Hacking neek2o

[Maxternal]

Wiiflow appears to have a special feature that lets it command neek2o to transparently launch individual channels from the emunand without having to manually boot into neek2o. Can documentation for this API be made available to other launcher authors? Would love to see this feature in USB Loader GX, for example, because its channel browser has a banner mode that looks the most like that of the System Menu.

http://gbatemp.net/threads/neek2o.313314/page-61#post-4512796

There's a few posts here where it's explained, if nothing else.

 

[flamepanther]

Hey, so here's something odd. I have a 2TB AF hard drive with 4k clusters. It works for retail Wii games and most homebrew, but crashes DM to a black screen after trying to init the drive. So does it work with UNEEK and NEEK2O? Well that gets a bit funky.

Launching the NEEK2O forwarder channel results in an immediate crash. Using "exit to NEEK" in Wiiflow also crashes. However, I can set emu NAND games in Wiiflow to launch with NEEK, and somehow they work. Weirder, I can quit the game, which returns to Wiiflow running in NEEK mode, exit to system menu, and it takes me to my NEEK mode emulated system menu! On the other hand, trying to run retail disk games from the hard drive while Wiiflow is still in NEEK mode results in a "disc read error" and a reboot.

This isn't a request for help, since I already plan on switching drives to get DM working. I just thought it was weird and wondered whether anyone knows why it does this.

 

[HunterZ]

Hey, so here's something odd. I have a 2TB AF hard drive with 4k clusters. It works for retail Wii games and most homebrew, but crashes DM to a black screen after trying to init the drive. So does it work with UNEEK and NEEK2O? Well that gets a bit funky.

Launching the NEEK2O forwarder channel results in an immediate crash. Using "exit to NEEK" in Wiiflow also crashes. However, I can set emu NAND games in Wiiflow to launch with NEEK, and somehow they work. Weirder, I can quit the game, which returns to Wiiflow running in NEEK mode, exit to system menu, and it takes me to my NEEK mode emulated system menu! On the other hand, trying to run retail disk games from the hard drive while Wiiflow is still in NEEK mode results in a "disc read error" and a reboot.

This isn't a request for help, since I already plan on switching drives to get DM working. I just thought it was weird and wondered whether anyone knows why it does this.

How many games are in your emunand?

 

[VashTS]

i have similar issues with neek2o, its retarded to say the least.

it works differently depending on the number of games (Wii, Gamecube, Quadforce, and WiiWare). some hard drives work fine with lots of games, others work terribly (like 10 minutes for a transition). i have three Wii's with different HDDs, and each three have different results.

i'm not criticizing the work done! i absolutely love and appreciate neek2o. I hope it one day becomes perfect and we can stop using the stupid 512 mb nand for good.

one idea i've had is just a simple progress shown on screen to let us know whats going on. even if it just says Loading....... and the dots continue. its hard to tell when it locked up sometimes and i've spent many hours waiting to see if neek2o was going to launch.

 

[flamepanther]

How many games are in your emunand?

Like a bazillion? I had the entire North American Wii shop in there at one point, but I'm cutting back.

Thing is, it worked on a different drive (took something like 3 min to load the system menu, but it still worked). On the current drive, I immediately get a code dump.

 

[HunterZ]

Like a bazillion? I had the entire North American Wii shop in there at one point, but I'm cutting back.

Thing is, it worked on a different drive (took something like 3 min to load the system menu, but it still worked). On the current drive, I immediately get a code dump.

I tried putting all whatever-hundreds it was on my neek2o also, and neek2o wouldn't even boot (I waited hours). I'm thinking of putting them all back on and using USB Loader GX to launch the non-problematic ones, and using Wiiflow to launch the problematic ones in neek2o mode (since it can command neek2o to boot an individual game in neek2o mode). The only potential annoyance is that once a game is booted in neek2o mode, I'm pretty sure that Wiiflow does not automatically revert to real NAND mode.

 

[flamepanther]

I tried putting all whatever-hundreds it was on my neek2o also, and neek2o wouldn't even boot (I waited hours). I'm thinking of putting them all back on and using USB Loader GX to launch the non-problematic ones, and using Wiiflow to launch the problematic ones in neek2o mode (since it can command neek2o to boot an individual game in neek2o mode). The only potential annoyance is that once a game is booted in neek2o mode, I'm pretty sure that Wiiflow does not automatically revert to real NAND mode.

That's correct, it does not. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter until you want to go back to the system menu, and at that point it does have an "exit to real NAND" option.

...Well, okay, it does matter if you have a hard drive like mine that prevents Wiiflow from loading disc games from USB while in NEEK mode

 

[HunterZ]

That's correct, it does not. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter until you want to go back to the system menu, and at that point it does have an "exit to real NAND" option.

...Well, okay, it does matter if you have a hard drive like mine that prevents Wiiflow from loading disc games from USB while in NEEK mode

It also matters if the neek2o system menu never appears due to the fact that you have too many channels on the emunand. It may be possible to access the "exit to real NAND" option from another launcher though.

 

[flamepanther]

It also matters if the neek2o system menu never appears due to the fact that you have too many channels on the emunand. It may be possible to access the "exit to real NAND" option from another launcher though.

I guess it doesn't matter to me (when I have a compatible drive) because I have Wiiflow set up to return back to Wiiflow when I exit a game, and then I can choose to exit "to real NAND" when I quit, so it never even tries to load the Neek2o menu in the first place.

