Support NeoGAF

[Hayama Akito]

According to LuigiBlood, the guy who made possible the 64DD dumps the emulation of this well known peripheral for the Nintendo 64 was finally emulated on MESS, by the MESS crew.

https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/575784977767534592

https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/576407887049846784

https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/576411997874483200

https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/576412767101456384

https://twitter.com/LuigiBlood/status/576413021733412865

I asked to him about share the news, the reply was:

So i guess is okay. It is pretty interesting because maybe this will be the only way to at least "know" the 64DD stuff without paying the ridiculous prices on eBay or Yahoo Auctions. Of course it will run very slow on MESS so it seems someone at Project64, Mupen or 1964 will need to port the 64DD driver of MESS to their emulators first.

 

[The Elite]

So what games should I be excited about potentially trying that I never had access to before?

 

[Midas]

So what games should I be excited about potentially trying that I never had access to before?

Isnt there a track editor for F-Zero? Maybe I'm just making things up.

 

[Peltz]

So what games should I be excited about potentially trying that I never had access to before?

F-Zero X Expansion. That is the N64DD's killer-app. The tracks people have made on the track editor is nothing short of astounding.

Madao of retro-GAF once mentioned that he's spent over 1,000 hours in his copy of it.

 

[OnionPowder]

So what games should I be excited about potentially trying that I never had access to before?

Isn't there Mario Paint 64?

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

So what games should I be excited about potentially trying that I never had access to before?

I actually thought there would be more titles than this:

Randnet Disk
(ランドネットディスク?) February 23, 2000

F-Zero X Expansion Kit
(エフゼロ エックス エクスパンション キット?) April 21, 2000

Japan Pro Golf Tour 64
(日本プロゴルフツアー64 Nippon Puro Gorufu Tsua 64?) May 2, 2000

Doshin the Giant
(巨人のドシン1 Kyojin no Doshin 1?) December 1, 1999

Doshin the Giant:
Tinkling Toddler Liberation Front! Assemble!
(巨人のドシン解放戦線 チビッコチッコ大集合

Kyojin no Doshin Kaihō Sensen Chibikko Chikko Daishūgō?) May 17, 2000
Mario Artist: Paint Studio
(マリオアーティスト ペイントスタジオ?) December 1, 1999

Mario Artist: Talent Studio
(マリオアーティスト タレントスタジオ?) February 23, 2000

Mario Artist: Communication Kit
(マリオアーティスト コミュニケーションキット?) June 29, 2000

Mario Artist: Polygon Studio
(マリオアーティスト ポリゴンスタジオ?) August 29, 2000

SimCity 64
(シムシティー64?)

 

[jts]

So what games should I be excited about potentially trying that I never had access to before?

 

[godofrawr]

I guess this means we'll finally be able to play our backups of our legally obtained 64DD games, right?

 

[RoyalFool]

Can't wait for somebody to dissect the Mario 64DD demo to find out what differences it has.

Sim City looks worse than I remember

 

[reminder]

Man, how much i wanted Sim City 64DD back then after seeing screenshots of the first person view. It looks laughable for todays standards, but when i was a kid? Damn.

This is the screenshot i remember the most:

 

[jts]

I guess this means we'll finally be able to play our backups of our legally obtained 64DD games, right?

Yeah I hate wearing those out or the system.

 

[GankzyMcfly]

What games do they have supported so far? or is it just a Simcity64 emulator?

 

[civilstrife]

Man, how much i wanted Sim City 64DD back then after seeing screenshots of the first person view. It looks laughable for todays standards, but when i was a kid? Damn.

This is the screenshot i remember the most:

I somehow still find this impressive.

 

[Mr Swine]

I wish 64DD had released worldwide and become a success :/

 

[gigantor21]

I wish 64DD had released worldwide and become a success :/

How often has that happened with a CD add-on though?

Releasing the N64 with an optical drive would've been a far better option.

 

[RoyalFool]

How often has that happened with a CD add-on though?

Releasing the N64 with an optical drive would've been a far better option.

Nah, they managed to do everything they wanted with carts. The 64DD was interesting because of the writable space and the way developers (well, Nintendo - third party's didn't give a shit) could use it.

 

[Seanlole]

So what games should I be excited about potentially trying that I never had access to before?

Spoiler

URA ZELDA

The F-Zero Expansion kit, the mario artist studio games and sim city 64 are the ones i've looking for.

