Full Guide to Gamecube Backup/Booting

Icemonkey, i tested it, it would load the dol but then the other part of the software wouldn't load in and would just say "cannot bind socket", that and the whole thing is in french or german or something and i don't understand it lol. I can send it you to if you want the software to tinker around with it.

 

hi,

i finally managed to get all the kit needed for a total of $162. Lol, expensive but i got a cat 5 crossover cable, a bba and pso1+2 still factory sealed!

 

does anyone here have direct connect p2p?? can anyone here get it? i have some rare games that i could iso then we could trade.. I have:

Lotr : return of the king,
zelda the four swords,
super monkey ball 1+2,
mariokart dd,
pso 1+2,
zelda the windwaker,
viewtiful joe,
wave race,
burnout 2,
lotr: the two towers,
gladius,
serious sam the next encounter

 

That's nice and all but that would violate forum rules against piracy not to mention copyright laws.

 

soz.. but were all pirates at heart.. at least i think i am (mostly), unless we're making legal back ups from games which we own, but then isnt that illegal to? because nintendo have stated publicly that they dont want people to back up their games, by dicontinuing phantasy star 1+2, whereas in the music industry you can do this without breaking law as as you are allowed one back up.. so the moment you start to exploit arnt you breaking the law? please tell me this. nemo out.

 

See my post above.

 

I have a memory card that allows me to copy my gamecube saves to the computer via a usb cable. This may be what the software you are talking about is for. http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=78&products_id=2359& thats where you can get some info on it.

 

yeah, ive seen those for sale on ebay for about $50, i thought that was a bit expensive so i didnt buy one.. are there any websites that have gc saves to download to make it worthwhile?

 

question for icemonkey: does removing garbage data from a gcm damage the gameplay at all? even if it removes sound or something similar? and once if has had the garbage removed will the file size become a lot smaller? ie if the file was 1.4gb.. thanks a lot. Also, i know this probably isnt your field but do you know anywhere that has firmware to make a dvd-rw a dvd+rw, thanks.. ps sorry about my rant about piracy before i was utterly stoned. Thanks for your help. nemo out.

 

I just found out about this new PC->Memory Card system called the Max Drive by Datel. What caught my attention was this:

[bold]A Pro version of MAX Drive allows you to run executable program code stored on the memory card, making it invaluable for home brew programmers.[/bold]

Looks like you could eliminate the need for PSO with this

I have the game for Dreamcast, was good for the time, but is now outdated and not fun.

It looks like it is selling for $39.99 on Datel's US site.

I found the article at:
http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=5346

The product can be bought at:
http://us.codejunkies.com/shop/product.asp?c=US&cr=USD&cs=$&r=0&l=1&ProdID=297

Hope someone can write something for this and post it cuz I'll order this thing as soon as I know it can be done.

 

pleasehelp me someone. i have a bba and pso 1+2, am using the lastest version of phoenix loader 2.3 build 133... when i start psul 1.1 or pso loader it says 'DNS server error > Can't bind socket'... i am using a crossover ethernet cable and have changedmy computers ip to : 192.168.1.100, and i have changed the subnet to 255.255.255.0, i am running windows xp. i have the network configured for my gc and got a hunters license from sega using my cube. when i choose my character and click play online so i can stream to it, it connects and says 'connecting to the DNS server', then it goes on to another screen and says this hunters license is not registered to this serial number and this access key' what am i doing wrong ??/

 

Im having a problem...

I've tried all the ACL loaders and serving from both Pheonix and Standard.. when serving from standard I get the following with just a black screen (after pressing start on my controller)

It says Loading on the gamecube, then disappears, then nothing is transfered after

Initialising...OK

WaitingC.........X.X.X.X.X.X.X
I've let it sit there for upwards of an hour or so w/ no change.

I can launch the disk browser from in pheonix and the iso ripping server seems to work just fine as well

Please help!
THanks
-Xenon131

 

(For the post right above this one.. those X's indicate packet loss, make sure you're not going thru a hub, and that your host computer isn't running anything intensive)

Alright, about two weeks ago, following posts on these boards and others, I picked up a BBA ($49.99 CAD at futureshop.ca) and PSO1&2 ($19.99 CAD Used at Hock Shop).

Below is the list of the games i've tried, and the loaders I've had success with.
By default, I use the Paradox Gamecube Disc Server 1.3.0Beta, if no loader is listed, that one worked.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles -
Works fine, slow loading times, in-game is perfect though.

Spiderman 2 -
Runs best with S3 ACL 1.4 - choppy as hell in game since the whole city is streamed, as is the music. Music can be temporarily killed by standing still, making sure the game is done loading the city (wait), then kicking in the save hack. the GC won't load that song until it's prompted to play another. If you really love it, it's still playable. Game seems to hang at times when using "Spidey Reactions"

Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg -
FMVs are crap, as expected, in-game is near perfect tho, the game loads music about every 30 seconds or so, but although the disc server reports this.. i've yet to notice.

Harvest Moon -
This game will work fine if you have an official Nintendo save cartridge and can stick a save game on it to bypass the tutorial (the game will crash in the turorial when the dog barks otherwise). Game seems to crash randomly.. saving often required.

