Well, was a little curious, so i figured why not ask! What are the exact (if anyone knows) differences between the NR Reader and a Stock GC? Is it just the bios coding, or is it hardware as well? Thx! CJ
I've got a PAL retail GC and an NTSC NR Reader - I can take them both apart and spot any hardware differences if you like (and possibly break them hehe) though I suspect it's BIOS related? As you probably know an NR will only boot NR discs and a retail unit will only boot retail discs.
Well you dont have to pull em apart unless you want to (and if you do, talke PLENTY of hi-res pic's!) But yeah, I was curious to know if it was bios related, or more of a hardware thing.
I've compared them both. The only difference is the drive controller board. There is only one chip on the board that is different (if memory serves). You can swap out this single board to a stock GC and it will work as an NR Reader. Sadly, I don't have a digi cam to take pics.... If you compare an NR disc to a real GC disc, the visible difference is the barcode. The GC disc has a real, pressed barcode on the disc. An NR disc has no barcode, but it does have a weird shaded area where the barcode would be that is created by the burn process...it's just a very thin ring that has a different color than the rest of the burned area. I seriously need to pick up a camera....
Thanks indeed for the info, and you should really get a camera!! Im curious about this due to the upcoming GC chip coming up, and trying to figure out how the thing will work! Mine was supposed to be here today, but FEDEX screwed me again! Thx ! CJ
Speaking of the GC barcode, sometime in the "early days" somebody claimed to have taped it off and it made no difference...
As memory serves, the visible barcode isn't actually readable by the Gamecube (the drive physically can't reach that far).
That is correct...there are 2 barcodes...the one on the "inside" is not readable by the drive. There is a second barcode in the data area of the disc...it's maybe 2 millimeters thick from the start of the data area of the disc. If you hold the disc data side up and get a good reflection off of it, you can see the barcode. It's a slightly different color than the rest of the data. As I understand it, all barcodes on all discs are identical. But the barcode is absolutely required to be there for a game to boot. I'm not sure of the specifics, but my guess would be that it's either a) just some sort of watermark (like the SEGA ring on Saturn discs), or b) the data on the disc is encrypted, and the barcode contains the key. Though the fact that all barcodes are the same doesn't give b) much weight.
