Review 64drive review

[qwertymodo]

[snip]

No problem, just make sure you dremel out holes for the USB port which is needed for updating the firmware and bootloader, and the menu is "updated" from a CF cartridge, or microsd. If you're intent on using microsd though, I recommend you come up with some creative way to access the port so you can easily remove the microsd chip. Microsd was more of an afterthought for the 64drive, since CF is the superior media and marshall was intent on using it (Note: I didn't say SD couldn't be "effective," CF is just better all the way around in my opinion)

The only true plus to SD is it's cheaper than CF, usually.. Depending on where you buy your media though, it can get expensive, it's crazy. They'll have 4 GB CF carts for nearly 40 dollars at Walmart, it made me chuckle that the local Walmart likes to jack the prices up on every electronic (Thank Talos for Newegg)

Nah, no need for USB holes, I have a gamebit. It takes like 10 seconds to take apart (and how often will I *really* need to update the bootloader?). Same for the MicroSD, I can't see adding games after the initial download dumping spree... which really just leaves menu updates, which still isn't that often to need to take the 10 seconds to open the cart. A small price to pay for having a nice, clean cart without any holes. As for MicroSD vs CF, what difference does it really make other than speed? I really don't care if it takes an extra couple seconds to do something, my prerogative right now is that having a CF card sticking out the top of the cart is not better (for me) than having a fully-enclosed cart with internal MicroSD, unless there are other downsides besides speed?

Also, another question. To anybody that has gotten their 64Drive, how long did it take after you placed your order? I get that it takes awhile, I'd just like a ballpark idea so I have some idea what to expect...

I paid for the 64drive on August the 8th and it finally got shipped around 17 October. That was from the US to the UK and it was also because I placed the order a day after the 64drive was announced for pre-order.

As for the CF card vs Micro SD question? At the moment, my 64drive has a 16gb Sandisk Class 2 micro sd purely because I don't like a CF card sticking out. The downside if that if you do need to remove the micro sd card from the 64drive, you need a tweezer ot something smiliar to pull it out because it really is fiddly but I realised that you can have the ENTIRE N64 library (US/JP/EU) fit on a 16gb MicroSD card with plenty space leftover. I personally don't have any problem with the speed mainly because I let I'm happy to wait up to a few seconds compared to the CD based solution such as a Doctor V64 I had.

Another reason to not have Dremeled holes. If I have to disassemble the cart means the MicroSD should be easy to access since I won't have to go through the slot (I'm assuming that the issue is the recessed slot...)

 

[CyberAxe]

You know I have tried to contact Marshall several times regarding an order and he has ignored me every time... the site is not updated for order information and he hasn't been shipping orders lately apparently, what gives?

Is anyone else still waiting on theirs arriving? I ordered mine back on the 5th of October, sent him an email in November and was told it would ship early December, Sent him another email around Xmas asking for a status update though am still waiting on a reply.

For all I know it's on its way but taking a while due to shipping times between US and UK, though I didn't receive an email saying it had been sent.

You ever receive your drive?

I really wanna invest the money in this and support him but I sorta want an estimate on how long it'd take. I don't really want to wait 4+ months unfortunately...

I know that the man is legit, Pleased don't take any of this I say as slander.

I ordered one back on Oct 26th and I still haven't recieved it yet either. I emailed him in November asking if my order had been recieved and he answered very quickly confirming my order, and also saying he would probably get to my order in December. Now I emailed him again a week ago or so for an update, but I still haven't gotten a response yet

I'm getting a little worried to say the least, but I still trust the guy is legit and all. I hope he's just busy with life right now.

With no hearing back from Marshall, I'm getting an everdrive.

He seems to be swamped just now and not answering emails promptly, however he is shipping out, a few days after I posted about mine (not long after emailing him) I got an email saying it had been sent and got a tracking number, got it just over a week ago and it works great (as long as you dont use bad ROMs as I was to start with)

As for the everdrive 64 it's not as feature rich, compatibility is not as good iirc and you have to PAY or firmware upgrades.

So just to let everyone know, he's still shipping, if he's a little unable to keep up with emails and such at the mo.

