Hacking Homebrew GCN Problems with gamecube burned disks

[Tomato123]

*Sigh*
Alright. I'm back at my main computer and can fully answer now.


Really: Please test the burn quality. Especially for DVD there are huge differences when comparing writers and blanks, as well as the question if a writer "likes" certain blanks or not.
When talking about recordable optical discs nowadays, answers like this are guaranteed to pop up:

It is true that the optical disc technology comes with huge problems and limitations and using other methods nowadays is superior (and I would generally advise to use other methods of game loading in practice over wearing down aging optical drives). That doesn't mean that optical discs don't work at all. Some trial and error might be required.
For GC you can often find the advise to look for RITEK-G04 media, as the GC seems to like the dark dye. They are out of production since… eternity… and there is no guarantee for them to simply work out of the box under all circumstances. In other context, not GameCube, you can often find statements that RITEK media are very low quality.

I took two RITEK-G04 mini DVD-R and burned two copies of Pokémon Box with two different writers. DVD-R from the same batch.

The first one was recorded with some external drive. Could as well have been "Amazon's Choice for DVD Burner" a few months ago when I ordered this – to have one external drive for the case I have to deal with modern laptops and need DVD access. Recorders leave their name on the disc.
View attachment 370924

The second one is a full-sized Lite-On drive promising real time adjustment of writing strategy for good burns on unknown and poor blank media.
View attachment 370926

Now have a look at the scan results when checking the burn quality. The external drive delivered a garbage recording. (Lower left corner shows the total errors). This external thing clearly had no idea how to properly handle the medium. Next to incompatible to these blanks. The worst part at the beginning might be still recorded in CAV mode which needs on-the-fly adjustments to the writing strategy.
This is an extreme case of bad burn quality. I've rarely encountered something like this:
View attachment 370925

The big Lite-On drive seems to do as the bold claims in the adverting says: Almost no Pi failures and a lot less Pi Errors (note the different scale on the upper graph reaching only to 100 and over 1000). The result is not overwhelming quality, but acceptable
View attachment 370927


Despite this obvious difference in quality… the PC reading drive doesn't hesitate or struggle or complain. Both DVDs are read full speed (which is reduced for the mini DVD-R in the media description compared to proper 12cm DVDs). No problems. This horrible amount of errors is well within the capabilities of the error correction. Imgburn "Verify after burning" reported success for the bad burn (factually correct, since the PC drives can read everything and correct the mass of errors).

Can you guess how the GameCube with XenoGC clone reacts to the two copies?

• The bad copy isn't even there → "No disc inserted"
• The good copy starts like an original

Those RITEK-G04 might be too old by now, with unknown storage conditions. But with a good writer they are still usable.
Try finding a combination of writer and DVD-R that work together well. Not every writer can handle all media alike. Be prepared to experiment when burning discs for consoles. The GameCube is among the most picky consoles.

Wow that's actually a fantastic explanation. Really does show that low quality drives can cause major issues. Stuff like that is why I still have a decent 5.25" drive in my PC. If you're burning for older devices, the error correction is usually not good enough to handle burns that bad.

 

[flowlapache]

thanks for those explanations, smells nice like nostalgia..

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I have a problem with burned disks on my gamecube. I burn them correctly with the lowest speed, but they do not seem to work. I run them with swiss, as my gamecube is modded with the sd2sp2, It does not have a chip. All burned disks except Pokemon gale of darkness pop an error. I did the pot tweak correctly too, as the gamecube reads the disks. I do not know what I am doing wrong. Any help?

Consoles can be picky with burned discs, and it's impossible to get high quality mini-DVDs these days. They are also expensive. You might have more luck with full size DVDs, if you can get ahold of a top shell that will accept them.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Consoles can be picky with burned discs, and it's impossible to get high quality mini-DVDs these days. They are also expensive. You might have more luck with full size DVDs, if you can get ahold of a top shell that will accept them.

Equally hard to find such a good third-party shell nowadays… or are there good options? Would be interested myself.
But yes, higher quality 12cm discs are way more common and way cheaper.

I get the feeling those 8cm DVD-R were made just for the camcorders: Record something, copy it to HDD. Once enough video material, cut all clips as desired → DVD authoring and burn own stuff to 12cm DVD. For data backup purposes 8cm discs were insufficient to even begin with when DVDs were commonly used. Long term stability and high recording quality weren't needed for camcorder use.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Equally hard to find such a good third-party shell nowadays… or are there good options? Would be interested myself.
But yes, higher quality 12cm discs are way more common and way cheaper.

I get the feeling those 8cm DVD-R were made just for the camcorders: Record something, copy it to HDD. Once enough video material, cut all clips as desired → DVD authoring and burn own stuff to 12cm DVD. For data backup purposes 8cm discs were insufficient to even begin with when DVDs were commonly used. Long term stability and high recording quality weren't needed for camcorder use.

There's probably a 3d printable model, which can be printed with an online service like Shapeways. With resin printing, it should have a nice finish.

Edit: Yeah, mini DVD-Rs were pretty much used exclusively in camcorders. Mini CDs were used a lot for driver discs especially the ones that came with cheapo Chinese products, but mini DVD were quite rare to see. GameCube was the odd one out, but obviously the mini DVD-R sold were not made for that purpose, since it'd only be useful to pirates.

 

[master801]

There's probably a 3d printable model, which can be printed with an online service like Shapeways. With resin printing, it should have a nice finish.

