Hacking The Great Quest for Wiiflow Plugins™ - A call for adventurers!

[chrondelta]

neogeo.zip is the BIOS file for NeoGeo games, which apparently needs to be in the ROMS folder for the FBA plugins. There's no need to display it.

[b-l] catches any disks/tracks/sids/tapes named "B" through "L". Which admittedly, i haven't found many that go past, say, "D" when labeling things using the alphabet instead of numbers, but that's what that catches. I ended it at "L" because if you do "M", you start catching things in the regex you don't want, e.g. any game named "Track Meet" for example.

If you have a game that you don't want caught in the fileskip regex that matches with that, you can eliminate the space between it and the subsquent thing to let the fileskip regex pass over it. e.g., "NBA Courtside 2 ft. Kobe Bryant" can be re-named "NBA Courtside2 ft. Kobe Bryant" (that's an N64 title)

Or, here's a theoretical example, say you have a game file named .... idk, how about "Side Kick.rom" (i know there's some games like this on Arcade consoles, but they all use filenams without any type of spaces or anything so it doesn't matter).
So let's say you have "Side Kick.rom" or "Side_Kick.rom" or something. If you rename it to "Sidekick.rom", the fileskip regex will still pass over. If you leav the space or underscore or hyphen in, that game won't show up in your ROMs list.

 

[NormalMisha]

EDIT: Fixed. To fix the problem with FCEUGX crashing after you have moved from a USB setup to an SD-only setup, you need to delete the "fceugx" folder on the root of the SD card, which you would have copied from your USB drive. You then need to create it again, i.e. paste it from the Plugins Pack. I guess the problem is actually a settings file within that folder. This is a pretty weird bug IMO, so I think it is worth me leaving this post here.

Is the FCEUGX NES plugin known to work in an SD-only setup with Wiiflow launching it? I recently switched from a USB+SD setup to an SD-only setup and the only problem is that the NES plugin crashes (DSI Exception) when I select a NES rom from within Wiiflow. The other 4 emulators work fine. The rompartition setting has been changed to 0.

I noticed that on the GitHub page for FCEUGX the history shows that a Wiiflow crash was fixed in 3.4.3, which is older than the version of the DOL that I am using (https://github.com/dborth/fceugx/releases).

So does anybody have FCEUGX working with an SD-only Wiiflow setup? I use an 128GB SDXC card. I notice that only SDHC support is mentioned on the WiiBrew page for FCEUGX (https://wiibrew.org/wiki/FCE_Ultra_GX). I will shortly try loading the emulator directly from the SD card in the Homebrew channel to check that it's not my particular SD card that's the issue.

Thanks in advance,

Misha

 

[RunningSnakes]

EDIT: It seems that the issue is indeed the use of an SDXC card (SanDisk 128GB). FCEUGX crashes even when loading it directly from the Homebrew channel. That's a pity as I bought the SD card so that I can give this setup to my young nephew without the mechanical hard drive hanging out the back, prone to breaking.

Does anybody know if there exists an alternative NES emulator which supports the NES Zapper (Duck Hunt) and works with SDXC cards? If I can find a replacement for FCEUGX, I can avoid going back to the USB hard drive.

It's a bit strange that just one of the 5 console emulators I use randomly doesn't work with SDXC cards. I don't actually know the difference between SDXC and SDHC, but surely these SD cards are accessed via an abstracted interface with basically two functions: read and write. How can some apps support SDXC and others not? Even if code has to be added to support SDXC in each app, surely that small amount of code would just be copy and pasted into the codebase of every homebrew app with very little effort. Baffling.

Note: I formatted my SDXC card using WiiBackupManager - FAT32 32K clusters.

Is the FCEUGX NES plugin known to work in an SD-only setup with Wiiflow launching it? I recently switched from a USB+SD setup to an SD-only setup and the only problem is that the NES plugin crashes (DSI Exception) when I select a NES rom from within Wiiflow. The other 4 emulators work fine. The rompartition setting has been changed to 0.

I noticed that on the GitHub page for FCEUGX the history shows that a Wiiflow crash was fixed in 3.4.3, which is older than the version of the DOL that I am using (https://github.com/dborth/fceugx/releases).

