Qoob 1.3c

[FOAD]

Bon bah tout est dit dans le titre nouveau bios 1.3c il n'y aura pas de 1.4 de suite.

- qoob BIOS v1.3c -

31th of july, 2005, 11:59PM

This is the v1.3c final.

FEATURES:

- Direct boot of all media (including DVD+R),

without swapping!

- Cheats (AR required, look below)

- Fastboot of both original and backups

- Disc swap support! (one game on multiple discs)

- Multigame support! (one disc with multiple games)

- Less DREs than older BIOS!

- Disc browser for ISO9660-DVDs, supporting

Joliet for running homebrew .ELF/.DOL files

- Disc check feature

- All the usual stuff

- Network support, look below!

- Panasonic Q support

- Customization feature

- In Game Reset by pad (L+R+Start)

- Force Videomode for games

Also included:

- The winner of the gamefreax.de qoob pro skin contest:

"qoob29", © by eselz

Congratulations!

(We recommend hiding the menu texts for this skin.)

--------------| media issues:

Some people are lucky, and have very good drives, thus

nearly having no media related problems (mostly new drives).

However, the poor people with older drives have more problems,

and this release tries to improve the readability in these

cases.

Still, we can't do magic, though we're trying our best.

If you have problems (DREs while games and/or games hang),

TRY ADJUSTING YOUR POT.

We added two modes in which the drive tries to read the

disc:

You can select between two different modes: Type 'A' and

type 'B'.

Type 'B' was used before 1.3b, and is a bit faster.

Type 'A' is more like the default one, and should work

a bit more reliable, but in case that somebody prefers

the old behaviour, this was left.

We strongly recommend type 'A', though.

--------------| Videomode force:

You can force the video mode for games. This should work for

almost all games, but it won't work for homebrew.

It should be compatible to almost all games, but you might

mess up timing if games are not supposed to run in a certain

mode.

You can force progressive output. Yes, this even works for

(most) PAL games.

You can set the videomode of the qoob bios itself. In case

you have a VGA adapter, we're sure that you appreciate this.

Still, forcing the video mode involves modifiying the game's

intended behaviour. Use this option only when required. It's

always better to let the game configure the video mode (PAL60,

Progressive - hold B button while starting the game!)

We implemented this option only as a last resort, for example

for progressive on PAL games. (Yes, PAL gamecubes support

progressive. You need the component-cable, of course.)

--------------| In Game Reset:

You can InGameReset with Start+L+R. It might not work on all

games. It does not work on homebrew.

--------------| Cheats: (PRO only!)

This release supports cheats. The only real sources for

Gamecube cheats is the Action-Replay-Database,

available for free on the codejunkies.co.uk website.

We know that developing cheats, especially the advanced cheats

by Datel, require a lot of work. Therefore we decided to do our

best to not rip off Datel.

The qoob bios does not contain a special piece of software called

"cheat engine". The cheat engine is a small part of software,

which executes the entered cheats in the special "AR"-Format.

Instead, we require to use the cheat engine of a real AR. The

Bios can rip the cheat engine from an AR-disc. It will then

be stored in flash, so you don't need to swap the disc each

time. Cheats are also stored in memory.

We provide a tool to generate the qoob cheat compilations

from .cod (basically decrypted AR codes). We will lateron

publish a tool which can manage these data better, but right

now it should be enough.

We think that requiring an action replay disc once is the best

compromise between being user-friendly, not breaking any

copyrights (more an ethical problem than a technical) and

usefullness.

We included a compiled version of mario's big collection

of .cod. Thank you for your work! We hope it's ok to include

your collection here.

Cheats don't include useful information which game they

are belonging to. Thus you have to select. We know that

this is a PITA because you can store all codes in flash

and it's going to be a big list. We implemented some

fuzzy logic to determine the most "fitting" cheat,

but you can have a sorted list with the L/R-buttons, too.

--------------| Customization: (PRO only!)

It's possible to replace the standard qoob background picture.

It must be encoded as an MPEG1 I-Frame. We've choosen this

format because it's way easier to decode that JPEG while having

at least similiar performance.

