Hacking USB Loader GX

[Cyan]

No problem
You know I'm happy to help and provide users with what I can.

thanks for the reports about 1239.
I guess I can release it in the internal update if it's stable for everyone.


Thanks badablek for your continued support with the tab mod.
Sometime I'm wondering if I should add this patch in the current sources. using preprocessing ifdef to build either the official or the mod version, or directly add a user option in the loader to enable/disable it.
I don't know when I'll work on the tabs officially, having this temporary mod might interest users.

 

[Badablek]

Adding an option to build the official one or the tab mod should be really nice. Do whatever you want with the sources provided, I'll be happy if it can be useful, even temporarily.


ps : Please remember this mod was originally made by Garfunkiel, I only made some tweaks to make it "better" (at least for me)

 

[sideskroll]

I don't know.
one user had a corrupted drive while using 1235, I don't know if the loader is at fault or his HDD had a bad sector/cluster/bad shutdown while writing file table/etc.

Don't use officially released 1235.
if you want, you can use v11 which doesn't have PS3 support.

v12 have PS3 support, but I removed an unneeded header. one user had issue, hamster didn't.
so I don't know what's the current situation.
I'll try to officially release v11 as new revision today as quick fix for nintendont compatibility.

But, I don't like quick fixes without proper tests.
I hope it won't have issues.

Hi. I thik I'm the "user" you're referring to.
Just wanted to add (for debugging purposes) that my HDD has no bad sectors/clusters or anything and that I didn't' force a shutdown or anything like that.
The corruption was strictly cause of the loader (and the process I described when I reported it).
I'm kinda scared to try the new versions to be honest. I just managed to get most of my backups, roms and everything back and I'm terrified at the possibility of losing everything yet again...
Have the bugs been squashed by now?

 

[Cyan]

yes, I remember he was the first to provide it.
I'll see to make it an option.

I will probably place the menu above the SD Card icon, not below. (I like it better above, even if it hides the Wii menu design)

sideskroll:
I'm very sorry for the data loss
I understand that you are afraid of using new version now. I didn't thought it could cause HDD issues, I'm now also afraid of releasing things which could result in another loss.
What's wrong is that it's not a code I touched about HDD read/write, it's something totally unrelated and probably a memory issue, which could happen again if I reach the same memory state.
I wish I could debug and find where the real issue is.
If another developer could help with this issue, I would be grateful.

r1239 seems fine from all the user's reports.

 

[sideskroll]

yes, I remember he was the first to provide it.
I'll see to make it an option.

I will probably place the menu above the SD Card icon, not below. (I like it better above, even if it hides the Wii menu design)

sideskroll:
I'm very sorry for the data loss
I understand that you are afraid or using new version now. I didn't thought it could cause HDD issues, I'm now also afraid of releasing things which could result in another loss.
What's wrong is that it's not a code I touched about HDD read/write, it's something totally unrelated and probably a memory issue, which could happen again if I reach the same memory state.
I wish I could debug and found where the real issue is.

r1239 seems fine from all the user's reports.

Guess I'll try it. I really, REALLY like the GUI on your loader.
There's no other loader like yours so far.
BUT, I've always had some problems with it.... I don't know why. CFG has been nothing but rock solid since the first time I tried it while yours has been kinda hit or miss. Sometimes it code dumps or goes to black or (in my last attempt) even corrupted the entire HDD. And I'm talking from way, way back. even version 1 had bugs.
I'm not sure why though... Maybe because your loader pushes the console to its maximum? While CFG is as basic as it can get... I don't know.
I wish you could somehow "join forces" with [user]FIX94[/user] and work on "one loader to rule them all" . He has done some AMAZING work on CFG ever since the project was abandoned. And I can safely say that it hasn't given me ANY problem. ever.
I'll try the new version. The auto installer isn't getting it yet right? I have to download it from your signature... Correct?
Thanks for always standing behind your work my man. I sure as hell appreciate it even if I'm unable to use your loader. It says something about you.

 

[Cyan]

the loader was coded by multiple users at first.
with everyone's own style.

