One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that the M.2 Loader is fully compatible with DOL-101 model Gamecubes when using PicoBoot with and SD Gecko which is pretty awesome since the DOL-101 does not have a SP2 Port.
wouw now I can finally upgrade my gamecube with a cost of less then 100$. if only we didn't have a gc to usb adapter to make this whole video obsolete because emulation on pc is flawless anyways...
This would've been science fiction back when the Gamecube came out. Dirt-cheap SSD storage on a custom PCB that installs invisibly using (mostly) existing ports? Incredible. I love how you get the first scoop on stuff like this now. Your content is superb. Keep at it!
Thank you so much Penny Wise! Glad you’re enjoying the channel! Totally agree, back then this stuff was totally unimaginable! What a time to be alive 😁 cheers buddy!
it wasn't actually. This idea has been around for quite some time. I used the BB adapter to stream virtually any games I wanted... during the NGC quite healthy era. ANd it worked quite well. This is going to be quite a game changer for it though. Very nice upgrade. :)
Theres something so insanely satisfying about seeing modders find uses for these forgotten/underused ports that were so mysterious to us as kids wondering what they would do. Its like the end to a journey
@@spht9ng oooo yes that. I wonder what homebrew device could make use of that port. I’ve always wondered if there was any actual modding possible for the n64 beyond an hdmi port.
This is insanely cool!! I feel there's a good chance that soon enough it will be possible to boot directly from this port, too. Best of luck, and our gratitude, to the passionate modders who invest so much invaluable labor into these projects.
I still heard a little audio fragmenting and slight static in M.2. I wouldn't call it "flawless" from the audio snippet that you provided, but it is definitely MUCH better.
I never really got into the Gamecube heavily back in the day - despite owning one. I only ever had a handful of games for it. I'm certainly glad I held onto mine all these years, though. The mods available for this device are amazing. They've really transformed it into an absolute must-have.
SO glad to see M.2 being utilized. I'd be really curious to see a transfer speed comparison between the M.2 loader on Serial 1 vs the GC Loader on the DVD port.
The difference in the video playback was impressive. That seems to always be an achilles heel of anything using SD cards with older consoles. I love seeing new tech used to aid re-use of old hardware too! The trend of RPi Picos being used in this stuff is wild.
@@MrDeelightful The reason SD card adapters usually have performance problems on older consoles (GC/PS2/etc) is because they're being directly connected to slow serial ports as Tito explained in the video. SD cards themselves can read much faster than the original discs did, so they're not inherently an issue. The comparisons in this video didn't show the GC Loader, which has no issues with video stuttering because it runs at the same speed (or faster) than the original disc drive did.
@@MrDeelightful The video running off the M.2 drive was still slightly crunchy, but idk what it's supposed to sound like. The GCLoader is connected to a much faster port and has none of these issues.
@@DasAntiNaziBroetchen my thoughts exactly. So glad I've got the GC Loader in my Cube. 🙂 But the M.2 Loader still beats the SD2SP2 solution. Of course it's a lot of hassle (when you factor in the modchip installation) for what is essentially still an imperfect solution. At that point GC-Loader starts looking more and more attractive - especially for collectors in Europe, I'd imagine since it comes from the Netherlands. Well, the more ways to mod, the better. 🙌
it only took like 3-5 years but people finally realized that you can adapt m.2 to nearly any slot and have some of the fastest, affordable storage around touche
The GameCube is incredible, the ability to put on new parts is awesome. It's crazy game consoles didn't adopt this modularity further and Nintendo dropped it.
I'm actually hoping a LAN port can be added to the final product, if not have USB. Being able to FTP or just plug a USB cable in to load/offload games would make this product less of a headache to have to either get an M.2-to-USB adapter or physically load the drive into your PC directly. Heck, with the amount of room it has adding WiFi is trivial.
@@mistaecco possibly, but since they share the same Bus, that might bottleneck the transfer speeds. Worth looking into, and it might be a feature in a later revision of Swiss.
Hmmm. I like the ideas. If my GameCube was operational (the shell is in rough shape and needs to be replaced and all of the cords have gone AWOL), I would add that to my console and say goodbye to the optical drive, which is starting to go out.
Totally agree with a version that keeps the RJ45 Lan Port. I still use mine occasionally to play PSO online on the servers that are still up and running with a friend or 2. It's very relaxing. So this mod eliminating that makes it a hard pass for me currently. Hopefully they can come up with a solution that retains that. It would be literally perfect then.
Thank you Tito! I've been enjoying my GameCube thanks to your videos and the mod community. I've been waiting to hear more on the M.2 mod, I'm super stoked. Keep up the great work Tito!
You had me at "improves compatibility with games". This is what I love seeing in the retro gaming community. People creating new hardware and software to enhance these old systems. Yes, you could technically have a gaming PC loaded with every emulator but there's multiple reasons to play on original hardware. From simple preference to specific games usually working better on the original hardware.
Though GameCube modding is definitely more of a passion project, since it's way easier to just slap USBLoader onto a Wii these days if original hardware is desired.
@anonomous1324 Typically, GameCube loading on Wii is done via Nintendont, which doesn't count as "original hardware" due to eshewing the backwards compatibility hypervisor for a custom forwards compatibility layer along with emulation of controller, memory card, and networking.
