Hacking GenplusGX 2D Box Art Mod!

[cagerhager]

sorry to bug im on the genplus on the wii but i downloded the boot_16x9.dol file renamed it to boot.dol put it in the apps genplus folder but all the cover art is in the cartridge the cover could anyone help me out on how to replace the generic cartridge to the cove art it be greatly appreciated

Are you on Wii or vWii?

 

[portugeek]

sorry to bug im on the genplus on the wii but i downloded the boot_16x9.dol file renamed it to boot.dol put it in the apps genplus folder but all the cover art is in the cartridge the cover could anyone help me out on how to replace the generic cartridge to the cove art it be greatly appreciated

Sounds like your system may be booting an incorrect boot.dol file from an alternate location.

With this file you won't ever see cartridges in the coverart region of the games list. The original placeholder cart images have been removed from the file. All you should see is a SEGA logo if the coverart isn't displaying properly.

Please verify your actual boot location of your genplus app.

 

[Escalade68]

Are you on Wii or vWii?

im on the actual wii

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Sounds like your system may be booting an incorrect boot.dol file from an alternate location.

With this file you won't ever see cartridges in the coverart region of the games list. The original placeholder cart images have been removed from the file. All you should see is a SEGA logo if the coverart isn't displaying properly.

Please verify your actual boot location of your genplus app.

im actually not sure what im suppose to do i downloaded genplus and ran it on the wii then i downloaded the 9x16 dol and renamed it boot.dol and replaced the file of the same name in the apps/genplus folder where the meta and icon files are located

 

[portugeek]

im actually not sure what im suppose to do i downloaded genplus and ran it on the wii then i downloaded the 9x16 dol and renamed it boot.dol and replaced the file of the same name in the apps/genplus folder where the meta and icon files are located

What you're doing is correct. But I'm unsure of how you modded your Wii.

You may unknowingly be booting a dol from a different location.

Are you trying to boot into genplus using a Channel Forwarder icon on the Wii's main menu, or are you booting into The Homebrew Channel first then selecting the Genplus app?

Try running Genplus from The Homebrew Channel and see if it works that way.

 

[Escalade68]

What you're doing is correct. But I'm unsure of how you modded your Wii.

You may unknowingly be booting a dol from a different location.

Are you trying to boot into genplus using a Channel Forwarder icon on the Wii's main menu, or are you booting into The Homebrew Channel first then selecting the Genplus app?

Try running Genplus from The Homebrew Channel and see if it works that way.

ok so i followed your suggestion but when i load from the fowarder it goes back to the art being in the cartridge i know someone in earlier in the post had the same issues any ideas

 

[portugeek]

ok so i followed your suggestion but when i load from the fowarder it goes back to the art being in the cartridge i know someone in earlier in the post had the same issues any ideas

I'm guessing that when you booted through The Homebrew Channel everything worked as it should?

If yes, then you have, what I'm going to call, a "bad" forwarder.

Channel Forwarders are supposed to be nothing more than simple shortcuts for your homebrew. They're typically created to point at specific boot.dol locations, similar to how a desktop shortcut points to its corresponding .exe file.

Along the way, some people started making Forwarders with the actual boot.dol packed into the Forwarder. This would essentially make the Forwarder fool proof, since it didn't need to look for the boot.dol in any specific directory, the boot.dol was already part of the forwarder, so it would boot up every time.

The obvious problem with this kind of Channel Forwarder is that popular Homebrew apps would receive regular updates, and you can't just update the boot.dol in the Forwarder. At least not as easily as simply dragging and dropping an updated boot.dol into your SD card.

You essentially have two different versions of Genplus on your Wii right now. The one in the SD card, and the one that was packed into the Channel Forwarder.

Looks like you need a different forwarder.

 

[Escalade68]

I'm guessing that when you booted through The Homebrew Channel everything worked as it should?

If yes, then you have, what I'm going to call, a "bad" forwarder.

Channel Forwarders are supposed to be nothing more than simple shortcuts for your homebrew. They're typically created to point at specific boot.dol locations, similar to how a desktop shortcut points to its corresponding .exe file.

