Hacking USB Loader GX

[stoof]

Whoops, sorry. The revisions that aren't on the googlecode page are in Cyan's Mediafire folder. r1241 is here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/51rwibka19jwvbl/R1241.7z

Thanks, I just tried r1241 and r1244 5 times each. r1241 boots in to USBGX every time. r1244 boots to System Menu 2 out of 5 times. r1241 also boots alot faster and displays the games after USBGX is loaded faster. r1244 seems to take a couple of seconds before the games are shown.

Let me know if there are anymore tests I can do or if you want me to test the above more times.

Edit:
I upgraded priiloader to latest beta (0.8 b7) from 0.7 and now r1244 seems to work. Boots in to USBGX 5 out of 5. I don't know if that makes sense or that I were just lucky but it seemed to have solved it for r1244 as well.

 

[GreyWolf]

Thanks, I just tried r1241 and r1244 5 times each. r1241 boots in to USBGX every time. r1244 boots to System Menu 2 out of 5 times. r1241 also boots alot faster and displays the games after USBGX is loaded faster. r1244 seems to take a couple of seconds before the games are shown.

Let me know if there are anymore tests I can do or if you want me to test the above more times.

Edit:
I upgraded priiloader to latest beta (0.8 b7) from 0.7 and now r1244 seems to work. Boots in to USBGX 5 out of 5. I don't know if that makes sense or that I were just lucky but it seemed to have solved it for r1244 as well.

No, that could make a difference but I'm not sure why yet. Thanks for testing that revision it should help. Now I have to go check which PriiLoader I'm using to confirm since it works fine for me.

 

[RaptureDJ]

How do i check the shai1? Im entirely new to this and seriously, thanks for all the help.

 

[GhostSymbol]

Is there any way I can rename VC games in USB Loader GX? I can't seem to find the option

 

[cobleman]

Have a problem with Launching EMU's ( FCE Ultra and SNES9xgx) from GX on vWii. I just get a black screen. And when I launch from Forwarders I get a stack dump.
Is it ok to use official forwarder for FCE Ultra GX on vWii?

 

[GreyWolf]

How do i check the shai1? Im entirely new to this and seriously, thanks for all the help.

I use this: http://code.kliu.org/hashcheck/

If you're checking Wii games you can just the one built into Wii Backup Manager. If you want to verify GC images you can use that one or the tool in my signature. It will generate the hash and check it against the redump.org database all at once.

 

[OriginalHamster]

Greywolf:

- LibFat : maybe. But users had detection issue before I update too :/
But it could be an issue. I saw the 1.0.14 after I updated.
the changes in the library shouldn't affect the detection, it adds features (attribute check/set, so I will be able to edit wbfs file read-only status to prevent black screen)
We should test if reverting the library helps users with detection issue.

- Partition detection is not affected at boot time, but when launching a game.
In fact, I didn't change the detection, only removed the fixed "usb1:/" string and replaced it with "game partition:/" variable. no detection is done differently.

- IOS58 is not a real change, it only affects the Loader's setting, not the way it boots when using it.
If the user has cIOS, IOS58 change from 1244 has no effect.

I edited my previous report, it seems changing from 251 to 58 got the loader dizzy, it's working properly under 58, I should check it better before reporting, my bad.

 

[Cyan]

I upgraded priiloader to latest beta (0.8 b7) from 0.7 and now r1244 seems to work. Boots in to USBGX 5 out of 5. I don't know if that makes sense or that I were just lucky but it seemed to have solved it for r1244 as well.

Priiloader beta with the installed loader's boot.dol grants AHB access.
Depending on your settings, it could boot faster as it already has access to SD card and USB without reloading to cIOS first.

I don't know how much second you think "faster" is. maybe there's something else. without knowing your full setup and settings it's hard to tell if it's the loader's way of booting or if priiloader is really doing something independently from the loader.

Is there any way I can rename VC games in USB Loader GX? I can't seem to find the option

There's a way to rename the title displayed in the loader.
You need to enable Title cache (it should be in the Features menu), disable "force title from disc" (which force the internal game's name).
Then, you can rename the game and the title you choose should be loaded and used before loading channels or wiitdb titles.

I'm sorry the rename menu is currently only available on the rotating disc window.
GUI > Game window : select rotating disc, or select Banner animation only on Banner layout.
Then go to a non banner layout, select the game, at the top of the rotating disc you will see the game's title. Click on it to edit.

I think it will not refresh immediately (another thing to add to my todolist).
You can exit/reload the loader to see the new name.


By experience, I've found that the Title cache is not very functional, sometime games lose their custom names. I will have to check what's wrong.

 

[stoof]

Cyan said:
I don't know how much second you think "faster" is. maybe there's something else. without knowing your full setup and settings it's hard to tell if it's the loader's way of booting or if priiloader is really doing something independently from the loader.

