Homebrew Channel

WeleaseWoderick

I was wondering whether anyone on here has any experience of installing the Homebrew Channel on the Wii? I've read up a bit on it but there seems to be a lot of technical jargon that I can't really get my head around.

Am fairly interested in getting it installed so that I can play imported Wii games and also the media player function would be handy to have.

My Wii is running version 4.1E firmware.

Retr0gamer

I have it running on my Wii. It was very easy to install although I'm not sure what it is like on the newer firmwares. One thing I must warn you about is playing imports. Most games won't work using the homebrew software, only a few. The american Smash Bros. Brawl doesn't work on PAL consoles which is the only thing stopping me from updating my Wii since I need freeloader to run it. Homebrew channel has some really excellent emulators on it as well. I suggest you find a step by step tutorial on how to install it and just follow it without going into the details.

iMax

Also very interested in running this as I'd like to back up the media to hard drive & run it off that (my four year old has already skated across the floor on half my CD collection).

Terrified of turning th eunit into a brick though. Would like to get someone to do it where they take the responsibility !!

Retr0gamer

Unless you are an idiot or the power goes when you are downgrading firmware then you should be fine.

WeleaseWoderick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I have it running on my Wii. It was very easy to install although I'm not sure what it is like on the newer firmwares. One thing I must warn you about is playing imports. Most games won't work using the homebrew software, only a few. The american Smash Bros. Brawl doesn't work on PAL consoles which is the only thing stopping me from updating my Wii since I need freeloader to run it. Homebrew channel has some really excellent emulators on it as well. I suggest you find a step by step tutorial on how to install it and just follow it without going into the details.

Cheers for that. Will look into it a bit more and then give it a bash. Would definitely be interested in getting a SNES emulator running on it as well. I have a fair few SNES games that have yet to appear on Virtual Console and it would be better than hooking up the SNES for a few hours gaming.

iMax

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Unless you are an idiot.

I potentially fall into this category...

Any pointers to a laymans guide ?

Retr0gamer

Honestly I can't give you one. When i had to do it for some one with a higher firmware than my own I had to do a search in google until I eventually found a good tutorial on a forum that was step by step and didn't avoid the jargin. It was quite easy if a little messy, finding the step by step guide is the hard part. I can't remember how to do it and did it on a much lower firmware.

coffee to go

Have a scringe on Youtube for tutorials. Much will depend on whether you've updated your Wii to System Menu 4.0 (I had). Doing a search on Youtube for 'Wii Virgin 4.1 Homebrew' will give you several results with links in the descriptions for downloading the necessary files.

animaX

Just go to the number one source of wii homebrew, wiibrew.org

Look for bannerbomb

WeleaseWoderick

Had a good look around that Wiibrew site and also found an excellent step-by-step guide on the Afterdawn forums. Have got the Homebrew Channel successfully installed and have some homebrew and the Snes emulator up and running now.

Great to be able to do all this stuff without having to physically mod the Wii!

Retr0gamer

Running SNES, Megadrive, NES and TG-16 games in 480p on your HD TV is excellent Only flaws are that there's a few games that hang on me but then again I'm using old versions of the emulators.

WeleaseWoderick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Running SNES, Megadrive, NES and TG-16 games in 480p on your HD TV is excellent Only flaws are that there's a few games that hang on me but then again I'm using old versions of the emulators.

What video settings are using for Snes9x? I'm loving the way the filters clean up the image on the HDTV but can't decided what's the best setting to leave it at.

Retr0gamer

I keep it old school and blocky.

Devi

This works on 4.1 as well as 4.0
http://www.wiihacks.com/recommended-faqs-guides-tutorials-only/16145-how-get-homebrew-channel-virgin-4-0-wii.html

WeleaseWoderick

Having installed the HBC last week I've since been only messing around with the emulators and other homebrew. Today, I went to play Wii Sports Resort again and it's now looking to update my system before letting me play. I've checked the system settings and I'm still running 4.1 so how safe is it to allow the game to run an update?

Retr0gamer

The updates from games are fine. They don't update the system firmware as far as I know, or at least didn't. Anyway once HBC is on there it's on there for good, the firmware updates don't get rid of it.

animaX

The game could overwrite certain IOS files. If you have installed custom IOS files then I would avoid the update. You can install apps that skip disk updates

WeleaseWoderick

I went ahead with the disc update after reading on another forum of someone having the same issue. Both the game and HBC still working perfectly so seems it doesn't interfere with the modding.

Stevo105

WeleaseWoderick wrote: »

I went ahead with the disc update after reading on another forum of someone having the same issue. Both the game and HBC still working perfectly so seems it doesn't interfere with the modding.

If you have it softmoded then it could stop it working. But homebrew doesnt need custom ISO's, so if thats all you want then your fine.