

Thanks for this, will have a go tonight! I just re-read what I wrote though, and realised that it was total guff. PAL games actually launch fine from the System Menu, it's the NTSC games that launch with borders for some reason, will have a play and see if this fixes it. Managed to get one of the VC games to load as well, but there was a massive border at the bottom and the top of the screen was cut off. Think I will just change the region any time I want to play them, don't really play them much anyway.

[Miyamoto_San]

Also, is there a way to get the Wii to boot all region games from the system menu, rather than having to load the Homebrew channel and then load Gecko from that? Seems a long way of doing things...
Thanks in advance guys

Preloader has hacks that allow you to do this, find the relevant hacks.ini file for your firmware. To get Preloader to boot if you have set it to boot to the System Menu, hold reset upon powering on.

[Oh_Mutants]

I have the hacks.ini file for my firmware (4.1 US). Which hack allows you to run all region games from the sytem menu without having to go into gecko and load it from there, as i'll be buggered if i can find it?
Also how do i set preloader to notify me if a game is trying to update my system, as i was under the impression this could cause problems?
Sorry for all the questions, have googled for answers but am coming up blank. Thanks in advance

[Miyamoto_San]

Hacks have pretty obvious names, should just be 'Region Free Wii Discs', it's in three parts on mine, have just selected them all, not sure if you need to or if they all just do the same thing! There is also a 'Skip Disk Update Check' option, not sure if you can be notified if it wants to update or not though... Just check it and then you won't have to worry about it, although if you are on 4.1 it shouldn't try and update you anyway.