Homebrew postLoader4

[stfour]

The ONLY other thing I could think of that would possible be missing in order to make postloader under NEEK the ultimate WiiWare/VC launcher would be an option to force a return to postloader instead of the system menu when exitting Wiiware/VC.

Any thoughts?

You could use scooby method to fully replace system menu.

http://gbatemp.net/topic/299384-postloader2/page__view__findpost__p__3914820

When wiiload implementation will be complete (fiew days, I hope) I will give a look on how uid.sys works...

 

[obcd]

An entry in uid.sys is automatically recreated when a vc/wiiware is launched. The entries are probably needed for the game to find the location of the gamesaves.
If neek is having problems with a nand with a lot of channels installed, than this could be a bug in the neek code. Neek creates a channelcache.bin bin with the installed channels.
Something could perhaps go wrong during that proces?
A workaround in the uid.sys is good to speedup the return to the system menu, but fixing the bug would be a better solution.
Before you launch a channel, you need to recreate the entry in uid.sys before you launch it to prevent the automatically creation of a new one.
You can simply change it's contents to prevent it from reappearing on the system menu. You don't really need to delete it in the uid.sys.
If you do it that way, the channels won't have problems to find their saves. .

 

[zfa]

@obcd:

Thanks for that info - unfortunately there seems to be a few open issues on the NEEK googlecode site RE 'black screen' on bootup which is the symptom here. I guess I could raise it again but the others aren't really be worked from what I can see. It clearly looks like a NEEK issue to me but I suppose that seeing as the real system menu fails with > 48 channels there might be an argument for the NEEK guys not fixing it in any case. It is obviously an uncaught error as I've even left my Wii on building this cache (hundred odd titles) for over three days and it never moved on form the initial blackscreen. I think that should be long enough for channelcache.bin to be made!!

Anyway, as the uid.sys entry is recreated on launching the title presumably there's no harm in deleting it, knowing it will be recreated on the subsequent launch? I am guessing, though, as I've not checked if the previous savegames work when a title's entry has been deleted and then recreated by relaunching. If I get time I'll check it out, that is assuming that stfour would be interested in having uid.sys management in place. To be honest, even though getting SNEEK fixed is probably a better solution, just the fact that the SNEEK startup speeds are optimized under this 'clean' uid.sys might make it worthwhile. Anyway, it's just a thought but I'll leave it up to the guys who actually know what they're talking about!!

 

[GartimusPrime]

now I am really confused...this time I made a nand from my bootmii dump, I installed all my channel to it and by golly it loaded....however it does not see ANY channels, it is a blank system menu. And when I go into postloader to rebuild cache it says no titles found. When I check on my pc with showmiiwads, all the titles ARE there and the nand reflects the size that it should be....WTF!!!

 

[obcd]

As you could see in my previous post, I am not against the implementation of that feature.

Black screen upon bootup in neek can be caused by many issues, not only the fact there are more than 48 channels installed.

Anyway, as the uid.sys entry is recreated on launching the title presumably there's no harm in deleting it, knowing it will be recreated on the subsequent launch?

I was trying to explain why deleting isn't a good approach. Changing them so that they can be restored later is a better one. It will function alike, but you will keep your acces to your gamesaves.

 

[zfa]

@obcd:

OK I understand - I just wasn't sure if having the entries in the uid.sys but in some way 'hidden' from the system menu would allow the NEEK environment to still run once it got too large. I guess I should give it the benefit of the doubt.

 

[stfour]

As you could see in my previous post, I am not against the implementation of that feature.

Black screen upon bootup in neek can be caused by many issues, not only the fact there are more than 48 channels installed.

Anyway, as the uid.sys entry is recreated on launching the title presumably there's no harm in deleting it, knowing it will be recreated on the subsequent launch?

I was trying to explain why deleting isn't a good approach. Changing them so that they can be restored later is a better one. It will function alike, but you will keep your acces to your gamesaves.

I have the idea that last neek versions has broken compatibility with some wiiware... and maybe some vc. I've done a lot of testing with v155 (if I'm not wrong) without any problems. With 168 i've found problems with more than one titles. But I have actually not time to check again with old versions.

 

[obcd]

Now I am getting confused.
Is the problem the number of installed channels exceeding 48, Is it having very much channels on the emulated nand, or is it a problem with some of the channels and not with others.
You can find in the neek changes when the channelcache.bin was first introduced. It wouldn't suprise me that it wasn't there yet in rev. 155.
It comes together with the channel launching option in the neek overlay menu.

 

[madhartigan]

So, at this point, having multiple nands with different VC/WiiWare loaded on each is the only possible way to run postloader2 with >47 SM channels?

For right now, I'm just looking for the best solution to be able to utilize my USB drive to store the multiple VC/WiiWare (more than the 48 channel limitation) and Wii games I have.


Based on the software available right now, what is the best set up to support that need.

I had thought postloader2 would do the job, but it seems like this channel limitation thing is going to (for now) rule it out as an option.


I'm going to check out that link about the scooby method and replacing the whole menu, but any help with getting me set up to be able to use this USB drive would be appreciated. I've gotten to the point of UNEEK+DI loading postloader2, but I'm stuck re: what to do next so I can access all the VC/WiiWare games.

TIA (again) to anyone who can help.