---

 

[CyberAxe]

[snip]

No problem, just make sure you dremel out holes for the USB port which is needed for updating the firmware and bootloader, and the menu is "updated" from a CF cartridge, or microsd. If you're intent on using microsd though, I recommend you come up with some creative way to access the port so you can easily remove the microsd chip. Microsd was more of an afterthought for the 64drive, since CF is the superior media and marshall was intent on using it (Note: I didn't say SD couldn't be "effective," CF is just better all the way around in my opinion)

The only true plus to SD is it's cheaper than CF, usually.. Depending on where you buy your media though, it can get expensive, it's crazy. They'll have 4 GB CF carts for nearly 40 dollars at Walmart, it made me chuckle that the local Walmart likes to jack the prices up on every electronic (Thank Talos for Newegg)

Nah, no need for USB holes, I have a gamebit. It takes like 10 seconds to take apart (and how often will I *really* need to update the bootloader?). Same for the MicroSD, I can't see adding games after the initial download dumping spree... which really just leaves menu updates, which still isn't that often to need to take the 10 seconds to open the cart. A small price to pay for having a nice, clean cart without any holes. As for MicroSD vs CF, what difference does it really make other than speed? I really don't care if it takes an extra couple seconds to do something, my prerogative right now is that having a CF card sticking out the top of the cart is not better (for me) than having a fully-enclosed cart with internal MicroSD, unless there are other downsides besides speed?

Also, another question. To anybody that has gotten their 64Drive, how long did it take after you placed your order? I get that it takes awhile, I'd just like a ballpark idea so I have some idea what to expect...

Well most of us that ordered in October seem to have got it mid Feb so about 3 and a half months but I reckon the christmas period slowed things down for him, and like I've mentioned previously you'll get a notice of when it's shipped out. (that's one thing that drove me mad, not knowing if I'd get a shipping notice)

 

[CyberAxe]

Just wanted to update you guys with this info. If you have a PAL console you need an S-Video cable to get color in NTSC roms. In other words, it's just like the PS1 problem with black and white colors on NTSC games on a PAL console unless you had an RGB cable. I would recommend an RGB cable for the N64 as well, but it doesn't have RGB output. So an S-video cable will have to do. Composite cable works fine for just playing PAL roms.

Luckily I had an S-Video cable for SNES/N64/GC laying around, but it's a crappy one. If there's a white background with black text on it, the text will be barely readable and more grayish in color. And the colors overall seems to be very bright to the point of loosing detail on objects because they're so bright. Like the lamps in Perfect Dark. You can't see them at all because they're so bright there's no details left in the light. It's the same on PAL with that cable though, so it's just the cable.

Anyway, other than having to buy a better S-Video cable I haven't had a single issue with the 64drive itself. Everything I've tried to boot so far has worked, including homebrew demos and games, except for some obscure demos and of course Banjo-Tooie. Even the friggin debug roms of OoT and MM boots up and works fine. Finally I can play them on a real N64

EDIT: Uhm, scratch that actually. I just tried with NTSC over a composite cable on another TV and there are colors on that TV. So it appears that it was the TVs fault that there weren't colors on NTSC. The TV that had issues was a Sony W4000 HDTV and the one that does have colors is a Sony Trinitron SD CRT. Now, I don't know if colors would work on the HDTV with S-video because I never tried the S-video cable on the HDTV. I just assumed that colors wouldn't work on the CRT with composite so I just plugged in the S-video cable into it immediately.

But you should get an S-video cable anyway for the improved sharpness and crispness.

Yeah, you dont need an S-Video to get colours or shouldnt anyway. It's really dependant on the stability of the signal coming form teh console and the support of the television, I've had somethings work and other snot on various consoles but I use RGB foreverything as it's the best.

You can RGB mod an N64 as I'm sure most people here are aware of but for those who aren't, you can get a french PAL N64 or an earlier model NTSC n64, solder three wires between the video chip and the back port and you've got yourself some nice full clarity picture going on (and I dont think you really lose anything with losing that alias blurring from composite like some say), the only caviat is some RGB mods (theres a few different ways to do it) seem to give different results and it depends on what rgb cable you use aswell, I think i did the direct to chip mod where you lift the pins from the board.

