Hacking Crap, easy to use channel creator

[giantpune]

that is possible but it woulnt have really anything to do with the crap part. it would be entirely up to the loader which is booting the game. i have added this ability to boot games via argv[1] to USB loader GX and it just uses whatever is the last partition you had active in the loader. but it meant that there is nothing you or your friends would need to do differently. whatever is the partition you are using last will most likely have the game which you want to boot. the forwarder channel doesnt need to do anything about the fat/wbfs partitions so 1 channel will work with either variation.

i havent seen the source for cfg loader, but i assume it works in much the same way.

 

[WiiCrazy]

@xflak40 : Well you are testing with the latest version of configurable usb loader right?

@giantpune : If you can direct me to an open source forwarder for usb loader gx, then I can add support for that loader too... Also what is the argument format for specifying the disc id?

 

[VassagoX]

I also tested the No Intro part and it still loaded the intro.

On the bright side, I got it to finally load from the USB! Thanks for this awesome tool!

 

[VassagoX]

This doesn't seem to work with Scene It, Bright Lights, Big Screen. It give exception errors and closes. It loads from the USB Drive fine with Configurable USB Loader. Other than that, I've had no issues.

 

[giantpune]

@giantpune : If you can direct me to an open source forwarder for usb loader gx, then I can add support for that loader too... Also what is the argument format for specifying the disc id?

you can get our forwarder from the branch checkout from our svn repo http://code.google.com/p/usbloader-gui/sou...er_GX_Forwarder. i havent tried to compile the forwarder with anything besides devkit r17 and the libogc from back then, so IDK if it compiles fine under the new stuff

for the args, we use argv[0] for the path of the loader itself. this is used to see if all the settings and stuff are on UBS or SD.
you can pass a 6 character ID in argv[1]. so main(2, sd:/apps/usbloader_GX/boot.dol, RGHE52) would boot guitar hero 3 and have it look on the sd card for settings about what partition to search for the game and what settings to boot the game with.

 

[WiiCrazy]

@giantpune : If you can direct me to an open source forwarder for usb loader gx, then I can add support for that loader too... Also what is the argument format for specifying the disc id?

you can get our forwarder from the branch checkout from our svn repo http://code.google.com/p/usbloader-gui/sou...er_GX_Forwarder. i havent tried to compile the forwarder with anything besides devkit r17 and the libogc from back then, so IDK if it compiles fine under the new stuff

for the args, we use argv[0] for the path of the loader itself. this is used to see if all the settings and stuff are on UBS or SD.
you can pass a 6 character ID in argv[1]. so main(2, sd:/apps/usbloader_GX/boot.dol, RGHE52) would boot guitar hero 3 and have it look on the sd card for settings about what partition to search for the game and what settings to boot the game with.

Thanks, I'll have a look at it tomorrow, possibly releasing a new version with usb loader gx support. By the way, does loader display anything while autobooting a game? Or is it configurable. Not myself but most people tend to prefer no display other than the game's own. Is it already the case?

 

[giantpune]

well it almost doesnt show anything. because the functions we use to check the partitions rely on our GUI thread for errors to be shown. i have made it so the thread starts and pauses itself and all the thinking is done by the loader so there is just a flash of our background before the game is booted (unless there is an error). i really didnt feel like making a duplicate of what we already had just to hide the gui. people can just try to time their blinking with the flash and they probably wont see it.

 

[XFlak]

@xflak40 : Well you are testing with the latest version of configurable usb loader right?

@giantpune : If you can direct me to an open source forwarder for usb loader gx, then I can add support for that loader too... Also what is the argument format for specifying the disc id?

I did have the latest version of CFG (49a, i think now there is 49b, but not much has changed from one to the other). But what difference does that make? Will these channels not work if I don't have CFG on my sd card? I thought CRAP channels were self-supporting?

I prefer usb loader gx myself, and it sounds like there will be some usb loader gx option in CRAP very soon, I'm very excited about that! But from the sounds of it, it will load the game from the partition specified in the GX config file... what will happen if this file isn't present? Will it attempt to load both?

