Hacking AKAIO 1.2 Released

[Smiths]

it uses bmps and i won't be adding any zip skin support. totally counter productive.
esp since we're stetching memory as it is.

Still not sure how you have a lot of stuff set up (are skin files cached into memory on boot or accessed as needed?), but how about an uncompressed package file for skins?

I'd like to reiterate once again, it'd be bloody awesome to see a OS that uses nitro or similar to stow all the loose bits in one single file - seeks should theoretically be faster than per file accesses.

re: BMPs. access as needed.
i don't want to build a "skin packer" that would put specific files at specific locations that the OS would have to look up each time. technically yeah it can be done. but i don't want to do that.

 

[logical thinker]

I updated to 1.2 yesterday. No problems found so far. I can copy/paste/delete from/to the 4GB microSDHC.
I have the AKRPG.

Thanks, Normmatt, Smiths and gelu.

 

[thk]

First, thanks to the author of AKAIO, it's a great firmware.

A couple of remarks though:

- why no homepage ? IMHO, a wiki could make the job easier for beginners by avoiding the same questions again and again and by creating a quick database of games working / non-working.
- could we have some technical specifications about the code ? Which language is it written in, how do you compile, what platform... ? It's a shame the code isn't open-sourced (with the exception of AKBBS), that would bring more developers to the project.

Are you also looking for games that don't work ? I tested Trauma Center 2, and have found a couple of issues with cheat and soft-reset.

 

[dib]

Because wikis are dependent upon widescale interest in order to maintain, otherwise it's just one more irrelevant job for Normmatt+Smiths to handle, and why would they? What is a wiki going to provide that isn't already offered here, and re: compatibility, that's Acekard's responsibility. Go to www.acekard.com and tell them about cheats and soft reset.

Source code is handled in C, along with some asm.

I also wish AIO were OSS just for the fact that it would make it easier to follow along with events. Is it closed because of the AK2 support, or because of the Bliss thing from awhile back?

 

[thk]

Because wikis are dependent upon widescale interest in order to maintain, otherwise it's just one more irrelevant job for Normmatt+Smiths to handle, and why would they? What is a wiki going to provide that isn't already offered here, and re: compatibility, that's Acekard's responsibility. Go to www.acekard.com and tell them about cheats and soft reset.

Actually, I wasn't thinking of Normmatt & Smiths for a wiki, but the AKAIO community over here... I guess that they're already pretty busy working on AKAIO, so I thought it would be a relief for them if support could come from someone else.

 

[VatoLoco]

I just spent around 4 effing hours trying to mod my official Nintendo wifi dongle to a soft-ap.
(with the regular drivers, homebrew wifi is inaccessible).
I failed the first 3 times , then finally I succeeded. WooHoo for me!

Anyhow, the main reason I did this is to be able to use the integrated cheat updater,
and I was able to get the latest database with no probs.

Thanks Smiths y Normmatt for the kewl-ass feature(that I can now use)

 

[Normmatt]

AKRPG:
Dragon Quest V can't get off the ship,but cheat works

AKRPG/AK2:
Per ROM rumble settings not work(I have EZ 3in1)

Dragon Quest V should work as i added the same patch too the AK2 and thats working perfectly. But I'll have to remember to take a look at it and make sure its working properly.

 

[Aerundel]

I guess to clarify what bigwind has said: the per-game rumble feature isn't working properly. It only affects a game if the general rumble setting in the Start menu is changed to anything except "Off". This, in effect, makes the per-game setting useless, as the idea is to activate rumble only when selecting a rumble-enabled game rather than activating it every time you start the DS. Not knowing anything about the code, I would assume that the Start menu both turns on and adjusts the rumble, while the per-game setting only does the latter and doesn't check to see if it's on first.

Other than that, good job. Keep it up.

Edit: I'm looking at the two settings now...I notice that there is a Default option on the per-game side that isn't present in the official/bliss version (that I can remember). Again, not knowing anything about the code, perhaps if this option were removed and left Off as the base option per-game, that would serve as a solution. So I guess there are 2 possibilities causing the problem: either only the Start menu setting can turn rumble on, as I surmised above - or both settings can turn it on, but because the per-game setting assumes there is a default value regardless of whether or not you leave it there (which would be Off if the Start menu setting isn't changed), there's a command conflict.

