Super Mario 64 DD Edition Discovered on Disk

[DinohScene]

Sweet!

Shame the DD never took off.
Lots of good games been released n announced.

 

[WiiCube_2013]

I would have loved if Nintendo released 64DD here in Europe but sadly they never did, not even for US.

Bummer, but oh well, that dude's got an awesome gem in his possession!

 

[Sheimi]

Seeing this gives me a glimmer of hope of Mother 3 being found in it's original form.

 

[Clarky]

The holy grain of a N64DD collection, huh
(I wonder if the N64DD works on an USA console...)
Now I wish that more N64DD beta stuff leaked, I would love to see Mother 3 and Pokémon RPG.

you should have a look at the blog where this story comes from, the guy has done all kinds of tests with the 64DD including getting a NTSC copy of F Zero to find the F Zero X Expansion Kit. He even goes as far as to prove that in PAL copies F Zero X the hooks for the 64DD were removed proving that Nintendo already had no plans to bring the 64DD to Europe

 

[UltraHurricane]

so this is just basically regular old Mario 64, on a disk... huh

this doesn't seem like a very impressive find at first but maybe once this is dumped we can dig inside the rom and find some neat un-used stuff like finding the beta Windy Valley level in that one Sonic Adventures demo

 

[GHANMI]

so this is just basically regular old Mario 64, on a disk... huh

this doesn't seem like a very impressive find at first but maybe once this is dumped we can dig inside the rom and find some neat un-used stuff like finding the beta Windy Valley level in that one Sonic Adventures demo

Nah. It's notable for being one of the only 64DD games.
Before the hardware was cancelled, lots of games were announced for that platform first, notably Dragon Quest VII, Fire Emblem 6, Cubivore, Seaman, Resident Evil Zero, Zelda Ocarina of Time as well as two expansion packs (one was released as Majora Mask, the other was cancelled but the idea was revisited in a much smaller scope than the original concept with Master Quest), a sequel for Super Mario 64 with the same graphics but split screen multiplayer and new levels...

and most importantly, the original iteration of Mother 3. Like this demo was actually the SpaceWorld 96 demo, Mother 3 actually had a partial build (at least the first chapter is done) that was shown in playable form in SpaceWorld 1999 for the 64DD.
Would be exciting if that one was finally leaked

 

[UltraHurricane]

Nah. It's notable for being one of the only 64DD games.
Before the hardware was cancelled, lots of games were announced for that platform first, notably Dragon Quest VII, Fire Emblem 6, Cubivore, Seaman, Resident Evil Zero, Zelda Ocarina of Time as well as two expansion packs (one was released as Majora Mask, the other was cancelled but the idea was revisited in a much smaller scope than the original concept with Master Quest), a sequel for Super Mario 64 with the same graphics but split screen multiplayer and new levels...

and most importantly, the original iteration of Mother 3. Like this demo was actually the SpaceWorld 96 demo, Mother 3 actually had a partial build (at least the first chapter is done) that was shown in playable form in SpaceWorld 1999 for the 64DD.
Would be exciting if that one was finally leaked

though i have to wonder why they made a disk version that (as far as we know) is almost identical to the retail version,
what were they trying to demonstrate with the 64DD with the Mario 64 disk? thats what i'm curious about

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

though i have to wonder why they made a disk version that (as far as we know) is almost identical to the retail version,
what were they trying to demonstrate with the 64DD with the Mario 64 disk? thats what i'm curious about

The original design for the 64DD was to have a high-capacity disk based system for the N64, as at the time it was being developed (like...1996, around when the N64 was being released) the cartridges only supported something like 4MB of space. With the additional space, Super Mario 64 could include more features as GHANMI pointed out like multiplayer and other such improvements.

But by the time they actually released the 64DD, the N64 Game-paks could already have 64MB storage sizes so the pros of the thing were slim to none.

Regarding what they were going to do with Super Mario 64 on the DD, we really don't know. Rumor was they were going to release an improved version along with adding various features. Technically this was never commercially released at all (hence it's rarity, that's probably the only copy in existence save other beta versions by Nin10doh), it was canned along with all the other DD games in development. There's no reason for this thing to even exist outside of Nin10doh headquarters.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

holy shit! I eat this old obscure classic gaming like sweet tarts.. and I fucking love sweet tarts..now for Earthbound DD. even just a alpha or beta...!!

and the DD wasn't just a crappy piece of shit. In fact,..the DD version of legend of zelda (both 64) games was to be highly superior then the cartridge version...It's too much to display and talk about here..


