Homebrew Which disc-based systems accept homebrew on CD without modchip?

[Jayinem]

They just recently made PS1 backups that work with no PS1 modchip or alteration sorta like Dreamcast.

 

[Yaro]

There has been recent unofficial software pressed on CD for the Dreamcast (using MIL-CD loophole).

You think Gunlord and Sturmwind were using such?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

You think Gunlord and Sturmwind were using such?

I don't know any titles (and did not buy such discs myself), but I'm fairly sure they are simple CDs abusing the MIL-CD format.
Producing valid GDs is probably very hard.

That limits the memory capacity, the read speed and the later Dreamcast don't have that functionality… so these unofficial releases are not 100% like official games.

 

[sonictopfan]

Dreamcast

 

[The Real Jdbye]

What homebrew exists on GC/PS2 pressed disc? There are some unlicensed/unofficial discs. But actual small homebrew projects?

Swap tricks, especially those grabbing spinning discs, should not count as they are dangerous for the hardware.

There is Freeloader for Wii, a pressed unofficial disc, working only on very old firmware (exactly the trucha bug).



Indeed. There is not much detail in that video. Why does everything have to be a short video nowadays? And dumbed down on top?

The technical details are very complex. I've posted this link in the context of GC/Wii multiple times already (but it seems nobody reads that):
https://debugmo.de/2022/05/fjita-the-project-that-wasnt-meant-to-be/
That is a very good explanation going pretty deep into the matter. But it requires actively reading and thinking an hour and relies on some previous knowledge. That is something different than watching a shallow video with some superficial summary.

Unlicensed/unofficial counts as far as I'm concerned. I was thinking of Action Replay, Swap Magic and the like.

Freeloader on Wii does use the trucha bug, but it's not actually bootable, it seems to exploit a bug in the Wii menu, so I can't count it.

Post automatically merged: Oct 7, 2023

Yes, I remember that video. As far as I'm concerned he's pulling things out of thin air; he hardly provides "details". Downright infuriating, really.

I do agree, he doesn't go into a lot of detail and often gets small details wrong, but his videos aren't targeted towards people in the homebrew scene who already know a lot about it, they're more targeted towards a more general audience, who might not care about and might even be bored by excessive details, so I can understand why. On the whole he seems to get the important details right though, so I have trust in his videos.

 

[SylverReZ]

They just recently made PS1 backups that work with no PS1 modchip or alteration sorta like Dreamcast.

Yes, I have seen that video, but so far its still in stages where it needs to be tested thoroughly before the steps are released to the public.

I don't know any titles (and did not buy such discs myself), but I'm fairly sure they are simple CDs abusing the MIL-CD format.
Producing valid GDs is probably very hard.

That limits the memory capacity, the read speed and the later Dreamcast don't have that functionality… so these unofficial releases are not 100% like official games.

Most of the pirated Dreamcast titles (aka unlicensed games) are using the MIL-CD format to allow the DC to recognise it as a legitimate disc. It was only ever used on some Japanese music CDs, but were never even popular and have become super rare. One famous instance was Utopia managed to create the first ever bootable disc, known as the Utopia Boot CD. Its purpose was to boot Dreamcast imports and backups that weren't scrambled.

There have been rumours circulating on the web, stating that Utopia consists of some Datel employees that had shared their secrets with the group. But clearly, there is no proof to define that statement. And even if that was the case, then I wouldn't be so surprised.

You think Gunlord and Sturmwind were using such?

I have no idea who those people even are. Warez group members of sorts?

 

[Ryccardo]

And even if that was the case, then I wouldn't be so surprised.

Neither would I, how much do you know about Datel and their original boss? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

[SylverReZ]

Neither would I, how much do you know about Datel and their original boss? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I only know Datel for their unlicensed Action Replay stuff. I've only seen discussions about this on old forums.

 

[Ryccardo]

their unlicensed Action Replay stuff

And do you know who invented them, at least up to the mid 90s? Wayne H. Beckett (former C64 developer of more ordinary software)

...which then got sold under a truckload of different brands, names, and artworks (not THAT weird but still a bit sketchy, especially in Japan where the importer was called "Karat", which was later revealed to having been bought, or always having been a front for, another sketchy gaming accessories brand: Cyber Gadget)

Then he quit Datel and started Future Console Design (the Codebreaker/Xploder/X-Terminator/Gameshark SP/etc etc etc company)

...and in this period Datel had many self-bricking (worse than r4isdhc.com's) ARs, the allegedly awesome but mostly unseen Trainer Toolkit, the Wii one that's a commercial homebrew based on wilbrand and therefore launched in 2012 (4 years after Gecko OS), then they started selling car exhaust theft alarms (!) which no doubt were generic rebranded Chinese stuff - interestingly, this was around the time shop01media dabbled with car license plate hiders

What about our man? He went to Hong Kong to work for "DataPower Development", apparently founded in 2001 (https://opencorporates.com/companies/hk/0744208) but which seemingly made nothing under their own name until the PS4 Save Wizard, which as you may know is an all-cloud save-based cheat service allegedly using a farm of modded PS4s to sign the results...
Does that statement remind you of anything? Isn't it an accurate description of the 3DS/Amiibo Powersaves'es too, which btw are for now the last Datel products apart from their Pokemon Go assist watches? Nevermind, I just checked again, they make wifi jammers or whatever now



OK, if you remember what I just wrote , did you notice how I went out of my way to mention

another sketchy gaming accessories brand: Cyber Gadget

the Wii one that's a commercial homebrew

DataPower Development

?

What is Cyber Gadget nowadays famous for?
https://www.cybergadget.co.jp/support/

• Well, they made the first and only "standalone" cheat device for the 3DS (the CodeFreak, right as Japan famously came out with an anti-cheating law, that's basically an ntrboot card running a proprietary CFW; hmmm didn't another company make history with a non-flashcard using another proprietary CFW with an Action Replay like cheat engine?),
• something comparable for the Wii U that's clearly based on the browser exploit,
• something else that's pretty much a 3DS Powersaves,
• and their only international product, an emulation multi-console called the RetroFreak

In 2014, the Retron 5 (another product like that) got in PR trouble for being spotted using non-commercial emulators... and so did the RetroFreak after it launched, you can read about it at https://github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x/issues/264 but wait until you see the reply by the inventor of the RetroFreak, which unsurprisingly isn't Cyber Gadget but... Wayne H. Beckett of DataPower Development!

(Very funny to see RetroCrap associates raise complaints, however correct, of ripping off software against the author's wishes seeing what's up with "MAME 2003" and the like; also funny to see the posts on RetroCrap's blog taken down, just like Team Twiizers did with... oh that's another story)

Picture unrelated (?)

 

[SylverReZ]

tl;dr

Woah, that's a deep rabbit hole. Interesting.

 

[_47iscool]

The PS2 is also now capable with FreeDVDBoot.