 

[lurbi]

Update DB works just fine here Thanks

Were are you located??
I guess geographically near to the gbatemp server.

Here in Austria it _ALLWAYS_ throws an error. The maximum amount of data I could download at once was 100 KB.

Smiths says, that cheatup uses a hand made googlepages mirror, which works, because of the geographically spread google servers.

 

[Bri]

I'm in the U.S. and have never been able to successfully update the database so I don't think the problems are all geographic. With the latest version, it hangs immediately on "getwhatsnew". With the previous version, it would hang about halfway through the database download.

BTW, I like Smiths' scrolling cheat descriptions. It would be nice if they scrolled pixel-by-pixel instead of by character, but they work. I also haven't had any problems with the cheats crashing on certain games like I did two versions ago.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

It's really funny where the cheat update stalls for some.
I just used it last night before loading a game and passing out and it worked perfectly.
a GetwhatsNew freeze makes no sense. when it gets whatsnew its actually downloading the whatsnew file, parsing it, then deleting it (trust me, it had to be done this way because of corrupted characters if it's just "streamed" to the window... makes no sense, I know).

Pixel by pixel would be nice, i admit. The problem is there is no "pixel font" code at all in the AceKard source. It's using a procedure that measures the length of a string of text in pixels, weighs it against the maxwidth possible, and trims characters based on that to make it fit.
Because of the multilingual support, it kinda has to be done that way. multibyte characters can't just have a "trim off X characters" routine, because it can change the previous character.
But I'm with you, I'd love to go pixel by pixel but it's just not rendered that way.
But at least now you don't have to worry about cheats getting cut off and/or fitting in the window... I dunno if this is the first card to offer that, but I know it was something the M3 Simply and G6 Real lacked. Hated enabling a code that said "Press Y to enable getting H..."
What the hell was "H"?

Until a new IPStack is available, I think it's using the max potential of the wifi lib. Error checking is in place, sockets/non-blocking packets are being used. Technically... everything is set up as best the documentation shows me. I tried usrcheatup and saw the same speed and everything, except for the whole "downloading from a different location" thing. plus it froze for me after downloading.

All documentation says the DS' Wifi is not really standard. In comparison, the PSP is an easy standard b/g whatever library.
Welcome to Nintendo.

The per game rumble is broken. So ignore its existence in the README. I've already fixed it, so the next drunk beta will have it.

re:Source/Wiki -
This has to be closed source unfortunately due to the AK2 code. It's a whole "clones" issue that honestly I don't want on my head. I don't need Smiths to be responsible for bootleg AK2s in Asia... sorry. It has nothing to do with bliss. He just never released his source (for the RPG) after a certain version.
For an idea of how it works, the AKBBS source is always available and you can look at it there.

If others are fanatic enough and want to make a wiki, go right ahead GBATemp has wiki space, so make an AKAIO page and add stuff to your heart's content. I've thought it'd be a good idea; I just hate wikis.

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

Update DB works just fine here Thanks

Were are you located??
I guess geographically near to the gbatemp server.

Here in Austria it _ALLWAYS_ throws an error. The maximum amount of data I could download at once was 100 KB.

Smiths says, that cheatup uses a hand made googlepages mirror, which works, because of the geographically spread google servers.

I'm from Canada so not sure if I'm near the GBAtemp server. But if the google servers are spread, it shouldn't matter.
Can you download the thing via DSOrganize (or Nintendo DS Browser - Opera) and extract and replace it manually? Probably requires more time/patience though but is it possible?

 

[f3l1x]

As far as the update.. last i used it, libwifi cant handle fragmentation very well... so yea not sure if its related but updates are hit/miss with me. It's really not a huge deal though since i can still manualy put cheats on the hing as i feel and I know it will get better over time.

another thing i noticed, I told it to get usrcheats.dat and it proceeded to pull a 9 meg file. I was sure usrcheats was only around 3 megs. Is'nt the xml about 9 megs?.. or am I missing something and adding a zero somewhere.. cause the usrcheats zip is around 900K so I could have read it wrong.

