Hacking VCFE Wip...

[stev418]

I looked at the rom manager this evening and I'm pleased to say that it's just about ready for release! I have just a few more things to add and a rather lengthy readme to churn out but all the general functions are there and yes, that does include tg-cd injection!

Keep in mind when I release it though that aside form the tg-16 stuff this thing has had NO testing so I can almost guarantee you that some of the functions won't work propery.

Also I found a bug that effects the speed of unpacking files with the u8tool so 9.6 will be released sometime tonight.

YES! cant wait to get testing with some TG-CD games, your work is nothing less then great HowardC. Nice to see a bugfix for the unpacker, ive been using another unpacker due to the speed issue

PS: Just a note about the 'new' compression. All new VC are coming with the 01.app LZ77 compressed, that 'headerless' format I shown you few months ago. There are also certain VC (like SNES) that have the ROM file and emanual LZ77 compressed.

There are 2 LZ77 forms, one being the '10' that is already common in banner files but now without header, and the '11' which is what most of these new compressed files are in.

alpha-0 has already a LZ77 de/compressor called wwcxtool that works with both of these LZ77 forms, you can find the tools in his wwpacker package on GBATemp

 

[mrtankjump]

It unpacks so much quicker now

Thanks for the work HowardC.

 

[HowardC]

I looked at the rom manager this evening and I'm pleased to say that it's just about ready for release! I have just a few more things to add and a rather lengthy readme to churn out but all the general functions are there and yes, that does include tg-cd injection!

Keep in mind when I release it though that aside form the tg-16 stuff this thing has had NO testing so I can almost guarantee you that some of the functions won't work propery.

Also I found a bug that effects the speed of unpacking files with the u8tool so 9.6 will be released sometime tonight.

YES! cant wait to get testing with some TG-CD games, your work is nothing less then great HowardC. Nice to see a bugfix for the unpacker, ive been using another unpacker due to the speed issue

PS: Just a note about the 'new' compression. All new VC are coming with the 01.app LZ77 compressed, that 'headerless' format I shown you few months ago. There are also certain VC (like SNES) that have the ROM file and emanual LZ77 compressed.

There are 2 LZ77 forms, one being the '10' that is already common in banner files but now without header, and the '11' which is what most of these new compressed files are in.

alpha-0 has already a LZ77 de/compressor called wwcxtool that works with both of these LZ77 forms, you can find the tools in his wwpacker package on GBATemp

The thing about wwcxtool is everybody says it works on these formats but I can never get it work work right presonally. What you can do for me if you have time is see if the type 11 compressed roms can be replaced with the type 10 compressed roms and vice versa. This would save us a lot of trouble as I could just use one and I would have to figure out a way to detect the proper format.

 

[icefireicefire]

Bug: commandline packing with U8Tool still gives a dialog box when it is done

.

 

[HowardC]

Noted and fixed..... no reason to release a new version for that little bit though.... I'll get to it soon.

 

[marioxb]

The thing about wwcxtool is everybody says it works on these formats but I can never get it work work right presonally. What you can do for me if you have time is see if the type 11 compressed roms can be replaced with the type 10 compressed roms and vice versa. This would save us a lot of trouble as I could just use one and I would have to figure out a way to detect the proper format.

This is the command line I used for lz77 compressed manuals (seems to be the format for all current US releases):

wwcxtool /u lz77_emanual.arc emanual.arc

Still trying to figure out the htmlc.arc compression in the Japanese Smash Bros. wad. I found a romc tool that works on the rom, but not the manual.

 

[HowardC]

Well that's not what I'm referring to. wwcxtool decompresses just fine generally, but packing it back up is where I run into issues.

 

[HowardC]

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, I've been busy.

Anyway, status update on a few things.

Rom Manager:

It still isn't ready mainly because I'm too lazy to write-up a readme.txt and do a few finishing touches. Unfortuantely the real stumbling block is one of the tg-cd
input file types (a real cd inserted in your computer and/or a image virtually mounted) isn't finished and although I've got the tools necessary to convert this format, I forgot what format it needs to be in before I process it! (That's what I get for taking such a long break). Anyway, I've misplaced my notes so it could take a while for figure out what I need to do. Hopefully it'll be ready by monday.