The only device that's required to be emulated is the network adapter as the Wii has no SP1 port. The controller and memory card, while they *can* be emulated, have options to use native compatibility through the RVL-001 revision's onboard GCN ports
Don’t know if you’ll read this, and I only mention it because I want people to correct my pronunciation when I’m saying something incorrectly. Reputable is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable. REP and the rest of the word is less pronounced. For instance you don’t hear a hard U after the REP. Almost a ye sound. rĕp′yə-tə-bəl. Not trying to be a schmuck, I swear. I just hate it when people don’t correct me and go on saying something improperly. You’re so clear in everything else that you say, it’s obvious that you make an effort to say things for your audience to hear them clearly. Great content! I hope I soon get the confidence to do these amazing mods you show us! The soldering is a struggle for me so far.
I've never owned a GameCube, but I still find this a really impressive mod (and you're a very engaging presenter). I'm a vintage Mac collector and tinkerer, and I've installed M.2 drives in several of my PowerBooks.
Superb. Grabbed a GC a few years ago as I’ve always wanted one and was quite interested in what this era of Nintendo had to offer. This opens the door for my collecting for GC now as I can safely back my games up to digital format and play directly on the console. Very excited to get my hands on one of these when they go into production
Iirc one of the planned features for Picoboot is to add Wi-Fi support to games via the Pi Pico W model. No timeline had been provided, and there's still lots of roadblocks to get past in order to make it work, but it's at least in the planning stages.
Very interesting product. My biggest complaint is the loss of network support. If there is a way to add, maybe a Wi-Fi connection to a later revision since it’s going to be using a raspberry pi to control it
@@hockypockies exactly. Also something a friend of mine suggested was if you already have the pico boot mod, could you use that in conjunction with this?
Would be great to have a all in one solution like this to replace the picoboot and sdloader. Seems like there are a lot of projects in the works for GC hopefully when the dust settles we get the 1 mod to rule them all
Wow that is a painless mod if I ever seen one. Nice work Tito 👍 style and class as always. If modding keeps going this direction anybody will be able to do so with a purchase and some leg work converting discs to roms.
Such an amazing product for a prototype and, of course, the presention could not be better than with Tito's top quality production. Thank you for sharing with us all this news. My wallet is ready for the release. 🤗
Nice overview. If the broadband adapter could be reverse engineered and added on as well, either as wifi and/or a standard port, this would be a no brainer mod for everyone to buy. Really would like to see something like this paired with a revised GCLoader that has an ide to sata chip to utilize m.2 drives. Not sure if the gamecube's internal ide could work with 2 devices in a master/slave configuration like say the original XBox and i think the dreamcast (maybe even PS2). Load all your gamecube games onto this hypothetical GCLoader, and then load all your roms and homebrew onto the m.2 loader. The other thing to mention about these sata m.2 drives besides price and performance is probably reliability. SD cards are convenient but not necessarily as reliable for long term storage.
I have both of my modem adapters, and would be willing to hand one over for the sake of bringing networking back. BROOMOP (PSO Hacker) was able to make Offline network servers in the 2020s, so it shouldn't be impossible.
@@YourXellency there has been private PSO servers since the near end of the official CG PSO era. I believe that scthack and broomop had there hands involved at the time.
Part of modding well, I think, is not losing any console functionality. People don’t realize how complicated that goal can be, depending on your modding dreams. This device feels like a quantum leap over all the solder boards & CFW troubleshooting that goes into even just amateur upgrades. I’m so glad there’s so many more people wayyyy smarter than I am. I prefer to just pay them for all the work that goes into designing & selling these amazing lil devices.
7:25 There is definitely still some audio popping and crackling noises with the m.2 loader. It is improved over the sd2sp2 adapter, but not flawless like you said.
I knew you did a great job, lad. I know you save many GameCube people enough trouble and problems finding games when they are great using M.2 Loader as the option.
I guess it´s nice to have, but the overall cost is quite high and the higher transfer speed is cool, but I don´t think many people will constantly add new games to the drive, but most likely just only one time when they add all the games they own. And well, since Picoboot is highly recommended (which requires soldering), it holds it back from an entire softmodded gamecube. (I personally really like softmodded over hardmodded). Personally, for me as someone who has no soldering skills whatsoever (and already the Save Game Exploit +SD2SP2 Setup), I don´t see enough pros to switch / spend more money. I guess if you really do test around a lot on your gamecube and you really want every single bit of performance possible, it probably is worth it.
The GCN scene is popping off, but I just can't bring myself to care a whole lot when a modded Wii with Nintendont provides a better experience. Well I guess theres native HDMI output which is useful.
I'm not even a GameCube fan particularly and I still watch this stuff because your videos are so great. Just shy of a year ago I finally finished my first console restoration, being an NES with a NESessity 1.4 and a High-Def NES. The project went great (with the exception of the small annoyance of so many parts having had to be backordered before I could get working on it). My kids especially love playing the REAL vintage NES games with original controllers. My next console project will be an SNES 1-chip once I can get my hands on one.
gdemu, MODE and usb-gdrom are already great solutions to this. The serial slot as a external device is not a good alternative to a external modification because the serial transfer speed is already way slower than the GD communication port the console has. You can use SD serial adapter with Dreamshell but the serial speed is awful and it gets worse because all of the IO is handled in software. If a device similar to this existed it would be marginally better because of the external IO processor but it would still be bottlenecked by the awful serial speed of the console. Although the title of the video makes people think that it is better to have a m.2 drive on the console, what is actually improving the game read consistency is the external IO processor, not the drive itself. I think it would be way more productive to make a SD Adapter with this IO processor built in instead of using m.2 drives that are still very expensive around the world.
