Review 64drive review

[mysticwaterfall]

This looks tottally awesome, I was all set to get one until I found out it was $200. Can't justify spending that on a whim, especially when I could get all the games I'd want for less. I can certainly understand why it is that much though. Now, if it was like $80....

 

[jalaneme]

lol i was disappointed that this doesn't work on windows 7 64 bit and then the price made me even more disappointed, also it's a shame it doesn't even have cheat code support, for a price point of $200 i want cheat code support, windows 7 64 bit support and more, the price they are asking for is way too high, i think i will pass on this one and anyways the wii has a n64 emulator anyway so no loss there...

 

[jalaneme]

If I have a PAL N64 console and buy the PAL cart, can I play NTSC games with it?

Is there a way to play non-region ROMs?

that is a problem also, i have a pal n64 and would need a pal version of the flashcart so we need to know if this would play american games on a pal system, there is a lot of stuff that is expected from this device missing, it's not worth $200

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

Wow thats expensive but it does what advertised so it can't be argued with.
Wish I had a N64

 

[GameWinner]

This thing looks awesome! I want one (if it wasn't so expensive..).

 

[Schizoanalysis]

I found this in the FAQs

Does the cart work with both NTSC and PAL systems
Yes, the cart will detect the type of N64 it's booted on, and change TV modes accordingly. It will also, by default, start software with this region.

What about stuff that's not from my own region?
If your N64 is NTSC, PAL software will either autodetect and run fine, or show a region notice. Same goes for the reverse. There's also an option to force software to run in the opposite region.

NTSC console: PAL software defaults to 50hz, can be forced to 60hz. NTSC color signal.
PAL console: NTSC software defaults to 60hz, can be forced to 50hz. PAL color signal.

I'd like to know if it's been tested though....

And if 99% of all PAL & NTSC ROMs work on a PAL cart...

 

[hcs]

Hi, author of the NES emulator here (and early 64drive purchaser), there's a somewhat newer version of Neon64 here with some fixes for PAL: http://hcs64.com/files/neon64bu12b.zip

 

[amptor]

lol i was disappointed that this doesn't work on windows 7 64 bit and then the price made me even more disappointed, also it's a shame it doesn't even have cheat code support, for a price point of $200 i want cheat code support, windows 7 64 bit support and more, the price they are asking for is way too high, i think i will pass on this one and anyways the wii has a n64 emulator anyway so no loss there...

Well just upgrading the core software wasn't working for me in win7 64bit.. otherwise I do everything else in win7 because we're basically just talking about copying files to a microsd or compactflash card. you can use any o/s for that.

I only booted into windows xp 32-bit o/s to update it one time but actually it probably was that I messed up the microsd slot which I fixed a couple days ago with a pair of tweezers. Pretty simple..

 

[amptor]

I found this in the FAQs

Does the cart work with both NTSC and PAL systems
Yes, the cart will detect the type of N64 it's booted on, and change TV modes accordingly. It will also, by default, start software with this region.

What about stuff that's not from my own region?
If your N64 is NTSC, PAL software will either autodetect and run fine, or show a region notice. Same goes for the reverse. There's also an option to force software to run in the opposite region.

NTSC console: PAL software defaults to 50hz, can be forced to 60hz. NTSC color signal.
PAL console: NTSC software defaults to 60hz, can be forced to 50hz. PAL color signal.

I'd like to know if it's been tested though....

And if 99% of all PAL & NTSC ROMs work on a PAL cart...

Well unfortunately none of my TV sets can do 50hz but all ROMs have been tested already and the only one that won't work is Banjo Tooie for NTSC and for PAL currently unless you put its CIC chip in place of the one that is already there (or buy the bare card and solder it in yourself) but that is just one game and whenever I usually do testing on these products, that isn't a game that I choose so it probably isn't even that great of a game. A lot of those 3D platform titles were just cloned off of Banjo Kazooie.

marshallgs and some other developers are working on and will defeat the copy protection in that game some day so this cart will have 100% game support out of the box that way.

 

[Maplemage]

Where is the sense in it to buy this? The N64 is old, there are mutch better consoles for homebrew. Games for the N64 are inexpensive.

People want to play the old games how it was meant to be played, with a N64 controller and blowing the cartridge!

 

[Rankio]

I actually preordered this when it was first available. Price was a bit offputting but I remember 6 years ago, I paid the same amount for a Doctor V64. Trying to get games to work was very hit and miss as it meant I had to have the right N64 cart to act as the bootcart and I couldn't remember if I even got saving to work. Ended up selling it a few months later.

I paid $300 for my V64 when they first came out, has to be about 15 years now (from BUNG in FL). My memory is alittle faded now concerning the V64 but I am pretty sure all boot problems were solved with a certain boot cart. There were a couple out and I forget which I had but nothing had problems loading. I do remembering having to buy it later on.

It's good to know if and when I want to play some ROMs natively and my V64 gets toasted there will still be options out there. $200 does seem a bit much but considering you will have the entire N64 library at your disposal, it's not a bad deal.

 

[amptor]

I actually preordered this when it was first available. Price was a bit offputting but I remember 6 years ago, I paid the same amount for a Doctor V64. Trying to get games to work was very hit and miss as it meant I had to have the right N64 cart to act as the bootcart and I couldn't remember if I even got saving to work. Ended up selling it a few months later.