So does anybody have FCEUGX working with an SD-only Wiiflow setup? I use an 128GB SDXC card. I notice that only SDHC support is mentioned on the WiiBrew page for FCEUGX (https://wiibrew.org/wiki/FCE_Ultra_GX). I will shortly try loading the emulator directly from the SD card in the Homebrew channel to check that it's not my particular SD card that's the issue. EDIT: this is the issue - see the bolded first paragraph.

Thanks in advance,

Misha

RetroArch FCEUmm and Nestopia both support light gun. WiiMednafen also supports NES light gun games (Duck Hunt).

Im not sure about the Sd card compatibility, but worth a shot in setting those up. If you need help setting up FCEUmm or Nestopia for Light Gun games, i can post some instructions.

 

[RunningSnakes]

I see you have this issue fixed.

Be aware those mentioned emulators can serve as a backup to GX-RX-TX.

Glad to hear you jave it running.

Edit:

The issue you were experiencing exists with the SNES emulators GX-RX-TX as well. The settings.xml created by USB conflicts with SD and vice versa.

 

[NormalMisha]

If I use GenPlusGX for both MegaDrive and Master System games, is there a way to have two different settings configurations for the two consoles? Master System games don't fill the screen unless you set up some video scaling settings, but those scaling settings mess up the display of MegaDrive games. Presumably one way to do this is to edit the source code to change the name of the emulator's root folder to something else, like genplusgx_ms, build a DOL then link it to a new Master System plugin ini file. A bit like what has been done with the GX, RX and TX (S)NES emus.

Is there a definitive best emulator to use for each console?

 

[NormalMisha]

RetroArch FCEUmm and Nestopia both support light gun. WiiMednafen also supports NES light gun games (Duck Hunt).

Im not sure about the Sd card compatibility, but worth a shot in setting those up. If you need help setting up FCEUmm or Nestopia for Light Gun games, i can post some instructions.

Cheers. I might look at those tomorrow to see if they're better than FCEU.

 

[RunningSnakes]

@NormalMisha

GX standalone is the best emulator for Genesis/Mega Drive period. For Master System i use RetroArch SMSPlus for the reasons you mentioned and because i believe it is superior to all others. Some of the options provided by that core make it (clearly the best) in my eyes. You wont be disappointed if you set it up.

 

[NormalMisha]

@NormalMisha

GX standalone is the best emulator for Genesis/Mega Drive period. For Master System i use RetroArch SMSPlus for the reasons you mentioned and because i believe it is superior to all others. Some of the options provided by that core make it (clearly the best) in my eyes. You wont be disappointed if you set it up.

When you say GenPlusGX "standalone" what do you mean?

I'll give SMSPlus a go later. Is it any more complicated to setup than any others? Or is it just a case of copying the folders and editing the plugin ini? There is a lot of slowdown with SMS games on GenPlusGX, but the same slowdown happens on the real console I think. An emulator that could eliminate that would be good. Probably impossible though.

 

[RunningSnakes]

GensPlusGX standalone is the original Official emulator that you have installed in your apps folder already.

@Tetsuo Shima separated the Retroarch GensPlus GX cores for the plugins pack so each Sega console uses its own configuration. So you can set each individual Sega console with your cfg preferences.

Yes the SMSPlus core is as simple as drop/drag and then editing the ini for your desired setup.

 

[SaulFabre]

GensPlusGX standalone is the original Official emulator that you have installed in your apps folder already.

@Tetsuo Shima separated the Retroarch GensPlus GX cores for the plugins pack so each Sega console uses its own configuration. So you can set each individual Sega console with your cfg preferences.

Yes the SMSPlus core is as simple as drop/drag and then editing the ini for your desired setup.

When you say GenPlusGX "standalone" what do you mean?

I'll give SMSPlus a go later. Is it any more complicated to setup than any others? Or is it just a case of copying the folders and editing the plugin ini? There is a lot of slowdown with SMS games on GenPlusGX, but the same slowdown happens on the real console I think. An emulator that could eliminate that would be good. Probably impossible though.

@RunningSnakes @NormalMisha

Speaking of standalone Genesis Plus GX core, i think you need to update Genesis Plus GX to the latest builds made by the author (eke-eke) with many fixes, improvements and other stuff on the Wii and GameCube.

