requesting info on Gamecube homebrew and emulators

I'm having trouble getting certain homebrew discs to burn.

My setup-

Silver NTSC Gamecube with Xeno 2.0 chip
Asus DVD-RW drive, have had it installed in this PC a little over a week
Hitachi DVD-RW drive, came factory installed. Not a very good drive
I'm using RITEKG04 mini DVDs with ImgBurn to burn discs.

I can burn commercial ISO rips and play them without problem, provided the ISO and disc don't have nay problems. I've lost 2 games to bad ISO rips- Zelda TP would DRE after the Dolby logo, I found a second rip that worked fine. Zelda 4 Swords wouldn't read at all. I've burned multiple games that work fine. I've got 13 good burns here and just burned Super Mario Sunshine this morning.

But I can not burn homebrew discs that work. I've tried burning Swiss twice, and Megaloader once, using their included ISO files and the disc refuses to work each time and I'm clueless as to why. Is there a setting in ImgBurn I'm overlooking? Do I need to pad these ISO files to the full Gamecube size to make them work? I'm ruling out an issue with the POT as I'm not having trouble playing burned commercial games even for more than an hour at a time.

But I could get a PS2 adapter for 1/3 that price... though I opted to order this controller that's a knockoff of the Wii classic controller with a Gamecube plug. Then it arrives and buttons don't work right- A needs to be mashed hard to even work, the sticks are terrible and the Z buttons don't work- one seems wired to work as the slider part of the L button and the other is dead. The seller sent me another, maybe I'll get lucky and that one will actually work right.

 

i would go for the official controllers with an adapter. i never trust third party ones. i use my dualshock for snes and gba emulation, it works fine.

 

You wouldn't happen to have a screenshot of it?

 

Anyone have any idea why I'm having trouble why I'm having trouble burning homebrew ISO files? Can't be the pot, I've played Animal Crossing for about 5 hours total on this modded console.

 

MAN! It is awesome to see that some people is in the same situation, i have a hardmoded gamecube with the xeno, and after some long time i am solving more of my problems w my cube. Anyways, i have some questions to answer.

Those answers are in the order of the thread post's. (kinda)

1) There are all kind of emulators that run on the cube: Nes, Snes, SMS, Sega mega drive, neo geo, neo geo pocket, N64, Ps1, turbograf16, GBA, GBC, and maybe some other that i don't have. Also there is number of apps that are useful, for example a music/video player and some other stuff.

2) I really recomend using the sd cards on Hardmodded cubes for some reasons like, the amount of time your laser is going to work (because modded consoles needs really high potence in the POT so it can read homebrews), and the money you save NOT buying that much dvds.

3) If you want to run emulators (most of them) you need to find a SD (Not sdhc) with an high class, thats because this days the only sd loaders that you find are sd Boot and sdload. Sd boot works Perfect with sdhc, but it can't run almost any emulator or app. in the other hand, sdload can navigate trought the sd and run the emulators fine, but you have the FAT16 limitations (just sd cards), and if your sd ins't a high class one you probbably will emulate N64 And PS1 very bad. I use sd boot for the CG iso's or GCM and they work just fine with my 16gb class 6, it have some lag when the dvd should be loaded, but it's ok for most of the games, also that problem would be solved with an sdhc of higher class.

4) Ntcs cubes will not run any game in other language than English even if it is an PAL game w spanish or french option. (There is a tricky way to change your NTCS iso language but it's too much job just a translation.)

5) The problem w/ your Zelda TP PROBABLY isn't cause of the iso, that game it's a real puss at the moment of homebrewing it, if the POT isn't really low and the Dvd aren't really good and Not scratched, that fucker will not work. (Specially for that game i spent like 6 dvd's and like 15 POT re-adjustments, i SERIOUSLY recommend using sd for that son of a taint. (The value i use is like 139)
Also, there is dificult to find good isos that actually work when you burn them, there you have, i just packed and uploaded everything you need Sd Gamecube Pack By Fullen

6) Probably your POT isn't low enough, some games run with higher values and some don't, pelase tell me what value are you using and let's see if i can help you.

