In this part of the guide, I will show you how to make custom Virtual Console games to play on your modded Wii U.
We will be using a tool called Ultimate WiiU Virtual Console Injector (UWUVCI) by nicoAICP, this allows you to install custom virtual console games and play them directly from your Wii U. With UWUVCI you can install and play NES, SNES, N64, Nintendo DS & Game Boy Advance games. Not only do a lot of these games look and run great in HD and they also benefit from the use of mods, translations and fixes, such as removing the dark filter Nintendo included with their emulation. This can be especially helpful for translation of Japanese games and allows for the playing of regional exclusives.
Below I will outline how to create and install each type. If you are after Wii and GameCube injection, please refer to part 3 of my guide on modding the Wii U.
First, we must download our injection program UWUVCI. You can download it here: –
https://github.com/stuff-by-3-random-dudes/UWUVCI-AIO-WPF/releases
Download and the latest installer UWUVCI_INSTALLER.exe and double click to begin the installation of UWUVCI.
Launch UWUVCI and you’ll come to this nice user interface. UWUVCI has undergone quite the overhaul from the previous version I featured in this guide, and I am happy to say this version is a lot easier to use!
Installing Nintendo DS games on your Wii U
To get started with Virtual Console injections, we first need to provide UWUVCI with the Wii U common key. This only has to be done once as the program will remember it.
There are two methods for obtaining the common key. The first method is to use the opt.bin file that we dumped from the Wii U back in part one of this series of guides.
The second method is to simply google it, unfortunately I cannot provide it for you but I am sure googling ‘Wii U Common Key Pastebin’ it will most likely be the top result.
Now that we have our Wii U common key, click the Nintendo DS logo from the left side bar. At the DS injection screen click the blue button ‘Enter CKey’. In the popup window paste the Wii U common key or select ‘read from opt.bin’ to select that file will automatically put the key in for you and click ‘check’ then ‘close’ once prompted.
You will notice the line ‘CommonKey Entered’ will turn green, this means the key is now stored and you won’t have to input it again.
The next step is to choose a base game. As I intend to inject an EU Nintendo DS game, I will choose The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks as my base title.
From the dropdown box in the section ‘BaseRom’ select your title you wish to inject your game into. I would suggest injecting a game into a base of the same region.
Before we can download the base game, we need to first find the Title Key of the base game we are injecting our rom into. For this demonstration, I will show you how to do it for the Nintendo DS, but the other systems are done in the exact same way.
Much like the Wii U common key, I, unfortunately, cannot give you the TitleKey for each game. Google ‘wii u title keys’ and one of the top results has a list of databases where you can search for each key. Copy your chosen base game title key and click on the blue button ‘Enter TKey’, paste in the key in the same way we did with the common key and UWUVCI will let you know if it is correct and the TitleKey text will turn green.
Click download to start downloading the base game.
Over on the right-hand side select your ROM image of the game you wish to inject. For this demonstration, I will be injecting my dumped copy of Resident Evil DS (One of the best ports of the original RE by the way!).
In the settings underneath, you can set various options for the aesthetics of your game. You can set a custom Icon image, background image and even boot sound.
For my copy of Resident Evil DS I will be using the stock icon that is pulled from the game itself, however, you could change this to whatever you want. You can even leave it blank if you wish.
This next part is not essential, and I am not going to do it here, however, you can make your own templates if you wish.
iconTex.png (128 x 128) (This will be the Icon)
bootTvTex.png (1280 x 720) (This will be the background)
You can find templates from both iconTex.png & bootTvTex.png over at GBATEMP here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/banners-icon-templates-for-wii-vc.483080/
After setting the Icon and TV image sections we can enter our game’s name in the aptly labelled ‘GAME NAME’ section. As I want my game title on two separate lines, I must put in the vertical bar symbol, this denotes a new line. If you don’t want your text on another line, you do not need to bother with this.
Click inject, while waiting for the game to inject insert your Wii U SD card into your PC. Once the inject in completed, click ‘close’ and then click ‘WUP Installable on the bottom left side. This will pack up our inject. Then select ‘Copy to SD’. This will prompt you to select your drive to send the injected game package to. Select your SD card and click copy to SD.
Now this is complete, reinsert your SD card back into your Wii U.
To install this game, boot up your modded Wii U and launch the homebrew Launcher. We want to open WUP Installer GX2.