U8 Tool:

Because it has come to my attention that my u8tool is the ONLY tool in development and the others simpy aren't robust enough to work on all archives I've decided to take drastic measures to allow the tool to work on non-vc archives 100% of the time without any trial and error required on my end. The next version of u8tool will have a special "inject" mode. As the name sugggests this mode allows you to inject files rather than have the app build an archive from scratch making a 100% identical archive structure. The only catch with this mode is you can only replace files in an archive, you can't add new ones or delete ones. In order to make the mode as user-friendly as possible, the mode works EXACTLY like pack, in that you point to a folder structure and it uses the files inside for injection except the output path must point to an actual archive so the inject function has something to put the files in.

Long story short, for those working on health archives, disc image banners or other archives in which you just wanna swap out tpls, this new mode is for you and it'll elimanate the "fuzzy" images. As a nice side-effect, this will also solve our issues with the icon.bin, as all we ever do to it is replace the tpl! Unfortuantely it will NOT solve our issues with the banner.bin as the brlyt file size changes.

Tools that generate tpls:

It has come to my attention that one of the helper exes I use in my apps may or may not be part of the nintendo sdk. This is unacceptable as my tools are to be 100% legal and thus I must solve this issue. Fortunately the new banner toolset benzin has a tpl command-line tool that I can use. Benzin doesn't support all of the formats we use, but it is open-source and thus when I get time I'll add the extra header and file formats we require to the program which will benefit everyone really. Right now I'm not working on any of my tpl-related apps though, so it will be a while before I get to this.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to, so stay tuned for some releases!

 

[WiiShizzza]

*blasted*

Nice words!!

 

[icefireicefire]

really, is that true about broly7's thing? that sux but I guess tplx does the same thing as the tpl viewer and gentpl can replace the creator.

 

[HowardC]

Ok u8tool 10 is out with the new inject mode. I STRONGLY RECCOMEND that you read the "usage" section in the readme.txt regarding the new mode as there are certain conditions that must be met for it to work. So long as you are merely editing files inside an archive and you are NOT altering the size of said files it should work 100% of the time, but it isn't a magical catch all that'll suddenly make you poop rainbows so make sure you understand in what situations it is good for.

Also understand that while I've compared the outputted files it generates in a hex editor to make sure they are safe (and identical if made with the same files) I haven't done any testing on the actual wii, so this might not solve all of our issues even though there's no logical reason as to how a archive with IDENTICAL file structure could mess up a tpl.

 

[Mrkinator]

Nice! Thanks Howard

 

[icefireicefire]

HowardC -- I am having an issue with your commandline packing, it seems to think I am injecting when I type -pack :|? this is with

 -imet -title "channel name"

too.

 

[Golfman560]

but it isn't a magical catch all that'll suddenly make you poop rainbows so make sure you understand in what situations it is good for.

Sorry, I had to.

Ontopic: So I should watch the size then. Are you sure it will work almost 100%?

 

[HowardC]

HowardC -- I am having an issue with your commandline packing, it seems to think I am injecting when I type -pack :|? this is with

 -imet -title "channel name"

too.

Put the "-pack" command after the -imet command, the "i" in imet is getting confused with the "i" in inject (shorthand commands are also supported). It isn't really a bug, but more of an oversight.... I'll put checks in to resolve this issue in later versions.

 

[icefireicefire]

Thanks! I hope this update solves my weird blurry pictures, gotta test now

.

 

[HowardC]

On second thought this is one of those issues that people are going to keep bugging me about instead of reading my post about what to do so I put up a quick 10.1 that merely does better command-line checks. Shouldn't matter which order the stuff is in now.

 

[WiiBlaster]

Thanks for the Update

 

[icefireicefire]

has the issue of blurry banners been solved somewhere (and I missed it)? Or is it still a known issue?

My test had another pair of blurry/distorted banner and icon.



ex:

 

[Mrkinator]

Hey, that's my image

Yes, I would like to know as well. You told me a while back just to make the image smaller, but of course this decreases the quality.