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GettingStarted
A quick installation guide
Featured How to start the emulatorGamecube and Wii applications usually come in the form of .dol files. Once you have downloaded and decompressed the archive, you should get two versions of the emulator:
This can be loaded on a Game Cube by using various methods: see http://www.gc-linux.org/wiki/Getting_Started#Booting_Code for more details.
The easiest way to run the emulator on a Wii is to install the Homebrew Channel. Once you are done, simply copy the /apps directory (included with this release) and its content to the root of your SD card or USB drive. There are other ways to run dol files on the Wii like building a dedicated channel or using an alternate DOL loader. Feel free to visit http://www.wiibrew.org for additional information. How to use the emulatorGenesis Plus GX supports Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, Master System, Game Gear & SG-1000 ROM images. Supported ROM files must come in the form of RAW .bin, .gen, .md, .smd, .mdx, .sms, .gg & .sg files. Compressed .zip files are also supported as long as they contain a single ROM file in one of the supported format. To play a game, you first need to load a ROM file from one of the supported devices: you can either load it from DVD, SD card or USB drive (Wii only). There is a limit of 1000 ROM files per directory so it's strongly advised to create subdirectories. Reducing the number of ROM files per directory also improves menu interface speed and usability. from SDThe SD card should have at least one partition formatted to FAT (FAT16 or FAT32). If not found, the emulator automatically creates a directory named “/genplus” at the root of your SD card, as well as a few subdirectories, all required by the emulator to store important files (configuration, cheat files, SRAM files, screenshots, etc). By default, the emulator will look for ROM files in the /genplus/roms directory but you can place them anywhere you want, the menu keeping trace of the last accessed directory for each device. from USB (Wii only)The USB drive should have at least one partition formatted to FAT (FAT16 or FAT32), any other file format (NTFS, EXT2, etc) are not supported. If no SD card is inserted when the emulator starts, it automatically creates a directory named “/genplus” at the root of your USB drive partition, as well as a few subdirectories, all required by the emulator to store important files (configuration, cheat files, SRAM files, screenshots, etc). By default, the emulator will look for ROM files in the /genplus/roms directory but you can place them anywhere you want, the menu keeping trace of the last accessed directory for each device. To use an USB2 drive, you must have IOS58 installed (it should be automatically installed with System Menu 4.3 update). You should also load the emulator through the Homebrew Channel, using the provided meta.xml file and to make sure Homebrew Channel is using IOS58 as default IOS. from DVDThe DVD should be formatted using ISO9660/Joliet (refer to the user manual of your DVD Burning software for more details). The Game Cube Mini-DVD drive allows up to 1.35GB of data while the Wii DVD drive allows up to 4.7GB of data (simple-layer). By default, the emulator will look for ROM files at the root of your DVD but you can place them anywhere you want, the menu keeping trace of the last accessed directory for each device. To use DVD on a non-chipped Wii, you should load the emulator through the Homebrew Channel and make sure to use the provided meta.xml file, which allows full access to the DVD drive. Please report to the included User Manual for additional informations. |
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"Also note that, thanks to DVDX, contrary to Gamecube users, a modchip is not required to load from DVD. "
A modchip is not required for gamecube either to read from DVD :)
I didn't know, how do you do that ?
Well DVD_Mount() on Gamecube will do it for you automatically.
You are partially right though, Gamecube Mode on a Wii will require a modchip. There is also a second catch.. DVD_Mount() may fail on Wii (in GC Mode) if you have a modchip present, for GC Mode on Wii, I simply do DVD_Reset(hardreset); DVD_ReadID();. You can determine GC mode on Wii from the mfpvr ppc instruction data returned.
Thanks a lot for the information. I never thought it was possible to patch the gamecube drive with software only, I must have missing something somewhere ;-)
Do you have some detailled documentation of libogc DVD functions somewhere ? I think I'm never using DVD_Reset, and still using softdevs lowlevel functions (access to DI registers directly)... any thoughts ?
I haven't found any documentation for it, but I'll elaborate on the ones I know about and use.
DVD_Init(): Sets up the basics, IRQ's etc, it's required before anything DVD, and only once.
DVD_Reset(DVD_RESETHARD): This will reset the drive, killing anything in drive RAM like patch codes, and it will accept only an original disc.
DVD_Mount(): This internally will call a DVD_Reset(DVD_RESETHARD), then that may fail to keep the disc spinning (dvd-r won't be accepted yet) - it doesn't really matter, as long as the drive resets. Next, patch code is loaded for the appropriate drive version automatically, then the drive is spun up once again using the debug commands, and finally a DVD_GetCurrentDiskID()command is made to validate the disc.
To see if you need to call DVD_Reset or DVD_Mount again because of changed media, you can check the error returned (DVD_GetDriveStatus?()) from the drive and if it's disc changed or lid open (even on wii in gc mode), then call the whole mount/reset process again.
Thank you, very much appreciated.