ED64 Plus... my impressions. Any Owners around here?

[TUWieZ]

Tried out alt64 1.8.23 for the first time today; Editing the config .ini file (alt64.ini) made some saves work that were created by the ED64P OS. All save types worked with the exception of .eep files. (SRA and FLA both loaded fine)

It seems like alt64 creates eep files that are too big, saving 4kbit eep files as 4kbyte, and 16kbit eep files as 16kbyte; when the ED64P OS only makes 4kbit and 16kbit eep files (512byte - 2048bytes max, respectively.)

With alt64, I tested SM64 (4kbyte .eep was created) and Neon Genesis Evangelion (16kbyte .eep was created), and neither of the previous .eep saves I had from the ED64P OS loaded because they were both smaller than the file size alt64 makes.

Is there some kind of save converter or configuration to fix .eep file loading? or is there no way to load .eep saves with the default file size from ED64P OS and PJ64 on alt64? Only one other user on the ed64 forums has brought up this issue (https://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=816.msg12595#msg12595)

(Edit: PJ64 is able to load the large save files created by alt64 and save over them while maintaining the larger 4kbyte-16kbyte file size. This leads me to believe save conversion is possible - possibly by comparing saves in hex editor.

Are there any custom branches of alt64 that fix this issue? the size difference between kbit and kbyte is massive for n64 eeprom; and normal sized eeprom files dont load in alt64)

 

[Bonny]

i managed to get to work with this atl64 provided by @zfreeman, copying and paste the OS64 from ED64 to ED64P folder and rename it to OS64P
works... BUT THE MENU IS PAYFULL SLOW.... MY GOD... didnt know if i make something wrong in the process tho



EDIT
The version from the video above works flawless!

Not for me

The Alt64 Package from the Video (Netinirvana), boots perfectly up when i place all files on the root of my 16GB SD Card. But not a single game works. Every game i tried gives me a black screen. I'am using an RGB-modified N64 who supports US and JAP NTSC Carts. But even when i force the TV mode to NTSC, everything stays black

 

[Bonny]

My fault. Games have to be startet with "A", "START" reloads the last game. And because of my other rom dir than the one from Netinirvana, it never worked.

But it is normal, that when you highlight a rom, the C-left button (that should actually show the rom infos and a boxart) freezes the whole menu? Is it because the boxarts images are missing?

 

[eon_edd]

Hi there. First of all, excuse my broken english. Now, let's get down to business.

Just bought one of these a couple of months ago. The second model, the that does not need an original cartridge on top. It came with a micro SD card with a bunch of roms. It's great. I just have a little issue. I keep randomly losing all of my super smash brothers' progress. Like, I unlock some characters and save. A couple of hours later or maybe the next day my progress is still there, I make some more, reset save and so on. Then one day I start the rom and it's all gone.

I have tried with the original firmware, and a couple of custom ones. I have downloaded 4 different roms....z64 .n64 .v64... Even tried to copy the SRM from the SDSAVE folder in the SD card to my laptop so I can paste it back to the SDSAVE folder when my progress is gone. It doesn't work. I have downloaded other people's SRM files as well. In both cases, there is no progress at all.

I have this problem only wit SSB and it sucks since is one of my favorite games and just can't find the actual cartridge from the old days among all the clutter.

Does somebody have any idea why is this happening and how to fix it? Maybe someone who doesn't have this problem could share with me his rom file and maybe his SRM file as well?

 

[KevinLSX]

Hi there. First of all, excuse my broken english. Now, let's get down to business.

Just bought one of these a couple of months ago. The second model, the that does not need an original cartridge on top. It came with a micro SD card with a bunch of roms. It's great. I just have a little issue. I keep randomly losing all of my super smash brothers' progress. Like, I unlock some characters and save. A couple of hours later or maybe the next day my progress is still there, I make some more, reset save and so on. Then one day I start the rom and it's all gone.

I have tried with the original firmware, and a couple of custom ones. I have downloaded 4 different roms....z64 .n64 .v64... Even tried to copy the SRM from the SDSAVE folder in the SD card to my laptop so I can paste it back to the SDSAVE folder when my progress is gone. It doesn't work. I have downloaded other people's SRM files as well. In both cases, there is no progress at all.

I have this problem only wit SSB and it sucks since is one of my favorite games and just can't find the actual cartridge from the old days among all the clutter.

Does somebody have any idea why is this happening and how to fix it? Maybe someone who doesn't have this problem could share with me his rom file and maybe his SRM file as well?

Is the sd card a well known brand? Is it branded at all? Might be a cheap chinese sd card.

 

[eon_edd]

Kingstone, dude. And as I said, I have no problems with other games. Good news I found my old cartdrirge so it's ok.

 

[Deleted-401606]

So does yoshi story work on the latest version?