@@lordeilluminati if they could combine the external IO and m.2 support for about 5tb.. imagine every dreamacat game cover art and video preview on a single Dreamcast.. We can only dream and hope that some smart cookie comes along and makes it happen. I'd be for it.
Hey Macho, when you published that video about the Picoboot, I instantly went out and bought the stuff I needed it. I'm in the process of soldering it now, and I have 4 of the 5 cables on already. Thanks for getting me into this thing that I love and hate! Lol
You don't really understand computers and electronics unless you both love and hate them. As a Linux user/gamer, I completely understand that relationship.
While still not perfect the video playback is a massive improvement. For improvements, it would be nice to see a usb(c) port added on the final product to minimise the amount of additional hardware needed to preform this mod, I know its not so in scope of this mod's goal but if it had the usb port, being able to transfer rips from disc to a different backup device without removing it would be really handy
idealy we would see the M.2 loader get the means to be used as a broadband addapter as well for those who would like to take their system to a lan and maybe show of some romhack tracks for mariokart or use their own ships for fzero gx.
One thing not discussed is this being an option for people who want to use storage that's more hidden like the sd2sp1 on later revisions that remove the sp1 port. If we do get Swiss support for booting to m.2 loader that is
This is great, but a problem of SD2SP2 is that prevents the use of the GBA Player. It would be great if a future revision of this mod gets an FPGA on board with a GBA MiSTer core installed and some sort of physical switch, so you could to boot in NGC mode or GBA mode!
Very glad that the Gamecube gets all the love it deserved. (Already modded mine, thank you very much for your Picoboot guide!) If there was a version that accepted NVMe drives, I'd be fully sold. Edit: I wonder if there‘s also the possibility to customize the M.2 loader so that it could recognize and use a M.2 network or LAN card?
Using an M.2 SATA interface in a GameCube is already in "delivering newspapers in a big rig" waters. An NVMe interface is reaching "Winnebago caravan for Grubhub" territory.
This is really cool, but I think I'll wait and see if the device itself can boot into Swiss one day. I already have a GCLoader installed on one of my systems, and I thought this could be a good way to boot into Swiss with disc games without modding my other console.
Would be interested to know the price. If they're able to ship it as a kit where the purchaser sources, flashes, and solders the pico themselves I could see it being sold fairly cheap and well worth a ~$30 price.
I had to do some digging since I juat got a gc, I was able to find the discord he has info on it in there. Sadly has not been released due to faulty m.2 chips he had gotten from manufacturers.
Hello Tito, I just tried to run intro in the Mario Party 5 via SD2SP2 and I cannot agree with the statement about some audio or video distortion, everything is playing correctly. Honestly, I've never experienced with this problem before. Maybe because I'm from Europe, Gamecube is PAL and also the game is in PAL format.
Haven't tested mario party 5 but I was under the impression that these kind of issues were eliminated with swiss updates,I've not experienced any choppy video or audio on the latest swiss but I have on an older version.
I have a Spice Orange Japanese GameCube that is modified to play both NTSC U/C and NTSC J discs with no visible modifications to the unit and was considering a second GC because I did not want to lose my optical drive but I did like the idea of using GC Loader. This seems like a perfect solution for an all-in-one GameCube.
All of these new mods make the GCLoader with it's cost, removal of disc drive and unavailability essentially obsolete. Love mods that don't remove a huge function of a console like playing discs.
there are many broken gamecubes out there though waiting to feel complete again. I definitely did not mod mine that way haha, bc I feel ya and tend to agree for the most part, but I've set up a few systems for sale and it's always good to make a piece of trash into something meaningful again.
Great video, Curious now tho.. which titles is the GC Loader not compatible with? Also, hoping that there will be a version of the M2 adapter that supports the GC networking.
while not keyed exactly the same, the m.2 form factor is often used for Wi-Fi cards. I genuinely think future revisions could enable some kind of Wi-Fi to Broadband emulator, as well as M.2 storage. The future for our favorite little lunchbox looks great.
A few years ago i would have been very interessted in such a device. But honestly, since Dolphin is working so fantastic with all its benefits like 4k upscaling or savestates and the use of texturepacks ect, i dont use any of my real gamecubes anymore..Same with Ps2 or Dreamcast or PS1..
A fantastic addition to that board would be a USB controller and type-C port to allow us to directly connect the modchip to our computers in order to upload new data, even while installed in the Gamecube.
The big difference in transfer speeds PC-side is mostly because most SD card readers use "High Speed" mode at it's slowest rate, instead of SDR50 mode or faster, so instead of 90mb/s+, you get 30mb/s.
"The playback is definitely flawless on the m.2 loader..." Um, no. It's not. A huge improvement, for sure! But even a deaf person could pick up that audio stuttering man, come on.
@@ohn9431They moved their store off of tindie. Not sure how actively developed this project is anymore, but they ran into some serious problems with the first batch of boards and have been working on what might have caused it between other projects, like the fairly new Ethernet broadband adapter via Swiss.
