Hacking Connecting a USB loader with roms emulators and covers

SOuimet

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I'm sure I'm not the first to think about this, but since the USB loaders (GX, CFG, Flow) are already able to display covers and start games by selecting a specific game in a list, maybe it could be possible to add support to launch roms from their covers. I think it would be great to see most games, nes, snes and others, by covers ( or screenshots ) with the same 3d / 2d / list graphics effects, all in a single interface.

This would require a couple of things that aren't done currently.
- First, the GX emulators don't yet support loading a single rom based on parameters.
- Second, the USB loaders don't display covers of non-wii ISOs/Wbfs yet
- Third, the covers of the roms aren't the same size as the wii covers.
- Fourth, the folder structure and file names would need to be strict (same file name for the cover, the game rom, and perhaps the game information text)
- Fifth, the USB disk would probably need to be FAT32, (but this might not be a requirement, as the roms could be on SD too).
- Finally, the USB loader would need to be able to call a different emulator with some parameter (command-line parameter with the dol app, or saving a parameter in a temp file read by the emulator as a last resort idea) of the selected game.

Now, I know that this is a pretty big wish, that might actually be too big. However, most of these parts aren't that big to implement individually. Since most of these apps are open source, this might actually be possible. As a programmer, I could do a lot of legwork. However, there are a couple of other programmers that already have all the knowledge and the environment setup done that could do it faster than I.

Since a lot of heads are a lot better than a single one, I wanted to share the idea. If I'm not the only one who thinks that this could be great, maybe this can be done and we can have a great platform to launch all kind of games.
 

SOuimet

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Sorry if this wasn't clear, but yes, the idea would be to have the nes, snes, gba covers directly in a usb loader. So, without going in snes9xgx and choose the rom from there, the rom could be selected in a snes category perhaps or right beside the wii games. So it would be possible to see and select super mario 1, 2, 3, land, world, galaxy one beside the other.

I'm checking the snes9xgx code first, to see if it's possible to run with parameters, and it seems to be able to be programmed to do so with args (that are supported for gamecube injection stuff or something like that). This would mean that I could load a game directly without going in the interface first. Perhaps a later goal would be to load directly a saved state at the same time.
 

giantpune

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there is 1 big flaw with that plan. it is very easy to pass a argument to a emulator to have it load a specific game right when it starts. its only like 5 lines of code to add to each emulator. but the hard part is what to do when the game is exited. it will just go back to snes9x or fceultra. you will have to quit that app and then start your other "game selector" app again.

the wii is not like a PC with a OS running in the background while each program runs and then you just tell that OS to start the other app. this would require yet another cIOS. if you want the emulator to start another app after a game is exited, you will need to code a dol loader into it or find some other method for it to start the "game selector".
 

SOuimet

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It might be the night that's not making me think straight, but I don't think that the exit is much of a problem. Unless there's a bug where it hangs, I think the worst case scenario would be going back to the system menu. Annoying a bit perhaps but it's not different than what it is now. Also, I don't think that it's a problem to go back in snes9x or fce interface. These interfaces are still great for ingame saving and loading, config and quick game switch on the same console.

However, what I think is the basic goal would be to display in a common place the list of all the games available. The greatests assets of the usb loaders are the ability to see many games at the same time, with graphics effects and more information about the games (title, back cover, CD/Cartridge?, even descriptions of the game that can be downloaded from wiitdb or other sites). All of these assets could be merged with all the games from emulated consoles, later with n64, gens, and others too. The interface can be locked so that others that play can just choose any game easily with a nice theme. So, family members who aren't as informed on the games could still find some new games to play without too much problems.

I think the console part should be pretty easy, even though I didn't tested it yet, but what I don't know is how hard it is to add other covers of other sizes to the loaders.
 

Taleweaver

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SOuimet said:
It might be the night that's not making me think straight, but I don't think that the exit is much of a problem. Unless there's a bug where it hangs, I think the worst case scenario would be going back to the system menu.
Considering that you can use priiloader* to change "return to system menu" into "return to ", I'd say that that worst case scenario ain't so bad.
smile.gif
In fact...if emulators were to use a "return to system menu" rather than a "return to HBC" exit button, things would become even smoother (but I guess those aren't the heaviest of changes within the emulators either).



@giantpune: nice to hear that emulators can be made to auto-launch a game upon starting. But does that go 2 ways? Those forwarder ISO's that are to become placed within the USB loader themselves...can they contain both the program to be launched (the emulator) and the argument (the full path to the game ROM)?



(note: I'm only curious. Personally, I prefer my games from different systems separated)




*dunno if preloader also has that feature
 

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