Hacking Devolution Speculation thread

[DoctorWhosThat]

@tuejdi: Can the size of the "virtual" memory card on the "sd card" be adjusted?

It makes me wonder why, crediar hasn't done something similar with NMM. :/

 

[tueidj]

TBH I think I'd prefer not having it stored on the NAND when it could be saved portably instead, but that's just my opinion.
Out of sheer curiosity, what changes were made to the latest HBC that impacts your ability to have the memcard file stored on the NAND? If you'd rather not get into it, it's cool, it's not like I'd actually be able to do anything with the information anyways, lol.

NAND access is super fast compared to either USB or SD. It's practically the same as a SSD.
The reason I haven't done it is because the newest HBC no longer supports launching apps under its own title ID so they don't have access to a home directory.

@tuejdi: Can the size of the "virtual" memory card on the "sd card" be adjusted?

No. Changing the size of the card means the block and sector sizes change and makes everything a big mess. 16MB is nice and simple, not sure why you'd want to make it smaller. I don't have any japanese games to test with but it would be trivial to choose between two different memcard images based on the game region (since japanese games require cards formatted as SJIS).

 

[DoctorWhosThat]

@tueidj: So... Devolution would be similar to Dolphin Emulator in a way then, but better?

Speaking of Dolphin... When will it be able to support pixel shader 2.0 again?

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Simple question but why has the old thread not been re-opened as it more or less serves the same purpose.

You said it yourself, it serves the same purpose. So why bother reopening it when this one is just fine?

 

[WiiUBricker]

Even though it's common knowledge that the NAND is faster than external storage, isn't NAND access a bit risky compared to external storage? I mean back in the day you got warnings everywhere that this or this app writes to the NAND, so if you get a brick you have been warned. People even got criticized if they released a tool that writes to the NAND. So what is different here? The way I see it, DV will write stuff to the NAND more often than your average cIOS installer that you need perhaps a few times in a year with active cIOS development.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

@[member='WiiBricker'], I would honestly trust tueidj's code to the point that if anything got bricked then it was from user error. NAND access is not all that bad as long as you know what you are doing and your name is not waninkoko. Look, HBC does it by making a savegame, and the hackmii installer does it and no one has ever gotten bricked from either of those. As long as it is done in a proper manner. And personally, I've never heard of a savegame itself bricking a wii.

 

[wiismodrome]

... A 16MB file is used instead of the memory card, the same way as in Dolphin ...

Will saving to a regular Gamecube memory card be supported?

 

[tueidj]

Writing to the NAND is not particularly dangerous, especially if you're not bypassing anything put there by the system to stop you doing it. Writing to your home directory is safe as long as you leave enough free space (this is why most games have a static savefile size) and using /tmp is even safer. Touching vital system files is a completely different story.

Will saving to a regular Gamecube memory card be supported?

Yes but since I don't have any genuine cards I haven't tested the unlocking patches.

 

[gtmtnbiker]

@[member='tueidj']:
Can you comment on your development environment? Do you have a dev kit? How are you debugging your code? printfs? debugger?
I'm a software person myself with a hardware background. My issue is the lack of time to work on stuff like this.

 

[tueidj]

I have a regular wii with a usb gecko for debug output. When it crashes it dumps the full cpu context (except floating point and GQR state because I don't care about them) and starts a gdb compatible stub, but most of the time I don't bother starting the debugger.

Spoiler

ABORT: vector 00000700 @ 7f65a3a0
SRR1 = 0008b032 DSISR = 42000000 DAR = cc00500a
7f65a3a0: 800d9f18 7c001840 4081000c 489d5ea1
R00 00500000 R08 00000508 R16 00000000 R24 800ac898
R01 800ac760 R09 8005fc98 R17 00000000 R25 800ac89c
R02 800b88a0 R10 80ba9138 R18 00000000 R26 7f840000
R03 11000000 R11 8005fc98 R19 00000000 R27 f04fc000
R04 00003032 R12 80004b68 R20 00000000 R28 80ba9140
R05 0000b032 R13 800a88a0 R21 00000000 R29 00000001
R06 00000000 R14 00000000 R22 80bea168 R30 10004000
R07 80ba9640 R15 00000000 R23 80a490d8 R31 80086d10
CR  48208024 LR  7f65a3a0 CTR 80004b68 XER 00000000
IBAT0L: 00000000 IBAT0U: 00000000 DBAT0L: 00000002 DBAT0U: 800001ff
IBAT1L: 00000000 IBAT1U: 00000000 DBAT1L: 0000002a DBAT1U: c00003ff
IBAT2L: 00000000 IBAT2U: 00000000 DBAT2L: 01000002 DBAT2U: 810000ff
IBAT3L: 00000000 IBAT3U: 00000000 DBAT3L: e0000002 DBAT3U: e00001fe
SR00: 80000000 SR04: 80000000 SR08: 60000800 SR12: 00000c00
SR01: 80000000 SR05: 80000000 SR09: 80000000 SR13: 80000000
SR02: 80000000 SR06: 80000000 SR10: 80000000 SR14: 80000000
SR03: 80000000 SR07: 00000700 SR11: 80000000 SR15: 80000000
SDR1: 1300001f 31A0: 00000000
Exceptions:
7c9043a6 7c9043a6 480000bc 480000bc
7c9043a6 7c9043a6 7c9043a6 7c9043a6
7c9043a6 7d30faa6 7c9043a6 48001662
7c9043a6 7c9043a6 7c9043a6
Backtrace:
Frame: 800ac780 LR: 7f65a394
Frame: 800ac790 LR: 7f659c8c
Frame: 800ac7a0 LR: 7f64afb8
Frame: 800ac7c0 LR: 7f6563c0
Frame: 800ac7e0 LR: 7f5c10a0
Frame: 800ac8c0 LR: 7f200320
Frame: 800ac8d8 LR: 8000405c
Frame: ffffffff LR: 80003214
Waiting for GDB...
Reset button pressed, jumping to HBC stub...

