News Archives

You have probably seen the website updating almost all the time everyday since the overhaul, so let’s talk about that.

Somehow, the overhaul was done at a time when Talent Studio suddenly became popular across a certain community. I couldn’t have timed it better if I tried, the overhaul took me days of work once I finally figured out a direction to take (which I’ll be honest was something I was ruminating for probably a year or something).

But the result of this is that I see feedback, and let’s be honest, a motivation to work a little harder about the accessibility of playing 64DD games. I was definitely not planning these changes, but for once that I get to have some feedback, it was a now or never thing.

So, among the changes made:

• I’ve detailed versions when it is relevant, such as the emulators, but also in the Games page where I now detail the version of the english translation, and requirements, in hopes of making it clearer.
• I have added some extras to the Games page, because I felt maybe people would love to look at prototypes and more, and in this way it’s a lot easier to find.
• I have updated Project64 to a development version of 3.0.2, where the N64 Mouse can be emulated a lot easier than before.
  • I had actually done the work of N64 Mouse emulation on Project64-input plugin but only for 4.x, the lead developer, zilmar, actually backported it to 3.0 a few months ago, but he forgot one detail about it which I’ve changed in this development version of 3.0.2.
  • The choice of using Project64 3.0 is purely for stability reasons. Using 4.0 is simply too experimental at this point, it might work, but it also might not. Too risky.
  • I am aware of N64 Mouse being a little sluggish. I am not entirely sure why and definitely isn’t the intended behavior, but I hope it is enough regardless.
  • I have also updated GLideN64 to a development version, and also updated parallel-rdp to the latest version.
• I have added M64Plus FZ and RMG tutorials, and also updated all other emulator tutorials to be more in line with the new standards I set up for the website.

I really hope these changes should make things a lot easier, but unfortunately, Nintendo 64 emulation is still in a bit of a mess. There are definitely stuff going on right now that should massively improve things once it’s time, but in the meantime we gotta deal with what we got.

I don’t exactly remember when 64DD.org got to exist, but the origins of it came from 2015, 10 years ago from now.

December 2014 is also when I’ve began work on the first version of the 64DD Disk Dumper that would be completed that same month. All retail disks would also get dumped by NESWorld by the final day of that year. I still believe without my involvement, that 64DD preservation would still be terrible today. There are definitely things I would change as I look back to some of the mistakes I’ve made, but I’m still proud of what I did, despite not knowing anything about programming on Nintendo 64 before that point.

I would then start sharing the fruits of that labor on a small website that wasn’t 64DD.org just yet, but eventually, it happened and I’ve learned a lot about making websites. Especially regarding trying to convey the user better instructions.

It’s been some time however that I started to feel like 64DD.org was a messy website that didn’t quite know what it wanted to convey.
With some trial & error, I’ve figured out how to do an overhaul with a lot less dependency on stuff. I’m sorry that some links broke in the process, but it felt like a necessary evil.

Among the changes made:

• Complete overhaul of the design and navigation
• Downloads page split into How To Play and Tools page
  • How To Play talks about Emulators and Flashcarts, you can also find tutorials there.
• Games page is now Database page
  • Let’s face it, that page was kind of a mess but I still felt that page was important, so I kept it in a way that makes more sense.
• A brand new Games page
  • This page would be a curated list of games, with links to the essentials. I want to do more about it eventually.
• Added Music rips
  • I’ve done these for some time, so I felt it was important to put them here too.

I hope this new website is a lot easier to navigate for newbies especially. I want to further updates at one point, I have a lot of other fun plans for this website.

Thanks to ConsoleVariations and GamingLegend64, we got some internal Randnet stuff, and we’re releasing the dumps of 4 blue development disks from Randnet!

All of them are some form of the Randnet Disk Internet Browser:

• The first one (BD113) is a debug test of different features of the Randnet API with a very early web browser that unfortunately refuses to let you browse the web.
• The second one (BD-104) is actually possibly a build we’ve seen before from the japanese TV show GameWave, with very early title screen and menus.
• The third one (H0000819) is just the same build as final Rev. 00.
• The fourth one (T0000017) is a build from after final Rev. 00 by a few weeks, but still before Rev. 01.

For more information about them, Hard4Games has prepared a video about it here: https://youtu.be/lZT6x0Egdz4
The video will do a reminder of how things were, including a “playthrough” of those disks on real hardware! Though there isn’t really much to do here but hey, that’s how things are. They also show the disks!

You can find those dumps in Database page in the Development tab.

Oh yeah, I made another update: you can now directly link to a tab in a page for easier sharing, see the link above where it should link you straight to it. I hope the small update makes it a bit easier for people to browse through.

Zoinkity is back at it, with the help of Whowasphone404 for the translation itself, the english translation patch of Dezaemon 3D, the Nintendo 64 shoot ‘em up maker by Athena, is now released!

You can find it in the Games page, in Translations tab. Unlike most things on this website, you can notice it is actually a Nintendo 64 cartridge title this time, but this has heavy use of the 64DD and N64 Mouse to unlock its full potential, I would actually recommend using either the unreleased Dezaemon 3D disk, or using the provided tool by Zoinkity alongside the patch that can actually create and manage Dezaemon 3D 64DD disks, to make even better games with it and unlock its full potential.

