Hacking Configurable USB Loader

[oggzee]

Hi oggzee ... very hard to analyse ... i did test nearly all versions ...

but ... what MUST be displayed in every version ?

Is there the "counting" of seconds when no hard disc present in every version ? Or a banner telling something without pressing any button.

even in 0.34 there is a black screen on console mode ... after pressing A it tells me something about WBFS in correct letters ... but i think there should be some text without pressing A ... or i'm wrong here ... ?

Yes the countdown is in every version.
note: early versions don't support the latest cios 249, that's why you'll always get that countdown.

But the rest depends on version, later versions display the cfg version and ios used in the intro screen while early versions did not do that. Also, it depends if you have debug=1 enabled or not. and depends if the gui is set to 1 or start.

For example, i get this loading cfg45.dol with debug=1 (using wiiload)

This is the first thing displayed, before the countdown.

 

[FoGBaV]

OK ... thank you very much for that information ...

so ... down to 0.34 ... no font until i press A ... everytime black window ...

i don't know what changed on WII .. but i didn't update or Ciosed or anything else ...

all i did was updating with online updater in usbloader to new version ... strange ...

will test more tommorow ... i'l be back ...8)

Thank you very much for helping in here ...

 

[oggzee]

FoGBaV:

What about the original waninkoko 1.5 usb loader, does that one show up properly?
Maybe i can dig up also the first cfg v1 to test...

 

[Gh0sti]

@ oggzee, with the new forwarder channel which ios do i install it under? do i use yet another wad manager to uninstall the 1st one?

 

[oggzee]

@ oggzee, with the new forwarder channel which ios do i install it under? do i use yet another wad manager to uninstall the 1st one?

i don't know, i think it doesn't matter.

 

[XFlak]

it doesn't ever matter what ios you use to install a wad, if it installs successfully then it worked fine, if not, then u need to pick another ios that has the appropriate permissions, common choices are 236,249,250,222,223,224,202,36,etc.

 

[ThE MaSTeR 3]

just updated from v36 to v60 and was wondering if i can remove the config usb loader boot screen. i'd rather not wait an extra 5 seconds evertime i want to play some games.

 

[dopejack]

thisnis a new one on me. ripped down my copy of metroid other m today. played awhile, shutdown, then the next time i tried to boot cfg, 249 didn't show up o. the load screen, and it fails to mount my drive! takers.

 

[OncleJulien]

just updated from v36 to v60 and was wondering if i can remove the config usb loader boot screen. i'd rather not wait an extra 5 seconds evertime i want to play some games.

then start the loader five seconds earlier than you normally would - the splash screen adds no time to the process.

 

[ThE MaSTeR 3]

just updated from v36 to v60 and was wondering if i can remove the config usb loader boot screen. i'd rather not wait an extra 5 seconds evertime i want to play some games.

then start the loader five seconds earlier than you normally would - the splash screen adds no time to the process.

Thought that might be the case. Well then can I make the splash black instead of the Config usb logo?

 

[iancer]

just updated from v36 to v60 and was wondering if i can remove the config usb loader boot screen. i'd rather not wait an extra 5 seconds evertime i want to play some games.

then start the loader five seconds earlier than you normally would - the splash screen adds no time to the process.

Thought that might be the case. Well then can I make the splash black instead of the Config usb logo?

i sencond this question. i know that CRAP channel creator skips the CFG splash screen, but i have no idea how it use that option with the normal setup. is there a line i should add to config.txt
thanks

 

[ThE MaSTeR 3]

Just timed it. 41b is 3 seconds faster booting (till covers appear) and 3 seconds faster launching games. Looks like I'll be staying with the ancient version. It plays all 150 games I have perfectly besides just dance 2. Has the cant load bigfile error so I thought I would try v60. JD2 works on it but its not worth longer loads and ugly splash so I went back.

 

[oggzee]

Just timed it. 41b is 3 seconds faster booting (till covers appear) and 3 seconds faster launching games. Looks like I'll be staying with the ancient version. It plays all 150 games I have perfectly besides just dance 2. Has the cant load bigfile error so I thought I would try v60. JD2 works on it but its not worth longer loads and ugly splash so I went back.

That's kind of hard to believe. There is no added waiting time while the intro is shown and the game loading code hasn't changed much. So I find it rather weird that it would be 3+3 seconds slower.
Well, the only thing I can think of that might delay startup is the loading of wiitdb.zip, but you can disable that, by just removing wiitdb.zip if you have installed from the full package which includes it. Oh and there's another thing that 41 didn't do before launching a game: loading of banner sounds, but that happens when you select a game, not when you start it.
I would guess the delay you're seeing is more of a perceived delay than an actual one. I have to question also, how did you measure this?
edit: I just remembered other things that might add to boot and load time: ios reloading - if you're using the normal .dol which uses ios 249 but then have an ios=222-mload option in config then the ios gets reloaded and that adds to the boot time. Same for game options, if the ios configured for a specific game is different than the one used by the loader it gets reloaded ...

