Mario RPG 2 64DD?

I know dick about the N64 or 64DD as I've played like 3 games on either. What are the different resolutions of each? I thought all video on the N64 was interlaced... why would the 64DD be any different?
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64DD doesn't have resolutions because it doesn't have any display hardware, it's really just a fancy cartridge. N64's display is programmable like almost everything else about the console, but all non "high-res" games (all but 5?) make the output 240p to save memory and because 60 fps with occasional slowdown is better than rock solid 30 fps.

 

Surprise : its not the N64 that recognizes top slot / bottom slot use, the 64dd itself checks and deactivates if it finds a cartridge in the upper slot. Thats how it solves conflicts between game cartridge cic and dd cic.

 

I'm sure you mean the game copies memory from the buffer into RAM, not the DD, because that's not possible.

If all that can be seen on board is an ASIC, what's this 32-bit nonsense all over the place? Is there even external memory? If not, I'm going to wager that the N64 just polls a FIFO.

There is nothing stopping a game from setting the video mode, how many more times do I have to say this? Unless the 64DD has a watchdog that the game has to periodically service, I imagine that it could cut off all contact from the DD.

You make it seem like an Expansion Pak is an integral part of making a interlaced game, it's not.

 

seeing that you like to be utterly technical, this is also wrong. it's the DDROM that does this, not a game

The expansion pak is not an integral part of making an interlaced game, I m not a technical n00b unless you really try to squeeze obsure meanings out of what I said. It is no secret that games at some point used the expansion pak for higher resolution graphics, this doesn't mean it's integral, it means it was used in such a manner. yes?


Finally, magazines of the time claimed that the DD has a 32bit co-processor. I have personally been unable to find such a component, but an ASIC should be in place to manage traffic.

PS: Don't be so rudely critical when you can be constructively critical , let's all play nice around here

 

Don't worry, its his usual way to be - he's not evil

 

Hey, hey man take it easy. We just disagree that's, all, yes the coprocessor, is just for the drive but it enabled that drive to do some unique thing's thats all I am saying, and my facts come from Nintendo interviews etc.. that say the 64dd could make games for the n64 that the cartridge format could not. Both Miyamoto and Shigesato Itoi said this, and is the primary reason, that games could not just be shoved from disk to format. The primary advantage of the 64dd was storage, rewritable storage, enabling it to make ever changing levels through expansion etc...

I res[ect you technical knowledge Calpis, let's get that clear first. I think the only way of clearing this up, is to identif all the chips on the opened 64DD boards.

Instead on nitpicking let's just agree to disagree. I only think the 64dd has a 32 bit co processor, as all magazines and people at the time said it did. I know a hell of a lot about the 64dd but I don't claim to know everything, however the developers that I have spoken with said, the 64DD could do thing's that cartridge simply couldn't hence the reason Nintendo canned all those massive games. The work of transferring disk code to cart code was not simple.

 

Barc0de, I'm only correcting what I see as false, perhaps to you it's insignificant and seems critical but to me, false is false and shouldn't be allowed to possibly be misconstrued as truth.

I know what you guys are saying. It's true that the disks held more memory than carts at the time. It's true that they have a lot more writable space than any existing game carts. But other than that, there is just nothing special about a disk game (or the 64DD itself or the expansion pak or DDROM), and it needs to be made clear. Marketing may allude otherwise but cart games and disk games are exactly the same thing as far as the N64 is concerned, so is internal memory and expansion pak memory.

I'm not trying to be argumentative but you're making it too easy. Once control is passed to the game from the DDROM, it's the game's choice to use the DDROM as it sees fit, including using it's disk loading functions or not at all, the DDROM has no say in the matter, unless they made a DDROM that never passed control to the game. On the N64 you can't think of ROM as executable memory because it's not, instead it's just like a CDROM sector that only becomes code once it's put in CPU memory and the program counter reaches it.

These aren't matters of semantics, this is actually an important distinction (and really the only thing I've been arguing!) that doesn't seem to be fully received yet: the 64DD like any cartridge is passive. It can't enhance the game (actively) because it can't do any of the N64's work for it, and even if it could with a co-processor, it's would still be slave to the N64 program since it can't directly access anything within the N64 on it's own. Maybe not to you, but to me, that makes it wrong to give the 64DD or DDROM credit where it isn't due.