There’s also a page with Dezaemon 3D Tips if you want them, and the readme includes even more information to enjoy Dezaemon 3D.

Zoinkity has also uploaded (slightly outdated) videos of the lengthy and fully translated tutorials of the game, which you can also look with the translation if you want to more easily skip around: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7VAoXQYoWiC6zfJajZvy7vcM_YWj7JiD

This is legit exciting to me. Dezaemon 3D was actually the first N64 game released that supports 64DD expansions, as well as the N64 Mouse, way before any other game. It might be very daunting to use, some of it is definitely more complicated than it should be, but it has a lot of potential, definitely look into the sample games.

So we got more H8/3294 Drive Controller ROM dumps, 3 more of them from different kinds of development drives, for posterity, courtesy of Willis, GamingLegend64 and Zoinkity! Specifically:

• GS01X02 (1997-01-14): Earliest ROM date so far
• GS01B01 (1997-12-09)
• GS01B02 (1998-03-12)

We don’t really get the differences that much, but they seem to have a different purpose in mind maybe? It’s hard to say.

And then, something a little Rare: 2 new Blue Disk dumps, also courtesy of GamingLegend64 and Willis!

Now, I don’t wanna hype them too much, because none of these are playable, but they are a look into how Rareware actually used the 64DD back then, with crash dumps of Banjo-Kazooie. It seems Rareware was a fan of the 64DD purely for debugging purposes, if it wasn’t for games, it was at least for that. Unfortunately I’m no expert of Banjo-Kazooie code, and would rather leave the reverse engineering to people who knows the game in and out.

It’s not as hype than you would hope, but I hope they might uncover something interesting. I’ve also taken the liberty to directly offer extracted files from them alongside the dumps.

You can find everything in the Games page, in the Development tab.

You may have not noticed, but I added a new tutorial page for SummerCart64 to make it very easy to use for 64DD games but also to figure out how to update it and so on, hopefully this will be very helpful for new users.

As of recently, I helped Did You Know Gaming to cover every cancelled 64DD game, either to debunk or confirm, or provide technical information and some corrections (some of which I missed, I’m sorry!), and the first video came out a few days ago, and you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jk2JORHYsk

And, the day the video came out, I was managing what looks to be an actual prototype of a retail 64DD from Console Variations!
Insane! We dumped the H8/3294 CPU ROM from it, it’s even the earliest drive controller firmware I’ve seen, ever, from April 3rd 1997.
You can find it on the Retail Games downloads page, though it’s not of much use but for preservation for whoever is interested. I’ve also left the page to the retail prototype in question.

Sorry for the lack of news on this site but there was really not much happening.

But I’ve decided to update the website in quite a few ways now:

• The Emulators / Tools page was updated to use a tab system. Click a button to access what you need.
  • You can even access the Tutorial page from there now!
• The Dumps pages have been fused into one Games page and is way more to the point using the same tab system.
  • The IPLs have their own tab and clarified their requirement.
• I added a tutorial for Ares!

I hope this makes the website easier to navigate, and I hope to provide even more clarity to everything.

So in the past few weeks, I have been busy implementing 64DD in Ares’ N64 core. Now Ares v130 is out, and I’m happy to tell you that it includes my most accurate 64DD emulation code yet.

It is a little rough in terms of timing but a lot of the intricacies are pretty much emulated, and I’m proud of it. It supports Japanese Retail, American Retail and Development 64DD IPLs and Disks and selects accordingly. However, it does not support disk swapping yet, but you can use the N64 Mouse if you want.

The other big change for v130 is that it now includes macOS support for Parallel-RDP which is the Vulkan API based graphics plugin. I had a few people who were on Mac asking about it and since I don’t really deal with N64 emulation much, only 64DD specifics or other weird things (more on that, eventually), but now there’s finally something.

I want to put to your attention on how to play 64DD: The first time you boot up a 64DD game, you have to set up the clock, hold the A button to set it, and then you can play however you want. Do not forget to set the IPL ROMs in the Firmware menu, by the way.

If you deal with micro stutters while playing something 64DD: Disable auto-saves, as it saves 64MB every time and that might stop emulation for a few microseconds every time.

I have also updated the downloads page to include simple64 (previously named “m64p”), which recently added support for cartridge ports, which I’m personally iffy about, because it is definitely less annoying to use, but then you don’t really get much access to everything 64DD can offer in terms of experience…

I always saw Cartridge Ports as a bandaid solution for 64DD when it is definitely doable to play 64DD games now in their disk forms.

But you get more choice, and I think that’s the most important.

A long time in the making, as at one point, I found out that my dumper performs bad SD card writing at times so you could only trust the last dumped file…

This was pretty much the perfect excuse to just rewrite the entire thing again, but this time with the intention of making a new all-in-one dumper for 64DD, improving as much as I could in the process. This time, it supports both the 64drive and the Everdrive 64 for the first time!