 

[Katalin]

There was an unofficial beta released a few days ago for testing which possible solved issues and loading times for nands with lots of titles, but not everything was solved with it.

Just wanted to let you know that OverjoY is working on it

 

[HunterZ]

There was an unofficial beta released a few days ago for testing which possible solved issues and loading times for nands with lots of titles, but not everything was solved with it.

Just wanted to let you know that OverjoY is working on it

Thanks. Is there somewhere that we can follow the progress on this?

I checked the google code page and it hasn't been updated in ages.

 

[Katalin]

Check the IRC room on irc.abjects.net room #cdi for discussions and beta versions

 

[HunterZ]

Check the IRC room on irc.abjects.net room #cdi for discussions and beta versions

Thanks. Are recent source changes being hosted somewhere else other than google code, or have the authors just stopped pushing their commits to a public repo altogether?

 

[Etheboss]

Overjoy is experimenting now with methods on how to reduce loading time for big nands...

I'll keep you all updated on how it is going.

HunterZ : unfortunately beta's are not committed, but neek2o is still worked on..
The neek2o google code page is still the place where the latest neek revs are committed, the new rev is still not out of beta stage yet, but when it is, it will get committed.

So, if you want to try new features or see if bugs are fixed, you should take Katelin's advise.
One thing though, if you are on the IRC channel, be patient, it sometimes could take a while for someone reacts at questions or requests.
Best time to visit this channel is around 23:00 Standard European Time +1.

 

[HunterZ]

The neek2o google code page is still the place where the latest neek revs are committed, the new rev is still not out of beta stage yet, but when it is, it will get committed.

That's too bad. The real power of version control is being able to track the entire history of changes to the files, as well as having backups. If they instead use it to publish large change-sets, then it will be much harder to see how the code evolved, and it will be much easier to lose progress if someone suffers a hard drive crash or gets hit by a bus or whatever.

 

[koshizoku]

I'm quite frustrated trying to use neek2o and could use some assistance.

I've been hacking my Wii for years. Got a SM Wii with Bootmii as boot2 and USB formatted FAT32 with 32k clusters (single active partition). Decided recently to update my version of Wiiflow to the one at http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/101209384/MasterPiece/Wiiflow_Pack.html so I could use the source menu, which works beautifully. Everything works fine except for my WW/VC games. So, to improve compatibility, I want to use the game-specific option in that version of Wiiflow to use neek2o ("Launch Title with neek2o" on page 4 of game settings); see, I don't want to actually boot into an emunand. But no where in his pack's page or the neek2o forums have I seen a detailed setup of both the USB and SD card for Uneek that works the way I want it to. Here's my setup:

USB:
3 nands that have all been tried (file structure = nands\nand1, nands\nand2, nands\nand3)
1. Abz's nand
2. My custom nand
3. A brand new modmii-created nand
Sneek files from Abz's pack (includes di.bin, diosmioslite.bin [my hdd is not compatible with diosmios], font.bin, kernel.bin, quadforce.bin).
Other files, including wiiflow, emulators, etc.

SD :
Abz said the SD files are optional (bootmii\armboot.bin and sneek\kernel.bin), but I need my own version of armboot.bin (acquired so long ago I don't remember where it came from) so I can use bootmii from priiloader. His just leads to a black screen.

EMUNAND :
I have three different ones, but here is the general layout
Necessary system menus and IOS/MIOS
Back 2 Nand
Two test games
1. VC Majora's Mask (the main reason I'm doing all this and usually a problem game)
2. WW AYIM (never had an issue loading this in any loader, used as a control)

NAND :
Neek2o v2.2b
Wiiflow channel
Wiiflow hidden channel (for use with newest revision of Wiiflow and facilitating returning to Wiiflow after exiting emulators)
etc.

I'm at wit's end regarding all this. Now, I figure if I can boot into Neek using the Neek2o channel, then Wiiflow should be able to as well. However, when I launch Neek2o from my NAND :
Mounts USB
Finds partition
Finds and loads kernel.bin
Loads mini mod into memory
Freezes on message "Reloading bootmii IOS"

Please help.

I'm having the same problem. All are working except that I can't go further with Reloading bootmii ios!

I am using WD My Passport 320gb. If so, what hdd's are compatible with neek2o? Thanks for the reply.

 

[Katalin]

The newer beta versions have much better support for usb devices

Visit the room on IRC: irc.abjects.net room: #cdi

 

[Shag]

Hey OJ,
I have had NP with latest beta will test more though, I have even used My Menufy and themed my nands.
Removed an old Christmas theme from last year lol

Shag

 

[Maxternal]

oops, wrong thread

 

[obcd]

I examined the loading time for big nands months ago and figured out it was mainly caused by the system menu loading all the banner animations for the channels. It not only loads those for the visible channels, but also those for the channels that become visible if you scroll to the left or the right. you can check this by starting neek and having it launch a channel instead of the system menu. Load times of that should be the same whenever you have a lot of channels or just a few. Another issue can be the size of some buffers that are used to load the channel titles for the overlay menu. If you have 2 much channels, those buffers could overflow and crash the neek system. I even provided a framework that could set channels invisible for the system menu and still made them playable with a channel launcher... I think stfour implemented it once in postloader.