Es gibt endlich große Neuigkeiten aus der N64 Szene:
Zoinkity und
Luigiblood haben es geschafft! Nachdem durch Luigibloods 64DD Dumper für das 64drive (
dddump) bereits Anfang des Jahres alle kommerziellen DD-Titel gedumped wurden, ist es Zoinkity nun gelungen "Cartridge-Conversions" zu erstellen. Die so entstandenen *.n64 Files sollen sich problemlos über das 64drive auf der Konsole starten lassen können, allerdings sind einige Features wie die Nutzung der Capture Cartridge oder des Modems - selbstverständlich - nicht möglich
Für Sim City 64 und das F-Zero X Expansion Kit sind aktuell sogar schon Übersetzungen in Arbeit! Bei den aktuell erhältlichen Versionen des Dezaemon- und F-Zero Kits handelt es sich schon um eine Kombination aus dem eigentlichen Spiel und der Expansion Disk.
Luigiblood war außerdem so freundlich alle Files zur Verfügung zu stellen.
Hier noch für die interessierten der original-Beitrag von Assemblergames.com:
While the forums were down 64DD cart conversions have been released into the wild!
LuigiBlood has been kind enough to host them along with the original dumped disks.
So no, there wasn't a magically "hardware revision 3". They do use a specialized bootstrap though, implementing the system initialization and disk initialization usually performed by the IPL. It's a much higher-level hack than Dezaemon is, making no attempts to simulate register behavior. Read/write requests are converted directly into EPI requests.
All confirmed working on a 64drive. Use menu 1.12d or later. They've also been tested on a v64jr using a bootloader with the correct seed value.
Thanks to LuigiBlood Project 64 not only supports these conversions but also has mouse support. You will need an LLE plugin to use Polygon Studio due to how geometry is selected. The new GlideN64 plugin is safest HLE choice though its LLE support will not work properly with some titles. Cen64 and MESS also will run them unless I'm mistaken, and there should be a fork of Mupen that does the same.
Notably the Everdrive64 will not load them as of yet and it's probably the same reason it won't run the Dezaemon XD hack. Full functionality with that thing can be somebody else's project. A lack of documentation seriously doesn't help any.
The CIC is a unique one (5167) using the same seed as the 64DD IPL. Secret number is 0 8 3 C 6 C 7 7 E 0 B 1.
Obvious features not implemented:
- Can't use a modem or video capture cart with these. Would require additional reverse-engineering and hacking to provide similar functions via USB.
- RTC reports the time of the disk pressing. The RTC differs in its storage format and access method from Animal Forest significantly. In all cases, games using the clock only load the time once, usually before actual gameplay, and time continues to tick forward based on the system clock. This is the same way Animal Forest functions and why it is fully playable even without the RTC present unless your hard/software collides with it. In all cases this just sets the timestamp for saved data.
Krom is already translating Sim City 64 and I'm doing an English version of F-Zero XP.