Hacking USB Loader GX

[Cyan]

it doesn't take in account games that render in 660.
and you can't have both "720" + auto, it's the same option.
it's either "auto" (which is more "OFF" than auto), OR "enable forced width from 640 to 720".

the option should be called :
Force picture width : OFF
force picture width : 640-720
maybe it makes more sense, it's not a ratio (ratio would be 1:20 4:3 16:9 etc.), but users understand better "auto" as being "I don't care, let nintendont do it for me" instead of being an option to understand why it's ON or OFF.

(specially if there's no virtual mc created) what's up with that?

I already reported that issue back in august, I guess it's not devs concerns.
Or they think I was the only one having that issue because nobody complains.
I think it's like that since LibFAT update (to support exFAT).


and the "no info" is the new "seamless" loading method, to not see any GUI anymore, so you just experienced it without a GUI, but with a MC creation freeze.

 

[sideskroll]

I already reported that issue back in august, I guess it's not devs concerns.
Or they think I was the only one having that issue because nobody complains.
I think it's like that since LibFAT update (to support exFAT).


and the "no info" is the new "seamless" loading method, to not see any GUI anymore, so you just experienced it without a GUI, but with a MC creation freeze.

Yes. And I'm all for no GUI (it serves no purpose for me at least) but the devs not taking notice is not cool... Maybe it's just a vWii issue? Are you using a wii or wiiu?
By the way, I've been testing and noticed that VC titles have a similar issue with the size of the buffer image. Like GX, they occupy the whole screen when in widescreen instead of having those small black bars at the sides like wii games have when played on a vwii. Does that have to do with GX (cause I know you changed the VI size from 640 to 700 I believe to fill the whole screen) or are the titles standalone and do not inherit the loaders video settings?

 

[Cyan]

I tested it on a Wii.
it wasn't mine, so I couldn't do a lot of test and report proper debug info, as I missed time and tools to properly test, that's probably why it passed unnoticed.

for the VC on vWii, try to launch an installed channel from system menu and see if it's doing the same thing as USBGX.
USBGX is setting the video mode before booting the game, but I know settings have a bug with Channels and lot of video option are not working (aspect ratio, for example).

I will not work on video mode, it's too complicated.

 

[sideskroll]

I tested it on a Wii.
it wasn't mine, so I couldn't do a lot of test and report proper debug info, as I missed time and tools to properly test, that's probably why it passed unnoticed.

for the VC on vWii, try to launch an installed channel from system menu and see if it's doing the same thing as USBGX.
USBGX is setting the video mode before booting the game, but I know settings have a bug with Channels and lot of video option are not working (aspect ratio, for example).

I will not work on video mode, it's too complicated.

Ok. I'll try to report it as well. See if it gets any attention now. (hard to believe that nobody else notice the difference... It is not like 1 or 2 extra seconds....)
Ok. So do I install a VC title to real nand and test it against the same VC on the emunand ? I assume it is safe to install wii wads on vWii?

 

[Cyan]

it's safe if it's a working wad, the banner is an official one.
it's not safe when users are creating custom banners with bugs in the code.

But like I said, I won't work on the VC video mode at all (there are already bugs in the settings which is not affecting VC, so it first needs that bug fixed to even start doing experiment on video mode)

it's now safer, as we can edit vWii NAND from wiiU! we could delete the wrong banner if you really get a banner brick.

 

[sideskroll]

it's safe if it's a working wad, the banner is an official one.
it's not safe when users are creating custom banners with bugs in the code.

But like I said, I won't work on the VC video mode at all (there are already bugs in the settings which is not affecting VC, so it first needs that bug fixed to even start doing experiment on video mode)

it's now safer, as we can edit vWii NAND from wiiU! we could delete the wrong banner if you really get a banner brick.

