- COBRA FOR VIPER GC V0.2 -
(Proof Of Concept Version)

15th of december, 2004

You didn't expect it to be true, right? Well, guess what... it IS!
As of today, no need for PSO anymore, you can boot your code directly
from the GC drive using DVD-R or Mini-DVD-R! This also includes the
ability to boot your backups.

So what do you need exactly ?
- A Viper GC chip
- This very flash file
- Some Compatible Media and a DVD- burner

In fact, we wanted to release the first version of our Viper BIOS
around Xmas time, but it appears that some fucker leaked a -PRE-ALPHA-
version two days ago together with a screenshot (fuck you Vincenzo),
together with a screencap. We decided to release a proof-of-concept
version as soon as possible so that people can stop spreading rumor
about it (and DON'T USE the pre-alpha as it has some major bugs).
We feel it's totally natural that most people did doubt it was true,
as most of them have been waiting for such a solution for years! So
now those people can try the thing for REAL :-).

USER MANUAL

- Flash the Viper GC with this BIOS then remove the parallel port
connector from the programmer (well, their manual says so)

- Turn on your GC with an ORIGINAL DISC in the drive.
If there's no Title Screen coming, but the original BIOS instead
it's probably that you messed up your viper install:-)
Check that it's clean (and no wires crossing each other etc...)
If you have a black screen coming, it's probably because you have
some wierd BIOS we don't support (and don't know about) yet.

- While turning on your GC:
- Hold X if you want to boot Original BIOS instead
- Hold Y if you want to boot Original BIOS with region-free hack
- Don't hold any button if you want to run DVD-R :-)

-  "PLEASE WAIT" should appear. then "SWAP DISC NOW!" and the GC
disc is stopped (and laser off). As soon as you see the disc is
slowing down it's safe to remove the original disc and put your
DVD-R instead. After a few seconds the drive will start to spin
again and disc will boot (if you didn't have enough time to do the
swap trick, turn off the GC and try again)

- Remove the top of your GC if you want to use full-size DVD-R

THE MEDIA

The GC drive only eats DVD-R, MINI-DVD-R and single-layer silver DVD,
it doesn't work with + media or DL at all.
But, like Xbox thomson drive, it is very "sensitive" to the brand of
media you're using. Some are working better than others, some even
NOT AT ALL! So better check what media other users recommend.

After a few tests here is what we think:

- For DVD-R, most media are working, except some cheap no-names. On
some drives only the best media is working really fine.

- BUT FOR MINI-DVD-R it's more tricky. We tested the following brand:
SONY DVD-R 1.4GB handycam: doesn't work
TDK DVD-R 1.4GB scratchproof: doesn't work
MAXELL DVD-R 1.4GB: sometime boots, but then loose sync
DATAWRITE DVD-R 1.4GB: on some drives it works 100% like the
best DVD-R, but on some other drives it just can't sync
(when it does its working perfectly)

In fact, we have some idea on how to improve the compatibility with
bad media in our next BIOS. For now we really suggest you to find
a good full-size DVD-R media, and get the opinion of other users.

You don't need to encrypt the disc or use a special burner firmware
to write the disc. Just burn your ISO/GCM (we use Nero).

Maybe different burners will lead to different results too, for now we
just tried a cheap NEC burner.

TROOBLESHOOTING

REMEMBER, THIS IS A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT-VERSION !
There are probably lots of bugs we need to fix including:

- Sometime the "SWAP DISC" message doesn't appear (or disc doesn't
slow down/laser is still on). If this happen to you just turn off
your GC and try again (ok, this is clearly our fault :-)

- If sometimes after you swapped a disc there is a sync problem with
the DVD-R and origial BIOS is not loading, then try again. If this
happen very often, then you need a better media.

- If the drive becomes idle for a couple of minutes, depending on the
media you're using it might loose sync, and hang. This is also a
bug of ours we will track. For now, if this happens to you, avoid
"PAUSE MODE" in games.

- Audio Streaming doesn't work. So, the games/programs using the
special streaming commands will work, but instead of a nice MUSIC
you'll hear annoying NOISE :-). We'll have a look at those issues as
well !

- Doesn't work with multi-discs games yet

REMEMBER, THIS IS A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT-VERSION ! All those problem
could be fixed in a next update, except for media maybe (if someone
wants to try laser tweaking we'd be interested by the results!)

Note that on screen there's a two digit number corresponding to your
GC version (right after the Cobra Version). Here are the current
versions we support: 14,16,18,24,26,28,34,36,38,44,46,48. If you have
another version, then we don't know about it yet...

IF YOU MAKE BACKUPS, DON'T USE ANY "WIPE" TOOLS TO SAVE SPACE. Unless
you know it's REALLY working. Most of thoses tools only work because
the current pso loaders patch libraries routines to emulate DVD. But
on REAL HARDWARE, each file/fst has to be aligned on a 4-byte boundary!
Else nothing will work. Audio Files (for audio streaming) even need
to be aligned on a 32kb-boundary ! So forget current "WIPE" tools until
they are fixed.

THE FUTURE

Apart from fixing the current bugs, we have plans to make a (better
looking) real GUI, and some other surprises :-)

For coders it's a bit(!) annoying to burn DVD-R for each test. We'll
try to work on a better solution (either using BBA or viper debug
IO)

CLOSING WORDS

Special thanks to E*Flash for his help, and RoM for the early units.

You are free to redistribute this package as long as it's not changed,
patched, ported, or whatever.

Our code is free of any copyrighted code from third party.
It is also free of any GPL licensed code, we have strong respect for
other people's hard work. We only ask you to show similar respect
toward our work. To put it in other words, if you are in the "right"
side, draw the line between learning and stealing. Thank you.

That's it for this NFO, hope we didn't missed some important point.

Have a nice day :-)