ADD: In the scooby post linked by stfour for the SM replacement option (this thread) stfour mentions that " if gartimus is using uneek, usb hdd is obviously not visible." Does that mean that when you're using postloader2 in the UNEEK+DI environment, it's unable to see the USB drive? Is this a temporary thing? I was under the impression that the Readmii encouraged that option (UNEEK+DI+postloader2) as the best setup.



God this is getting confusing.

 

[stfour]

If you use ciosx nand emulation there is no channel limit (or better, pl2 limit to 1024 titles)

Under neek, I need to check again... but if there is a limitation it isn't from pl...

 

[madhartigan]

What is ciosx nand emulation?

if pl2 only limits to 1024 titles, than that should be enough, I think.


Maybe my problem isn't due to too many titles in my nand then. I thought, with all this discussion that's going on about channel limitations, that that was my problem.

 

[obcd]

ciosx nand emulation is using VC / Wiiware on an emulated nand using a d2x cios. It means that you don't use neek, and the system is still running your real nand.

So, basically, you can launch VC - Wiiware that is installed on your real nand (limited to the size of your real nand = 512MB)
You can launch VC - Wiiware on an emulated nand using the rev. 21 d2x waninkoko cios.
You can launch VC - Wiiware on a neek nand. neek will boot the Wii from that nand as well. So it can be a nand of a different region.

Apparently due to a bug in neek, the number of allowed channels / wiiware on a .neek nand are limited.
On uneek + di, the usb disk is accessed by the uneek es as it is looking for the nand on it. Due to that, a homebrew application is unable to access the usb drive at the same time.
There is a solution for that, but the homebrew applications need to be made uneek compatible for it to work.

The hermes cios had an option to load VC/Wiiware as well. I think only hermes uloader is able to use that feature.

I hope I haven't made things "more confusing" for you.

 

[madhartigan]

That slightly clears things up. But I'm still left wondering what solution I should use.

I'm kind of looking for an "optimal configuration" suggestion so I have something to aim for.


Right now I feel like I'm striving to get something functioning and I don't even know if it's going to be the solution for what I need.

 

[stfour]

You can easily try nand emulation. Just select your nand path in postloader (in real nand) and refresh the cache. I prefer this configuration than working with neek.

 

[madhartigan]

So the answer to the question I asked in this post. . .

Now that I think about it, what's to stop me from just skipping the whole concept of NEEK and just use postloader to run the large nand it detects on my USB drive? If (S)UNEEK has trouble with >12 channels, why not skip (S)UNEEK altogether?

If I run postloader2 based on the "(B) Real Wii: priiloader extension via priibooter (ios 249 required)", shouldn't I be able to point postloader2 to the "large" single nand that I have on my USB drive and thereby have no need for NEEK at all? Postloader2 will run my VC/WiiWare titles and I can use WiiFlow or CFG-USBLoader for my Wii titles. Am I confusing the functionality of (S)UNEEK and postloader2?

would be "Yes!"?



EDIT: Well, I've tried this and so far the channels are appearing in pl2. I just don't know how many of them will load flawlessly and have no save game issues.

 

[madhartigan]

Does the time it takes showmiiwads to load on your PC increase proportionally with the size of the nand?

 

[DEFIANT]

In reply to the queries regarding number of titles in a SNEEK NAND I've done a bit of testing... even if NEEK is booting directly into postloader (via priiloader's auto-boot) it will NOT play nicely with more channels than the system menu allows (48).

Now, you can use that UID manager java app to strip titles out of the uid.sys whilst leaving them in your emu NAND and get postloader working with LOTS of titles in the emu NAND perfectly. As postloader 'finds' the titles itself you DON'T need them in the uid.sys anyway and it all works really well. However, on launching a title via postloader under NEEK it seems to add it into the uid.sys (maybe this has to happen so that the game can be launched). There will come a time, therefore, when your uid.sys will gradually fill up to >48 titles and I suspect that at that time the NEEK environment will stop loading. Is it worth possibly adding an option to postloader under NEEK (and only under NEEK!) to say 'clean' the uid.sys of the last title launched on it's startup? I assume this could leverage the code used to 'remember' the last launch titled with the microsneek functionality (where it was used to copy saved games out of microsneek and back into the emu NAND). If this was implemented then postloader would 'just work' under NEEK providing you get the uid.sys cleaned up initially. One big fat NAND. As many channels as you want. No ongoing maintenance.

The ONLY other thing I could think of that would possible be missing in order to make postloader under NEEK the ultimate WiiWare/VC launcher would be an option to force a return to postloader instead of the system menu when exitting Wiiware/VC.

Any thoughts?

I like this. *presses like button*
oh wait ...not facebook...

 

[FIX94]

Hi stfour, I really like postloader, I think about to replace the system menu with it now, but there is one thing missing, the possibility to boot the homebrew channel. I still need it to send dol files directly to the wii via network, but for some reason I can't find some option to boot it...

 

[stfour]

I have very little time in these days, but dol/elf (also packet) over network (wiiload) is almost complete. I'm actually working on zip file to directly install homebrews applications. Implementing this is causing a lot of rewrite of fs routines to make code more simple and readable. I doesn't want to release an intermediate version

 

[FIX94]

Wow that sounds amazing! With this feature there is really no need for HBC at all anymore