LolI gotta Give it to them though They Completely Got their way with the GameCube, lol, Can't wait for them to Completely get their Way with the Nintendo Switch, That'll be Something
This is really neat! I wish there was a version that supported NVMe drives though, as they're much more common & a bit cheaper than M.2 SATA drives these days.
The thing I don't like about all these things that take up the bottom ports is that you undo your ability to have things like the gameboy player or the ethernet adapter plugged in. If you don't care about those things then it is cool to have the massive storage available. I'd prefer to find a way to mount this internally or have a custom mini gamecube case that removes the disc drive that can fit the m.2.
One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that the M.2 Loader is fully compatible with DOL-101 model Gamecubes when using PicoBoot with and SD Gecko which is pretty awesome since the DOL-101 does not have a SP2 Port.
wouw now I can finally upgrade my gamecube with a cost of less then 100$.
if only we didn't have a gc to usb adapter to make this whole video obsolete because emulation on pc is flawless anyways...
Amazing!
@@susanthejew6351 and the fact that this is a horrible idea, yea it works but in practice multiple times it doesn't work very well
@@susanthejew6351 Hell running a GameCube on your phone would perform better
what about the gameboy advance player ? I have that on my black gamecube right now.
This would've been science fiction back when the Gamecube came out. Dirt-cheap SSD storage on a custom PCB that installs invisibly using (mostly) existing ports? Incredible. I love how you get the first scoop on stuff like this now. Your content is superb. Keep at it!
Absolutely to all of that.
Thank you so much Penny Wise! Glad you’re enjoying the channel! Totally agree, back then this stuff was totally unimaginable! What a time to be alive 😁 cheers buddy!
it wasn't actually. This idea has been around for quite some time. I used the BB adapter to stream virtually any games I wanted... during the NGC quite healthy era. ANd it worked quite well. This is going to be quite a game changer for it though. Very nice upgrade. :)
Dirt cheap? Not sure if there is a price mentioned yet. + price of an SSD + mod chip.
@@SjorsHoukes I meant the SSD storage itself is dirt cheap
Theres something so insanely satisfying about seeing modders find uses for these forgotten/underused ports that were so mysterious to us as kids wondering what they would do. Its like the end to a journey
I just wanna buy a mod for all the ports just to fill my holes.. PORTS. I just want my ports full, man
@@ianlong5208 reverse engineer the 64DD port when
@@spht9ng oooo yes that. I wonder what homebrew device could make use of that port. I’ve always wondered if there was any actual modding possible for the n64 beyond an hdmi port.
N64 programming 🤢
@@spht9ng the Doctor V64 already did this almost 30 years ago!
The playback on the M.2 Loader definitely still had audio glitching but it was significantly improved from the SD2SP2
Yeah. Still sounded terrible. I wouldn't play that garbage.
He's trying to gaslight us ahah
I think he needs his ears testing
No for real that sounded like crap
Exactly. I expected him to acknowledge it but no, "flawless playback"?? Come on.
This is insanely cool!! I feel there's a good chance that soon enough it will be possible to boot directly from this port, too. Best of luck, and our gratitude, to the passionate modders who invest so much invaluable labor into these projects.
It would be nice to boot from the port directly, I have my childhood GC and don't want to open it
Tito striking again with these exclusives! Proud to see your production values are still top notch!
Thank you! 🙏😁
@@MachoNachoProductions how easy is it to be installed on a GameCube?
@@sheenaQuarto83 @4:26 it's easy
@@sheenaQuarto83 I can send you a picoboot installed on a cube brotha hit me up
@@Bringmejoycon I have a GameCube but I don't know how to solder or else I would install a picoboot in my GameCube.
I still heard a little audio fragmenting and slight static in M.2. I wouldn't call it "flawless" from the audio snippet that you provided, but it is definitely MUCH better.
@@provisionalhypothesis Check your PS5. Mine has no audio glitches at startup or while playing any game
yeah lol. it's much better but in my opinion but far from flawless.
Wow, this looks absolutely amazing. Cant wait to see this hit the market!
Oh man, you NEED to keep us up to date when this comes out for the public! Amazing!
Will do!
You 100% deserve to review all of these products first - By far the best breakdowns. reviews and production values for this type of hardware
Thank you Ben🙏. Really appreciate it. So glad you enjoy the videos my man!
That is really awesome and I love how people keep developing new stuff for old hardware 😁
Shout out to @Wicked Gamer & Collector love your channels
Same! Totally agree!
Same! I wish they'd develop more stuff for the Xbox 360. 😅
I never really got into the Gamecube heavily back in the day - despite owning one. I only ever had a handful of games for it. I'm certainly glad I held onto mine all these years, though. The mods available for this device are amazing. They've really transformed it into an absolute must-have.
SO glad to see M.2 being utilized. I'd be really curious to see a transfer speed comparison between the M.2 loader on Serial 1 vs the GC Loader on the DVD port.
The difference in the video playback was impressive. That seems to always be an achilles heel of anything using SD cards with older consoles. I love seeing new tech used to aid re-use of old hardware too! The trend of RPi Picos being used in this stuff is wild.
@@MrDeelightful The reason SD card adapters usually have performance problems on older consoles (GC/PS2/etc) is because they're being directly connected to slow serial ports as Tito explained in the video. SD cards themselves can read much faster than the original discs did, so they're not inherently an issue. The comparisons in this video didn't show the GC Loader, which has no issues with video stuttering because it runs at the same speed (or faster) than the original disc drive did.
