Full Guide to Gamecube Backup/Booting

This tutorial inspired me to run out and get a Cube, PSO and the BBA so that i could give this a try for myself.

The initial results were good. I managed to rip a game and get it to load, and although it played a bit choppy, it really wasn't too bad.

Then the problems started. Yesterday after rebooting my computer, i decided to rip another game that a friend had loaned me. I fired up the Ripping server, and went through the normal routine. But this time, when it gets to the red screen, it just hangs before asking me to insert the disc.

I also tried to play the two images that i have saved on my computer, and now neither one of them will load. When using the Paradox utility, i get the loading message, and then the screen goes black and nothing happens. If i try to use the Animal Crossing loader, it hangs at the PSO screen that you get when you first make the connection.

I haven't changed any settings, moved any cables, or anything. In fact, i deleted my save file form the memory card and reconfigured both PSO and my PC from start to finish, but the results are the same. It was working fine a few days ago, but now i can't do a damned thing with it.

Any suggestions?

 

Hi i also have dat problem i made a copy of all my applicacions i delated the images and did the process all over again and it started working again
also i have a quetsion can i do the same process with games that are not online playable?
thanks see ya!
Marie

 

So is it worth the work or not?

 

GI_Joey:

It's worth it if you're into tinkering, and getting things to work. There's a lot of trial and error involved. But it's pretty neat to see it actually working.

If you're into serious gaming, this may not be the way to go. While most games are alright during gameplay, anything with full motion video sequences is terribly choppy and loses audio sync. Some games, with FMV throughout, are nearly impossible to play due to studdering.

Also, I found Phantasy Star Online to be ridiculously gay, the only time that disc is in the cube is when I want to stream. If this kind of game doesn't turn your crank to begin with, skip this all together. Go buy yourself two new games you'll enjoy (roughly the same amount spent on PSO and BBA). The streaming will lose it's coolness within a few days of getting it to work, and you'll be left with a game you'd rather use as a coaster than play.

 

I second Gansah, Why even post this mod? I was able to get it to copy too, but the games all suck to play, it's worse then the original 8 bit nintendo. Remember metroid when it would slow down? Imagine the game doing this all the time, stupid, stupid idea. This guy must work for sega or something, Because Phantasy Star is the worst game i have ever seen. Sorry for being negative, but this is the truth.

 

Personally, I think it works great, all things considered. It's purpose was originally to allow homebrew developers the chance to try their hand at the GameCube console.

While some games might be too slow to play, others work great. I just got PSO last Thursday, and of the 5 games I tried streaming, all except Rebel Strike are playable. Granted, some of the cutscenes may be jerky and some of the music choppy, but all-in-all, it's great. IMHO, if for nothing else, it'll give you a chance to try a game before you want to drop $50 on it.

 

I agree with Merlin. It works fine for me. You just need to play with the delays. Also try different loaders. This method rocks and the new Dolphin GC emulator is progressing nicely also. Soon the only reason to own a GC unit itself is to rip the .gcm to play on our PC's

 

I guess you guys are right, it is a pretty neat way of getting into the gamecube. What loaders are you guys using, and whats the scoop on the dolphin gc emul?

 

Right now Im using Pheonix Loader v.2.1 It backsup and loads, among a few other options. It works great for me.

 

Cheater. Hehe, so am I (Phoenix 2.1). It's a nice all-in-one with a good look to it.

On a side not, I've tried folloving a couple threads about a few trying to get around the NIC speed (10 instead of 100) barrier. This is great and all, but wouldn't is be useless because it would rely on the PSO loader in the first place? Sorry, thinking aloud (again).

 

Okay I read this entire thread and it cleared up a lot for me. Thanks everyone. I'm planning to get the BB-Adapter and PSO to try this out... for fun if nothing else. 2 areas of comment.

1) Merlin raised a point that I wanted to ask about. The max transfer rate limit is set by the PSO loader, right? If so, can any other games (Animal Crossing?) be used to make the data connection on the GC side? Do they all have this limit coded in?

2) I'd be interested to find out more about the real barriers to overcome in being able to write these images to a mini-dvd. Now I hear that this is fundamentally impossibly, with possible exception of the Panasonic Q, because of the way a GC disc is written, etc, etc, etc. I'm not asking how to do this, I just want to find out, EXACTLY, what the details and specs preventing this are. Any links to informative sites would be great. I'll keep doing my own digging too.

 

Merlin, one quick Q. You mentioned some threads of people discussing work-arounds for the transfer rate barrier. I was under the impression that the PSO loader was the ONLY barrier. What types of things were these people talking about? Just out of curiousity. I'm trying to create as complete a picture of the situation as possible.

 

As far as I know the BBA itself is limited to 10Mb/s. That's the major problem. A few guys are working on a cable that doesn't need the BBA and isn't touched by the speed limitation of the BBA.

 

Sorry, my bad. I was reading what I thought was a post on the BBA, but it was indeed a homemade device in the works.

 

Hmmmm. I've heard both that the speed is limited in the BBA and in loader. I've heard more talk on the net blaming the software loader but I guess 1000 lies still don't equal 1 truth. I tend to believe that the limit is NOT in the hardware because it would probably have cost nintendo more to use components that were crippled or limited in this way, but that's pure speculation.

Anybody seen specific info on what the BBA does? Besides, of course, adapting the connector shape to RJ11. I suppose if there are people working on the home-made device, then there may actually be benefit to replacing the standard BBA.

I did a quick 5 minute google search but can't find specs for the BBA. Merlin, can you post that link for those dudes working on their device/cable? I'm curious to see their intent and progress.

 

Crap, I'm still looking for the link I followed to the homemade device. Here's a link to some other's opinions on the BBA.
http://www.gcdev.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=345&highlight=

 

I forgot to mention that I've got my GC plugged into a 10/100 hub, and the hub shows the GC is connected at 100 until I do choose the online game in PSO.

 

Thx for the help

 

Yeah, thanks. That forum thread had a lot of detailed info. To make a long story short I’ve decided to get the BBA and PSO this weekend and I’ve also decided to quit worrying about the BBA speed since I don’t have any of it working yet.

For posterity, here’s what I got out of that other thread. Just a summary because the whole thing is there for anyone to read.

The BBA is capable of 100Mb/s as a hardware device. Some people have been able to force the BBA into 100 mode but all images produced were garbage, and actually took longer to create. Presumably the loading/streaming process suffered the same network errors. 10/Full Duplex does work (the norm is half) but there was no mention of improved transfer rates. I guess that makes sense since the data is mostly traveling from the image to the cube, with only memory requests going upstream. One discouraging point I noticed was from someone who had decompiled PSO found that it is not the actual game that is setting the BBA to 10, it is the BBA Lib that the game uses. Not sure but presumably this is a library used by Nintendo and provided to 3rd party developers so that means there may be some other limitation in the cube hardware that requires operating at the lower speed. This is why some people were suggesting the 27Mb/s speed of the port was the culprit.

Anyway, like I said. It’s a bit premature for me to think about this stuff. Baby steps.

 

I am at my wits end here...I've been searching for days but to no avail. Would someone plz do so kind as to just e-mail me the disc server, it's the only tool I'm lacking. Thanks. Maybe we can trade, I have PSUL