I made an account just to come here to figure out some things about the 64DD. Recently I discovered that my Ocarina of Time NTSC cartridge displays a black screen when my 64DD is attached to the control deck. I found out that the 64DD's have software region-locks built into them that prevents USA games from using Japanese 64DD software. (This same result would happen if you tried using a USA F-Zero X cart with the F-Zero X expansion kit disk, you need the Japanese cart to pair with the disk) This has made me curious, because if these games cease to boot when the 64DD is inserted, that must me the game is checking for the add-on, finding it present, but the wrong region present, and the game displaying a black screen. Any other game that was not going to have an add on for the 64DD boots fine when my 64DD is in the control deck, but games like Ocarina of Time (Which was supposed to get URA Zelda), Mario Party 1 and Pokemon Stadium won't work when the 64DD is in. What this tells me is that these games are looking for the USA version of the 64DD that never got the chance to exist. Now, I've seen some 64DD Development Kits floating around eBay the past year or two, and I'm curious: Are the 64DD Dev Kits "region-free"? When a Japanese OoT and the wrong disk are in the 64DD, the game boots and tells you "The wrong disk is in the drive, please insert the expansion kit disk for this game cart" or something to that effect in Japanese like in this video. Do the 64DD Dev Kits work on retail 64 control decks or only on 64 dev kit control decks? (I know developing games required both to be used in unison) If they can be used on retail control decks, were they designed to be able to interface with games for any region? Ultimately, I'd like to know if we can "trick" the NTSC carts into thinking a "USA 64DD" is interfacing with it. Maybe we'd get english error messages we've never seen before? It's obvious these USA games were meant to be compatible with 64DD expansion disks, if not, why have the executable hook to look for a 64DD? This might be changing the topic a little, but has anyone hacked or modded a regular 64DD to change the discover if it's region code could be changed? Sorry if this seems a bit convoluted. If I'm not making sense let me know, but I am interested in getting to know how the insides of this thing work, and I'm not getting anywhere else on any other forums. Please let me know what you know! Thank you!
I can't comment on the dev kits, but I'm curious as to why you believe it's an intentional region lock as USA consoles will work with the N64DD just fine. I feel like F Zero expansion isn't necessarily region locked, its looking for one specific game F-Zero (NTSC-J) and will error on ANY game that isn't that specific game.
A retail 64DD disk will not work in a dev unit and vice versa, so that would not work. The 64DD also does add US/JPN region checking which is why some games that (were supposed to) have an add-on won't work if it's not a Japanese copy.
Isn't the F-Zero X Expansion the only officially released game that did this? It should still work on an NTSC-U unit if the tabs are cut. Other than that, all of the released 64DD games ought to work with an American N64. It does require an Expansion Pak. I don't have a 64DD, so I'm not speaking from experience, but I've read a lot about it.
Thanks MasterOfPuppets, that answers one of the many questions I have. So if hypothetically I had a N64 dev kit and 64DD dev kit running together, had a random disk like Mario Artist in the drive and an NTSC-U Ocarina of Time in the slot, do you think we'd get an English error code similar to how the Japanese units get an error code in their language? I just want to know if anyone has ever tried to explore other region codes for the 64DD, and maybe has seen things I haven't. I'm just extremely intrigued in this at the moment. Also I'd like to point out, the N64 control deck being USA or Japanese has NOTHING to do with the compatibility in this case, just as long as your american console or cartridges are modded to work with eachother. 64DD's are compatible with US N64 decks, and if you're just playing a straight disk game, like Doshin 1 or SimCity 64, then you have no worries. What I'm getting at is the expansion kits that need a cart to work with. 64DD's have software-based region locks that restrict USA carts from being able to use the Japanese expansion disk, and that's why you need a Japanese F-Zero X cart to work with your F-Zero X Expansion Kit (because it too is as Japanese-region game.) In the case of the USA/Jap N64 decks themselves, they just act as a medium of communication between the cart and the 64DD. The deck itself is not imposing any restrictions.