@@MrDeelightful The video running off the M.2 drive was still slightly crunchy, but idk what it's supposed to sound like.
The GCLoader is connected to a much faster port and has none of these issues.
@@DasAntiNaziBroetchen my thoughts exactly. So glad I've got the GC Loader in my Cube. 🙂 But the M.2 Loader still beats the SD2SP2 solution. Of course it's a lot of hassle (when you factor in the modchip installation) for what is essentially still an imperfect solution. At that point GC-Loader starts looking more and more attractive - especially for collectors in Europe, I'd imagine since it comes from the Netherlands. Well, the more ways to mod, the better. 🙌
Won't run faster than an SD card, it still uses the same slow serial port.
it only took like 3-5 years but people finally realized that you can adapt m.2 to nearly any slot and have some of the fastest, affordable storage around
touche
Have they done m.2 compatibility with PS2 and Dreamcast yet?
@@RaikaSTiPS2 would be easy enough, you'd just need a SATA HDD adapter and then a passive m.2 enclosure would work perfectly fine with it
The GameCube is incredible, the ability to put on new parts is awesome. It's crazy game consoles didn't adopt this modularity further and Nintendo dropped it.
Newer consoles carry arguably the greatest expansion port in history : USB
Yah I’ve got a 128gb usb stick sticking out of my wii.
@@bacintom 2 USB ports on the PS4 was pitiful
@@annother3350 because it's USB, you can add a hub if you need more
@@bacintom I heard they weren't recommended to use with a PS4
I'm actually hoping a LAN port can be added to the final product, if not have USB. Being able to FTP or just plug a USB cable in to load/offload games would make this product less of a headache to have to either get an M.2-to-USB adapter or physically load the drive into your PC directly.
Heck, with the amount of room it has adding WiFi is trivial.
I bet swiss could be used to transfer files from an SD in either an SD2SP2 or a gecko onto the SSD.
@@mistaecco possibly, but since they share the same Bus, that might bottleneck the transfer speeds. Worth looking into, and it might be a feature in a later revision of Swiss.
Hmmm. I like the ideas. If my GameCube was operational (the shell is in rough shape and needs to be replaced and all of the cords have gone AWOL), I would add that to my console and say goodbye to the optical drive, which is starting to go out.
including the LAN port would make this the perfect utility plug and play mod
Totally agree with a version that keeps the RJ45 Lan Port. I still use mine occasionally to play PSO online on the servers that are still up and running with a friend or 2. It's very relaxing. So this mod eliminating that makes it a hard pass for me currently. Hopefully they can come up with a solution that retains that. It would be literally perfect then.
Literally in the middle of my second GC Picoboot mod when this popped up in my feed. Very hyped! Truly we're in a golden age of GameCube modding.
Honestly one of the greatest youtube channels out there, the quality of these videos is absolutely outstanding!!
Thank you Tito! I've been enjoying my GameCube thanks to your videos and the mod community.
I've been waiting to hear more on the M.2 mod, I'm super stoked.
Keep up the great work Tito!
Will do Scotty! Thank you 🙏
this is the best channel on youtube when it comes to retro modding no question about it. thank you for your hard work.
Just a reminder Tito that you never stop make absolutely amazing videos. Keep up the amazing work.
Thank you Nickolas 🙏 Will do brother!
What a time to be alive. Loving the recent GameCube renaissance. Awesome video as always ❤
this is probably one of the most advance mod we have seen in recent times for retro consoles !!!
You had me at "improves compatibility with games". This is what I love seeing in the retro gaming community. People creating new hardware and software to enhance these old systems. Yes, you could technically have a gaming PC loaded with every emulator but there's multiple reasons to play on original hardware. From simple preference to specific games usually working better on the original hardware.
Though GameCube modding is definitely more of a passion project, since it's way easier to just slap USBLoader onto a Wii these days if original hardware is desired.
@anonomous1324 Typically, GameCube loading on Wii is done via Nintendont, which doesn't count as "original hardware" due to eshewing the backwards compatibility hypervisor for a custom forwards compatibility layer along with emulation of controller, memory card, and networking.
The only device that's required to be emulated is the network adapter as the Wii has no SP1 port. The controller and memory card, while they *can* be emulated, have options to use native compatibility through the RVL-001 revision's onboard GCN ports
Tito, this is INSANE! I'm going to have to get my old GameCube out to do this myself 🤩
Don’t know if you’ll read this, and I only mention it because I want people to correct my pronunciation when I’m saying something incorrectly. Reputable is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable. REP and the rest of the word is less pronounced. For instance you don’t hear a hard U after the REP. Almost a ye sound. rĕp′yə-tə-bəl. Not trying to be a schmuck, I swear. I just hate it when people don’t correct me and go on saying something improperly. You’re so clear in everything else that you say, it’s obvious that you make an effort to say things for your audience to hear them clearly. Great content! I hope I soon get the confidence to do these amazing mods you show us! The soldering is a struggle for me so far.
Absolute fire on the production quality and great balanced reporting. You put my video quality to shame and I’m here for it! Superb work!
I've never owned a GameCube, but I still find this a really impressive mod (and you're a very engaging presenter).
I'm a vintage Mac collector and tinkerer, and I've installed M.2 drives in several of my PowerBooks.