Yes it does exist. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3972195

I recommend OP to try using a full sized DVD if you can, just to test with (run the GameCube with no top shell.)

 

[Ash05]

How far do they get? Are you able to see the game being detected (able to see the name/image) and try to boot or are you not even getting that far?

Sorry for replying too late, I have been busy... Some games get to the first main menu (like the Pokemon Game I thought was working) and some of them directly pop the error. Changing the ohms and lowering even more got some games to the safety screen, the one that asks you to push any button.

Post automatically merged: May 14, 2023

How far do they get? Are you able to see the game being detected (able to see the name/image) and try to boot or are you not even getting that far?

The gamecube reads the DVDs perfectly, but the games do not go further than the first main menu or the safety screen

Post automatically merged: May 14, 2023

*Sigh*
Alright. I'm back at my main computer and can fully answer now.


Really: Please test the burn quality. Especially for DVD there are huge differences when comparing writers and blanks, as well as the question if a writer "likes" certain blanks or not.
When talking about recordable optical discs nowadays, answers like this are guaranteed to pop up:

It is true that the optical disc technology comes with huge problems and limitations and using other methods nowadays is superior (and I would generally advise to use other methods of game loading in practice over wearing down aging optical drives). That doesn't mean that optical discs don't work at all. Some trial and error might be required.
For GC you can often find the advise to look for RITEK-G04 media, as the GC seems to like the dark dye. They are out of production since… eternity… and there is no guarantee for them to simply work out of the box under all circumstances. In other context, not GameCube, you can often find statements that RITEK media are very low quality.

I took two RITEK-G04 mini DVD-R and burned two copies of Pokémon Box with two different writers. DVD-R from the same batch.

The first one was recorded with some external drive. Could as well have been "Amazon's Choice for DVD Burner" a few months ago when I ordered this – to have one external drive for the case I have to deal with modern laptops and need DVD access. Recorders leave their name on the disc.
View attachment 370924

The second one is a full-sized Lite-On drive promising real time adjustment of writing strategy for good burns on unknown and poor blank media.
View attachment 370926

Now have a look at the scan results when checking the burn quality. The external drive delivered a garbage recording. (Lower left corner shows the total errors). This external thing clearly had no idea how to properly handle the medium. Next to incompatible to these blanks. The worst part at the beginning might be still recorded in CAV mode which needs on-the-fly adjustments to the writing strategy.
This is an extreme case of bad burn quality. I've rarely encountered something like this:
View attachment 370925

The big Lite-On drive seems to do as the bold claims in the adverting says: Almost no Pi failures and a lot less Pi Errors (note the different scale on the upper graph reaching only to 100 compared to over 1000). The result is not overwhelming quality, but acceptable
View attachment 370927


Despite this obvious difference in quality… the PC reading drive doesn't hesitate or struggle or complain. Both DVDs are read full speed (which is reduced for the mini DVD-R in the media description compared to proper 12cm DVDs). No problems. This horrible amount of errors is well within the capabilities of the error correction. Imgburn "Verify after burning" reported success for the bad burn (factually correct, since the PC drives can read everything and correct the mass of errors).

Can you guess how the GameCube with XenoGC clone reacts to the two copies?

• The bad copy isn't even there → "No disc inserted"
• The good copy starts like an original

Those RITEK-G04 might be too old by now, with unknown storage conditions. But with a good writer they are still usable.
Try finding a combination of writer and DVD-R that work together well. Not every writer can handle all media alike. Be prepared to experiment when burning discs for consoles. The GameCube is among the most picky consoles.

Yeah, but the thing is that the gamecube detects the game as a real one, but then they pop the error. It is true that I am using an external DVD burner, but with ps2 and original Xbox games It worked perfectly

Post automatically merged: May 14, 2023

There's probably a 3d printable model, which can be printed with an online service like Shapeways. With resin printing, it should have a nice finish.

Edit: Yeah, mini DVD-Rs were pretty much used exclusively in camcorders. Mini CDs were used a lot for driver discs especially the ones that came with cheapo Chinese products, but mini DVD were quite rare to see. GameCube was the odd one out, but obviously the mini DVD-R sold were not made for that purpose, since it'd only be useful to pirates.

Wow, the shell option seems really good to be honest. I have a 3dprinter myself and I could try It out

Post automatically merged: May 14, 2023

I have just tried the 12cm dvd method, and same issue. I am starting to think it is my burner. It's either the burner or the pot tweaking.

 

[_47iscool]

Ritek G04's are the best. My GC with Swiss could not even read Sony Accucore the last time I tried it.

 

[Ash05]

Well good news!! I just burned a 12cm dvd with an internal burner from another pc I own, and it finally works! Tomorrow I will try with my low quality mini-dvds, but I have a question, a laptop burner also counts as an internal burner? Thank you all for helping me!

 

[Tomato123]

Well good news!! I just burned a 12cm dvd with an internal burner from another pc I own, and it finally works! Tomorrow I will try with my low quality mini-dvds, but I have a question, a laptop burner also counts as an internal burner? Thank you all for helping me!

Technically they do but they're still no match for an actual 5.25" drive. They're closer to portable USB ones then those.

 

[Ash05]

The mini-dvds I had do not work properly, I will do the full size dvd mod, but is there a way for the gamecube to detect the dvd whithout closing the lid?