Hacking USB Loader GX

[warlord2009]

OK I SAID IT BEFORE. BUT I'LL TRY WITH CAPS LOCK TO SEE IF YOU PEOPLE READ IT.

WHEN YOU USE UPDATE ALL OR UPDATE A FULL CHANNEL, THE LOADER USES YOUR LIST OF GAMES AND SETTINGS TO GRAB A WIITDB.ZIP WITH ONLY THE GAMES AND LANGUAGES YOU NEED. THAT MEANS THAT WHEN THE APPLICATION STARTS AND LOADS THE XML DATA IT IS KEEPING ~35KB PER 100 GAMES IN MEMORY. IF YOU USE THE ENTIRE WIITDB.ZIP THAT IS 600+KB YOU ARE KEEPING ALL THAT IN MEMORY AND YOU GET ISSUES WITH ALT DOLS AND OTHER STUFF THAT NEEDS TO BE STORED IN THE MEMORY.

YOU GET THE SAME RESULT FROM USING THEMES WITH UN-OPTIMIZED IMAGES OR HUGE BG MUSIC. THE WII ONLY HAS SO MUCH MEMORY AND YOU ARE TRYING TO STUFF TOO MUCH SHIT IN IT.

Hi giantpune, great stuf your're building.
Is it maybe possible to read it from disc again (like it was before r623). I have a few friends that do not have WiFi and they use the .zip file from the site. This used to work just fine until it was read into memory (changed in r623).

 

[zorglub07]

Thanks for the info, So basically we shouldn't download the wiitdb.zip file from wiitdb, and instead just do a full channel update?
Also just a general question for everyone, I saw a few pages back (10 - 15 pages) there was a screenshot of the controllers that a game would use, much like how the homebrew browser does that. was that a screen shot of USB loader GX? if so how can I get that setup?That's right. I changed the text on http://wiitdb.com/ to be perfectly clear about this.
It you are talking about the game info prompt wen you press 2 then wiitdb.zip is that file, you just need to update.

QUOTE(warlord2009 @ Jul 21 2009, 11:42 PM) Is it maybe possible to read it from disc again (like it was before r623). I have a few friends that do not have WiFi and they use the .zip file from the site. This used to work just fine until it was read into memory (changed in r623).

There are two ways your offline friends could continue using the file: the custom file URL could be copied on the SD card, then they could get online somewhere else and download their custom file. the other way would be to download a version of the file without any synopsis, or limited to a single region (NTSC only for example).
At least one of those solutions will be added soon.

 

[Triumph]

Thanks for the info, So basically we shouldn't download the wiitdb.zip file from wiitdb, and instead just do a full channel update?
Also just a general question for everyone, I saw a few pages back (10 - 15 pages) there was a screenshot of the controllers that a game would use, much like how the homebrew browser does that. was that a screen shot of USB loader GX? if so how can I get that setup?

That's right. I changed the text on http://wiitdb.com/ to be perfectly clear about this.
It you are talking about the game info prompt wen you press 2 then wiitdb.zip is that file, you just need to update.

.


Thanks for the clarification, and quick reply zorglub07

 

[Snoozer]

Made a function to save the URL for WiiTDB.zip in a txt file on the update path.

Yeah Baby Yeah! Well, just yesterday I implemented the same functionality not that fancy and userfriendly by myself within the update process

EDIT: This goes to Lustar of whoever is coding the WiiTDB website. The filtered XML that is generated with the gameIDs contains a closing "synopsis"-tag for every language that is not specified by LANG parameter in the requesting URL. I don't know who to bother with, so I'm writing this here

 

[Logan]

Quote from Giantpune on SVN changelog re: r637:

Made a function to save the URL for WiiTDB.zip in a txt file on the update path.
This is for people that don't have WiFi or neighbors with WiFi or can't take
their Wii to TacoBell or Starbucks who has free WiFi. The text on the bottom of
the gameinfo window tells how to use it. And if the function completed, the
text tells exactly where the URL was saved. For those really stupid people, the
text also tells them to copy/paste this URL into a web browser to get the zip
file they need.

