Raspberry Pi based GameCube modchip

b/Consoles publicado por u/novenary November 30, 2014, 10:13:56 AM

Raspberry Pi based GameCube modchip

Cross post from gc-forever : http://www.gc-forever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2547

I wanted to run homebrew with whatever hardware I had lying around so I grabbed my unused Raspberry Pi and a bare metal tutorial, and set out to make a XenoGC clone. That modchip allows to play burned discs and imports on the Cube. Since it doesn't have code signature you can also burn homebrew and play it on hardware.

Have some pics.

CN302 debug connector under the DVD controller board with wires attached :

I tapped into the 5V line on the motherboard to power the Pi :

The wire harness comes outside the back through holes I'd made for a previous audio jack mod. I used a connector from a floppy drive ribbon cable to attach it to the Pi :

And here's the finished product. I have a 2043 block memory card in slot A and a 32GB SD in slot B to load games and homebrew from :

I should try to write some software for the Cube now.

Source and schematics attached on GC forever cause it doesn't fit in the limit here. I hope you like it.

Last Edit: March 21, 2015, 07:34:56 PM by Streetwalrus

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u/Keoni29 November 30, 2014, 11:44:00 AM

Awesome mod! I should get a pi some day. Perhaps when I run out of projects :p

u/pimathbrainiac November 30, 2014, 02:45:45 PM

Awesome mod!

* pimathbrainiac wishes he had a GC now.

u/novenary November 30, 2014, 03:07:45 PM

Welp the RPi is a bit overkill for this as the original chip uses an Atmega8L but it works.

And thanks.

u/Duke "Tape" Eiyeron November 30, 2014, 03:27:43 PM

Quote from: Streetwalrus on November 30, 2014, 03:07:45 PM
Welp the RPi is a bit overkill for this as the original chip uses an Atmega8L but it works.

And thanks.

That was actually what I wanted to say : isn't it a bit overkill?

(Atmega8L... Aren't these the Arduino chips?)

u/Keoni29 November 30, 2014, 04:38:20 PM

Arduino uses ATmega328/168. Not sure if ATmega8L have been used.

u/Dream of Omnimaga November 30, 2014, 05:24:04 PM

Wow this looks interesting. I am glad you cross-posted this on calc forums for us to see.

I wonder if GC homebrew is popular? You could write some games or emulators for it.

.

Also I don't know if it's due to the shopping mall wifi but your pictures took 2 minutes to load.

u/Duke "Tape" Eiyeron November 30, 2014, 07:09:17 PM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on November 30, 2014, 05:24:04 PM
I wonder if GC homebrew is popular?

There is the Wii for that, it's more powerful, retrocompatible with GameCube and has a bighomebrew[/i] scene, big enough to have RetroArch ported on these. (Yeah, realtime rewinding is rad!).

u/Dream of Omnimaga November 30, 2014, 08:08:43 PM

True but what about Gamecube-only owners?

u/novenary November 30, 2014, 09:08:38 PM

Well the Wii homebrew scene started with the GC. A lot of homebrew is actually cross compatible as long as you modify some things.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on November 30, 2014, 05:24:04 PM
Also I don't know if it's due to the shopping mall wifi but your pictures took 2 minutes to load.

Yeah lol public wifis are slow, the pics are like 8 Mpx.

u/Dream of Omnimaga November 30, 2014, 10:20:09 PM

Ah ok lol. I thought you meant that because the Wii exists we shouldn't do any GC homebrew, which would be a bit ironic considering you hack the console yourself

Also yeah sometimes public wifi can be 10 mbps over here but it depends where and it's often unstable.

u/Yuki December 01, 2014, 02:57:14 AM

Yeah I dabbled a bit with Wii homebrew back in the days, I heard it's pratically the same as GC homebrew (and probably WiiU homebrew too), but since the GC only have a mini-DVD drive and no SD card or Internet, it's kind of harder to get your homebrew on, I mean, it's not as easy as loading a defective savestate on your SD card since there's no SD card.

Last Edit: December 01, 2014, 02:59:03 AM by Juju

u/Dream of Omnimaga December 01, 2014, 05:54:15 AM

Yeah I guess. Also lol I was always wondering if the GC had any disk space before (even though I knew if it did it would be very limited). And yeah I had forgotten that the GC used mini-DVDs. I wonder why Nintendo took so long before finally using a common format...

(although maybe it was to fight piracy)

u/Duke "Tape" Eiyeron December 01, 2014, 07:14:40 AM

They still aren't using common format : for Wii U it seems they use a slightly different blu-ray format. :p

u/novenary December 01, 2014, 05:13:24 PM

Quote from: Juju on December 01, 2014, 02:57:14 AM
Yeah I dabbled a bit with Wii homebrew back in the days, I heard it's pratically the same as GC homebrew (and probably WiiU homebrew too), but since the GC only have a mini-DVD drive and no SD card or Internet, it's kind of harder to get your homebrew on, I mean, it's not as easy as loading a defective savestate on your SD card since there's no SD card.

You can actually use SD cards on the GC but you need an adapter like I use. Also it has that ethernet module (and you can even GDB over the network with it) though it's kinda pricey on ebay.

Quote from: Eiyeron on December 01, 2014, 07:14:40 AM
They still aren't using common format : for Wii U it seems they use a slightly different blu-ray format. :p

Yeah lol that's part of the copy protection (at least on the GC and Wii). Here's an interesting article on how it works on there : http://debugmo.de/2008/11/anatomy-of-an-optical-medium-authentication/
What my mod does is that it detects if you have a regular DVD in there and makes the firmware switch to that format instead. Provided you can write to the burst cut area somehow, you could actually make discs that the console accepts if you modify a DVD burner. And that's exactly what Datel did for the ActionReplay, Freeloader etc.