If you don't know what the N64 Disk Drive was or if you want to see more detailed info about it, my VG series talks about the DD and Ura zelda and the expansive zelda 64 game we never got to play. I'll put it in spoiler tags so it doesn't look like i'm shoving it in your face

Spoiler

if you're wondering. The N64DD is covered at 8:27

 

[JackSakamoto]

Nintendo already had no plans to bring the 64DD to Europe

I do not agree. Mario Party 1 PAL has actually correct error messages with a 64DD. http://jimmy130.free.fr/?Mario-Party ,

 

[WiiCube_2013]

Spoiler

if you're wondering. The N64DD is covered at 8:27

Yes the N64 cartridge was limited but in terms of loading times it's still better than discs' nowadays, then again NDS/3DS and Vita all use cards rather than discs which makes them have faster loading times whereas the home consoles use Blu-ray Discs, sure they can store up to 50GB but it takes some time to load.

I don't have any issues with loading times unless they take 30s-1m or more.

 

[cdoty]

Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying

There's a difference between say a SNES or Genesis, where the rom is mapped into memory, and the N64 or DS, where it's more like an SD card. Although, I'm not sure that would be slower than reading from some sort of magnetic spinning media.

 

[Yepi69]

Quicker load times for a CD based release than a cartridge one? yeah not buying

Its a disk, not a disc.

And if you see the load times from a cartridge based version to the disk one, you'll see its a bit tad faster.

 

[GHANMI]

I do not agree. Mario Party 1 PAL has actually correct error messages with a 64DD.

Reminds me how the PAL versions of Super Mario Advance 4, despite not having the option available normally (outside save corruption), nor the e-Reader software itself not even having proper region codes for PAL cards, the e-Reader content was fully translated in five different languages, and even functions... with US-region cards.
My guess is that's loose ends left from the JP/US Mario Party 1 (well, we know 64DD was at one point planned for the US but also that they bothered removing it specifically in PAL versions of games) that they didn't bother to remove in the PAL versions.

I think "Super Mario 64 Disk Version" is nothing more than a tech demo.
Much like how "Yoshi Story GBA" was.

 

[Clarky]

I do not agree. Mario Party 1 PAL has actually correct error messages with a 64DD. http://jimmy130.free.fr/?Mario-Party ,

To quote the guy who found this mario 64dd disc

Mario Party is special as you know. Indeed, it works with Japanese 64DD, it reads the disk, and displays error messages in English, French and German. Before I thought that zoning was a choice of the developer. Except now I can say that the game goes into the function of Japanese test. Hence my conclusion, Mario Party PAL is actually a translation of Mario Party JPN. This explains the good recognition of Japanese 64DD. Finally, big disappointment for Zelda OOT who does not see the 64DD. To believe that the feature is disabled 64DD recognition in Europe. This leads us to think beyond that. Nintendo never intended to market the 64DD in Europe. because without the ability to get Expansion Kit or Ura Zelda, since their combos cartridges do not see the 64DD. 64DD how could they sell in Europe?...

http://www.gamekult.com/blog/Jimmy130/

 

[JackSakamoto]

Reminds me how the PAL versions of Super Mario Advance 4, despite not having the option available normally (outside save corruption), nor the e-Reader software itself not even having proper region codes for PAL cards, the e-Reader content was fully translated in five different languages, and even functions... with US-region cards.

Well,sure,but it was locked up in Europe. But I got your point there. This game is more a tech demo than anything else.

Nintendo never intended to market the 64DD in Europe. because without the ability to get Expansion Kit or Ura Zelda, since their combos cartridges do not see the 64DD.

Then why they didn't bothered to lock up this too ? I mean,it is actually translated badly in languages other than english. If everything was locked up for europe,why this thing in particular does exist ?

 

[GHANMI]

http://www.gamekult.com/blog/jimmy1...4dd-f-zero-x-usa-boot-avec-expansion-kit.html
http://www.gamekult.com/blog/jimmy130/202338/zonage-usa-du-64dd-code-assembleur.html

Rough English translation from French
(really awesome blog, researchs on Beta versions of Zelda 64 and the various dumps including the undumped iQue version -and an iQue Chinese version of Majora Mask was planned but cancelled-, what resolutions did the GC use to render at internally, etc)

Nintendo planned two regions for the 64DD: Japan and US. The regional lock works by reading the value in an address (0x9FF00) in the IPLRom (the 3D animation with Mario's head that loads when the 64DD is booted without a disk). Japanese combo games (a term he uses to refer to Zelda OOT, F-Zero X, and Mario Party 1) expect that value to be 0xC3, US ones expect it to be 0x04. Otherwise it jumps to an infinite loop and the game enters a soft-lock.
The region lock makes it so that US combo games can't boot with a JP 64DD drive, and also JP combo games wouldn't boot either on the unreleased US 64DD drive.

