Playing PAL games on US GameCube with Freeloader

[Aussie2B]

I just recently bought both PAL Doshin the Giant and a brand new Freeloader from codejunkies.com because I had read multiple people saying on this board in old topics that they could play Doshin just fine. However, I'm following the directions exactly (and I'm not a Freeloader newbie either as I borrowed one years ago to play through a Japanese game), and no matter what I do, I get a rolling black and white picture. The directions speak of pressing Z after the Freeloader loads up to manually select a region, but no matter when I press Z (or any other button), the flag menu never appears. I've also read that you can change some PAL games from 50 to 60Hz by pressing B as the game loads up, but no matter when I press B, that never happens either. I've tried multiple controllers, just in case the buttons weren't responding right, and I tried on both the GameCube and Wii (on the Wii, the TV displays nothing when the game loads, not even the rolling b/w picture).

So what can I do? Am I doing something wrong? Did the old posts lead me astray? It'll be quite the bummer if I just spent around 30 bucks for nothing.

[theclaw]

That's a good question. I'm not sure what happens when the NTSC hardware tries to run at 50hz. I've never heard of a mod to switch between NTSC or PAL color format on Gamecube.

I'd assume you're getting NTSC 50, but I don't have a PAL game on hand to confirm that.

[Aussie2B]

I don't really understand what you're saying, to be honest.

So is there no one around anymore who has experience with this?

Here are a couple of the topics I was talking about, in which Americans were saying that they could play PAL Doshin just fine on a US GameCube via a Freeloader:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/show...n-my-NTSC-cube
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/show...9-wow-Just-wow

The Freeloader itself also advertises being able to play virtually anything, but I don't know if what they really mean is "It'll load a PAL game, but if you actually expect to play it, you better have a display that supports a PAL signal." I don't know if by pure dumb luck those people in the topics had TVs that supported a PAL signal or what. I have my GameCube hooked up via S-video to an SDTV which was bought around 2003. The Wii is hooked up via component to an HDTV that was bought around 2006.

[CRTGAMER]

The newer Gamecube Freeloader will bypass the region check but will not convert a PAL game to NTSC.

Only the older Freeloader or Code Entry Action Replay will do the proper PAL to NTSC conversion.

Posted information here: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewt...537000#p537000

[Aussie2B]

Damn. And here I thought getting the newest Freeloader would probably offer me better compatibility. And I just looked up the older Action Replay, and it seems to be pretty expensive. :/ Argh, why can't the information out there on this be clearer and easier to find? So older versions of the Freeloader may work too? I guess I can borrow my brother-in-law's again and see how that goes.

[theclaw]

I own a chipped Gamecube, the first GC Action Replay, and standalone GC Freeloader. Yes all three.

Just no PAL games to run any tests...
What I was saying is I'm curious to first hand, learn what PAL GC games actually do when run on NTSC hardware.

[theclaw]

The newer Gamecube Freeloader will bypass the region check but will not convert a PAL game to NTSC.

Only the older Freeloader or Code Entry Action Replay will do the proper PAL to NTSC conversion.

Posted information here: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewt...537000#p537000

About that information... Do you own a language switch Gamecube? According to what I've experienced it's more accurate to say Japanese console setting requires separate memory cards. As opposed to the common statement (often heard around the web) of both region game discs played under one language mode.

I'd like to see another person test my thought.

[CRTGAMER]

The newer Gamecube Freeloader will bypass the region check but will not convert a PAL game to NTSC.

Only the older Freeloader or Code Entry Action Replay will do the proper PAL to NTSC conversion.

Posted information here: http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewt...537000#p537000

About that information... Do you own a language switch Gamecube? According to what I've experienced it's more accurate to say Japanese console setting requires separate memory cards. As opposed to the common statement (often heard around the web) of both region game discs played under one language mode.

I'd like to see another person test my thought.

No Language Switch, The Gamecube is not modded at all. Even if a switch is used, the different regions will have to be on their own dedicated memory card. PAL and US NTSC saves are supposed to be compatible together, but Japan NTSC saves are not. I keep different country game saves on separate memory cards, PAL Doshin needs a lot of game save room anyways for the snapshots.

I just boot either the older Action Replay or the older Freeloader to play PAL imports since they need that 60hz bump. Japanese imports work fine with either a newer Action Replay, SD Media Launcher or Freeloader.