Once loaded we will see our game folder name on the Gamepad, select this and press install, press Yes and select USB and your game will begin to install (you can choose to save this NAND if you want, however, I would advise against this. If the file corrupts for any reason, it’s easier to remove from your HDD rather than risk corrupting your Wii U’s memory).
Once installed press OK and the home button a few times to return to the Wii U system menu. Here we will find our game. Our newly injected game will be showing as an app on the Wii U’s main menu. From here you can launch it.
We now have our DS game successfully injected!
If you tap ZR you can pull up the Virtual Console menu. From here select Screen settings and you will be able to adjust how the game displays as well as disabling screen smoothing. I prefer to play in ‘Large Screen Display’ mode with smoothing off.
Installing N64 Virtual Console Games
A lot of what applies to the DS inject applies here. Like before, set the TitleKey/s you will be using as your base game and download the game.
Select the ROM you wish to inject. I am going to be using my dumped copy of Yoshi’s Story. In the configuration section on the right you’ll noticed we have a few new options to choose from. You can enable Widescreen for your injection or remove the dark filter. For some reason, N64 virtual Console games have a strange darkening filter applied to them. Select either Enabled or Disabled depending on your preference.
Beneath, you will see and option to set a configuration file in the ‘INI PATH’ section. Certain games need certain INI’s to run but, I find most run with blank.
If your game is not running correctly please have a look at the compatibility list put together over at the gbatemp wiki, It’s a great resource and has information regarding what INI files work and which ones don’t!
The bootimages section is where you can set backgrounds, icons etc. Follow the steps in the DS section above to download custom ones or use the inbuilt templates provided with UWUVCI which I think are excellent.
Enter the game name you wish to use. I went with ‘Yoshi’s Story’ and click ‘Inject!’. You will get a message saying, ‘Injection finished’, click close, insert your SD card to your PC and then click ‘WUP Installable’ which will pack up our injection. Select ‘Copy to SD’. This will once again copy of the game package file to your SD
Boot up your Wii U and head into the Homebrew Launcher, from here navigate to WUP Installer GX2 and tap load. Once loaded you will see your game’s folder name on the gamepad, tap it and press install, confirm the install and choose USB the game will then install. After installing press the home button a few times to head back to the Wii U’s System menu. You will now see your game on as an icon. Tap the icon to launch your game and enjoy!
Installing GBA Virtual Console Games on your Wii U
GBA games on the WII U are great! They look sharp and are an affordable alternative to a GBA Consolizer, Analogue pocket or MiSTer setup. I would still recommend playing GBA games using a GameCube + GameBoy Player but the Wii U is nice alternative.
Installing Game Boy Advance games to your Wii U is easy, there are no configuration files to mess around with this time. I will be using my copy of Metroid Fusion.
I dumped my copy with the GBxCart RW which you can read about here.
Open up UWUVCI and set the TitleKey/s as we did in the DS injection. This time I am using Minish Cap EU as my base game. Set your base game and click download. This may take a few minutes.
If you intend to inject any of the Pokemon games, you should make sure you click Enabled on the PokePatch section.
Once downloaded, select your game ROM you wish to inject. I am using my dump of Metroid Fusion.
Select what kind of style you would like for your games icon etc, this is non-essential but you will end up with just a black tile if you do not set it.
Metroid Fusion did not automatically pull in the icon image, so I just used a .png picture of the title screen I found on google.
Enter our Game Name and click inject and then close once done. Insert your SD card into your PC and click ‘WUP Installable’ which will pack up our injection. Select ‘Copy to SD’. This will copy the game’s package file to your SD
Reinsert your SD card into your Wii U. Boot up your Wii U and head to the Homebrew Launcher. From here select WUP Installer GX2 and load.
On the gamepad select the game and press install, press Yes to confirm and choose USB. The game will then install, once complete, you can close WUP Installer and the homebrew launcher to return to the Wii U’s system menu. Here you will find our injected game with the custom Icon I set.
TIP: Press in the right analog stick disables screen smoothing making the game look a lot better in my opinion.
This would also be a great time to mention you can install modified roms into these injected games (not just GBA either). Let me know if that is something you would interest in seeing and I can update the guide with a tutorial on how to install them.
How to inject NES games to the Virtual Console
Now we are going to be making an injection of an NES game to the Virtual Console. The game we shall be using is a dump of Super Mario Bros. 2.
Like the GBA, the steps are very simple. Set your TitleKeys as mentioned in the DS section. Then select your base game and download. I will be using Punch Out as my base game.
