SMB support

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Please provide a SMB Share Option like the other Emulators. Many people are
using NetworkStorages and it's a hillarious feature to load you ROM's from
a SMB Share.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by talant...@gmail.com on 13 May 2010 at 12:09

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It's absolutely not complicated from a technical point, it's indeed exactly the 
same as reading file from SD or USB. The problem is that Sega Cd emulation is 
not video processing and has high requirements while  SMB is the slowest way of 
reading data. The most CPU time you spend reading from the device, the less you 
have to emulate the other hardware components (and there are a lot) until the 
next frame. That's actually quite simple to understand.
Again, why would anyone spend time adding something that will be less efficient 
than sd or usb, takes extra cpu time even when not used and extra memory that 
could be used for more important things ?

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 3 Jul 2012 at 4:31

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..Ekeeke, I totally get where your a you are coming from...  People though like 
to add these features, if anything to experiment and see how it works I guess..

Doesn't WIISX have SMB support..? How does that fair ?

Original comment by mansell....@gmail.com on 3 Jul 2012 at 7:23

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The whole reason we want SMB isnt because the games cant fit on the SD card we 
have (for if we even have a cheap 2GB SD card the whole library can still fit 
on it), but because the latest USB Loader GX releases force us to use the SD 
Card for the Gamecube dumps for now, leaving -no- room for the Genesis games.

Of course, this is all an optimization issue, but not even future planned SMB 
Support irks me and a whole lot of people that simply want the whole library or 
games stored elsewhere accessed from many Wiis across the house, which is much 
simpler than having a whole bunch of copies on many SDs.

Original comment by sonic21...@gmail.com on 19 Jul 2012 at 6:57

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Then buy another sdcard dedicated for your emulation needs, why should i care 
about what usb loaders "force" you to do ? This would still be easier and 
faster than implementing smb support in the emulator..

And what irks me personally are people who always complain about having to do 
minimal efforts or expect devs and apps to do whatever they want. I know people 
are now used to get nice stuff for free but you should really not take this for 
granted and keep in mind i am coding this app for me, not for you or any other 
users.

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 19 Jul 2012 at 7:31

• Changed title: iSMB support

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Why dont you just add a game cache for SMB mode where it transfers the game to 
the cache before running the game? This would, theoretically, eliminate any lag 
issues.

Here's some pseudocode.

onStartup > isSMBCacheFull?
-Yes :: ClearCache
onShutdownToMenu > ClearCache

onSelectSMBGame > LoadGameToCache
onSelectSMBGame > RunGameFromCache

Original comment by sonic21...@gmail.com on 19 Jul 2012 at 7:36

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Because it would be useless ?
ROM files are running from RAM, not from sd,usb, smb,... so they are already 
"cached".

Again,  the problem is that connecting to networks adds a thread running which 
will potentially increase emulation latency by adding uneccessary background 
processing.
This is actually true for all things you add in an emulator, yet people 
complain about input lags in other emulators while still wanting them to 
support every possible things.

Now i don't have measured that "latency" or verified it was even meaningful but 
really i don't care,that's not the point. The point is that i only support 
features that are absolutely necessary to run the emulator, bring benefit to 
emulation accuracy/authenticity or eventually have no impact on emulation 
itself, which i think is the main thing an emulator should focus on, not how 
many minutes of user's precious life it will save when loading ROM files...

Hmm... why do i feel i am repeating myself ?

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 19 Jul 2012 at 11:17

• Changed title: SMB support

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I also would like to have a "load from SMB" option like on wiisx/snes9xgx and 
other emulators.
These seem to all work fine especially snes9xgx. 
I think the issue here is; you already have a powerful, great piece of 
software. Now it's time to make it an exemplary piece of software by 
implementing features such as the SMB load functionality that the users want.

Steal the code if you have to, everyone does it ;), the guys who build the 
snes9xgx and wiisx might even give it to you anyway??

Cheers

Original comment by Beren.Ly...@gmail.com on 29 Jul 2012 at 3:08

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In french we say "autant pisser dans un violon"...
Coding it is not difficult, everybody could do it... just that I won't, for the 
aforementionned reasons that you apparently didn't bother to read.  I think the 
issue here is some people don't understand I am not at their service. "Now it's 
time" for you to accept that I do what I want :-p

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 29 Jul 2012 at 7:24

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Just a note, maybe the process would involve a quick test to see the speed of 
the wireless network.

If one is streaming Genesis games over a network, Im guessing the response rate 
has to be pretty fast to be stable, as the Genesis had a fast processor.

If the wireless response speed is found to be below a certain number, it would 
grey out the SMB Option.

Eke's opinion though makes sense, why do that when the entire library of 
Genesis games is somewhere around 1.2GB and can be stored on an SD Card?

Original comment by sonic21...@gmail.com on 25 Sep 2012 at 9:16

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My interest in this faded once I had Sonic 2 running from SMB. If you'd just 
scroll up, I wrote a buggy patch (with code ripped from snes9x GX). It even has 
most of the code for an onscreen keyboard. If you want to fix it up to the 
point where it doesn't have the broken connection issues anymore, maybe ekeeke 
will include it. Then again, he probably doesn't want to support it. The .dol I 
posted should still work if you're too lazy to compile it (I know I am).

Original comment by auntieNeo@gmail.com on 25 Sep 2012 at 9:49

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Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2012 at 11:37

• Changed state: WontFix

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Issue 325 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 11 Feb 2013 at 7:28

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Issue 15 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by ekeeke31@gmail.com on 15 Sep 2014 at 6:40

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The only reason I would want SMB support is that any external drives I use with 
emulaotrs never work, the drive goes to sleep and the emulators don't wake it 
up like the usb loaders do.  Using SMB works flawless from an internal pc drive 
that never sleeps.
I think this is the only valid reason to add SMB support.  

Original comment by ryan.c.k...@gmail.com on 27 Mar 2015 at 2:57