Hacking WiiFlow - an open source GUI USB-Loader

[MassiveRican]

Ok sorry for the delay. A quick guide on MASS Cover Caching for emulators. By mass I mean if you're looking to setup a full cover cache from one of Mastershoes/TOW420 complete downloads for systems like SNES/Genesis or MegaDrive/GameBoy Advance etc.. on his thread.

EDIT**: If you want WiiFlow to perform as quickly as possible and cache as quickly as possible, it is imperative and drastically important that your HDD is as contigous as possible. Meaning defrag you hard drive with a good defrag utility. I personally recommend Defraggler and Contig. Both let you defrag single/individual files as well. Defraggler has a GUI, and Contig only let's you defrag single/individual files within command line.

1. Refer to the list below to see which themes are good to cache with, obviously green means go . My personal recommendations from my experience caching for hours now are Carbonik-Abz, Luigi's Mansion & Default w/no .ini file.
2. Make sure that your coverflow is in single line view ONLY!! As in you can only see 1 row of games and you can only go left and right, not up and down!
3. While caching do not hit + or - unless all covers in view have been cached and loaded. Otherwise face slowdown and possible freeze, but unlikely with recommended themes.
4. It would be best if you have music playing to turn it off, simple way to do that is by renaming your music folder in /wiiflow/music to /wiiflow/no_music/ or whatever the hell u want lol. It's optional but again recommended.
5. Going in one direction, nice and slow is preferred. No jumping around looking for specific covers while caching, cuz that's retarded uummm-k!
6. When/if covers stop caching, simply do a manual restart of WiiFlow (Hold "B" + Home twice) then go back to the point it stopped and continue caching happily or miserably depending on how you look at it lol! 1000+ covers to cache gets boring quick lol
7. Enjoy the end results, the wait is well worth it

Spoiler

8-Bit Playground-m = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Andro!d = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Blue Carbon = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading intermittently.
BlackWii = Dumps with r884, no longer works w/latest WF.
Carbonik-Abz* = Great for Cover Caching, single line view.
Carbonik colors(red,purple, etc.) = Bad cover caching, very slow using ini it comes with.
Carbonik-M = Good for cover caching, single line view.
DarkUmbra = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly.
Default w/ini = Bad cover caching, Barely loads any before it stops.
Default no .ini* = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Droidflow v3 = Bad cover caching, Barely loads any before it stops.
Greennv = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly using ini it comes with.
Luigi's Mansion* = Great for cover caching, single line view.
Multiflow = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly using ini it comes with.
Orchid-m = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Starnight = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Subspace = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading.
Violet-m = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading.
WhiteWii = Dumps with r884, no longer works w/latest.

@FIX94/Fledge68, the default theme, regardless of what .ini file is used, automatically causes problems and covers cease to cache very quickly! I have no clue why, I think it's very weird and have no other info, just thought I'd let you know it doesn't seem to be the r511 default.ini but any .ini file used from any other theme doesn't perform well.

By no means are these themes unusable (unless stated otherwise) for anything other than caching. For viewing and selecting games most of the themes work. Some haven't been updated so they'll act/look a little weird.

@bostonBC, I'm unable to reproduce your cover loading problem. I know your issue has nothing to do with caching, but I don't get the dreaded SD Loading image. I'm going to try with Categories as well.

 

[AbdallahTerro]

@MassiveRican
Thanks for testing the themes, it's good to hear that Carbonik is behaving as it should when it comes to cover caching.
Though I still believe cover caching/ memory management was better before, especially when HQ covers are present.
Hopefully Fix can take a deep look at the code when he has some time, I know he's still busy with major tests and I wish him good luck.

 

[bostonBC]

Ok sorry for the delay. A quick guide on MASS Cover Caching for emulators. By mass I mean if you're looking to setup a full cover cache from one of Mastershoes/TOW420 complete downloads for systems like SNES/Genesis or MegaDrive/GameBoy Advance etc.. on his thread.

