Optional settings?

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47iscool
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Optional settings?

Post by 47iscool » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:07 am

Just wondering about a few options I've seen in PJ64:

Maybe we could could have some things where they can be enabled or disabled:

TLB on/off, I've heard some people say that if it's turned off for games that don't use it you should get better speed.
Expansion pack enable/disable, maybe able to disable it save an extra 4MB of RAM.
Advanced block linking on/off
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by emu_kidid » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:36 am

Wii64 uses a static section for the N64 RDRAM so it is a compiler time define. We could have the top 4MB just sit there and simulate a jumper pak console, but it won't do you much good.

TLB on/off can also be done, sure it will lead to some performance gain, but on the games that it does, they are already full speed.

That reminds me, I need to finish some stuff for Wii64 :P
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by 47iscool » Mon Jun 16, 2014 6:25 am

What about the NAND page file from Not64? Will it be implemented and if so, maybe optional?

Also, could Nintendo's technique be done as in loading the entire ROM to the memory? I mean games that are 32 MB or also Paper Mario is which 40 MB? I know that ROMs 16MB or under always are loaded fully into RAM.

Although the NAND pagefile is faster I would prefer not to use it because of it's writes every time. Can you also keep Not64's zip support?
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by emu_kidid » Mon Jun 16, 2014 6:45 am

The NAND file probably won't be coming across, because we store part of the ROM in MEM2, even if we freed up the majority of MEM2, we're not storing the recompiler cache there so there isn't really anything of worth to grow and increase performance in any way.

We're not too keen on zip support either since it will require a place to fully unpack the ROM (and since we're not bringing the NAND page stuff across then it doesn't make much sense to use it).
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by tueidj » Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:06 am

If you're worried about your NAND being written to, you should unplug your wii and never use it.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by baldjared » Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:37 am

tueidj is entirely right, this whole nand write fear thing is getting way overblown, it was never much of an issue, the number of writes that nand can handle these days your wii will be long dead before the nand manages to go bad.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by megalomaniac » Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:50 am

doesnt a typical everyday USB stick use NAND flash??
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by baldjared » Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:08 am

usb sticks and SSDs both use nand, and last forever, my SSD is specced at something like 44 years at 10 GBs of writes a day and that's just what the specs say, actual endurance testing has shown it can handle way more, torture testing has shown it can handle 3,152 write/erase cycles, even assuming the wii nand is garbage I imagine it can handle 1000 w/e cycles and that puts it at about 512 GBs of writes before it goes bad, that's a lot of writes with roms, you'd have to write a 40MB rom to the nand 12800 times if my math isn't letting me down which it certainly might be if anyone noticed my pre-edit math and that's a worst case scenario I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was more than double that.

The whole thing got blown out of proportion on early SSDs because of their price and the fact that there is in fact a limit to the writes they can handle, but for the current cost of nand based storage it really doesn't matter and never much did unless you expect to be using the same drive in 20 years, I have a few earlier SSDs that have been in systems for probably around 6 years, one of them was in my main rig from the day I bought it until a few months back when I finally upgraded to my current SSD, it still had about 40% of it's specced w/e cycles left in it, good for another 4 years at least, probably much more since it's not likely to see anywhere near as much usage as it would have in my main.

If you're that concerned about the wii nand buy a few more wiis and put them in your closet, they're cheap and you'll be set for life from the nand aspect. Your time would be better spent worrying about pretty much every other component in your wii failing because they're more likely to do it before the nand ever does.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by emu_kidid » Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:19 am

Just so it's clear, we aren't keeping NAND ROM file paging out of Wii64 for longevity reasons, it's for other reasons.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by nakata » Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:54 am

Any other improvements we can expect?
IIRC something about plugins was said in order to gain speed?
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by tueidj » Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:07 pm

IIRC the specs for the nand used in the wii state that each cell is rated for over 100,000 erase cycles. But even if it wasn't, what Not64 does is a lot less activity than other apps; simply booting the system menu probably performs more individual writes. Then consider games like guitar hero and rock band that copy +20MB DLC songs from the SD card onto the NAND every individual time you play them.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by nakata » Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:10 pm

You guys should be working together i think... it 'd make development faster imho.
Btw, i'd like to ask tuedj, how is the mod version with that sound plugin going?
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by 47iscool » Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:05 pm

tueidj wrote:If you're worried about your NAND being written to, you should unplug your wii and never use it.

Yes I think I know that. I'm guessing that was sarcasm by the way.
tueidj wrote:IIRC the specs for the nand used in the wii state that each cell is rated for over 100,000 erase cycles. But even if it wasn't, what Not64 does is a lot less activity than other apps; simply booting the system menu probably performs more individual writes. Then consider games like guitar hero and rock band that copy +20MB DLC songs from the SD card onto the NAND every individual time you play them.
Well it's a good thing I don't hardly ever use the system menu (other than to delete stuff) then isn't it?
The system menu is rarely ever booted, I have priiloader set to boot up HBC instead.

Also, I don't play music games.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by tueidj » Mon Jun 16, 2014 6:02 pm

nakata wrote:Btw, i'd like to ask tuedj, how is the mod version with that sound plugin going?
The what?
Well it's a good thing I don't hardly ever use the system menu (other than to delete stuff) then isn't it?
The system menu is rarely ever booted, I have priiloader set to boot up HBC instead.

Also, I don't play music games.
And do you think your NAND is somehow better off than the millions of people that do, even though there's been no reported widespread NAND failures?
Booting any title/disc on the wii (including HBC) causes a bunch of writes/updates to the NAND, as does reloading an IOS or saving a game.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by 47iscool » Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:52 pm

I have another question about GameShark. I read somewhere you guys said you were updating mupen 64 it with mupen 64 plus right?

You also told you hadn't planned on adding GS support to it but, IIRC doesn't mupen 64 have GS support?

I also noticed you said GS support will be added to WiiSX but why? I mean you can use the GS/AR discs on it anyway so why add it to it that emulator only?

Just a little confused as to why.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by nakata » Tue Jun 17, 2014 2:07 pm

tueidj wrote:
nakata wrote:Btw, i'd like to ask tuedj, how is the mod version with that sound plugin going?
The what?
Sorry i should have been more descriptive. IIRC, you had posted a video of a WIP version of Not64 that had incorporated a sound plugin and was ''running'' games like TWINE with sound. I just asked if there are any news on that front.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by Extrems » Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:14 pm

nakata wrote:Sorry i should have been more descriptive. IIRC, you had posted a video of a WIP version of Not64 that had incorporated a sound plugin and was ''running'' games like TWINE with sound. I just asked if there are any news on that front.
Erm, that was me?
It's the same plugin as ever, it simply has progressed upstream (Mupen64Plus).
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by nakata » Tue Jun 17, 2014 8:34 pm

Oh snap! :oops: You 're right, sorry for the brain fog, i hope it didn't come of as disrespectful.
So... would this improvement also affect Not64 as well (when it rolls out)?
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by emu_kidid » Tue Jun 17, 2014 10:41 pm

I think you mean if it will affect Wii64 too? yes it will.
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by nakata » Wed Jun 18, 2014 11:28 am

That's good to know, thanks!
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Re: Optional settings?

Post by 47iscool » Sun Jun 22, 2014 7:18 am

So what about GameShark? Doesn't Mupen 64 plus support it?
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