Full Guide to Gamecube Backup/Booting

ok Thanks

 

Few responses:

handyguy:

Sorry for not including information regarding NIC properties in Windows. Mine worked fine leaving my NIC set to auto-negociate the speed and duplex mode. Some people have experience breakthroughs by manually setting it to 10Mbit-TX but others that switch their NIC from their Gamecube to other applications such as a home router find this extremely inconvenient.


KenkayRyu:

There is one significant problem with creating a boot disc for the Gamecube and that is that it cannot read any type of disc that can be created using a CD/DVD burner in a PC. Being an avid Dreamcast backup person myself, I can tell you that the problem with getting a disc to work in the Gamecube is in no way similar to the problems experienced with the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was a CD-ROM based machine that played games manufactured on custom pressed GD-ROM discs whereas the Gamecube is strictly a "GC-ROM" if you would like to call it that. A boot disc was possible for the Dreamcast since it was designed to play CD-ROM discs in addition to the GD-ROM gamediscs and this is not possible since the Gamecube was designed to only read Gamecube game discs which are written in a format completely foreign to PC's.

 

Hey, my first post, but Ive been keeping track of this gamecube backup/booting stuff for a while, and I have a few questions:

First, when you "initialize" the memory card according to icemonkey's tutorial, does it delete everything on the card or just PSO data?

Second, im sure this has been asked, you can't do this with other online games, right? Like mario kart double dash? (pso 1&2 is hard to find/expensive)

thanks!

 

Inistialising the memory card just means that it says all the data youve put entered to the memory card, so you wont have to do it every time. it does this automatically the first time you join a sega server but were not joining online games just ripping/streaming.

Secondly, theoretically any game that uses the network adapter would work but they would have to be configured in different ways and there are no tutorials for these yet...
_X_X_X_X_X_[small]Nintendo Gamecube
Phantasy star 1+2
Broadband Adapter
Cubesoft Phoenix 2.3 Build 133[/small]

 

OK, so this is primarily a "pat myself on the back" post, but
hey, if there are any other OSX users attempting this stuff and
having trouble, I might be able to share what I have learned in
the last couple days.

I walked into a DVD and game swap store on Monday and
found a copy of PSO 1&2 on the shelf for a reasonable price.
Toys-R-Us nextdoor had a BBA for $40, so I couldn't resist
trying this out.

Took a Powerbook running 10.3 and created a "location" in
the network settings specifically for PSO. It sets the laptop to
192.168.1.100 and turns off the wireless card (I could
probably leave it on, but figured for testing it would be best
to make sure it wouldn't interfere.)

Connected the laptop to the GC BBA with a cross-over cable. I
could have gone through a hub, but my gut is telling me that
by using a cross-over cable, it forces the connection down to
10T on both ends, eliminating buffer-overrun problems some
have by connecting through 10/100 switches. (PC at 100, GC
at 10 + no flow control = bad.)

Installed PSOLoad and set it SUID root, so the built-in DNS of
psoload would run. Fired it up with "psoload2 -s" and
connected from the Gamecube with PSO 1&2 using the
recommended 192.168.1.32 manual IP setup. It connected
fine to the laptop and saved the serial number and password
to the memory card... So far, so good...

Installed ThinAir, fired it up and had it run its own script to
SUID root on its own copy of psoload. Hit start on the ripper,
and swapped discs and sure enough it started ripping a GC
DVD to the laptop. (Of course I started out using something
other than 192.168.1.100. Any other address, and nothing
happened for me.)

Now to play the ripped game...

Switched to the loader tab, left it set to the Animal Crossing
Loader (ACL) 1.4b and gave it the gcm of the just ripped disc.
Fired up PSO again, connected, got the Loader screen as
expected, and then it went black. The game was Mario Kart
Double Dash, and from what I have read, it should work with
the ACL 1.4b loader. I guess now it is time to start tinkering
with the delay settings to see if I can get it to load.

Does anyone have a list of games and the loaders they have
had success with? I've seen a few listed, most recommend the
ACL 1.4b loader, but don't know for sure.

So, all this begs the question... if the GC can't handle a steady
stream at 10Mbit, why not use handshaking rather than
delays? Or, at least make handshaking the default, and delays
an option for those that want to tune the connection for best
performance?

 

If you want to know which games are compatible or not you should visit this website: http://list.gc-compat.com , it has all the release and what loader you should use....

 

If you want to play a game, try control panel, system, find your NIC card & set it to 10mb half duplex.

GC doesn't do 100mps, btw, sometimes XP sets your nIC to AUTO, change it to what I said.

 

Thanks IceMonkey. Switched to using the ACL 1.3 loader for Mario Kart as recommended for the PAL version, no delays, and it worked fine. Hmm... the default is 1ms delay, I wonder if it will let me set it to 0... something to try this weekend.

ThinAir allows you to ignore file requests. Might try and find the background music file and set it to ignore and see if all the pauses go away.

Mario Kart does have odd glitches with the shadows under objects, and something seems to be bizare with distant objects.

 

uh oh.

I order phantasy star online episodes 1 and 2 from buy-rite games (www.buyritegames.com), but I just now read some reviews about that site, and they were horrible.
Does anyone know any other online sites where else I can buy phantasy star online 1&2 for a reasonable price?

ps, many reviews said do not expect to get the item you ordered at buy rite, they have waited months and got nothing...

 

ebay.com

maybe ebgames.com

gamestop.com

 

try lik sang? i think thats how you write it.. thats where my mate buys all his import games from..

 

thanks, I will try those, already tried gamestop.

 

can anyone tell me where to get the iso of wario ware for the GC I've looked everywhere i know (www.suprnova.org, www.isohunt.com) PLZ tell me i really want that iso!!!

THX

 

here is a pretty simple, quick question...

I actually play phantasy star online (Im obsessed) so by using this method would I just have to use a different memory card when I want to use pso as a loader and then revert to using the original card when I want to actually play?

I mean, the card used for the loader would save those specific network settings to it right? also, because I already have a hunters license, I wouldnt have to go through the registration tricking process right?

any info would be appreciated

 

yeah, use another memory card, you wont have to trick to get another hunters license you can enter anything in and the game will accept it...

 

cool thanks.

 

Actually to discuss why you cant burn a GC game, its not due to the outside in reading, as there are many tools on the net to actually burn that way. It has to do with the technology used in bruning the actual game. No standard CD or DVD burner is capable of that. Read the encryption and burning tools used for the GC and you'll see that its nothing that you can use as of date with the standard burning set up.

 

I am going to try and put the gc backup on my pc hard drive and see if somehow i can burn it to a mini dvd-r/ram disc to play on the gc.I bet that the gc backup process is almost the same as the xbox.Once i try it i'll let everyone know if it works or not

 

Go ahead and try, be my guest, no one has done it and even the pros say you cant. The only method of polaying games on the gamecube without the actual disc is to make your computer act as a server, connect to it with the game cube and a PSO game disc, and then run the game you want to play from your computer to your gamecube. This is the onlymethod tried and tested and working, your cd burner is not able to burn a GC game nor is the a modded gamecube able to read a cd-r or dvd-r disc. Just saving you the money and burn time.

 

Pointless! The gamecube cannot read any sort of DVD on the market, and without a modchip never will. 'Tis a waste of time mate.