N64 Emulator for DC?

[segafreak2]

I have The World Is Not Enough, for N64, and I have the rom, how can I make it so I can play it on the DC? What emulators are there?

[Darksaviour69]

there are there is only one n64 emu , but its only a tech demo and can not play anygames. Because the n64 is a cart based system and has large roms a N64 emu is not possiable on the dc

[segafreak2]

TWINE (the world is not enough) is only 26MB

[segafreak2]

Project 64 managed it, and if the DC is Windows CE compatible then surely converting P64 to WIn CE format will work?!

[quzar]

no. the dreamcast has only 16mb of ram. there is no way a 26mb rom will work even if an emulator is written. go play project 64 on your PC or buy an n64 since you say you have a real cart.

and for reference, if you are ever told 'no, this doesnt exist' and you decide to give your own idea for how to do it, think this: "can i make it on my own?" If the answer is no, then whatever you have said has either been discussed before, or has not been because it wouldn't work. The Dreamcast emulation scene has existed for 5 years, and it has pretty much been decided that N64 emulation discussion is a moot discussion. If you want to read some lengthy discussions about why it can or can't be done, I would suggest going to www.dcemulation.com and searching their forums for "n64 dreamcast" or something like that and read what has been said about it.

[Christuserloeser]

Guess it's possible to emulate a N64 on a DC - would be a major work though. I don't think it'll ever happen, but don't quote me on that. If it would happen in the future then I guess it'll be one of the last emulators written for DC as every other system that possible to be emulated on DC (incl. PS1 & Saturn) will be emulated and perfectioned before one attempts a playable N64 emulator.

Don't get me wrong. It would be nice to play Mario64 on my DC but I'd prefer to see all the currently available emus perfected & polished at first.

Also since I still have my N64 and since the Nintendo Revolution will emulate the N64 out of the box, so it's nothing to worry about :D

[quzar]

I have seriously considered wanting to do that, but first I have a lot more to learn. I don't plan on stopping dcdev anytime in the next 3-4 years, so I have all the time in the world. What I would want to do though is design a hardware interface for n64 carts on the DC. Even if only one other person builds it, it would be amazing and awsome.

[Darksaviour69]

I have seriously considered wanting to do that, but first I have a lot more to learn. I don't plan on stopping dcdev anytime in the next 3-4 years, so I have all the time in the world. What I would want to do though is design a hardware interface for n64 carts on the DC. Even if only one other person builds it, it would be amazing and awsome.

i would buy that for a dollar;)

[bender]

Don't get me wrong. It would be nice to play Mario64 on my DC but I'd prefer to see all the currently available emus perfected & polished at first.

Thats exactly what i think :-) Who wants the n64 emulator when we could have the chance to see most 8/16 systems emulated perfectly?

I guy told me in an spanish site that Rand considered in making one for the DC and that it consisted a pack of the emulator + an adaptor for the parallel port, so we could hook the cartridges to it and use them instead of copying the roms to ram. Sounded to me like he was not saying the truth but anyway, it would be better to to buy a n64 than this kind of thing...

[quzar]

Rand has discussed on the dcemulation (www.dcemulation.com) forums about how bleem had been researching concepts for a hardware addon for N64 emulation, and felt the DC was capable of n64 emulation. The major drawback is that the paralell port is the only one fast enough, but is also the most complex to use out of the three different possibilities (parallel, serial, and controller).

[Christuserloeser]

I know about that but I don't see any use for that kind of thing where a new Bleem!cast pack would have made some sense and even now would still got a lot of fans that would buy them for certain games.
A N64 game however still looks best on a N64 and those are incredibly cheap, you'll be able to play them on Nintendo Revolution too, I got Zelda OoT for N64 & GameCube, a good amount of N64 games will be ported to Nintendo DS ...

There's no good PCEngine or MSX emulator for DC and honestly it doesn't look like there will be updates for those at least within the next few months, why should someone attempt a N64 emu ?

[quzar]

different kinds of skills being challanged. that's pretty much it. although i like to cater to the populas as much as anyone else, anything i do is still mainly for me to learn from. porting something usually involves lots of frivlous work, and writing from scratch a PCE or MSX emulator for the DC at this point wouldn't really be the best thing to do (since it would mess with compatability and it has already been attempted unsuccessfully).

no offense, but as the addage goes "beggars can't be choosers". Not saying of course that we need an N64 emulator, but more that it really has nothing to do with any sort of supply and demand, what is wanted or whatever as to if it happens or not.

oh, and as for the bleem thing, bleem!cast was probably going to still be a full emulator when the n64 concept was being tossed around over at bleem.