And a first beta is now available. Why a beta?

Because as much as I could test on a retail drive and a development drive (thank you very much to the people who were kind enough to lend me this stuff), I never actually feel confident if this would ever work in every use case, but hopefully, time will show.

I am so happy to release this first beta and I am really proud of the new development of this. You can find the links to the first beta and source code in the Emulators / Tools page.

AS A RESULT OF THIS, I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING THE PREVIOUS DUMPERS AT ALL NOW.

I am really late on this one, not long after I released Paint and Polygon combo ROMs, Zoinkity gave me a working version of Talent Studio’s Combo ROM that works with the japanese disk on real hardware, so here it is, released now, in the Translations page, as usual.

So, not that long ago, Zoinkity on YouTube has shown off some of his latest work, the ability to play Mario Artist Paint Studio translation as a cartridge expansion to the main disk, which you can see how it works here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIIvYStmZME.

Well I was just given not only one, but two of those: Paint Studio and Polygon Studio!
I have tested them on my real disks, and it works perfectly fine, and mind you, my own Paint Studio disk doesn’t boot at all, so this makes my disk actually playable lol

The way it works is basically that the cartridge boots a modified main executable of the game, with modifications in a way that it reads every file that’s different from the cartridge, and everything untouched from the disk, including save data.

So let’s be honest, not a lot of people would really make use of this, it’s clearly aimed at the people who owns a real 64DD, a flashcart and the games in question.

Anyway, both are now available in the Translations as what I name “Combo”. Just insert the disk before booting those and you should be fine.

Due to the assembler I used for the Mario Artist translations in the past not really existing anymore in that form, I was obligated to update it, and so ported all of my previous work with Mario Artist translations to it.

I didn’t think I would do a massive update to the Mario Artist Polygon Studio english translation with a brand new v3.0 release now found in the Translations page!

It comes with massive changes to the text, more stability, much more attention to detail than I ever did previously that I hope it makes it feel like an official localization to you.

But I must do a little warning: I did something that makes the translation not recognizable by some emulators like Project64. So I updated the archive with a brand new database file that sees it + more.
The emulator itself hasn’t changed one bit, so if you don’t feel like redownloading it and setting it up again, I have made a link to the database file available. Just copy it to the Config folder of Project64.

Hopefully this won’t be too inconvenient for you. This release comes with a Disk version, a Cartridge Port version (compatible with flashcarts) and a new D64 Master Disk file. Again, you can find it in the Translations page on the site.

Recently, you might have seen the release of a Zelda OoT Mod called Zelda Expansion (Video here) spearheaded by ZethN64, which is a mod that aims to use the original 64DD dungeons found in the gigaleak. This has differences compared to what was released for Master Quest, with different layouts and puzzles.
You can find the original ROM patch here: https://github.com/ZethRyder/Disk-Expansion/releases

Or you can now play the brand new disk version of the mod, made by myself with assistance from the original mod team, and is compatible with all NTSC Retail versions of Ocarina of Time, of course. It is playable in both japanese and english depending on the ROM chosen.
It is based on the disk expansion source code of Zelda 64 Dawn & Dusk, albeit much more simplified since this mod needs way less work. This is possibly the closest to what Nintendo originally intended.

But without further ado, you can find it in the Homebrew / Hacks page, or right here: https://github.com/LuigiBlood/zelda_expansion_disk/releases

I have done a couple updates to the site in the past few weeks:

I have updated the Project64 Tutorial to include a very quick tutorial that doesn’t need more explanation once you read it. A bunch of people do not necessarily want to read everything first, and I do really want to show that 64DD emulation is genuinely not that hard to deal with!

But most importantly, I know a few people were interested about converting 3D Models made with Polygon Studio into something compatible with more modeling software. Well thanks to krom, I have now something for you: A Blender import script! It also imports textures properly, so have fun with it.

There’s a bit of work on how to make it functional but it’s still simple, it’s now available on the Emulator / Tools section of the site.

Okay so, I owe you all an apology.

Back in January 2015, after the dumping of the entire retail collection of 64DD games, I attempted to improve the dumper to be able to dump blue disks as we didn’t know how to do it back then.
I had willis82, a collector who had 3 disks of Dezaemon DD (one of them went to @_BehindTheCode), willing to actually test it for me. I did a lot of tricks to be able to dump blue disks, including one that involved forcing a disk type.

I was therefore convinced that blue disks that weren’t of disk type 0 were dumped wrong, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t fully dumped, mind you, just that the order of the data was wrong.

However it seems my disk type hack was actually not working. Meaning that the disks were actually dumped correctly and in the intended order. I feel dumb.

Since I released the first dump anyway, I decided to release the other Dezaemon DD dump that I have kept for 6 years. It’s now available in the Development Games page as Type 2. It is actually dated earlier than the other dumps, and the menu background is actually different with this disk.

So this is 3 Dezaemon DD disks on the site, and I know there are 2 left, and I know who has them. Unfortunately, do not expect a release of them, but believe me that these were dumped by the collector at the very least. This collector was also instrumental in reconfirming retail disk dumps, and I still thank him for that.

