How to Play N64 Games on my Qoob Pro

[Looneybonics]

Now before I get flamed, I did search, but can't find a good tutorial on how to play N64/SNES games on my cube. If I overlooked it I'm sorry, I did look. Is this even possible or is it a nuisance to even try? Just curious if there is a decent step by step tutorial out there or good information on the subject in general. Thanks in advance for any help!

Looney

[SoraK05]

I'm not sure about N64, as it hasn't been confirmed that it can make proper save games... maybe I'm ignorant on that one.. But for SNES, it's easy...

Look for this on the net somewhere: snes9xgx004x

In there is an APPLOADER.DOL, which gives you a GUI for the SNES emulator, and an exe which you run to convert individual roms into DOLs, by typing either in WINDOWS START/RUN or in DOS COMMAND PROMPT....

You can either run the individual DOL files, or run the APPLOADER to easily change roms.....

As for saving, saving works well, and you can change the button configuration easily for games too.. although the button configuration is something you have to change each time you enter the game...

To save, while playing the game, hold Z and then press L, and you access the menu of the ROM LOADER.. Here, you can go to SAVE MANAGER, and either SAVE SRAM to MEMORY CARD, or LOAD SRAM to MEMORY CARD... it doesn't save automatically however :(

Hope that helps

[Looneybonics]

Wow! First bit of help and just short under a year. ;) Better late than never. =D Thanks for the info. I'll have to give that a shot!

Looney

[Chilly Willy]

You're lucky you didn't get this "help":

There's a search button at the top - use it. :rolleyes:

Here's a GREAT resource (http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/) to help you get going! :p


Asking stoopid noobie questions without bothering to first look for the answers yourself normally earns you scorn and ridicule... you're lucky that the GC forums here are pretty slow. If you'd have asked that same question in the PSP forums, you'd have three pages of scorn and ridicule within a week. :D

[Looneybonics]

You're lucky you didn't get this "help":....

I did search you toolbag. Had it ever occured to you that perhaps I might not have serached the exact same way you did? Get a life and quit trolling around waiting to flame people. Really. Save yourself the time.

[SoraK05]

Chilly Willy... have you never wondered why people ask stupid questions...? It's because they want a stupid answer... what's the most stupid answer you can get..? THE REAL ANSWER.... :D what's even more stupid that the real answer? A personal opinion of an answer, perhaps a personal perspective of one that has used the software before, and can input it's common question pro's and con's that don't really appear in the readme.txt....
So instead of flaming, help the guy out.. Even I'd like some help over here.. I have the N64 emus, all of them, and can't figure out whether I can make savegames or not with them... can someone help me out here?:rolleyes:


P.S... no offense to you whatsoever Chilly Willy, and I'm not on the other dude's side either ( can't be bothered to search for his name while typing this post right now.. :) )... I think he could have searched: http://modthatcube.pxn-os.com/content/files/ to look for, and download the latest emulators.. or even, googled it!!!

and http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com/ is HILAROUS!!! XD


** BTW, the latest SNES Emulator can't be found on http://modthatcube.pxn-os.com/content/files/... you'll just have to google it "snes9xgx004x" **

[Looneybonics]

:D LOL! :D Yea. What he said. ;)

[SoraK05]

I found out the the N64 Emulators are very twitchy, in the sense of, saving could actually corrupt the entire memory card, and require formatting.... until someone releases a new version that fixes this issue, forget saving with it...

[Looneybonics]

Wow :eek: Good info to know. Don't guess it's worth all that. Thanks, again, for the info.

[Chilly Willy]

Looney, I was only HALF teasing you... saying what OTHERS would have done in other forums here. :D Sorry you took it the wrong way. :o

If you thought what I put made me a toolbag, you don't even want to try posting to the PSP or DS forums. :eek:

In my own defense, googling on the search phrase "gamecube snes" turns up so many links it isn't funny. The very first link would lead you to a TON of emulators for the GC. Now N64 emulation... that's another kettle of fish. At the moment, the only real GC N64 emulation is to get a GC game that turns out to be an emulated N64 game and then inject your roms into it. The search phrase you should use in google is "gc phoenix n64 injector".

Also in my own defense, SOMEONE has to break people of the habit of asking stupid questions. Since these forums are lightly populated, I felt it up to me. ;)

[SoraK05]

lol!

btw.. please petition (not literally) to get a new gamecube BIOS up and running.. if not an amazingly featured release of GCOS, an amazingly featured release of Qoob (PRO)... :D

[Chilly Willy]

lol!

btw.. please petition (not literally) to get a new gamecube BIOS up and running.. if not an amazingly featured release of GCOS, an amazingly featured release of Qoob (PRO)... :D

Actually, I've been reverse engineering the qoob stuff in my spare time. A nice open source QOOB BIOS is on my todo list, but it's further down the list at the moment. Like others, I'm a bit peeved that the QOOB folks just dropped it after 1.3c.