1. Refer to the list below to see which themes are good to cache with, obviously green means go . My personal recommendations from my experience caching for hours now are Carbonik-Abz, Luigi's Mansion & Default w/no .ini file.
2. Make sure that your coverflow is in single line view ONLY!! As in you can only see 1 row of games and you can only go left and right, not up and down!
3. While caching do not hit + or - unless all covers in view have been cached and loaded. Otherwise face slowdown and possible freeze, but unlikely with recommended themes.
4. It would be best if you have music playing to turn it off, simple way to do that is by renaming your music folder in /wiiflow/music to /wiiflow/no_music/ or whatever the hell u want lol. It's optional but again recommended.
5. Going in one direction, nice and slow is preferred. No jumping around looking for specific covers while caching, cuz that's retarded uummm-k!
6. When/if covers stop caching, simply do a manual restart of WiiFlow (Hold "B" + Home twice) then go back to the point it stopped and continue caching happily or miserably depending on how you look at it lol! 1000+ covers to cache gets boring quick lol
7. Enjoy the end results, the wait is well worth it.

8-Bit Playground-m = Good Cover Caching, single line view.

Andro!d = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Blue Carbon = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading intermittently.
BlackWii = Dumps with r884, no longer works w/latest WF.
Carbonik-Abz* = Great for Cover Caching, single line view.
Carbonik colors(red,purple, etc.) = Bad cover caching, very slow using ini it comes with.
Carbonik-M = Good for cover caching, single line view.
DarkUmbra = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly.
Default w/ini = Bad cover caching, Barely loads any before it stops.
Default no .ini* = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Droidflow v3 = Bad cover caching, Barely loads any before it stops.
Greennv = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly using ini it comes with.
Luigi's Mansion* = Great for cover caching, single line view.
Multiflow = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly using ini it comes with.
Orchid-m = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Starnight = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Subspace = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading.
Violet-m = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading.
WhiteWii = Dumps with r884, no longer works w/latest.

@FIX94/Fledge68, the default theme, regardless of what .ini file is used, automatically causes problems and covers cease to cache very quickly! I have no clue why, I think it's very weird and have no other info, just thought I'd let you know it doesn't seem to be the r511 default.ini but any .ini file used from any other theme doesn't perform well.

By no means are these themes unusable (unless stated otherwise) for anything other than caching. For viewing and selecting games most of the themes work. Some haven't been updated so they'll act/look a little weird.

@bostonBC, I'm unable to reproduce your cover loading problem. I know your issue has nothing to do with caching.

Thanks for all the hard work. I went through and with your results ran a set of my own tests. I ended up with a slightly different conclusion on the default theme.

BTW - I am using r866 now.

When I started even when I deleted all the themes and even delete the default.ini that I use that has a few views I just have to scroll over barely a page before it chokes and shows the SD loading message.

In my tests I've deleted the default.ini theme, deleted the wiiflow.ini and let Wiiflow recreate it and each time it comes back I couldn't scroll more than a page w/o the SD loading message.

But when I did a reload cache the default coverflow started working again. So something in my cache must have been messed up. But this is with no default.ini theme file.

I tried using the Carbonik-Abz in single line view and if I held the right arrow down it only took a few seconds before the SD loading image came up. Even if I pressed the right arrow slowly, 1 at a time the SD loading image came up after 10-15 seconds.

So I loaded up Carbonik-Abz, rebuilt the cache but it did the exact same thing. And when the SD loading image comes up the system freezes if I try to reload Wiiflow, run a game/exit.

I ran through some other themes with the same result.

The only thing that is working now is a default theme with no default.ini.

If I try the r886 default.ini it blows up quickly.

It blows up very quickly if you are using a 3-up coverflow.

For now I am going to delete all my themes including the default.ini as that at least lets my kids use the system and scroll forward/back etc without it hanging up.

But based on your and my tests the coverflow system with ANY theme appears to be broken. For some reason I have more problems than you but if a theme allows a 3-up display it should work and not blow up.

Edit - after playing with it for a while longer it looks like one of my cover cache files was corrupted and that was causing the SD loading error.

I deleted the bad file and Wiiflow recreated it and now it is not blowing up on themes for me - including 3-up ones.

I don't know what happens when the .wfc files are loaded but they may want to add validation/bounds checking before loading it into a structure in memory as that seems to corrupt the system.

I will play more with it on my 3TB system later today but it's 4AM and I am sleepy.

 

[shortz1994]

Thanks for all the hard work. I went through and with your results ran a set of my own tests. I ended up with a slightly different conclusion on the default theme.

BTW - I am using r866 now.

