Hacking The road to creating the GCN Backup Loader

[Hells Guardian]

bassically the modchip bypasses all security checks on game disks. It will load all GC and Wii backups. They do have chips that are solderless as well. On the other hand I do hope to see a backup loader that will support GC games somewhere down the line....... I'm not absolutely certain that this will happen anytime in the near future but like I said constructive aid is always a good thing.....

I do believe that that is part of what mios Does. It will zero out memory and boot into the GC IPL. So bassically It's a pain in the ass to bypass this........ on the other hand with bootmii on it's way people would be able to directly run starlet code on the system and this early access to the system should greatly aid in the attempt to do this. on the other hand with the backup loaders they have a limitation on drive speed so IMO a modchip is better. I however have more than one wii so I chipped one and not the other.

 

[Commadore64]

Geeezus.... sorry for posting
I hope the GC stuff gets accomplished....
Good luck to all
(Pirates included

)

 

[digitydogs]

Its been posted on this thread several times but i'll quote a part here with comment(s)

- GC games use the DVD command 0xA8 for reading the DVDs, same is true for Wii mode. DVD offsets must be 4 Byte aligned. Size must be 32 Byte aligned (maybe less?). Destination address must be 32 Byte aligned. - 'note dvd offset alignment'

- Backups are read using 0xD0 command. DVD offsets must be 0x800 aligned, same value for the size. Destination address must be 32 Byte aligned. - 'note dvd offset alignment'

- GC games are not encrypted. - 'so no more we have to decrypt them comments please'

From reading the rest of wiigators posts is sounds like everything but the following he has solved or workarounds for.

The changed alignment restrictions between 0xA8 and 0xD0 are the biggest problem. You can't just replace 0xA8 by 0xD0. There is more required. You need to mix GCOS and SD-Boot. The result may be a compatibility like SD-Boot and not like GCOS. My question for you is now: Do you want to write this hook code?

 

[eric_4_life]

First gamecube suggestion:

It appears the drive itself does the authentication which a mod chip intercepts the "I am not an original disk" code and replaces it "I am retail" code (or headers or whatever)

Based on that theory
Non chipped drive:
Retail disk ----- Wii boots it - gc boot boots it
Backup ----- Wii wont boot it - gc boot wont boot it

Chipped drive:
Retail disk ----- Wii boots it - gc boot boots it
Backup ----- Wii boots it - gc boot boots it
(***duh)

Since the difference is not only the medium (pressed disk retail vs burned disk backup)...
What happens if you open the Wii and mess with the sensor that pick up that the disk is small?
What I am getting at is, if there are sensors that say "this is not a 5.25" cd - go into GC mode" - if maybe tricking the sensors into thinking it is a 3 inch disk would make the backups run?

I know - not a software approach but it might be something to prove that the mios has nothing to do upto this point, thus we dont look at the mios for the fix. This would be more difficult. How would you trick the drive into responding to the burnt DVD as a retail GC?

There might be some proprietary IOCTL commands that could be sent to the drive to set the drives make it act like a GC disk is in there. Maybe Flatmii could monitor the traffic between the drive and mainboard to see if there is a difference between disk sizes....
Just a bad guess here

Now piracy issue:
It doesnt matter if you are a millionaire that can afford all the games from a store but downloads copies instead of buying them or a limbless Indian that is selling bootleg copies by getting 1 image for free and a DVD-R sleeve of 100 and burning 100 copies....
Point is that you are stealing. If you didnt pay for it you are stealing.
If the games are no available in your country but are in another and you download it and burn it - you did not buy it - it is stealing
If the video game system is no longer manufactured and you cant find the games at the local shop but you can on the internet --- unless the copyright owner of the game/rom has given the right to freely distribute the game -- you are stealing.

As far as the Gamecube backup loader is concerned - I have both retail Wii games and retail GC Games. IMO 98% of the games for the Wii suck and I have more fun hacking that I do playing some game that is either block shaped characters or weeble shaped characters collecting apples so they can buy a radio for their home (or something like that). I rent a lot of the games, if any keep my interest I will buy it. If my kids play a game and dont eject it within 3 hours, I will get that for them. I find it interesting on how it works on the inside or better yet why it doesnt work. Thats my reason for the GCN Loader hack to be continued

There is quite a big difference between stealing and pirating. When you steal, the reseller that bought the product from the manufacturer is loosing money, because you took it from him. When you pirate, you do not take from anyone and you are not making anyone lose money, instead you are not allowing them to make money. When a game is no longer produced and is available on the Internet or at a game store, it is not the same as a game that is still produced, because used games are not profitable for game makers AT ALL.

