Hacking Rominator for NDS

[wizzo]

I am running 4.0 on XP but It won't display my flash card. I have sut the location under settings. I have tried it on 3 computers an still the same. What am i doing wrong?

 

[IBNobody]

Yes I need to pay for Zip support, which isn't happening right now, so I did my own compression. Difference with rZip and Zip is that rZip preserves internal info like the icon, header, trim length, etc. If you don't like it, simply don't use it. If you want to keep your roms zipped, well, use something else I guess

http://www.zlib.net/

Zlib is freeware. Furthermore, it comes with a freeware unzipper, MiniZip.

http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll/minizip.html

rZip is not an answer because rZip can't be read by a standard unzipper.

I said before that I'm willing to donate AFTER you implement Zip support.

Let me restate the bounty. I will pay you $50 USD if you implement zip support that rivals stuff seen in OfflineList or DS-X Manager.

OLL has an "Add ROMs" option that extracts the ROM, removes all NFOs or screenshots, and rezips it (in standard ZIP compression).

The DS-X Manager extracts the icon, ROM name, and other header tidbits. Since it doesn't use a preset database, it could handle any commercial ROM without any external updates. You'd scan your list once, and it would build a database based on what it found in the Zipped files.

(One thing I saw with your v3.54 was that newer ROMs not in your database wouldn't copy anything beyond 188 bytes. I had to wait for an update. I was under the impression that ROMs outside the DB would be handled properly.)

If you can combine the ROM cleaning of OLL with the non-database processing of the DS-X Manager, I will gladly transfer the funds.

- N

 

[hankchill]

Yes I need to pay for Zip support, which isn't happening right now, so I did my own compression. Difference with rZip and Zip is that rZip preserves internal info like the icon, header, trim length, etc. If you don't like it, simply don't use it. If you want to keep your roms zipped, well, use something else I guess

http://www.zlib.net/

Zlib is freeware. Furthermore, it comes with a freeware unzipper, MiniZip.

http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll/minizip.html

rZip is not an answer because rZip can't be read by a standard unzipper.

I said before that I'm willing to donate AFTER you implement Zip support.

Let me restate the bounty. I will pay you $50 USD if you implement zip support that rivals stuff seen in OfflineList or DS-X Manager.

OLL has an "Add ROMs" option that extracts the ROM, removes all NFOs or screenshots, and rezips it (in standard ZIP compression).

The DS-X Manager extracts the icon, ROM name, and other header tidbits. Since it doesn't use a preset database, it could handle any commercial ROM without any external updates. You'd scan your list once, and it would build a database based on what it found in the Zipped files.

(One thing I saw with your v3.54 was that newer ROMs not in your database wouldn't copy anything beyond 188 bytes. I had to wait for an update. I was under the impression that ROMs outside the DB would be handled properly.)

If you can combine the ROM cleaning of OLL with the non-database processing of the DS-X Manager, I will gladly transfer the funds.

- N

You need to understand though; Rominator is built cross platform. If I'm going to have Zip support, I can't cater it *just* to Windows. The plugin available allows me to cater to all platforms with the IDE. Remember, I built this on a Mac.

As for DS-X Manager, sure it can extract info like icon, header, etc, but you really can't give it a 'name' without a database. Sure, a game like Animal Crossing would be ANIMAL CROSS, but not Animal Crossing (U), hence the reason for the database. Rominator extracts the Icon straight from the game as well, but I will only allow it to extract from games in the database since many homebrew do not contain the icon. That might change in the future though.

All roms in the database should be handled properly. If you noticed there was a problem copying non-database roms, please let me know. I can take a look into it and find out what's going with that.

Also, with rZip, it allows for *instant* recognition of the games. I even created a utility to cater to the compression/decompression as well. When I release Rominator v4.1, dragging an rZipped file will be the same as dragging a regular uncompressed game, because it will grab the header info AND icon and have them viewable in the list, without having to worry about identifying them. I wouldn't be able to do the same with Zip -- It would require some pre-processing to determine what the compressed game is.

@juggernaut911:
Try removing those games from the list and re-add them. See what happens.

@T3Sm0:
I don't support Vista, so any Vista related errors I really can't take into account. I'm waiting until it actually doesn't suck.

@LamentIndex:
That's a useless question. Please try it out and decide for yourself.

@wizzo:
I just answered this question a few posts back. I'm not even going to answer it again. Read the posts. Better yet, do a search.

