Channel creation

I'll also cite the following threads as demotivational.
[forum.wiibrew.org]
[forum.wiibrew.org]
[forum.wiibrew.org]
[forum.wiibrew.org]
[forum.wiibrew.org]
Edit:
[forum.wiibrew.org] - And another

I don't mind helping people, but some of these are just rediculous questions that are answered in hundreds of places. I'm going to try and ignore such questions, but they still bug me.

Nobody is going to develop something for somebody else for nothing (well, there may be a few instances, but there will usually be a tradeoff). So look at everything like this
1. If nobody has said they're doing it, assuming nobody is
2. If somebody is doing it, are you prepared to wait for it
3. If it's not being done, or you don't want to wait, do it yourself.

This is getting a bit off-topic, but ultimately, if you (anybody reading this) don't want to wait for marcan's (if he even releases them) or my tools, make your own.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2008 09:55AM by whodares.

I guess to be motivated at least you should create some banner files and test them on dvd-rw's, without being afraid of brick and the hassle of packing/unpacking of a channel...

Or you can make it open source, so the contribution of other people would probably motivate you...

You can even divert your project to be say creating channel stubs... Only the banner stuff and a little piece of code would be installed on the nand and the rest of the homebrew program's files would reside on the sd card... That way once an application is installed it would be loosely coupled to it's presentation on the system menu hence updates to the program could be made easier and problem free and lots of userspace on the nand will also be preserved that way...

Narrowing down, or making it open source and extending the project IMHO will motivate you...

ps: I wish I was in my twenties, being at that age alone motivates one :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2008 02:26PM by WiiCrazy.

Moving on to the stub loader is one possible solution. I have another project that I do flick to from time to time. It works to a degree.

I don't have a mod chip, so DVD+RW's are out. Also, didn't I read somewhere that the Wii can cache the disc banner on the console, so if it goes wrong, you might still semi-brick the Wii. In a way, this makes me really reserved on keeping this project alive, as I don't really know how to test it without possibly bricking £100 worth of kit.

I have a new idea on testing here [forum.wiibrew.org]

I'm afraid I struggle with all these new version controls SVN, CVS, GIT etc. I've used SourceSafe at work okay, but I tried SVN at home, and it didn't exactly work right. Maybe it was because I hadn't configured it correctly. But without such control, open source whilst still in dev might just be opening up to problems.

I must admit, I admire the Twiizers' effort. Esp' with Nintendo's continual obstructions. I would have just gone back to Windows where you have no such problem. I've also been tempted with the Xbox360, but as my friend's unit has died twice, I thought against it.

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't got too long left in my twenties :-)

Anyway, the project is not dead. If anybody does want to help, the best thing they can do, is assist me in finding a way to test banners in the real system menu, without the possibility of bricking the Wii.

My tools will progress, albeit slowly. :-)

Open source might not be a good idea for an unfinished program that has the potential to brick Wiis. When it's finished, definitely.

Odd. I always saw the benefit to open source being when the program is in development. When it's finished, what's the point in having the source? It's already complete. Esp' with the banner tools, it's not like the project would need porting, or could "go anywhere"... Once it's done, it's done.

BTW - Does anybody have any TPL (texture) files in any of these formats: CI4, CI8, CI14X2? Whilst there is documentation on their structure, I could do with a copy of them so I know when I've decoded them correctly. Thanks

Quote
whodares
Moving on to the stub loader is one possible solution. I have another project that I do flick to from time to time. It works to a degree.

I don't have a mod chip, so DVD+RW's are out. Also, didn't I read somewhere that the Wii can cache the disc banner on the console, so if it goes wrong, you might still semi-brick the Wii. In a way, this makes me really reserved on keeping this project alive, as I don't really know how to test it without possibly bricking £100 worth of kit.

Bad things like backup launchers/menu rebooter could be put into use for that :)
I'm not sure about the banner cache as to if it can cause permanent bricks.. yet with 3.2 system menu + starfall's diag disc check & recovery mode patches you can safeguard your wii to a certain extent... And 100% brick protection exists only if you can reflash your nand with an external programmer... though you will still need the proper backup of your nand and the flashing software... I don't think even bootmii could provide a 100% brick protection since it will still mess with the software already installed on the wii... So a tested safe means needed...

By the way I examined a bit disk banner loading code in the ida and it seems it doesn't interfere with the caching of sd and nand banners / meta archive... though I'm not 100% sure, one with an infectus recovery can test this with a bad banner on a disc for sure...

Quote

I have a new idea on testing here [forum.wiibrew.org]

I'm afraid I struggle with all these new version controls SVN, CVS, GIT etc. I've used SourceSafe at work okay, but I tried SVN at home, and it didn't exactly work right. Maybe it was because I hadn't configured it correctly. But without such control, open source whilst still in dev might just be opening up to problems.

Well visualsvn server is not that hard to set up yet using an already established repository is a better idea like sourceforge or googlecode... on the client side even tortoisecvs/tortoisesvn will do the job.. I never got into the git it's much more distrubuted and I guess it's more suitable for projects that has too much low level stuff..

Quote

I must admit, I admire the Twiizers' effort. Esp' with Nintendo's continual obstructions. I would have just gone back to Windows where you have no such problem. I've also been tempted with the Xbox360, but as my friend's unit has died twice, I thought against it.

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't got too long left in my twenties :-)

Anyway, the project is not dead. If anybody does want to help, the best thing they can do, is assist me in finding a way to test banners in the real system menu, without the possibility of bricking the Wii.

My tools will progress, albeit slowly. :-)

I hope you get answers for that problem :)
Disc banners by the way will probably be your best bet...