You may need to build a small booster circuit for the signal to get past any dull colours or deal with oversaturation, on mine the red is oversaturated and the other two colours are a little dull (but i did this mod a while back and need to go back in to make sure I did it all correctly) and that should be fixable.

Here's a couple of good sources of information on it.

http://www.gamesx.com/rgbadd/rgbn64.htm

http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/nintendo/ntsc_nintendo_64_rgb.htm

http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/nintendo/ntsc-n64-rbg-booster1.htm

 

[Levente]

How to save a NES game with Neon?

 

[synt4x_3rr0r]

Just wanted to update you guys with this info. If you have a PAL console you need an S-Video cable to get color in NTSC roms. In other words, it's just like the PS1 problem with black and white colors on NTSC games on a PAL console unless you had an RGB cable. I would recommend an RGB cable for the N64 as well, but it doesn't have RGB output. So an S-video cable will have to do. Composite cable works fine for just playing PAL roms.

Luckily I had an S-Video cable for SNES/N64/GC laying around, but it's a crappy one. If there's a white background with black text on it, the text will be barely readable and more grayish in color. And the colors overall seems to be very bright to the point of loosing detail on objects because they're so bright. Like the lamps in Perfect Dark. You can't see them at all because they're so bright there's no details left in the light. It's the same on PAL with that cable though, so it's just the cable.

Anyway, other than having to buy a better S-Video cable I haven't had a single issue with the 64drive itself. Everything I've tried to boot so far has worked, including homebrew demos and games, except for some obscure demos and of course Banjo-Tooie. Even the friggin debug roms of OoT and MM boots up and works fine. Finally I can play them on a real N64

EDIT: Uhm, scratch that actually. I just tried with NTSC over a composite cable on another TV and there are colors on that TV. So it appears that it was the TVs fault that there weren't colors on NTSC. The TV that had issues was a Sony W4000 HDTV and the one that does have colors is a Sony Trinitron SD CRT. Now, I don't know if colors would work on the HDTV with S-video because I never tried the S-video cable on the HDTV. I just assumed that colors wouldn't work on the CRT with composite so I just plugged in the S-video cable into it immediately.

But you should get an S-video cable anyway for the improved sharpness and crispness.

Yeah, you dont need an S-Video to get colours or shouldnt anyway. It's really dependant on the stability of the signal coming form teh console and the support of the television, I've had somethings work and other snot on various consoles but I use RGB foreverything as it's the best.

You can RGB mod an N64 as I'm sure most people here are aware of but for those who aren't, you can get a french PAL N64 or an earlier model NTSC n64, solder three wires between the video chip and the back port and you've got yourself some nice full clarity picture going on (and I dont think you really lose anything with losing that alias blurring from composite like some say), the only caviat is some RGB mods (theres a few different ways to do it) seem to give different results and it depends on what rgb cable you use aswell, I think i did the direct to chip mod where you lift the pins from the board.

You may need to build a small booster circuit for the signal to get past any dull colours or deal with oversaturation, on mine the red is oversaturated and the other two colours are a little dull (but i did this mod a while back and need to go back in to make sure I did it all correctly) and that should be fixable.

Here's a couple of good sources of information on it.

http://www.gamesx.co...badd/rgbn64.htm

http://www.mmmonkey....endo_64_rgb.htm

http://www.mmmonkey....bg-booster1.htm

Thanks for the info. Yes it appears that PAL N64 video output is pretty shitty by default. I'll have to do that mod some day hopefully.
Oh and an update regarding the issue I had with no colors on my HDTV; I just switched the channel to a different one after starting a game in NTSC, then I switched back to the N64 channel and the colors showed up. So it's just something with that particular TV. It doesn't like that devices change color signal standards in the middle of operation I think. But switching to another channel and then switching back works. So if you get that issue, try that. Can't believe I didn't try that sooner...