[unholydoragon]

how come theres a psx emu? i take it that it uses isos which are 700 mb. so why cant there be a n64 with roms only 26 mb? im just wondering not trying to contradict.

[flaming_carrot]

PSX uses CDs; n64 uses ROMs. CDs can be played in the Dreamcast; ROMs cannot.

[unholydoragon]

so the emulator psx uses is kinda like switching cd's?

[Vchat20]

it works in the same way dc games do. it only loads what is needed at that moment of the cd.

[Cap'n 1time]

PSX uses CDs; n64 uses ROMs. CDs can be played in the Dreamcast; ROMs cannot.

Its not that ROMs cant be used.. its just that there is not enough space for the DC to load n64 roms into memory. PSX CD's load certain content into the RAM as it is needed. ROMs dump all the content in at once.

Anyways, even if enough memory were in the DC.. it still would take one hell of a code to get a decent n64 emulator working.

[flaming_carrot]

Without extra hardware there is no place to plug in the cartridge with the ROM, so obviously it can't be used. What's that? Ripping to CD? But that would be warez, wouldn't it? :)

[Vchat20]

although fair use law doesnt allow backups on different forms of media (original cartridge backed up to a rom file), id say that you are morally in the right to own a rom if you own the original cart.

atleast that's imho.

[Cap'n 1time]

Without extra hardware there is no place to plug in the cartridge with the ROM, so obviously it can't be used. What's that? Ripping to CD? But that would be warez, wouldn't it? :)

ah, i see what your saying. you are indeed correct. only CD\GD rom media discs can be read by the DC (unless you upload via serial cable I guess..). Thus, PSX emulation could be done legally on the DC. you could actually back up your own N64 Games and write them to a CD... but no one is going to do that.

Thats not exaclty whats holding people back from creating a n64 emulator, but an interesting point never the less.

[WSOUNitePirate895]

what about converting a ROM to ISO? is that even possibile, sure it be a hell of a coding process but could it be done? I am guessing you will need to grab the roms, and reconstruct them if you can load it all and cut it into pieces for the DC to read it might work.

[DCDayDreamer]

what about converting a ROM to ISO? is that even possibile, sure it be a hell of a coding process but could it be done? I am guessing you will need to grab the roms, and reconstruct them if you can load it all and cut it into pieces for the DC to read it might work.

That is really the soultion to all the problems but not possible (yet!!!), to do such a thing would surely require the game rom source before attempting anything. ROM streaming has been explored in the past without any posted positive results anywhere on the web, who knows, it might happen one day - who'd have thought Microsoft making a game console to compete with Nintendo and Sony back in 1995?.

[WSOUNitePirate895]

who'd have thought Microsoft making a game console to compete with Nintendo and Sony back in 1995?.

haha thats true

[Cap'n 1time]

That is really the soultion to all the problems but not possible (yet!!!), to do such a thing would surely require the game rom source before attempting anything. ROM streaming has been explored in the past without any posted positive results anywhere on the web, who knows, it might happen one day - who'd have thought Microsoft making a game console to compete with Nintendo and Sony back in 1995?.

wow.. thats an interesting idea... How it would be done... i dunno.. but id love to see that happen.

[WSOUNitePirate895]

wow.. thats an interesting idea... How it would be done... i dunno.. but id love to see that happen.

If someone could "someday" work on this type of Rom-->ISO project, it could be used on many other emulators (or to make new stable emulators), resulting in possibly getting better FPS on the emulators that normaly use the "Load all the ROM-->RaM methood" which = to slow, unstable and with limited Ram, another methood must be desinged

[quzar]

although fair use law doesnt allow backups on different forms of media (original cartridge backed up to a rom file), id say that you are morally in the right to own a rom if you own the original cart.

atleast that's imho.
it IS legal. that is the exact meaning of fair use in this case.

as for rom-> iso, that is simply impossible, it doesnt work that way. it WOULD however be possible to selectively load segments of a rom image if you know which ones are and arent used at any point, but that is more of an emulator issue than a rom issue(although i'm sure it would make it easier to split the rom into multiple files, but that wouldn't always work even though it gives me an interesting idea......)