 

[butalala]

Isn't one of the Mario Artist games considered to be a proto Wario Ware game?

 

[liquidtmd]

I guess this means we'll finally be able to play our backups of our legally obtained 64DD games, right?

*Knock on door*

"Oh HELLO Officer, do come in. Where's my physical copy of Kyojin no Doshin Kaihō Sensen Chibikko Chikko Daishūgō? Well it's upstairs you silly goose, I'll just go get it!"

*Door slams shut, windows open, Liquidtmd drives off down the street*

 

[Codiox]

F-ZERO!!!!!!

holy crap, finally i can play the DD version of it!

 

[sörine]

Nah, they managed to do everything they wanted with carts.

Except gain marketshare and ensure 3rd party support.

A CD-ROM based N64 would've taken the industry by storm.

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Makes me wonder what are the differences between SimCity 64 and the original PC version (SimCity 2000). Outside of being in 3D, of course.

 

[DJIzana]

Make it happen!

 

[Ihaa]

Now all we need is a Ura Zelda ROM dump and the dream will be complete!!

 

[KingV]

How often has that happened with a CD add-on though?

Releasing the N64 with an optical drive would've been a far better option.

This was like the system of my 1996 dreams.

N64 games would really look good with better textures

 

[Eolz]

Wow, awesome news!

 

[Lettuce]

Shouldn't they concentrate on getting N64 emulation perfect first??

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

I'm most excited to play SimCity 64, Polygon Studio, Doshin the Giant (rip the music from the expansion also), and Japan Pro Golf Tour 64. There were some music dumps of the Mario Artist games on YouTube recently that are neat, still waiting on more.

 

[The Bankslammer]

Isn't one of the Mario Artist games considered to be a proto Wario Ware game?

Yup, Polygon Studio's Sound Bomber mode. A lot of the same microgames, and the same tapedeck UI.

 

[Anoregon]

"I've just done the dumper" is totally a Brazzers movie.

 

[Spades]

So awesome.

 

[I am Christina Aguilera]

On cart, Majora's Mask and the Japan-only N64 version of Animal Crossing are about the closest that they got to the ideas floating around with the 64DD. The general big ideas were that you could rewrite pretty much any part of the disk, so entire game worlds would be open to persistent change due to player actions (so non-linear, potentially open-world-y games, before either of those were a thing), and massive-scale personal customizability.

In Mother 3, it was discussed that, for example, a player could plant a tree in one chapter, and climb it up to a completely different path to the next part of the game in a different chapter, or that a player could drop a food item somewhere, and come back later to find the area swarming with new, harder enemies that had been attracted there by the food.

There was obviously the F-Zero X track editor, but the Mario Artist series actually intended to expand massively on the Mario Paint concept, essentially intending to offer the ability to bring your creations into other games -- sculpt your own 3D models, draw or capture your own face with the composite ports from the capture cartridge adapter or via the Game Boy Camera and the Transfer Pak, and make those an object or a protagonist in another game. To bring it back to Mother 3, it was posited that players could use their face capture as the in-game texture for Lucas's face.

In a way, the 64DD may be more notable for its promise -- what could have been for either the games that got moved to cartridge, or GameCube, or on the 64DD itself -- than what actually got released. It seems to me that Doshin the Giant and Animal Crossing were about as close as Nintendo got to those concepts in practice.

Spoiler

So basically, you're going to want to follow Yahoo Auctions Japan religiously for 64DD beta disks

Make it happen!

That's actually the "I've got good news and bad news" scene from Mother 3. It's amazing how comparatively little the game seems to have changed between N64 and GBA incarnations in plot, it just lost some features and got a bit more linear.

 

[MathUser]

This is a exciting development. I look forward to some N64 DD videos on youtube.

 

[LuigiBlood]

Hi guys, this is the same LuigiBlood as on Twitter

I'm as excited as you all do about 64DD emulation, and Mario Artist's been one thing I was curious the most. More than F-Zero X Expansion Kit even if that's really cool.

And about Mother 3... Well, who knows. I've just finished developing the 64DD Blue Disk dumper (Blue disks = development), however it needs testing, and I happen to know someone for that. Maybe someone will have something to dump from blue disks once I'll publicly release it?

EDIT:
MESS 64DD emulation is still in the works, mostly on getting F-Zero X Exp. Kit to work on F-Zero X, because it's kind of buggy.

