Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

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skytown

if i buy gamecube games will i be able to put them into my computer and play it or is there more work involved ?
Yeah there's more to it than that, unfortunately. Unlike PS1 CDs or PS2 DVDs, which only require ordinary CD/DVD drives and some software to read them, Gamecube and Wii discs are different beasts. As far as I know, there aren't any consumer drives that can natively read GC discs, and even if there were, they'd be exceedingly rare and hard to get. Wii discs require special drives with software that manipulates their firmware in certain ways to allow for native reading. These drives are mostly found on eBay and they're no longer being manufactured for stores and retail outlets.

Your best bet is to get yourself a Wii capable of reading GC discs, so this excludes the "Family Edition" Wiis, the Mini Wii, and oddly enough South Korean Wiis. Once you've got a Wii, install some homebrew apps like CleanRip or USBLoader GX, and then you can use the console itself to rip games to play them on your computer.