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 Г                                                                          Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г                        - COBRA FOR VIPER GC V0.2 -                       Г
 Г                        (Proof Of Concept Version)                        Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г                          15th of december, 2004                          Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  You didn't expect it to be true, right? Well, guess what... it IS!      Г
 Г  As of today, no need for PSO anymore, you can boot your code directly   Г
 Г  from the GC drive using DVD-R or Mini-DVD-R! This also includes the     Г
 Г  ability to boot your backups.                                           Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  So what do you need exactly ?                                           Г
 Г     - A Viper GC chip                                                    Г
 Г     - This very flash file                                               Г
 Г     - Some Compatible Media and a DVD- burner                            Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  In fact, we wanted to release the first version of our Viper BIOS       Г
 Г  around Xmas time, but it appears that some fucker leaked a -PRE-ALPHA-  Г
 Г  version two days ago together with a screenshot (fuck you Vincenzo),    Г
 Г  together with a screencap. We decided to release a proof-of-concept     Г
 Г  version as soon as possible so that people can stop spreading rumor     Г
 Г  about it (and DON'T USE the pre-alpha as it has some major bugs).       Г
 Г  We feel it's totally natural that most people did doubt it was true,    Г
 Г  as most of them have been waiting for such a solution for years! So     Г
 Г  now those people can try the thing for REAL :-).                        Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  USER MANUAL                                                             Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г   - Flash the Viper GC with this BIOS then remove the parallel port      Г
 Г     connector from the programmer (well, their manual says so)           Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г   - Turn on your GC with an ORIGINAL DISC in the drive.                  Г 
 Г     If there's no Title Screen coming, but the original BIOS instead     Г
 Г     it's probably that you messed up your viper install:-)               Г
 Г     Check that it's clean (and no wires crossing each other etc...)      Г
 Г     If you have a black screen coming, it's probably because you have    Г
 Г     some wierd BIOS we don't support (and don't know about) yet.         Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г   - While turning on your GC:                                            Г
 Г        - Hold X if you want to boot Original BIOS instead                Г
 Г        - Hold Y if you want to boot Original BIOS with region-free hack  Г
 Г        - Don't hold any button if you want to run DVD-R :-)              Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г   -  "PLEASE WAIT" should appear. then "SWAP DISC NOW!" and the GC       Г
 Г      disc is stopped (and laser off). As soon as you see the disc is     Г
 Г      slowing down it's safe to remove the original disc and put your     Г
 Г      DVD-R instead. After a few seconds the drive will start to spin     Г
 Г      again and disc will boot (if you didn't have enough time to do the  Г
 Г      swap trick, turn off the GC and try again)                          Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г   - Remove the top of your GC if you want to use full-size DVD-R         Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  THE MEDIA                                                               Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  The GC drive only eats DVD-R, MINI-DVD-R and single-layer silver DVD,   Г
 Г  it doesn't work with + media or DL at all.                              Г
 Г  But, like Xbox thomson drive, it is very "sensitive" to the brand of    Г
 Г  media you're using. Some are working better than others, some even      Г
 Г  NOT AT ALL! So better check what media other users recommend.           Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  After a few tests here is what we think:                                Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  - For DVD-R, most media are working, except some cheap no-names. On     Г
 Г    some drives only the best media is working really fine.               Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  - BUT FOR MINI-DVD-R it's more tricky. We tested the following brand:   Г
 Г        SONY DVD-R 1.4GB handycam: doesn't work                           Г
 Г        TDK DVD-R 1.4GB scratchproof: doesn't work                        Г
 Г        MAXELL DVD-R 1.4GB: sometime boots, but then loose sync           Г
 Г        DATAWRITE DVD-R 1.4GB: on some drives it works 100% like the      Г
 Г              best DVD-R, but on some other drives it just can't sync     Г
 Г              (when it does its working perfectly)                        Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  In fact, we have some idea on how to improve the compatibility with     Г
 Г  bad media in our next BIOS. For now we really suggest you to find       Г
 Г  a good full-size DVD-R media, and get the opinion of other users.       Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  You don't need to encrypt the disc or use a special burner firmware     Г