 

[Daggot]

So from what I can gather from this thread and this one(https://www.reddit.com/r/n64/comments/9h56ho/ed64_plus_working_with_custom_firmware_pretty) there seems to be at least 3 revisions of the ed64+. One with the cartridge slot ontop, another with an NTSC/PAL switch ontop but the alt64 firmware dosent work and the last one is the exact same as the previous one but it works with the alt64 firmware. To anyone that has an ed64+ and is using alt64 can you link me to the seller you bought it from?

 

[deadl0ck_eire]

Hi all - sorry for dragging up a bit of an older thread, but I just recently got an ED64 Plus.
I have a PAL N64 and all the European games work fine, but the non-PAL games are all showing up in black and white, and no sound (I think, can't remember about the sound as I've been playing the PAL stuff).
Anybody seen this before ?
BTW - it's the newer version of the cart with the switch on the top (so it does not require an additional cart on top). I've not checked the firmware version yet so it might be related to an older FW

 

[nitrostemp]

have to tried forcing PAL video mode on the games?

 

[saturnu]

I keep randomly losing all of my super smash brothers' progress.

if i remember correctly, i implemented a copy protection that detects, if there is an ED64P folder present on the sdcard.
i decided to just mess up sram saves instead of to prevent it from starting at all, so it's not that obvious. ^^

there is a guy that is developing altra64, which is based on an old alt64 source release.
the source code release doesn't have a copy protection, maybe it's still running on an ed64plus, too.
github networkfusion/altra64/releases/download/V0.1.8.6.1.3-beta/OS64.v64



the ed64 plus is basically an ed64v1 clone.
you can go hardcore and flash the latest original ed64v1 firmware to transform it into an ed64v1. ^^

download ed-64-fw-v1.15.pof somewhere at the usual places and update the flashcart via jtag.

 

[kuwanger]

if i remember correctly, i implemented a copy protection that detects, if there is an ED64P folder present on the sdcard.
i decided to just mess up sram saves instead of to prevent it from starting at all, so it's not that obvious. ^^

Interesting that you say that since the only thing I find like that is a check for OS64P/OS64P.v64 which is also in altra64. Maybe I'm not looking at the right thing?

 

[saturnu]

you are right, this is the function and it checks for the OS64P.v64 file instead of just the directory.
now you can compile the menu without this function and end up with fully working save functionality. ^^

 

[zfreeman]

@saturnu, thank you for this and the Mempak Tool. Your work is very beneficial to the community, and for that, we are grateful.

 

[kuwanger]

Option B (untested) -- nop out the file existence result check:

hexalter 0xac28=0,0,0,0 OS64.v64

Found in alt64 v1.8.23 OS64.v64, md5sum d17a6194e4c85b84fe0e95d13fcbe2d5

 

[Nerone]

Guys, i just bought a ED64+ few days ago, it worked fine, i could even play big games like Biohazard 2, but now i can't even boot more than 8 mb games. I tried the ED64 ram test v1 and it gives me errors. Can Someone give me any help? I'm kinda stuck. I'm using a Kingston 8 gb Microsd. with the firmware that came in the mini cd.

 

[RigoHoward]

Option B (untested) -- nop out the file existence result check:

hexalter 0xac28=0,0,0,0 OS64.v64

Found in alt64 v1.8.23 OS64.v64, md5sum d17a6194e4c85b84fe0e95d13fcbe2d5

So you couldnt compile the modified alt64?

you are right, this is the function and it checks for the OS64P.v64 file instead of just the directory.
now you can compile the menu without this function and end up with fully working save functionality. ^^

Is that the only existing protection on your alternate menu? sound interesting to know about it

 

[kuwanger]

So you couldnt compile the modified alt64?

It was just faster to use a disassembler to find out where the check was than to locate the n64 toolchain, compile it, grab the altra64 source, modify, etc. Like I said, I didn't even check the NOP I included. I've no idea if the altra64 source is trivial to compile or not.

 

[radaxian91]

Hi All,


Ok so I just picked up two of these ED64Plus carts with the N and P switch on top.

It came preloaded with the Chinese firmware and roms.

It boots perfectly and plays games on a USA console, but does absolutely nothing on a PAL console.

I've tried the NTSC and PAL switch for each console, but literally nothing happens on the PAL hardware.... Yes the pal console boots genuine games fine.


I bought two carts for this kinda reason, in case one was faulty but both work fine on NTSC.

Is there a trick to this for PAL hardware?

PS. I also tried the custom firmware option... same result.

thanks

 

[Captain_N]

I always wondered why most of the flash carts wont write the save file in real time. when the hardware sees a write it should dump it as the game is saving. Or alteast dump the sram written data to the sd card after the save is completed. The ds flash carts have real time saves....