Along the way, some people started making Forwarders with the actual boot.dol packed into the Forwarder. This would essentially make the Forwarder fool proof, since it didn't need to look for the boot.dol in any specific directory, the boot.dol was already part of the forwarder, so it would boot up every time.

The obvious problem with this kind of Channel Forwarder is that popular Homebrew apps would receive regular updates, and you can't just update the boot.dol in the Forwarder. At least not as easily as simply dragging and dropping an updated boot.dol into your SD card.

You essentially have two different versions of Genplus on your Wii right now. The one in the SD card, and the one that was packed into the Channel Forwarder.

Looks like you need a different forwarder.

thank you so much i copied the wad of the forwarder then deleted it from the wii menu and edited it on customizemii to load yalls boot.dol and it worked thank you so much i really appreciate the help

 

[GhaleonX]

Thanks for your hard work on this excellent mod! I've got my Genesis and SG-1000 titles showing cover art properly. Unfortunately I can't get Game Gear, Master System, nor CD artwork to display. I've made sure names match properly, they're in the right directories, they're all png format, I've tried resizing them to no avail. Not sure what I'm missing, I've downloaded at least 3 different art packs to try. The Genesis ones are the 3D covers (front and spine) and SG-1000 are 2d/Front only, so it doesn't seem to be picky about which art type it can display in that regard. I'm out of ideas to try, myself. Any suggestions?

 

[KyleK87]

None of my Game Gear pics are appearing either

 

[KyleK87]

Ok i got it working by resizing all my pics and making them 32 bits but when I change folders or go to load a different game for whatever reason the images will just not be shown just the sega logo :/

 

[KyleK87]

Now it works fine except none of my master system art is showing lol both game gear and Genesis work so thanks any advice?

 

[portugeek]

Thanks for your hard work on this excellent mod! I've got my Genesis and SG-1000 titles showing cover art properly. Unfortunately I can't get Game Gear, Master System, nor CD artwork to display. I've made sure names match properly, they're in the right directories, they're all png format, I've tried resizing them to no avail. Not sure what I'm missing, I've downloaded at least 3 different art packs to try. The Genesis ones are the 3D covers (front and spine) and SG-1000 are 2d/Front only, so it doesn't seem to be picky about which art type it can display in that regard. I'm out of ideas to try, myself. Any suggestions?

Sorry for the late response. I don't visit as often as I used to.

It's important to realize that it doesn't matter whats displayed on the artwork. (3D, spine, flat, don't matter) What IS important is how the artwork is saved. All PNG files need to have a 32bit color depth. They also need to have a specific resolution. I was able to get an image resolution of 180x248 to work pretty successfully. I was also able to get a double resolution of 360x496 to work. And though these covers look cleaner, at this increased resolution, they also load slower because of the increased file size.

Which ultimately may end up limiting how many roms you can have per folder when using covers saved at higher resolutions. Genplus "can" handle long game lists, but if I recall correctly the Wiis memory isn't able to cache all the larger artwork files simultaneously.

So, when using a bunch of higher res images, you either get slower scrolling, missing images, or even no images at all.

Now it works fine except none of my master system art is showing lol both game gear and Genesis work so thanks any advice?

I'd say make sure my suggestions above have all been considered. Then try testing with a limited amount of files at first. Also, another quick test is to take one of your working Genesis covers and simply name it after one of your master system games. Then place that renamed cover in the Master System folder. If the cover displays when you select your specific MS game, then you know it's an issue with your MS cover set. If it doesn't work, and it should, then I'm out of ideas, because that's not how this emulator works.

It's simply looking for artwork (any artwork) that meets certain file criteria, and associates it with whichever rom shares the same name.


Hope I was able to help.

 

[KyleK87]

I used fatmatch to match games to artwork and xnconvert to change the file resolution and color depth which worked for genesis and game gear but I may have to find different artwork for ms art because it keeps changing to a resolution that I guess is not supported but those 2 programs are key for anyone looking to do this on a large scale at once again thanks for your work I wonder if this could be done for not64

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***Update using xnconvert, I was able to fix the artwork issue by unchecking keep ratio*** All is working now Thanks so much and hopefully FatMatch and XnConvert are able to help people with modding their wii's Thanks again!

 

[Dubya]

Where can I find a collection of all these cover art in 180x248?

