Upon turning on the console, the CPU will start loading an operating system called Dolphin OS found on the BIOS/IPL chip, this is a very minimal OS that will take care of initialising the hardware and providing some convenient system calls and global variables for games to use. Games developed using the official SDK will implicitly execute these calls during low-level operations.
The official logo, shown after the boot animation finishes.
Splash and shell
After finishing the boot process, the OS will load a small program unofficially called Main Menu.
Main Menu with multiple settings available.
Clock settings.
Sound settings.
This program is responsible for displaying the famous splash animation (the wee cube drawing a GameCube logo) and loading the game if there is one inserted. In the absence of a valid game, it will then provide a simple cube-shaped menu with various options to choose from:
- Change Date and Clock.
- Load the game from the DVD reader.
- Manage saves on any Memory Card.
- Change sound settings and screen position.