Article Source¶
- Reddit Article
- Author: u/WiiExpertise
Why Run Burned Games?¶
There are quite a few people out there who inquire about running burned DVDs on a Wii. I wanted to address it because it’s not a simple yes or no situation.
Can it be done?¶
Maybe. This depends on the disc drive in your Wii. If your Wii is a black or red RVL-001 Wii (with gamecube ports) or any RVL-101 Wii (no gamecube ports) or an RVL-201 (Wii Mini), the answer is no, you cannot run burned discs, unless you swap in a compatible disc drive.
That leaves us with the white RVL-001, the original Wii that most people are familiar with. In order to know if yours is compatible, the easiest way is to download the homebrew app WiiMC, insert a movie DVD or something, and see if WiiMC will play it. If it plays, the drive is compatible. If you get an error saying it’s not compatible, the drive is incompatible.
With the exception of the Wii Mini, disc drives can be swapped between Wiis, so if you really need the ability to run DVDs and you have an incompatible drive, all you have to do is find a compatible one.
Should it be done?¶
No. It shouldn’t. Wii Optical Discs (which are different from your standard DVD) have a lower read speed than DVDs, and the Wii disc drive is built accordingly. Therefore, using a standard DVD will put more stress on the disc drive due to the higher read speeds, which means the drive will wear out sooner. USB loading works better anyway, so there’s no real reason to use DVDs on the Wii.
How is it done?¶
For loading games burned to DVD, there are a few options:
- You could get a modchip, which allows you to play DVDs on the System Menu as if they were a real disc. However, these are not that easy to come by nowadays, and many require soldering.
- You could use a DVD backup loader such as NeoGamma
- If you want to load them from the System Menu like a normal Wii disc without a modchip, I made a separate tutorial for that which you can find here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WiiHacks/comments/g8q31p/the_quest_to_run_burned_disc_games_directly_from/
For loading movies and other entertainment from a DVD, the easiest option is using WiiMC.
Outro¶
So, to summarize it all
Can you? - Maybe, depends on the Wii
Should you? - No, definitely not
How do you do it? - A variety of softmods and/or hardmods