DVD Drive Emulator Question

[Cyo.the.vile]

Is this going to be firmware flash able?

[reppin916]

Great news exciting times!

[Manuu]

Greetings from France ! I'm realy excited too by this project, good luck !

[DJPWeb]

Now that the cat is out of the bag, any interesting news / info ? (not asking for a timeline here)
Congrats to you and Citrus3000Psi in any case

[parski]

Now that the cat is out of the bag, any interesting news / info ? (not asking for a timeline here)
Congrats to you and Citrus3000Psi in any case

What cat and what bag? What's Dan doing? Link the things, bud.

Did we get an actual thing to discuss as opposed to "Wow I want this and I'm from a country!"?

[DJPWeb]

https://twitter.com/SmokeMonsterTWI/sta ... 1056357377

[parski]

Oh wow, that's really great!

I wonder what the story is. Is Meneerbeer overwhelmed and encumbered with life things and Dan swooshed in and saved the day or is it still Meneerbeer's thing and Dan is helping him out? Either way I'm glad he's getting the help. Good luck to both of you!

[Cyo.the.vile]

Meneerbeer thank you for apexing the GameCube and most of all sharing it with us. I look forward to using your ODE

[Haydinho]

Thank you Meneerbeer, i assume these will be available from https://shop.dansprojects.com/

[meneerbeer]

Oh wow, that's really great!

I wonder what the story is. Is Meneerbeer overwhelmed and encumbered with life things and Dan swooshed in and saved the day or is it still Meneerbeer's thing and Dan is helping him out? Either way I'm glad he's getting the help. Good luck to both of you!

I am still actively involved and Dan is helping me out. Honestly, if I had to do everything by myself, it would have taken much longer still. I think this decision is also beneficial for the community.

[rey_1178]

Oh wow, that's really great!

I wonder what the story is. Is Meneerbeer overwhelmed and encumbered with life things and Dan swooshed in and saved the day or is it still Meneerbeer's thing and Dan is helping him out? Either way I'm glad he's getting the help. Good luck to both of you!

I am still actively involved and Dan is helping me out. Honestly, if I had to do everything by myself, it would have taken much longer still. I think this decision is also beneficial for the community.

Thank you so much for doing this.

[meneerbeer]

Info has been posted on Dan's website: https://shop.dansprojects.com/gc-loader.html

Most important new info:
- Installation is done using a flex cable. The soldering is very easy. It is also possible to make it plug and play, but you will have to salvage an existing drive connector.
- Audiostreaming is supported
- Firmware can be updated through SD Card
- Price is 80$
- It is not possible to keep your DVD Drive.

[Insomnia]

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[parski]

Do you also go by Dan or is it Daniel only? Asking the real questions.

(Astounding news! I'm beyond hyped.)

[meneerbeer]

On the website it says there will be a video on how to solder it but will they also cover the advanced installation if you want to make it plug and play, since I'd like to have it plug and play (have lots of spare connectors left)? There is no stock currently from what I see, hopefully it will get updated soon. Can't wait

I am not sure about that. It is a valid question. A problem though is that there are quite a lot of ways to desolder the connector. Each with its own trade-offs. Soldering the connector onto the board should be straightforward.

Do you also go by Dan or is it Daniel only? Asking the real questions.

(Astounding news! I'm beyond hyped.)

I go by Daniel.

[Le_Gogh]

I am beyond excited for this, especially as my drive has started to gradually die, so this is perfect timing!

Daniel, are you able to confirm whether this works region free? If I wanted to play NTSC games on my PAL system would I need to region mod my GC as well? Happy either way but would be handy to know so I can get it done

Thank you so much for all of the work you've done on this!

[Haydinho]

I can’t wait to try this out, I just bought some donor gamecubes from Japan, gonna try my hand at soldering on the connector from the disc drive

[meneerbeer]

I am beyond excited for this, especially as my drive has started to gradually die, so this is perfect timing!

Daniel, are you able to confirm whether this works region free? If I wanted to play NTSC games on my PAL system would I need to region mod my GC as well? Happy either way but would be handy to know so I can get it done

Thank you so much for all of the work you've done on this!