Select your game Rom and set any custom icons you want (See DS section for templates). You’ll also notice you can set a toggle for Pixel Perfect Mode which will make sure your uses the correct default aspect ratio.
Set your NES game’s name, I will be going with ‘Super Mario Bros. 2. Then click ‘Inject!’ then press close once complete.
Reinsert your SD card into your PC and click ‘Wup Installable’ from the Packing section.
Select ‘Copy to SD’. This will once again copy of the game package file to your SD
Once copied eject your SD card and reinsert into your Wii U. Boot up your Wii U and head over the Homebrew Launcher. From here launch WUP Installer GX2 & on the gamepad select the game and press install, press yes to confirm this and then select USB. The game will now install to your external HDD.
Head back to your Wii U’s main menu and find the newly installed Super Mario Bros. 2 virtual console injection.
How to install Super Nintendo games on your WII U
Next, we are going to be installing Super Nintendo games to your Wii U. Well, Technically I am going to be installing a Super Famicom game. The process is the same for all regions. I have here my copy of Rockman 7 which I have made a dump of.
Open up UWUVCI and select the SNES icon from the right-hand sidebar, Ithe TitleKey for the base game you are going to be using. I have chosen Mother 2. Paste in your key and click ‘Check’, you should get a message that it is correct, if not recheck you titlekey.
Close the TitleKey Menu and select and download your base game, this will take a few minutes. Once downloaded we can choose our Rockman 7.sfc rom, click ‘Choose ROM’ and navigate to wherever your ROM dump is stored.
You’ll notice the SNES injects can also use Pixel Perfect Mode, that’s up to you if you want to enable it.
Select your custom logos and/or backgrounds if you choose to use any and then enter your Game’s title.
I am going to use ‘Rockman 7’ afterwards, click ‘Inject!’ and you should get the message that the injection has finished successfully.
Reinsert your SD card into your PC and click ‘Wup Installable’ from the Packing section.
Select ‘Copy to SD’. This will once again copy of the game package file to your SD.
Once copied, eject your SD card and reinsert into your Wii U. Boot up your Wii U and head over the Homebrew Launcher. From here launch WUP Installer GX2 & on the gamepad select the game and press install, press yes to confirm this and then select USB. The game will now install to your external HDD.
With the game installed head back to the Wii U’s menu and we will see a new app has been installed.
As you can see our Super Famicom backup of Rockman 7 is working perfectly. I could have, if I wanted to, applied a translation patch using a program such as Lunar IPS to have the game in English which would be quite handy if you are backing up any text-heavy games such as RPG’s etc, Please let me know if you would like me to create a tutorial on how to do this.
*If you found this guide useful, please consider donating to help make more guides*
Really clear tutorials, thank you for taking the time to write them 🙂
Thanks for reading and you are welcome! 🙂
This is great. I finally have made use of my modded Wii U! Thanks.
Question: Is there a way to make the Wii Virtual Console games I have useable in the Wii U homescreen so I don’t have to go between the homescreen spaces? Is there a Homebrew method that allows me to consolidate?
Thanks!
Jeff M
USA
I left this before but it got deleted. Is there any way to make the Wii virtual console games I’ve purchased show up in the Wii U menu so I don’t have ot go back and forth between the environments.
Also: I’m having an issue with Nintendont freezing every time it tries to initialize a memory card, which is every time I launch a VC game. Any ideas? Thanks this has gotten me very far in a day’s time!
Oh! Odd… my earlier comment wasn’t showing up. then i posted the above comment and the first one came back. awesome.
Thanks a lot for this! Just a quick question… Can I still play the base game used for the injection? Like Phantom hourglass for DS our is it unusuable like Brain age?
Glad you got your Wii U softmodded!
You can setup forwarders from the Wii U menu to launch if I remember right. TeconMoons injector has an option to make vWii NAND title forwarder. You will need to put the ID of the Wad in manually.
For the memory card, you may need to enable memory card emulation. You can also set this TeconMoons injector. Under the ‘Nintendon’t SD card Menu’ section, this will allow you to set your config file.
Let me know how you get on!
Do you have any idea why I might be getting this message? I started Namco 50th Anniversary and it is frozen at a Nintendont Screen. I can’t post a picture but the upper left says:
Nintendont Loader 6.489 (Wii VC)
Built: Oct 8 2019 3:22:43
Firmware 255.255.255
Initializing virtual 251-block memory card…
2048 of 2048 KiB written
I’ve gotten most everything else to work, but I can’t start any of the Gamecube apps with this configuration. I went through the suggested app, used the homebrew launcher to get them into the hard drive. And now I’m stuck…
Try unplugging any attached USB controller when booting up the game and let me know if that gets it to start up.
