questions about reading the gc disc and 32 bit

[MrUNOwen]

So I just download Dolphin(due to the fact my GC is dead) and at first I was expecting it to be able to just read a GC disc and now I know it doesn't.

Here's my list of questions:

1. Is it possible to just have Dolphin read a GC disc or will it ever be considered?
2. I downloaded rawdump 2.0 and there's not a drive I have that works; why does it need a particular drive, don't all dvd drives work the same?
3. I have 2x(not 2x core) Xeon 3.06 and ati x800, is that good enough?
4. My system is 32 bit (I think it is, it came out before 64 was a big thing), am I out of luck for future versions of Dolphin?
5. I just started programming, how many year of experience you need to know how to create emulators? Also how do programmers go about doing this; is there some kind of documentation on the system that programmers use?

[Lightning]

1. Is it possible to just have Dolphin read a GC disc or will it ever be considered?
2. I downloaded rawdump 2.0 and there's not a drive I have that works; why does it need a particular drive, don't all dvd drives work the same?


The gamecube disc requires a special reader in the gamecube itself. This is why you use a network connection to a gamecube to read the disc.



3. I have 2x(not 2x core) Xeon 3.06 and ati x800, is that good enough?
4. My system is 32 bit (I think it is, it came out before 64 was a big thing), am I out of luck for future versions of Dolphin?


Unknown about future dolphin versions and if they will be 64bit only or not. As for speed, it is simply a matter of faster cpu = better



5. I just started programming, how many year of experience you need to know how to create emulators? Also how do programmers go about doing this; is there some kind of documentation on the system that programmers use?


Depends on the programmer. If you understand C/C++ and can read a document on how a CPU works, are you able to write code to emulate what it does? take 2 values and add them together, etc. Emulation is a matter of taking a piece of hardware, or documents on a piece of hardware, then writing software to take the same input and spitting out the same output as the hardware itself. Some consider this easy, others see it as a difficult task.

[ector]

As I stated in another thread, next dolphin will have both 32 and 64 bit versions.

Of course, the 64-bit one is likely to be quite a bit faster than the 32-bit one. But we'll see.

As for the question about reading gamecube discs, if someone finds a method that works for all drives and isn't terribly slow, of course we will add it, but we don't do research in that area.