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

[chrondelta]

I also apparently did not change the Wiituka DOL, if the CRCs are to be believed; i also did not change the Wiiflow DOL at all, i havent even upgraded to 5.5.4 yet. So. Yeah. I'm confused. Like i said the biggest difference i saw was in the wiituka romcache file.

 

[matto21]

I also apparently did not change the Wiituka DOL, if the CRCs are to be believed; i also did not change the Wiiflow DOL at all, i havent even upgraded to 5.5.4 yet. So. Yeah. I'm confused. Like i said the biggest difference i saw was in the wiituka romcache file.

the file romcache wiituka I always kept the same file

 

[RunningSnakes]

@chrondelta

Amiga builds slowly for me too. There is another computer plugin that takes much longer than others, cant remember which one off hand.

 

[Exidous]

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.

I recall you endorsing my multiple-N64 emulator plugin dol and paths idea for the pack. Are you doing that with Amiga as well? Maybe the load time is mostly proportional to # of plugins (or rom paths) rather than # of roms.

 

[chrondelta]

I recall you endorsing my multiple-N64 emulator plugin dol and paths idea for the pack. Are you doing that with Amiga as well? Maybe the load time is mostly proportional to # of plugins (or rom paths) rather than # of roms.

I haven't implementd the N64 sort-optimization yet, and i wouldn't know the first thing about doing that with Amiga, a console i have no nostalgic connection to, esp compared to the N64. And by comparison, my Lynx has two plugins assigned with separate folders (one for header-less roms... of which i have 1 lol). Plus, testing right now, my "Arcade" button in Rhapsodii Shima (which has like... just an absolute smorgasboard number of plugins for it) took like idk, 20 seconds or so? I should have timed it just now, but i can run it again. And that particular coverflow has 956 games, so that's a Lot. So i don't think it's that. Because the N64 has an abnormally long time on that screen too, but not as long as the Amiga's.

just measured, n64 takes ~105 seconds on th wiiflow loading screen. Compared to 1 second for the Lynx, 10 seconds for SNES at 1016 titles, 14 seconds for NES at around ~800 titles... 7 seconds for gensis at ~900 titles... all of these have just 1 plugin showing for displaying games active (except for the Lynx), including the Amiga.

Edit: I timed it, my hunch about arcade was right and came in at 20 seconds when i timed it. Amiga comes in at.. 10 minutes 2 sconds holy moly.

 

[chrondelta]

Oh one last small report on the Amstrad emulator: it's not properly autobooting games tagged as "CPC+"... any ideas what that's about? Otherwise it's working like a charm!

Edit: okay ive been finding more than a handful of games that aren't properly autobooting. I can usually get it working by typing CAT, figuring out which file listed is the "main" one for the game, then typing run"thatfile.whatever" (with the "'s being accessed by shift+2) but i'm curious how the autobooting is meant to function. So for example, continental circus didn't boot because "circus3.bas was not found" but i had to run"circus.bin" to make it work. ANd with CPC+ games, typing cat yields "drive not found".

 

[matto21]

Oh one last small report on the Amstrad emulator: it's not properly autobooting games tagged as "CPC+"... any ideas what that's about? Otherwise it's working like a charm!

Edit: okay ive been finding more than a handful of games that aren't properly autobooting. I can usually get it working by typing CAT, figuring out which file listed is the "main" one for the game, then typing run"thatfile.whatever" (with the "'s being accessed by shift+2) but i'm curious how the autobooting is meant to function. So for example, continental circus didn't boot because "circus3.bas was not found" but i had to run"circus.bin" to make it work. ANd with CPC+ games, typing cat yields "drive not found".

try to change roms

 

[chrondelta]

try to change roms
View attachment 308243

wait how did your game boot so fast, for one thing? Or did you edit out the waiting time? Also not sure what you mean about changing ROMs unless you mean use a different ROM? I'll try that out later ig. My version of Continental Circus does run"menu.bas" it tries to run "circus3.bas" but the correct thing to run was "circus.bin".