Grab (download) the genplus_wii.dol file from here, then replace your old boot.dol or plugin dol with this new one. (last updated April 24, 2022)
https://github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX/tree/master/builds

 

[RunningSnakes]

Something very strange has happened and i wonder if file corruption using WiiXplorer has caused this.

I updated to WFL 5.5.4 beta1 and using @chrondelta latest regex. So i began to test some plugins and discovered BBC Micro also is affected with discs path bug. So i changed the path to games and it works as expected.

I then test ScummVM since this plugin is troublesome in the past, to make sure it is still working properly. All is good thank goodness.

I test GX4000, MSX, CreatiVision, Amiga, C64, ZX everything OK. I figured ill try Amstrad CPC using Wiituka. WOW it is auto booting, either fledge fixed it or the bug disappeared, or maybe the regex had something to do with it.

So i backtrack to find where it breaks and I find nothing, it is autobooting on 5.5.3 with unedited and 2 regex edited wiiflow_lite.ini.

We all have tested this multiple times all with the same result, autoboot support was lost after 5.4.9. At least a half dozen of us experienced this issue while testing!

I kid you not, Wiituka is now autobooting games using WFL 5.5.3 as well as the latest 554b1 release......SMH......I dont know what to make of it other than file corruption on my end and everyone was using files i distributed in Plugins Pack 9.

@fledge68 @Wiimpathy @Tetsuo Shima, @chrondelta, @matto21

Can you please test this once more and if its still not autobooting for you i will link my working files.

 

[chrondelta]

Something very strange has happened and i wonder if file corruption using WiiXplorer has caused this.

I updated to WFL 5.5.4 beta1 and using @chrondelta latest regex. So i began to test some plugins and discovered BBC Micro also is affected with discs path bug. So i changed the path to games and it works as expected.

I then test ScummVM since this plugin is troublesome in the past, to make sure it is still working properly. All is good thank goodness.

I test GX4000, MSX, CreatiVision, Amiga, C64, ZX everything OK. I figured ill try Amstrad CPC using Wiituka. WOW it is auto booting, either @fledge fixed it or the bug disappeared, or maybe the regex had something to do with it.

So i backtrack to find where it breaks and I find nothing, it is autobooting on 5.5.3 with unedited and 2 regex edited wiiflow_lite.ini.

We all have tested this multiple times all with the same result, autoboot support was lost after 5.4.9. At least a half dozen of us experienced this issue while testing!

I kid you not, Wiituka is now autobooting games using WFL 5.5.3 as well as the latest 554b1 release......SMH......I dont know what to make of it other than file corruption on my end and everyone was using files i distributed in Plugins Pack 9.

@fledge68 @Wiimpathy @Tetsuo Shima, @chrondelta, @matto21

Can you please test this once more and if its still not autobooting for you i will link my working files.

I haven't changed anything in the CPC setup. Also I dont think i ever got Autobooting working in C64?

But yeah, my thing should still be not working, like i said i haven't changed anything. I'm assuming your old setup and your new setup have different CRCs for... i guess the dolfile or somthing? Please link to the uncorrupted thing and i'll test.

 

[matto21]

Something very strange has happened and i wonder if file corruption using WiiXplorer has caused this.

I updated to WFL 5.5.4 beta1 and using @chrondelta latest regex. So i began to test some plugins and discovered BBC Micro also is affected with discs path bug. So i changed the path to games and it works as expected.

I then test ScummVM since this plugin is troublesome in the past, to make sure it is still working properly. All is good thank goodness.

I test GX4000, MSX, CreatiVision, Amiga, C64, ZX everything OK. I figured ill try Amstrad CPC using Wiituka. WOW it is auto booting, either @fledge fixed it or the bug disappeared, or maybe the regex had something to do with it.

So i backtrack to find where it breaks and I find nothing, it is autobooting on 5.5.3 with unedited and 2 regex edited wiiflow_lite.ini.

We all have tested this multiple times all with the same result, autoboot support was lost after 5.4.9. At least a half dozen of us experienced this issue while testing!

I kid you not, Wiituka is now autobooting games using WFL 5.5.3 as well as the latest 554b1 release......SMH......I dont know what to make of it other than file corruption on my end and everyone was using files i distributed in Plugins Pack 9.

@fledge68 @Wiimpathy @Tetsuo Shima, @chrondelta, @matto21

Can you please test this once more and if its still not autobooting for you i will link my working files.