For any questions or request im here to help you fellows, you can mp me or mail me but preferably ask here so every one can solve their problems.

Also, sorry if i have any miss spelling or something i'm from Argentina

 

I have had this problem myself, swiss bootable disc that works fine on a cube with Viper installed but not on the Xeno one.

This worked for me:
http://www.gc-forever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=657

Note: Snes9x is unable to load Roms from DVD, broken dvd support?
I tend to use the older snes9xgx anyway

If you want to test how well your Gamecube reads backups Animal Crossing is not the game- even in the old days of loading homebrew over the network, the whole game is loaded in the gamecube memory, at least it appeared to me that way.
Metroid Prime would be a better choice

 

Yeah unfortunately that goes both ways.
You need an NTSC cube for Japanese. Or a PAL cube for European languages.

PAL cube will always have the text/saving problems in troublesome JPN games.

You're right multi language NTSC isos are very very rare. US version (and I believe JPN) Star Fox Adventures includes English and Japanese.

 

I burned a working SD Media Launcher disc, so for now I don't need Swiss. The downside is I'm limited to a couple of Sega CD games on the card as far as running emulators.

I've played Luigi's Mansion, Metal Arms and Metroid Prime 2 for 30 minute to 1 hour stretches with no issues and tested a lot of other games at least 15 minutes. The only game giving me real problems is Serious Sam Next Encounter- audio issues and one DRE in a later stage. Not sure if it's the ISO, a bad burn or what, or the game itself is buggy. Though I'm starting to think the files aren't the greatest where I've been downloading most of them.

I got NES, SNES and Genesis emulators running. I found an N64 emulator and a super Mario 64 ROM, it black screened on loading the game. Maybe it's a bad ROM, I don't know. I ruled out the TG-16 emulator for now because it doesn't have proper CD support meaning no Ys book I & II and there's not many card games for the system I really want to play. As far as PS1 goes I'd probably be better off buying a used system and modchipping that. I don't bother with most handheld stuff because I have a GBA flash cart and a DS flash card which handles old handheld system emulation for me, for the most part. I wanted to look into the Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari 2600 emulators but it seems project and download sites are long dead.

 

There is allways a compatibility list for games loaders and emulators, N64 and PSX emulators on GC don't run much games, i REALLY don't think that your problems are because of bad isos or roms, just compatibility issues and you can't do anything about that. I had the same problem you had w mario64 with Medievil II, it's normal.

I uploaded a pack w SD gamecueb stuff, in there you can find a Neo Geo pocket emulator http://www.mediafire.com/?wk6558rf4tbod0n

 

Dump the burned iso and compare the checksum http://redump.org/disc/11158/
Mario 64 saving can take a few minutes, especially during the initial save game creation. If the game doesn't start, reset and repeat. Make sure you wait for a while during that black screen.

 

Update for me:
Got my replacement drive controller board from Kevin the other day.
Attempted to install the Xeno again on the new board.
Success!
While I was at it, I replaced the power LED with a green one. Looks kinda cool, purple cube with a green light! Eh? I think so.
Burned a quick test .iso, and got it to boot after lowering the laser pot to about half of what it was set at... I will probably raise it a bit after I start burning on better quality media (plus I accidentally burned that first test disc at 8x... it was too late when I noticed this...).

I'm satisfied. Now time to delve into homebrew.

 

The only PAL game I want to try is Neighbours From Hell. I finally found an ISO but despite the Xeno's "force NTSC output" feature I just get a rolling B&W picture, holding the button does nothing. I found a tool to convert the ISO from PAL to NTSC but when it gets to the game's loading screen I get "unknown error". So that's 2 of my mini DVDs wasted tonight.

 

I did get NFH working. Decided to try the Xeno's region forcing one more time- every online instruction guide tells me to hold X, which did nothing. Holding Y worked though. So I got that game working, at least.

Is it true that PAL games can mess up a US memory card? Should I buy a 3rd party memory card for any PAL games I wish to play? I only have a single 1019 block Nintendo brand card and don't wish to mess it up.