 

[T3Sm0]

@T3Sm0:
I don't support Vista, so any Vista related errors I really can't take into account. I'm waiting until it actually doesn't suck.

please read my post again...maybe i phrased not clear

again in a nut shell:
vista --> works!
winxp sp2 --> can't rename error

 

[hankchill]

@T3Sm0:
I don't support Vista, so any Vista related errors I really can't take into account. I'm waiting until it actually doesn't suck.

please read my post again...maybe i phrased not clear

again in a nut shell:
vista --> works!
winxp sp2 --> can't rename error

Ah, sorry, didn't read it properly

I would need more details as to what's happening, like what game it is, what settings are set, if the game exists or has special characters in it, etc.

As for just showing the zip icon, press the 'Identify' button (the magnifying glass) beside the rZip buttons. In Rominator 4.1 you won't need to do that.

While I'm here just want to comment on Zip support; I'll bite the bullet and add it in. It'll cost me to do so, but the government owes me money so I should be okay for now. I'm short on cash, so I hope I can receive some support

But rZip will be the primary format, as it's not as limited as Zip, and I can store extra information inside the rZip file that Rominator can understand, while still having a compressed file.

 

[T3Sm0]

I downloaded from your signature (v4.0) and unzipped.
only thing I changed from default settings is the games folder. everything else is unchecked.
I tryed various random picked roms out of my collection.
latest ones I tryed were european Polaris and Yoshi touch and go.
I drag and drop them into the list and rominator gives me:
Error Renaming Game.
In my last test the roms were named like e.g. Polarium.nds
when I manually copy the roms into the games folder and hit refresh nothing happens.

 

[shinji257]

While I'm here just want to comment on Zip support; I'll bite the bullet and add it in. It'll cost me to do so, but the government owes me money so I should be okay for now. I'm short on cash, so I hope I can receive some support

But rZip will be the primary format, as it's not as limited as Zip, and I can store extra information inside the rZip file that Rominator can understand, while still having a compressed file.

Sounds like a very good compromise and should make everyone happy. I know you already said this but how much will it cost you to add in zip support? Also do you have another method of donation other than paypal that would be acceptable to you?

Just want to find a way to say thank you for such an excellent program.

P.S. - Can't find a comparable replacement. Trust me I've tried.

 

[hankchill]

While I'm here just want to comment on Zip support; I'll bite the bullet and add it in. It'll cost me to do so, but the government owes me money so I should be okay for now. I'm short on cash, so I hope I can receive some support

But rZip will be the primary format, as it's not as limited as Zip, and I can store extra information inside the rZip file that Rominator can understand, while still having a compressed file.


Sounds like a very good compromise and should make everyone happy. I know you already said this but how much will it cost you to add in zip support? Also do you have another method of donation other than paypal that would be acceptable to you?

Just want to find a way to say thank you for such an excellent program.

P.S. - Can't find a comparable replacement. Trust me I've tried.

Well, I guess I could take donations in Wii Points too

 

[IBNobody]

You need to understand though; Rominator is built cross platform. If I'm going to have Zip support, I can't cater it *just* to Windows. The plugin available allows me to cater to all platforms with the IDE. Remember, I built this on a Mac.

I understand... If you were going Win-Only, I'd have suggested a nice .NET library that I use for my projects.

But why wouldn't ZLib and Minizip work? They come with complete source. Minizip is written in C, and ZLib looks like C++. I know they work in Unix. There should be a Mac C++ compiler out there, too.

I read your comment further down about "biting the bullet". I'm more than willing to contribute my bounty, but I don't see why you need to pay anything. (I have a natural aversion to using any library that isn't free.) Is there a pay library you have your eye on?

As for DS-X Manager, sure it can extract info like icon, header, etc, but you really can't give it a 'name' without a database. Sure, a game like Animal Crossing would be ANIMAL CROSS, but not Animal Crossing (U), hence the reason for the database. Rominator extracts the Icon straight from the game as well, but I will only allow it to extract from games in the database since many homebrew do not contain the icon. That might change in the future though.

Can you check the "Game Code" field in the header to see if it matches the "NTR-Axxx-USA" (plus strings for each country)? If it matches, you could then display the icon you've culled from the header.

Also, with rZip, it allows for *instant* recognition of the games. I even created a utility to cater to the compression/decompression as well. When I release Rominator v4.1, dragging an rZipped file will be the same as dragging a regular uncompressed game, because it will grab the header info AND icon and have them viewable in the list, without having to worry about identifying them. I wouldn't be able to do the same with Zip -- It would require some pre-processing to determine what the compressed game is.

Pre-processing is okay, though. You only have to pre-process a file once to glean all the data out of it. You just mark it as "ok" and move on. The next time your program loads, it checks the DB to see if the file was "ok" (and checks to see if the file still exists).

Timewise, it may take longer... But the DS-X manager handles it rather fast. You could do just as good, if not better. (The problem with it is that development stopped, and the last decent version requires you to rescan your collection each time you use the program.)

QUOTE

All roms in the database should be handled properly. If you noticed there was a problem copying non-database roms, please let me know. I can take a look into it and find out what's going with that.