Have fun with that last functioning blue disk dump that I have kept for so long.

EDIT: I have added new tips to the Dezaemon 3D page.

This was dumped a while back, but I figured we needed to release it anyway, even if it’s not particularly useful. This blue disk was dumped by @_BehindTheCode, from his prototype development 64DD unit. You can find it in the Downloads section of the site :)

Unfortunately this blue disk may have been tampered by accident by one of the previous owners, but it seems it didn’t do much damage and was easily fixed by hand using the other disk dump, so everything’s fine. The dump also didn’t go as smoothly, so it has something else inside by accident but considering it’s part of bad data it’s not a big deal.

This is technically the second disk of Dezaemon DD out of 5, but I have one more dump to share, but it was made using a very early test of the dumper for blue disks, it unfortunately needs fixing. I’ll deal with it fairly soon.

It seems that I left a huge bug in the v2.0 retranslation of the Movie Studio mode where the text pretty much crashes the game.
This felt really important to fix (especially after a few years), so here’s the v2.1 update which you can find in the Translations page.

Hopefully this makes you able to enjoy Talent Studio in english a lot better :)
I still intend to translate the sample movies, talents and more in the future with someone who knows japanese so this can be the best version possible (and hopefully never have to work on it again).

I also intend to do the same amount of work for Polygon Studio at some point, with a better translation for the open world mode.

This took me a bit of time, I wanted to change the site to make my life easier to update files and everything else.
I’m now finally happy to launch the brand new site, which is not necessarily perfect but it is working well enough for me.

I may do a lot of site updates, maybe even do brand new articles about the games, 64DD and other related research.

What I am interested the most about was to make the site even more functional, so if that’s better, then I did my job correctly. Design was kinda second, the style chosen is just basically the default but I may do additional changes at some point as well about that.

Project64 3.0 (and 3.0.1) came out for the 20th Anniversary of the emulator a few months ago.
So a new build is now uploaded.

Now I need to say one thing: Project64 might nag this time as things have definitely changed since.
There is a way to bypass that forever with like some kind of PJ64 Launcher but I’ll leave you figure it out it’s not too hard to find.

The big addition is the new graphics plugin: parallel!
You can now leverage your GPU for accurate and fast graphics emulation, however you do need a bit of a beefy GPU (with a 1050 Ti it’s good enough at 1x and 2x upscale to some extent, believe me), just DO NOT FORGET to update your GPU drivers as it genuinely makes better performance!

Now if you wanna please me: Please play Mario Artist Polygon Studio now, have fun with it :)

EDIT: A newer build has been uploaded with an updated parallel-rdp and and now the inclusion of parallel-rsp.

Zoinkity came up to me and told me that he had sent the wrong version of the port of Japan Pro Golf Tour 64, which contained a few english translation experiments.
This is now reverted to the original japanese version. I have also added instructions on how to reinit the save.

Just to put this out of the way as well, Zoinkity released a bunch of things for the game on ROMhacking.net:
A DLC Uploader for the disk, also includes a bunch of custom DLCs (use it as a combo N64 ROM).
A Network Tournament Password Generator.
A Network Tournament Results Password Decoder.

First of all: Happy New Year. Last year was a pretty cool year for all kinds of reasons, especially with the dump of the Paint Studio prototype.
The latest build started to age a bit so I have made an new build including a brand new controller plugin.
As always, you can find it in the Downloads section!

A dumper update may be happening soon, including, and finally, support for Everdrive 64 via USB.

Since 0.71, the dumper stopped working properly on regular Development Drives. This is finally fixed with version 0.81. :)
The IPL Dumper is also updated (0.03) to dump the Register Set and H8 ROM.

Everything can be found in the Downloads page.

Thanks to the hard work of @ChrisPVille, we got the first dump of the 64DD Drive Controller ROM.
From there, while reverse engineering the program, we found out it was possible to dump the ROM thanks to a hidden mode.
I made the dumper which worked on my retail unit, the result is identical to Chris’s.
I then passed it to Hard4Games to try it out on his development 64DD unit, and it worked!

You can find the dumps in the retail and development pages!
Maybe we’ll figure out something new thanks to this!

The dumper will come out once enough testing is done.

A new, entirely redone Mario Artist Paint Studio translation!

This is a quick news post to tell you about the new version 2.0 release of Paint Studio translation.
Everything is translated, again, but with better wording and sentences, and I couldn’t be any happier about the results.
You can find the translation for both Disk and Cartridge Port (for flashcarts) at the translations page.

BUMP: Now it’s version 2.1, because of course, I forgot to fix some things. Please redownload again for some more stability.

It’s been five days since the release.

I had started an english translation project for this prototype, then after doing about 80% of the translation, I decided to stop.
I’m currently at work redoing all of the translations for Mario Artist titles.
However I do not want my work to go to waste, so I have released the partial translation of Mario Artist Paint Studio prototype right now in the translations page.
You can also find the source code of the translation in that page. Have fun :)

Oh boy. We have finally found our first 64DD game prototype from a blue disk, thanks to Andrew E., and on top of that, it’s a first party one!