Crazy how far we've gotten. I remember doing a ton of soldering a bunch of years back for my HDMI port. Worked, but wasn't pretty at all
Superb. Grabbed a GC a few years ago as I’ve always wanted one and was quite interested in what this era of Nintendo had to offer. This opens the door for my collecting for GC now as I can safely back my games up to digital format and play directly on the console. Very excited to get my hands on one of these when they go into production
I'd like to see a version that combines this with the ever-so-expensive Broadband Adapter.
Same here. I have a bba that I don’t want to give up to use this.
That would be awesome!
maybe one day someone could reverse engineer it and make that real !!
Also maybe a Wi-Fi adapter that looks like a bba and could be set up from Swiss.
Iirc one of the planned features for Picoboot is to add Wi-Fi support to games via the Pi Pico W model. No timeline had been provided, and there's still lots of roadblocks to get past in order to make it work, but it's at least in the planning stages.
Quality 10/10
Mods 10/10
Love your channel Tito!
Very interesting product. My biggest complaint is the loss of network support. If there is a way to add, maybe a Wi-Fi connection to a later revision since it’s going to be using a raspberry pi to control it
Bro that would be so awesome!!! And you're right, it's theoretically possible
yeah i was gonna comment this
maybe have the option to add your own wi-fi card to it? would def be cheaper to install it yourself
@@hockypockies exactly. Also something a friend of mine suggested was if you already have the pico boot mod, could you use that in conjunction with this?
@@Ozhull myself personally, I would prefer a hardwired LAN connection
@@teckman02 i'm not exactly sure
i actually have never owned a gamecube myself, i'm just a nerd for old electronics
my GCN laser is failing so so grateful for the work put into Swiss, picoboot, etc :)
Would be great to have a all in one solution like this to replace the picoboot and sdloader. Seems like there are a lot of projects in the works for GC hopefully when the dust settles we get the 1 mod to rule them all
The production quality on your videos is insane.
Wow that is a painless mod if I ever seen one. Nice work Tito 👍 style and class as always. If modding keeps going this direction anybody will be able to do so with a purchase and some leg work converting discs to roms.
It's always a good day when you get home from a long day at school to see that MNP uploaded.
Such an amazing product for a prototype and, of course, the presention could not be better than with Tito's top quality production. Thank you for sharing with us all this news. My wallet is ready for the release. 🤗
Thank you 🙏😁
My gc lens died a while ago, but this brings me right back into using my GC
Nice overview. If the broadband adapter could be reverse engineered and added on as well, either as wifi and/or a standard port, this would be a no brainer mod for everyone to buy.
Really would like to see something like this paired with a revised GCLoader that has an ide to sata chip to utilize m.2 drives. Not sure if the gamecube's internal ide could work with 2 devices in a master/slave configuration like say the original XBox and i think the dreamcast (maybe even PS2). Load all your gamecube games onto this hypothetical GCLoader, and then load all your roms and homebrew onto the m.2 loader.
The other thing to mention about these sata m.2 drives besides price and performance is probably reliability. SD cards are convenient but not necessarily as reliable for long term storage.
I have both of my modem adapters, and would be willing to hand one over for the sake of bringing networking back. BROOMOP (PSO Hacker) was able to make Offline network servers in the 2020s, so it shouldn't be impossible.
@@YourXellency there has been private PSO servers since the near end of the official CG PSO era. I believe that scthack and broomop had there hands involved at the time.
@@Kara_Kay_Eschel I’ve seen several here and there. MLP and RGT (can’t get their acronyms right) often visit old and new ones here and there.
Part of modding well, I think, is not losing any console functionality. People don’t realize how complicated that goal can be, depending on your modding dreams. This device feels like a quantum leap over all the solder boards & CFW troubleshooting that goes into even just amateur upgrades.
I’m so glad there’s so many more people wayyyy smarter than I am. I prefer to just pay them for all the work that goes into designing & selling these amazing lil devices.
7:25 There is definitely still some audio popping and crackling noises with the m.2 loader. It is improved over the sd2sp2 adapter, but not flawless like you said.
I thought the same. Unless that's how the DVD playback sounds since I've never played that game but I doubt it.
I knew you did a great job, lad. I know you save many GameCube people enough trouble and problems finding games when they are great using M.2 Loader as the option.
I definitely love the idea of using M.2 SSD loader on GameCube. Hopefully, the similar type of loader can be adapted for PS2 & OG Xbox.
PS2 and Xbox can already use SATA M.2 SSDs using an IDE adapter.
I am so glad I got the Wii custom made with HQ cables back when it was affordable. I play all my GameCube games from the Wii.
I guess it´s nice to have, but the overall cost is quite high and the higher transfer speed is cool, but I don´t think many people will constantly add new games to the drive, but most likely just only one time when they add all the games they own. And well, since Picoboot is highly recommended (which requires soldering), it holds it back from an entire softmodded gamecube. (I personally really like softmodded over hardmodded).
Personally, for me as someone who has no soldering skills whatsoever (and already the Save Game Exploit +SD2SP2 Setup), I don´t see enough pros to switch / spend more money. I guess if you really do test around a lot on your gamecube and you really want every single bit of performance possible, it probably is worth it.
The GCN scene is popping off, but I just can't bring myself to care a whole lot when a modded Wii with Nintendont provides a better experience. Well I guess theres native HDMI output which is useful.
I'm not even a GameCube fan particularly and I still watch this stuff because your videos are so great.
