Hacking USB Loader GUI-FX

[maddoc]

most users reported no problems in using wbfs manager 3.0 to copy back to pc the game images.

you can read more here, I saw a thread for wbfs manager 3.0

 

[ulysse57]

most users reported no problems in using wbfs manager 3.0 to copy back to pc the game images.

you can read more here, I saw a thread for wbfs manager 3.0

I am back ! I will test RC7 this evening.

For wbfs manager, I used the 2.5 first release version to copy games from wbfs to wbfs. Surprisingly my games increased after the copy. But they work ! The increase was around 10%. AlexDP did a second version of 2.5 perhaps to correct this because he mentioned a bug in size calculation. I didn't use version 3.0. So the best is perhaps to test with one game first.

 

[ulysse57]

So a first test before to go more in depth. I have not yet a fat partition on my disk so I used only the sd card. I will try this evening if I have time to use the hdd.

It is very good to have 15 games on one screen.

With my wide screen, the left arrow is not visible and the three covers of the left row are cutted partially.

On the info screen of a game, you added a sort of reflection above the cover. It does a problem for me: the reflection doesn't begin under the cover but partially on the cover.

I will take asap pictures to explain this.

For the NTSC games, I tested mario sluggers and it is still in B&W.

 

[maddoc]

thanks ulysse, pictures would be great.

the reflection is no error, position was intended!

 

[ulysse57]

I tested the possibility to put the covers on the hdd. It worked well.

I have a 1To hdd with three primary partitions in this order:
1) FAT32 : 30Go
2) WBFS : 500Go
3) NTFS : The others Go

I removed on the sd card the coperti folder to be sure that the loader doesn't use it and uses the hdd.

I downloaded the standard and 3D covers.

Is it possible not to need to put the fat32 first ? Because if you have an already "full" wbfs hdd, it would be better to be able to put the fat partition after the wbfs one.

the reflection is no error, position was intended!

ok, but the cursor disappears behind the reflection (so the cursor is not visible on the whole cover when you move it). I will put a picture if necessary.

 

[ulysse57]

thanks ulysse, pictures would be great.

So, in the first image, you can see that the cover on the left is truncated and the covers are very close to the top of the screen. Moreover, the two arrows are not totally visible:

In the second one, you can see that the cursor in hidden by the reflection:

And in the last one, you can see that if the right arrow is truncated but visible, the left arrow is displayed on top of a cover and quasi invisible:

Except these "details" the loader seems to work well. I didn't test a lot covers on the hdd partition with a lot of games to measure the performance. I wait to know if you can put the fat32 partition after the wbfs one, because I would prefer this option. By this way, we would be able to manage the disk easily to increase or decrease the FAT/NTFS space of the disk after the wbfs partition.

 

[mihai_crazy]

The fat32 partition can be 2nd, 3rd or 4th. The only thing that is needed to work is to set the fat32 partition "active". You can use diskpart in Windows XP or above to do this.
More infos on diskpart commands can be found here

 

[maddoc]

You can use a fat partition wherever you want on the drive, just make sure it's type is primary!

The half star problem is really weird and I don't see how this could happen!
The star is drawn last on screen and should always be on top of everything.

The cover screen is looking like this:

I don't see any way to solve the problems you mentioned. I can't shrink the covers more as they'll look ugly and distorted and I can't shrink the space between the covers or they'll overlap when zoomed in.

Please try the 3d covers, they take a smaller space an will probably fit better.

 

[ulysse57]

You can use a fat partition wherever you want on the drive, just make sure it's type is primary!
I tested first with three primary partitions like this:
1) wbfs (500)
2) fat32 (32)
3) ntfs (...)
It didn't work. No covers were found.

The half star problem is really weird and I don't see how this could happen!
The star is drawn last on screen and should always be on top of everything.
I don't know too ! Perhaps due the widescreen mode ?

The cover screen is looking like this:

I don't see any way to solve the problems you mentioned. I can't shrink the covers more as they'll look ugly and distorted and I can't shrink the space between the covers or they'll overlap when zoomed in.

It is due to the widescreen mode. I think you have to detect the two modes and adapt the displauy to both of them. In the widescreen mode, covers must be displayed in 130 pixels width if I remember well. The screen is shrink to near 840 pixels width I think. But it is perhaps not so simple. They did a lot of work in the USB Iso Loader for this.

QUOTE(maddoc @ May 6 2009, 12:21 AM)

Please try the 3d covers, they take a smaller space an will probably fit better.

I will do that tomorrow.

 

[maddoc]

I tested first with three primary partitions like this:
1) wbfs (500)
2) fat32 (32)
3) ntfs (...)
It didn't work. No covers were found.

Really strange. It works fine for a friend of mine, will try it too on a spare drive.

The half star problem is really weird and I don't see how this could happen!
The star is drawn last on screen and should always be on top of everything.
I don't know too ! Perhaps due the widescreen mode ?

Surely not. seems more like a program corruption. if after restarting the loader you still get that error then please redownload it and make another folder on SD card for it, do not overwrite the old one and do not delete the old one. Or try another SD card. Do you load it from HBC or laod using a forwarder?


QUOTE(ulysse57 @ May 6 2009, 01:35 AM)

It is due to the widescreen mode. I think you have to detect the two modes and adapt the displauy to both of them. In the widescreen mode, covers must be displayed in 130 pixels width if I remember well. The screen is shrink to near 840 pixels width I think. But it is perhaps not so simple. They did a lot of work in the USB Iso Loader for this.