 Г  to write the disc. Just burn your ISO/GCM (we use Nero).                Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  Maybe different burners will lead to different results too, for now we  Г
 Г  just tried a cheap NEC burner.                                          Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  TROOBLESHOOTING                                                         Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  REMEMBER, THIS IS A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT-VERSION !                          Г
 Г  There are probably lots of bugs we need to fix including:               Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  - Sometime the "SWAP DISC" message doesn't appear (or disc doesn't      Г
 Г    slow down/laser is still on). If this happen to you just turn off     Г
 Г    your GC and try again (ok, this is clearly our fault :-)              Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  - If sometimes after you swapped a disc there is a sync problem with    Г
 Г    the DVD-R and origial BIOS is not loading, then try again. If this    Г
 Г    happen very often, then you need a better media.                      Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  - If the drive becomes idle for a couple of minutes, depending on the   Г
 Г    media you're using it might loose sync, and hang. This is also a      Г
 Г    bug of ours we will track. For now, if this happens to you, avoid     Г
 Г    "PAUSE MODE" in games.                                                Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  - Audio Streaming doesn't work. So, the games/programs using the        Г
 Г    special streaming commands will work, but instead of a nice MUSIC     Г
 Г    you'll hear annoying NOISE :-). We'll have a look at those issues as  Г
 Г    well !                                                                Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  - Doesn't work with multi-discs games yet                               Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  REMEMBER, THIS IS A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT-VERSION ! All those problem        Г
 Г  could be fixed in a next update, except for media maybe (if someone     Г
 Г  wants to try laser tweaking we'd be interested by the results!)         Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  Note that on screen there's a two digit number corresponding to your    Г
 Г  GC version (right after the Cobra Version). Here are the current        Г
 Г  versions we support: 14,16,18,24,26,28,34,36,38,44,46,48. If you have   Г
 Г  another version, then we don't know about it yet...                     Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  IF YOU MAKE BACKUPS, DON'T USE ANY "WIPE" TOOLS TO SAVE SPACE. Unless   Г
 Г  you know it's REALLY working. Most of thoses tools only work because    Г
 Г  the current pso loaders patch libraries routines to emulate DVD. But    Г
 Г  on REAL HARDWARE, each file/fst has to be aligned on a 4-byte boundary! Г
 Г  Else nothing will work. Audio Files (for audio streaming) even need     Г
 Г  to be aligned on a 32kb-boundary ! So forget current "WIPE" tools until Г
 Г  they are fixed.                                                         Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  THE FUTURE                                                              Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  Apart from fixing the current bugs, we have plans to make a (better     Г
 Г  looking) real GUI, and some other surprises :-)                         Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  For coders it's a bit(!) annoying to burn DVD-R for each test. We'll    Г
 Г  try to work on a better solution (either using BBA or viper debug       Г
 Г  IO)                                                                     Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  CLOSING WORDS                                                           Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  Special thanks to E*Flash for his help, and RoM for the early units.    Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  You are free to redistribute this package as long as it's not changed,  Г
 Г  patched, ported, or whatever.                                           Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  Our code is free of any copyrighted code from third party.              Г
 Г  It is also free of any GPL licensed code, we have strong respect for    Г
 Г  other people's hard work. We only ask you to show similar respect       Г
 Г  toward our work. To put it in other words, if you are in the "right"    Г
 Г  side, draw the line between learning and stealing. Thank you.           Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  That's it for this NFO, hope we didn't missed some important point.     Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г  Have a nice day :-)                                                     Г
 Г                                                                          Г
 Г                              А         А             А                   Г
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 Г            Алпмм  Алпп млпп Влп   ппм Вл  Ампл Ам л Влпл Алпп            Г
 Г            лл л л ллп  лл л лл   Влпл лл  лл м лл л лл л ллп             Г
 ГX   А Б В л Вл В л плВл лл В плВБ пллВ плм плВл плВл ллВп плВл л В Б А   XГ
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