LE-CODE

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What is the LE-CODE?

The LE-CODE (short for Leseratte-Code) is a code extension for Mario Kart Wii which has been written by Leseratte. The name has been chosen by Wiimm in the style of the CT-CODE, the name of the old Mario Kart Wii code extension by MrBean and Chadderz.

Leseratte has started the development of the LE-CODE in January 2019. The build system is taken from the Wiimmfi updater, which means, it supports writing C source code instead of Assembly code for the game code modifications, and is designed to be loaded into the StaticR.rel relocation buffer as soon as the StaticR.rel has been loaded and linked into memory, which has about 900 KB of usable space for mods.

Wiimm has adapted his SZS tools and wrote a new tool called "wlect" (Wiimms LE-CODE tool).

First test versions of the LE-CODE have been tested by Wiimm and Leseratte in February 2019, with the first version for a few more private testers being released on February 20th. The public will most likely be able to use the LE-CODE features as of Wiimms MKW Fun 2019-06. A system to use the LE-CODE in other custom distributions is planned, but not available yet. A source code release currently isn't planned.

The LE-CODE can either be discussed on the talk page, or in this forum thread: click

History

2019-01-07 — Idea for LE-CODE
  • Leseratte had the idea to consolidate all existing MKW-Fun and ct-code mods into one new structured system.
  • He started looking for ways to extend the game code, possibly by placing it at the end of the heap (like MKW-Fun and CTGP 1.03 do).
  • However, that would either require position-independant code (complicated), usage of the game's internal linker (even more complicated) or a fixed-length FST (would break if ISO is modified).
2019-01-11 — StaticR buffer
  • The idea to use the heap has been discarded. Leseratte found a roughly 900 KB buffer within the StaticR.rel that is only used at game load.
  • After the game is loaded, the buffer is still kept in memory and can be used for custom mods with the LE-CODE.
2019-01-30 — ct-code ported
  • As of January 30, all ct-code mods have been ported or rewritten to work with the LE-CODE.
  • Most MKW-Fun mods have been ported as well.
2019-02-10 — test script
  • Leseratte made a small script to patch LE-CODE support into an image so Wiimm and Leseratte were able to do a few online tests.
~2019-02-14 — WLECT development
  • Leseratte made a few changes to the LE-CODE to make it compatible with Wiimms tools.
  • Wiimm started developing WLECT (Wiimms LE-CODE tool) so that we no longer have to create distributions manually.
  • At the same time, Wiimm implemented LE-CODE support in its distribution-generator.
2019-02-15
  • Leseratte developed a hacky way for LE-CODE to add additional ~20 slots to the game without breaking online support.
2019-02-25 — even more track IDs
  • The hack from above has been removed. Leseratte started development for actually supporting up to ~32000 tracks in online mode.
  • Korean games should now work properly and not freeze on track load.
2019-03-06 — track ID support finished
  • Both online gameplay and online live view now support up to ~32000 tracks.
  • Track icons changed from RGB5A3 to CMPR to reduce size.
  • LE-CODE artificially limits the number of tracks to 4096 (you'd run out of memory for cup icons at some point anyways).
2019-04-01 — first public test distribution
2019-05-18 — various preparations for MKW Fun
  • During the last months Wiimm and Leseratte did some cleanup of the LE-CODE and the MKW Fun build system to prepare the first MKW-Fun distribution with the LE-CODE
  • A "mushroom car" feature (for tracks like GCN Mushroom City) has been added to the LE-CODE (thanks to Kevin (KHacker35000vr) for the code for that)

What does the LE-CODE contain?

Leseratte developed the LE-CODE as a complete build system for all modifications Wiimm and Leseratte are doing to Wiimms MKW-Fun distributions. It includes nearly all features of the old ct-code (even though all of them have either been rewritten (C or ASM) or heavily modified to fix quite a few bugs), and it includes all of the features in the MKW-Fun distributions.

List of features from the old ct-code and MKW-Fun, now included in LE-CODE

  • Extension to allow the game to load more than 32 race tracks
  • Custom menu system from the ct-code to add arrows to the track selection
  • Online track selection time limit is displayed all the time
  • Removed CTGP randomizer so picking "Random" actually votes "???"
  • Lap and speed modifier
  • Mushroom bugfix
  • Cloud time modifier
  • New random variants (All tracks, Nintendo tracks, Custom tracks, new tracks)
  • Track variants (like Animal Crossing in Mario Kart 8)
  • VS point scheme changed (25 points instead of 15 points)
  • Room settings (friend room host can set options like vehicle restrictions or number of races)
  • No Lightning in team races
  • Engine class probability modifier, engine class is no longer dependant on VR
  • Room stability indicator
  • Blue shell can be dragged behind a vehicle like other shells