Around 2.0, Dimok came and replaced/recoded almost all of it and I helped him made a stable loader.
I was then only a beta tester, and liked to suggest or fix things.
2.0 to 3.0 should be stable (except one issue with download theme).

I then wanted to help even more and be able to code things myself, Dimok helped me start coding and let me do few things for the loader. After 3.0 release, Dimok left and no more developers were working on it.
I tried to add DIOS MIOS, and improve what I could little by little, and I became the only active developer on this project.
I'm not a good developer and I'm still learning, I spend more time that I should to make a little changes, it's a lot of tries and errors.
But I don't release without testing it and be sure it's stable and working.
In my own tests, I never got text corruption or issues with 1235.

If you have code dumps or black screen I would like to know them, as it could improve stability.

 

[sideskroll]

the loader was coded by multiple users at first.
with everyone's own style.

Around 2.0, Dimok came and replaced/recoded almost all of it and I helped him made a stable loader.
I was then only a beta tester, and like to suggest or fix things.
2.0 to 3.0 should be stable (except one issue with download theme).

I then became a devloper on this project, and am now the only active one.
I'm not a good developer and I'm still learning with tries and errors. I usually try to not release buggy things.

If you have code dumps or black screen I would like to know them, as it could improve stability.

You know what? I'll try to free a different HDD (without ALL my data) and try your loader in there. Try to gather as much code dumps and info as I can.
Dude, get in touch with fix94. He's a great guy (I remember I helped him beta test his CFG forwarder because I had a particular stubborn HDD) and he was all up in it. I mean, he really wanted to get it fixed.
Like I said you should both work on "the ultimate loader" combining CFGs stability with GXs looks. That would be BEYOND amazing.
Anyway, I'm sure he would be willing to help you.

*EDIT*[user]Cyan[/user] and [user]FIX94[/user] make it happen! really. "Ultimate Loader GX". There, you even have the name already free of charge.
People would LOVE it. I'm telling ya.
I'm already wishing that loader really existed...

 

[Badablek]

I wish you could somehow "join forces" with FIX94 and work on "one loader to rule them all" . He has done some AMAZING work on CFG

it seems you missed all the wiiflow drama with all these unstable builds (EDIT : just to be clear, I don't say he's not good ! Just look how amazing Nintendont is now, thanks to him. But a lot of mistakes were made in the past with wiiflow)



USBLGX works nicely on ALL the wii I have hacked for me/for my friends, never ever it corrupted anything on any media...HDD, SSD, USB Flash

Only a few code dumps since I'm using it (for years !), nothing more, nothing less than any other Wii homebrew

 

[sideskroll]

it seems you missed all the wiiflow drama with all these unstable builds



USBLGX works nicely on ALL the wii I have hacked for me/for my friends, never ever it corrupted anything on any media...HDD, SSD, USB Flash
Only a few code dumps since I'm using it (for years !)

Apparently I did... I didn't know anything about that.
Fact is, GX is the best looking loader out there by miles and it's one of the most versatile ones as well. But (for me at least) has been one of the most unstable ones as well.
CFG is kinda "ugly" (even with all of my attempts to customize the interface) but it is ROCK SOLID. I don't think it has ever given me a code dump or black screen.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

I have some interesting stuff, been working on lately:
http://copy.com/vRN3HgFVyk9u7YuB/Public/USBLGX1239-DS3-DS4-BT-Test.7z

This is 1239 compiled using Xerpi's libogc mod

It allows using DS3 DS4 controllers over BT

Prerequisites:
Run Pair_My_DS3 or Pair_My_DS4 app from HBC (both dols are included in the zipped file)
Connect your PS controller 3 or 4 using USB Cable and Press A on your Wiimote
you get stuff like this

Run 1239 mod with PS controller USB cord removed and Press PS button
benefit

P.S> Things are still a bit weird for me since it works better if a wiimote is connected also button mapping simulates the pro controller and the right stick is used as left
Only tested with DS3
Please test and report your findings, I'll let Xerpi know know about your results

Edit: oh and the sources for USBLGX are untouched so no patches needed!

Abz

 

[Cyan]

You know what? I'll try to free a different HDD (without ALL my data) and try your loader in there. Try to gather as much code dumps and info as I can.
Dude, get in touch with fix94.