 

[kinn]

Wasn't the F Zero track editor made playable/usable by emulation before? Or was it created tracks were injected into the rom or something?

 

[Zee-Row]

I wonder if a playable version of 64DD Mother 3 is sitting somewhere in Nintendo's vault? I'd love to see it leaked.

 

[LuigiBlood]

Wasn't the F Zero track editor made playable/usable by emulation before? Or was it created tracks were injected into the rom or something?

Someone named Philippe Brodier made a track editor for Windows. Other than that, the actual functions of the Expansion Kit were never emulated. In fact, did you know that the Expansion Kit is pretty much an update to F-Zero X? Like, I mean, not just to access a track editor. It was literally an update for the game itself to be loaded.

I wonder if a playable version of 64DD Mother 3 is sitting somewhere in Nintendo's vault? I'd love to see it leaked.

Well, an westerner who debugged Mother 3 GBA talked about the N64 one being accessible during development as a base.
It happened that it was on a rewritable cartridge instead of a 64DD disk. But an earlier version could have used it, who knows.

Source: http://earthboundcentral.com/2010/12/interview-with-a-mother-3-debugger/

 

[kinn]

Someone named Philippe Brodier made a track editor for Windows. Other than that, the actual functions of the Expansion Kit were never emulated. In fact, did you know that the Expansion Kit is pretty much an update to F-Zero X? Like, I mean, not just to access a track editor. It was literally an update for the game itself to be loaded.

Ah ok I see. Thanks for the info!

 

[LuigiBlood]

64DD emulation HYPE

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/151

And I may need to detail one thing, you need to convert dumps from my 64DD dumper (which I just released a newer version that supports blue disks, though it's untested).
Therefore you need this:
https://github.com/Happy-yappH/ddconvert

No need for libraries. It should just work.

 

[Josh5890]

I've never carried an interest in emulators but this definitely has caught my eye.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Pretty cool to see this will be a thing from now on, just in case someone's N64DD unit's failed but the games are still available.

 

[Madao]

i hope this happens since i really want to see the EK in better quality.

 

[Hayama Akito]

https://youtu.be/njsIGOCXxkk

Finally, as a Mario Paint fan this is glorious.

 

[Spades]

https://youtu.be/njsIGOCXxkk

Finally, as a Mario Paint fan this is glorious.

Cannot WAIT to play through the 64DD's small library. I've always wanted one.

 

[LuigiBlood]

I must mention that using -nodrc on MESS fixes most problems on N64, including graphical bugs seen in this video I uploaded.
However it's slower. Gotta deal with it for now, it's only the beginning. You might see 64DD emulation on other emulators...

By the way, here's how you load a disk (converted using ddconvert, IT'S A MUST):
mess.exe n64dd (-nodrc) -quickload <disk file> -cart <cartridge>

 

[Jockel]

Sorry for the obvious and probably over-asked question, but would playing these on Everdrive theoretically be possible?

 

[LuigiBlood]

Sorry for the obvious and probably over-asked question, but would playing these on Everdrive theoretically be possible?

If you hack disk games into cartridge games, probably. Else you shouldn't expect that to happen. You'd have better luck on a 64drive.

 

[HappehLemons]

This is pretty strange, I've never even heard of MESS outside a couple posts and I've never seen it as a recommended emulator.

AFAIK as it stands now N64 emulation is pretty much a literal mess and games like Donkey Kong 64 still don't even work, and even other popular games are full glitches or need some kind of special configuration to work no matter what emulator you use, yet we're finally getting 64DD emulation? My expectations for it working properly are pretty low considering normal games don't even work right.

 

[LuigiBlood]

This is pretty strange, I've never even heard of MESS outside a couple posts and I've never seen it as a recommended emulator.

AFAIK as it stands now N64 emulation is pretty much a literal mess and games like Donkey Kong 64 still don't even work, and even other popular games are full glitches or need some kind of special configuration to work no matter what emulator you use, yet we're finally getting 64DD emulation? My expectations for it working properly are pretty low considering normal games don't even work right.

Mario Artist Paint Studio and Polygon Studio are working fine.
That video of Paint Studio is glitched a bit, but I can assure you that it works just fine with -nodrc on MESS.

And about Polygon Studio, here's a new video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40GhbBZGYZY

 

[nkarafo]

Saw this in a different forum just today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_K7e7bW_08