Announcing the 64drive nearing completion

Ugly is in the Eye of the Beholder... I think it looks awesome!

The GBA cart adapter design makes it simple to swap between several lower-priced GBA flash carts for game storage. Granted, I think using a large sram and a removable media interface is better, but the design is at least rational for a company that produces GBA flash carts by the ton.

All hardware and software is buggy when sold. It's just a matter of degree and willingness of the manufacturer to admit it and/or make updates available. NeoFlash has been pretty good about taking care of bugs.

Look at the Everdrive-MD... it's gone through more than a dozen hardware updates for bugs and features, and almost two dozen updates for the "OS" (the menu). The first Everdrive sold only worked on certain Model 1 and 2 consoles, didn't work for or on the 32X or for SMS games, and misidentified most roms. It was a real mess. It got better fast, but if you had the first few revs and no ByteBlaster cable, you were pretty screwed.

I think NeoFlash is trying to find another market for all their left over GBA flash carts.

This is the main valid complaint - the PC client software is slow, buggy, and not updated very fast. I'm hoping more folks will help with madmonkey's open source client to make it a viable alternative.

Well, me, conle, mic, and madmonkey. None of us work for NeoFlash; we just bought one or more of their carts and felt like we could help make it better for everyone quicker than NeoFlash was taking.

The only core upgrade so far for better performance was on the SNES Myth. The updates to the N64 Myth are strictly bugs in save mem emulation. The only update at all to the MD Myth was a change for running SMS games from SD card.

And a ByteBlaster cable to update your Everdrive costs from $30 to $150 depending on what type you get and where you get it. Such things aren't free. Will this cart even be update-able? What kind of connection will it require, and how much will it cost?

Besides, there are folks on the NeoFlash board who are willing to update a person's cart for them for free. Also, the updates on the N64 Myth are not strictly needed since you can always plug a cart with the proper type of save mem into the N64 Myth and set the save mem to use the external cart.

The biggest problem with the Neo Myth carts besides the PC client software is the price. I'm hoping the competition from this cart will drive the price of the N64 Myth down, and vice versa... get a little price war going so people can get a cart for the N64 for a decent price. Even $200 for this cart is too much for many people.

 

right, but the bug that you can't save on 16bkeeprom it's easy to find, just
play some games. We started the testing when the cart was lunched on the market, some customers got a bugged product and there wasn't much time to aware them or DrNeo. This is very unprofessional.

 

That should be the statement for now. :clap:

marshallh, good luck with your 64drive!

 

For some people it is not just the price....features, support...etc

 

let me just say it look alot better than the neo teams flash cart wich look like a hunk of crap , i mean it has a nice menu set up and it i put in a real n64 cart, now the only decision will i choose the everdrive64 or the 64drive , at the moment i am leaning toward the 64drive because it has a nice menu , and it will have a region forcer yey i can play pal games on my n64. you the man marshal.

another bonus is i don't need to use software , just throw the games in the folders , alot of people don't relise that help there business tenfold as i am a mac , most flash cart use drivers or software only compatible windows , so by doing this saves me the headache of setting up boot camp or parallels .

 

Beta boards are almost ready to go out, y'all know who you are

 

awesome!

 

We want !!

 

ray:

 

glad to see that beta testing is happening

 

looking good

 

Very good indeed

 

Awesome, Marshall! Congrats on your progress, I can't wait to order one

 

Let me know if there is any way I can help in the future marshallh, looking forward to getting my hands on a finished model

 

will order one as soon as everything is finalized

 

Hopefully now you sank your time and money into this project and the everdrive 64 is on the way, you can remain comptitive and make a nice return mrshallh, or at the least break even.

As an N64 fan who sadly nver collected for the console outside of it's heyday, something like this would get my interest. Will it be possible to get a breakdown chart of the feature comparisona with similar products to help make an informed decsion?

Obviously it looks like you went balls out on this project but it would be nice to see just how far ahead yours is at a glance.

 

nice work!

 

very impressive mate, price seems reasonable considering what you have had to put into it

 

I've now had the pleasure of testing the 64drive and it's really a dream come true for fans of the N64, and I would say I'm one of those

I hope Marshallh gets a ton of orders for this one so all that hard work was worth it, keep up the good work

 

Lots of questions for you as I have been watching this for a while on the Internets, and I have to say I'm a big fan so far:

Is there a way that we can make this window disappear for known commercial games, and make an already clean interface cleaner. Or a way that the end user can program it directly, so as it wont pop up.

Also is there any ballpark release date?

Will there be support for people to edit the menus style through images or config files?

Your site says it has been tested with 2gb cards, any update on testing of 8gb or 16gb?

How easy do you think it would be for me to hack it so I can put a compact flash cart internally, or behind the cart, so as not to have one hanging out the top. I only ask this as it looks really fragile, and doesn't look kid friendly.

Will the final release have a EMI shield(IE; metal plate)?

What is the purpose for the music folder? does it parse the music from the game, or is it just a way to add mp3 player functionality to yet another device?

I am not familiar with n64 programming or hardware, but do you mean to say that all saves will be saved to the 64drive's compact flash, whether they were meant to save to the control deck(n64itself) or the control pak(the memory card for the controllers). If this is so, will this have any affect on games that uses the rumble and expect you to switch between the rumble pak and the control pak?

So let me get this right, I add the modified Jet Force Gemini rom on the compact flash card, and solder in the 6105 CIC and I have 100% compatibility? Or do I just solder on the 6105 CIC chip to have 100%?

If the 6105 CIC chip is installed, do I have to constantly flip a switch or go in a menu to select it or deselect it?

Whats the issue with being able to use gameshark with it, and why would you brick the gs if its used. Is there still a possibility of this feature being implemented internally with the GS rom?

Any traction on implementing what you know on the 6105 cic in your website to the fully finished product to prevent soldering the 6105 cic. Link: retroactive.be/cic/

Thanks for any info, I am really looking for a neat, friendly, and easy-to-use product. and keep up the good work!