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Originally Posted by
izdubar
First as stated in previous post, the whole extra Art feature can be disabled with a new option in the settings "enable Cover Art", along with another one "wide screen" (for which I choose the easy way, that is applying a simple horizontal scale ratio, I should also answer you on the corresponding post, but I miss some courage). In this case there will be no impact on OPL, no searching/loading, no errors, no delays.
Good. That is of course the minimum 'requirement' I intended.
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Then, in the case the option is enabled. When OPL first tries to display the icons/cover for the current page and selected game, it tries to load the pictures ONCE. Then it will cache the result (either successful or not) and there will be nothing more for each subsequent frame drawing.
This sounds OK, though it does mean that at least one failed 'fioOpen' attempt will be made for every game on a page that lacks any corresponding icon file. But given the low number of games per page (which really should be raised IMO), the extra delay should be acceptably small.
----- re: new SMB tweaks ('izdubar' quoting 'gilgamesh88' as being himself)
I find it a bit confusing that you keep using two different user names, a practice normally 'frowned' upon by most forum sites, including this one...
I think you should pick one, and then stick with that instead.
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The tweak we speak about for the covers is only a very little change (the buffer size), but however the impact is really impressive. I still have no idea if other program could benefit from it.
That's very hard to say as so few programs use SMB at all to date, and these all using different versions of those drivers. (AFAIK, OPL, SMS and myPS2 all use different drivers).
But I have long wanted to add SMB capability to uLE as well, though that has been held back by two things. Inaccessibility of the latest SMS drivers, and the total lack of write access to PC files with those drivers. But with the new work of Jimmi in this area the first problem should be eliminated, giving us fully open-source and up-to-date SMB drivers at long last. Even without write ability (which may perhaps be added later) that would still be a good complement to the current networking abilities of uLE.
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In any case, we can add the use of a "cov/" and "ico/" subfolders if needed. Hmmm that's may be a good idea, moreover in some special case (another mod I think about). My goal is to be able to share easily the Art from one user to another, and to ease the "setup" process.
I'm sure that most people will find it easier to handle things with a proper folder structure to keep different things separate, such as the icon and cover files.
----- re: HDD-specific storage methods
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That is related to the post with Polo. I've looked at the code for HDD and didn't find as you said a way to write to the "filesystem".
True. While HDL games are falsely flagged as being PFS filesystems, they are not accessible as such. They are fully HDL-specific raw sector chunks without any individual file access possible at all, not even to the whole chunk as such, as such a chunk has no normal PFS directory system (but only an HDL-specific header struct).
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At least in the pre-gui part of OPL. I didn't look very deep, but the code in ps2hdd (and hdd_fio) doesn't seems to me to do what I need.
Since the HDL partition structure is completely HDL-specific, the only standard lib functions useful are those for raw sector access. Interpreting the content must be done using functions and data structs defined specifically for HDL (or the HDD core of OPL) and the HDL game installers.
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So the only way currently to implement this feature for HDD would be to use Polo suggestion.
Not at all. That only applies if you insist on using the same partitions for the graphics as used for the games, which I do not find appropriate, due to the total inconsistency of that storage method as compared with those used for other media.
The most natural way of all would be to create cover and icon subfolders in some standard PFS partition, where all of the cover and icon files can be stored using the normal PFS filesystem methods (standard fileXio functions only).
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As I said earlier, I prefer to hope my code got merged one day, and then someone with better knowledges as me on this topic could easily add the missing loading method for Art.
Sure, but doing it the way I suggest for HDD should be very easy for you to do as well, using methods almost identical to what you use for the USB and SMB media. The only real difference is that you must use fileXio instead of fio functions, and will need to mount an extra partition to access the HDD graphics. But the choice of partition is not in doubt, as the only logical choice is the same "HDLoader Settings" partition already used for every HDL installation in existence.
So all you need do is to define a couple of subfolders for the cover and icon files in that partition, and then use those in almost exactly the same way as for USB and SMB.
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PS: sources sent to you
Yes thank you, I have them now and will proceed with some testing tomorrow.
Best regards: dlanor