Quote
HyperHacker
Open source might not be a good idea for an unfinished program that has the potential to brick Wiis. When it's finished, definitely.

Well closed source with some obscure bugs actually is much dangerous than an open source one... On the open source one bugs can be spotted more easily...

I've got it! Perfect test ground...

[wiibrew.org]

In the same way you can copy channels to the SD card, we could make a bogus content.bin that just contained the banner file. It would only test the smaller icon banner, but it's a start... If it crashes the Wii, the SD card can be removed, and no harm done (as I'm pretty sure it won't bother to cache them on the NAND)

Hmmm, might sound a little cheeky, but I could try replacing opening.bnr on the Homebrew Channel installer disc with my test one.

I see no reason for the Wii to cache anything on the NAND... unless Nintendo wants to screw with homebrew developers and pirates.

Let's assume, that the Wii caches banners from discs on its internal memory:

wouldn't the following work?:
-create a program that clears the cache (where is it stored in the internal Memory?)
-create an autobooting disc with that program
-make sure your System Menu is not patched to ignore Autobooting discs


p.s.: I dout Nintendo caches, because even if I did not change the disc, I sometimes had to wait very long for the channel/banner to show up.

Quote
whodares
I've got it! Perfect test ground...

[wiibrew.org]

In the same way you can copy channels to the SD card, we could make a bogus content.bin that just contained the banner file. It would only test the smaller icon banner, but it's a start... If it crashes the Wii, the SD card can be removed, and no harm done (as I'm pretty sure it won't bother to cache them on the NAND)

Hmmm, might sound a little cheeky, but I could try replacing opening.bnr on the Homebrew Channel installer disc with my test one.

I suggested that earlier in this thread!

Quote
daniel_c_w
Let's assume, that the Wii caches banners from discs on its internal memory:

wouldn't the following work?:
-create a program that clears the cache (where is it stored in the internal Memory?)
-create an autobooting disc with that program
-make sure your System Menu is not patched to ignore Autobooting discs


p.s.: I dout Nintendo caches, because even if I did not change the disc, I sometimes had to wait very long for the channel/banner to show up.

Well I don't think disc banner is ever cached... and caching to memory will do no harm since it gets cleared when something get launched or when you return to menu... And actually there is no point in caching the channel banners since they will eat up a lot of memory... I guess system caches only the initial unanimated image of the channel banner until it loads all the channel banners or the respective banners... That would be a memory conservative and efficient approach..

@icefire: So you did. I apologise. My mind does get rather scattered.

I'm pretty sure I read the caching business somewhere, although I can't find where now. The disc banner is shown pretty quickly when booting up the Wii or after a reboot, nothing like the time when you newly insert the disc. Maybe I'm wrong.

Edit 1
Ahhh... Found it

Quote
http://hackmii.com/2008/07/factory2/
Lastly, I should point out that every time you insert a disc into the Wii, the system menu reads the banner for the disc (to display in the Disc Channel) and also caches the main DOL of the disc into /title/00000001/00000002/data/cache.dat. The last disc inserted into this Wii was 122E, so we have the DOL file from that disc in cache.dat — strings output is here. (Upon further examination, it looks like this program may install 00010000-”0002? from a DataChk.wad on the DVD filesystem, and then execute it — this would change the above sequence of events somewhat.)

Looks like it's the DOL it caches, and not the banner. Although this to me seems utterly backwards... Research ongoing

Edit 2
Interestingly enough, in my copy of cache.dat with Mario Kart Wii (Pal) in the drive. The file contains a banner with IMET header at offset 0x002BD7A0



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2008 08:45PM by whodares.

So a program could either delete cache.dat or replace it witch a sane one.

Quote
whodares
Looks like it's the DOL it caches, and not the banner. Although this to me seems utterly backwards... Research ongoing

Edit 2
Interestingly enough, in my copy of cache.dat with Mario Kart Wii (Pal) in the drive. The file contains a banner with IMET header at offset 0x002BD7A0

It will only display that banner if you have disc in the drive, if you don't have a disc then a default banner will be displayed. So 99.9% testing banners with discs is safe... Wii will only freeze with a bad banner, after ejecting and restarting, default banner will be shown... and inserting a new disc will probably replace the already cached banner...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2008 10:12PM by WiiCrazy.

True.

Anybody fancy donating a chipped Wii? :-)

Just kidding, although I do think I need to find me one to play with

I light of the new Twilight Hack, this project is made Twice as feasable!

How so?

whodares: What about the method I recommended (via PM)?

Quote
whodares
Anyway, the project is not dead. If anybody does want to help, the best thing they can do, is assist me in finding a way to test banners in the real system menu, without the possibility of bricking the Wii.

Dunno if you're still looking for help on this, but the ORIGINAL way to test this stuff was to use menuloader with a patch to change the location from which the System Menu looks for the banners.
I'm going from memory on this, but it normally checks the first content file or somesuch, so you change the string for that load to /title/%08x/%08x/contenx/%s or somesuch, then put your banner files in the new content folder.

When it boots, it will load up a "blank" image for all "missing" banners, and load any banners in the new "correct" location just fine.

I don't really have the details on what exactly to patch on this (It's been a while), but IIRC crediar (#wiidev@efnet) did something like this. You should ask him about it. Or someone else in #wiidev. Testing banners should not be risky with menuloader.

comex posted a msg saying he's made an app to load banners from a USBGecko, so I'll be taking a look at that first, if not I'll use GeckoOS to "reboot" into the System Menu, with some patches ala Tona's.

@icefire: We'll see how these other two ideas pan out first, as they won't require any installation of a new IOS.

Cheers guys