Besides the 3D Master System collection that Mastershoe posted on here I couldn't find any more.

Thanks

 

[JJWrekinCrew]

Where can I find a collection of all these cover art in 180x248?

Besides the 3D Master System collection that Mastershoe posted on here I couldn't find any more.

Thanks

I found a collection of 2D Genesis/Mega Drive box art. The only problem is you have to convert them to 180x248, 32 bit depth yourself. If you dont have adobe you can use png online converters. Thats how i was able to do mine.

just google Genesis 2D Box Pack and you should come across a website called emumovies. I cant post the link since im new but i hope this helps.

 

[VentRhythm]

Portugeek, this mod is great. I tried it out yesterday and it looks fantastic. I am really big into presentation and i love cover art on emulators. I couldn't seem to get .chd files to load for sega cd. I was wondering if you, or anyone else, was able to compile an updated version with gamepad support or chd support (i tried myself but have no experience with coding --- for the life of me I couldn't figure out devkitpro). Thanks for all of your hard work!

 

[KyleK87]

Sorry for the late response. I don't visit as often as I used to.

It's important to realize that it doesn't matter whats displayed on the artwork. (3D, spine, flat, don't matter) What IS important is how the artwork is saved. All PNG files need to have a 32bit color depth. They also need to have a specific resolution. I was able to get an image resolution of 180x248 to work pretty successfully. I was also able to get a double resolution of 360x496 to work. And though these covers look cleaner, at this increased resolution, they also load slower because of the increased file size.

Which ultimately may end up limiting how many roms you can have per folder when using covers saved at higher resolutions. Genplus "can" handle long game lists, but if I recall correctly the Wiis memory isn't able to cache all the larger artwork files simultaneously.

So, when using a bunch of higher res images, you either get slower scrolling, missing images, or even no images at all.



I'd say make sure my suggestions above have all been considered. Then try testing with a limited amount of files at first. Also, another quick test is to take one of your working Genesis covers and simply name it after one of your master system games. Then place that renamed cover in the Master System folder. If the cover displays when you select your specific MS game, then you know it's an issue with your MS cover set. If it doesn't work, and it should, then I'm out of ideas, because that's not how this emulator works.

It's simply looking for artwork (any artwork) that meets certain file criteria, and associates it with whichever rom shares the same name.


Hope I was able to help.

Thanks so much again! Any way to use the cover mod on the newest version? Cheers

 

[SaulFabre]

Thanks so much again! Any way to use the cover mod on the newest version? Cheers

For use the cover mod in the latest Genesis Plus GX, somebody needs to get the source code for the cover mod of Genesis Plus GX, modify the code of original Genesis Plus GX in a fork in GitHub for add that cover mod, and recompile it.

 

[KyleK87]

For use the cover mod in the latest Genesis Plus GX, somebody needs to get the source code for the cover mod of Genesis Plus GX, modify the code of original Genesis Plus GX in a fork in GitHub for add that cover mod, and recompile it.

Oh okay that sounds like a LOT of work lol was hoping it was just a quick fix. I was just finding a lot of crashes in the earlier emulator so I updated and now having the game box pictures stuffed inside the cartridges looks very crammed and tiny. Not sure why it would be displayed this way when VBA, NES and SNES all have the full pictures to the side. I mean there should at least be an option to change views?

 

[SaulFabre]

Oh okay that sounds like a LOT of work lol was hoping it was just a quick fix. I was just finding a lot of crashes in the earlier emulator so I updated and now having the game box pictures stuffed inside the cartridges looks very crammed and tiny. Not sure why it would be displayed this way when VBA, NES and SNES all have the full pictures to the side. I mean there should at least be an option to change views?

@KyleK87

Could you test these builds of Genesis Plus GX with the Cover Mod? I've taken the latest source code from GitHub with the latest changes and improvements from eke-eke, have put the source code of the Cover Mod made by @portugeek and compiled it with latest devKitPPC and libogc and other required Wii libraries.
These are still untested (I can't test them right now) but these should work.

In this link: https://github.com/saulfabregwiivc/Genesis-Plus-GX/tree/master/builds

Hope these work for you

Speaking of VBA-GX, FCEUGX, Snes9xGX i don't think so. Maybe someone can help with that? I just don't know