 

[matto21]

wait how did your game boot so fast, for one thing? Or did you edit out the waiting time? Also not sure what you mean about changing ROMs unless you mean use a different ROM? I'll try that out later ig. My version of Continental Circus does run"menu.bas" it tries to run "circus3.bas" but the correct thing to run was "circus.bin".

use a different ROM

 

[fledge68]

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.

first - the wiiflow loading screen (animated wiiflow) is when wiiflow is reading all your roms and making a new cached list. the progress bar after that is when wiiflow is creating all the cached covers (wfc files) if needed.

second - why is N64 and Amiga slower than most others? here's the steps to adding roms to the list.

1. get the filename and run it through regex to hopefully only include the first file of multi file roms. this might slow down PC roms
2. get the short name of the filename. this means remove anything in () or [] and change any _ to a space.
3. get the roms ID. this is further divided as follows.

1. check the database platform ini file using the short name from #2 above. if found we have the ID. note the filename's are in no intro format ie. 'the' is usually placed at the end like 'legend of zelda, the'. for arcade games the filenames all have to be a specific filename which means they always get their ID in this step.
2. if the short name isn't found wiiflow moves on to get the roms CRC. For .zip files this is easy as the .zip files info already has the CRC. so we move on to find the CRC in the database platform ini file and once found we have the rom ID.
3. megaCD and PS1 uses a serial number from the rom.
4. if the game is not a .zip file wiiflow calculates the CRC of the rom and uses this to get the rom ID. this can be slow especially for big files.

 

[chrondelta]

Ah, that would explain it. The Amiga has the largest library of UNzipped files. the N64 games have the largest file sizes of my unzipped ROMs, so CRC calculating would take a bit longer for those i'd imagine. I'm not sure how PS1 works because im making my plugin connect to .cue files instead of .bin files. Could you explain the megaCD/PS1 serial process a bit? Are those the only CD-based consoles that use such a thing?

 

[fledge68]

Ah, that would explain it. The Amiga has the largest library of UNzipped files. the N64 games have the largest file sizes of my unzipped ROMs, so CRC calculating would take a bit longer for those i'd imagine. I'm not sure how PS1 works because im making my plugin connect to .cue files instead of .bin files. Could you explain the megaCD/PS1 serial process a bit? Are those the only CD-based consoles that use such a thing?

wiimpathy wrote the code but from what i see it will only work with the .iso or .bin files. if your using .cue files the only way it gets the ID is if your filename matches the name in the database ini file.

 

[chrondelta]

Well it's not lik a whole lot of PS1 games even work on the Wii very well so it's fine XP

 

[chrondelta]

i tried digging through this thread a bit, looking for if anyone actually made the NeoGeo CD plugin & buttons for Wiiflow and rhapsodii shima or not. I downloaded the databases, i think from another thread. But does anyone have the plugin/dols and stuff for it?

 

[SuperrSonic]

Added 3DS controller support to RA-HEXAECO from enhanced mgba by Extrems.

It's a bit picky in RA, it stops working when you load a game, you have to start the core with the game forwarded, or enable the setting before loading a game. I played Super Mario World for a few levels with the 3DS set to player 2, worked great.

If you use it for wiiflow you won't notice any problems, but you still need to restart after enabling the controller. 3DS mappings have their own setting to avoid conflict with the regular mappings, touch screen is hardcoded to toggle the menu, no gyro controls are used. Circle pad mappings use the digital values so the stick sensitivity setting won't have any effect.

 

[fandango]

Regarding the recently discussed game auto-booting issue with the Amstrad games using Wiituka.

Firstly thanks to everyone that has been trying to get it working. I'm not trying to claim that I discovered the stuff below, it was through other peoples hard work as mentioned previously in this thread. I'm just bringing it all together here.

For me there are three important things; get the wiituka.ini file correct, use dsk roms, and use the latest regex. I have explained this in more detail below. I hope it helps others having the same issue.