Damn... You learn something new every day... Looks like I have a lot to catch up with the Wii U side of things
Also, yeah I got that you are not planning on working on video settings. I understand. Even so, I'd like to corroborate if it is indeed caused by the loader or if thats the way it is.
Could you at least consider adding the same wiiu widescreen option that currently only GCN can have (per game). It should be doable? That way users wouldn't have to be going into features and activating wiiu widescreen every time they want to play some 4:3 games.
And the best part is that the option is already in and working fine. So you would just have to port it to other systems.
Would you be willing to do that?

 

[Cyan]

no, I won't do that as it's affecting only wiiU. the Wii is not using a real widescreen video mode and this option doesn't exist.
it's not a game setting, it's a console setting.
I explained few months ago the issues it could cause (users not understanding that option on Wii, I could hide the option on Wii but I still don't like that)
it could be a global setting memorized, but again why play in 4;3 ? I think only resident evil has an issue.

it's there on gamecube (per game) because it's a nintendont setting.
I'll see later if I do it for wii games too, but don't like that feature to be per game. I also don't remember why I don't like it. I should find my previous post about it.

 

[sideskroll]

no, I won't do that as it's affecting only wiiU. the Wii is not using a real widescreen video mode and this option doesn't exist.
it's not a game setting, it's a console setting.
I explained few months ago the issues it could cause (users not understanding that option on Wii, I could hide the option on Wii but I still don't like that)
it could be a global setting memorized, but again why play in 4;3 ? I think only resident evil has an issue.

it's there on gamecube (per game) because it's a nintendont setting.

Ohh... So it's because of nintendont.
Ok.
But there are more games that have that issue on wii. Not only RE. House of the dead 2&3 comes to mind and a couple others. Metal slug IIRC.
Also, I meant per game for all systems. VC, Wiiware etc. The option is already there. So any "confusion" users might have is already confusing
So why not go the whole nine yards?

 

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

So I'm having problems getting Phantasy Star Online III C.A.R.D Revolution to boot in USB Loader GX, when I have it working great with Nintendont and CFG USB Loader. Any ideas?

 

[fledge68]

Fledge : I'm wondering where you do get all the covers for the ROMs? I guess gametdb doesn't have them, right? users need to make their own? are there any pack somewhere to download?
I see you made some "no cover" for gba and snes format, but I'm not sure which file you based your template of.

i got the covers from Mastershoes' cover thread - https://gbatemp.net/threads/cover-collections-for-emulators-with-cover-support.324714/

but most of his covers are full covers for wiiflow so i used photoshop cs5 to crop them to the front cover only and then resized (shrunk) them to usbloader gx size. i made photoshop actions to do this to all the covers in a folder - like batch processing.

the "no cover" are just usbloader gx "no covers" streched and shrunk into gba and snes size covers. I also removed the little '?' all over them to cut down on their byte size.

 

[GreyWolf]

So I'm having problems getting Phantasy Star Online III C.A.R.D Revolution to boot in USB Loader GX, when I have it working great with Nintendont and CFG USB Loader. Any ideas?

Did you verify your game disc image?

 

[Cyan]

I didn't know that thread with all the covers. All the packs are very big !
Snes alone is 1GB

I like the full covers too, so we could make proper 3D boxes in the game info window.
I will have to do some tests to see how it renders without resizing, but 1GB is maybe a little too big.

So I'm having problems getting Phantasy Star Online III C.A.R.D Revolution to boot in USB Loader GX, when I have it working great with Nintendont and CFG USB Loader. Any ideas?

Are you using the same exact settings?
Which video mode are you using ? maybe it's one of the games which require "auto" to the video width setting.
I'll add it in near revision. (1264 probably)

 

[sonictopfan]

@sonictopfan should try to disable titles from wiitdb.xml and see if it's loading faster.

That's an interesting idea I should test and see how it works.

