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³ ÛÛ Û Û ÛÛß ÛÛ Û ÛÛ ²ÛßÛ ÛÛ ÛÛ Ü ÛÛ Û ÛÛ Û ÛÛß ³
³ ° ± ² Û ²Û ² Û ßÛ²Û ÛÛ ² ßÛ²± ßÛÛ² ßÛÜ ßÛ²Û ßÛ²Û ÛÛ²ß ßÛ²Û Û ² ± ° ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ ³
³ ³
³ - COBRA FOR VIPER GC V0.4 - ³
³ ³
³ 19th of january, 2005 ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ We promised you we would fix the latest drive issue within a week, so ³
³ here is the version 0.4 of your favorite Viper GC BIOS! If you had ³
³ tons of disc errors, you'll enjoy this new Cobra. Look at trouble- ³
³ shooting section for more info. Apart from that nothing was changed, ³
³ but there will be much more in the next release! Oh yeah... you can ³
³ flash this release from DVD if you already have Cobra 0.3 installed! ³
³ ³
³ What's the Cobra BIOS ? A special BIOS specially tailored for your ³
³ Viper GC that allows yo to run your backups (and now homebrew code!) ³
³ from the GC drive using DVD(-/+)R or Mini-DVD(+/-)R! You can also ³
³ enjoy imports (originals or backups) without the need of a boot disc. ³
³ ³
³ So what do you need exactly ? ³
³ - A Viper GC chip ³
³ - This very flash file ³
³ - Some Compatible Media and a DVD-burner ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ WHAT'S NEW ? ³
³ ³
³ - Fixed Disc Errors problem on drive 8 ³
³ - NTSC Regionfix issue on PAL systems is fixed! ³
³ - Wireless controller is now supported! ³
³ - Added a real GUI ³
³ - The following Cobra options can be changed (stored in Viper flash): ³
³ - Default boot action ³
³ - Boot action when the X-key is hold at boot time ³
³ - Video mode of the Cobra GUI (doesn't change Games' video mode) ³
³ - Behaviour of the lid sensor when booting Original BIOS ³
³ - You can get detailed GC Version Info ³
³ - You can explore the content of your GC discs (original and backups) ³
³ and even DVDs with ISO9660 filesystem! ³
³ - You can flash your Viper GC by burning the flash file on a DVD ³
³ (but don't throw away your programmer in case of a bad flash! :-) ³
³ - You can execute homebrew programs (.DOL) from DVD, and enjoy many ³
³ already-released homebrew productions! ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ USER MANUAL ³
³ ³
³ - Flash the Viper GC with this BIOS then remove the parallel port ³
³ connector from the programmer. If you prefear you can flash this ³
³ BIOS from DVD if you have Cobra 0.3+ already running on your chip. ³
³ ³
³ - Turn on your GC with an ORIGINAL DISC in the drive. ³
³ If there's no Title Screen coming, but the original BIOS instead ³
³ it's probably that you messed up your viper install:-) ³
³ Check that it's clean (and no wires crossing each other etc...) ³
³ If you have a black screen coming, it's probably because you have ³
³ some wierd BIOS we don't support (and don't know about) yet. ³
³ ³
³ - While turning on your GC: ³
³ - Hold Y to go to Main Menu (if it's not your Default Boot mode) ³
³ - Hold X for the other boot mode (can be set in Config Menu) ³
³ - Don't hold anything for Default Boot Action ³
³ ³
³ - Select "Boot DVD" if you want to play a backup / homebrew program ³
³ from DVD. "Please wait..." should appear. then "SWAP DISC NOW" and ³
³ the GC disc is stopped (and laser off). As soon as you see the disc ³
³ is slowing down it's safe to remove the original disc and put your ³
³ DVD-R instead. After a few seconds the drive will start to spin ³
³ again and disc will boot (if you didn't have enough time to do the ³
³ swap trick, turn off the GC and try again) ³
³ ³
³ - Remove the top of your GC if you want to use full-size DVD-R ³
³ ³
³ - Select "Original BIOS (Region Free)" if you want to play an original ³
³ import Game. ³
³ ³
³ - Select "Original BIOS" if you want to play an original Game ³
³ compatible with your GC region, or if you want to go into the ³
³ Original BIOS menus. ³
³ ³
³ - Select "Configuration Menu" if you want to change your Cobra BIOS ³
³ configuration. The options are quite self-explanatory. ³
