Talk:Wii USB Loader

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WBFS is not a Wii game format.

WBFS is a file system format, like NTFS or FAT32. WBFS is not a Wii game format. Waninkoko used this when he released the first usb loader. Then came the other usb loaders, like GX, configurable, WiiFlow, uloader, coverfloader, and others. All these usb loaders are based from Waninkoko's usb loader, so that's why the need for WBFS formatted partitions. WBFS is what you format your USB device to to install game to so the usb loader will recognize it. The usb loaders are starting to get away from the WBFS format, I have seen FAT and NTFS loaders as well.

Like mentioned above, all Wii games vary in size. An original retail Wii disc is 4.37GB in size. The people that use mod chips in their Wii must burn a Wii backup disc that is 4.37GB in size or the Wii will not recognize it as a Wii disc, that's why some downloads are 4.37GB in size. When you install an ISO to your WBFS formatted USB HDD, the junk data is removed because USB Loaders do not require an image that is 4.37GB. Games can vary from under 100MB to over 4GB. The word "compressed" really is not correct when talking about Wii games, just because the junk data was removed does not mean the game data has been compressed. Gamecube games are like this too, they can be "shrunken down" to install many games on one disc.

There is a wbfs format

There is a wbfs format and it is supported by Wiibackupmanager beta, it is made for loaders like configurable usb loader. Rather than formatting the whole drive to wbfs you can create a folder called wbfs on a fat32 partition, then install the games in the wbfs format in the folder. Wbfs formatted games are basically the same as cisos and pretty much the same size as scrubbed iso's when they are compressed. I think most people don't use hermes or backup manager beta or intelligent wbfs manager, because they are not as spiffy looking, So that is why most games are still iso's in my opinion.