 

[qwertymodo]

I'm working on a label for mine while I wait for it to ship (I bought the bare board so I could install a 6105 CIC). I'm gonna be putting it on a black cart I picked up at the pawn shop for $2, so it should look pretty slick. It's not done yet, but I thought I'd share my current progress. I'm using the Zelda special edition 3DS as inspiration, just because it's sooooo awesome.

Spoiler

EDIT: Worked some more on it (and overlaid the image on top of an image of an actual cart for a better idea of the final product:

Spoiler

Still a work-in-progress and any comments/criticisms/suggestions are more than welcome

 

[Bart Lemming]

^
Looking good! I can't wait to see the finished cart.

 

[qwertymodo]

I need to find a good printing medium and somebody with a decent photo printer... plus I still don't have the actual 64Drive But yeah, real photos when I get it.

 

[Bart Lemming]

It's worth the wait. The cart just works so well.

 

[qwertymodo]

Yeah, the more I read about it, the more I realized that was the case. Hence going to the trouble to make it look awesome as well

 

[Levente]

Unfotunately I bricked my 64drive while updating to firmware 1.04.
Please help me! What should I do?
Any help is well appreciated!

 

[synt4x_3rr0r]

Unfotunately I bricked my 64drive while updating to firmware 1.04.
Please help me! What should I do?
Any help is well appreciated!

I would try to contact Marshall about it to see what you can do. He's a very nice guy. The CF card reader in mine broke down a couple of weeks ago and I contacted him about it and he sent me a new one, postage paid and everything, ordering me to send back the faulty one. Of course, I had to pay the postage to ship the faulty one back though but that's fair. He even shipped the replacement out before he recieved the faulty one back. So just contact him about it. I'm almost certain you'll get a new one since it's a problem he can probably fix manually IIRC.

 

[qwertymodo]

I just received my 64Drive, but I'm having some issues. I ordered the bare board w/o the CIC and I can't find anywhere in any of the documents on the 64Drive site how to orient the CIC for installation. I think I have it right (chip on the same side as the CF card, pin 1 dot in the lower-right corner) but I get no video signal when I turn on the console. I haven't soldered it in yet because I'm not sure of the orientation (plus for now I'm using a 6102 until I get my hands on a 6105), so I'm just holding it in with a rubberband, which might be part of the issue but all of the pins seem to be making solid contact... any thoughts? Also, when I do get a 6105, where is the jumper I need to bridge? That's another piece of valuable info missing from the docs on the site

 

[C-Kronos]

I just received my 64Drive, but I'm having some issues. I ordered the bare board w/o the CIC and I can't find anywhere in any of the documents on the 64Drive site how to orient the CIC for installation. I think I have it right (chip on the same side as the CF card, pin 1 dot in the lower-right corner) but I get no video signal when I turn on the console. I haven't soldered it in yet because I'm not sure of the orientation (plus for now I'm using a 6102 until I get my hands on a 6105), so I'm just holding it in with a rubberband, which might be part of the issue but all of the pins seem to be making solid contact... any thoughts? Also, when I do get a 6105, where is the jumper I need to bridge? That's another piece of valuable info missing from the docs on the site

First off, you may think the CIC is getting solid contact when it's not; you need to solder it onto the board, that's more than likely your issue.

For the 6105 CIC, you need to solder it in like the CIC in this picture (Although in the picture that's a 7101, the PAL "version" of 6102) Also, you'll need to bridge the two pads that are in the red rectangle in the picture; after that's done and the CIC is properly installed, it should be working. Keep in mind that the pads do not need to be bridged to use the 6102 CIC.

The following quotes were taken from retroactive's cic page:

6102s are found in virtually any cartridge. Any 3rd party publisher (Acclaim, EA, Midway, etc) will be using them.

The other chips were primarily used in first-party titles (Nintendo, Rare).

The 6105 is thought to be unique that it has additional functionality for protection. I forget the details, but it's some sort of challenge/response system. Jet Force Gemini checks this, and freezes randomly if not found. Banjo-Tooie uses all 512 possible C/R pairs and will not even boot.