You can generate these logos for example with TMPEGEnc. Be sure

to encode in MPEG1 only (MPEG2 doesn't give a real advantage

on single frame sequences while complicating the stuff a lot).

Resolution must be 640x480.

You can disable the status information in the configuration

menu.

As always, we will continue to improve this, which more

configurable colors, positions etc.

The MPEG decoder is based (but HEAVILY simplified) on a

public domain mpeg decoder software.

--------------| Panasonic Q:

There's no way to connect the lidswitch for the Q now. Just

leave it unconnected. It will increase the boottime by

some seconds, so it's not recommended for normal cubes, but

it works.

--------------| div stuff

We tried a small DRE work around, but this of course doesn't

fix your media. If you have DRE problems, please try checking

the disc with the integrated disc check. If you

get errors here, you *have* a media problem. We try working

around this, but this won't fix the root of the problem.

The new windows software has support for directly flashing ELF

and DOL files. When selecting the file, be sure to select the

right filetype, otherwise it won't work.

The next paragraph shouldn't be required anymore, but for the

people interested:

--------------| Some small technical information:

All flashed "blocks" have a 0x100 bytes header which looks like:

00....03 ID (either "© " for a .GCB file or "ELF\0"

and ELF, more (like DOL and BIN) to come soon)

04....f7 description, will be shown in boot menu

f8....fb reserved

fc....ff size (in bytes), must be multiple of 64k

If you have flashed an elf file, it should appear in the boot menu,

so you can run it. All blocks must start at 64k boundaries.

--------------| About the network support:

IP address defaults to 192.168.1.32. This should fit

most people. (Hint: Even Windows supports more than one IP address

per network adapter. No need to break your network.)

PRO only:

If you want to change this, you must prepare for some hex-editing

(sorry). Store the configuration, read the configuration block

with the flash tool, and load it into an hex editor. at offset

108, 10c, 110 you have to insert the IP, Netmask, Gateway.

You *must* specify a non-null IP for each of the three.

(You either know what this means or you have to wait for the

next version!)

Example:

00108: 0A 00 00 10 FF FF FF 00 0A 00 00 01

would be IP 10.0.0.16, netmask 255.255.255.0, gateway 10.0.0.1.

Network support comes from tmbinc's fine IPL replacement (thanks,

man!). We removed GPL'd parts before (especially the gc-linux based

network driver) and replaced them with own. LWIP's license is

BSD-styled and tmbinc's stuff is public domain, as he stated. We

hope it's ok, but we would had done it in a very similiar way, so

we better used the time to improve it than to reinvent the wheel.

Oh, the /DVD-rip support has been recoded, but it was only like 5

lines of code thanks to the nice httpd design.

This only applies to the network stuff. Every other GC code was

completely recoded by our team.

Supported stuff is:

- DOLUP (upload dol/elf on port 4000 - no bin yet)

- HTTP ("/DVD" for ripping discs)

--------------| About the game disc swap support:

This support won't be 100%, but it should work for most of the

unplayable games.

The lid switch will be autodetected - if you leave the lid open

while booting, it's ok - you won't be able to swap discs then.

If you have the lid closed, you can open it while playing and swap

the disc.

--------------| About the audio fix

this bios has - since ever - an integrated audio fix. Some people

have messed up their backups with "fixing" the data so it works

with older bios which don't fix the audio streaming. We feel a bit

sorry for these people, so in this release you can press 'START'

while booting to disable the builtin audiofix.

Some people think that some problems are related to this audio

fix, just because some audio-streaming enabled games have general

problems. This is not the cause - the audio fix itself is harmless.

Try disabling it - it doesn't change anything.

By the way, most problems are related to media which seems to

work on the first place, but doesn't work reliable.

Please, people, don't mess with your GCMs! Most things will only

make things worse, not better.

--------------| network / dvd upgrade

This release includes a network / dvd updater. Just run the

qoob_13c_upgrade.elf somehow (either by burning as iso9660 to a dvd

or by uploading per network).

If you burn it to a cd, make sure to fill up the dvd to at least

1.2GB of data else the gc drive can't read it.

