Loading Files Over the Internet

Along with loading files from the devices connected to the Wii's ports, Riivolution also supports loading files from the Internet, be it the local network or a server on the other side of Earth. This is achieved using RiiFS, a simple custom network protocol that allows a computer to act like a disk filesystem. As you can imagine, this makes testing a lot quicker by removing the need to restart the game to change files, but it also can be used to share mods publicly without having people download them.

Requirements

 * Wii connected to the Internet
 * RiiFS

Setting up the RiiFS folder
First of all, you need to set up a folder that RiiFS will use. It can be on your personal computer or on a remote server, as long as you can run the tool on it. It basically emulates an SD Card inside the Wii, so the folder must contain the following:
 * The mod files
 * The  folder with the XML file you want to use
 * The RiiFS executable (pick the one for your OS from the archive)

The final folder setup should look like the following:



Tweaking the XML
First and foremost, XMLs with  tags will not load properly, so those tags must be removed and the paths adjusted to account for it (more details about XML files here).

Secondly, in order to edit files without having to restart the console, the modified files must be the same size (or less) than the ones the game was loaded with, else the game will crash. To avoid having issues altogether, it's highly recommended to set a length parameter in the XML tags. If this parameter is set bigger than a file's actual size, Riivolution will add null data until the specified filesize is reached. This allows to edit the file without worrying about crashing the Wii. Using the Basic XML from this tutorial as an example, the resulting file would be:

Here, the specified length is 500 KB (500000 bytes) for levels and 1 MB (1000000 bytes) for tilesets, which should cover most usage cases.

Linking Riivolution and RiiFS
If you are using RiiFS on a local network, skip this paragraph.

After configuring the folders and eventually setting the filesizes, it is time to link the server to the Wii. This is done through yet another XML, albeit a special one:

 

Copy the above into a new file, replace  with your server's IP address (make sure to point to the correct path) or domain name (do not forget the   in front), change the port if you want to (it'll default to 1137 otherwise) and set   to   if you want to redirect debug messages to the terminal. Once done, save the file and place it on the SD Card/USB Drive, which will then go into the console.

Starting RiiFS
Double click the application to launch it. If there's any prompt from the firewall, allow access. The terminal will look like this:



You can now start Riivolution and begin playing (or testing). If at any point you get, it means your version of Riivolution is outdated.

Misc Tips
You can also make a small script to make starting RiiFS quicker: riifs.exe PATH PORT Replace  with the folder made in the first paragraph and   with the port (or delete it to leave it as default).

        