That’s right, we now have a prototype of Mario Artist Paint Studio, dated 1999-02-11, which is about 9 months before the final build of the game.
It has quite a bunch of differences, with the inclusion of the cut flyswatting Gnat Attack minigame, but we have a video from Hard4Games giving you an overview here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVYbGPJ5AN4
This prototype is however pretty buggy, and needed a little bit of time for fixes, which Zoinkity (mostly him) and I handled.

You can download this prototype in the Development Games page. It will have the original dump, alongside a playable fixed version.
Because of this prototype, I needed to update 64DD emulation to fix problems, therefore a new version of Project64, required to play the prototype, is now available in the Downloads page. For the first time in a while, this is a custom build with changes that aren’t merged officially.

I am also happy to tell you that a new version of the 64DD Disk Dumper is now available, version 0.80 will now recognize disks that don’t have a proper system area setup, and will now dump the disk using available information from the disk.

Have fun swatting some flies!

A lot of things have happened, but not much to be said.

F-Zero X Expansion Kit was translated into english by Zoinkity a while ago, but it was only available as a Cartridge Port.
The problem is that I don’t want people to use Cartridge Ports on emulators, only on flashcarts.

So after 2 tentatives to adapt the translation hack into a disk, I have finally done it.
You can now play F-Zero X Expansion Kit with the USA F-Zero X ROM in full english. It is fully compatible with your save file.
I have also updated the translation to be slightly more accurate as well as making it closer to what it was originally intended to be according to Expansion Kit leftovers in the retail US ROM. This is also updated for the Cartridge Port version.
Disk is available as a US region retail disk format, and a development disk format (if you don’t want to deal with region problems).

You can use 64DD MFS Manager if you want to migrate your creations to the other version.

Update:
If the disk does not work on Project64, I have updated the info.txt file with information on how to fix it as well as a slight update to the Project64 build to include this fix.
You have to disable 32-bit engine & Fixed Audio Timing for the F-Zero X Expansion Kit disk.

I COMPLETELY forgot to put this up, but I was given scans for the Doshin expansion disk’s manual from Carl Sammons last year. This is now up on the retail dumps page.
This completes the manual collection for retail 64DD disks. This is really cool :)

Happy 20th birthday to the 64DD, and Happy New Year 2020!

This month was the 20th birthday of the 64DD, so I wanted to release pretty big stuff.
Unfortunately between laziness + depression + other issues + other happier events, I couldn’t really do much on time.

But I have a few things to release today:

• The 64DD MFS Manager update that finally supports Zoinkity’s Cartridge Ports of 64DD games, so you can actually make some nice stuff between all Mario Artist and share F-Zero X content, and playable on flashcarts!
• The release of an oddity: The 1996-1997 early 64DD IPL4 ROM. It’s not actually fully working, but I thought it was interesting to put out as it shows an early look at the N64 logo animation, it’s in the Development page.

Hope that you have a good time, and that I get to release updates to certain other things soon :)

Announcing now, the release of the first custom The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Expansion Disk, Zelda 64: Dawn & Dusk.
It was a long time coming, I had announced a custom Zelda disk for more than a year. Afterwards, nothing really happened on the public side, until the announcement in Kaze Emanuar’s F3 2019, even though it wasn’t known who was working on it, let alone that it was even an expansion disk.

This is a project that would have never come to fruition without the help of Hylian Modding, so huge thanks to them.
This has been tested on real hardware through many ways, including on a blue disk and a real Zelda OoT cartridge, thanks to the anonymous blue disk owner and Hard4Games.
You can find the disk in the all-new Homebrew / Hacks section of the site. It works with every NTSC version of the game.
Please also check out the GitHub source link, as it contains some of my insights of the making of this custom disk.

A regular ROM patch will also be released in a few days, also for any NTSC version of the game, so feel free to dump your copy of the game.

Feel free to look at Hard4Games’ video about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARfTzJbk-_g
And also the release trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd83Jzv4ixA

But this isn’t the only update! There’s a new build of Project64, all prepared to work with this expansion disk, with fully revamped 64DD emulation, and that includes features that have been clamored by users and developers.
It also finally supports development disks, so that other Dezaemon DD disk that has been here for quite a while can finally find a use :)

The Project64 tutorial page has also gotten an update to reflect all of the changes. And this time, ALL links are on the page, NO MORE EXCUSES.

I have also added a link to Rosalie241’s Project64 installer in the Downloads page, for people who wants the latest Project64 nightly builds and more.

64DD MFS Manager
BUT I’M NOT DONE JUST YET! I also announce the first release of 64DD MFS Manager. This is a tool that allows file insertion and extraction of user content from Mario Artist and F-Zero X Expansion Kit, to name a few.
I hope I see people sharing their works, I’ll try to see how we could take this to a place that allows easier sharing.

These could be found in the Downloads section of the site.

Thanks to another anonymous benefactor, we have a dump of Mario Artist Polygon Studio and Sim City 64 from sealed copies :)

Small update: thanks to an anonymous benefactor, we have a dump of Doshin The Giant from a sealed copy.

