GameCube component cables WTF?

[Schiggidyd]

Just chiming in, the OEM Component cables give a gorgeous picture, and yes, it's better than using Wii component. Sometimes I forget I'm playing Gamecube (and not wii) on my 50", especially with first-party titles.

480P is more than a slight improvement IMO.

 

[Tanooki]

Back at Midway we tested out and played Defender a good bit on a large trinitron using the s-video cables and the image quality on those things are night and day over the old RCA cable, but I think price wise, you just can't justify that damned Nintendo component cable at all for the upgrade from s-video to that by any means. The reason it's so expensive is Nintendo's fault and collectard/flipper trash equally so. Nintendo the dumbasses they are only sold the thing through their store.nintendo.com website for like a year, two tops, few sold, so they canned it, then quietly sometime after to save a buck dumbed down the GC with the 101 removing the port for it and the bottom one as well. That's why the price sucks, few exist thanks to manufactured scarcity, lack of Nintendo bothering to advertise it too, and given the year most not giving shit to buy them anyway back in the early 00s. Because of that puke that find them now, few keep them, most flip them as they can make a hundred bucks or whatever now which is a joke. I'd personally love to have one, my GC is primarily a Gameboy Player when it is in use, so I have a valid reason to want it. Otherwise while not optimal, going with the Wii does work, because even the degraded signal is still better than stock Gamecube output if you're that panty twisted over image clarity in games. I grew up with the NES and lovely RF blur, to me even RCA is pretty damn sharp and keeps me plenty happy on pre-HD systems as it is.

I don't recall what they go for, but even more scarce made by Nintendo in their own branded boxes, they sold directly (not sure if it was select retail) but S-Video cables for the SNES too, which obviously would work on N64 and the Cube too, but I remember the old red print, black box, dark gray grid with ovals pattern when I saw it. I could only imagine what some collectard might pay for something new like that.

 

[Schiggidyd]

The reason it's so expensive is Nintendo's fault and collectard/flipper trash equally so. Nintendo the dumbasses they are only sold the thing through their store.nintendo.com website for like a year, two tops, few sold, so they canned it, then quietly sometime after to save a buck dumbed down the GC with the 101 removing the port for it and the bottom one as well.

I don't think we can straight out blame Nintendo for the state of the Component-ready TV market in American at the time, it just wasn't popular and people probably didn't realize or care how great it would look. I know I certainly didn't know or care when Gamecube was new.

There's way more D-Terminal cables because D-Terminal was actually used in Japan.

 

[DNSDies]

There's a good comparison of Gamecube Component vs Wii Component Vs WiiU with scaling off here:
https://socksfelloff.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/gamecube-vs-nintendont-vs-wii/

They look pretty similar. The only real difference I see is that the Wii is a little bit darker, but that can be fixed by upping the contrast of the television.

 

[Schiggidyd]

Here's what I recommend, but ONLY if you have a Framemeister: Just get Japanese D-Terminal Cables on YJP, combine that with the Framemeister, and use the Framemeister's Sharpness setting at 1. No more, no less, just 1. It's an exceptional picture, even on large flatscreens.

Of course, cost is huge, but if you've invested in the Framemeister for other systems, D-Terminal can be had for about 130 on YJP.

 

[Gyrian]

I grabbed these brand new back in the day together with a Panasonic Q. Couldn't even have conceived that it was the cables which would be grabbing this kind of attention so many years later...

 

[RAZO]

As long as it has GameCube controller ports, it is compatible. The later models lost the backwards compatibility but at that point they removed the controller ports too.

I have my original white one with the gc ports soft modded and after doing some research, whatever soft mod I did years ago doesn't allow me to play cube games via disc anymore. It just takes the disc and shoots it right back out.

You may not be able to use GC discs and controllers on the Wii Family Edition or Wii U, but all of those consoles still have full support for running Gamecube games, that's an inherent feature of the PowerPC chips used in them, each one is built on top of the other (Wii built on top of GC, Wii U built on top of Wii).

Just softmod your Wii or Wii U, install Nintendont, put some GC disc images on your SD card (or HDD) and away you go. You'll have to use virtual GC memory cards and Wii Classic controllers though.

The Wii Mini is the same except it's so locked down, it's currently impossible to soft mod it.

I actually been messing around with Nintendont. I'm interested in knowing more about the Virtual GC memory cards and using the wii classic controllers since my black soft modded wii doesn't have the memory card and controller ports.

 

[fenikso]

I wish someone would make an external box/cable for GC to HDMI. That would save a lot of hassle.

 

[DanAdamKOF]

IIRC no one has sourced or created the connector. The existing HDMI mod that I saw replaces the connector.

 

[DNSDies]

I wish someone would make an external box/cable for GC to HDMI. That would save a lot of hassle.

http://www.retrocollect.com/News/hdmi-out-modification-gcvideo-comes-to-the-nintendo-gamecube.html

Don't know if it's available yet, but I've been keeping my eyes on it.
If you're so inclined and have an FPGA programmer, OSHPark has PCBs for it.
The project is open source, so you just get the files off the sourceforge page.

I did a bill of materials once, and it would cost about $90 to make one, without any external packaging. The majority of the costs is the PCBs, which you need to buy in sets of 3.
If you did a set of 3, it would be $60 each.

All this assumes you'd solder it and program it yourself.
If one were good at finding a manufacturer that would fab the PCBs and assemble/test them on site, and did an order of, say, 100 units, the per unit costs would likely be around $45-50.