I paid $300 for my V64 when they first came out, has to be about 15 years now (from BUNG in FL). My memory is alittle faded now concerning the V64 but I am pretty sure all boot problems were solved with a certain boot cart. There were a couple out and I forget which I had but nothing had problems loading. I do remembering having to buy it later on.

It's good to know if and when I want to play some ROMs natively and my V64 gets toasted there will still be options out there. $200 does seem a bit much but considering you will have the entire N64 library at your disposal, it's not a bad deal.

There was more than one cart but most were for different save types. I still have all the boot and save type carts including the one with the mask ROM chip desoldered but I sold my V64 a while ago. I don't miss the thing at all. Bung did a poor job at making the product. It was cheap and poorly built so they probably maximized profits off of it.

And Carl Industries was in Florida. Many people were buying from there and Anthrox. I think Anthrox wanted $550 for it or something but I could be wrong, that might be me including the price of the deck with it (my math from years ago). It was overpriced at the time and a lot of people had to send theirs back to the vendor or China to get it fixed.

I bought mine a few years back from tototek for 80 bucks and I opened it. It has some relays inside (terrible idea. solid state is the way to go) and all of the microchips were epoxy type and not integrated circuits. It was a very crude device and I'm glad I didn't fork out a few hundred bucks on that thing.

The current flash carts out are above far and beyond better than those old cd-rom units.

What amazes me though is that I don't get much nostalgia benefit from seeing the V64 in action. Yes there is a little bit, but not enough to justify keeping one. In time, the old copiers will stop working because mainly the electrolytic capacitors inside will completely dissepate and fail rendering those products useless. Seeing how poorly built they are, I wouldn't be surprised if they found the cheapest vendor for capacitors and other components to use inside.

At least the 64drive has all brand new parts in it

 

[tbgtbg]

If I had 200 dollars to spare sitting around, I'd be all over this, sounds really great.

 

[Harsky]

Been reading the manual on the 64drive site. Is it essential to push the reset button everytime you finish playing the game and want to save BEFORE you turn the console off or can you just save the game as normal, turn off and the game will be saved?

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

Pretty good looking cart, but I'm still not sure it's worth the price jump from the Everdrive64 just for prettier menus, MP3 playback, and (presumably from a clean ROM) Jet Force Gemini support.

 

[amptor]

Been reading the manual on the 64drive site. Is it essential to push the reset button everytime you finish playing the game and want to save BEFORE you turn the console off or can you just save the game as normal, turn off and the game will be saved?

Yeah you'll have to press the reset button so that it will write the save data apparantly. While I tested this cart, I left the reset to menu option on by default and I was constantly switching games by using the reset button so I didn't really notice any saves being lost.

QUOTE(FireEmblemGuy @ Sep 25 2011, 04:46 AM) Pretty good looking cart, but I'm still not sure it's worth the price jump from the Everdrive64 just for prettier menus, MP3 playback, and (presumably from a clean ROM) Jet Force Gemini support.

Yeah to me, a big part of my interest in this cart was the GUI and then I found out taht the KRIKzz one was mainly text. The Neoflash N64 Myth had a menu system that I liked too. I liked how colorful it was and it actually is fully configurable. The 64drive doesn't let you customize each screen. It just lets you put one .gif in that skins the whole thing. There's things I like about each cart and I wouldn't discredit any one of them.

KRIKzz cart does have a good price but you sacrifice the prettier GUI screens and some compatibility. But KRIKzz does have a large following and his cart is an all in one like the 64drive. The Neoflash cart isn't an all in one solution but it has the best compatability for commercial ROMs and you don't need to open it up to switch out CIC chips although this isn't really that big of a thing on the other ones, most games people would play run. Of course the N64 Myth cart is the most expensive by all means because you have to have the different CIC chip carts and if you want mass storage support, that's 80 dollars extra plus freight.

I think from what I have seen so far, the 64drive price sits mid range of the three and it offers the best compatability. It also worked fine with the trained games I tried out which amazed me. I thought they would not work right. Actually mario kart 64 trained on the neoflash product had its features get stuck and it worked flawlessly on the 64drive.

All 3 of these carts put the 90's solutions completely to shame too. One time I was switching a lot of ROMs on my first V64 and the thing just died. Black screen and I couldn't get it to work again. Luckily the vendor replaced it. And later on I sold that one which was still working but man, Neoflash N64 Myth is a lot better than a doctor v64.

 

[Bonny]

200 Bucks? I'am glad that my Doctor V64 and my Z64 are still working perfect

And perfect N64 Emulation isn't sooo far away... i would rather invest 200 $ in something that makes more sense.

 

[indask8]

Nice review.

I ended up buying an ED64 since it was cheaper and did all I asked it to do (for the games non working (tooie, JFG), I already have them in cartridge form, well I have pretty much every must have games in cartridge form, but a flashcart is very convenient for testing and for homebrews).

 

[Rocco Savadgie]

A little warning to anyone considering ordering this - I paid via paypal on the 7th August for one of these and still have not received anything. Expect a long wait for delivery...

To be honest, I already have a V64 and an everdrive64 so really should not have ordered this too - I just wanted to support the developer for their hard work.

 

[Aeter]

Where is the sense in it to buy this? The N64 is old, there are mutch better consoles for homebrew. Games for the N64 are inexpensive.

People want to play the old games how it was meant to be played, with a N64 controller and blowing the cartridge!

Exactly!
For some weird reason I love blowing in my old NES and N64 cartridges, to get them to work.
Especially the NES ones, it actually feels like an achievement when I get them to work.