Just shy of a year ago I finally finished my first console restoration, being an NES with a NESessity 1.4 and a High-Def NES. The project went great (with the exception of the small annoyance of so many parts having had to be backordered before I could get working on it). My kids especially love playing the REAL vintage NES games with original controllers. My next console project will be an SNES 1-chip once I can get my hands on one.
This is amazing. My cube has been sitting around waiting for this.
A disadvantage that I thought of immediately is the convenience of sd cards over ssds when it comes to taking it out of the gc and plugging into a pc.
Still amassing that people create these on there own spare time as a hobby
This would be ideal for the Dreamcast as well, in combination with a recreated broadband adaptor in 1.
gdemu, MODE and usb-gdrom are already great solutions to this. The serial slot as a external device is not a good alternative to a external modification because the serial transfer speed is already way slower than the GD communication port the console has.
You can use SD serial adapter with Dreamshell but the serial speed is awful and it gets worse because all of the IO is handled in software. If a device similar to this existed it would be marginally better because of the external IO processor but it would still be bottlenecked by the awful serial speed of the console.
Although the title of the video makes people think that it is better to have a m.2 drive on the console, what is actually improving the game read consistency is the external IO processor, not the drive itself. I think it would be way more productive to make a SD Adapter with this IO processor built in instead of using m.2 drives that are still very expensive around the world.
@@lordeilluminati if they could combine the external IO and m.2 support for about 5tb.. imagine every dreamacat game cover art and video preview on a single Dreamcast..
We can only dream and hope that some smart cookie comes along and makes it happen. I'd be for it.
Hey Macho, when you published that video about the Picoboot, I instantly went out and bought the stuff I needed it. I'm in the process of soldering it now, and I have 4 of the 5 cables on already. Thanks for getting me into this thing that I love and hate! Lol
You don't really understand computers and electronics unless you both love and hate them.
As a Linux user/gamer, I completely understand that relationship.
So what's the word on this is, is it real and were can I buy it???
Why bother? Just buy a GC Lader ODE.
No soldering or anything. Just plug and play.
Perfect
Some of us run superior mods like the pico boot or the flippy drive.
While still not perfect the video playback is a massive improvement. For improvements, it would be nice to see a usb(c) port added on the final product to minimise the amount of additional hardware needed to preform this mod, I know its not so in scope of this mod's goal but if it had the usb port, being able to transfer rips from disc to a different backup device without removing it would be really handy
This mod will be a game changer for the Gamecube.
Totally agree!
I love the GC Loader, but keeping the CD drive is a big +! GameCube ist pure Love. Thanks for the review.❤
Imagine the m.2 loader with a lan port😮. As always a great video and an amazing first look
Missed last weeks video. Gotta watch it later… I’m in the Philippines 🇵🇭 right now.
Glad I saw this one. Wow 🤩
idealy we would see the M.2 loader get the means to be used as a broadband addapter as well for those who would like to take their system to a lan and maybe show of some romhack tracks for mariokart or use their own ships for fzero gx.
THIS is what I've been waiting for. I read about it a couple years ago and have been waiting with bated breath ever since.
Something that would also be cool to see is an open source broadband adapter (since those go for way too much money nowadays)
That would be awesome!
This is all I’ve been wanting. Being able to play some 16 player double dash the next time we have another halo night would be amazing
One thing not discussed is this being an option for people who want to use storage that's more hidden like the sd2sp1 on later revisions that remove the sp1 port. If we do get Swiss support for booting to m.2 loader that is
This is great, but a problem of SD2SP2 is that prevents the use of the GBA Player. It would be great if a future revision of this mod gets an FPGA on board with a GBA MiSTer core installed and some sort of physical switch, so you could to boot in NGC mode or GBA mode!
How does it prevent the GBA Player? I had no issues using GBI or my disc with my SP2
@@michhubbard7097 I’m sorry, I had the impression it prevented somehow the use of GBA player. My mistake! (-:
It's the broadband adapter that it clashes with, as they both use Serial Port 1. The Game Boy Player uses the High Speed Port.
So weird I searched this mod up last night trying to find info about if it was releasing soon and you post this today 😂
Very glad that the Gamecube gets all the love it deserved. (Already modded mine, thank you very much for your Picoboot guide!)
If there was a version that accepted NVMe drives, I'd be fully sold.
Edit: I wonder if there‘s also the possibility to customize the M.2 loader so that it could recognize and use a M.2 network or LAN card?
NVMe in a GameCube would just be incredibly silly, you wouldn't get full speed out of it
Using an M.2 SATA interface in a GameCube is already in "delivering newspapers in a big rig" waters. An NVMe interface is reaching "Winnebago caravan for Grubhub" territory.
@@freshstat1csnow i think it might just be because NVMe is easier to find these days
Really cool adapter! I have the SD2SP2 adapter and so far I’ve been happy with it. But yes, I could hear the difference with the Audio! Insane!
This is really cool, but I think I'll wait and see if the device itself can boot into Swiss one day. I already have a GCLoader installed on one of my systems, and I thought this could be a good way to boot into Swiss with disc games without modding my other console.
I never get tired of the intro
Would be interested to know the price. If they're able to ship it as a kit where the purchaser sources, flashes, and solders the pico themselves I could see it being sold fairly cheap and well worth a ~$30 price.
Truly incredible. Definitely grabbing this when it's done.
Any real update on this project? can't find any info on it...
