Hacking Uneek related questions

[obcd]

I have some questions, of which most are s(u)neek related.

1. The Uneek startup slows down when the Nand contents become bigger like in the case of a lot of installed channels.
Is this due to the fact that the system menu is loading the banner annimation for all those installed channels?

2. To find the installed channels, the wii menu is looking in the sys/uid.sys file. Invalid entries in that file are simply ignored.
(If it can't find the channel Title or Tmd file (not sure which of the 2)
Does the real Wii nand ES module have a similar behavour?

3. If you remove a channel id from that file, the menu will no longer show it's annimation. Would that mean that it wouldn't slowdown the sneek
startup anymore?

4. If Joyflow or Mighty Channels might still be able to boot such (menu hidden) channels, would being able to set a channel invisible that way being an
improvement to uneek?

Please don't tell me to start to install 200 channels and try it out myself. I know it's a way to do things, but it's a little 2 time consuming besides the fact that I don't own that much VC / Wiiware.

I am interested how other developers think about the idea, like, "not possible to do", or, "already possible with program xyz", or, "We are working on something like that right now", or, "It won't make sneek startup faster because of"...

It would require an additional step to launch, and it would impress less as you wouldn't see the amout of installed stuff on the menu anymore.

 

[zizer]

i have 400 channels and yes startup is very slows down

 

[Hielkenator]

First of all, get used to Uneek being slower than a normal Nand.

The solution is creating multiple nands and using switch 2 Uneek.

I have 4 nands, specifically for : 1#WiiWare, #2VC ( ninty ), 3#VC Neogeo, arcade- TG16- C64- 4#VC (sega ).

 

[OverjoY]

1. I think UNEEK runs through all installed channels on startup. The more installed the longer it takes to start. JoYflow uses the same commands UNEEK does and JoYflow finds them all, but the process in JoYflow doesn't take that long.

2. UNEEK runs on the same system as the real nand does so yes the process is the same on real nand, but it's possible that the custom functions in UNEEK are slower than the ones in the real module

3. Yeah if you remove an entry that channel is totaly skipped

4. This aint gonna work the way everything is working now, but it should be possible to make a workaround

 

[obcd]

First of all, get used to Uneek being slower than a normal Nand.
I can live with the current startup time. I am just trying to improve things where possible.
QUOTEJoYflow uses the same commands UNEEK does and JoYflow finds them all, but the process in JoYflow doesn't take that long.

So, if I understand you well, Joyflow also scans the sys/uid.sys file to find all installed channels.
I checked out mighty channels. That program simply scans the folder with the title files and doesn't care about the uid.sys file.
During the launch process of a channel, ES_GetUID is called, and that function recreates an entry in the uid.sys file.

I assume those UID entries are needed to find the gamesaves associated with the game, but this is still a bit of a twighlight zone for me.
So, if we could find the channel entries in the ES_GetUID function and not in the other functions depending upon that file, it could maybe work.

Mighty channels has options to change the language and video settings of a channel. Are those still needed under Uneek?
I can't seem to find them in the way JoyFlow launches it's channels.

 

[OverjoY]

JoYflow calls ES_GetNumTitles and ES_GetTitles to build the channel list.

ES_GetNumTicketViews, ES_GetTicketViews and ES_LaunchTitle are called to launch a channel

Edit: Within 5 mins I'll pm you with some instructions you could try

 

[flowlapache]

First of all, get used to Uneek being slower than a normal Nand.

The solution is creating multiple nands and using switch 2 Uneek.

I have 4 nands, specifically for : 1#WiiWare, #2VC ( ninty ), 3#VC Neogeo, arcade- TG16- C64- 4#VC (sega ).

It's a really good idea!! I didn't know that uneek/sneek can now be used with nand on another place than the root!! it's perfect!! What should I do to make it? I guess using nandpath.txt but I don't know what tu put inside. I tried "nands/nand1" but it doesn't work...could you help please? thanks a lot.

 

[scooby74029]

First of all, get used to Uneek being slower than a normal Nand.

The solution is creating multiple nands and using switch 2 Uneek.

I have 4 nands, specifically for : 1#WiiWare, #2VC ( ninty ), 3#VC Neogeo, arcade- TG16- C64- 4#VC (sega ).

It's a really good idea!! I didn't know that uneek/sneek can now be used with nand on another place than the root!! it's perfect!! What should I do to make it? I guess using nandpath.txt but I don't know what tu put inside. I tried "nands/nand1" but it doesn't work...could you help please? thanks a lot.

@flowlapache

go here:http://code.google.com/p/gadget4sneek/source/browse/trunk/switch2uneek/README.txt

read this and then download switch2uneek if needed

 

[flowlapache]

Thanks for the link, it's clear now!

