64DD Cartridge Conversions Released

Zoinkity already tried. It's a nightmare and is not worth all the effort for a nearly identical game.
...hence why I added a "NOPE" on the page now.

 

The library used in SM64DD is the oldest version of the library known. It's incomplete too; one command is outright dummied out and there aren't even placeholders for any RTC commands. The library doesn't even natively support reading cart or IPL data at this point. The threading works somewhat differently and all the structs are somewhat different. Everything is inline instead of relying on shared functions.

(Should mention the one in the Randnet disk is also non-standard, a somewhat more paranoid variation of the original libraries. Being lazy about that though since, well, it requires Randnet.)

Right now I'm behind on several other projects promised out while fighting off a persistent illness and waiting for a new pair of glasses. It shouldn't be incredibly hard to get it working just pointlessly time-consuming rewriting everything; I'm just not able to put in the time to do it and fail to see the point of doing a cart conversion of a buggy disk proto of a cart.

Documentation was provided in the Dezaemon patch on how its conversion was done, which is much more interesting and lower-level. Pro Golf is a little messier than the others, but the changes are relatively small in the other titles. Should be really obvious with a simple comparison against the original disks.

 

I find the butthurt from some of the posts on that forum extremely amusing. It's pure fanboyism over a flashcart. Really I think they're trying to justify the fact they can't afford the more expensive cartridge to themselves in any way they can and when this was announced the butthurt got turned up to 11 (over a flashcart. Srsly?).

That said, I can't wait to get my hands a 64Drive to play around with these.

 

Sorry, missed your post.
You need to use a bootloader, like LaC's. When the bootloader is running you upload the actual cart image you want and must be certain to set the seed value used to 0xDD (same as the 8303 in the 64DD IPL). From there it basically goes back through a subset of the original boot sequence and eventually loads the cart's own bootstrap.

Basically, same as usual for using a bootloader but an extra step where you set the seed. Think with LaC's there's a funny button combo you use to force it, not sure about the Crazy Nation or any other ones.

 

i don't think money is the point, an ed64v3 costs about $190 with shell and cic and a 64drive $199. ^^
many of these people even have a collection of flashcarts.
in my case i didn't know, that a 64drive even existed before buying an everdrive more or less accidentally. ^^

to be honest i've just played two games on the n64 at all, Ocarina of time and Wonder Project J2.
i think the english translation of wpj2 has a bug and the eding wasn't playing. (watched it on yt)
maybe some talented romhacker could look into this in the future.

i think fanboyism in general is really stupid. ^^
personally, i try to release the source of everything i code for fun, that might be useful for other coders. :>
https://github.com/saturnu

btw. nice job, Zoinkity!
and your strange handtalking IS a bit scary..

 

Know for a fact the best ending plays without a hitch. (v64jr, never had the heart to play through a second time) Could be certain endings are bugged, but the guy who did it was really anal about bugtesting and such.
Are you using the original version or the one with the variable-width text balloons?

Could probably try tracking the problem down with a save file.

Although the notes this time are somewhat readable, still pretty sure this still makes no sense without a lot of background info, voodoo codework aside.

The little dingoes are still no match for this glorious work.

 

This is pretty awesome, but I still want to have an actual 64DD one day.

 

hm, than it's more likely that there was something wrong with my rom or it was too fragmented on the disk.
i don't have the save file anymore and it's too long to play through it again, just for testing.

 

Did you find anything interesting while examining the Mario 64 disk version?

 

Outside of using very, very old, incomplete leo libs, no. Sound engine is different, but still same sound being pushed through it.
Even just a boring data comparison shows it to be nearly identical to cart.

In response to somebody's comment a while ago, if these impact the price of real 64DDs at all expect them to go up, not down. There's a lot of misinformation about the drive and its games. Seriously, this is a really great library of titles and they all use the drive's capabilities well.

 

Excellent work! Do these work on the ED64v2 using the Alt64 menu, or just the ED64v3?

 

saturnu, who has been developing this, has a V2.

 

Zoinkity, sorry to be repetitive, but do you know if he is going to work further on the patch, as apparently the released version (https://github.com/PeterLemon/N64/tree/master/Translate/SimCity-64) still contains a lot of Japanese? I can't find his e-mail address to ask him, so I have to ask you, as hopefully you're in touch with him.

We really do need a fully English-translated version of Sim City 64, and it would be awful if it never materialsed.

 

He also has other projects. Just be patient. It's still being worked on.

 

Great! Thanks, mate.

 

Just saw this post. Wow... I´m going to buy an Everdrive 64 V3 (especially if it is going to work with Sim City 64 ). I still don´t know the differences between Everdrive 64 V3 and 64Drive. If someone knows...

 

Yes he is still working on it. I've seen some WIP stuff and it's proceeding nicely. No I don't know when you'll see a release.

Better build and design quality is a good reason to purchase the 64Drive over the Everdrive. There are some extra features on the 64Drive that you probably won't use that I believe are largely for dev work.

Overall, if you want to save money and don't mind skimping a bit on quality go with the ED64. If you want the creme de la creme go for the 64Drive.

 

I´m actually going to use it for games and dev so I guess you would probably advice me to buy 64Drive. Do you know the features that makes 64Drive better for dev ? I heard that Everdrive is better for game compatibility, is it correct ?

 

There aren't any games that don't run on a 64drive that I'm aware of. Also, 64drives support all the known save formats, including oddballs like Dezaemon and Pokemon Stadium 2.

Doubutsu no Mori uses an on-cart clock that's handled by V3 Everdrives. On previous Everdrive versions the game would crash when saving. However, with other flashcarts (including the 64drive) this isn't an issue. It simply will ask you to set the clock each time you play. The crash bug was specific to Everdrives.

64drive does run my Dezaemon DD combined cart and apparently there was some issue with this working on Everdrives. It also can run LuigiBlood's 64DD dumper. Interestingly, his dumper was written without having either a 64DD or a 64Drive to work with.

One thing worth noting is that SD support for 64drive seems much less picky. Deleting files doesn't cause a problem, and it handles fragmentation at least up to 17% (which is what Windows reports on my SD card) without buggering up. The FAT library source is available and the hardware specification is available on the website.

As far as things go V3 Everdrives and the 64drive have relatively equivalent features and price. That said, there hasn't been a need for a new 64drive version since it's release. Mine has been incredibly reliable, pretty much replacing the v64jr.

[edit]
Forgot, one interesting thing you can do is upload a ROM to the 64drive via PC when it isn't on and start just that game without going through the menus--or even having an SD card. In that respect it works like the flashcarts of old, and it's a great way to test things that might otherwise conflict or aren't supported yet with the current menus (rather handy during the Aleck and 64DD conversions, at least until I hacked the menu ;*))

 

What Zoinkity said.