 

[TyRaNtM]

How can you load banner sounds?
----
Another thing, i reported that with a clean rip of Brawl, you cannot access to Masterpieces, what can be the problem?
----
Also, a idea: Keyboard support. Is simple, you type something and the loader automatically go to what the letters says.
Example: You write: SUPER, and go directly to the first game that have SUPER as a name. Type next MARIO and jump to the first Super Mario game that you have. GALAXY and go to the GALAXY (1) game, type 2 and that's the thing.
Will be useful to a quick access. But, is only a idea to keep in mind.

 

[oggzee]

How can you load banner sounds?

Banner sounds are played when you select a game, if you have confirm_start=1
as for the other questions, i don't know.

 

[Teivin]

Using v60 with IOS 249 Kirby's Epic Yarn seems to hang at the end of the first stage. I also tried with 222-m to similar results.

I'm using a seagate with the disk spindown disabled and it functions just fine with other games, so I'm curious if anyone knows the appropriate IOS needed to run this?

 

[AdamBrunt]

Kirby's Epic Yarn works fine on the latest 222 version of CFG Loader for me. Didn't have to make any option changes either.

 

[oggzee]

Just timed it. 41b is 3 seconds faster booting (till covers appear) and 3 seconds faster launching games. Looks like I'll be staying with the ancient version. It plays all 150 games I have perfectly besides just dance 2. Has the cant load bigfile error so I thought I would try v60. JD2 works on it but its not worth longer loads and ugly splash so I went back.

Ok I was really curious about what are the actual startup times and all the bits that make the time what it is.
So I have modified ver 41 and 60 to print out the startup time if you go into global options and press +
Here are the dols:
http://cfg-loader.googlecode.com/files/cfg41t.dol
http://cfg-loader.googlecode.com/files/cfg60t2.dol

And these are the timings on my wii:
ios=249 partition=WBFS1 app&data on SD, games on USB

cfg 41:

total startup time: 3.216 seconds

cfg v60:

times in seconds:
intro: 0.191
ios1: 0.685
ios2: 0.000
sd_init: 0.109
sd_mount: 0.039
usb_init: 0.361
usb_mount: 0.140
usb_retry: 0.000
wpad: 0.002
cfg: 0.383 (config,settings,titles,theme)
misc: 0.010 (lang,playstat,unifont)
wiitdb: 1.803
gamelist: 0.446
mp3: 0.151
guibg: 0.295
guitheme: 0.489
sum of above: 5.104
total startup: 5.470
uncounted: 0.366

So yes v41 does load faster, but mainly because of wiitdb, which i have suspected would be the culprit in my previous reply.
But if you delete wiitdb one would get: 3.667 seconds of startup time in cfg v60
This is still higher than v41 but only by a very small amount: 0.451
Considering the amount of new features and compatibility improvements in v60 i think less than half a second longer startup time is not a big issue.

 

[FIX94]

this is strange... and you are sure that you don't have a usbloader folder?
if you don't have one, try this:
usbloadercfg - ucxf - ios58 v3.wad (right click - save as)
this forwarder had the same result, still shows app. path: sd:/apps/usbloader
i don't have an apps/usbloader on either sd or usb. definitely doesn't exist.
does it matter that i'm running system menu 4.2e and not 4.3e?

syscheck
ios58 (rev 6175): no patches
ios249 (rev 20): trucha bug nand access usb 2.0

just tried with ios58 (rev 6176) = same results.

I'VE FOUND THE PROBLEM USING THE DEBUG MODE IN CONFIGURABLE USB LOADER!
Line 156, fileop.c:

ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂchar mount[10];
ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂsprintf(mount, "%s%i", prefix[device], *devnum+1);

The +1 is the problem!
I'm now using the line from narolez source modification!
CODE

ÂÂÂÂif(*devnum == 0)
ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂsprintf(mount, "%s", prefix[device]);
ÂÂÂÂelse
ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂsprintf(mount, "%s%i", prefix[device], *devnum);

And it works!
I will upload the new forwarder later!
edit: Here is the new one:
USBLoaderCFG - UCXF - IOS58 v4.wad
(right click - save as)

 

[ThE MaSTeR 3]

yea the slightly longer boot time isnt a big deal. I'm more concerned with hiding the config usb loader splash screen. Also I dont like how games take longer to load


41b - select a game and it goes loading 249 then loads the game 1 second later.

v60 - select a game and it goes loading 249........ ..... .... then loads. 41b only does that extra loading with mload 222 and 223 but v60 does the long load even with the default 249!

also to show how picky I am I'm also annoyed by the slight delay for the games title to display when you click a cover. I do like the music that plays when you select and game and the descriptions. were those addition added before the splash screen??