ED64Plus - a new flashcart for the Nintendo64 ?

Sad to see this kind of rip-offs... I hope it doesn't sell at all.

 

I've never liked any flash cart that requires a donor cart on top of it. True this is good for stuff like the CIC in the N64 for use with different CIC model games and regions. But it also makes a behemoth tower setup. Worse than when I have Sonic 3 locked to Sonic and Knuckles on top of a game Genie in a 32X on a model 1 Genesis with model 1 CD attached. Now THAT is one tall mutha. Thank god I didn't need a region cart too. Point is that the smaller size is better for convenience and protection. Who wants a setup that dies every time you breath because it makes the carts sway like a skyscraper? Not me for sure. I pass on this cheap repo for that as well as the fact the maker ripped off KRIkzz (spell it right?) work.

 

I have already discussed this with KRIKzz.

Edit: Should be more clear. I filed for the trademark to the EverDrive64 in the U.S. and will be willing to defend it if needed.

 

Even though I'm not particularly a fan of the ED64, this is complete bullshit; anyone who buys it is a moron anyways, and they'll just be aggravated by a crap product. I'm calling it a crap product due to the need to use a legit cart for the CIC, instead of just integrating the CIC on the PCB; although, they probably did it this way so they wouldn't have to harvest anything from N64 carts so they could easily mass produce them.

Off Topic: StoneAgeGamer, do you know if KRIKzz has fixed the incompatibility issues with 6103 games when using a 6105 CIC? At the moment, that's my biggest gripe with the ED64 v2, and after it's fixed I'd personally view it as a product on par with the 64drive in terms of playing games, I still believe the 64drive is best for anyone wanting to get into development, but a lot of the people buying these carts just want to load "backups" of their games. Either way, these past few years have been great for the N64, since we no longer have to spend time hunting down the clunky BUNG products.

 

I got one ed64plus, to look closer on this piece of chinese art... Lol, chinese guy mounted few capacitors with wrong value, and few small smd parts just fall off from pcb One part on back side and 3 parts on front side

 

it has a CIC onboard and still needs a cart on top? LOL

 

That's very strange. If the passthrough is to read a real cart's cic, what's the onboard one for?

 

the onboard cic is a self destruct explosion device in disguise, it detects if you've played a genuine everdrive on your n64 and if it detects positive it blows your console to bits lol. seriously thou why the onboard cic and passthrough. maybe it has option for onboard cic soldered with or without? or maybe it bypasses the onboard cic if you got a cart attached to allow play of banjoo tooie for example, saying that i doubt it's possible to bypass the onboard cic? krikzz would know he got a ed64plus to have a look at it. not that anyone should purchase this device as it's just krikzz's hard work stolen and repackaged with less quality.

 

Maybe the person who "designed" it had no idea what it was, lol.

 

Probably can solder in CIC if you want or use pass through. I believe that CIC was put in by KRIKzz or the guy who sent it to him.

 

It looks like the same components on KRIKzz cart (no telling how they have been handled at the factory though, if ESD safety was a concern or not). And the PCB itself isn't as good as KRIKzz PCB (KRIKzz has the ground on the edges of the PCB exposed so that it can hook directly up to the RFI shielding inside a retail N64 cart if you assemble it the way it is meant to be. Actually the RFI shield serves the purpose of grounding extraneous ESD properly so I would suggest to not run KRIKzz' card bare for very long and assemble it properly into a shell, keeping the sheet metal [to minimize ESD damage to the microchips, primarily]. I ended up having to dremel quite a bit of the shielding away so that the SD card would be free to be reinserted properly.)

Just for this fact, the PCB is ugly in my opinion. Ugly in functionality. I wouldn't care if it was even aesthetically prettier. It just isn't done right. If anyone can post what else was inside this cart, feel free to. But I doubt it has the RFI shield inside. It will operate fine without it, but that isn't how the cartridge design was intended to be. N64 cartridges were much more well thought out than carts from most other previous systems, including NES and SNES. Though, when I put together sd2snes custom shell, FX cartridges do have a little grounding tab built in that does basically the same exact thing (more or less) as the RFI shielding inside an N64 cart. Even the feel of an N64 cart gives the essence of quality.

I kinda wonder why people bounce into these threads and just state "it is junk" and then move on. I guess my mind likes explanation and more technical details. It is junk because the quality and build of the product is inferior to the original in some ways and plus the components may not have been handled as carefully as KRIKzz handles his stuff as well as KRIKzz provides a level of quality control that possibly is unmatched in a small China copycat facility. The above I thought about for a little while and figured out on my own. Actually I found a few of these things by discussing with an electronics engineer in person whom I didn't expect would have knowledge about game cartridges at all.

Anyway just my thoughts and hopefully some of this information is useful to help people preserve their original KRIKzz EverDrive 64 product and also serves the purpose to steer people in the right direction as purchasing KRIKzz unit is technically a better idea than purchasing the China copy.

 

So if you buy the official one you have to solder a chip in it!!?? But the other you just piggyback a cart to the connector on top?

oic: you pay $50 extra to add the same options (CIC, USB, Plastic shell)

 

I forgot this thread even existed. LOL!

Don't buy that piece-o-shit. It's a cheap chinese ripoff clone. KRIKzz got one and reported that stuff was wrong and other stuff fell off the board. You're better off with the real deal and a CIC soldered in. Now that Banjo Tooie has been hacked to work with the common CIC chips (6102 for NTSC and 7101 for PAL) it now has 100% game compatibility with out changing the chip. You just need the ROMs and CIC for your video type.

 

Must be a reason they didn't clone the 64Drive.

 

SCUM! I will alert other forums.

 

Yes but this thing could also have 100% compatibility now. Banjo Tooie rom can be manually patched and still be run on 1.28. Even that, was there any anti-clone feature introduced in the 1.29 OS update? (Which auto patches Banjo Tooie) I didn't see any thread complaining about a ED64Plus being bricked by the 1.29 OS update.

 

I need to get that update since I haven't messed with my OFFICIAL ED64 for some time.

Also, why are people still defending this chinese rip off clone??? KRIKzz has already proven it's junk and while it may work right it is still a rip off of his creation and therefore should not be supported. Pay a little more for the real ED64 and get a good solid design that has support if problems should arise that aren't your fault. Good luck at getting that with the clone.

 

I don't have that clone, I own a genuine ED64 v1. I'm not defending it for one bit. This thing is a pure steal of intellectual property. It was just by curiosity.

 

Ah. Then I guess if it is based off his design that means the 1.29 with the auto patch for Banjo Tooie should work.