Modded Stuff, Got Any? Other Pirate Business

[MottZilla]

Curious, who here has any modded consoles or any cool pirate type (or development type) devices for their systems? Anyone have any fun stories like ruining a console by trying to install a modchip yourself?

I remember paying a friend I think 5 dollars or maybe it was 10 dollars for my first two burned PS1 games ages ago. Then I did the PS1 Swap Trick while using a Toothpick or something to keep the lid sensor pressed down. That was fun learning to do that. I think you had to swap discs like 3 times to play your "backup" game. Anyone else have any fun doing swap tricks?

I remember at some point after that getting a cheat cartridge that plugged into the back of the Playstation that stopped the motor of the PS1 for you so you could swap discs more safely, which was very nice but there were still some drawbacks. Then came the fun part some point after that where I decided to get a modchip. Ofcourse the install went great back then and the PS1 was not working right or playing backup games. I ended up buying one of the then new PSOne systems and having it professionally modded and I still have it today. Very nice system.

So how bout the rest of you? I imagine the most popular response will be having some kind of Nintendo DS pirate cartridge.

[CaRmAgE]

Don't have any myself, but my friend hacked his Xbox and installed Windows XP on it.

[The_Amaster]

Yeah, pretty much an M3 for my DS, with some sweet games and software, and the Homebrew channel on my Wii, with whatever random cool crap I feel like. I don't like messing with stuff that requires physical interaction with the insides of my systems though.

[CaRmAgE]

Yeah, pretty much an M3 for my DS, with some sweet games and software, and the Homebrew channel on my Wii, with whatever random cool crap I feel like. I don't like messing with stuff that requires physical interaction with the insides of my systems though.

Now that you mention it, my brother also has the Homebrew channel. I don't like messing with hardware either, but I found an article where someone transformed the Wii into a laptop-shape (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/19/the-wii-laptop/). I think it looks pretty sweet.

[The_Amaster]

Actually, now that I think aobut it, my brother and I did do one minor thing. He had a white DS Lite, and I had a black, so we opened them up and took off all the shells, then rearranged them so one has white exterior, black interior, and white buttons, the other visa versa. Its pretty sweet looking.

[ShadowTiger]

... Madness, Amaster. Madness.

R4 Revolution owner here. It's okay. It's great for piling that sense of "satisfaction of instant gratification" onto you, followed by a semi-permanent feeling of numbness of the gaming pleasure center. *sigh*

[Aegix Drakan]

R4 Revolution owner here. It's okay. It's great for piling that sense of "satisfaction of instant gratification" onto you, followed by a semi-permanent feeling of numbness of the gaming pleasure center. *sigh*

Same her, although I have a friend looking into a CycloDS for me, so that I can give my mom my R4, so she can play other stuff than just brain age.

Honestly, I'm happy to have my R4, because I have a curse. Out of all the DS games I bought, only 2 were really worth the money (custom robo arena [I SANK SO MUCH TIME INTO IT], and pheonix wright 2). everyhting else...ehh...

children of mana: Fun for a while...until you realize how repetitive it is.

Magical starsign: started off AWESOME, but then fell flat on it's face when it actually became serious in the second half. I was looking forward to a light hearted epic, not a light-hearted game tha tsuddenly decides that it needed to make up for all the people it didn't kill in the first half.

Crystal chroinicles: ...okok, it's pretty fun. But the single player just became MEH around the last dungeon, and I hardly was able to do any multiplayer because everyone who also played it got bored of it. Adn multiplayer is where this game SHINES.

Metroid prime hunters: UGH...It's a PASSABLE FPS, and a PASSABLE metroid game...but it's dull and there's no replay value. Oh, and it killed my R button.

and lastly, Sonic chronicles: ...It's....just barely decent. There was so much potential here, but due to an incredible lack of polish and a plot that felt only half explored, It's just MEH.


...on the other hand, With my R4, I was able to enjoy a ton of great games I wold never have even THOUGHT of buying. And it saved me a ton of money on games I really would not have liked.