Changes / Bugfixes / New features with the LE-CODE

  • Battle
    • Battle mode actually works
    • Battle mode has proper time limit online (3:00.000 instead of 0:30.000)
    • Playing a battle no longer influences name tag view distance in VS races played afterwards
  • Demo screen
    • Demo shows battle tracks as well
    • Demo correctly switches modes in the proper order
    • Demo no longer randomly freezes sometimes
  • General
    • New generic features
      • The korean version of Mario Kart Wii is now supported
      • 256 track limit removed ⇒ LE-CODE Slot Usage. New limit: 32700 CTs (more likely limited by maximum ISO size of 9 GB)
      • The game now has a proper crash handler (like the "DSI exception" screen in homebrew) that displays data for the developers when the game crashes
      • Special multiplayer variants (_d.szs) no longer mandatory, if they are missing, the non-multiplayer version is loaded instead
      • Tracks are now loaded from /Race/Course/<slot-id>.szs, removing the need for a file name table
      • MrBeans performance monitor is included and can be enabled / disabled with Wiimms LE-CODE tool (console only, not on Dolphin)
    • New track-related features
      • Support for track-dependant ObjFlow.bin and GeoHitTable*.bin files - see section below.
      • Special feature for DS Airship Fortress (usable in all other tracks as well): The woodbox object uses setting 8 for the drop height so it doesn't land on the wrong floor
      • Loading cannon parameters from a course.lex file inside a track so CT authors can define own cannon parameters.
      • Special feature for tracks like GCN Mushroom Bridge and GCN Mushroom City: The penguin_m object's settings can be used to make it behave like a mushroom car (spitting out a mushroom when hit) - thanks to Kevin for the code to do that
    • Bugfixes
      • The icache is properly handled, this means that LE-CODE should properly work on Dolphin (but might require a version newer than about 5.0-9000 due to a Dolphin bug in older versions)
      • 4-player offline mode with Miis no longer crashes (LE-CODE no longer wastes memory with useless copies of unnecessarily large data structures like CT-CODE did)
      • After playing a Time Trial the minimap driver icons will be correctly resized instead of staying large
      • Playing a team GP no longer removes the Lightning from subsequent non-team GPs
      • The special random variants (new tracks, CTs, all tracks, Nintendo tracks) and the track variants now work offline as well
      • Playing GPs on custom cups no longer breaks the savegame
      • Fixed a bug that would cause the wrong trophy to be awarded in MKW-Fun due to cup reordering
      • Fixed the recently discovered 480p graphics glitch caused by a bug in the Nintendo SDK due to the way this fix works it can't be embedded in the LE-CODE and has to be applied directly to the game
  • Menu
    • Fixed a bug that could have caused freezes and/or graphical glitches in the menu under some circumstances
    • In Time Trial mode, custom tracks are now hidden from the menu
    • The Worldwide button on the online menu has been removed (instead of just being labeled "don't use")
    • Scrolling through the cup list auto-updates the track list (also, as in previous versions, one can scroll in the bottom row as well)
    • The algorithm that selected a track to be loaded when "???" is selected was slightly off and not every track had the exact same probability of winning the random lottery
  • Not yet done, but likely to be added:
    • TT ranking selection menu in the Mario Kart Channel is no longer broken

List of features in old MKW-Fun that are no longer included (yet?)

  • Speedometer
  • Change vehicle between online races

Information for CT creators

The new LE-CODE contains a few features for CT creators:

  • ObjFlow.bin and GeoHitTable*.bin files can be loaded from the "Common" subfolder in an SZS track file
  • Cannon parameters can be loaded from a course.lex file inside the SZS track file
  • The woodbox object's setting S8 can be used to specify the height from which the box should drop

Detailed information

Certain files that would usually be loaded from the Common.szs can be loaded from a track file. Currently, the following files are supported:

If you wish to include such customized files in your CT for Wiimms MKW Fun, you have to create a folder Common in your SZS track file and place the file(s) in there. For your own testing, you then have to replace them in the Common.szs as well, because the original, non-modded game doesn't load them from a track file.

As of v2.02a of Wiimms SZS Tools a simple command can extract all Common sub-folders to the correct place in only one step:

wszst xcommon ./files/Race/Course/*.szs -qiod ./files/Race/Common/%N

In the future, we also plan to allow for track variants being loaded in different modes, for example, a different SZS for offline and online mode. The exact modes / distinctions we'll support aren't known yet, If you would like to create a CT that behaves differently in certain modes (offline/online, 1P/2P/3P/4P), and that track is likely to be included in MKW-Fun, let Wiimm and Leseratte know which different versions your track will have, and we will try to implement that.

Wiimms SZS Tools

Wiimms SZS Tools support the LE-CODE extension like the CT-CODE extension before. The new tool wlect was created for LE-CODE and LEX support. If using tool wctct with option --lecode, it switch internally to LE-CODE support and accepts track definition files in CT-CODE syntax. So you can use the same definition file for CT-CODE and for LE-CODE.

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