#90988 - PeterM - Mon Jul 03, 2006 9:02 pm
Up until now I've been using GBFS, but would like to make a switch to using Nitro-FAT file data instead.
The main problem I have with GBFS is that it only supports a flat directory structure, which limits how easily games can be ported from other systems.
From a hardware point of view, Nitro-FAT is a solved problem - SuperCards etc can handle NDS backups easily enough, and seem to do the Right Thing when the filesystem is accessed.
But as far as I know nobody is working on a DS library which can read from this filesystem, is that correct?
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#90996 - Sausage Boy - Mon Jul 03, 2006 9:38 pm
Ever heard of Chishm's FAT library, which supports almost every device, with a non flat directory structure, write support, etc etc.
I belive the Nitro-Fat support of the piracy devices depends on recognizable parts of code Nintendo's library uses when it accesses the filesystem, which of course wouldn't work with homebrew implementions.
And using thie file structure in homebrew would give device makers a legimate reason to include good, hardware level support for this, which is bad, since it supports piracy.
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#91005 - PeterM - Mon Jul 03, 2006 10:17 pm
I've read about Chishm's FAT library, but I've not tried using it yet. I posted a message on its thread regarding SuperCard SD support.
I don't want to have homebrew confused with piracy -- I just want to have a filesystem which 'just works' on as many cards as possible (no separate builds etc) with as little hassle as possible.
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#91084 - parrot_ - Tue Jul 04, 2006 1:35 pm
Couldn't you create a flat file compressed FAT FS?
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#91085 - PeterM - Tue Jul 04, 2006 1:49 pm
Yep, but then that has to either be layered on top of another filesystem, like Chishm's or GBFS, or included in the binary.
Which makes it no better than those methods.
The FAT lib has poor SuperCard support, and GBFS inflates the executable part of the binary, causing very long startup times as the binary is copied to the SuperCard's flash RAM.
This also limits the amount of data usable to the size of the flash RAM, which can be a pain if you're porting a game which uses large PAK or WAD files.
Looks like I'm the only one keen on Nitro-FAT support though, so I'll just get on with it. ;-)
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#91169 - tepples - Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:55 am
| PeterM wrote: |
| The FAT lib has poor SuperCard support |
By "SuperCard" do you mean SuperCard SD? As I understand it, Chishm's FAT library works with SuperCard CF as long as you turn off SD support.
| Quote: |
| and GBFS inflates the executable part of the binary, causing very long startup times as the binary is copied to the SuperCard's flash RAM. |
If you need less than about 2 MB of data, use the bin2s method. If you need more, then you need to load it into the RAM anyway.
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#91172 - PeterM - Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:02 am
Sorry for being unclear, yes you are right, I mean SuperCard SD.
Regarding the data, indeed it needs to get into RAM at the end of the day anyway, but not all at once.
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#91174 - tepples - Wed Jul 05, 2006 1:06 am
Apparently you can recompile Chishm's FAT library with read-only support for SD adapters.
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#91203 - Lynx - Wed Jul 05, 2006 9:07 am
And now that DSLinux has read/write support for SD devices, I'd guess it's only a matter of time before Chishm's FAT library can do it as well.
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#91215 - EyeballKid - Wed Jul 05, 2006 10:52 am
There is also a version of the FAT library out there that _does_ have SD (supercard and M3) support. I think it's used in Moonshell.
It has some assembly language files (.s), so can require a little more fiddling depending on your makefiles. I think there has been some attempt to convert the asm to C and integrate it back into the original version, but so far I don't think anyone has got it going.
Anyway, this is all off-topic I guess - completely different thing to accessing filesystems embedding in the NDS file!
#91255 - josath - Wed Jul 05, 2006 6:16 pm
If you ask WinterMute nicely, he'll give you his modded version of the FATlib which supports both supercard SD/CF, M3 SD/CF all at the same time, with read&write.
From what I understand, Chishm is hard at work at integrating everything together to make another release sometime soon hopefully.
#92589 - PeterM - Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:40 am
Thanks for the head's up guys!
Sorry for not replying sooner, I've been on holiday.
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