[SoraK05]

That sounds amazing..!!! If you know how, then maybe you can have a look at how GCOS1.5F works, and make some sort of a combination..?:cool:

[SoraK05]

BTW sorry for the flaming.. I promise never to interfere in matters that aren't my own, and won't attack ANYONE... even for fun..

[Chilly Willy]

That sounds amazing..!!! If you know how, then maybe you can have a look at how GCOS1.5F works, and make some sort of a combination..?:cool:

My plan is to figure out how to flash the QOOB BIOS, then make my own flasher that makes the QOOB flash FAT12 and use regular GCOS as the BIOS. From there, work can be done to improve things.

FAT would be a good improvement as the current method wastes what limited space there is in the flash. FAT12 should be used to keep the filesystem overhead down, and the flash is small enough that FAT12 will cover it.

[SoraK05]

Dude.. that sounds crazy!!! That sounds JUST LIKE WHAT I WANT!!:!!
You've got the pseudocode exact..wow dude


** From what I understand... you want to take the Qoob 1.3c bios... and then make a way of decompiling GCOS... and then ADDING GCOS, IN ITS ENTIRETY, AS A MENU TAB IN THE QOOB BIOS MENU OPTIONS... is that correct, or am I missing something,.? **

[Chilly Willy]

Dude.. that sounds crazy!!! That sounds JUST LIKE WHAT I WANT!!:!!
You've got the pseudocode exact..wow dude


** From what I understand... you want to take the Qoob 1.3c bios... and then make a way of decompiling GCOS... and then ADDING GCOS, IN ITS ENTIRETY, AS A MENU TAB IN THE QOOB BIOS MENU OPTIONS... is that correct, or am I missing something,.? **

GCOS is open source and already has support for the QOOB. It should be easy enough to make it work with a FAT version of the QOOB flash. No need to decompile it at all.

I either want to replace the QOOB BIOS altogether with GCOS, or make a shim - have it where you do something like hold A on startup for QOOB and B for GCOS. Not sure yet. There's still time to decide as I'm still working on stuff. The ideal thing to do would be to improve GCOS enough that there would be no reason to use the QOOB BIOSes. Just run the new flasher with a new GCOS and forget about all the QOOB software entirely.

[SoraK05]

P.S Have a look at the attached programs (Qoob Pro MP3 Player, and an MPEG player), to see if you can somehow implement those...
These are pretty much ALL the third-party programs I have found for the GC that Qoob and GCOS don't have already... <well, the MP3 Player GCOS has... but check out the Qoob one, in case that can help some how>

[Chilly Willy]

P.S Have a look at the attached programs (Qoob Pro MP3 Player, and an MPEG player), to see if you can somehow implement those...
These are pretty much ALL the third-party programs I have found for the GC that Qoob and GCOS don't have already... <well, the MP3 Player GCOS has... but check out the Qoob one, in case that can help some how>

Well, binaries aren't very helpful to programmers, but it's easy enough to do mp3/ogg via libogc. ;)

There are all kinds of improvements that would be nice to see in the BIOS (for QOOB Pro folks at least). Media playing would be one... playing DOLs from SD cards, DVD-Rs, and the BBA would be another. Having the equivalent of SDLOADER in the BIOS would be really handy.

Another thing that would be nice would be a plug-in system to extend the features. You'd have a basic BIOS that was suitable for the QOOB Pro or SX, then have plug-ins for the Pro, like the mp3 playing, SDLOADER equivalent, etc. If the BIOS was stripped down to the bare essentials with all the rest as plug-ins, maybe SX owners would be able to use a few nice things too. They'd have to pick and choose what they wanted... not enough space for too many things.

Plug-ins don't make a lot of sense on the QOOB the way it is now because it wastes too much space in the flash. With a FAT formated flash, you could easily have a dozen different small plug-ins in the same space as one plug-in would waste in the current flash scheme.

[SoraK05]

That sounds like it's really on point... I would have never thought of a plugin system... That's actually quite an amazing proposal dude!!! If you need any help, like advertising the idea and input my pseudocode idea's, I'll be glad to assist!


** i.e
1) You'll need to make a NEW FLASHER... one that can easily convert the file-system from 'FAT' to 'QOOB SYSTEM' and vice versa...