³ ³
³ - Select "Disc Explorer" to enter what we belive is the best new ³
³ feature in this BIOS! It allows you to browse the content or your ³
³ original GC discs or DVDs (a swap trick is needed for them) ! ³
³ Supported file systems are FST (GC File System) and ISO9660. ³
³ Joliet encoding is not supported in ISO mode. ³
³ ³
³ - Enter "Disc Explorer" and select a .VGC file if you want to reflash ³
³ your Viper GC without the need of the Parallel port programmer! ³
³ ³
³ - Enter "Disc Explorer" and select a .DOL file if you want to run ³
³ a homebrew program! (You can put up to 1.4 GB of homebrew things on ³
³ a disc. We hope this will give some inspiration to emu authors :-) ³
³ Our DOL loader is not perfect for now and works for around half of ³
³ the public homebrew programs. Here are some of the programs booting ³
³ successfully: Kinderkram demo by Hitmen (you gotta see this), ³
³ GC-Linux, Ascii Fighter, DVD Browser, CTR_GCS, CTR_SND, GBQ Gameboy ³
³ emulator, PSOLoader "It's working" demo, Maze, Nitrorally, Yeti 3D ³
³ 3D engine, Chip8 emulator, Snowlords game, Terranigma, XRick and ³
³ probably many we missed! ³
³ ³
³ - If you didn't install the "lid passthru" wires of the Viper GC, then ³
³ simply tape down the lid sensor so the GC thinks the drive is always ³
³ closed. ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ THE MEDIA ³
³ ³
³ The GC drive in its default state only eats high-quality DVD-R and ³
³ a few MINI-DVD-R. But a couple of weeks ago, speedi from the afterdawn ³
³ forums found a nice way to tweak the laser so it reads almost any burned³
³ media including some DVD+Rs. We recommend doing this laser tweak if you ³
³ have any problems reading your DVDs. We are no laser experts, in fact ³
³ we think it would be more appropriate to just lower the value of the ³
³ variable resistor instead of setting it to an absoulte given value, ³
³ but lots of people including us have been using this laser tweek for a ³
³ couple of weeks without any problem reported so far. ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ You don't need to encrypt the disc or use a special burner firmware ³
³ to write the disc. Just burn your ISO/GCM (rename it to .ISO) with ³
³ Nero (or any other tool). ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ TROOBLESHOOTING ³
³ ³
³ - Sometime the "SWAP DISC" message doesn't appear (or disc doesn't ³
³ slow down/laser is still on). If this happen to you just turn off ³
³ your GC and try again (ok, this is clearly our fault :-) ³
³ ³
³ - If sometimes after you swapped a disc there is a sync problem with ³
³ the DVD-R and origial BIOS is not loading, then try again. If this ³
³ happen very often, then you need a better media. ³
³ ³
³ - If the drive becomes idle for a couple of minutes, depending on the ³
³ media you're using it might loose sync, and hang ("Disc Error"). ³
³ This is a bug of ours we will track. For now, if this happens to ³
³ you, avoid going into "PAUSE MODE" in games. ³
³ It should almost never happen with Cobra 0.4, but it can sometimes. ³
³ Use good media and tweak your laser to avoid this. If you're using ³
³ full-size DVD, pad the image up to 2.5GB (yes, 2.5GB!), this ³
³ dirty temporary fix just worked for us (no more disc errors at all) ³
³ on one system that gave us some troubles. If you're using minis, ³
³ pad your image to the max (1.4GB). We now know exactly what the bug ³
³ is, and will fix it in a future release. ³
³ ³
³ - Audio Streaming: Some games use a special audio streaming mode ³
³ that can be compared to CDDA. For now, the ISO of the file needs to ³
³ be patched with 0rbital's great ViperTemporaryAudioFix 1.1+. If the ³
³ ISO is not patched you'll have noise instead of music. We will try to ³
³ fix this issue so no patching is required. But in case we do, YOUR ³
³ PATCHED ISOS WILL BE FULLY COMPATIBLE and still work with music! ³