To make F-Zero X US work with 64DD, he tried to kill the infinite loop (that triggers once the region check fails), then he found out there are TWO region tests in the ROM, one for the JP version and one for US one. He repointed to the JP test and the game... worked.

F-Zero X USA, ROM address 0x83ED0
replace : 1000 FFFF with 1000 FF5E

Began by inserting a wrong/corrupt disk in the 64DD
> Error message "bad disk"
Inserted the Expansion Kit disk



The missing menu graphics, and the game crashing when attempting to begin a race or load the track editor, are due to the Expansion Kit trying to load the data from the addresses used in the JP F-Zero X.

Zelda OOT 1.0 USA, rom uncompressed 64Mo
adresse rom : 0xB96B0A
replace : 1000FFFF by 1000FDBF



Mario Party USA
adresse rom : 0x82A98
replace : 1000FFFF with 1000 FF73

What about PAL games?

Trying to do the same process in F-Zero X PAL:
Doesn't boot with the 64DD and Ram Pack.
Doing the region lock bypass method as above: no error messages, no disk reading. Has the US region coding: hinting at it being a modified version based on the US rom.

Mario Party is a special case.
The PAL version was directly translated from the JP one and no 64DD options were stripped out, meaning it behaves exactly like the Japanese copy, being compatible with the Japanese 64DD, reading the disk, displaying error messages (in English, French and German). Internally, it has a Japanese 64DD regional code.

Ocarina of Time PAL though: Doesn't recognize the 64DD at all. All of its functionality was removed from PAL versions.

The technical details about the 64DD region locking, and the functionnality being removed from Zelda OoT PAL (Ura Zelda, unreleased) and F-Zero X PAL (Expansion Kit, released in Japan) leads the author to the conclusion that Nintendo NEVER intended to sell the 64DD in Europe.

He also shared stuff from Zoinkity (of Animal Crossing N64 and Wonder Project J2's English projects fame):

Pocket Monsters Stadium (64DD support=
One really neat one is in a 1-time only test to see if a retail 64DD is attached. It does a couple error tests for drive status and the like, and then does an anti-piracy check! If you don't have a retail IPL it will likely fail.
It reads 0x9FF00 from the IPL, which in the retail will read C3DBFE61. Of that, it tests if the upper byte is 0xC3. If so, it then 'detects' the 64DD and will, from that point onward, look for it, read its status, etc. Otherwise, it acts like it isn't there.

Via GS codes you can force it to believe the 64DD passed that test. This sort of thing works with Nemu, but others might die when doing the register access and others might not allow codes to change ASM.
8104CB64 1000 passes first error test
8104CC50 5000 passes second error test
8104CCAA 0000 device detected
8104CCEA 0000 kill inf. loop when 9FF00 from IPL isn't C3------
8104CCFC 0321 mult against 0xC3, not invalid value; result should be DFB807A9; 5FAF995D at 80086E00

Zoinkity
/end quote

 

[ReigningSemtex]

I wonder how the guy came across Mario 64 dd and how much he paid for it. Looks interesting wish I owned a dd

 

[EarthBound 2]

Well is it Super Mario 64 2?http://gimmegimmegames.com/2013/08/nintendo-earthbound-64-was-60-complete-when-cancelled/ I found MOTHER 3 N64 Edition anyways.

 

[tbb043]

Wow, quite an interesting find… I wonder if this will be an incentive to develop a 64DD emulator?

Oh yeah, it's also not a "disc" drive, it's a "disk" drive… "discs" are round, while "disks" aren't.

Right conclusion, wrong reasoning. The convention is to use disc with a C for optical, disk with a K for magnetic, nothing to do with whether the "round" thing is in a casing or not. PSP games are in a case, but still optical, so "discs". Why the distinction? Dunno, just one of those things. Outside of the media storage realm the two spellings are interchangeable.

Also, the title of the thread's a bit silly. "Super Mario 64 DD Edition Discovered on Disk"? Where else would a DD game be found besides a disk?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Also, the title of the thread's a bit silly. "Super Mario 64 DD Edition Discovered on Disk"? Where else would a DD game be found besides a disk?

As in, discovered on a retail/demo disk. Super Mario 64 DD was supposedly never supposed to have left Nin10doh hands, which is why this is such a big deal.