Widescreen on wii is still 640x480, just the content is shrunk so that it looks good on wide screens.

 

[ulysse57]

Really strange. It works fine for a friend of mine, will try it too on a spare drive.
I will test it today again.

Surely not. seems more like a program corruption. if after restarting the loader you still get that error then please redownload it and make another folder on SD card for it, do not overwrite the old one and do not delete the old one. Or try another SD card. Do you load it from HBC or laod using a forwarder?
I will do this again and I use the HBC.

QUOTE(ulysse57 @ May 6 2009, 01:35 AM)

Widescreen on wii is still 640x480, just the content is shrunk so that it looks good on wide screens.

What is surprising is that your pictures are very different than mine. When you display the 15 covers, you have space on the border of the screen that I don't have. In addition the covers on your picture seem thiner than mine. So, are you sure that the widescreen mode is taken into account. You can look at the info screen, the difference in cover size is high and in space around the screen too.

 

[maddoc]

Really strange. It works fine for a friend of mine, will try it too on a spare drive.

I will test it today again.

Check also that the fat partition is active, like mihai_crazy said.

 

[ocdetective]

I am currently using rc5 and loving it. Very straightforward and easy to use. If I use rc7 do I need to remove all existing files then re-download all the cover files into the coperti folder?

 

[wattsy]

ulysee57

from the images you've posted it looks as though you're using a widescreen CRT - if this is the case then I would suggest that you have a serious overscan issue, which can be corrected by a trained engineer.
I strongly advise against trying to make live adjustments to the CRT yourself as the voltages present in a CRT even when it's switched off and unplugged are enough to kill you.
It's not worth the risk for what should be a cheap fix for a qualified engineer.

Widescreen can be supported by creating modified cover images - try shrinking the width of the image to 134px from 160px and then padding 13px either side of transparency, this can easily be done in Photoshop.

1. Open cover.png
2. Select image size and change width to 134px leaving height at 224px
3. Select canvas size and change width back to 160px x 224px
4. Save image

maddoc

please don't take this the wrong way but do we need the flashing arrows as they don't seem to provide any real purpose?

Is there any way you can set the covers to download a set of widescreen adjusted images?

 

[ast]

@maddoc

I don't know if someone already mentioned this, but the "mirror effect" in the 3D preview is wrong. Perspectively wrong. Although in a 2D way of thinking the lower right corner of the cover is "above" the lower left corner, in 3D both corners are on the ground. So the mirror effect has to start directly at the corners and not somewhere below the right corner. Sorry for my bad english, if you don't see what I mean I can draw some pictures...

Edit:

Just drew a picture:

 

[Smartpal]

Looks beautiful, especially with the 3D covers. Thanks maddoc.

 

[maddoc]

I am currently using rc5 and loving it. Very straightforward and easy to use. If I use rc7 do I need to remove all existing files then re-download all the cover files into the coperti folder?

if you don't have a fat partition on the USB drive then nothing will be changed for you.

Widescreen can be supported by creating modified cover images - try shrinking the width of the image to 134px from 160px and then padding 13px either side of transparency, this can easily be done in Photoshop.

1. Open cover.png
2. Select image size and change width to 134px leaving height at 224px
3. Select canvas size and change width back to 160px x 224px
4. Save image

maddoc

please don't take this the wrong way but do we need the flashing arrows as they don't seem to provide any real purpose?

Is there any way you can set the covers to download a set of widescreen adjusted images?

It is done in RC8, look down in this post.

QUOTE(ast @ May 6 2009, 10:47 AM)

@maddoc

I don't know if someone already mentioned this, but the "mirror effect" in the 3D preview is wrong. Perspectively wrong. Although in a 2D way of thinking the lower right corner of the cover is "above" the lower left corner, in 3D both corners are on the ground. So the mirror effect has to start directly at the corners and not somewhere below the right corner. Sorry for my bad english, if you don't see what I mean I can draw some pictures...

Edit:

Just drew a picture:

Actually it depends on the position of mirror relative to the cover. The simplest position is the way you drew it. What if the mirror is inclined on other axes?

Anyway, I was planning to correct that

News:
RC8 will bring you game blocking (the covers will be still shown) just the game won't start. Feature requested for kids.
Wide screen correction.
Mirror effect correction.

In the works:
A forwarder channel is worked on now that will load boot.dol either from USB2.0 or SD card. It will also perform program updates automatically in the future

 

[ocdetective]

I am currently using rc5 and loving it. Very straightforward and easy to use. If I use rc7 do I need to remove all existing files then re-download all the cover files into the coperti folder?

if you don't have a fat partition on the USB drive then nothing will be changed for you.

Meaning I will still only see 6 covers per screen in 2D?

 

[ulysse57]

Check also that the fat partition is active, like mihai_crazy said.

Ok I tested again and it works if the FAT partition is active. So I have:
1) wbfs (500 Go)
2) wii fat (30 Go)
3) NTFS (... Go)

 

[bnm81002]

News:
RC8 will bring you game blocking (the covers will be still shown) just the game won't start. Feature requested for kids.
Wide screen correction.
Mirror effect correction.

In the works:
A forwarder channel is worked on now that will load boot.dol either from USB2.0 or SD card. It will also perform program updates automatically in the future

any idea when RC8 and the forwarder channel will be released?