In light of recent updates from GLideN64, Sim City 64 is now working at playable speeds in HLE.
So I have updated Project64 to include the new plugin build and fixed RDB file from clumsy errors in my part.
These are the only changes in the build, the main EXE is still the same (as I did not feel a lot of changes were made for it).
Have fun with Sim City 64!

Okay, it’s time. 2 new updates:

• Two new dumps from sealed copies of Mario Artist Talent Studio, and Mario Artist Communication Kit from ozidual!

This means they have completely clean saves, aside from Communication Kit having some damaged blocks in the save padding.
Considering the damaged blocks are not in any way damaging the main content (I left the log files to stay honest about this), I felt it was good enough for a release.

• A new Project64 build just came out! This time, 64DD support is done proper, with full support for the Game Browser, and Recently Loaded Games, etc.

There’s also actual warnings about the 64DD IPL ROM, which by the way: YOU SHOULD USE THE RETAIL ONE IN RETAIL DUMPS PAGE, just to make it clear.
Each 64DD game can now have its own custom settings, whether it is for the core emulator or its plugins.
This should greatly improve the way you play 64DD games and also N64 games since I include the latest changes of GLideN64 as well.
Have fun!

So, I’m back in business for a bit, with some quality of life changes in mind:

• First of all, the dumps pages now have some dropdown links, with the recommended download first.
• Clean saves have been redone: disk_cleansave is simply not the way to go, with many bugs going, so clean saves have been redone for a few of them, this time fully working.
• Downloads page also uses dropdown links.

I also plan to release a new Project64 build soon, with some really good changes about 64DD support.
If you are impatient, please go to the Project64 nightly build page and download the latest build.

As I am not having as much free time as I used to, I have decided to release a beta version of the Version 2 of Mario Artist Talent Studio’s english translation.
The interface should be fully translated, only the samples aren’t, alongside randomized content.
If you were curious to try out Talent Studio, this would be a good time to do so.

Here’s a new dump, and also the last NEW dump possible from a retail 64DD disk, the updated version of Randnet Disk.
While it cannot be emulated, at least this version is fully preserved online, and that’s always a good thing :)

So, nothing much has really happened these days, but I have a few things to talk about:

• Two new confirmed redumps from sealed games came in: Mario Artist Paint Studio from ozidual, and my own sealed copy of F-Zero X Expansion Kit. No need to clean them from saves: They don’t have any.
• A new clean Sim City 64 dump came in from ozidual: no more of that default Beginner Mode save anymore, and the same is done for the Cartridge Port version.

• Speaking of Cartridge Ports: a save fix from ozidual for Doshin The Giant 1 has been added.

• It took me a while to eventually decide, but I released a clean dump of Dezaemon DD’s 1998/02/23, complete with System Area.

Let me be completely honest here: I did this without permission. But this dump in particular has already been released without the System Area, so I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong with this.
The problem is that I cannot contact the owner of this anymore. I simply haven’t been able to. I do have another dump of another Dezaemon DD disk but it is malformed (not to say the dump is bad by any means) so I’ll keep that one under wraps.

Mario Artist Polygon Studio’s English translation is now released!
100% English, from text to graphics! Have fun!

So here’s a list of things that I’ve updated since the new year:

• Project64 Tutorial now includes a N64 Mouse Profile. Lots of people had technical problems setting it up, so I made a profile that should work for everyone.
• Mario Artist Tips now includes more details on disk formatting between Auto Saved content and everything at once.
• I have added Sim City 64 and Doshin The Giant 1 to the translation page, which are done by ozidual. He’s making a good job :D

The big news of today, is that I’m bringing you an update to Mario Artist Paint Studio’s translation: This time, it’s 100% translated.
Also I fixed a broken link for the CART release, oops. All the graphics that contained japanese for menus and stuff are now translated into English. Have fun!

Yes, Mario Artist Polygon Studio translation is coming soon. Really soon.

I’ve now updated the Project64 build. This time around, I am including different video plugins:

• Glide64 for Project64 has been renamed to Project64-video to avoid confusion.
• GLideN64 has been updated. There are now default settings for 64DD games so you shouldn’t need to set anything anymore.
• angrylion-rdp-plus is now included instead of the older angrylion plugin. It’s faster, may be a little less accurate but you should get playable speeds on a fast CPU.
• z64gl has been removed because I simply cannot use it anymore; I do not want to include very unstable plugins.

Less video plugins but better choices instead. Have fun!

Ok so I didn’t expect to make this much changes but I think it will be very interesting, to say the least.

Changelog:

• Added menu option for faster full dumps (with less accuracy)
• Hacks libleo at runtime (avoiding doing the HACKS in the ROM)
• Uses libleo’s variables instead of making our own, as a result:
  • System Data is read from libleo and shows Disk Type and Region.
  • Uses System Data for ROM/RAM LBA Ranges.

It’s now up at the downloads section. This will be interesting for blue disks where not much can be checked at once and cannot rely on skipping to RAM.

NEWS! A new version of 64DD Disk Dumper has been released!

