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Trick to Boot GC Imports on your PAL Wii

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I can confirm that US Tales of Symphonia and F-Zero GX work with a Freeloader but not without (at least not fully without).

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Tried both nintendo puzzle collection and four swords jap version with the trick but with no avail worked with AR and FL

 

Oh and animal crossing american version worked perfectly without the need of AR or FL

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Why the hell does this work?! I mean, people are even saying you don't need the freeloader or AR for some games. What's going on?

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Why the hell does this work?! I mean, people are even saying you don't need the freeloader or AR for some games. What's going on?

 

It seems that the console originally was multi-region, but had problems with quite a few import games. So, instead of wasting money researching and stuff, Nintendo added a block in the code (which this is a work-around for), so people wouldn't complain (to their customer services) that some import games work and some don't.

 

edit: Thats just my theory, anyway.

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It seems that the console originally was multi-region, but had problems with quite a few import games. So, instead of wasting money researching and stuff, Nintendo added a block in the code (which this is a work-around for), so people wouldn't complain (to their customer services) that some import games work and some don't.

 

edit: Thats just my theory, anyway.

 

Or, the wii looks for a certain something that defines a cube games region, a signature or some code if you like, upon boot. So by putting a PAL game in first it reads this signature, detects it as the right region and launches the game. By switching the game just after this process, you trick it into loading a NTSC game while it thinks it is launching a PAL one.

 

My theory, not fact.

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who actually thinks of doing shit like this in the first place?

 

Good question. It's hardly the sort of thing you'd do by accident.

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It's not that odd really. This is just a swap trick, old as time.

 

There's essentially no hardware difference between models in different regions, there's just a block to ensure that you don't run what's regarded "unsupported software" on your machine. N64 would boot the games if you could fit them into your machine, effectively using a piece of plastic as a "region lockout" method.

 

It's really not a mystery. It's fortunate though that it's this simple. I have tons of NTSC cube games and a freeloader that didn't wanna work before.

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The "black border" syndrome is because NTSC has less scanlines (as in vertical resolution) than PAL. My TV shows the Hz if you bring up the "picture" menu, and it still says it's in 50Hz mode.

 

So basically it's displaying a y-resolution of 480, but on a display of 576.

 

This was visible in a lot of older games on Amiga etc (look out for some SNES games showing "PAL borders" when you play them on VC).

 

I'll try freeloader this evening if i get a chance, but i'm assuming it changes to 60hz to fix the border.

 

Has anyone managed to get NTSC games to work in progressive scan? (hold B when it starts, like you would for PAL games to run at 60hz). When i tried choosing it on both Resi 4 and PN03, it just crashed.

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I'll try freeloader this evening if i get a chance, but i'm assuming it changes to 60hz to fix the border.

 

Has anyone managed to get NTSC games to work in progressive scan? (hold B when it starts, like you would for PAL games to run at 60hz). When i tried choosing it on both Resi 4 and PN03, it just crashed.

 

I tried Action Replay, and now the Wii displays NTSC games perfect.

 

Progressive scan also works when using freeloader on Wii, I also tried that. Without action Replay my games also crashed when I selected progressive scan.

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Here are the results for my tests:

 

- Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 4 (NTSC-J): Doesn't work. Screen goes black, nothing happens.

 

- Baten Kaitos Origins (NTSC-U): Works, but displays big black bar on screen bottom. Otherwise playable.

 

- Freeloader 1.06B: Works. After loading, you can swap the disc for any of the above games, and they work perfectly!

 

Therefore, I must agree that this workaround is mostly useful for people who still have a GC Freeloader.

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I'm probably waaay off the mark here, but could this technique potentially be used for Import Wii games?

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I'd imagine since the Wii is actually a Wii, the firmware and stuff in it is more in tune with what's going on than the GC chip.

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I really can't get this to work after several attempts.

Ah well, no biggy.

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I'm probably waaay off the mark here, but could this technique potentially be used for Import Wii games?

 

Someone made a Wii swap disk. gives you 5seconds to swap. But since it's on a burned disc you need a mod chip to use it. But datel could make one.

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Someone made a Wii swap disk. gives you 5seconds to swap. But since it's on a burned disc you need a mod chip to use it. But datel could make one.

 

Couldn't they get into alot of trouble doing that?

Hell, how did they even get away with making the GC Freeloader?

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Jordan: I'm sure you're doing the same mistake everyone else was at first. :)

 

Be sure to PRESS EJECT FIRST. Not the start selection. Press eject and wait as long as you can before pressing start. You'll have to try a couple of times to know the timing.

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Couldn't they get into alot of trouble doing that?

Hell, how did they even get away with making the GC Freeloader?

 

They didn't get in trouble for AR or Freeloader. Not sure why not. But I doubt they would get in trouble for a WiiLoader. Ass long as it doesn't play pirated games.

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Yeah, it's quite hard. Sometimes I still have to retry 10 times for it to work.

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there's a video of someone doing it a couple of times on youtube, its not great owing to some shoddy camera work, but for people struggling to do it may help:

 

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wow it works, it's actually not that hard when you know what to do, i count to 3 after i have hit the eject button then press start you then have plenty of time to switch disks.

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I tried Action Replay, and now the Wii displays NTSC games perfect.

 

Progressive scan also works when using freeloader on Wii, I also tried that. Without action Replay my games also crashed when I selected progressive scan.

 

Thanks Optimus, also tried Freeloader (1.6b) and it worked in both 60hz and prog scan :grin:

 

Played P.N.03 for the first time ever in 480p last nite, woohoo!

 

Apparently AR lets you force PAL games into progscan, is this true? How well does it work?

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It's really not a mystery. It's fortunate though that it's this simple. I have tons of NTSC cube games and a freeloader that didn't wanna work before.

 

Unless you bought the new one:heh:

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