[Bug] Tales of Symphonia - Black Screen on Fast Travel (Palmacosta to Hakonesia Peak)

[cpawliuk]

[Bug] Tales of Symphonia - Black Screen on Fast Travel (Palmacosta to Hakonesia Peak)

[cpawliuk]

Just a final update on this as I was caught up with some other projects... I was able to build with the current DevKitPro Tools, and added in a toggle option for ISO Caching to the menu. Tested it with the game and when ON it crashes as per the latest build, when OFF it runs as per my prior Binary edit. There are some minor issues like not being able to use the (R + Z + B + D-Pad->DOWN) to return, but I haven't looked at it further. As is this works perfect for what I need and I can just toggle it ON or OFF.

[SuperrSonic]

It's not a setting, it's a core "feature" in nintendont. Whatever MB are left of MEM2 is used by nintendont to cache game files, if the game requests the file again and it's in the cache you get instant loading (and you also get a ton of problems!)

This is what I tested:

• I loaded ToS in my personal pre-bba fork and couldn't get it to hang at all.
• I loaded ToS in the latest build of nintendont and the game hanged exactly as you described.
• I built my fork with the ISO cache enabled and it hanged exactly as you described.

My conclusion is it's 100% caused by the ISO cache.

Here's the amazing backstory:
I don't use the ISO cache because it randomly breaks music in Melee and every game that uses .hps audio files.

I tried presenting this idea to the devs a long time ago but if you enabled disc read speed emulation the audio glitches would not trigger. So it was ignored, that wasn't good enough for me because nintendont is considerably slower than Devolution and DM/DML, if you enable disc read speed emulation you can get slower results than a real disc.

Fast-forward some years, Fire Emblem was found to be unstable when loading chapters.

I try to push again to remove the ISO cache, my changes finally get through... until 3 years ago where it got deliberately enabled again, except for Fire Emblem. His only comment being "Lots of games had random freezes without iso cache."

Unfortunately, I don't seem to possess any of the "lots of games" he tested because I could never get anything to freeze.

[cpawliuk]

Well in the mean time I just decided to edit the Binary directly and swap in Tales of Symphonia. So it works now. I would still prefer to actually build this properly so I don't need to do this in future.

boot.zip

Using this with that save I provided in my first post works now and zero black screen and frozen inputs with music playing.

Any help to get this going would be greatly appreciated.

[SuperrSonic]

It's the ISO cache.

[cpawliuk]

It's the ISO cache.

I'm not aware of any cache setting in Nintendont, at least in the latest release if that is what you're asking.

With Dolphin I just kept everything on default when testing.

Did the issue also happen for you with the test save?

[cpawliuk]

@SuperrSonic Thanks! I'll just add the changes as I already went through the files to see. I'm surprised there isn't a toggle option for this though to at least let the user decide.

Sadly I cannot complete the build... I'm using the tools as per the READ ME. I even had to use Cygdrive on Windows due to commands like uname. Apart from that I couldn't even get half way through using either Powershell or CMD due to several failed processes or something not being found. Almost made it to the last part but I'm stuck here.

Building Nintendont loader

C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/make/tools/install/bin/make.exe -C loader
make[1]: Entering directory 'C:/Nintendont-master/loader'
IOSInterface.bin
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
PADReadGC.bin
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
background.png
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
font.zip
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
kernel.zip
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
kernelboot.bin
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
multidol_ldr.bin
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
stub.bin
/usr/bin/sh: line 1: bin2s: command not found
FPad.c
In file included from C:/Nintendont-master/loader/include/FPad.h:24,
                 from C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:22:
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/include/global.h:24:10: fatal error: gctypes.h: No such file or directory
 #include <gctypes.h>
          ^~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make[2]: *** [C:\devkitpro\devkitPPC/base_rules:52: FPad.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [Makefile:108: build] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory 'C:/Nintendont-master/loader'
make: *** [Makefile:87: loader] Error 2

So I went into the libogc folder and added the includes as needed. Not sure where I'm supposed to put them otherwise, and the missing libraries into loader\extlibs\lib as per the Makefile under loader as it shows:

#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# any extra libraries we wish to link with the project
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIBS	:= -lfreetype -lpngu -lpng -lz \
	   -lwiiuse -lwiidrc -lwupc -lbte -lfatfs-ppc -logc -ldi -lm

After fixing that I'm loaded up with more...

Building Nintendont loader

C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/make/tools/install/bin/make.exe -C loader
make[1]: Entering directory 'C:/Nintendont-master/loader'
linking ... loader.elf
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: FPad.o: in function `FPAD_Init':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: global.o: in function `Initialise':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:187: undefined reference to `font_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: global.o: in function `unzip_data':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:158: undefined reference to `font_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:158: undefined reference to `font_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:158: undefined reference to `font_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: global.o: in function `Initialise':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:190: undefined reference to `background_png'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:190: undefined reference to `background_png'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: main.o: in function `main':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [C:\devkitpro\devkitPPC/wii_rules:25: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/loader.elf] Error 1
make[1]: *** [Makefile:108: build] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory 'C:/Nintendont-master/loader'
make: *** [Makefile:87: loader] Error 2

You would think from the main page you just download the source, get the files needed for devkitpro, setup your environment variables, and as long as you have make and everything else working just run make forced and you're good. But it seems like a big cluster of chaos. I checked those files, they have the headers, but not sure why I cannot resolve this.