 

Calpis is correct. This is how the 64DD functions. Barcode, instead of thinking of the game as a game, think of it as a program that manipulates the hardware to produce everything you see and hear and control.

All the 64DD did was provide more data, or rather, data at a cheaper price than cartridge ROM. The comment about the 64DD just being a big ass cartridge is correct if you think of its operation with a disk inside. You could have had a massive cartridge do everything the 64DD did (except perhaps the writeable space). Only the writeable aspect of the 64DD made it exciting. The reason the 64DD games don't run at a higher resolution is that the memory pack was being used for buffering of the magnetic disk. Potentially you could have seen games in higher resolution running on the 64DD with disk reading interupting gameplay (or loading screens appearing more often), but probably Nintendo would not have allowed that to occur after all the fuss they made about drive access and how important instant gameplay was.

 

But that's the whole point we are trying to make, and why all the 64dd projects just didn't get shoved onto cartridge, and why it took so long to reverse engineer a disk drive game. The writable aspect of the drive makes a huge difference in the both the way the game is programmed and the way the game plays, otherwise, all the disk games could have just went to cartridge. The massive writable space made the game completely different and is he reason mother 3 ran into such difficulties. It couldn't just be shoved on to a 32mb or 64mb cart, because most of the game used the writable space of the dd sisk, as did the mario artist games, even doshin the giant did to a degree, plus, mario artist is great point, you couldn't have swapped carts around like that, or put your characters from mario paint onto sim city 64 with cartridges. It was this aspect that made the addd on unique and exciting. And games such as Mother 3 and rp2 became completely different when they could not use writable space. Even if Mother 3 had been released, to fullly realise the game as it was, the cart would have had dd hooks, and mother 3.5 was planned if randnet had beeen successful.

I seee you point though in that technically it wan't doing anything different if the game did not use the writable space, but if it did, it's a completely different ball game, and that is the point we are trying to make. Also if the 64dd had came out in say 98 and games kept on getting cartridge/dd hooks, then we could have possibly seen endless updates to the big sellers, which is really unique, also in the early stages alot of games were possibly being planned as multi game titles like mario artist, so we could have potenially seen 128mb n64 games, which would have been something really special and unique and there was no way you could affoard to have multi cart games.

 

It's my fault for ranting a bit about the fundamentals, it dilutes things I guess. My point is that the 64DD is a 'dumb' device. Your statement:

"The 32 bit coprocessor was in the 64dd, and if you read the way i worded it, it makes sense. I said the 64dd cannot use the expanision pack for high res graphics but IT(the 64DD) can use the expansion pack and it's(the 64dd's) 32 bit co processor to create far more deatiled environment's and texture's, due to the disk space and the way the add on was set up in general."

Is incorrect. The reason being that the device just offers more storage space and a writeable area (and a 'clock' if you want to be picky). My understanding of 64DD operation is that the memory expansion is just used to dump data from the disk to, i.e. a buffer, which is then accessed by the N64. This is for speed reasons and to prevent load time problems.

The 64DD doesn't allow for more detailed environments, at least not over a cart with the memory expansion plugged in. It just allows for bigger games because of the larger data storage. The writeable section of the disk allows creative developers to potentially change the environments and store those changes based on what the game/user manipulates. But that is down to the developers.

You could do the same thing with a cart and writeable memory. I don't believe that ports didn't occur because of the writeable memory. I believe they were shelved because the carts size requirements would have cost too much. Ultimately the 64DD was just a modern day Famicom Diskdrive.

 

I always wondered what could of been had the 64dd been released on time. Question is why did it take nintendo so long to released the damn thing?

 

the external dev IPL says it all.

They had difficulties syncing the device properly since it's a pretty "dumb" drive.

 

It was probably a cost thing. What surprises me is that it ever got released at all. Not to put down the device, but so late into the machine's lifespan and with Nintendo's history of shelving hardware, it is a wonder.

 

outstanding contracts. That's why it got released.

 

man recruit must of been pissed.

 

Recruit were actually the one's who pshed for it to be released, as they saw the potenial profits of a short term network service, and if they could have maintained a high level of intrest and subscribers, then the games and internet services would have continued for years as the satellaview service did.

One thing hampered the console though and that was the fact that the internet had not really penetrated japan at that time, and they thought they could do it with the dd and were wrong, just like Sega and the dreamcast.They were ahead of their time.