However, a few days ago while installing a couple more games on my Wii I "unintentionally" got around to testing the speed thing, as I been guessing before I confirm that the slow down on my end is related to loading titles from EmuNAND, I have a huge list of games installed on my hard drive and when I disable EmuNAND they all load fast enough with no problem, it's just EmuNAND takes a long time to list all the games despite them being the "smaller" games, I'm thinking it's due the fact EmuNAND has a lot of sub-folders to go through which takes more time than loading one main file instead, I'll test disabling Wiitdb and see if that speeds things up as half of my EmuNAND games are injects anyway.

Speaking of injects, I'm still looking for someone who can inject Master System files ^^;

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Thanks for USB Loader GX, it is my favourite backup loader. SD loading is still not a possibility, right? It would be so cool, i wouldn't have to use other backup loaders. Especially with the large capacity SD cards are now a possibility, having an all-in-one SD card with 256 gb capacity and full of GC, Wii, Wii U games would be so cool. I wouldn't worry about switch back compatibility.

How did you get USB-Loader GX to work on a 32+ GB SD? This, Wii Xplorer, and Wii Save Manager GX are among the top of the list for programs that always crash on me when I test with any SD bigger than 32 GB.

 

[self_slaughter]

I was looking into the idea of centering the main icons in list mode and noticed that you can still change titleid even if it's not being displayed, just by clicking in the right area anyway.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Zonta85]

I was looking into the idea of centering the main icons in list mode and noticed that you can still change titleid even if it's not being displayed, just by clicking in the right area anyway.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

It changes the real title id of the iso/wad installed file inside the wii or only the dislyaed id?
I ask because i have a lot of forwarders channels (like the official snes9x gx and fceugx official forwarders installed with the official installers, but also genesis plus gx forwarder "SEGA", or wiixplorer "WIIX", or also wiisx forwarer, "WPSX") that doesn't match wiitdb, and i'm not able to download the covers trough usbloadergx (and my pc is broken, so i can't change the title id with showmiiwads or customizemii) and i have to download the covers trough a tablet, rename it and then send them to the wii via ftpii/ftp server on wiixplorer.

 

[Zonta85]

Excuse me for the double posting. I tried to change the title id of the snes9x forwarder from "SN9X"to "9XGX" because i want that matches gametdb, but it seems that doesn't work. If i highlight another channel and after highlight back the snes9x in usb loader gx list, the title id is the old. Is the same if i exit and boot again usb loader gx, seems that the new title id isn't stored.
Is a bug or am i doing something wrong?

 

[Cyan]

It changes the real title id of the iso/wad installed file inside the wii or only the dislyaed id?

I think it changes it inside the wbfs, so it allows you to have different mods of the same game, but it was an option which was used when WBFS partition format was still widely spread.
I'm not sure how that option is acting with games on other partition format, either it's writing only in the ISO or only renaming the folder's ID6, or both.
if it edits only the ISO, then it's bad as the loader uses the ID6 located in the folder to get the game list, wiitdb, game's title, etc.

As it was an option for WBFS partition, I think it has no effect on FAT32/NTFS.
it could be fixed, I guess.

 

[Zonta85]

Thank you Cyan, then i suppose that this function doesn't work on wads stored in real nand.
By the way i'm curious to understand if it has effect on fat32/ntfs, and then if it change the title id in the iso or only in the game folder.

 

[self_slaughter]

I have a huge list of games installed on my hard drive and when I disable EmuNAND they all load fast enough with no problem, it's just EmuNAND takes a long time to list all the games...

Actually I'm amazed at the difference without them. I only have maybe 30 games installed as WiiWare on the USB emunand, but I just tried another Wii with the same games minus the WiiWare and it screams along generating a cover download list.

Edit: you can see how quick the list is updating and mucking around during the search. Normally it kinda goes blank and slow in the background.

First startup is quick as, too. I might even leave 'em disabled for now, given the speed increase.

I Wonder if real Nand / sd based games are as slow?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Alex658]

What's the latest version of USB loader GX i can download and how do I set it up?

Thank you for your help