--------------| NOTE for SX users:

YOU CAN *NOT* BREAK YOUR SX BY FLASHING WRONG FIRMWARE

INTO IT.

The SX has an integrated "backup" bios. You can go

into it by holding the D-Pad to the left (D-pad is

the small digital pad at the lower left of the controller).

Do not boot the disc, you also have to press 'B'.

You *need* to start the upgrader from this bios. This

is done due to protect you from evil applications which

could otherwise erase your bios. Still, the backup

bios is read only and can't be erased.

So there's absolutely no way to kill your SX. If you flash

something else to it, all it would do is to stop

booting until you boot into the recovery bios.

To summarize it:

- Don't panic. You can't break your SX by flashing.

- You can't flash .GCB files, you need the .ELF updaters.

- To flash via DVD, you need to hold "D-Pad-Left" while

booting. Be sure to pad your disc to at least ~1GB of

data!

- To flash via Network, you need to hold "D-Pad-Left"+"B"

while booting. IP address will be 192.168.1.32. There's

no way to change that.

--------------| WHY NO 1.4?

We have a lot of stuff which just isn't ready yet, but

we're (of course!) still working on that. We just thought

that naming this release 1.4 wouldn't be fair, as there

are no big new feature which deserve this jump.

But we're sure the next features deserve the new version

tag more than anything else!

Changelog:

1.3c:

- background pictures can have non-black background

- selection of background picture

- some experiments in order to improve media stability

1.3a:

- fixed annoying bug.

1.3:

- Cheats (ActionReplay required once)

- Cheats: Current Game fuzzy autodetection

- Configuration can be done in Menu

- Settings can be stored in flash

- DRE fix / swap support can be disabled

- Time fixed

- Background can be changed, texts can be disabled

- In Game Reset (IGR)

- Video mode force (for games)

- Video mode configurable (for menu)

- Progressive support (even for PAL)

- Flash tool doesn't store full path anymore

1.2:

- Panasonic Q support

- Multigame suport

- minor bugfixes (workaround to some homebrew lib, iso9660 fix,

some old games didn't work due an apploader bug)

1.1:

- disc swap feature for games

- network support

- audio fix can be disabled

1.0:

- initial release

Modifié le 3 août 2005 par FOAD

[Invité jayd]

merci pour l'info, ca tombe bien je viens juste de recevoir ma Qoob

[BombeXIII]

Merci pour l'info!!!

J'ai une petite question: comment on fait les disc multi-jeux pour qoob?

j'en ai fait un avecles outils viper, mais ca a rien donné!

quelqu'un peut-il m'expliquer!

Merci

[lolbox]

Merci pour l'info!!!

J'ai une petite question: comment on fait les disc multi-jeux pour qoob?

j'en ai fait un avecles outils viper, mais ca a rien donné!

quelqu'un peut-il m'expliquer!

Merci

Salut,

Je suis dans le meme cas que toi, qoob sx et impossible de faire compil.

Visiblement c'est faisable uniquement avec la viper.

Je crois qu'il manque le soft dedie a la qoob pour réaliser les compils.

Si quelqu'un a plus d'info ?

[jeromeiuliano]

Ou peut on trouver ce bios?

[jeromeiuliano]

Autant pour moi, j avais pas vu la news avec le lien dans le site dedie a la gamecube

Par contre pour votre question, eh bien mio aussi je ne sais pa comment faire de multi iso avec la cube

[BombeXIII]

Je tiens quand même a preciser que le bouton recherhce est mon ami, mais il ne n'a point pu me venir en aide cette fois!

Le tutos est pour viper et j'ai même fait un tour fur le forum maxconsole!

Alors si qqn peut m'aider.....

[OuahOuah]

normalement le soft viper multi boot iso creator est aussi valable pour la qoob car au final on a une image iso et la qoob détecte les multi boot (multigame support)

[jeromeiuliano]

C est vrai ca j y avais pas du tout pense!!

[lolbox]

Bonsoir;

si quelqu'un a essayé une compil avec qoob par le soft viper multi boot iso creator qu'il fasse part du résultat.

merci

[BombeXIII]

Moi j'avais essayé et ca avait foiré, je vais retenter, au cas ou!