Good morning. Thanks so much for your help. That got the game going and past that screen I was hanging on, but it indicates there is no memory card even though i thought i had made one in Nintendont. Any ideas?
Thank you again… this is quite a process.
Jeff M
Oh! Odd… my earlier comment wasn’t showing up. then i posted the above comment and the first one came back. awesome.
Thank you so much for the great guide!
I followed this to the tee but when starting a Wii game on USBloader gx, it just goes to black screen for a while and then back to Wii menu.
Any ideas on what I must be doing wrong? I’ve installed cIOS numerous times
Could be the drive, USBloader GX can be a little picky!
Try reformat or another drive and see if the issue is still present.
Thanks Greg!
It’s doing this with two different hard drives (one of which works with a Wii) and a flash drive.
Picks up games and populates list. Start game, then just a black screen.
So frustrating!
It….was…..the….drive……
Sigh.
Thank you
Well, atleast you got to the bottom of it! lol 🙂
Thanks for the work you’ve done. I recently bought an already modded Wii U with disk with games. However, if I connect the disk in Windows, I cannot see contents in Wbfs Manager. What did i wrong?
Is the drive read by the Wii U?
If so it would have been formatted by the Wii U itself. To add stuff to it use WUP installer.
Hi,
Thanks for the detailed instructions!
I’m having an issue when I click inject, I get a message popup tealling me that the meta.xml cannot be found in the baserom. Any ideas?
What are you trying to inject? I can have a look on my end and see if I can figure it out.
I had this issue. I fixed it by making a folder called “temp” next to where the “UWUVCI.exe” is, and then made “baserom” inside that and then “meta” inside that. So I had the path “\temp\baserom\meta\”. This lets the program copy the needed files. Then it works. You have to copy that “baserom” folder to your SD Card before closing the program, because it deletes that temp folder when exiting. Weird. Seems like you have to do this every time.
UPDATE: I just realised that the above error is with v1.3 of UWUVCI AIO, but v2.0 works much better, so try that instead.
https://github.com/stuff-by-3-random-dudes/UWUVCI-AIO-WPF/releases
Hey there. First of all great guide. Everything has worked perfect for me so far. I’m having an issue with the actual injection though. So I injected Kirby 64 as my first game to attempt this. I tried it once, and it worked. Game played great. So I removed it to try and add the iconTex, and the other files etc. (I like being organized)
After I added these, and then tried another Injection, the game doesn’t work. It installs via WUP installer GX2, then the wii u launches it, says preparing, then says there’s an error in the software, the title must be deleted and redownloaded from the eshop. Any idea what might be going wrong?
Ps. I converted the iconTex and bootTvTex files to tga, and made sure they were the correct size, just like the guide said.
As a second question, Im not sure how to acquire a bootDrcTex, the one that shows on the Gamepad. I wasnt sure if you could point me somewhere for that. I searched, but couldn’t find anything.
Hi there, Thank you so much for your detailed guide it is very clear and easy to follow and your replys are swift and i rate you highly for that. One thing, part 3 and 4 could be changed. I believe that the USB helper tool is the best for getting all games for all platforms and once downloaded just put them in the install folder on the root of the sd. you just have to use titlekeys.ovh when setting it up. Also couldnt you put all of the files in to a folder so that people can just download 1 folder and move it to the sd to make things easier ? anyway thank you again i have enjoyed using your guide, Modding the wii u is a very good bonding tool for me and my son. He say thanks too.
Thanks for using the guide and feedback! I will look into adding a section about USB helper at some point. I cannot deny it’s usefulness!
Enjoy!
It is a nice tutorial and i understand many things. Can you please make a tutorial about how to install vwii backup forwarder on the vwii menu using wiigsc or crap software?
This all really helped me set up our new wii u! Quick question, in part one you said we would have the ability to use third party controllers and even the switch pro controller with the wii U, I couldn’t find anything in your guide about that.
Ah yes, looks like I forgot to touch on that! i’ll add that to the guide shortly.
You need a homebrew called HID to Vpad
https://wiiubrew.org/wiki/HID_to_VPAD
Check it out!
Hi, many thanks for doing this guide. I’ve successfully managed to mod the WiiU and load WiiU, Wii and Gamecube games onto it. All working well and the WiiU has a new lease of life!