[MottZilla]

I can remember in the early days of the DS, where you needed a PassMe and a GBA Flash Cart to play NDS roms. Pretty tricky stuff. For the DS (and GBA) these days I have and prefer a M3 Adapter which goes into the GBA slot. I have seen now they have a M3 DS card that can play GBA games if you insert a GBA RAM pack. Pretty neat.

I agree with you Aegix, the vast majority of GBA and DS games are crap. There are some real gems though. Like Metroid Zero Mission and Fusion. The Mega Man Zero games. The Castlevania games are good. It's just that because it's so popular you get alot of crapware.

[ShadowTiger]

Hell yes. If I could put Metroid Zero Mission and Fusion and all three GBA Castlevanias onto my R4 Revolution, I'd be pretty much set. I have the three DS Castlevanias on it, but removed Metroid Hunters pretty readily without getting very far in it at all. (I loathed how there weren't any real save points. At least none that I could find. I play it on the bus, with only 45 minutes possible intervals.)

What's so good about the CycloDS anyway? I mean, having never had one, and being satisfied with the R4, ... yeah ...

[ctrl-alt-delete]

I soft modded my Wii with the Gamma launcher.

Already burned 6 illegal games, and am loving every minute of it.

[The_Amaster]

Yeah, thanks to the M3, I've played through a few hours of and discarded crap games that I might have bought; like Sonic Chronicles or World Ends With You.

On the other hand I've poured dozens of hours into both Disgaea and Etrain Odyssey II

[MottZilla]

ShadowTiger, buy the M3 Adapter and the GBA RAM expansion pack thing. Then you could do DS and GBA. It's pretty nice.

Anyway, another one for me, I have a modded original Xbox, with the X-Chip. It's pretty awesome, and definitely the best console to mod for homebrew as it has tons of ports of PC emulators and great media center capabilities. I haven't used my Xbox in awhile but it's nice to have around, especially for playing things like MKV movie files or those OGM or whatever weird container format it is. Not many consoles can cover as many bases as a modded Xbox.

[Matteo]

I'd love to have my DS be able to play older console games, music etc... please point me in the right direction!

(Meaning should I get a M3 or a R4, how much should I pay, and whats the best route to take)

Thanks for any info!

[Icey]

I soft modded my Wii with the Gamma launcher.

Already burned 6 illegal games, and am loving every minute of it.


There are 6 games worth playing on the Wii? Seriously? Mine has been sitting collecting dust after playing 3...

[MottZilla]

Sorry matt but the DS doesn't have many emulators. You could do NES and Gameboy/Gameboy Color fairly well but SNES is pretty iffy and there isn't really anything else. The PSP is the system for emulators if you have a portable.

These places sell the M3 Adapter: http://www.m3adapter.com/global_sell_net.htm#America

[Vagla]

I bought a Doctor V64 several years ago with the RAM expansion. It's really a great device. I'm interested in getting a Z64 at some point because it's easier to deal with saved data with a Z64, but it uses ZIP disks, which is a bit of a turn-off.

[MottZilla]

Sweet Valga. I really wanted a N64 copier back when the N64 was current. I saw the Z64 and drooled at the thought of having one. I would have hit the Blockbuster video store and copied their whole library to zip disks (we had a zip drive on our pc). However these days I'm less interested since the N64 analog sticks wear out so fast.

But I'd still like one if it was a good price. I guess the V64 has the advantage of loading off CD-R, but the issue with game saving on real cartridges or something. But I suppose the Z64 has built in memory for saving that is then saved to the zip disk?

[Nicholas Steel]

On the other hand I've poured dozens of hours into both Disgaea
Try Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm, another good game from the same company (Nipon Ichi). Disgaea 2 is boring and crap :/

[Shazza Dani]

However these days I'm less interested since the N64 analog sticks wear out so fast.

I remember wanting to buy a 3rd party controller that had a metal analogue stick, but N64 3rd party controllers were always shitty shapes that gave major hand cramps.