Thanks, having users who want to improve it is helping me work on it. Both motivating me and knowing I can rely on users to report bugs. long time users will understand how the loader and all its options are working and can make proper issue reports (unlike a lot of issues on googlecode "it doesn't work, I have latest version, help").

a good beta tester will narrow the issue, try different setup and options to be sure where the problem is.


As for working with Fix94, I'm always a little afraid of other developers who know more than me. afraid of doing things I shouldn't, or say stupid things.
And also, I'm afraid to work with someone with its own coding style which would change lot of things.
I have a main vision for the future menus, I wouldn't like things to be done differently.

@abdallah :
only libogc patch is required to support both controllers? that's great.
no need to mess with reading USB, etc.
but I wonder how the button mapping is done (same as I did on r1235? perfect classic controller clone?)


Edit:
I released 1239/1240 on internal update menu.
I just hope everything is fine, and that users who had time to update to 1235 before I remove it will update to the new version quickly.

Now that nintendont is not incompatible anymore, I will have more time to work on other requests and bugs.
I'll see about:
- neek2o (long time request)
- fixing HDD detection at launch (since 1219 lot of users have issues)
- checking proper partition type for nintendont (not based on partition number)

 

[Troopage]

I completely support the idea of tabs in the official build.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

@abdallah :
only libogc patch is required to support both controllers? that's great.
no need to mess with reading USB, etc.
but I wonder how the button mapping is done (same as I did on r1235? perfect classic controller clone?)

Yeah
I downloaded and compiled the libogcmod: https://github.com/xerpi/libogc
then make install
and compiled the latest usbloaderGX
I looked at the source and found that classic controller map is used (PS=Home, Start=+ Select=-...etc)
I didn't touch that map though
It's still not very consistent, the idea is to use the wiimote BT connection and a nand dat file that has the MAC address
it's promising though.

I completely support the idea of tabs in the official build.

It should be optional or else all the themes will get messed up

P.S. I also noted that theme download is broken (spiffy)

 

[Cyan]

spiffy download is broken since 3.0 release (almost a year). It now requires registration
I didn't check the website recently, so there's maybe an alternative for USBLoaders.
we (spiffy admin and me) wanted to improve the theme downloading menu in USBGX (user's vote, etc.), but I never had time to do it.

if I add the tabs mod, it will be optional (option marked as beta, or something like that) or an entirely different build.

 

[OriginalHamster]

Cyan currently ULGX 1239 has Wii U widescreen option under features, it's great because pillar box Wii games as Resident Evil 0 Wii, and force the aspect ratio to 4:3 (native aspect ratio for the game), it would be possible add this option per game?

For some reason option "force to 4:3" video setting doesn't pillar box the image...

 

[Cyan]

On WiiU, it can make a proper 4:3 video mode, but the Wii doesn't use a real widescreen (it's always the same amount of pixel, only the content displayed on that amount of pixel is different)
one affects the video, the other the game's rendering engine.
It's hard to explain sorry.
It would need a picture to properly explain it.

I can add the option per game but it will work only on WiiU, I don't like the idea of having a per game option not working on Wii (or I could hide it completely while on Wii).
I understand some games might benefit the aspect ratio switch, that's why I added it in the features menu. for games needing it you can set the screen at the correct ratio before launching the game.
it's a little annoying to do it manually before launch, but it's not something you will need to do everyday or with all games.
if it's really a high request from users, I can add it as a per-game setting.

 

[ned]

I have some interesting stuff, been working on lately:
http://copy.com/vRN3HgFVyk9u7YuB/Public/USBLGX1239-DS3-DS4-BT-Test.7z

This is 1239 compiled using Xerpi's libogc mod

It allows using DS3 DS4 controllers over BT

Prerequisites:
Run Pair_My_DS3 or Pair_My_DS4 app from HBC (both dols are included in the zipped file)
Connect your PS controller 3 or 4 using USB Cable and Press A on your Wiimote
you get stuff like this

Run 1239 mod with PS controller USB cord removed and Press PS button
benefit

P.S> Things are still a bit weird for me since it works better if a wiimote is connected also button mapping simulates the pro controller and the right stick is used as left
Only tested with DS3
Please test and report your findings, I'll let Xerpi know know about your results

Edit: oh and the sources for USBLGX are untouched so no patches needed!