I'm using Wiiflow 5.5.3. There is no need to upgrade to a newer beta version to make auto-boot work.
The wiituka.ini file must contain arguments=/{path}/{name}|{name}
The game roms must be in zip files.
The zip files must contain a .dsk game for auto-boot to work.
I found .zip files containing .cpr games wouldn't auto-boot.
If you have the regex ((dis[ck]|tape|side|track)[ _-]?[b-z2-9]) in wiiflow.ini, then Wiiflow incorrectly won't see the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder.
If you use a different regex, such as ((dis[ck]|tape|side|track)[ _-]([b-l]|0*[2-9]|[1-9][0-9]))|(dis[ck])[2-9]|(neogeo.zip) then Wiiflow will correctly see the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder.
Autoboot works for me whether I have the games in 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' (with the longer regex above) or another path such as 'roms\Amstrad CPC' (using any regex).

I did also get .dsk games auto-booting with cap32 RA, but I much prefer Wiituka because of the virtual keyboard.

P.S. The official wiituka package doesn't contain the wiituka_romcache.xml and wiituka_conf.xml files because they are automatically generated at startup. I don't have a definitive answer on whether Wiituka will create them when using Wiiflow. So if auto-boot doesnt work then either get the files or start Wiituka from the HBC (with the games in the the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder) so it creates them.

P.P.S Of course this is only a solution for playing CPC games. Regarding GX4000 cpr games, they will play with Wiituka, but they won't auto-boot. So it's better to use cap32. Using the RA cap32 core, load any cpr game. When the game attempts to load press the Home button and scroll to and select Options. Then scroll down to Model and select 6128+. Now Quit Retroarch and go back to WFL, now select any cpr game and it should auto-boot.

 

[Muliro]

Added 3DS controller support to RA-HEXAECO from enhanced mgba by Extrems.

It's a bit picky in RA, it stops working when you load a game, you have to start the core with the game forwarded, or enable the setting before loading a game. I played Super Mario World for a few levels with the 3DS set to player 2, worked great.

If you use it for wiiflow you won't notice any problems, but you still need to restart after enabling the controller. 3DS mappings have their own setting to avoid conflict with the regular mappings, touch screen is hardcoded to toggle the menu, no gyro controls are used. Circle pad mappings use the digital values so the stick sensitivity setting won't have any effect.

Hello, thanks for the updates!
In the readme it's said that Snes9x 2010 and 2005 was updated, the Snes9x next was updated a well? If not, how would do they compare with each other? I'm almost sure that in the previous release of your Snes9x next i could fell some stuter with the fast rom patch for Aladdin, but in this new release I can't fell it anymore.
Can anybody recomend me a game to test this?
Thank you all for the great work

 

[RunningSnakes]

Regarding the recently discussed game auto-booting issue with the Amstrad games using Wiituka.

Firstly thanks to everyone that has been trying to get it working. I'm not trying to claim that I discovered the stuff below, it was through other peoples hard work as mentioned previously in this thread. I'm just bringing it all together here.

For me there are three important things; get the wiituka.ini file correct, use dsk roms, and use the latest regex. I have explained this in more detail below. I hope it helps others having the same issue.

I'm using Wiiflow 5.5.3. There is no need to upgrade to a newer beta version to make auto-boot work.
The wiituka.ini file must contain arguments=/{path}/{name}|{name}
The game roms must be in zip files.
The zip files must contain a .dsk game for auto-boot to work.
I found .zip files containing .cpr games wouldn't auto-boot.
If you have the regex ((dis[ck]|tape|side|track)[ _-]?[b-z2-9]) in wiiflow.ini, then Wiiflow incorrectly won't see the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder.
If you use a different regex, such as ((dis[ck]|tape|side|track)[ _-]([b-l]|0*[2-9]|[1-9][0-9]))|(dis[ck])[2-9]|(neogeo.zip) then Wiiflow will correctly see the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder.
Autoboot works for me whether I have the games in 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' (with the longer regex above) or another path such as 'roms\Amstrad CPC' (using any regex).