I only replaced the files from WFL 5.5.3 and kept the wiiflow_lite.ini generated by WFL 5.4.9 and Wiituka starts automatically

 

[RunningSnakes]

Wiituka WFL plugin 5.5.4 beta1 and 5.5.3 working.

I just tested again after ejecting SD from Wii plugging into PC, the back to Wii. Both confirmed autobooting.

 

[matto21]

Wiituka WFL plugin 5.5.4 beta1 and 5.5.3 working.

I just tested again after ejecting SD from Wii plugging into PC, the back to Wii. Both confirmed autobooting.

from USB
tried WFL 5.5.4 beta1
i generated wiiflow_lite.ini and it seems to work fine
tried on wiituka
CPS1-2-3
neo-geo
Amstrad CPC
Amstrad GX4000
Amstrad GX4000 with roms converted to cpr

 

[chrondelta]

I havent tested yet, will do when i wake up a bit more, but i did a quick look at windiff last night and i didn't see any significant differences in any of the CRCs for the dolfiles or anything. What was it that got corrupted? the biggst difference i see is with Wiituka's romcache file. Is that it?

 

[fledge68]

So was it a corrupted plugin file or you need a new wiiflow lite ini?

Edit: I just tried a clean new wiiflow lite ini and it works. Interesting.

 

[chrondelta]

Wild, i tried your new files and despite not being able to identify a significant difference (unless i didn't pay close enough attention, that's possible too) things seem to b autobooting. Though oddly, the first game i tried playing, 20000 avant J.C., actually failed the autoboot sequence. The second game i tried, 720, did not. There's nothing special about those games except that they're semi-randomly picked out of the beginning of the CPC library list. Even the failed autoboot isn't something that would happen previously. I am still using 5.5.3 though. I did NOT need to use your wiiflow.ini or any of your wiiflow files specifically, i just used the contents of \apps\wiituka and \wiiflow from your most recent zip. Great work, whatever you did ^^ Games still take like a minute (or longer? I'm not timing, im just going by vibes) each to load, but at last they load. Any ideas on if the load time can be reduced or do we just have to deal with it?

 

[chrondelta]

Okay here's something interesting, and i know the answer is "Just keep the filelist cache, doofus", but because i'm still fixing and moving around ROM libraries, i'm not ready to "finalize" those yet. So every time i've been testing this setup, i have the .wfc cache files for boxarts for the console already installed, but i delete the gameslists, the contents of \wiiflow\cache\lists primarily. So what happens when i load up a console's list "for the first time" on an SD card is that there's a period where the console switches to showing the WiiFlow logo and its "loading" animation. For the vast majority of consoles, this time is negligible, and it immediately after coming back begins building the gamelist cache. The thing i am concerned with isnot the time to build the list, but the time during which you see the WiiFlow "loading" screen. Note that I'm using Rhapsodii Shima 5.4.9 if that changes anything

For both the N64 and Amiga, the "wiiflow loading screen" time seems ABNORMALLY long compared to other consoles. I could try to do some time comparisons, but just for example, it takes at least a minute or few for the N64 list, at 235 games. And for the Amiga, it takes like MANY minutes, like at least 5, on the Wiiflow Loading Screen, even with without me having any boxcovers setup for it (besids the Amiga "Blank Cover"). The Amiga has like 900 or more games?

By comparison, the Wiiflow Loading Screen for the SNES gams, which is like 1000+, is like... less than 10 seconds or so. or maybe 30 seconds. Same for the Amstrad CPC, at 1361 games.

Is there something the Amiga and N64 coverflows have in common that would make loading them take an abnormally long amount of time? Maybe something to do with the "box model" or something? I'm curious what wiiflow is actually doing during that waiting time before it displays the UI and starts building the gamelist out of your cached boxcovers and ROMs.

@RunningSnakes and @fledge68 lemme know if you have a similar experience.

 

[matto21]

before with version WFL5.5.3 it did not automatically start wiituka roms.
I tried the dol 5.5.3 and 5.5.4 beta 1 of the RunningSnakes package and it restarted automatically
To see what happened I downloaded WFL 5.5.3 from the source again and the weird thing is that now it works whereas it didn't work before
I repeat, I have never changed the wiituka dol
and with clean wiiflow_lite.ini at every WFL dol change