Currently, the ODE will use 'boot.iso' as its default CD during startup. If you use the Swiss iso here (soon I will do a merge request that adds support for this ODE), you will afterwards be able to boot region free. Unfortunately, you cannot yet boot the 'boot.iso' region freely. This feature seemed much less important, so it is somewhere on the bottom of a todo list.

[Le_Gogh]

I am beyond excited for this, especially as my drive has started to gradually die, so this is perfect timing!

Daniel, are you able to confirm whether this works region free? If I wanted to play NTSC games on my PAL system would I need to region mod my GC as well? Happy either way but would be handy to know so I can get it done

Thank you so much for all of the work you've done on this!

Currently, the ODE will use 'boot.iso' as its default CD during startup. If you use the Swiss iso here (soon I will do a merge request that adds support for this ODE), you will afterwards be able to boot region free. Unfortunately, you cannot yet boot the 'boot.iso' region freely. This feature seemed much less important, so it is somewhere on the bottom of a todo list.

Awesome, thanks so much for the quick reply! That answers my question perfectly. I assume most would just boot into Swiss and go from there anyway, so as you've said, the alternative is less of a priority.

Hopefully I will be able to order one on day one! Thanks again

[DJPWeb]

Just a dumb question, would it work, with the appropriate ribbon cable, in a Wii ?
I know USB loaders are working well, with no major issues, but il would be a nice alternative...

[meneerbeer]

Wii support has been dropped. The FFC connector pinout had to be made slightly different to allow for simple installation using the Flex PCB. It should still be possible though to swap the board with a Wiikey/Wasp Fusion on an existing installation. I would, however, recommend to just use the flex PCB as it is much easier.

[Link83]

Really great work meneerbeer! I'm so glad to see this project coming to fruition

Out of curiosity I remember your post here:-

Thanks for all the input. I am planning to do the following:
1. FFC connector to connect to the GameCube
2. FFC connector to support drive pass-through. I have not tested anything, so I am not sure if my board design will get it right first try.
3. Add a footprint of the DVD connector, so people can make it plug-and-play.
4. Add a connector for a normal size SD card.

I am still investigating how to lay this out the best way. The idea is that typically the board will be installed in the place where the DVD drive used to be, similarly to GDEMU. It indeed seems it can be quite fiddly to insert an SD card into the board through the drive cavity. Especially because the cavity is small due to mini disc and the GC disc drive seems to be relatively tall as well. Therefore, it seems there are only a few 'optimal' places where the SD card connector can be positioned.

and I just wondered if you still intend to release a version with pass-through for the original drive? (Like the Wiikey Fusion) There are a number of people who would love to keep their original drive if possible, plus I imagine this sort of design could be made compatible with the Wii as well?

Perhaps it could also use a small microSD daughterboard for easier slot placement on both GameCube/Wii? I know citrus3000psi has a design that can be installed between the memory card ports:-
https://www.gc-forever.com/forums/viewt ... 636#p38614
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/IrZlIu1M
Personally I would love to see a design that used a small daughterboard that could be hidden inside Serial Port 2, perhaps with the microSD slot exposed at the side edge. Maybe there could even be a 3D printed Serial Port 2 cover with a microSD slot ready made for a 'no-cut' mod.

Thanks again for your hard work, and I look forward to purchasing a GC Loader

[meneerbeer]

It is a nice idea and I have considered it. However, the amount of interested people for this seems so low that it is probably not worth it for us. Sorry.

[Link83]

It is a nice idea and I have considered it. However, the amount of interested people for this seems so low that it is probably not worth it for us. Sorry.

Thats a shame Judging from the replies in this thread:-
https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65485
I think there are more than a few people who would love to keep the optical drive if possible (and even a few people hoping for Wii support too)
If you are unsure how much interest there would be in a version with a pass-through option, then perhaps a twitter poll could help show the level of interest?

[rafer_22]

It is a nice idea and I have considered it. However, the amount of interested people for this seems so low that it is probably not worth it for us. Sorry.

Thats a shame Judging from the replies in this thread:-
https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65485
I think there are more than a few people who would love to keep the optical drive if possible (and even a few people hoping for Wii support too)
If you are unsure how much interest there would be in a version with a pass-through option, then perhaps a twitter poll could help show the level of interest?

Here in my country, there are many people who thanks pass-through mode for GameCube. By the way, thanks for this new product