Okay, I might sound really dumb for asking about this considering my Wii does this and my Wii U even better, and my Raspberry Pi even better, and my gaming PC any better, but hear me out...
Can I get some really specific mods to beef up my GameCube? I'd like to overclock my processor, and potentially increase the memory pool by swapping the RAM chips for something larger. My reasoning is that I want something robust and highly portable for the purposes of retro emulation and running all sorts of classic GameCube games.
With the GameCube being nearly indestructable and resistant against seemingly all elemental damage such as fire, Earth and children, I figured it would be a perfect fit for an on-the-go emulation powerhouse. I'd like to arm it with an arsenal of classic emulators such as NES, SNES, MasterSystem, N64, maybe even some select arcade and Saturn games. I'm a huge fan of the design and legacy of the system and I have a lot of love for it and the modding scene that exists for it. How amazing that software still gets updated for a 20+ y/o console? Incredible! Anyways, I digress.
The reason I want this is because I have so many great classic games that I play regularly through RetroArch on my PC. The issue is that my PC is MASSIVE and is a pain in the ass to transport on long road trips. The reason I choose the GameCube over the Wii or Wii U is because those systems are much more fragile and have way too many accessories for me to want to deal with. The Wii's got the sensor bar, GC controllers, Wiimote, nunchuck, classic controler, cables, etc. and the Wii U dumps even more onto that list with the GamePad and GamePad charger (plus the system is larger). Not quite so easy to pack or keep track of. I admire the GC for having 1 standard controller, being super bulky yet portable, and having a lot of horsepower to work with. However, it could still be better.
I've heard of some rather involved mods for the Xbox (original) where you can desolder the RAM and increase it to 128 MB. You can also overclock it and such. I think that's incredible, and I'd love to hear that something similar can be done on the GC. I know I haven't run into any issues in Dolphin Emulator when increasing the memory to 128 MB so in theory, GameCube games should still run fine. I'd love to improve memory to squeeze some extra performance out of N64 emulators in particular. I'd also like to overclock the CPU to something in the Wii's territory, maybe even higher. I think with the beefy heat sink, and maybe a better fan, it would be perfectly fine. That Nintendo GC heatsink is absolutely overkill!
I also want to get an SD card reader to replace the optical drive, for the sake of convenience, as well as for longevity and supporting a massive library of games.
I understand there's a lot of docs to read about things like this (and I will do my research), but I would love to hear from some other modders what kinds of enhancements I could do to get the most out of my DOL-001 console. I'd love to back up my entire GC library to this thing, load a bunch of Homebrew, run a ton of emulators, and so on. I'm having a tough time finding anything on memory expansions, so I'd love some pointers on that (if any). Hopefully my mad dreams of having a sick AIO emulation beast can come true with the mods I have planned for my system. Here's my ideas. Please give me more. Just signed up to this forum today because over the years I keep coming back here for cool mod ideas. I figured I'd let this community tell me how bad my ideas are before sinking a ton of time and money into them...
Can I get some really specific mods to beef up my GameCube? I'd like to overclock my processor, and potentially increase the memory pool by swapping the RAM chips for something larger. My reasoning is that I want something robust and highly portable for the purposes of retro emulation and running all sorts of classic GameCube games.
With the GameCube being nearly indestructable and resistant against seemingly all elemental damage such as fire, Earth and children, I figured it would be a perfect fit for an on-the-go emulation powerhouse. I'd like to arm it with an arsenal of classic emulators such as NES, SNES, MasterSystem, N64, maybe even some select arcade and Saturn games. I'm a huge fan of the design and legacy of the system and I have a lot of love for it and the modding scene that exists for it. How amazing that software still gets updated for a 20+ y/o console? Incredible! Anyways, I digress.
The reason I want this is because I have so many great classic games that I play regularly through RetroArch on my PC. The issue is that my PC is MASSIVE and is a pain in the ass to transport on long road trips. The reason I choose the GameCube over the Wii or Wii U is because those systems are much more fragile and have way too many accessories for me to want to deal with. The Wii's got the sensor bar, GC controllers, Wiimote, nunchuck, classic controler, cables, etc. and the Wii U dumps even more onto that list with the GamePad and GamePad charger (plus the system is larger). Not quite so easy to pack or keep track of. I admire the GC for having 1 standard controller, being super bulky yet portable, and having a lot of horsepower to work with. However, it could still be better.
I've heard of some rather involved mods for the Xbox (original) where you can desolder the RAM and increase it to 128 MB. You can also overclock it and such. I think that's incredible, and I'd love to hear that something similar can be done on the GC. I know I haven't run into any issues in Dolphin Emulator when increasing the memory to 128 MB so in theory, GameCube games should still run fine. I'd love to improve memory to squeeze some extra performance out of N64 emulators in particular. I'd also like to overclock the CPU to something in the Wii's territory, maybe even higher. I think with the beefy heat sink, and maybe a better fan, it would be perfectly fine. That Nintendo GC heatsink is absolutely overkill!
I also want to get an SD card reader to replace the optical drive, for the sake of convenience, as well as for longevity and supporting a massive library of games.
I understand there's a lot of docs to read about things like this (and I will do my research), but I would love to hear from some other modders what kinds of enhancements I could do to get the most out of my DOL-001 console. I'd love to back up my entire GC library to this thing, load a bunch of Homebrew, run a ton of emulators, and so on. I'm having a tough time finding anything on memory expansions, so I'd love some pointers on that (if any). Hopefully my mad dreams of having a sick AIO emulation beast can come true with the mods I have planned for my system. Here's my ideas. Please give me more. Just signed up to this forum today because over the years I keep coming back here for cool mod ideas. I figured I'd let this community tell me how bad my ideas are before sinking a ton of time and money into them...