I had to do some digging since I juat got a gc, I was able to find the discord he has info on it in there. Sadly has not been released due to faulty m.2 chips he had gotten from manufacturers.
@@JoEl-fv1xx I started following him on his Discord channel and he said he is not going to make them any more. So sad....
That 3D tumble at 0:30 ... impressive video work!!
Hello Tito, I just tried to run intro in the Mario Party 5 via SD2SP2 and I cannot agree with the statement about some audio or video distortion, everything is playing correctly. Honestly, I've never experienced with this problem before. Maybe because I'm from Europe, Gamecube is PAL and also the game is in PAL format.
Haven't tested mario party 5 but I was under the impression that these kind of issues were eliminated with swiss updates,I've not experienced any choppy video or audio on the latest swiss but I have on an older version.
I also noticed buzzing in his playback.
I have a Spice Orange Japanese GameCube that is modified to play both NTSC U/C and NTSC J discs with no visible modifications to the unit and was considering a second GC because I did not want to lose my optical drive but I did like the idea of using GC Loader. This seems like a perfect solution for an all-in-one GameCube.
All of these new mods make the GCLoader with it's cost, removal of disc drive and unavailability essentially obsolete. Love mods that don't remove a huge function of a console like playing discs.
there are many broken gamecubes out there though waiting to feel complete again. I definitely did not mod mine that way haha, bc I feel ya and tend to agree for the most part, but I've set up a few systems for sale and it's always good to make a piece of trash into something meaningful again.
I was excited to see this but then I thought maybe I was 6 days late to an April Fools joke but NOPE! Posted yesterday. :D
7:33 that is not flawless you can hear it pop and crackle
What I would love is a cheap broadband adapter to play 8-player Mario Kart Double Dash lol
Great video, Curious now tho.. which titles is the GC Loader not compatible with? Also, hoping that there will be a version of the M2 adapter that supports the GC networking.
i used to do this stuff for a living, this is wild this is coming to market
while not keyed exactly the same, the m.2 form factor is often used for Wi-Fi cards. I genuinely think future revisions could enable some kind of Wi-Fi to Broadband emulator, as well as M.2 storage. The future for our favorite little lunchbox looks great.
At that point make it out of a RaspberryPi Zero
@@milescarter7803 that might be an impossibly tight fit for the SP1 port
Edit - Sorry I was thinking of a Pi 4
So exciting to see these projects. And it's a drop in solution. Amazing
A few years ago i would have been very interessted in such a device. But honestly, since Dolphin is working so fantastic with all its benefits like 4k upscaling or savestates and the use of texturepacks ect, i dont use any of my real gamecubes anymore..Same with Ps2 or Dreamcast or PS1..
A fantastic addition to that board would be a USB controller and type-C port to allow us to directly connect the modchip to our computers in order to upload new data, even while installed in the Gamecube.
Any news on this. ?
The dev abandoned the project in favor of a gc LAN adapter replacement
The big difference in transfer speeds PC-side is mostly because most SD card readers use "High Speed" mode at it's slowest rate, instead of SDR50 mode or faster, so instead of 90mb/s+, you get 30mb/s.
You're going to want to listen to that audio again. It's not flawless. Its got some rice krispies
Wow, now this is what we needed. I’m all for moar GameCube mods!
"The playback is definitely flawless on the m.2 loader..." Um, no. It's not. A huge improvement, for sure! But even a deaf person could pick up that audio stuttering man, come on.
Yes wtf, such bullshit. But I guess he got sponsored so money talks.
First the larger drive mod for ps2, now this. What a time to be alive. 😁
Can't play PSO online with it taking up that slot. Hard pass.
Same guy makes a broadband adapter (for the fraction of the price) for the sd2sp2 slot. So I imagine with the right set-up you could still play.
Imagine if Nintendo actually took this much care to make sure they’re fan base is happy but the community is truly amazing.
Seems like this is a dead project.
Maybe got spooked over all the big N lawyers skulking around? This was a project I was genuinely hyped over.
False
@@Wren6858 the store is literally not active.
@@ohn9431They moved their store off of tindie. Not sure how actively developed this project is anymore, but they ran into some serious problems with the first batch of boards and have been working on what might have caused it between other projects, like the fairly new Ethernet broadband adapter via Swiss.
LolI gotta Give it to them though They Completely Got their way with the GameCube, lol,
Can't wait for them to Completely get their Way with the Nintendo Switch, That'll be Something
This is really neat! I wish there was a version that supported NVMe drives though, as they're much more common & a bit cheaper than M.2 SATA drives these days.
Many nvme drives support SATA
@@MrPunker0007 they do not, it’s one or the other. NVME is a protocol, M.2 is a formfactor.
@@KoenKooi Damn, your right. some SATA fit mechanicly in NVME slots. but not electricaly
my bad
I can't wait to put one of those in my beloved Gamecube, it's so much fun.
The thing I don't like about all these things that take up the bottom ports is that you undo your ability to have things like the gameboy player or the ethernet adapter plugged in. If you don't care about those things then it is cool to have the massive storage available. I'd prefer to find a way to mount this internally or have a custom mini gamecube case that removes the disc drive that can fit the m.2.
alright youre gonna have to tell me what magic you use to do the black brackground flip-around product shots
Anytime dude! Be more than happy to share!
Dawg that intro music gets me so hype everytime lol