Hacking Acekard 2 Loader 4.08

[heyyouguys]

ok, thanks.

I don't know why they would bother releasing such a miner release

Excuse my ignorance on this, but what is minor about this? Are they using all of bliss' OS? And i am using Bliss' last release, should i stick with it or go to this for now?

 

[Normmatt]

This uses all of Bliss' firmware and uses the latest official rom loader

 

[seren]

ok, thanks.

I don't know why they would bother releasing such a miner release

Excuse my ignorance on this, but what is minor about this? Are they using all of bliss' OS? And i am using Bliss' last release, should i stick with it or go to this for now?

My comment about it being a minor release was referring to the AKRPG. If they were to release what Normatt hinted, it would merely be the latest Bliss firmware with a DQ5 patch.

The AK2 release looks to inherit all of Bliss' code minus the external loader feature. You could continue to use Bliss' release and this as an external loader for the problematic games.

 

[Normmatt]

ok, thanks.

I don't know why they would bother releasing such a miner release

Excuse my ignorance on this, but what is minor about this? Are they using all of bliss' OS? And i am using Bliss' last release, should i stick with it or go to this for now?

My comment about it being a minor release was referring to the AKRPG. If they were to release what Normatt hinted, it would merely be the latest Bliss firmware with a DQ5 patch.

The AK2 release looks to inherit all of Bliss' code minus the external loader feature. You could continue to use Bliss' release and this as an external loader for the problematic games.

hinted??!?!?!?!? I know for certain the only new thing in the akrpg loader is the DQ5 fix, and Bliss' gui. I helped them with merging

 

[seren]

ok! I'm sorry. My deepest apologies

 

[dib]

The potential problem here is that they're incorporating code from a now defunct loader that is different from what AIO is using at this point. So even if they were to cooperate with AIO in the future to implement new functions, it's just going to require yet another rewrite. I'm baffled over this decision, didn't anybody tell them Bliss quit?

 

[Smiths]

this was their little "appeal" for bliss.

fucker never even embraced my "More" concept on the start menu.

 

[dib]

Well the politics of it are outside my scope. I'm simply concerned that this is a step away from an orderly effort to provide an improved experience for Acekard customers, same as when they decided to keep the AK2 and RPG loaders seperate. If they had developed+managed a unified loader from the beginning, life would be much simpler.

Where this is concerned, I'm glad that they finally put the effort forward to recognize that hard work is going into the third party loaders which is in demand among users. Yet the fact remains that Bliss' loader is defunct, and AIO is the current one being maintained and improved. Ergo you're the one to approach about adding functionality. It just seems to show short sightedness on their part, and if they have a differing perspective then I'm at a loss to conceive it.

 

[dib]

doublepost

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

I tried the 4.08 but it isn't all that great. It's better than 4.07 but still not as good as AIO 1.1r2. It doesn't have all the options of AIO. The only thing I like about the official firmware is that it loads faster than AIO but that's it.

I recommend staying/switching to AIO 1.1r2.

 

[Smiths]

AIO slowness in large dirs now i think is mainly the per-file icons that was added. basically each time you enter a dir it has to scan for BMP files... and get their filename. then it scans all the files in the dir to look for a match to the BMP file name.

i never said the idea was practical for large dirs, but it is one that people requested.

similar to remembering the file list view when you hit "Select". that's now in.

 

[Bri]

Well the politics of it are outside my scope. I'm simply concerned that this is a step away from an orderly effort to provide an improved experience for Acekard customers, same as when they decided to keep the AK2 and RPG loaders seperate. If they had developed+managed a unified loader from the beginning, life would be much simpler.

Where this is concerned, I'm glad that they finally put the effort forward to recognize that hard work is going into the third party loaders which is in demand among users. Yet the fact remains that Bliss' loader is defunct, and AIO is the current one being maintained and improved. Ergo you're the one to approach about adding functionality. It just seems to show short sightedness on their part, and if they have a differing perspective then I'm at a loss to conceive it.

Politics aside, I think from Acekard's perspective, the Bliss menu is certainly a vast improvement over the previous official menu. It also seems to be pretty stable.

At the same time, it is highly unlikely that Acekard will adopt AIO as the official menu unless Smiths and Normmatt keep two separate versions, one that is stable and one that includes the less-stable "experimental" features that we all love. Can you imagine thousands of newbie users having the menu recognize their AK2 as an RPG and not run at all, having the cheats freeze up on certain games, or trying the cheat database download and having it freeze up?

Anyway, I will personally continue to use AIO because of the additional features, but I can understand why Acekard might not have adopted AIO as the official menu at this point.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

AIO didn't exist when AK made the decision to use bliss' loader. He was the only one with the AK2 source and a version that worked with their "korean copy protection".

Our version failed to work with their standard. Because we're smelly English types

 

[Bri]

By the way, I don't notice the slowdown when scanning folders with AIO. But I don't have any custom icons in the folder, so maybe that's why (although it presumably still has to scan for the icons even if there aren't any).

Smiths, any chance of moving the "Cheats" button into the "Rom Info" menu? Aesthetically, it would fit in along the bottom of the "Rom Info" menu, but is kind of hanging in the "Properties" menu.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

i just put the cheats into the rom window because people whined.
it's one button to get to them. i won't be putting it in a "Y -> Y -> Cheats" method. use bliss for that shit.

Y-> press with thumb (or hit select in latest build I have). ta-da

 

[Chri5]

akaio is alot better

 

[Bri]

i just put the cheats into the rom window because people whined.
it's one button to get to them. i won't be putting it in a "Y -> Y -> Cheats" method. use bliss for that shit.

Y-> press with thumb (or hit select in latest build I have). ta-da

I guess I'm one of the ones who never understood why it's in the "more" menu at all. Conceptually, it makes sense to have "cheats" in the "properties" window because that's where all operations specific to the selected rom are. It also makes conceptual sense to put it in the "rom info" menu of the rom window because that's where all the settings for the rom are located.

But then again I use the touch screen and stylus to navigate the menu most of the time, so I don't think in terms of how many button presses it takes to get to it. But since you're keeping it in the "more" menu, I'm not sure why it would be an issue to move it into the "rom info" window where it should be rather than floating above the "OK" button in the "properties" window. Anyone concerned about the number of button presses would use the one that's in the "more" menu.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

properties = rom info window.

so i have no clue what the hell you mean by rom info window.

 

[Bri]

You know your software better than I do, but when I select "Properties" from the START menu with a ROM selected I get what I would describe as a "Properties" window (a window that says "Properties" at the top) with four buttons in it: Shortcut, Rom Info, Cheats, and OK.

If I then select the "Rom Info" button while in the aforementioned "Properties" window, I get a different window that I referred to as the "Rom Info" window (so as not to confuse it with the "Properties" window even though it also says "Properties" at the top).

True enough, some renaming of the buttons and/or windows might be in order since clicking "Properties" from the START menu actually shows you the ROM info, whereas the "Rom Info" button actually lets you set the properties of the ROM.

That clarified, my point was that it makes a lot more sense to put the "Cheats" button on the "Rom Info" window rather than the "Properties" window since 1) it will fit between the "Slot Copy" and "OK" buttons in the "Rom Info" window, 2) it makes better conceptual sense, and 3) if you're concerned about the number of button presses it takes to get to the cheats, you have the same functionality in the "more" menu.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

nope. not changing it. that's a bliss level of accessibility. why should i need to go into the full options to enable cheats?
it's basically M3 Simply style now. select a rom, if it has cheats, a button appears. ta-da.
the start menu item only exists now for the total manual going into a window if the auto-DAT function doesn't work right, or if you have an XML file selected as your cheat DB.