See this is where I'm confused. Now I'm no N64DD programming expert, but I'm fairly certain there is no software based region locking done between NTSC-J and NTSC-U/C on the N64. If that were the case, Nintendo should have been able to region lock the N64 consoles themselves (software wise), but instead the N64 is region locked by tabs (on the hardware). It seems to me that the F-Zero Expansion blocks ANY game, it doesn't matter which region. (If you put Mario Party 3 in the slot, even if it's Japanese you'll get the same error). F-Zero Expansion isn't blocking the USA version solely, it's blocking every game that isn't the 1 game it's looking for. (To me, that isn't a region lock, it's a game lock)
Hello I already found how to boot F-Zero X USA, Zelda OOT USA and Mario Party USA with the 64DD. I got all errors messages in english. Mario Party PAL also shows errors messages in german and french. You can have all the infos on my blog: http://www.gamekult.com/blog/jimmy1...4dd-f-zero-x-usa-boot-avec-expansion-kit.html
Region locking with the 64DD: The 64DD is technically software region locked via hardware, if that makes any sense. Oddly, as far as I can tell a theoretical European 64DD would be identical to the US one. Within the 64DD detection functions is a simple read at a fixed address in the IPL, falling within the font data. Addressing in the IPLs is different between regions, so E and J would request different values and therefore be software region-locked. The values expected in the expansion carts are the same between E and P, so we can assume those would be fine. You can force international expandable games to load with the Japanese expansion/64DD deck by switching the values expected or killing the test entirely. Jimmy130 has some demonstrations of this. Other Issues: Expandable carts will read the disk header and stow it at 800001A0, occasionally referencing it. The version disk had better match what the cart expects, and most use an internal code similar to the 5-byte cart code. This isn't any sort of protection scheme or anything; it would be bad to try to run a disk for a version 2.5 of a game if it was made for version 1.0. Which leads to the biggest issue... The Moot Point: This is all a moot point. There are two different kinds of expansions--data and reboot--and with the exception of Dezaemon 3D all expandable games rebooted. This means the cart expects the disk data to be located at a certain LBA, and likewise the disk expects global functions and ROM addresses to follow a certain map. Obviously if ROM addresses aren't correct you can't load cart resources using the disks' code, and likewise any global function it expects (the 64DD's software driver at and above 4MB in rdram, for instance) had better be at the same address between regions with no deviations. That said, I can say with certainty that the F-Zero X cart would simply fail to load resources from cart gracefully and eventually lock on original courses. If a Zelda 64 expansion disk was ever found, it should be usable on either the US or Japanese 1.0 releases--but no later!
Ok, so you're saying that my NTSC-U OoT v1.0 cart SHOULD be booting the game when the 64DD is present? It's not. I have an NTSC-U 64 control deck and when I boot the game, I get a black screen. That's the intentional design though, right? Is there any way of me booting my OoT cart without a black screen, to at least get an error code without booting an edited ROM on a backup cart device?
You will find your answer on my blog. You just have to change 2 bytes in Zelda OOT rom to break region protection. This video shows 64DD errors in english: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmLRgNkA5d4
Thank you Jimmy130, you've been extremely helpful with all this. Guess I need to get an Everdrive to mess around with this. Do you have an English version of your blog? Google translates it decently, but some things seems slightly unclear or mistranslated. I'm really interested in getting a "disk" save on my cart, I think that would be super cool. This also brings up the original question again: do we know if the 64 dev Kit control deck paired with a 64DD dev kit will show English error codes on an UNEDITED NTSC-U OoT v1.0 cart? I understand it's moot at this point, but still very interested.
I don't have an english version of my blog. You can't have errors messages with Zelda OOT if you use 64DD dev kit. The game read value in the IPL. So the game detects this is not a commercial 64DD. Because in a 64DD dev kit, the IPLrom is not include, IPLrom is on a N64 cartridge. If you have idea, I can try it with my stuff.