I did also get .dsk games auto-booting with cap32 RA, but I much prefer Wiituka because of the virtual keyboard.

P.S. The official wiituka package doesn't contain the wiituka_romcache.xml and wiituka_conf.xml files because they are automatically generated at startup. I don't have a definitive answer on whether Wiituka will create them when using Wiiflow. So if auto-boot doesnt work then either get the files or start Wiituka from the HBC (with the games in the the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder) so it creates them.

P.P.S Of course this is only a solution for playing CPC games. I can play GX4000 cpr games with Wiituka, but they won't auto-boot. I cant get them to work at all with cap32. If anyone has a solution for auto-booting GX4000 cpr games it would be great thanks. I would be happy if I could get them auto-booting with cap32.

Using RA cap32 core, load any cpr game. When the game attempts to load press home button and scroll to and select Options. Then scroll down to Model and select 6128+. Now Quit Retroarch and go back to WFL, now select any cpr game and it should autoboot.

I do not think cpr games are capable of autoboot through Wiituka however. Ill link a file to place inside your retroarch folder also that will be part of the next pack update.

 

[chrondelta]

Regarding the recently discussed game auto-booting issue with the Amstrad games using Wiituka.

Firstly thanks to everyone that has been trying to get it working. I'm not trying to claim that I discovered the stuff below, it was through other peoples hard work as mentioned previously in this thread. I'm just bringing it all together here.

For me there are three important things; get the wiituka.ini file correct, use dsk roms, and use the latest regex. I have explained this in more detail below. I hope it helps others having the same issue.

I'm using Wiiflow 5.5.3. There is no need to upgrade to a newer beta version to make auto-boot work.
The wiituka.ini file must contain arguments=/{path}/{name}|{name}
The game roms must be in zip files.
The zip files must contain a .dsk game for auto-boot to work.
I found .zip files containing .cpr games wouldn't auto-boot.
If you have the regex ((dis[ck]|tape|side|track)[ _-]?[b-z2-9]) in wiiflow.ini, then Wiiflow incorrectly won't see the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder.
If you use a different regex, such as ((dis[ck]|tape|side|track)[ _-]([b-l]|0*[2-9]|[1-9][0-9]))|(dis[ck])[2-9]|(neogeo.zip) then Wiiflow will correctly see the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder.
Autoboot works for me whether I have the games in 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' (with the longer regex above) or another path such as 'roms\Amstrad CPC' (using any regex).

I did also get .dsk games auto-booting with cap32 RA, but I much prefer Wiituka because of the virtual keyboard.

P.S. The official wiituka package doesn't contain the wiituka_romcache.xml and wiituka_conf.xml files because they are automatically generated at startup. I don't have a definitive answer on whether Wiituka will create them when using Wiiflow. So if auto-boot doesnt work then either get the files or start Wiituka from the HBC (with the games in the the 'apps\wiituka\DISKS' folder) so it creates them.

P.P.S Of course this is only a solution for playing CPC games. I can play GX4000 cpr games with Wiituka, but they won't auto-boot. I cant get them to work at all with cap32. If anyone has a solution for auto-booting GX4000 cpr games it would be great thanks. I would be happy if I could get them auto-booting with cap32.

so for GX4000 to work with cap32, you need cap32.opt file from the 16:9 config files to be in sd:\retroarch\config\cap32. It is somehow essential for that to work.

edit: efb, RunningSnakes's answer is probably the more "natural" one in that it shows a proper understanding of the Problem, but either should work.

 

[fandango]

Using RA cap32 core, load any cpr game. When the game attempts to load press home button and scroll to and select Options. Then scroll down to Model and select 6128+. Now Quit Retroarch and go back to WFL, now select any cpr game and it should autoboot.

I do not think cpr games are capable of autoboot through Wiituka however. Ill link a file to place inside your retroarch folder also that will be part of the next pack update.

Yes changing to 6128+ made cpr games auto-boot in cap32. I've updated my original post.
Thanks very much for your help!