2) Program a BIOS that can be accepted as PRIMARY BOOT, in a sense

3) Associate main file extensions to the structured code of the FAT system

4) In FAT, SO MUCH MORE SPACE WILL BE AVAILABLE!!!!!!! :D XD woah!!! amazing

[SoraK05]

BTW... what CAN the SD Loader ?

[Chilly Willy]

That sounds like it's really on point... I would have never thought of a plugin system... That's actually quite an amazing proposal dude!!! If you need any help, like advertising the idea and input my pseudocode idea's, I'll be glad to assist!


** i.e
1) You'll need to make a NEW FLASHER... one that can easily convert the file-system from 'FAT' to 'QOOB SYSTEM' and vice versa...

2) Program a BIOS that can be accepted as PRIMARY BOOT, in a sense

3) Associate main file extensions to the structured code of the FAT system

4) In FAT, SO MUCH MORE SPACE WILL BE AVAILABLE!!!!!!! :D XD woah!!! amazing

Yeah, that's it pretty much. As to SDLOADER, it allows you to load homebrew off SD cards. There are a number of different GC memcard to SD card adapters out (the SD Gecko being the most popular). I have a few emulators and GCOS on one of my SD cards. The others I use for experimenting.

[SoraK05]

That's cool, I see.

If you need any help with a beta stage testing... I'm for it...

[Chilly Willy]

That's cool, I see.

If you need any help with a beta stage testing... I'm for it...

Great! I'll let you know when I get to that point. Also, if you have any other thoughts about features or such, let me know.

[SoraK05]

My current suggestions:

1) Since the BIOS will be running off FAT, it will mean more space to fill up with applications...

2) To have all the features of GCOS1.5F, Qoob 1.3c, and SD Loader Functions <Everything out of the box, in a sense>

3) Since it would be plugin-based, perhaps a means of implementing a way of having an MP3 Player Plugin, whereby once the plugin is installed, files with the .MP3 extension are immediately associated to it, and an MPG, AVI, and WMV plugin, whereby the extensions are immediately opened by the program... <OF COURSE, THIS WOULD BE UP TO THE USER TO SET THE "AUTOPLAY" FEATURE>.... and even if people could make specialized GameBoy Advance Player Plugins, N64 Player Plugins, SNES Player Plugins, and so on, it would make emulation freakin kick-ass!!!

4) Since there would be more space, as opposed to flashing a still frame video as the Qoob Background, perhaps flashing a full 10 second clip, to replicate the original IPL... as the video would last long enough to finish just before the disc loads, whereby when it does go in, A FADING SYSTEM IS IMPLEMENTED.. so it doesn't just cut, homebrew style, but fades out into black... or when the VID ends, you can load the menu with B, Qoob Pro 1.3c style...

5) Alternatively, perhaps recreating an entirely new homebrew IPL... maybe having a selection of 4 or 5 cubes on screen, where when you choose one, it blow up, and you can rotate the cube to access the different options.... <to have a really pretty GUI, with sound and all....>

6) Alternatively, having a feature to put your own background still/video as well as the homebrew IPL for the BIOS...

7) Alternatively, to have a feature whereby a standard homebrew IPL is made, and one, using a program specific for this BIOS, can make and develop their own theme to flash to the BIOS... their own pictures, sounds, text, and so forth, to have a completely home-made, individualized booting bios.... Based around the BIOS' features, of course.... with the ability to expand and edit them....


It sounds possible to me... I think it would be amazing... that is, if people are on board for the idea..and who knows, maybe it can be ported to the other mod-chips available too, for starters, the 'background-less Qoob SXers...'....


** Also, features to force Dolby Digital sound, and stuff.. would enhance the game just that little bit...

Maybe even external video plugins can be made to try and force some overlayed antialiasing and stuff, which runs in the background, and off the chip as a "separate memory cacher".. or something like that... maybe I'm pushing it just a bit there.... **


** Maybe putting a feature/plugin that lets you copy memory card savegames onto a subdirectory created on the chip's storage space, so you can transfer them to and from PC via USB, and also, if you want to start a new save without deleting your current one...? **

[Chilly Willy]

2) To have all the features of GCOS1.5F, Qoob 1.3c, and SD Loader Functions <Everything out of the box, in a sense>

Well, it'll have plug-ins for those. The standard install will install all of it. People could choose a custom install to pick and choose the plug-ins they want in order to save space.

3) Since it would be plugin-based, perhaps a means of implementing a way of having an MP3 Player Plugin, whereby once the plugin is installed, files with the .MP3 extension are immediately associated to it, and an MPG, AVI, and WMV plugin, whereby the extensions are immediately opened by the program... <OF COURSE, THIS WOULD BE UP TO THE USER TO SET THE "AUTOPLAY" FEATURE>.... and even if people could make specialized GameBoy Advance Player Plugins, N64 Player Plugins, SNES Player Plugins, and so on, it would make emulation freakin kick-ass!!!