Abz

Pressed the PS button during usb loader gx startup and again once it'd fully loaded, no input in usb loader gx, sync lights kept flashing then went out. I checked with USB/BT JoystickCenter in Android and it seems my ds3 is still paired to my old csr bt dongle 00:15:83:4C:3A:5B, guess i'll have to double check with http://www.dancingpixelstudios.com/sixaxiscontroller/tool.html though.
This is with my unofficial ds3 that needed the polltype changing to 1 to work with HidTest and nintendon-t via usb.

I don't know where it's grabbing my controller bt address from because my wiimotes are
P1 - 00:1A:E9:38:16:FF
P2 - 00:24:44:AA:59:4E

GeeXboX for Wii also comes up as, this is my Wii local bt address also?
00:1E:A9:1D:7D:CA
by comparison my Wii mac address is
00:1D:BC:76:EA:CF

my Android Nexus 7 2013 bt is
AC:22:0B:9F:74:F2

Wii + Wiimotes also come up as classic scan rather than low energy in BlueScan, irc the ds3 uses low energy bluetooth instead?

 

[Acidflare]

well, the memory issue could be the cause too if it affects libfat.
Without testing his hardware (testing on another drive, or testing his defective drive on computer chkdsk) we won't know.
I'm very sorry that you had this issue with your drive, it wasn't deliberate and never had memory issues on my Wii so I didn't notice any issue before releasing it.

I will now release r1238 r1239 .. I really shouldn't haste things.
I won't push it to internal update before enough good reports.



abdallah: I saw he was working on a DS4 and bluetooth support lib on his git few weeks ago.
adding it would be good, if it doesn't make it instable again. maybe bte takes less memory than usb?


acidflare:
if you use v12 and get a code dump, that will be interested.
unfortunately, I didn't keep the boot.elf from other beta version required for debugging. reporting a dump with beta1-11 are not useful for me.
so, either v12 or r1235 or I'll make new version especially for debug/code dump purpose.


Edit:

USBLoaderGX r1239
Please tell me if there are any issues.
if everything is good I will put it on internal update tomorrow.
Thank you for your help.

surprisingly, r1239 without PS3 support has a bigger filesize than r1235 with PS3.

I was getting code dumps randomly sometimes when returning to usb loader gx, sometimes when i do a fresh boot, it very rarely but still does happen when scrolling through games, so overall I could post screen shots of those dumps to help figure out what they are my desktop crashed and I have no access to my 1TB HD, but I can at least post dumps in the next revision

 

[sj33]

Resident Evil Zero Wii was just a case of poor programming by Capcom. The original Resident Evil Remake on Wii actually correctly displays in 4:3, it's only Zero that displays as 16:9 for some bizarre reason. It's probably the only Wii game that should be forced to 4:3 so I understand that it might not be worth implementing a per-game setting just for one game (as nice as it would be).

I'm going to test to see if the issue with USB GX forgetting custom titles with GameTDB is enable has been resolved (a temporary solution was to disable titles from GameTDB and rename manually). It only started with the 1235/6 build so was probably caused by the same memory issues as all the other issues. If so, it might be fixed now. I'll report back.

 

[sideskroll]

Resident Evil Zero Wii was just a case of poor programming by Capcom. The original Resident Evil Remake on Wii actually correctly displays in 4:3, it's only Zero that displays as 16:9 for some bizarre reason. It's probably the only Wii game that should be forced to 4:3 so I understand that it might not be worth implementing a per-game setting just for one game (as nice as it would be).

I'm going to test to see if the issue with USB GX forgetting custom titles with GameTDB is enable has been resolved (a temporary solution was to disable titles from GameTDB and rename manually). It only started with the 1235/6 build so was probably caused by the same memory issues as all the other issues. If so, it might be fixed now. I'll report back.

Thank you. I've been asking around for that info.
I couldn't understand how a game that came out AFTER the first remake could have that problem.
Talking about a lazy money grabbing port eh?---