Ribbit King -
Loading slow, music is COMPLETELY messed, you hear loud static throughout the game and can't stop it. Apart from that though, game runs fine.

Mega Man (both anniv collection and network transmission) -
Due to streaming music... the choppiness takes away from the required fluidity of a side-scrolling game like megaman... not worth playing in my opinion.

Viewtiful Joe -
A little choppier than Megaman.. but since this is such a fun game, I put up with it. Seems to run a little faster with the 1.4 ACL loader.

Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Master's Quest -
Runs perfectly, takes a minute or two to load at the beginning. Pisses me off that the Z button and L button mappings are switched, game would be better otherwise. I've played this for an eternity on n64.. no point in going there again, but looks nice.

Soul Calibur 2 -
A little choppy in game, not nearly as much as megaman, but enough to make it noticeable and take away slightly from the 1on1 action. If you're planning a full night of Soul Calibur 2, go out and rent it.

Zelda: Four Swords Adventure -
Runs flawlessly, but not surprising. Game is very easy on loads.

Mario Kart: Double Dash -
Couldn't get it to work... granted this was the 2nd iso i downloaded, and deleted it before I got my hands on more loaders.

I run all the above games without ever touching Cubesoft Phoenix. I use Phoenix only to trim off extra .gcm data to make the files smaller.


Looks to me, like the only progress that's left to be made here, is to somehow overcome this 10mbit problem, so we can load faster, and possibly figure out some way to pre-emptively stream the music data, so there isn't that half-second jitteriness every time it loads.



*For those of you having problems with hubs, this is usually due to a connected broadband modem. Having my cable modem plugged into the router disturbs traffic on other subnets, if I isolate my network from the internet, gamecube communication works just fine.

I haven't had too much success fooling around with delay, frequency, and cache. If somebody has a comprehensive explanation of what these do, i'd love to hear it. Some games, like Final Fantasy, are full of C's (Cache checks?), while others like Spiderman are nothing but .'s (normal loads?).

***If anybody has had success making Spiderman 2 more playable, please let me know***

 

Reply to indienemo:

Removing garbage data has no harm on the game itself. All it does, is erases copies of identical files, leaving references to the one it leaves intact for the others to make reference to. And chops out all the data that is just full of 0's (The ISO will ALWAYS be 1.4gb, regardless of whether or not 10mb or all 1.4gb are used up)
Some games, like Four Swords for example, went from 1.4gb to 300mb. Some games though, only lose 20mb.

As far as I know there are no games released that have some sort of 'data check' that doesn't allow you to remove garbage data, so feel safe.

As far as your loading problem, you're going to need to be able to bind that socket. When I was getting that error message, it was due to the fact that I had a couple loaders open, and they were conflicting with each other. It could also be due to the fact that you're missing winsock drivers. Try installing every single loader you can find, if you're missing a .dll somewhere, one of them is bound to include it in its package.

 

DBAF: There has been a tool released, and various graphical front-ends for it, to upload and download data to gamecube save cartridges, thru the PSO system.

It was written buy a guy named CrowTRobo, and it's called
GCS (the filename is ctr-gcs.exe) [using that you can probably find it somewhere]

This program ONLY works with official nintendo memory cards. This is because the 3rd party cards (Mad Catz, Hip Gear, etc) use compression to acheive their stated sizes, and CrowTRobo didn't have one of these 3rd party cards to test with at the time.

There are a handful of "no compression" third party cards out there, I have no idea if they work or not.

Last messageboard post I can find from CrowTRobo was just before christmas, when he stated he was going to get a Mad Katz card and try it out... as far as I know he hasn't released anything further. So if you want to be managing your save files (backing them up... copying a save to the card to play a game [Harvest Moon]), you'll need an official memory card, and GCS.

 

That was my attempt to answer the questions left unanswered. Hopefully I can take a little stress off of Icemonkey's mailbox

Fire your questions at me if you wish.

For the record, I have never tried ripping a single game. so questions about ripping are wasted on me.

I also probably won't help you until you've followed icemonkey's guide to the T, including trying it without a hub (with a crossover cable).

Also.. don't tell me all you've tried is rips you personally have made. Take the time to download an ISO that other people have confirmed victories with, if you can't get that to work when trying 2-3 different loaders, then you might have a problem I'll help you with.

Good luck to all you GC hackers.

 

Sorry, I don't have the time now to read all this thread, dunno if this has been asked before.

I'm just asking a stupid question. Why is it like that you can't copy GC discs like in PS, and play them with modded hardware? Has Nintendo just been so damn clever? Do you think it's never possible, or can some real hack-guy make it possible to find easier way backing up GC games. This method is far too difficult for most of the people.

 

Hey I am new to the forums, I was wondering, can you use the new PSO game that is coming out in August for this method or do you need th eoriginal one for gamecube?

Thanks in advance.

 

sakki: Gamecubes use a disc designed by Nintendo (designed to get royalties and to stop people from doing exactly what you say). It's approx 1.4gb, we call them GODs, (Gamecube Optical Discs).

KenkaiRyu: The new phantasy star online is "supposed" to stop this kind of gamecube hacking by not letting you assign the sort of IP we currently require. There might be a way around it yet... but best bet is to find an old copy.

 

Thanks I will probably go pick up a copy today...Oh and to play PSO does it still require a subscription fee?