Reply:
I will try to describe it and this is not really an issue for me but more of a finding. In r1241 when USBGX loads it just flashes and immediately starts. When started the gamecovers just "pops" up. In r1244 when USBGX loads it shows a lot of texts like loading Cios , loading USB etc. It takes just a couple of seconds more. When in USBGX the gamecovers shows "painted" from left to right. Again just a second or two but nonetheless a difference. It still is like this with latest Priiloader but now it boots every time. Again, not a problem but a difference between versions for me. Thanks for all the hard work with this.

Edit: sorry, messed up the quotings. Hope it's readable anyway.

 

[Cyan]

don't worry about the quotes, that's fine.

The text on the loading screen is there for a long time now. maybe since 2.0 ?
1241 can't load without displaying the text "loading cIOS, loading config, loading resources, etc."
Was it that fast before that you couldn't even read them ?


The game cover, you mean the banners?
I suppose you are using the banner layout.

The banners can be pre-loaded for faster display. Either you disabled or reset the banner cache setting, or your device is slower to read the files.
I don't know why it would be slower now. Maybe the new libfat is slower?
Could you test 1243 too ? it's the first one with the new libfat.

I will make a beta test with previous libfat to compare. (not right now, maybe this weekend)

Thanks for reporting it.

 

[GhostSymbol]

Thanks a lot Cyan! Very much appreciated.

 

[stoof]

don't worry about the quotes, that's fine.

The text on the loading screen is there for a long time now. maybe since 2.0 ?
1241 can't load without displaying the text "loading cIOS, loading config, loading resources, etc."
Was it that fast before that you couldn't even read them ?


The game cover, you mean the banners?
I suppose you are using the banner layout.

The banners can be pre-loaded for faster display. Either you disabled or reset the banner cache setting, or your device is slower to read the files.
I don't know why it would be slower now. Maybe the new libfat is slower?
Could you test 1243 too ? it's the first one with the new libfat.

I will make a beta test with previous libfat to compare. (not right now, maybe this weekend)

Thanks for reporting it.

I tried r1239 and r1241 which is equally fast. The "slower" boot started with r1243 and continued in r1244. If you can give me the libfat version used before 1243 I can compile my own version and try to see if it goes back to the way it was before.

 

[GreyWolf]

I tried r1239 and r1241 which is equally fast. The "slower" boot started with r1243 and continued in r1244. If you can give me the libfat version used before 1243 I can compile my own version and try to see if it goes back to the way it was before.

You can just get it from the repository: http://code.google.com/p/usbloader-gui/source/browse/trunk/source/libs/libfat/?r=1241

 

[Cyan]

yes, download the "libcustomfat.a" and replace the file.
I updated libfat because the new version allows file attribute read/set, as users reported that write protection prevent game from booting.
I planned to detect and modify that attribute directly from the loader, but if it's a problem I can revert back and don't include auto-attribute edition. Users will have to be sure they don't use write protected wbfs files.
But it's unlikely, most users don't even understand what they have to do to copy a file to another folder, attribute is something they don't even know exists.


There were different changes in the library.
Maybe trying only few changes or adding only the attribute function could help.

 

[GreyWolf]

I'm looking at the libfat repository and nothing except the attribute code has been changed in the last 3 years, so if it's slower now it's either that or the custom fragment code.

 

[stoof]

I replaced both libcustomfat.a and fatfile_frag.h with the ones GreyWolf posted and compiled it (Sorry , did it before I saw that only libcustomfat.a was needed.).
No difference at all and the behaviour stays the same as with r1243 and r1244.
I then changed back to r1241 and it still boots faster. I can hardly see "Loading resources" during boot but thats it.

Have I understood it correctly that it doesnt matter what libfat is used in libogc? Sorry for a perhaps stupid question but I am in no mean an expert on this.
I just learned to compile at all for Wii really just to try to fix my 3rd party classic controller.

 

[GreyWolf]

The libfat from libogc isn't used. USB Loader GX uses a custom one that has a function to return a list of the fragments for a given file.

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

After updating to r1244 the Categories functions no longer work. I can still create them and add specific titles to those, but they don't do anything beyond that. For example, if I add a title to a custom category named "Hide" and then set Hide to not display, USBLGX ignores the setting and will still show the title.

 

[GreyWolf]

After updating to r1244 the Categories functions no longer work. I can still create them and add specific titles to those, but they don't do anything beyond that. For example, if I add a title to a custom category named "Hide" and then set Hide to not display, USBLGX ignores the setting and will still show the title.

That's very strange. None of the category code has been changed in quite a while. I will look into it.

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

That's very strange. None of the category code has been changed in quite a while. I will look into it.

Thanks a bunch. Please let me know what you find.