 

[WiiCrazy]

I did have the latest version of CFG (49a, i think now there is 49b, but not much has changed from one to the other). But what difference does that make? Will these channels not work if I don't have CFG on my sd card? I thought CRAP channels were self-supporting?

I prefer usb loader gx myself, and it sounds like there will be some usb loader gx option in CRAP very soon, I'm very excited about that! But from the sounds of it, it will load the game from the partition specified in the GX config file... what will happen if this file isn't present? Will it attempt to load both?

Yep they won't work if you don't have conf. usb loader working since the loader included in Crap is merely a forwarder for a specific game. Dunno yet how GX one will work...

The other loaders in Crap work different, they are standalone loaders... Game is launched using the main dol file in the channel... The case with the forwarders (In Crap) is different, the main.dol in the channel just loads the actual loader from either sd or usb then that loader actually loads the game...

 

[XFlak]

well it almost doesnt show anything. because the functions we use to check the partitions rely on our GUI thread for errors to be shown. i have made it so the thread starts and pauses itself and all the thinking is done by the loader so there is just a flash of our background before the game is booted (unless there is an error). i really didnt feel like making a duplicate of what we already had just to hide the gui. people can just try to time their blinking with the flash and they probably wont see it.

instead of duplicated your work to remove your intro gui splash screen.... would it be easier/possible to change the splash screen to a plain black screen... I imagine that this could be done quite easily, and the end result will look the same as if there was no gui at all.

I wonder if this is something wiicrazy can do (w/ the source of course) or if it must be done by giantpune.

Just a thought, I'm sure I can live with a usb loader gx splash screen, but I would prefer if it were silent.

 

[oggzee]

Yep they won't work if you don't have conf. usb loader working since the loader included in Crap is merely a forwarder for a specific game. Dunno yet how GX one will work...

The other loaders in Crap work different, they are standalone loaders... Game is launched using the main dol file in the channel... The case with the forwarders (In Crap) is different, the main.dol in the channel just loads the actual loader from either sd or usb then that loader actually loads the game...

Theoretically, you could use the cfg loader in a non-forwarding way too - it works both ways.
Besides the command line argument it also checks if the static string:
char direct_start_id_buf[] = "#GAMEIDCFGUSB0000000000";
Has been modified and uses the GAMEID to start the game.
The GAMEID-X partition is accepted there too, the CFGUSB part is ignored
This has been in already for a long while now.

 

[XFlak]

@oggzee

can your loader currently create a channel that attempts to launch a game from a wbfs drive, and if it cannot find it, attempt to launch from a FAT32 wbfs file instead (and vice verca-- in terms of priority)?

 

[oggzee]

@oggzee
can your loader currently create a channel that attempts to launch a game from a wbfs drive, and if it cannot find it, attempt to launch from a FAT32 wbfs file instead (and vice verca-- in terms of priority)?

Currently no.
It shouldn't be too hard, but is that really that necessary?
Maybe I will add that someday, not soon though.

 

[XFlak]

its not necessary... the only reason why I want this function (and the only reason why it would be useful) is if I were to plug in a friend's drive into my wii, and my channels are set up for a wbfs drive, and he's using a fat32 drive, none of the channels will work

giantpune commented on the same idea HERE.

My idea of the perfect channel... it can launch a game from either FAT32 and WBFS partition without a splash screen (it would be great if we could choose the loading priority when creating the channel).

Ideally it would be standalone (so it will work without an sd card or fat32 drive, so it should work without a usb loader app), and it must be able to fix the error 002 error and select what ios to load the game from (selection to be made while creating the channel, options to include 222,223,249&250).

If its not standalone, then there's no need to choose an IOS or enable 002 fix, as the settings can be loaded from usb loader gx (and/or CFG loader), so this will probably be easier... but standalone sounds way better.

Again, these are just ideas... as I don't have the knowledge to implement them, so feel free to ignore these ideas, but if you like them... maybe someone will find time to implement them.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Yep they won't work if you don't have conf. usb loader working since the loader included in Crap is merely a forwarder for a specific game. Dunno yet how GX one will work...