When I started even when I deleted all the themes and even delete the default.ini that I use that has a few views I just have to scroll over barely a page before it chokes and shows the SD loading message.

In my tests I've deleted the default.ini theme, deleted the wiiflow.ini and let Wiiflow recreate it and each time it comes back I couldn't scroll more than a page w/o the SD loading message.

But when I did a reload cache the default coverflow started working again. So something in my cache must have been messed up. But this is with no default.ini theme file.

I tried using the Carbonik-Abz in single line view and if I held the right arrow down it only took a few seconds before the SD loading image came up. Even if I pressed the right arrow slowly, 1 at a time the SD loading image came up after 10-15 seconds.

So I loaded up Carbonik-Abz, rebuilt the cache but it did the exact same thing. And when the SD loading image comes up the system freezes if I try to reload Wiiflow, run a game/exit.

I ran through some other themes with the same result.

The only thing that is working now is a default theme with no default.ini.

If I try the r886 default.ini it blows up quickly.

It blows up very quickly if you are using a 3-up coverflow.

For now I am going to delete all my themes including the default.ini as that at least lets my kids use the system and scroll forward/back etc without it hanging up.

But based on your and my tests the coverflow system with ANY theme appears to be broken. For some reason I have more problems than you but if a theme allows a 3-up display it should work and not blow up.

Edit - after playing with it for a while longer it looks like one of my cover cache files was corrupted and that was causing the SD loading error.

I deleted the bad file and Wiiflow recreated it and now it is not blowing up on themes for me - including 3-up ones.

I don't know what happens when the .wfc files are loaded but they may want to add validation/bounds checking before loading it into a structure in memory as that seems to corrupt the system.

I will play more with it on my 3TB system later today but it's 4AM and I am sleepy.

So the nest question would also be, is this a reading a drive issue,or code issue ?
i have a 500gb western digi.( the older one,2009 model). an i have yet to see this sd loading bug. (tell the truth, this drive has worked 100% every time.)
now not saying it's there . but it could be taking awhile to read every thing that's on the drive.(i.e. if you have all the plug ins, games..ect.) a 3TB is a pretty big F ing drive.

 

[bostonBC]

So the nest question would also be, is this a reading a drive issue,or code issue ?
i have a 500gb western digi.( the older one,2009 model). an i have yet to see this sd loading bug. (tell the truth, this drive has worked 100% every time.)
now not saying it's there . but it could be taking awhile to read every thing that's on the drive.(i.e. if you have all the plug ins, games..ect.) a 3TB is a pretty big F ing drive.

My drives have probably had the bad' wfc' cache file for a long time and a recent code change brought out the problem.

FWIW - the cache files do load and display under older versions but I am not going to go back and check each version to find where it blew up.

If you delete all the cache files on a large drive and have Wiiflow recreate them it will die at some point during the recreation. My guess is the bad wfc was created at some rebuild over the last year and some change in the code now causes that to die.

If anyone else sees the SD loading hang issue check the boundary between the last cover that loaded and the one that shows the SD loading message. That's likely where the 'bad' wfc file is located. Delete it and let WiiiFlow recreate it and you should be ok.

 

[fledge68]

Ok sorry for the delay. A quick guide on MASS Cover Caching for emulators. By mass I mean if you're looking to setup a full cover cache from one of Mastershoes/TOW420 complete downloads for systems like SNES/Genesis or MegaDrive/GameBoy Advance etc.. on his thread.

1. Refer to the list below to see which themes are good to cache with, obviously green means go . My personal recommendations from my experience caching for hours now are Carbonik-Abz, Luigi's Mansion & Default w/no .ini file.
2. Make sure that your coverflow is in single line view ONLY!! As in you can only see 1 row of games and you can only go left and right, not up and down!
3. While caching do not hit + or - unless all covers in view have been cached and loaded. Otherwise face slowdown and possible freeze, but unlikely with recommended themes.
4. It would be best if you have music playing to turn it off, simple way to do that is by renaming your music folder in /wiiflow/music to /wiiflow/no_music/ or whatever the hell u want lol. It's optional but again recommended.
5. Going in one direction, nice and slow is preferred. No jumping around looking for specific covers while caching, cuz that's retarded uummm-k!
6. When/if covers stop caching, simply do a manual restart of WiiFlow (Hold "B" + Home twice) then go back to the point it stopped and continue caching happily or miserably depending on how you look at it lol! 1000+ covers to cache gets boring quick lol
7. Enjoy the end results, the wait is well worth it