 

[Zero Aurion]

Hmm... I've heard Devolution will have AP, which will make it impossible to play games unless you have the disc. But, as far as I know, Devo doesn't need discs to run... So how would this AP work? Or was this AP thing just a misunderstanding?

 

[XFlak]

Hmm... I've heard Devolution will have AP, which will make it impossible to play games unless you have the disc. But, as far as I know, Devo doesn't need discs to run... So how would this AP work? Or was this AP thing just a misunderstanding?

How about Warez loading? My GC games are old and some doesn't work anymore.

This question has been speculated upon many times throughout this thread. No one knows besides tueidj.

But I will say this, even if this does not work for you because of the problems that exist on your end, there is no need to fret about it because even if this software were to never get released or was never even known about then you'd still be in the same situation.

 

[WiiUBricker]

What I am slighty concerned about is not the way DV writes stuff to the NAND (I trust tueidj to deliver quality work), but the amount of times stuff gets written. Everytime you save a game, stuff is written to the NAND. I am aware that Wii games write stuff to the NAND too, but they do it with Nintendo's official way. I obviously don't know how the Wii operates as much as a hacker, so I can't tell the difference between Nintendo's way of writing to the NAND and Devolution's way, but there must be a reason why Nintendo doesn't allow us to save gamecube games to the NAND since the Wii's release.

 

[JoostinOnline]

What I am slighty concerned about is not the way DV writes stuff to the NAND (I trust tueidj to deliver quality work), but the amount of times stuff gets written. Everytime you save a game, stuff is written to the NAND. I am aware that Wii games write stuff to the NAND too, but they do it with Nintendo's official way. I obviously don't know how the Wii operates as much as a hacker, so I can't tell the difference between Nintendo's way of writing to the NAND and Devolution's way, but there must be a reason why Nintendo doesn't allow us to save gamecube games to the NAND since the Wii's release.

I'd say because that's not how GC games work.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

What I am slighty concerned about is not the way DV writes stuff to the NAND (I trust tueidj to deliver quality work), but the amount of times stuff gets written. Everytime you save a game, stuff is written to the NAND. I am aware that Wii games write stuff to the NAND too, but they do it with Nintendo's official way. I obviously don't know how the Wii operates as much as a hacker, so I can't tell the difference between Nintendo's way of writing to the NAND and Devolution's way, but there must be a reason why Nintendo doesn't allow us to save gamecube games to the NAND since the Wii's release.

Originally I also planned to allow the memcard file to be stored on the NAND but due to changes in the latest HBC that probably won't happen.

Nintendo didn't allow saving to the NAND because they wanted to be able to sell the last of the GC memory cards that they had left, plus to be able to make it so people can still play their games on a GC.

 

[Creqaw]

Simple question but why has the old thread not been re-opened as it more or less serves the same purpose.

You said it yourself, it serves the same purpose. So why bother reopening it when this one is just fine?

Because the other one was started by the developer and he'd be able to update the first post with information if he wishes to.

 

[Zero Aurion]

Hmm... I've heard Devolution will have AP, which will make it impossible to play games unless you have the disc. But, as far as I know, Devo doesn't need discs to run... So how would this AP work? Or was this AP thing just a misunderstanding?

How about Warez loading? My GC games are old and some doesn't work anymore.

This question has been speculated upon many times throughout this thread. No one knows besides tueidj.

But I will say this, even if this does not work for you because of the problems that exist on your end, there is no need to fret about it because even if this software were to never get released or was never even known about then you'd still be in the same situation.

I didn't say any body else knew, if that's what you're getting at... That's kinda why I asked on a forum thread that tueidj is on alot...

 

[DeadlyFoez]

tueidj has commented a lot in this thread plus others, but he has not answered that even though plenty of people have asked about it. So, nobody knows besides tueidj and I doubt he is going to comment on it at this point.

 

[Zero Aurion]

Ah, my bad, didn't see those

 

[XFlak]

@[member='Zero Aurion'],
The reason why the last devolution thread was closed is because too many people were focusing on AP related issues. At this point, not only does asking AP questions piss some people off but it shows that you haven't fully read the devolution thread(s) otherwise you'd know better than to ask pointless AP questions.

edit: I posted this before seeing your post above, sorry, didn't mean to continue bothering you after you already sorta apologized