One problem though; I can’t get DS games to run on it. I can load them onto the WiiU but just get a blank screen and I have to unplug the WiiU to shut it down. I haven’t tried the NES games etc as I don’t have any backups of them.
I’ve followed your guide and used v1.3 of UWUVCI as rather than the new version 2 of it. As I was having issues with games not loading I decided to do exactly what you did and used the Zelda game as the base and injected the Resident Evil game. As per your guide I didn’t load any images just in case it was that causing the issues but no luck I’m afraid. Even with doing exactly what your guide says I just end up with a black screen.
Any input would be appreciated.
Many thanks
TonyG
Very strange! Try the 2.0 version. Seems more streamlined.
What game are you trying to install? I will see if I run into any problems on this end.
I found many NES roms don’t work and the ones that do looks VERY soft and not very sharp or good. Have you experienced this? SNES games seem ok, but the NES emulator the Wii U uses seems not very good, particularly compared to the NES Classic. Maybe Retroarch on the Wii U is better way to go for NES games. Thoughts?
I’ve had a couple have a few graphical issues.
Retroarch will have no problem running NES on the Wii U.
Also, with Retroarch, you’ll notice the inage will be a lot brighter. For some reason Nintendo put some kind of dimming filter over the games.
Yes, I see. I only wanted to inject them because I like launching them from the home Wii U menu and going through retroarch wouldn’t allow that (i don’t believe, anyway). Do you know if there is an NES injector that removes the dark filter, like the N64 injectors has?
hmm not that I am aware of. I will have a look and ses if I can find any solution for you.
I just used retroarch for NES. The emulation is so much better. But the virtual console is great for everything else. I set up an N64 emulator (wii64 Rice) for the few Rare titles that the virtual console couldnt do, and that pretty much covers everything. Thanks so much for all the help. You’ve done a great thing here!
thanks for your tips! I’m glad you found my guide useful 🙂
Great guides, they’ve really helped,it avoids all the old info swimming around out there.Would you consider or be able to tell us how to install and run Retroarch as well as cover what it can and can’t do? The above methods for injecting games are great for ease of use but for my large retro back up collection the 300 channel limit is an issue and its more preferable to have it as a searchable list etc although i realise it does have issues with taking awhile to load. i’m drowning in a sea of old misleading information based on early wii u modding that no longer applies so i’d appreciate the aid.
Thanks
Hello,
I am glad your have found my guides helpful! In regards to Retroarch, this is something I have been meaning to cover! I will be putting something together very soon.
hi…sorry to trouble you, i have done all the steps and all was perfect, however my baby son has managed to now bypass altogether the loading of the wii u?, it boots straight into the wii, (and wont let me switch back to wii u, from the wii page?) when the wii u is first switched on, i can see that it boots up (black screen with white writing in the top left), he somehow managed to get into that boot up screen and change an option or two, would you know how i get into the boot up screen, from the wii u gamepad,so i can play with the options? and try to get the wii u back?, any help appreciated, thanks
Hi Marc,
Change autoboot (the last option) to System Menu, this should solve your problem. Let me know how you get on!
Thanks Greg, how do i get into the bit where i can change that?, I dont know how the little bugger got in there?, do i need to press something on the gamepad when i see the black screen with the white writing? when the system is first turned on?, thanks millions
Press the home button while it says autobooting and should be put into CBHC’s Menu
Hi great guide is there anyway to revert the wii u back to its original state if I wanted to resell it?
Thanks
Thanks so much for this guide. Everything else I’ve found online is a bit confusing to follow. The added screenshots here really helped out, so thanks again!
Do the vwii backups take up wiiU menu items if you use the same drive and do the forwarding? So is the 300 item limit split between vwii and wiiU items if you do this method?
Hi Greg,
Will you support tirasmu in the near future or .. ?
I’ve just installed Tiramisu and updated the guide 🙂
Very Nice !
Keep on going strong this blog.
Gracia and byebye !
Hey there,
could you update this part of the guide to include the newer UWUVCI Version? The version shown here is not supported anymore.
Regards,
Frank
Thanks for letting me know! Working on it now 🙂
Hello thank you for this guide really helped just wondering though when I load up NES, SNES, N64 or NDS games they all come up with a black screen and white writing with an error about the USB storage problem and to check the USB, but my Wii and Gamecube games work. Any thoughts or solutions for that? If I did anything wrong.
Hello!
thank you very much for this awesome guide! i am discovering the wii u its an amazing console!