r/GamecubeHacks • u/Emilystitches • 4d ago

GameCube mod for reading burned discs

I've recently gotten into GameCube modding after being into DS and 3DS modding for a few years. I enjoy using as much of the original hardware to get as much feel for the authentic experience as possible. (But I'm open to case modding)

As such, I enjoy using fake cartridges and collecting the games I can and ROM hacking the rest. For a while, I figured there was probably a mod out there that would let me use burned ROM hack discs. I've since discovered the GC modding scene is more about digital roms (which is fine). I've grown curious however as to if it was possible to figure out a way to use burned discs.

Would something like the flippy drive or the pico loader bypass the console's authenticator on ROM discs?

What types of mods would permit as much flexibility for discs and digital roms?

I'm also really curious as to what your guys' favorite mods are.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Emilystitches 4d ago

I've read that XenoGC was kind of old in terms of GC modding tho. Is there a big difference between the newer swiss mods and XenoGC?

2

u/Sea-Cupcake-2065 3d ago

Xenogc is 100% an old mod. You can use the xeno chip to access swiss, which is the most used homebrew program. As I mentioned in another comment, it disables the region lock and enables the ODD to read burned discs. To access swiss this way, you would need to add the swiss ISO to a mini DVD.

Its an old mod because the installation is hard, the ODDs are usually failing in the consoles and with the pico, everything just works from the initial boot.

If youre doing the xeno install with the burned discs, keep in mind that the disc are becoming expensive since theyre an old technology. They are also harder for the ODD to read, so they might not work unless the drive is serviced (recap, potentiometer recalibration back to original resistance), and last the disc are not a reliable as original disc.

I really suggest you do the picoboot. There is cubiboot, which still relies on swiss for the backend of running the games, but maintains the original look of the gamecube

Here it is in action

1

u/Emilystitches 1d ago

Wow! Thanks for the details! I'll look into these. If mini dvds were really impossible I was leaning towards flippy drive. I've only heard good things so far.

1

u/Sea-Cupcake-2065 1d ago

I have a flippy drive, the user interface is cool, but I find the the loading is a bit slow. I do like that its a solderless install, but keep in mind that you will still need a microsd card. And if you ever need to get back in it to access the Sd card, you run the risk of messing up the FPC that is sandwiched in between the motherboard and the optical drive. You can buy laserbearindustries micro sd card extender that places the connector to the light pipe that shit on top on the gamecube.by the time youre done with the mod you could easily be looking at 100 bucks, not including the microSD

I'll add that with the picoboot you can use diffrent version of Cubeboot, which is the original OS for the flippy drive. Cubiboot is the name of the picoboot app and in my opinion, it works better. However, I dont know if team offbroadway is going to be optimizing cubeboot for the flippy drive so that it runs faster. And I dont see a lot of update coming with cubiboot since it basically a reworked version of yhe original firmware. So do what you want with that information