 

[Commadore64]

How about a "Pirating vs Stealing vs Evaluating" thread?
It would remove a lot of noise from this thread dealing with GCN loader ideas

..and I wish I could write the hook.
Thanks for the info, I did see that Wiigator post around - I just never came across the sensor (disk size) discussion. I thought it might of had some merit.

 

[FireFreek]

I think some people don't realise that piracy is a huge part of the economy in poor developing countries such as India or Bangladesh. They have thousands of shops selling pirated Dvds, games, etc. Think of those people(some without limbs) before you deny piracy. You could save a life.

(yes i've been there)

people aren't going to be BUYING those gc backups for this loader, they're going to be downloading them off the internet. and unless the no-limbed indian has some sort of click-thru revenue from torrent sites - he's still going to be sat (balanced) there limbless and unhappy staring longingly at his pile of pirated gamecube games.

edit: i can't stop laughing at the idea of somebody with no limbs at all... and a big pile of gamecube games to sell.

Actually, that limbless person is going to be selling the downloaded backups.

But I digress, Piracy in no way helps economies, they only personally help the pirate. When a person makes money or saves money, they are likely to invest it into selling more copies or just remain poor with a ahell of alot of games to use. The companies making the games sell less games, go out of business and then a depression is started.

Ima pirate, because im broke, I'm still killing the economy with every game i download and burn. But hey, the brightside is, the DVD industry must be through the roof!

Economy = People
Person + Person = People
Pirate = Person
Pirate + Pirate = Pirates
Pirates = People
Pirates = Economy

Sorry if my advanced algorithms have confused you.

Let me tell you how piracy works in third world countries:

There are thousands of small shops or stalls in the poor dirt roads. In those stall/stores are poor people, selling their goods, which happen to be pirated movies or games or software. They all get their games from a central source, usually China(That's what the "packaging" on the discs tell me). These stores are the ONLY stores selling software/movies/games in the whole country/area/reigon. So to not have piracy, is to not promote technology in these developing countries, which in turn will prevent the country from developing.

Now something about our market. See, most people who pirate, are of two groups: Those who would never have bought the pirated object in the first place, and those who would have, but would rather get it free. The first group don't hurt the economy at all, because they were never helping it in the first place. They are the majority of the pirating world. The second group is a pretty small, so they have a small impact on the economy and income of victim companies. It's like someone pointing a gun at you and asking you for your spare change.

Then if you think about it, these pirates are basically free advertising. They get the game, and other non-pirates see it, they may be tempted to get it(depends on the game, no one is tempted to buy Carnival Games). Piracy is also a good way to see how popular a game is, other than measuring sales. Also sometimes there are games that some people may want, so they try to pirate it. Some games don't always successfully work, so they still may get a fraction of the experience, but they may end up buying it in the end.

And that concludes why this community should all donate $1 PayPal to me.

 

[kanoeyes]

why do people need a GC backup loader, i mean we all know its for piracy at the end of the day, why not just buy the games ther elike all under £10 on ebay

There are so many GC games right now that I'd want to play but I'm on a budget right now. Look at the price for Ikaruga. I mean, come on, people want to save money. So the GCN Backup Loader is what the Wii ABSOLUTELY MUST need.

And i want too, want to play too many gc games, and wii is my only solution and i don´t want take risk killing my wii with a modchip, i thing loaders is the best way to play copy games, and i forgot to say it´s not easy to find some gc games and i want to save money too...

 

[Jran Sakarra]

why do people need a GC backup loader, i mean we all know its for piracy at the end of the day, why not just buy the games ther elike all under £10 on ebay

Beacuase one game I want to play s about over $100 for a copy of!

 

[Commadore64]

Yawn...
ok personally I wished this thread would have gave me more insight toward GC info...
(really I do)
But take a copied DVD or a copied CD or a copied VHS tape....
Edited: pointless in this thread

The changed alignment restrictions between 0xA8 and 0xD0 are the biggest problem
Is this referring to the 6 byte alignment of the sectors? ....nevermind

Edit: Here is the thread that clears up a lot

[sarcasm] If this thread was entitled "Pros/Cons of piracy" would most of the discussion be about Gamecubes?[/sarcasm]

Good luck fellas - I cant wait for Bootmii to appear

 

[kanoeyes]

Yawn...
ok personally I wished this thread would have gave me more insight toward GC info...
(really I do)
But take a copied DVD or a copied CD or a copied VHS tape....
Edited: pointless in this thread

The changed alignment restrictions between 0xA8 and 0xD0 are the biggest problem
Is this referring to the 6 byte alignment of the sectors? ....nevermind

Edit: Here is the thread that clears up a lot

[sarcasm] If this thread was entitled "Pros/Cons of piracy" would most of the discussion be about Gamecubes?[/sarcasm]

Good luck fellas - I cant wait for Bootmii to appear

and the coders can not make a loader with this alignment?