Announcing the 64drive nearing completion

All N64 games that are worth your time take up around 2gb.

 

you could always use a CF to SDHC adapter

but i agree mass produce this thing i was it to be between 30 and 60 bucks

even the ever drive is pushing it on price at 70-80 bucks

just mass produce the damn thing

 

Placing priority NTSC-U->PAL->NTSC-J, about 7 gigs, iirc. (if there is a NTSC-U version, use that, else if there is a PAL use that, else if there is a NTSC-J version, use that)

Also how is 20$ for the option to be able to store every unique game (aside from kiosk demos) expensive? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220460 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208340

 

Region priorities shouldn't matter since all regions' ROMs are the same size (at least most of the time), but anyways I agree with your 7GB estimate. I've modded my Z64 with a HDD and loaded it with all the games that were out at that point (excluding most region dupes except for cases like "Beetle Adventure Racing" vs "HSV Adventure Racing"), that came out as a bit over 6GB iirc. Add to that the couple of >256MBit games (not supported on the Z64) and the handful of new releases and you should end up at slightly less than 7GB.

 

I guess you'll be financing that, then?

Once again, you don't know what you're talking about.

 

CF uses parallel communication and SD uses serial, have fun with that bottleneck. But since most of the hardcore photographer types I know use CF it shouldn't be hard to find some CF cards on the cheap. Heck I got a free 4gb CF card by turning in used up ink carts to Staples at $3 a pop. Now it's a mere $2 but still.

$100 I'd be down for one. Any higher and I'd sooner invest in a CD64 even if it meant I couldn't have fun with the Zelda debug roms.

 

There hasn´t been any update from marshall for quite some time. Hopefully he is able to implement 768kb SRam save to support Dezaemon 3D :thumbsup:

There are lots of Dezaemon 2 shooters for Sega Saturn floating around the web, see: http://www.satakore.com/sega-saturn-complete-dezaemon2,,1,,0.html
Maybe that could also happen to Dezaemon 3D if the 64drive supports those save games...

 

Woh , you guys can sell Z64 for 350$ ???

I live in South East Asia and in my local gaming forums N64 copier pop up from time to time and the best one could never sell past 120$ - 150$ price range. SNES copiers is like 20$.

I'll make a lot of profits if I start exporting these things over the US I guess....

 

Basic capitalism my good man: supply and demand. Here in the states I can get practically any Playstation game for under $20. In South America? $100+ for the good ones. If you were to export a ton of them you'd find the market dropping out after a while.

 

Well those days are gone since there are better alternatives now like the Neo Myth or the 64drive.
But I still have an ad where they advertise the Z64 for 998DM thats about $500 in the year 1999 or $671 with the current dollar inflation.

 

If you copied a mere 8 games you reached the break even.

Remember how ridiculously expensive N64 games used to be here!

 

This is something I'd be definitely interested in. I dug my N64 out yesterday, but it looked awful connected to the LCD TV. I might keep hold of my old CRT.

 

Badass! Great Work.

 

You can put me down for one, I'm about to buy a V64 but I'd rather get one of these!

 

Great stuff, marshallh! You can count me in for one as well!

If you don't mind sharing more technical details, I would certainly love to hear. I had actually began creating my own N64 cartridge emulator, but quickly found that my VHDL skills were not what they were in my college days. That coupled with my complete lack of time made my attempt a dead project. Glad to see yours working, though! At any rate, I would love to hear about how you designed the SDRAM interface, as this can be a real pain in the ass. Did you use the memory interface design tools provided by the FPGA vendor, or come up with your own? Additionally, board layout for high speed SDRAM interfaces can be very tricky, yet this looks like it may only be a two layer design. Mind if I ask what the memory interface speed is?

Again, my hat is off to you!

 

It's a DDR 133 chip if i recall correctly.

 

I'm using pc133 SDRAM clocked at 100mhz. The sdram controller that I wrote runs at that speed also. The rest of the logic is 50mhz.
Board layout is 2layer, yes I'd very much like to use 4 layer but it's not cost effective in small runs. The routing is pretty important, mainly that length differences in your traces are minimized. I had to try several different clock skews with the SDRAMs (there are 2 chips) before it worked reliably.

 

Simply awesome :O

Count me in for one, maybe two depending on the price.

Cheers!!

 

Marshall, your efforts behind your flash cart are invaluable to us N64 gamers; your asking price is more than reasonable. Does everyone just expect you to give it away for free?

How do you plan to distribute these? Privately through your own website or maybe through another retro device site? Either way, count me in for a day-one purchase!

Seems like you will create quite a splash once this lands, keep us updated on your progress :thumbsup:

 

Oh yeah, also wanted to ask if it will possibly have GameShark or other cheat function built-in?