³ (so forget what is written in the fixer nfo file). Don't run the fix ³
³ on ISOs that don't need fixing as it will only destroy them :-) ³
³ ³
³ - Most multi-discs games are working, just play with Disc 1 until ³
³ you're asked to change disc and make a save here. Then boot with ³
³ Disc 2 instead. We started working on code to allow disc-change, ³
³ and we'll integrate it in a new release. ³
³ ³
³ All those problems could be fixed in a next update. ³
³ ³
³ To know what's your GC Version code (2 digit number) go into Config ³
³ Menu, then Version Info, 2nd page. First digit corresponds to GC ³
³ mobo version, 2nd digit corresponds to drive version. ³
³ ³
³ IF YOU MAKE BACKUPS, DON'T USE ANY "WIPE" TOOLS TO SAVE SPACE. Unless ³
³ you know it's REALLY working. Most of thoses tools only work because ³
³ the current pso loaders patch libraries routines to emulate DVD. But ³
³ on REAL HARDWARE, each file/fst has to be aligned on a 4-byte boundary! ³
³ Else nothing will work. Audio Files (for audio streaming) even need ³
³ to be aligned on a 32kb-boundary ! So forget current "WIPE" tools until ³
³ they are fixed. But note that Garbage is NOT NEEDED by the GC. The ³
³ files must be correctly aligned that's it. So if your "WIPE" tool is ³
³ not changing the image size (meaning there's no relocation) then it's ³
³ probably fine. It is also possible to write a tool that re-aligns the ³
³ files of a badly-wiped image. ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ THE RUMORS ³
³ ³
³ We won't comment on the tons of rumors we read daily about the Cobra, ³
³ we can just say that what you don't read here is not official. But we ³
³ feel honored so many people decided to look at our code, too bad we ³
³ didn't expect your visit or we'd have added some funny hidden messages! ³
³ Depends on what your goal was, we made it even easier for you this ³
³ time. Just hold Z at boot time :-) ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ THE FUTURE ³
³ ³
³ Now that we have fixed the big issue with the 48 units, we will fix ³
³ our BIOS so the few people that still get a few Disc Errors sometimes ³
³ (with any drive) won't have any at ALL. (Same symptoms but the issue ³
³ is totally different). We'll also fix minor 0.3 bugs that people ³
³ reported. We have written a complete Cheat System compatible with ³
³ (decrypted) AR codes. The GUI for it has been partially written now. ³
³ (Maybe we can even support crypted codes if Parasyte allows us to ³
³ integrate his great GCNcrypt tool into the Cobra? :-) ³
³ We have lots of ideas to expand the Disc Explorer possibilities as ³
³ well! ³
³ ³
³ ³
³ CLOSING WORDS ³
³ ³
³ Special thanks to E*Flash for his help, RoM for the early units, ³
³ Melan for the /48 GC and to everybody that tried Cobra V0.3 and posted ³
³ constructive feedback. ³
³ ³
³ You are free to redistribute this package as long as it's not changed, ³
³ patched, ported, or whatever. ³
³ ³
³ Our code is free of any copyrighted code from third party. ³
³ It is also free of any GPL licensed code, we have strong respect for ³
³ other people's hard work. We only ask you to show similar respect ³
³ toward our work. To put it in other words, if you are in the "right" ³
³ side, draw the line between learning and stealing. Thank you. ³
³ ³
³ That's it for this NFO, hope we didn't miss some important point. ³
³ ³
³ Have a nice day :-) ³
³ ³
³ ° ° ° ³
ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ±² ÄÄÄÄÄÄ ±² ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ±² ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´
³ °ÛßÜÜ °Ûßß ÜÛßß ²Ûß ßßÜ ²Û °ÜßÛ °Ü Û ²ÛßÛ °Ûßß ³
³ ÛÛ Û Û ÛÛß ÛÛ Û ÛÛ ²ÛßÛ ÛÛ ÛÛ Ü ÛÛ Û ÛÛ Û ÛÛß ³
³X ° ± ² Û ²Û ² Û ßÛ²Û ÛÛ ² ßÛ²± ßÛÛ² ßÛÜ ßÛ²Û ßÛ²Û ÛÛ²ß ßÛ²Û Û ² ± ° X³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙRecordad por favor no facilitar la BIOS ni enlaces a ella en los foros, ni tampoco preguntar por ellos. Puede encontrarse en los sitios habituales (redes P2P, IRC, etc.).