ROFL well that's made my day today

 

[justinvw]

it says that one of the cons to the forwarder is You need an SD in your Wii with the dol file to be able to use the program (or a second, fat32, partition at the usb device). does that mean i need two fat32 partitions and then the partiton for the wii games?

 

[zorglub07]

EDIT: This goes to Lustar of whoever is coding the WiiTDB website. The filtered XML that is generated with the gameIDs contains a closing "synopsis"-tag for every language that is not specified by LANG parameter in the requesting URL. I don't know who to bother with, so I'm writing this here

That would be me (lustar), and the best place to bother me with this would be here but you're not bothering

Thanks for pointing this out, that's not a closing tag, just an empty tag so that's proper xml syntax, nothing to worry about. You're absolutely right in that it's not really needed so it will probably be removed (even though it's not much, 1kb for the full zip file)

 

[Smiff]

just a little point about ui for theme selection
this is not consistent with normal ui design - the path setting should select the root theme folder, and then have a seperate "theme selection" option which gives a menu of the themes in that folder.
it took me a while to realise you use the theme path to actually change themes (which as someone else pointed out is difficult if you haven't renamed the theme folders with very short names..)
cheers!

 

[Snoozer]

EDIT: This goes to Lustar of whoever is coding the WiiTDB website. The filtered XML that is generated with the gameIDs contains a closing "synopsis"-tag for every language that is not specified by LANG parameter in the requesting URL. I don't know who to bother with, so I'm writing this here

That would be me (lustar), and the best place to bother me with this would be here but you're not bothering

Thanks for pointing this out, that's not a closing tag, just an empty tag so that's proper xml syntax, nothing to worry about. You're absolutely right in that it's not really needed so it will probably be removed (even though it's not much, 1kb for the full zip file)

yes, an empty tag, of course....sorry...xml syntax could be so easy ^^...but the feature to load the specified LANG (+EN for fallback reasons) is just working for the synopsis...but it could be even less, because the locale-tag could be dropped for other LANGs...or is there a sense in these?

 

[600]

try this http://www.mediafire.com/?rvfiqfoniyz
it is the forwarder dol & channel. it goes like this...
draw the splash screen, init SD, init USB, wait 5 seconds, start looking for the config, try lo load a dol based on what it found when looking for the config.

if the dol here works for you then the wad should works also, as they are the same thing

Ok tested it. I created a blank SD card with on the dol in apps folder, and launch through HBC, this works. However using the wad it does not. I am not sure if the HBC(rev 1.0.3) makes the USB mount properly. In addition I noticed that the activity light on the hard-disk goes off when using the wad (same with the original forwarder) but using the dol does not.

I have also tried cleared out everything on the USB and recopy the usbloader_gx folder and the config from my SD. Sometimes it would load from USB (with SD card) after doing this and launching from forwarder for the first time. However, when I exit immediately without doing anything and try to launch again from the forwarder, it would fail. Subsequent try will not yield success.

Did further test. If I hot plug the hard-disk then start the forwarder (with SD card), it will launch from the USB. Off and on the Wii sometimes will also get it to work. So is this a hard-disk compatibility issue or initialization/deinitialization problem? Anyone any clue? I have no problem with the hard-disk when launching from SD and playing games on the WBFS partition (I have partition 1 as FAT32 primary/active and partition 2 as WBFS primary).

 

[DocNsanE]

[...] the custom file URL could be copied on the SD card, then they could get online somewhere else and download their custom file. the other way would be to download a version of the file without any synopsis, or limited to a single region (NTSC only for example).
At least one of those solutions will be added soon.

It shouldn't be hard to use xslt to convert the master xml doc into a region specific or language specific doc based on parameters selected by the user (you could generate the xml on the fly from the master doc and only return records for the right region and language).

Let me know if you need a hand with this.