Let me try it out again on v4.0... I'll let you know.

 

[hankchill]

I understand... If you were going Win-Only, I'd have suggested a nice .NET library that I use for my projects.

But why wouldn't ZLib and Minizip work? They come with complete source. Minizip is written in C, and ZLib looks like C++. I know they work in Unix. There should be a Mac C++ compiler out there, too.

I read your comment further down about "biting the bullet". I'm more than willing to contribute my bounty, but I don't see why you need to pay anything. (I have a natural aversion to using any library that isn't free.) Is there a pay library you have your eye on?

I've already got ZLib available to me. ZLib is not Zip though; Zip is built on top of ZLib, plus ZLib doesn't store the correct metadata as Zip compression. If I wrote Rominator in C++ then the Zip source would be of use to me, but I wrote it in RealBasic (for cross-platform capability), so the entire Zip function would need to be converted. Mind you, I could convert C++ to Realbasic as I've done it in the past (including pieces of Rominator, as I've got RomeR's source code converted to RealBasic in there), but Zip is a big job to convert; if someone else has already done it, why reinvent the wheel? It would take longer to convert the code than to make the money to buy the plugin. Apparently the plugin I've got my eyes on works perfectly and very fast for Zip handling. I don't mind paying for something useful as long as I can justify the cost.

Can you check the "Game Code" field in the header to see if it matches the "NTR-Axxx-USA" (plus strings for each country)? If it matches, you could then display the icon you've culled from the header.

That's already what it does. I pull 3 pieces of info: The header name, the cartridge code, and the ROM version, so an entry would look like this: AMCE|ANIMAL CROSS|0

 

[IBNobody]

I've already got ZLib available to me. ZLib is not Zip though; Zip is built on top of ZLib, plus ZLib doesn't store the correct metadata as Zip compression. If I wrote Rominator in C++ then the Zip source would be of use to me, but I wrote it in RealBasic (for cross-platform capability), so the entire Zip function would need to be converted. Mind you, I could convert C++ to Realbasic as I've done it in the past (including pieces of Rominator, as I've got RomeR's source code converted to RealBasic in there), but Zip is a big job to convert; if someone else has already done it, why reinvent the wheel? It would take longer to convert the code than to make the money to buy the plugin. Apparently the plugin I've got my eyes on works perfectly and very fast for Zip handling. I don't mind paying for something useful as long as I can justify the cost.

Ahh, I wasn't sure what you were writing in. I took a look at RealBasic. It didn't look like you could have any sort of external library calls. I was hoping you could write a static or dynamic library in C/C++, compile it multiple times for different OS versions (this is easy - the lib wouldn't have to interface with any API), and reference that.

Can you check the "Game Code" field in the header to see if it matches the "NTR-Axxx-USA" (plus strings for each country)? If it matches, you could then display the icon you've culled from the header.

That's already what it does. I pull 3 pieces of info: The header name, the cartridge code, and the ROM version, so an entry would look like this: AMCE|ANIMAL CROSS|0

 

[FAST6191]

I have to admit I have not been following this as much as I would like lately but could I dangle 7zips LZMA sdk, it is free and fine to use in closed source as long as you do not mod said source:
http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html

Edit: from the readme:
C - C source code
CPP - CPP source code
CS - C# source code
Java - Java source code

 

[NiGHtS]

This is epically awesome!

 

[IBNobody]

I have to admit I have not been following this as much as I would like lately but could I dangle 7zips LZMA sdk, it is free and fine to use in closed source as long as you do not mod said source:
http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html

Edit: from the readme:
CÂ Â Â Â - C source code
CPPÂ Â Â - CPP source code
CSÂ Â Â - C# source code
Java  - Java source code

I don't think that would work for him, though. RealBasic is a VB clone that only accepts VB code. He would have to rewrite any code not in VB form.

 

[hankchill]

I have to admit I have not been following this as much as I would like lately but could I dangle 7zips LZMA sdk, it is free and fine to use in closed source as long as you do not mod said source:
http://www.7-zip.org/sdk.html

Edit: from the readme:
C        - C source code
CPP      - CPP source code
CS     Â - C# source code
Java   Â - Java source code


I don't think that would work for him, though. RealBasic is a VB clone that only accepts VB code. He would have to rewrite any code not in VB form.

Actually, RealBasic isn't a VB Clone -- VB is very primitive compared to RB

I'd consider it more of an 'upgrade'.

 

[hankchill]

Ahh, I wasn't sure what you were writing in. I took a look at RealBasic. It didn't look like you could have any sort of external library calls. I was hoping you could write a static or dynamic library in C/C++, compile it multiple times for different OS versions (this is easy - the lib wouldn't have to interface with any API), and reference that.