[carnage702]

It's not a setting, it's a core "feature" in nintendont. Whatever MB are left of MEM2 is used by nintendont to cache game files, if the game requests the file again and it's in the cache you get instant loading (and you also get a ton of problems!)

This is what I tested:

* I loaded ToS in my personal pre-bba fork and couldn't get it to hang at all.

* I loaded ToS in the latest build of nintendont and the game hanged exactly as you described.

* I built my fork with the ISO cache enabled and it hanged exactly as you described.

My conclusion is it's 100% caused by the ISO cache.

Here's the amazing backstory: I don't use the ISO cache because it randomly breaks music in Melee and every game that uses .hps audio files.

I tried presenting this idea to the devs a long time ago but if you enabled disc read speed emulation the audio glitches would not trigger. So it was ignored, that wasn't good enough for me because nintendont is considerably slower than Devolution and DM/DML, if you enable disc read speed emulation you can get slower results than a real disc.

Fast-forward some years, Fire Emblem was found to be unstable when loading chapters.

I try to push again to remove the ISO cache, my changes finally get through... until 3 years ago where it got deliberately enabled again, except for Fire Emblem. His only comment being "Lots of games had random freezes without iso cache."

Unfortunately, I don't seem to possess any of the "lots of games" he tested because I could never get anything to freeze.

I reverted that change because sonic Ridders extra mode or whatever mode it was would freeze without iso cache, terminator 3 would crash every couple minutes too and even re4 would crash much more often.

[cpawliuk]

It's not a setting, it's a core "feature" in nintendont. Whatever MB are left of MEM2 is used by nintendont to cache game files, if the game requests the file again and it's in the cache you get instant loading (and you also get a ton of problems!)
This is what I tested:

* I loaded ToS in my personal pre-bba fork and couldn't get it to hang at all.

* I loaded ToS in the latest build of nintendont and the game hanged exactly as you described.

* I built my fork with the ISO cache enabled and it hanged exactly as you described.

My conclusion is it's 100% caused by the ISO cache.
Here's the amazing backstory: I don't use the ISO cache because it randomly breaks music in Melee and every game that uses .hps audio files.
I tried presenting this idea to the devs a long time ago but if you enabled disc read speed emulation the audio glitches would not trigger. So it was ignored, that wasn't good enough for me because nintendont is considerably slower than Devolution and DM/DML, if you enable disc read speed emulation you can get slower results than a real disc.
Fast-forward some years, Fire Emblem was found to be unstable when loading chapters.
I try to push again to remove the ISO cache, my changes finally get through... until 3 years ago where it got deliberately enabled again, except for Fire Emblem. His only comment being "Lots of games had random freezes without iso cache."
Unfortunately, I don't seem to possess any of the "lots of games" he tested because I could never get anything to freeze.

I reverted that change because sonic Ridders extra mode or whatever mode it was would freeze without iso cache, terminator 3 would crash every couple minutes too and even re4 would crash much more often.

Thank you for your reply. I'll just adjust if needed when I find a game that has a problem since I cannot toggle it otherwise. The issue is I cannot get the build to work as per my last post. Would you be able to provide any insight? I still cannot get passed this part:

I'm using devkitARM r53-1, devkitPPC r35-2, and libOGC 1.8.23-1

Building Nintendont loader

C:/ProgramData/chocolatey/lib/make/tools/install/bin/make.exe -C loader
make[1]: Entering directory 'C:/Nintendont-master/loader'
linking ... loader.elf
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: FPad.o: in function `FPAD_Init':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/FPad.c:58: undefined reference to `PADReadGC_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: global.o: in function `Initialise':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:187: undefined reference to `font_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: global.o: in function `unzip_data':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:158: undefined reference to `font_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:158: undefined reference to `font_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:158: undefined reference to `font_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: global.o: in function `Initialise':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:190: undefined reference to `background_png'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/global.c:190: undefined reference to `background_png'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: main.o: in function `main':
C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:686: undefined reference to `kernel_zip'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:692: undefined reference to `kernelboot_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1545: undefined reference to `IOSInterface_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1550: undefined reference to `stub_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin_size'
c:/devkitpro/devkitppc/bin/../lib/gcc/powerpc-eabi/8.3.0/../../../../powerpc-eabi/bin/ld.exe: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/source/main.c:1674: undefined reference to `multidol_ldr_bin'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [C:\devkitpro\devkitPPC/wii_rules:25: C:/Nintendont-master/loader/loader.elf] Error 1
make[1]: *** [Makefile:108: build] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory 'C:/Nintendont-master/loader'
make: *** [Makefile:87: loader] Error 2

I checked those .c files and the headers are there, and within them there are indeed references like FPad.c has the include for PADReadGC_bin.h and that header has PADReadGC_bin_size. The same when going down the list for the other problems.

Thank you.