Ok, without intentionally sounding like an idiot, what hardware is needed to do actual GC development (not just play betas)? I have tried to look over the various pieces of hardware, but I feel a little bit confused. As far as I can tell, and PLEASE correct me if I am wrong, I would need one of the following sets: - TDEV - GDEV w/ODEM Card - NR Reader and NR Writer - (NPDP Reader or GBOX or GDEV) and NPDP Writer Basically, all I want to do is run and debug code off of the development system through the Gamecube in a similar way that the Xbox Dev Kits do. I have no interest (right now) in making actual disks. It looks like my best option is to get a TDEV if I can find one. I thought that I saw mentioned somewhere else that an NR Reader with the broadband adapter can be run in this way, but is this true?
Not so far as i've seen. The NR Reader has a different bios than the tdev which doesn't allow code to be sent down in the same manner.
You'll want the GDEV (+ ODEM Card). It's a very sweet solution and allows for extremely accurate CD emulation (including error simulation) which is a must, as Nintendo Lot Check tries to simulate disc errors any time the game does I/O. The GDEV also has two slots for memory cards and can run in 48MB mode for debugging purposes. Downloading your code to the target is really fast via the GDEV's proprietary SCSI card. Finally, SnSystem's ProDG works very nicely with the GDEV! So, with a GDEV (and development software) you can pretty much author a NGC game to the point where you want to test it on the target hardware. For that, you'll need a NR Reader and NR Writer. For all the NGC projects that I've worked on, we've never once had to burn an actual CD. The NR Reader / NR Writer solution is pretty much gives a perfect simulation of what your game will do on the target hardware. Once the game gets to test, the publisher's test department (and Nintendo Lot Check, I assume) test on actual CD media. We've never once had a single discrepancy kicked back to us from Nintendo about the game doing something on CD that it didn't do on a NR Cart. Hope this helps.
GDEV w/ODEM Card = The simplist, the most accurate, the most comprehensive, indeed the complete solution ...You don't need anything else!
Heh, other than a nice chunk of money, someone willing to sell me one (or take my Xbox Development Kit in trade) and room on my desk for it