Hmm... yes, a method to associate file extensions to plug-ins shouldn't be any trouble.

4) Since there would be more space, as opposed to flashing a still frame video as the Qoob Background, perhaps flashing a full 10 second clip, to replicate the original IPL... as the video would last long enough to finish just before the disc loads, whereby when it does go in, A FADING SYSTEM IS IMPLEMENTED.. so it doesn't just cut, homebrew style, but fades out into black... or when the VID ends, you can load the menu with B, Qoob Pro 1.3c style...

I think the background handling should be a plugin as well. The QOOB BIOS uses a still frame of video for the image because the GC video output framebuffer is YUYV (video). They didn't wish to put any conversion software into the BIOS to save space. I'll wait until I see how everything is going before deciding what background plug-ins will be standard. Extra plug-ins for png or jpeg or whatever would be nice.


5) Alternatively, perhaps recreating an entirely new homebrew IPL... maybe having a selection of 4 or 5 cubes on screen, where when you choose one, it blow up, and you can rotate the cube to access the different options.... <to have a really pretty GUI, with sound and all....>

Don't get too carried away... there's still only 2MB of space in the QOOB Pro BIOS.

6) Alternatively, having a feature to put your own background still/video as well as the homebrew IPL for the BIOS...

7) Alternatively, to have a feature whereby a standard homebrew IPL is made, and one, using a program specific for this BIOS, can make and develop their own theme to flash to the BIOS... their own pictures, sounds, text, and so forth, to have a completely home-made, individualized booting bios.... Based around the BIOS' features, of course.... with the ability to expand and edit them....

As I said above, I do believe the background handling will be a plug-in. If someone then wants to make a plug-in that consumes every last byte left in the flash, that's up to them. :D


** Also, features to force Dolby Digital sound, and stuff.. would enhance the game just that little bit...

Maybe even external video plugins can be made to try and force some overlayed antialiasing and stuff, which runs in the background, and off the chip as a "separate memory cacher".. or something like that... maybe I'm pushing it just a bit there.... **

Yes, that's probably asking a bit much.

[SoraK05]

Check this post out, for a problem regarding the DVD booting methods that you can potentially weed out:

http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?p=515569&posted=1#post515569

[Chilly Willy]

Check this post out, for a problem regarding the DVD booting methods that you can potentially weed out:

http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?p=515569&posted=1#post515569

I'll worry about that after it's working. :D

[SoraK05]

:D :rolleyes:

[SoraK05]

I just realized that if I press the open button to open the lid while a game is running, when you close the lid the disc doesn't spin up again... with the Qoob Pro modchip... that sucks....
I can't open the lid and show my friends how fast the disc loads back into the game, where I left it, any more...
PLUS for games, like Resident Evil, where in order to play with a secret costume, you need to open the lid in a spot that is not one that says "PLEASE CHANGE DISC NOW", it doesn't work..

Is there any way to fix this issue, with a BIOS...?

** IT DOESN'T DO IT WHEN I BOOT THE ORIGINAL IPL.... ONLY WHEN I BOOT USING THE QOOB PRO 1.3C BIOS... **

[SoraK05]

BTW.. I haven't been able to burn my GCMs onto the right media yet... so I haven't been able to test out a single backup...

I just wanted to know - do backups load in the original IPL, when using the Qoob Pro Mod-Chip, or only through a flashed bios?

[Chilly Willy]

BTW.. I haven't been able to burn my GCMs onto the right media yet... so I haven't been able to test out a single backup...

I just wanted to know - do backups load in the original IPL, when using the Qoob Pro Mod-Chip, or only through a flashed bios?

QOOB BIOS or GCOS. I have GCOS on one of my SD cards for when I want to use that instead of the QOOB BIOS.

The original BIOS in the GC will not run backups, or there would be no reason to have a mod-chip. :D

[SoraK05]

Except for the XenoGC of course.. that uses the original IPL... I wonder if that works if you open and close the lid, regardless...

[Chilly Willy]

Except for the XenoGC of course.. that uses the original IPL... I wonder if that works if you open and close the lid, regardless...

Oh, yeah. Forgot about that one... it's a drive mod, not a BIOS mod. It makes the drive always identify discs as official.

[SoraK05]

Which means that effect can be duplicated through software.... if the chip runs a small bypass before boot... then a simple BIOS PLUGIN that boots the exact same command just before booting the original IPL would do it too....