The other loaders in Crap work different, they are standalone loaders... Game is launched using the main dol file in the channel... The case with the forwarders (In Crap) is different, the main.dol in the channel just loads the actual loader from either sd or usb then that loader actually loads the game...

Theoretically, you could use the cfg loader in a non-forwarding way too - it works both ways.
Besides the command line argument it also checks if the static string:
char direct_start_id_buf[] = "#GAMEIDCFGUSB0000000000";
Has been modified and uses the GAMEID to start the game.
The GAMEID-X partition is accepted there too, the CFGUSB part is ignored
This has been in already for a long while now.

I should really take a look into the conf. usb loader source than. It seems that you already implemented pretty much everything to integrate with channel creators.
The Parameters above after the CFGUSB string possibly fit into the Loadstructor's parameter format?

So can I redistribute your loader with Crap?

 

[oggzee]

I should really take a look into the conf. usb loader source than. It seems that you already implemented pretty much everything to integrate with channel creators.
The Parameters above after the CFGUSB string possibly fit into the Loadstructor's parameter format?
So can I redistribute your loader with Crap?

Sure feel free to redistribute it.
I think the parameters after CFGUSB string follow loadstructor format, but are not used. I mean, the space there is just a place holder but never used.
However, cfg loader will accept any option that can normally go to config.txt also via command line arguments.
This might be useful if someone want to be independent from the config file on sd, for example you can pass arguments like these:
#GAMEID ios=223-mload partition=FAT2 intro=0 device=sd video=system ocarina=1
and so on...
#GAMEID must be the first one for direct launching, the rest can be in any order.
I use this frequently with wiiload it lets me quickly test various options, but it can be useful for the channel loaders as well.
btw, the options must not be a single long string but really each option has to be a separate argv[] argument, but this i think is understood.
edit: another note, i think versions prior to 49a will ignore the options on command line when used for direct launching because direct launching will override everything, but in v49a, i changed that so that the command line options are used. (so that the intro=0 option works, making all other options work too)

 

[XFlak]

wow, this can do everything! ios selection, device/partition selection, silent intro option, ocarina, and all that in a standalone channel!

does it have alt-dol support?

is 002 fix built in?

 

[oggzee]

wow, this can do everything! ios selection, device/partition selection, silent intro option, ocarina, and all that in a standalone channel!
does it have alt-dol support?
is 002 fix built in?

alt_dol support is there, but at the moment i think that is one of the few options that will not be accepted from the command line, however i can fix that easily.
002 fix is built in.

 

[WiiCrazy]

I should really take a look into the conf. usb loader source than. It seems that you already implemented pretty much everything to integrate with channel creators.
The Parameters above after the CFGUSB string possibly fit into the Loadstructor's parameter format?
So can I redistribute your loader with Crap?

Sure feel free to redistribute it.
I think the parameters after CFGUSB string follow loadstructor format, but are not used. I mean, the space there is just a place holder but never used.
However, cfg loader will accept any option that can normally go to config.txt also via command line arguments.
This might be useful if someone want to be independent from the config file on sd, for example you can pass arguments like these:
#GAMEID ios=223-mload partition=FAT2 intro=0 device=sd video=system ocarina=1
and so on...
#GAMEID must be the first one for direct launching, the rest can be in any order.
I use this frequently with wiiload it lets me quickly test various options, but it can be useful for the channel loaders as well.
btw, the options must not be a single long string but really each option has to be a separate argv[] argument, but this i think is understood.
edit: another note, i think versions prior to 49a will ignore the options on command line when used for direct launching because direct launching will override everything, but in v49a, i changed that so that the command line options are used. (so that the intro=0 option works, making all other options work too)

I hadn't tested the forwarder with no intro I already posted... Now I see the problem, narolez forwarder only sends two arguments, filename & another one to set the ios... Now seems that instead of one big argument with everything in it, each argument should be an element in the argv string array...

To others, especially xflak40
I've fixed the Crap loader I posted earlier : http://crapwii.googlecode.com/files/ConfFo...Intro-fixed.rar

While I cook something general you can use it.

 

[XFlak]

woohoo! I'm at work right now, and afterwards going to a friends house, so it might be awhile before I test this one (unless I do it on my friends wii), but thanks!