Nope, unfortunately can't link to already-made code. That's a downer, but I usually get around somehow

That's not exactly what I meant. You're looking at the "Game Code"/"Game Serial" and comparing it to an entry in the database to determine whether or not to display an icon. What I suggested was to look at the "Game Code"/"Game Serial" and match it to a pattern. (Does RB do regular expressions?)

"NTR-Axxx-USA", where xxx can be anything... You may even be able to search for "NTR-Axxx-" and omit the country code.

The only homebrew I saw with a full code was MoonShell for the R4DS. It's code was "NTR-PASS-SPA", and this would fail the check.

Wouldn't help, I don't think. The game code is only in the form of a 4 digit series. There is no NTR- or -USA (Or whatever region) inside the ROM -- just 4 digits. I lookup the game based on those 4 digits, the name, and rom version.

That's exactly what I'd want to see.

I currently use OLL to do this:
Grab the ROM Zip
Unzip
Delete everything except the ROM
Verify the ROM
Rename the ROM based on my naming rules
Rezip

But... Make repackaging an option/dialog choice. It would be nice if you could tell Rominator that you were giving it a clean archive, and it wouldn't repackage it. (You mentioned long ago that you were able to extract only part of a Zip archive, provided that the archive only contained a ROM. Is this still true?) That way, I could clean stuff in OLL and then import it into Rominator.

I don't see Rominator replacing OLL for managing my collection, but it would be a great tool to send stuff to my R4DS.

Child's play.

And yes, I can extract the header only from the zip and determine the game from there and add it to the database... that would serve for quick processing... And yes, that would only work if the archive contained 1 rom.

Sure Rominator can replace OLL -- Whatever it can do, I'll make it do better

QUOTE

Great! Thanks!

 

[IBNobody]

That's not exactly what I meant. You're looking at the "Game Code"/"Game Serial" and comparing it to an entry in the database to determine whether or not to display an icon. What I suggested was to look at the "Game Code"/"Game Serial" and match it to a pattern. (Does RB do regular expressions?)

"NTR-Axxx-USA", where xxx can be anything... You may even be able to search for "NTR-Axxx-" and omit the country code.

The only homebrew I saw with a full code was MoonShell for the R4DS. It's code was "NTR-PASS-SPA", and this would fail the check.

Wouldn't help, I don't think. The game code is only in the form of a 4 digit series. There is no NTR- or -USA (Or whatever region) inside the ROM -- just 4 digits. I lookup the game based on those 4 digits, the name, and rom version.

It would still work. The game codes all start with A.

Consider this, too: many DS header-reading programs have no hiccups reading the icon, even if the ROM itself doesn't have an icon. The DS-X manager does it. NDSTool does it. Thus, there has to be a way around the homebrew icon problem.

Child's play.

And yes, I can extract the header only from the zip and determine the game from there and add it to the database... that would serve for quick processing... And yes, that would only work if the archive contained 1 rom.

That's good. My collection consists of 1-file zips; this will make integration easier.

QUOTE

Sure Rominator can replace OLL -- Whatever it can do, I'll make it do better

The problem isn't that OLL itself is better. The problem is that ADVANsCEne supports OLL with their databases.

There are three big advantages to this:
1. ADVANsCEne has DBs covering DS, GBA, and PSP releases.
2. The ADVANsCEne DBs have more than just box-art. The GBA DB shows the title screen and an in-game action shot. The DS DB shows the front & back boxart plus an in-game action shot.
3. ADVANsCEne updates their DB automatically whenever someone posts a release.

Like Rominator, OLL can connect to a server hosting a DB (ADVANsCEne's) and download updates and new box-art/screenshots.

So... If you want Rominator to replace OLL, you need to either write code that can read OLL-style DB files or get with ADVANsCEne and get them to support Rominator.

Your best bet, IMO, would be to emulate OLL. You'd have a better chance of getting the project done if it were on your own shoulders, rather than the webmasters at ADVANsCEne. As a bonus, it would get you out from under having to constantly update your DBs.

(Or you could improve Rominator's recognition of ROMs outside the DB, which you are doing. Honestly, I don't mind using OLL to manage my collection and Rominator to manage what goes onto my cards.)

 

[Strokemouth]

Looks like Rominator isn't working on Leopard!

 

[hankchill]

Looks like Rominator isn't working on Leopard!

Well, can't do to much about that since:
a) I can't support Leopard yet because...
b) ...It isn't even *out* -- Beta does not count as being released.

Sorry

 

[loathsome]

I have a question. When compressing a rom, it changes from .nds to .rz - will a flash cart (DS-X) be able to read an .rz file or what? And why can't I download any box art? Is there any way to manually add an image?

Thanks for this great application, I will certainly donate after some use!

edit; Where is the Rominator settings stored?