Hacking Emulation Homebrew USB Loader GX: EmuNAND Settings Issue with VC Release of Sonic & Knuckles

RetraCarteR

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Hey, could someone here help me out? I'm having a problem with USB Loader GX that's just flat-out bizarre. It has to do with the Virtual Console release of Sonic & Knuckles running on EmuNAND.

I'm trying to get 240p mode working in this game. For those who don't know, you can force some Virtual Console games to output in their original 240p resolution by entering the Operations Manual on the Home Screen and pressing a certain button combination. Once you do this, it will enable 240p mode for all Virtual Console games that support it. This is an official, Nintendo-supported feature that works even on stock consoles. It only works on an original Wii (not the Wii U's vWii), and only if your video resolution is set to 480i in the Wii system settings; setting the resolution to 480p will force an upscaled 480p output no matter what, which isn't what I want.

In the system's NAND, the video resolution settings are of course stored in "shared2/sys/SYSCONF", while the setting that checks if the Virtual Console's 240p mode is enabled is instead stored in "shared2/menu/vc/settings.sav". I got these settings set up on my real NAND and then used WiiXplorer SS to copy those files over to my EmuNAND. Theoretically, once I set "NAND Channel Emulation" to "Full" in USB Loader GX, any 240p-compatible VC game installed on my EmuNAND should start up in 240p, even once I change the video resolution in my real NAND back to 480p.

It's a convoluted setup, I know, but I've tested this with multiple Virtual Console games that support 240p mode, and it actually does work for every single one of them.

Except for Sonic & Knuckles.

Even with the settings set exactly the same as with the other VC games that I did get to work in 240p, Sonic & Knuckles runs in 480p. This is despite the fact that "NAND Channel Emulation" is set to "Full" and that the video resolution setting in my EmuNAND is set to 480i, meaning that the game shouldn't even be able to do that. I tried setting "DOL Video Patch" to "All" and "Video Mode" to "Force NTSC" in the game settings, but that just causes the 240-pixel-tall image to be squished into the top half of the 480i frame.

I was able to get 240p to work on this game in EmuNAND eventually, but only after setting the video in my real NAND back to 480i. I think the problem is that USB Loader GX is somehow treating the game as if "NAND Channel Emulation" was set to "Partial", even though I'm absolutely sure that it's set to "Full". And no, I'm not running the real NAND channel through USB Loader GX by accident; I don't even have the game installed on my real NAND anymore.

I'm on an original Wii console (NTSC-U region), I'm running the latest release of blackb0x's "USB Loader GX Enhanced", my EmuNAND is on the root of my external USB hard drive, and my cIOS of choice is d2x-v10beta52 with base IOS 57. I've also tried using base 56, base 38, and even an old Waninkoko rev19 cIOS, but I've gotten the same results with each one.

I don't want to have to go back to the system menu and set my video to 480i every time I want to play this game. And yes, I know I could just use Genesis Plus GX or suck it up and play the Virtual Console release in 480p, but I've spent so much time and effort trying to get this to work that I don't want to just give up now. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if this is just a game-specific bug in USB Loader GX. Can anyone help me figure this out? Even just testing this out to try and replicate my results would be helpful. If there's any information you need that I haven't shared already, let me know and I'll tell you everything I can. Thanks!
 

RetraCarteR

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why do you need 240p, also could you just use wiimodlite to install the game on your real nand, and try that?
I run my Wii to my display through a video upscaler called the OSSC, and 240p gives me more control over the scaling than 480p. And I have tested the game on my real NAND, and it's working fine there. The issue is clearly an EmuNAND one. While I could just keep the game on my real NAND permanently, I'd like it to be on my EmuNAND purely for consistency's sake, as all of my other Virtual Console games are on there.

In any case, this is a moot point, as I've actually already solved the problem myself. I've created a patch for USB Loader GX that adds 240p to the list of force-able video modes, and that got it to work. I've left a pull request on GitHub, and hopefully blackb0x will include it in the next release.
 
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