Hacking AKRPG firmware on AK2?

[Bri]

Smiths,

Bliss has dsmplay, lmp-ng, and textview plug-ins working for the AK2 with his menu. DSVideo and tuna-vids don't work for the AK2 yet.

-Bri

 

[TotoGuy]

Could anyone quickly sum up the extra features AKAIO has over the official loader? Haven't been able to find a proper feature list anywhere, and I'm only familiar with the Bliss loader, so no idea what all the others do.

 

[Bri]

Here's a versiom history for AKAIO (formerly AKBBS formerly BNSM): http://devel.acekard.com/wiki/

-Bri

 

[Searinox]

I just tried AKBBS 1.99 on AK2. Doesn't work sadly. I know it's not supposed to either but... damn. Oh well.

 

[Bri]

Patience, grasshopper. When you can snatch this stone from my hand, you will be ready for AKAIO.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

The plugin garbage was really making me upset, so I made it so the AK2-working plugins (which we don't have sources for) will look in the AIO dir andif it's on the AK2 use the plugin, but it will have a .AK2 extensions (instead of AK4). The .AK4 plugins are for the RPG and will be used if a file is loaded on the RPG.

Should this go into the release (I just mailed my mods to Norm, but it all goes through Korea), it's all behind the scenes stuff for the end-user, since the plugin directory in the RAR would contain the plugins named properly. the only disadvantage until the plugins' sources are available is that technically you'll have duplicate plugins for cross-compatibility in that dir, which takes up like an extra 2megs.

Annoyance... but such is the case now.

 

[Bri]

I assume if you have an AK2, the .AK4 files can be safely removed to save space? You should add that to the README file if you haven't already.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

yeah, technically they can. if 2megs is that important really obviously. A lot of my modifications to the AceKard software have been based on making it just a "durr i got a card i unzip thing to it and it done work", but having ability to tweak it if you are so inclined.

Hence the cheat cleanups, shortcut modifications, copying and pasting, etc. and Streamlining as many options as possible to eliminate the need to memorize button combos.

 

[Bri]

I'm fairly technically savvy, and even I appreciate a streamlined interface. I hate memorizing buttons combinations, so I totally appreciate it.

-Bri

 

[Searinox]

Will it be able to delete folders? So far neither the R4 nor AK2 firmware allowed to delete non-empty folders. Only DSorganize could.

And no I can't waaaaait for it~ give us a beta at least?

 

[Bri]

Normmatt or Smiths,

Any word on the status of AKAIO?

-Bri

 

[Searinox]

IT'S OVER 9000! I've been wondering the same thing, except a while ago I was told to be patient. What's strange however, is that on the AK forums there are no new posts about it in the thread, also no blog news. Forgive my impatience yet again but I must ask what is going on? If it's about not having tested it enough I will be more than happy to ride a beta...

 

[Urza]

Be patient.

The week-old version I have is working fine for the most part, so I imagine it shouldn't be too much longer.

 

[Bri]

Urza,

In the meantime, can you tell us what the differences are between AKAIO and Bliss? I assume that AKAIO has everything Bliss has plus some extras? Can you tell us what those extra features are? Does Bliss have any features that are not in AKAIO?

-Bri

 

[Urza]

Why are you comparing it to Bliss when AKAIO is just the progression of the freely available AKBBS project?

 

[Bri]

I wasn't comparing the two. I have the Bliss menu on an AK2, and am interested in what features the AKAIO menu has that the Bliss menu doesn't have and vice versa.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to grace us with an answer if you know the answer, otherwise a simple "I don't know" would likely suffice.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

I wasn't comparing the two. I have the Bliss menu on an AK2, and am interested in what features the AKAIO menu has that the Bliss menu doesn't have and vice versa.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to grace us with an answer if you know the answer, otherwise a simple "I don't know" would likely suffice.

-Bri

Many of the features are shared. There were many items taken from bliss' RPG to AKBBS, and vice-versa.
The main difference of ideals I'd say is we've strived on the AKBBS/AIO design side to be more "logical" with menu positions and items and less focused on key-combos and sub-menus.
Cheats are in their own Start -> More -> Cheats menu, rather than selecting a game and hitting X,X,X,X... there's no "auto" cheat window (that would annoy me, and dammit coder preferences rule) and autorun is in simply because it's already there... but I never use it. don't think Normmatt does either.

I've done a lot of visual tweaks that bliss may or may not have included in his firmware, mainly because I am very anal about where things are and how they are presented.
I think he's done a lot more 3in1 support things with less "checks" for alternate cartridges. I own an old FlashAdvance GBA cartridge, so I threw in support for it (mainly for me, so I can just use it from within the GUI).
Normmatt and I communicate ideas as well; bliss typically adds his own.

Oh, and AIO has slow-motion from what I can tell.

Again, right now it's just a bunch of Korea Piracy Prevention Procedures going on... so we all have to wait for the "OK".

 

[VatoLoco]

This is from the Acekard snapshots page

Updates since AK BBS' 1.99:



Slow Motion In Game. -- Normmatt
+ Enable/Disable in Patches
+ While in-game use L+R+UP to slow down, L+R+DOWN to speed up


Revert back to old cheat engine -- bliss

 

[Bri]

Thanks Smiths -- that's exactly what I wanted to know! I think you answered Urza's question too.

-Bri

 

[Normmatt]

Sorry about no news guys, been busy. At the moment my latest code isnt working on the AK2 (not booting at all) can't workout why so i'll have to get an older version of the code and port my changes into it. (not going to be fun). Smiths seeing as you have a compilable source can you email it to me. Hopefully the release wont be delayed that much longer.