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Hacking EZ Omega (with Pogoshell) Alpha

  • Thread starter Thread starter kuwanger
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Yea, you can just flash my kernel replacement directly. And if you have problems or want to go back you can use the official kernel. I just threw in the brick warning because while I have tried to write bug free code and the code I did change really shouldn't brick the device, it's better to just sort of spell out the always possible risk. Hope you have fun. :)
 
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kuwanger said:
Yea, you can just flash my kernel replacement directly. And if you have problems or want to go back you can use the official kernel. I just threw in the brick warning because while I have tried to write bug free code and the code I did change really shouldn't brick the device, it's better to just sort of spell out the always possible risk. Hope you have fun. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, and I appreciate you putting the work into this!

And no worries: years of xbox mod chips, Hong Kong grey tech, and kickstarted pi handhelds has made me comfortable with the degree of risk associated with this hobby. ;)
 
Okay, can confirm that Cologne v8 is working as a .gba plugin. So far tested 2010, Burger Time, Donkey Kong, Smurf Rescue and Zaxxon. Runs great. :)
 
If it's going through the progress to update the kernel, then it should be my modified version. How do you know it's the official kernel and not my modified kernel?
 
kuwanger said:
If it's going through the progress to update the kernel, then it should be my modified version. How do you know it's the official kernel and not my modified kernel?
Click to expand...
It only verifies for me, then boots to the official kernel, it doesn't actually go through the update process.
 
Lilith Valentine said:
Gonna PM you the link to the video because Google drive is being a bit dump for me.
Click to expand...

Yea, that "Progress: ..." bit is the kernel updating. There can also be a second screen if the firmware needs updated but that only happens if the firmware has a different crc than the one in the update kernel.
 
kuwanger said:
Yea, that "Progress: ..." bit is the kernel updating. There can also be a second screen if the firmware needs updated but that only happens if the firmware has a different crc than the one in the update kernel.
Click to expand...
So how do I actually know if I am actually running this over the official? In my settings I noticed in the top right hand corner "FW: 6 K1.04."
Trying to google this answer or even what Pogoshell looks like seems to only bring up old videos and what they are running doesn't look like what I am running. So I am not actually sure what I am looking for here.
 
Uh, you don't? :) I could throw in a "k" after the 1.04 or make the k lower case? You can hexedit the string if you want (it's at 0x14916c); just make sure to not go past the "4" or bad things happen. Nothing about the "look" is different with my change. It just enables plugins/<ext>.(gba/mb/mbz) to work like Pogoshell used to work (more or less).
 
Lilith Valentine said:
I expecting something different based on the videos I saw, so I was really confused.
Click to expand...

Sorry about the confusion. When Pogoshell came out, it provided a nice structured UI to accessing a virtually unlimited number of files (if you had the space for them) vs the F2A being limited to a short list of like 4-8 games (never used it so not sure what it's precise limit was). The key part was the plugin system so you could associate the nes emulator to the nes games instead of making one giant compilation* even if you still had to reflash the whole image built pogoshell image on again (which took like 5 minutes). There was also the save system that went along with it to turn the 256KB of SRAM into a 64KB buffer for one game and the other 192KB to store compressed backups.

Anyways, the EZ Omega (and IV really) don't really have a need for a different UI or save handling, and it really doesn't even need the whole game<->emulator association thing because you can run single-game compilations if you so desire (like the EZ Flash IV). I just figured that since the source was available and it seemed like it should be pretty trivial to add support--and I wanted to actually see if baking emulators into the kernel for speed was really a necessity--so I had a go at it. So, it's 99% novelty, which is why I didn't really bother to tag it in any way or put effort into sprucing up anything. Overall, I'd say though that the kernel emulators was really unnecessary. Except for the whole possible save corruption but that could have been dealt with in a better way (an extension to the patch engine using a crc and an address on where to patch out). I'm actually sort of disappointed that we didn't see the maxzhou88 pocketnes fork but then I don't think he ever released the source for that.

* One could make multiple compilations and then they'd all share 64KB of SRAM for their saves, or let Pogoshell give each game 64KB of SRAM and compress the output and effectively share 192KB of SRAM (or 128KB if you use Pogobridge).
 
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kuwanger said:
Sorry about the confusion. When Pogoshell came out, it provided a nice structured UI to accessing a virtually unlimited number of files (if you had the space for them) vs the F2A being limited to a short list of like 4-8 games (never used it so not sure what it's precise limit was). The key part was the plugin system so you could associate the nes emulator to the nes games instead of making one giant compilation* even if you still had to reflash the whole image built pogoshell image on again (which took like 5 minutes). There was also the save system that went along with it to turn the 256KB of SRAM into a 64KB buffer for one game and the other 192KB to store compressed backups.

Anyways, the EZ Omega (and IV really) don't really have a need for a different UI or save handling, and it really doesn't even need the whole game<->emulator association thing because you can run single-game compilations if you so desire (like the EZ Flash IV). I just figured that since the source was available and it seemed like it should be pretty trivial to add support--and I wanted to actually see if baking emulators into the kernel for speed was really a necessity--so I had a go at it. So, it's 99% novelty, which is why I didn't really bother to tag it in any way or put effort into sprucing up anything. Overall, I'd say though that the kernel emulators was really unnecessary. Except for the whole possible save corruption but that could have been dealt with in a better way (an extension to the patch engine using a crc and an address on where to patch out). I'm actually sort of disappointed that we didn't see the maxzhou88 pocketnes fork but then I don't think he ever released the source for that.

* One could make multiple compilations and then they'd all share 64KB of SRAM for their saves, or let Pogoshell give each game 64KB of SRAM and compress the output and effectively share 192KB of SRAM (or 128KB if you use Pogobridge).
Click to expand...
Oh, no no no, this is nothing you did. My confusion came from my end when trying to research this and finding videos like this

It literally says "pogoshell" all over the place. So when I flashed it and mine didn't look anything like that, I was like, "Did I do something wrong?" So it was really just me being confused because my research was all over the place as to what I was looking for.
Thanks for the information though! ^-^
 
Lilith Valentine said:
Oh, no no no, this is nothing you did. My confusion came from my end when trying to research this and finding videos like this

It literally says "pogoshell" all over the place. So when I flashed it and mine didn't look anything like that, I was like, "Did I do something wrong?" So it was really just me being confused because my research was all over the place as to what I was looking for.
Thanks for the information though! ^-^
Click to expand...

ah, yes. The good old Pogoshell on my F2A days. I still remember this, having pogoshell manage the savegames on the F2A was great, you were not bound to the Mbit boundaries of the GBA games and could therefore fit more games on it as well.

All the weeb themes I had for this :) I think I threw out the CD/DVD with my archived files last years when I moved appartments, though :D
 
I don't know why, but a lot of my Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, and SG-1000 ROMs do not appear to work with their respective emulators. I dont know if this is because od the roms i have or my sd card is partially corrupted. Is it possible that it is corrupted?

Also the jpeg plugin works...
 
Last edited by Sterophonick,
Try building the roms with the emulator and testing them with an emulator and on the cart. That's the simplest way to see if it's the emulator, the cart, or my Pogoshell plugin implementation.
 

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