Here’s a bit of a changelog:

• New Menu!
• Pausing feature, you can skip to RAM area (save data) and also to the end of the disk!
• Code was rewritten and is now much more compact.

It took a little while but it’s now up in the Downloads section!

I wanted to do this for a while, so here it is: a Tips & Tricks section!
For now it only contains a single Mario Artist tip that isn’t fully known, and the full solution of the beginner mode of Sim City 64 which might be really useful to all of you.
It’s available right now :D

In other news: I now own a 64DD. For real. You might want to check out my Tumblr for more information, I think it might please a lot of you who wants some 64DD research action.
I’m just waiting for other things and then we’ll begin the huge research.

Missed me? Well I certainly missed having 64DD news for you all. :D

So, first things first, ZueriHB and Husan93 brought you some more scans of 64DD manuals, here’s a little list:

• Mario Artist Communication Kit
• Mario Artist Polygon Studio
• Japan Pro Golf Tour 64
• Sim City 64
• Nintendo 64DD Manual
• Nintendo 64DD Modem Manual It took a while, but we are approaching closer to having all manuals scanned :D
  One thing needs to be said, those were scanned in a much higher quality, so expect the download to take a little more time than usual.

And now the news you’ve probably been waiting for:
The first release of Mario Artist Talent Studio english translation patch! It has all the text data translated (except the random text and samples), however graphics are left unmodified (Save & Load is an exception).
But I think now things are quite playable for anybody who wants to have fun with it.

And of course, here’s another news: NEW PROJECT64 BUILD. With a new version of GLideN64 that has some fixes… also some regressions, unfortunately, but the fixes have a lot of benefits overall :D
I still left the old one, just in case, though.

It has been a while and I wanted to update on some more things for you all:

• First of all: I have added an english translated 64DD Manual, kindly sent by Andy Robb and translated by Catriona Anderson. It’s not scans per say but you can at least understand the manual if you own it.
• Mario Artist Paint Studio translation is going slowly but I’ve decided to release a new version with some fixes and a superb english title screen by Cauterize. :D
• A new Project64 build is now released. I have seen a few issues since and I decided to not wait some more. I have done some 64DD playing with it for a few days and it seemed to work.
  If it crashes on close, your 64DD save should not disappear this time. I have also managed to make “Glide64 for PJ64” work with Talent Studio.
  And then I have added z64gl LLE GFX plugin specifically for the ability to play Sim City 64 at decent speeds. The tutorial section has been updated to include recommended settings for each game, if you are not sure of what to choose.

First of all, I’ve removed the September build of Project64. It was simply way too buggy and I simply wouldn’t recommend it anymore.
So about supporting the US IPL ROM or Dev one, which anyway have to no use right now, you gotta wait a bit more, or build Project64 yourself.

And last but not least, about a week and a half ago, I began working on my own first 64DD (even N64) translation ever: Mario Artist Paint Studio!
I have released the very first version, which doesn’t have the textures translated and some quirks here and there but is totally manageable if you don’t understand a single word of japanese.
Have fun! :D

You may have noticed that the site has changed a little bit. Cartridge Ports are now in their own page, and I added a few placeholders for future pages.
There’s also the contact menu where you can find me on if you want to contact me (if you have blue disks, or if you know someone who has blue disks, please tell me).

There is also the clean dumps that appeared on the Retail games page. Here’s the thing: some dumps contained saves in them, and sometimes it’s a bit of a bother.
I have written a tool called disk_cleansave to wipe the saves of the dumps so you can play them like it was new. Have fun. :D

64DD.org now has a newer Project64 build, with US IPL support and TOOL IPL support… also with a fix for the 64DD Real Time Clock sending back the wrong year.
Also has a new GLideN64 build, which is now selected by default… and don’t worry about that window. :D

Well then, hello to MetalJesusRocks fans who might stumble on this site after watching his video :D
The video is here if you want to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe-fs1COgr0

Here’s a big update: the USA 64DD IPL ROM and Development IPL ROM from MetalJesusRocks and Hard4Games are available right here, right now!
And that’s not all: The dump for his blue disk is also available… even though it’s contents are not very exciting for me personally.

I also got new manual scans courtesy of ZueriHB and Husan93 of F-Zero X Expansion Kit and Randnet DD! The list is getting bigger, and you might expect more of those soon!

I’ve also seperated the Retail and Unreleased Games into their own pages. People kept picking the wrong IPL to play games with, despite everything I tried to point them in the right direction, so I made sure there’s no confusion.
Also, those IPLs should be supported in CEN64 and Project64 pretty soon if not now. I also have added the English IPL4ROM hack by Zoinkity, AND the site now uses SSL! Boy, a lot of updates today :D

Well here’s an unexpected update: I can now offer you some nice scans of Doshin The Giant 1’s manuals and more, courtesy of Tom James!
Thank you so much, Tom! We’re one step over preserving 64DD games :D

I wanted to update the download page with more emulators (CEN64 & MAME) to choose from, and I also wanted to release leoulx, for aspiring 64DD emu devs.
Feel free to use those. :D

Here’s a new build with the awaited feature of 64DD emulation:
SAVING! DISK SWAPPING! Tutorial is updated to include more information about it.