 

[Slimmmmmm]

I think obcd is gonna manage this wOoOoOt

 

[obcd]

let me load an emulated nand with hundreds of chans in a few seconds (off of a SDHC)

The best I can realize for the moment is uneek + di booting a clean modmii nand in 14 seconds. (Red theme as it might make a difference as well.)

If I use my Real nand backup, than it needs 20 seconds.

If I make all the installed channels on that real nand visible (18pieces), the boot time increases to 32 seconds.

So, I will soon need a Beta tester with a huge number of channels to see how it performs.

If you say a few seconds, I start to lose my courage....

Another way of speeding up things would be the setup of priiloader to launch the mighty channels directly instead of the system menu.

I also accidentally discovered that the priiloader.dol that is created in the build process of priiloader can be used as "priiloader setting" editor without freezes.
I just added one line of code so that it enters it's "setup screen" directly when it's launched.
It's a perfect way to change your priiloader settings, and it even works with the 0.7 version of priiloader.
Not sure if this might interest someone..

 

[Slimmmmmm]

let me load an emulated nand with hundreds of chans in a few seconds (off of a SDHC)

That code looks really simple..it's gotta work

 

[SanGor]

The problem is the SD code which was never designed to be fast at all, just to work!
If you don't know it's the same code used by bootmii/mini.

With my fastest card I only get around 1.1MB/s(which does easy 20MB/s on my PC) with my other (micro)sd I only get 900KB/s.

It is obvious that USB is faster as that code is basically ported from linux + a bit of hax. (sdhc part was written from scratch sdmmc ported from BSD).

 

[Slimmmmmm]

Sleeping on it I don't think rebuilding (u)SNEEK is the answer, it is better handled in the loader.

A loader could have a few extra options* and a safe backup way with only a few lines of code. I did a few tests before posting and what obcd and me talked abuot last night is really simple and only requires changing the uid.sys. It speeds things up greatly but the channels are hidden until the uid.sys is altered.

If you are playing about with this idea with loader code you can

- clean the uid.sys (keep header, delete to eof) - speeds everything up but the channels+saves in sys menu are now hidden
- backup your uid and write code that appends 12 chars (....id_4....) to either the working one, or renamed backup or both
- swap between either by renaming...
- or a combination of the above from the loader
- backup(maybe 2?) + clean the "in use" uid.sys .... so 1 "in use", 2 a backup before you began, 3 the same as 2 but is also appended ??? hmm (for testing)
- Then loading a game...
- Read the game id4, read the "in use" uid, if the match go...
- If they don't match clean + write the ....id_4.... to the end of the "in use" uid (so only 1 entry listed)
- Test other ways of doing this by maybe always cleaning when the loader loads, and always appending or variation ?!?!

Now some people might not want them hidden, so we would need to provide an option that let them write some to the uid.sys that wont be written over or "cleaned".

There could be more added to this, I can't think of why but you could have sets of id's that are all written at a time etc if you wanted to unhide xxxx amount of channels. Point is, it can be customised.

This is all just opening files, changing a tiny amount, renaming files or moving and imho any of the devs that make loaders could be starting on this now. The header info is a bit odd sometimes, and the facts I see posted from some people sometimes make me wonder if they have ever seen more than 1 uid.sys. http://wiibrew.org/wiki//sys/uid.sys in my experience the first entry is not always the same. But I've never really compared and got facts myself.

Saves that can't be moved over until you have played is a subject close to this, but requires another step or two. I've got faith dj_skual will get time one day to play about with this and I'm sure the future will see it added to his app.

There are lots of other files on the nand that can be copied, edited etc like the sysconf, handy for fixing sync and more, your mii dat for getting your miis over and editable etc. All these things and more can be added to loaders and kept seperate from (u)SNEEK.

imho Crediar will not change his plans unless it is win-win and he's right.

 

[Slimmmmmm]

oops

 

[obcd]

Maybe, if someone could give me some example sources of how you can return from a channel to your launcher (instead of system menu or HBC), I could make it work without any changes to Uneek.
It would involve setting the channel unhidden right before launch, and hide it again afterwards.
I know there is that strange stub thing that makes homebrew return to the HBC upon a simple exit, and there is the option in priiloader to launch something else instead of the systemmenu, but none of those are well documented to be used in an automated system to return (quickly) to the launcher.
Usbloader_gx has something that makes games return to the program. Maybe I need to take a look at that, and it can be used for channels as well.

I have made some other small changes to uneek, like the option to find the nand folders in a subfolder of your disk or sd card. It's not the most complicated code, and it's backwards compatible with the existing rev. 154... It's far less sofisticated than crediar's code, but it adds a little comfort to uneek use.

 

[DEFIANT]

I'll beta test if your interested. I've got every virtual console and wii ware game available installed on uneek. I did this intentionally to see what happens when sneek, uneek, mighty channels, ect are pushed to the limit. But I'm sure a few of you would simply call me a pirate but whatever. I'm all in to help if you want.