Also, please be aware that just because there is a 6106/7106, doesn't mean you can slap it in and it'll have all the functionality of a 6105.. Sorry to shoot down anyone's hopes, but it doesn't work that way.

NTSC | PAL | Rarity

6101 | 7102 | Rare (Only Starfox 64)
6102 | 7101 | Very common (Most games)
6103 | 7103 | Somewhat uncommon (1st party games 97-98)
6105 | 7105 | Somewhat common (1st party games 99-00)
6106 | 7106 | Rare (Yoshi's Story, Cruis'n Exotica, F-Zero X)

 

[Zaertix]

See I've thought of getting one, but all this soldering and my hatred for the risk of breaking things deters me from getting one... -plots to order one and mail it to CK-

 

[C-Kronos]

Unfotunately I bricked my 64drive while updating to firmware 1.04.
Please help me! What should I do?
Any help is well appreciated!

You could attempt updating the firmware again through USB if the computer will recognize the device.. You should install the drivers from here; after you have done that, download the 1.04 Easy Upgrade and run it as an administrator with your 64drive connected to your PC via USB. For those on Windows 7 64bit, and you cannot get the drivers properly working, try extracting the .exe and manually installing the drivers.

Also, please make sure that your 64drive is NOT in the Nintendo 64 during the update process.. Also, I'd remove your CF or microsd cart from your 64drive during the upgrade process as well.

If what I posted above doesn't work, you need to contact marshall.. Let him know about your issue, and he'll probably send you another PCB as long as you mail the old one back.

See I've thought of getting one, but all this soldering and my hatred for the risk of breaking things deters me from getting one... -plots to order one and mail it to CK-

Soldering isn't hard at all, even a newbie could solder the CIC chip in on the 64drive.. I'm not great at soldering; I'm just good enough to get the job done for my hobbies. I still have a long way to go until I'm on par with marshall's 1337 soldering skillz, lol.. Pretty sure the 64drive pcb is more than enough proof of his skill.

Are you stalking me for when I reply on stuff, Mr. Z.. How are you going to mail it to me? Did I ever give you my new address after I moved? Instead of implying that the post is directed towards me, message me on MSN, or I swear on the video game gods; I will eat all your freaking tacos.. (Yeah, we "know" each other.. He's the guy that I spam on MSN or text from my phone when I'm incredibly intoxicated )

 

[qwertymodo]

I actually managed to get my hands on a much nicer copy of JFG for less than the same shop was selling Mickey's Speedway USA, so I'm gonna rip the 6105 out of my other copy of JFG that looks like a dog chewed on it. I also got my hands on a few IC sockets to fit the CIC footprint, so I may just solder in a socket... only problem there is that the legs on the socket are too wide for the holes drilled in the board, so I'll have to re-drill the holes if I want to do that... we shall see. Thanks for pointing out the jumper pads. I was thinking it was the one on the back with 3 pads and the silkscreen label says NTSC/PAL.

 

[C-Kronos]

I actually managed to get my hands on a much nicer copy of JFG for less than the same shop was selling Mickey's Speedway USA, so I'm gonna rip the 6105 out of my other copy of JFG that looks like a dog chewed on it. I also got my hands on a few IC sockets to fit the CIC footprint, so I may just solder in a socket... only problem there is that the legs on the socket are too wide for the holes drilled in the board, so I'll have to re-drill the holes if I want to do that... we shall see. Thanks for pointing out the jumper pads. I was thinking it was the one on the back with 3 pads and the silkscreen label says NTSC/PAL.

Why use the sockets if you're going to be using a 6105 CIC? Once you have the 6105 CIC soldered in, you'll have 100% compatibility..

 

[qwertymodo]

The socket was in case I ever wanted that 6105 back for some reason. Turns out it was a bad idea, it stuck out too far and kept glitching out on me because the chip wasn't making good contact or something (though the 6102 worked fine in the socket), then I ended up lifting several pads desoldering it Thankfully it still works now that I have the 6105 soldered in directly, but it scared the crap out of me every time a pad came off... In any case, it works now, and I'm happy. Now to just get that label printed up and it'll be perfect.