Somewhat related to this topic, I've always wanted a Panasonic Q. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panasonic_Q But the damn thing is so expensive (and it doesn't support the Gameboy Player!)

[Modus Ponens]

I have for my PS2 a memory card, furnished by our own MottZilla (thanks again, Mott), that through its magical contents allows me to play burned copies of PS2 games, as well as a few extra bells and whistles. I also have the ten burned copies he sent me of games he owns.

So... I guess I'm answering Mott's question, but he's probably not asking me anyway. =)

[ctrl-alt-delete]

There are 6 games worth playing on the Wii? Seriously? Mine has been sitting collecting dust after playing 3...

There are a bunch of games worth playing.

Not a lot worth buying though.

Hence the piracy.

(Boom Blox and De Blob are a couple quick examples.)

In fact, those may even be worth buying, but I don't give a fuck.

[MottZilla]

The Panasonic Q is a neat contraption but way too pricey. About the N64 sticks, I do remember a 3rd party controller, I think by Hori, that actually looked good. The reason it looked good was because it had a GameCube analog stick. Much nicer and more likely to last awhile. Never did get around to buying one.

Modus, you're welcome. :p But I think you meant I helped you *cough* backup *cough* games you owned. Yup that's it.

So here's another one, is anyone here a proud owner of the Nintendo PowerPAK cartridge? It's expensive but this one NES cartridge has a Compact Flash memory card slot for storing NES roms on and can emulate most cartridge mappers allowing you to play nearly any NES game on your NES.

Check it out here: http://www.retrousb.com/index.php?productID=133

It's one of my favorites. Not much can compete with a self contained in one cartridge, library of nearly any NES game you could want to play. It even does Famicom Disk System games. =) Honestly it's a much more fun cartridge than any Nintendo DS flash cartridge.

[Aegix Drakan]

ShadowTiger, buy the M3 Adapter and the GBA RAM expansion pack thing. Then you could do DS and GBA. It's pretty nice.


So you can play GBA games off a DS?

That would be awesome to do. I'd LOVE to play mother 3 on a handheld, like it was meant to be played. A keyboard just isnt' doing it for me.

[MottZilla]

You sure can. Just be sure what you buy supports the GBA too. The M3 Adapter's latest thing is a DS card that has a slot in it for a MicroSD card. And then you get a GBA cartridge that is a "expansion pak" or "ram pack" that contains 32MB of RAM, which is the largest size of GBA rom. Then the M3 will load GBA roms. Just look at the m3adapter.com website.

[Masamune]

Mother 3 also plays beautifully on PSP let's not forget. ;o

[Russ]

I have an M3 which I have loaded with old games that I can't find anymore. That's about it.

[Matteo]

Thanks Mott, yeah I don't have a PSP, nor plan on getting one, it sucks that the DS doesn't have SNES emulators! (the best system imho)

I bought a z64 in college with a couple of buddies of mine. We had every game made for the system at the time (this was in fall of 99) and it worked like a charm, just have to have a zip drive though to work the thing ;) I sold my share back later the next year, sad I don't still have that thing...

Makes me remember how great the n64 was as a system. Such great gems like New Tetris, Paperboy 64, Micro Machines 64(8 player simultaneous on 4 controllers = best college party game ever), Blast Corps, etc... Many of the games have aged really well.

EDIT: Sorry Mott, forgot to answer your question about the saving: yeah you could save on the zip disks, (and put saved game states onto the zip disks and use) Man that was such a great device...