You'd still need to program them, though.

 

[HeavyMachineGoob]

The reason I'll stick with s-video is I can use it with the Cube, 64, Snes and modded top loader. Less wires at the back of my tv.

If the component cables were reasonably priced, I would grab a set.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, it sounds like you'd want to use GC component cables on the N64, SNES and a modded NES Top Loader. The GC component cable uses a completely different connector and requires a digital signal, all those other consoles are analog at the Multi-AV port.

I have my original white one with the gc ports soft modded and after doing some research, whatever soft mod I did years ago doesn't allow me to play cube games via disc anymore. It just takes the disc and shoots it right back out.

You probably don't have DIOS MIOS installed. I like to use that and USB Loader GX, works quite well. Only issue I've been facing lately is the Wii sometimes freezes or turns off when trying to boot a GC disc from the hard drive. Maybe my hard drive is going bad? Wii images work fine.

I actually been messing around with Nintendont. I'm interested in knowing more about the Virtual GC memory cards and using the wii classic controllers since my black soft modded wii doesn't have the memory card and controller ports.

There's not much to say, virtual memory cards and Wii classic controllers just work. Last time I checked Nintendont, it was somewhat meager in its interface, but it worked quite well.

It's a million times better than the earlier Devolution project, which had bullshit copy protection that required the original GC discs. That's fine if you have an original Wii, but the Family Edition and Wii U can't read them. And let's be honest, why would you use a program to run GC games in Wii mode (thus allowing use of the classic controller) unless your Wii can't normally play GC games? The solution was you had to "ticket" your Wiimotes (which use Bluetooth) in the Devolution program on an original Wii and then use those on your Family Edition or Wii U.

It sucked. Use Nintendont instead.

 

[Syn]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, it sounds like you'd want to use GC component cables on the N64, SNES and a modded NES Top Loader. The GC component cable uses a completely different connector and requires a digital signal, all those other consoles are analog at the Multi-AV port.

You're reading it wrong. I find s-video acceptable and I like I can use one cable for four consoles.

 

[fenikso]

IIRC no one has sourced or created the connector. The existing HDMI mod that I saw replaces the connector.

http://www.retrocollect.com/News/hdmi-out-modification-gcvideo-comes-to-the-nintendo-gamecube.html

Don't know if it's available yet, but I've been keeping my eyes on it.
If you're so inclined and have an FPGA programmer, OSHPark has PCBs for it.
The project is open source, so you just get the files off the sourceforge page.

I did a bill of materials once, and it would cost about $90 to make one, without any external packaging. The majority of the costs is the PCBs, which you need to buy in sets of 3.
If you did a set of 3, it would be $60 each.

All this assumes you'd solder it and program it yourself.
If one were good at finding a manufacturer that would fab the PCBs and assemble/test them on site, and did an order of, say, 100 units, the per unit costs would likely be around $45-50.

You'd still need to program them, though.

I feel like the Chinese are letting us down. Usually when some as basic as a cable gets to such an absurd price, the Chinese flood the market with a cheap knockoff. Oh sure, it falls apart after a year, but that's besides the point.

 

[Redguard]

OK, so tell him to buy a Wii. Only reason to have a Gamecube + component cables anymore is if you want to play the Game Boy Player over component.

Agreed.

 

[amplibax]

I can't image paying like $200 just for cables. I picked up a pair once with a GameCube for $20.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[ginoscope]

I hardly played my gamecube so I sold off my component cables six months ago when I found out about gcvideo. I have been just fine playing gamecube games on the wii u using nintendont. I figure if I ever care to play GBA on the gamecube I can just do the gcvideo mod and all good.

 

[Neo Alec]

I think someone will make a plug and play HDMI adapter soon. I'm holding out for that.

 

[DNSDies]

I think someone will make a plug and play HDMI adapter soon. I'm holding out for that.

The problem is getting a plug that fits the Gamecube's digital port.

 

[Rig]

A coworker gave me a box of his "eBay stuff to sell" when he was moving. Said to keep any/all the profits, since it was going to be a bit of work.
Made around $300, after fees.

I finally bit the bullet, and watched auctions for a few weeks. Got the component for $200.

It actually just arrived today. I never could justify the price before.
Excited to hook my Gamecube back up and play some games on it!

 

[ChopstickSamurai]

Rig, in that sort of situation I try to not think of it as money but as a trade. So trading a bunch of your coworkers junk for a GC component cable is awesome.

 

[CrazyDean]

I just use nintendont on the Wii via RGB. I got an original RGB SCART cable for like $32.

 

[Rig]

Rig, in that sort of situation I try to not think of it as money but as a trade. So trading a bunch of your coworkers junk for a GC component cable is awesome.

Actually, that's a great way of thinking about it!

 

[Tanooki]

^Yup that's how I justify crap I can't afford. I get rid of games, vintage toys, electronics, and other stuff I'm finished with or find and buy knowing it's a flip. I keep what I invest, then take the profit and use it as 'trade' to get things like that gamecube cable you got. I've just done it on larger stuff -- mvs cabinet w/10 games, pinball machine, 3 laptop/notebooks, couple tablets, a lot of G1 Transformers, some Lego, etc the list goes on back some years. I've done it even to swap out games from one system to another that's pricy.

 

[Xavier]

I have a Gamecube Vga Cable, I've read Nintendo didn't make it but it came in a box just like the component cable but it said VGA and had a picture of the Vga cable...Dunno works great for me looked real might be modded, the end is a cheap grey plastic connector.