Spoiler

8-Bit Playground-m = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Andro!d = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Blue Carbon = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading intermittently.
BlackWii = Dumps with r884, no longer works w/latest WF.
Carbonik-Abz* = Great for Cover Caching, single line view.
Carbonik colors(red,purple, etc.) = Bad cover caching, very slow using ini it comes with.
Carbonik-M = Good for cover caching, single line view.
DarkUmbra = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly.
Default w/ini = Bad cover caching, Barely loads any before it stops.
Default no .ini* = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Droidflow v3 = Bad cover caching, Barely loads any before it stops.
Greennv = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly using ini it comes with.
Luigi's Mansion* = Great for cover caching, single line view.
Multiflow = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading quickly using ini it comes with.
Orchid-m = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Starnight = Good Cover Caching, single line view.
Subspace = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading.
Violet-m = Bad Cover Caching, Slow & Stops loading.
WhiteWii = Dumps with r884, no longer works w/latest.

@FIX94/Fledge68, the default theme, regardless of what .ini file is used, automatically causes problems and covers cease to cache very quickly! I have no clue why, I think it's very weird and have no other info, just thought I'd let you know it doesn't seem to be the r511 default.ini but any .ini file used from any other theme doesn't perform well.

By no means are these themes unusable (unless stated otherwise) for anything other than caching. For viewing and selecting games most of the themes work. Some haven't been updated so they'll act/look a little weird.

@bostonBC, I'm unable to reproduce your cover loading problem. I know your issue has nothing to do with caching, but I don't get the dreaded SD Loading image. I'm going to try with Categories as well.

Massive - can you send me all these themes but just the ini's. That way I can examine them to see what the difference is between the ones that work and the ones that don't. The deault theme ini should only have emuflow, coverflow, and brewflow so I'm assuming that thats where the problem has to be in all the themes that don't work.

@bostonbc - I had a good feeling your problem was one or more corrupt wfc files but what's causing it I have know idea. unless when you're creating the cache files your hard drive can't keep up with wiiflow or vice versa. Hopefully Fix can figure this one out

 

[bostonBC]

Massive - can you send me all these themes but just the ini's. That way I can examine them to see what the difference is between the ones that work and the ones that don't. The deault theme ini should only have emuflow, coverflow, and brewflow so I'm assuming that thats where the problem has to be in all the themes that don't work.

@bostonbc - I had a good feeling your problem was one or more corrupt wfc files but what's causing it I have know idea. unless when you're creating the cache files your hard drive can't keep up with wiiflow or vice versa. Hopefully Fix can figure this one out

Thanks. I think that's where the problem is too. I've found one corrupt full cover (186 bytes) that when I scroll past the cover it tries to create the cache and that causes the foul-up. I deleted that one and all other 0 byte covers and am downloading the missing ones. Hopefully that will fix it.

So I think rather than there being a problem with the hard disk it is picking up a bad cover image and then trying to cache it. If there are any validity checks added it would probably be wise to put it in that section of code.

 

[MassiveRican]

Massive - can you send me all these themes but just the ini's. That way I can examine them to see what the difference is between the ones that work and the ones that don't. The deault theme ini should only have emuflow, coverflow, and brewflow so I'm assuming that thats where the problem has to be in all the themes that don't work.

Sure that's no problem, however I'm not sure if the ini's are the problem for the default theme. I used the Carbonik-Abz and Luigi's Mansion ini's, renamed them to default.ini and the default theme still only cached a few covers before it stopped. I'll be home tonight though sorry for the wait.

@bostonBC, Maybe a validity check during an SD Log if its not already there can help pinpoint the corrupted covers easier in the future for users.

 

[bostonBC]

Sure that's no problem, however I'm not sure if the ini's are the problem for the default theme. I used the Carbonik-Abz and Luigi's Mansion ini's, renamed them to default.ini and the default theme still only cached a few covers before it stopped. I'll be home tonight though sorry for the wait.

@bostonBC, Maybe a validity check during an SD Log if its not already there can help pinpoint the corrupted covers easier in the future for users.