[Vagla]

CDs is definitely a nice feature, but yeah, saving can be a total pain on the V64. 4kbit EEPROM saving is made very easy with a pass-through cart that has 256 save slots on it, although I've accidentally wiped saved games by forgetting to turn the dials to a new save slot. SRAM saving is much more of a pain, since you have to use a DS1 cart (I think that's the name) to save, which only has something like 5 or 6 slots. Loading SRAM requires running special DS1 software first to select the save slot, and saving is a bigger pain where you actually have to halt execution of the game and load the DS1 software from disk to save to a slot. I've come to really appreciate N64 games that used 4kbit EEPROM and controller paks. :D

For other types of saving, you need to use a donor cart, which (IIRC) involves a little bit of hardware modification of an existing game (cutting a couple traces). There aren't many games that use flash ROM (Command & Conquer is the only one that comes to mind), but there are way more that use 16kbit EEPROM. I never did get around to making save carts for those, but was planning on picking up a C&C cart at one point for flash ROM.

Regarding good N64 games, there are a ton. It's definitely an underrated system. Gems that come to mind off the top of my head are Body Harvest, Blast Corps, Bomberman 64, Wetrix, Tetrisphere, Mario Party 1, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Space Station: Silicon Valley. I really should drag out my N64 again and play these games. :)

[Darth Marsden]

I've got a bunch. A GBA flash cart which I don't use anymore, a modded PS2Slim and a modded Wii. Never had any problems with any of them, but then I did buy the consoles new from the mod-chippers, so that's probably why.

When I got my Wii, there was a thin cable sticking out of the front. No idea what it was (it later turned out to be connected to the mod chip), so I sent an email to the company who did the modding, just to find out what it was. To this day I have yet to receive a reply. Didn't matter, I got a custom case (black, natch) and folded the cable up neatly inside the case. Works like a dream - not that I use it much.

Also on the Wii, I did use the Twilight Hack to install a couple of Virtual Console games - the 3 Sonic games on the Genesis. I already own the originals and the Mega Collection on the NGC, I figured it wouldn't be too bad to avoid paying for them a third time. I also had a couple of Rom Injected games like Super Metroid Redesigned and Zombies Ate My Neighbours, but I nuked them to make room for Strong Bad. Damn games are massive!

[ctrl-alt-delete]

Also on the Wii, I did use the Twilight Hack to install a couple of Virtual Console games - the 3 Sonic games on the Genesis. I already own the originals and the Mega Collection on the NGC, I figured it wouldn't be too bad to avoid paying for them a third time. I also had a couple of Rom Injected games like Super Metroid Redesigned and Zombies Ate My Neighbours, but I nuked them to make room for Strong Bad. Damn games are massive!

Games are small. Storage just sucks, even with SD.

[Darth Marsden]

Games are small. Storage just sucks, even with SD.I know! I wish Nintendo would just admit defeat and come up with an external hard drive.

[MottZilla]

Also the ROM for VC aren't ROMs, they have the emulator software included on there, and who knows if they are even compressing the roms with anything. Nintendo said they would do something about the space problem and there are only two options. Direct SD access or a USB memory storage like a HDD.

Later on here I'll take a good picture of my favorite pirate item, my Super Famicom's "Game Doctor SF7".

Update: Here's pictures of my Game Doctor SF7, my favorite piece of all I think.
http://ninjagaiden4.thegaminguniverse.com/SFC_GD7_Front.JPG
http://ninjagaiden4.thegaminguniverse.com/SFC_GD7_Back.JPG
http://ninjagaiden4.thegaminguniverse.com/SFC_GD7_Top.JPG

The Game Doctor SF7 plays 99.9% of all SNES games released. There are notable titles that don't work on it, but the list is quite short. Since the SNES is perhaps my favorite library of games ever I really love this thing. I used to have the GDSF3 but it was more tedious and didn't have support for all the copy protections meaning you had to patch some games. The SF7 has no issues like that. =)

[ctrl-alt-delete]

I know! I wish Nintendo would just admit defeat and come up with an external hard drive.

I'm really hoping the homebrew community will come up with a way to open up the USB port, if they haven't already.

I have a 1 TB external harddrive.

[MottZilla]

I was figuring once Wii homebrew became open we would see the equivilent to the PS2's HD-Loader but for Wii using a USB drive. If the Wii has USB 2.0, it's certainly capable. If it's just USB 1.1 the rate might be too slow to keep up with some games streaming demands.