 

[DocNsanE]

Quick question regarding wiitdb integration into USB Loader GX. I hope this hasn't been answered elsewhere yet. If so, just point me in the right direction please. (I keep a close on this thread but not many others).

On the first page of the wiitdb thread it says that you could filter the list of games based on number of players or the date released (for example). I was simply wondering if this was already implemented into USB Loader GX and if not, if it was in the works?

Filtering based on the XML fields would be a huge enhancement and would make it a lot easier to find specific types of games in my list of 200+ games.

Thanks and keep up the great work guys!

 

[ShadyGT]

moveing the homebrew icon seems to doesnt work 4 me. Could anyone give me koords 4 placing it in the centre of the botom of the screen wich are working?

 

[zorglub07]

but it could be even less, because the locale-tag could be dropped for other LANGs...or is there a sense in these?It was left on purpose, I compared the gain when removing only the synopsis and the whole locale, removing the synopsis was a huge gain while removing the title only saved 4kb for 400 games so it's not worth losing that info for so little gain (some loaders may want to display all alternate titles for example). If you have 500 games, the zip file will be 88kb if your Wii is set to English (with a lot of synopsis).

It shouldn't be hard to use xslt to convert the master xml doc into a region specific or language specific doc based on parameters selected by the user (you could generate the xml on the fly from the master doc and only return records for the right region and language).The downloaded file is already a custom file (it only contains the installed games and synopsis for a single language), but if you mean for offline users the custom file could be generated on the Wii from the full file, sure. This will probably be added eventually, but for online users it works and offline users have a way to get the custom file now so it's not a priority.

QUOTE(DocNsanE @ Jul 22 2009, 08:11 AM)

On the first page of the wiitdb thread it says that you could filter the list of games based on number of players or the date released (for example). I was simply wondering if this was already implemented into USB Loader GX and if not, if it was in the works?

Not yet, this will be added after the new Parental Filter is added.

 

[CuriousG]

I didn't update my wiitdb.zip file. I knew at the time the site was down so I left my current 628K file intact. I'll delete the .cfg files and see what happens but if we have to delete it after every 2 to 3 builds nothing ever gets saved.

What needs to be saved? If you notice, whenever new features are added to the loader, the config file changes. The only way to be 100% sure that your config files are going to be okay with each new revision is to remove them and let each new revision generate its own. Some updates come and go and everythings fine but that doesn't mean it is always going to be fine.

Ok, got a chance to check out R636 again after deleting the cfg files. Everything is working again. Would it be safe to just delete the global rather than all 3 configs since the other 2 are favorites and individual game settings? This is with the 600+K wiitdb file. I think it still works because I'm not using any custom theme and running from a forwarder channel. This also makes sense with the USB vs disc suggestion I made about alt dol since it didn't occur to me about the channel running from USB since all my paths say SD:

 

[lorenzo67]

The downloaded file is already a custom file (it only contains the installed games and synopsis for a single language), but if you mean for offline users the custom file could be generated on the Wii from the full file, sure. This will probably be added eventually, but for online users it works and offline users have a way to get the custom file now so it's not a priority.


Sorry, how can i get custom file ? I don't understand ...thank you very much

Lorenzo

 

[Bladexdsl]

rev633 won't even start crashes makes a weird buzzing sound and wii resets. updated though the program. i reverted back to 568 i don't think i'll be updating anymore unless a really important or new feature is added.

 

[zorglub07]

Sorry, how can i get custom file ? I don't understand ...thank you very much

Update to r637 or later, if you are offline you should have a file with a URL you can use to download your file at some other place where you are online. If you are online you just need to "Update All".

 

[zouille83]

hello

I have a big probleme with rev 611 , the cursor is reverse , up is down and left is right ..

What can I do ?

thk

 

[Blue-K]

hello

I have a big probleme with rev 611 , the cursor is reverse , up is down and left is right ..

What can I do ?

thk

I would go with:

UPDATE!

Was this so hard?