Or a validation check on the image (it is xx pixels wide and yy pixels high) before the wfc cache file is created and if it is not valid a no image graphic displayed instead.

 

[JSamide]

I followed the instruction on wiiflowiki to get my source with SVN checkout and then opened the wiiflow .pnproj in order to compile it. I went to edit>make. I got > Process Exit Code: 2. What do I do with this?

 

[MassiveRican]

@Tuddles, here's my ini to get the RA cps1 core working with WiiFlow. Adjusts your paths as necessary

[PLUGIN]
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}
bannersound=CPS1.ogg
consolecoverid=
covercolor=ffffff
coverfolder=retroarch
displayname=FBA CPS1
dolfile=retroarch-wii/fba_cores_cps1.dol
filetypes=.zip
magic=43505331
romdir=fba_alpha/CPS1

Hope it helps, let me know if you have any issues.

I followed the instruction on wiiflowiki to get my source with SVN checkout and then opened the wiiflow .pnproj in order to compile it. I went to edit>make. I got > Process Exit Code: 2. What do I do with this?

I don't use the .pnpproj method. I open a command prompt and once in C:/WiiFlow I type in make ios=249. If you want to try that, if you have multiple cores you can use the -j suffix but just try it normally for now. See how it goes.

 

[MassiveRican]

Delete. DP my bad.

 

[Tuddles]

@Tuddles, here's my ini to get the RA cps1 core working with WiiFlow. Adjusts your paths as necessary

[PLUGIN]
arguments={device}:/{path}/|{name}
bannersound=CPS1.ogg
consolecoverid=
covercolor=ffffff
coverfolder=retroarch
displayname=FBA CPS1
dolfile=retroarch-wii/fba_cores_cps1.dol
filetypes=.zip
magic=43505331
romdir=fba_alpha/CPS1

Hope it helps, let me know if you have any issues.

I don't use the .pnpproj method. I open a command prompt and once in C:/WiiFlow I type in make ios=249. If you want to try that, if you have multiple cores you can use the -j suffix but just try it normally for now. See how it goes.

awsome just what I needed ty kindly.....also

any idea why in wiiflow the cheats it downloads wont work I am trying on animal crossing I have ocarina set to on pick cheat hit apply then go back and load game nothing...

ty

 

[MassiveRican]

awsome just what I needed ty kindly.....also

any idea why in wiiflow the cheats it downloads wont work I am trying on animal crossing I have ocarina set to on pick cheat hit apply then go back and load game nothing...

ty

You have to set the hook type in the settings. VBI should be fine, there are others if VBI doesn't work, but most likely VBI will do.

 

[Tuddles]

You have to set the hook type in the settings. VBI should be fine, there are others if VBI doesn't work, but most likely VBI will do.

once again I ty you been a great help

ok the only working hook type is joypad the rest make the game say the data is currupt...this hook tho the cheats dont work, any more ideas ?

 

[MassiveRican]

once again I ty you been a great help

ok the only working hook type is joypad the rest make the game say the data is currupt...this hook tho the cheats dont work, any more ideas ?

Are you attempting to use cheats for RetroArch? Or for a Wii game?

 

[Tuddles]

Are you attempting to use cheats for RetroArch? Or for a Wii game?

wii game animal crossing

cheats work in mario and other wii games just wont in animal crossing

 

[MassiveRican]

Hmm.. sorry no idea, I don't use cheats myself. Maybe someone else that know about codes in the txtcodes folder, codes folder, all that jazz. There have to be some avid cheats users out here lol. Somebody want to lend a helping hand?

 

[Tuddles]

Hmm.. sorry no idea, I don't use cheats myself. Maybe someone else that know about codes in the txtcodes folder, codes folder, all that jazz. There have to be some avid cheats users out here lol. Somebody want to lend a helping hand?

ty tho seems only animal crossing if anyone here knows

also ty for the wiiflow help all is set and fine except one question...why when making channel icons in source_menu some emulators last line say emuflow=2 or 6 and so on and some dont have that emuflow line? what does the emuflow=# do to the menu layout if used as both seem to look same

 

[MassiveRican]

the emuflow=# corresponds to which emuflow you want to see first when you choose the emulator icon. If you have a theme that uses 12 different emuflow's which can be changed with the "1/2" buttons, and you want Genesis to start with the eleventh emuflow, you change the line to emuflow=11