[Aegix Drakan]

Woot! Just got a 2 gig Micro SD for my R4.

This is gonna make the 2 day car ride to florida much more fun.

[rock_nog]

I still don't understand why Nintendo is taking so long in terms of working out how to make the Wii load games from SD cards. Seriously, that functionality should've been available from the start. I know there's the issue of piracy, but let's face it, the Wii has already been hacked, so what are the so worried about?

[MottZilla]

Maybe it's related to them being cheap and not wanting to spend the money as it would cost them to have their programmers make the changes and then it has to be tested etc. And they've made it clear Nintendo is Profit First, everything else after that.

[Vagla]

Doubt it. They throw money at minuscule things all the time. Large teams of people have to extensively test minute changes to things like the photo channel, despite no one screaming for updates to things of that sort. Thousands or tens of thousands of dollars go into testing even simple projects. With the amount of money sunk into programming and testing for things like that, it makes no sense why it'd suddenly be an issue for an important feature like more storage, which people actually do complain about.

[Nicholas Steel]

it is taking time, because they have to make sure they can implement it in a way that pirated games can't be used ;) and various other potential exploits. They are probably going to release a special cable that has a card slot on one end that only supports "Nintendo" flash cards?

[Pryme8]

I was working on getting my PSP to do a lot of cool shit... then I sold it, got sick of messing with it

[MottZilla]

it is taking time, because they have to make sure they can implement it in a way that pirated games can't be used ;) and various other potential exploits. They are probably going to release a special cable that has a card slot on one end that only supports "Nintendo" flash cards?

Nope. If pirates wanted to use the SD slot right now, they could. Piracy isn't the issue. Also there are no Nintendo flash cards, the Wii uses SD cards, an extremely common type made by a dozen companies, which does not include Nintendo. Nintendo has someone slap their name on some over priced SD cards for them though. It's certainly not a piracy issue.

[ZTC]

I have yet to get the X-Box mod you told me about Mott. :( I thinking of getting a few cart rippers/copiers for the GB, GG, and Genesis, but I'm kinda in the dark on what's available and where to get it. I remember seeing something a while back for the Genesis and SNES, but after reading about it, it looked somewhat unreliable. (think it was maybe the ProDragonDouble or Twin Dragon something :shrug: )

The only hardware 'mod' I really did was hack my GB Game Genie's case down so I could plug it into my Super Game Boy. I have an extra SNES with may or may not work, as the AC adaptor was broken off, so I can't do much with it. I guess I could try to rip everything out and build a mini-barebones computer within the casing if the size limitations aren't...too small for anything. Or, I can try my luck at possibly finding parts to build a top-loading NES. I really don't know wat to do with it, except that it's been inked black.

[MottZilla]

My friend hacked his Game Genie to fit the Super Gameboy too. =)

You're thinking of the Double Pro Fighter I think, which supports Genesis and SNES. If you are interested in Flash Cartridges for Genesis or SNES they aren't hard to find. It's harder to find the old school copier units.

The AC adapter broke off? The SNES has a small jack for the AC adapter's input. How could that break off? If the power adapter is broken you can get a new one. Don't butcher a perfectly good SNES.

[Nicholas Steel]

i believe it may have been plugged in then it snapped off, so part of the power plug is forever stuck plugged in? stopping new power plugs from being inserted...

[Russ]

I think I know what he means.



____
---__________|___|____________|-
---


Anyways, the AC adapter is that box in the middle. One end of it is a plug for the SNES to AC adapter cord, and the other is not a plug, but the wire comes directly out of the adapter. I think he means that either the adapter to wall cord or the SNES to adapter cord broke.

[MottZilla]

You can use a tool to yank out anything and plug in a new AC adapter. No reason to waste the SNES.