Also ddconvert has been updated to fix a bug for Randnet Disk conversion, as well as added my own ddconvert_back, to convert back to the original format.
The dumps page have been updated as well, to show retail and unreleased games. I also moved up the Retail 64DD IPL ROM dump (since that’s the one you need).

BONUS DUMP EDIT: The modem cartridge has been dumped for posterity, you can get it, though you cannot use it. :D
(Thanks jrra!)

I guess for a change we got a new IPL DISK cartridge dump from Zoinkity this time!
It’s somewhat surprising, those cartridges are not meant to be booted yet it definitely contains early 64DD IPL data in it.
Anyway you can download it right now :D

I have recently made a new Project64 build with every plugin that you need for 64DD use.
It includes a new version of GLideN64 which provides 100% compatibility to Mario Artist Paint Studio, for example. The tutorial is also updated for the occasion.
The build is available for download in the tutorial page for Project64, or the Downloads page. HAVE FUN!

I just added the Retail 64DD IPL ROM to the dumps page.
Use it for my Project64 build with WORKING 64DD support! Click here to find it.
(You have to read the instructions, this is important.)

I gotta thank Matthew Callis for making this possible, once again!
So this website has everything the older website has, and redesigned! That way you won’t be mad at the design. :D

2015-12-02 News:
Here’s the scans of Mario Artist Talent Studio Instruction Manual, also from Zoinkity! Have fun!

2015-12-01 News:
Added Mario Artist Paint Studio Instruction Manual scans from Zoinkity! Talent Studio is coming soon!
I should mention that I am interested on more scans (I can accept higher quality of those already uploaded) of 64DD instruction manuals, my contact info is just above. :D
I usually answer pretty quick, at least during the day.

2015-11-19 News:
I added a little Project64 tutorial for you to play 64DD games. Enjoy!

2015-10-06 News:
Today saw the release of ED64 OS 2.10. What’s so special about it? It officially supports 64DD cartridge ports.
It even saves back the new data. It also fixes Dezaemon 3D SRAM.
So I’ve taken the liberty to remove the mention of 64drive.
However, I’m not sure if you really can swap the cartridge ports with each other, the main selling point of Mario Artist is that the data is compatible with each other and also a few games like SimCity 64 and Doshin.
So I don’t know about that, but at least it saves back the new data automatically unlike 64drive.
Enjoy the games!
EDIT: Added MAME tutorial!

2015-08-26 News:
NESWorld has just dumped the cartridge called DISK, made for 64DD development purposes.
Uses for it were for access to fonts and sounds for development games, it was even needed to get games running.
This is dumped for the first time to my knowledge, and I think it’s a beta 64DD IPL. The versioning seems to tell that way.

2015-07-26 News:
F-Zero XP ENGLISH VERSION IS OUT! Zoinkity is a beast at this.
May be subjected to updates, however. RDB update coming soon.

2015-06-26 News:
Don’t be hyped about it, this is only for listing purposes.
I decided to add all what’s known to exist so far.
More news: I added the old dump release of Dezaemon DD (1998/02) from back in 2011.
Also added ways to contact me.

2015-05-31 News:
Added info about running 64DD conversions on Everdrive 64.

2015-05-23 News:
F-Zero XP is out! This is a combo of the original game + disk in one! Have fun!
You’re mad, Zoinkity!

2015-05-22 News:
All 64DD conversions got a bugfix update. Sorry for the inconvenience.

2015-05-14 News:
Sim City 64 conversion is out, RIGHT NOW!

2015-05-08 News:
Added Dezaemon 3D + Expansion patched ROM, also by Zoinkity. This is pretty old but why not adding it here anyway…
It works pretty differently, as it is the original ROM with the unreleased DD expansion included in it, which you can also save if you have a 64drive.

2015-05-05 News:
Get Mario Artist Paint Studio conversion by Zoinkity RIGHT NOW! Also, you can use international Game Boy Cameras if you want.
EDIT: Paint, Talent and Polygon Studio UPDATE! Something was missing. Also there’s a bugfix, just in case.
SORRY, zip files were corrupted, you may be able to download them now!

2015-05-04 News:
Mario Artist Talent Studio, Polygon Studio and Communication Kit conversions are released!

2015-05-01 News:
Zoinkity has just released the first disk to cartridge conversion! You can now play Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 on your 64drive RIGHT NOW!
EDIT: AND NOW Doshin Store Demo is playable! AND Doshin 2 is released… but you can’t do much with it for now.
EDIT2: Doshin 1 release! And Doshin Store Demo BUGFIX!
More information here: http://youtu.be/uAh-u2iwEm0
As the saved content will not be saved back to the SD/CF card, you will need to dump back the content to your PC with a USB cable. Info in the description of the video above.
Sorry Everdrive 64 folks, but this will just never work on your flashcart. (If you harass one of us for saying this in the past and got wrong, just fuck you. We’re happy that we’re wrong.)