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

Not sure if I should be worried and if I posted this in the right section.

I turned on my DS and since I have it setup to Manual Mode in the settings, it displays the options (ex. DS game, GBA game, backlight, DS settings, PictoChat). My AK2 with AIO1.2 was in the DS. I turned on my DS and my Acekard 2 was not recognized. I turned off the DS and took out the AK2 and re-inserted it. I turned on the DS and it worked. Just thought I'd post it and see if there's anything to worry about.

 

[Bri]

But I'm with you, I'd love to go pixel by pixel but it's just not rendered that way.
But at least now you don't have to worry about cheats getting cut off and/or fitting in the window... I dunno if this is the first card to offer that, but I know it was something the M3 Simply and G6 Real lacked. Hated enabling a code that said "Press Y to enable getting H..."
What the hell was "H"?

Even as it is, it's much better than the cheat comments getting cut off and not knowing what they do or how to use them.

I don't know how it's implemented, but is it possible to render the text into a bitmap, then just move the bitmap smoothly over time?

I doubt this helps much, but the behavior I'm seeing with the cheat downloads is that it says "Connecting to WFC, press B to cancel" while a progress bar moves backwards (it gets smaller instead of bigger), after which it says "getwhatsnew" and freezes with only a small sliver of a progress bar at the left. The green light remains flashing.

-Bri

 

[Normmatt]

First, thanks to the author of AKAIO, it's a great firmware.

A couple of remarks though:

- why no homepage ? IMHO, a wiki could make the job easier for beginners by avoiding the same questions again and again and by creating a quick database of games working / non-working.
- could we have some technical specifications about the code ? Which language is it written in, how do you compile, what platform... ? It's a shame the code isn't open-sourced (with the exception of AKBBS), that would bring more developers to the project.

Are you also looking for games that don't work ? I tested Trauma Center 2, and have found a couple of issues with cheat and soft-reset.

If only making the project partially open source would bring some new developers, then I'd be very encouraged to do it. But as it stands the AK2 and AK+ sources will have to remain closed source. The rest 'could' be made open source but it'd just be a hassle. If someone wants too join the team and has put some awesome features into the older AKBBS sources I'm sure we could work something out.

I've thought about setting up a website for awhile but i'm never in the mood to actually do it

I'm actually thinking about setting up an online savelist database so that it can be easily kept up to date and easily fixed. But this would require alot more effort and time than I'm willing to spend on it.

 

[logical thinker]

Normmatt, what about downloading it from the same place as AKManager?

I forgot to say before, the "2 points" (dots) between the clock numbers are blinking again. They were not blinking in the previous versions of AKAIO (at least for me).

 

[Normmatt]

Normmatt, what about downloading it from the same place as AKManager?

I forgot to say before, the "2 points" (dots) between the clock numbers are blinking again. They were not blinking in the previous versions of AKAIO (at least for me).

They SHOULD be blinking, If they weren't in previous versions I guess we overlooked it. I did alot of misc rewriting/optimization/fixes etc all over the place in AKAIO 1.2 so i'm quite surprised there haven't been any bug reports. Nice to hear that i fixed a bug I didn't notice myself

 

[logical thinker]

I'm pretty sure they were not blinking, because this was the first thing I noticed in the first time I used the first version of AKAIO... BUT, I forgot to report...

UPDATE:
I think the "not blinking dots between the clock numbers" bug of the previous versions of the AKAIO is from gelu's firmware. See: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?s=&showto...t&p=1358413

GAMEDATA.BIN for AKRPG with gelu fw - updated until 2513
http://rapidshare.com/files/139439693/GAME...l_2513.rar.html

 

[queenaudio]

I cannot get GBA games to work via my eWin 2in1 on this release, it loads the games as normal, displays the gameboy logo, then freezes. The latest official firmware works a treat. Any ideas?

G.