Well I have a fun story. Today I installed my first modchip byself myself that required soldering. Previously I only had two modded systems with chips before. One was a PSOne I have professionally modded. The second was an Xbox that had a solderless adapter that I was able to install. Well tonight I soldered in a PS1 modchip. It worked out fine but there were other issues with the system that really made everything quite a long night. But it's working now and that's the important part. It wasn't that hard for me to install it. I had minimal trouble with the actual modding part and more trouble with a bad CDROM.

Anyone else here ever install a modchip themselves?

[Darth Marsden]

No, I don't trust myself. Somehow, I know that if I tried anything like that, I'd screw it up and ruin both the chip and the console. I prefer to let people who know what they're doing screw up for me.

[MottZilla]

I was like you once, and perhaps still am for certain modding tasks, like the PS2. I'd like to have a modchip in my PS2, but you have to solder 20 or so wires to really tiny things. But installing a mod into some other systems isn't so hard.

Also I forgot, I installed a modchip in my Sega Saturn. But that one was easy, even you could do it Darth. The Saturn modchip plugs into the mix as if it belonged there, and then you solder 2 wires to very big targets, or you can actually tape or glue them.

[ZTC]

Gah, looks I wasn't being clear. The part on the back of the system where the AC adaptor plugs into is broken completely off. It also looks like the previous owner tried setting the thing on fire a few times, too. Also to boot is that someone tried hacking the back of the system apart the hard way.
The guys at the game shop were going to throw it away, but I asked if I could have it to play around with, so that's how I got that one. I'll have to find time to get a few pics when i have the chance, but it smells of burnt nastyness. If I can at least open it up, I can maybe do some kind of wiring to an ac adaptor to see if it even works. At least I have my orignal SNES to play games on :p

[firebug]

Later on here I'll take a good picture of my favorite pirate item, my Super Famicom's "Game Doctor SF7".

Awesome, Mott! I've got a GDSF7 too! I also own:
a Supercard DS with a ram cart to play GBA games and use the Opera Browser.
a Krokodile Cart for Atari 2600
a Colecovision multicart and an Atari5200 multicart from AtariMAX.com
I've got a FDS hooked up to a NeoFami (Famicom Clone)
a Zodiac2 (palm-based emulation handheld)
a GP2X F-100 and an F-200 (linux-based emulation handhelds)
and a magic swap disk for PS1.
I'm about to order that PowerPak. I'm drooling already!! :))

[MottZilla]

Nice collection firebug. I'm not too big on clone Famicom's but the FDS is very cool. Were you aware that the PowerPAK now supports FDS games? It's very nice.

In total I've got:
GDSF7 (32mbit) for Super Famicom
M3 Perfect Mini SD for DS & GBA
PowerPak for NES and Famicom
SwapMagic for PS2
Chipped Xbox 1
1 Stealth Chipped PSOne
2 Chipped PS1 (Old Style)
Chipped Sega Saturn
PS2 with FreeMcBoot Hack
GameCube with SDLoader Drive Hack

I wish I had a Z64 for N64, then I might actually play it from time to time. I'd also like to get a Genesis flash cartridge as well as a GameBoy/GameBoy Color flash cart. But I think other than those 3 I have all the cart stuff I want. I would like to have a chipped PS2.

[firebug]

Well Mott, if you've got the $$, you can find genesis flash carts here:
http://www.tototek.com/
(sorry if you already know about them!)
and the v64/z64 can be found here:
http://www.hkgtoys.com/search.php?page=sfc002
I've seen gb/gbc flash carts every so often, but not recently. I really want an iQue, but I'm not sure how I would get games for it. :P
Happy shopping! :thumbsup:

[MottZilla]

I knew of Tototek and I think I came across hkgtoys before too but never ordered there. Have you? Are they reputable?

[firebug]

I ordered a GBA TV-out from them years ago, before the Gameboy Player came out for the GC. It arrived at my house pretty quickly (within a week) using the cheapest post. Paying them was a bit of a pain though, because they don't accept paypal or take credit cards at their site.

[MottZilla]

How did you pay them then?

[firebug]

western union.