[Cap'n 1time]

it IS legal. that is the exact meaning of fair use in this case.

as for rom-> iso, that is simply impossible, it doesnt work that way. it WOULD however be possible to selectively load segments of a rom image if you know which ones are and arent used at any point, but that is more of an emulator issue than a rom issue(although i'm sure it would make it easier to split the rom into multiple files, but that wouldn't always work even though it gives me an interesting idea......)

well.. i forget which n64 emulator it was.. but with a plugin, it was able to seperate certain textures and allowed you to place your own with a similare file name.

It was made so that people could make hi def textures.. but if you deleted the image part of the rom and streamed the texture data in as needed, it might be possible to at least shrink a bit of the resources used at once. but that would be one hell of a process and would probably take alot out of the ram just for the instructions of replacing the textures to occure...

thats all just a thought by the way.

while you could probably use this meathod to stream media (i dont see why the same idea wouldnt work with sound) the problem in the end is always warez.

you see, with that (if it did work) since every rom has differant files inside them, they would all have to be dissasemeled seperatly... so your now going to have a new distrobution of roms in a differant form. So new warezy sites will do this, and GOOD has to make a new list... blar. I dont dont think the DC has enough power to do this task anyways (if it were possible). but perhapes other systems (PS2, PSP, dare I say DS) could pull it off.

[Cap'n 1time]

Im double posting because I dont want that other thing getting too long.

I just woke up and realized that what I said above still wouldnt be streaming. When the emulator with that specific video plugin loads the rom, the second thing it does is load thoes "hi def" textures all at once into the ram. So nope, it wouldnt work... but plugins like that would be key if streaming of rom images was ever made feasible.

[bender]

The problem i see of loading only some segments it's that the access to those requiered zones it's pretty much like random (not random but there's no logic sequence for the roms). If you're playing level 1, you could avoid loading all the uncommon data of the rest of the levels, but there's no way to know where is it

Seems an insane testing until you get your rom running ok for each level of the game (and will need to do the same for every rom). And could be not enough needing to split more into each level. I don't see any worth of this, only to feel like if you where god :-) Then there's also the fact that you need to be a good coder, with an optimized emu in sh asm.

[Cap'n 1time]

The problem i see of loading only some segments it's that the access to those requiered zones it's pretty much like random (not random but there's no logic sequence for the roms). If you're playing level 1, you could avoid loading all the uncommon data of the rest of the levels, but there's no way to know where is it

Seems an insane testing until you get your rom running ok for each level of the game (and will need to do the same for every rom). And could be not enough needing to split more into each level. I don't see any worth of this, only to feel like if you where god :-) Then there's also the fact that you need to be a good coder, with an optimized emu in sh asm.

I personally think it would be much easier just to load the base stuff into ram and stream textures, sound, and models (if thats possible) into ram.. once again, its never been done and i have no idea how anyone would get started.

[quzar]

i'm not gonna quote just because it would be too big.

the texture thing works because some people spent a LOT of time tracking down where certain textures are held in the rom and when they are called just displaying the other custom texture. It would be very simple to find out what parts of a rom are called at what point, but it would just take forever to do it for each rom, even for an individual game.

it would also require redesigning a large portion of the emulator. The other reason it is more difficult than any other emulator is the plugin system itself. With most emulators especially ones designed for multiple systems, most of what has to be done is simply changing the output code for video and audio (what actually puts the data to screen and speakers) and the input code. With the N64 plugin system, since it is almost ALL based on HLE (there is ONE that uses actual low level emulation) and they take advantage of OpenGL, GLide, DirectX, SDL or whatnot to do everything. To port an N64 emulator, without even working around all the problems with rom loading (lets say it ran purely off the CD) would be a massive undertaking (one of the reasons Ninscest was ported was that it was in it's earliest stages and did not use a plugin system) because everything would have to be pretty much rewritten.

[Ivan]

When the new version of the emulator nintendo64 for dreamcast will appear

[DARKGATE]

NEVER -_- , the ram of dreamcast is limited.

[Kyraka]

no. the dreamcast has only 16mb of ram. there is no way a 26mb rom will work even if an emulator is written. go play project 64 on your PC or buy an n64 since you say you have a real cart.

and for reference, if you are ever told 'no, this doesnt exist' and you decide to give your own idea for how to do it, think this: "can i make it on my own?" If the answer is no, then whatever you have said has either been discussed before, or has not been because it wouldn't work. The Dreamcast emulation scene has existed for 5 years, and it has pretty much been decided that N64 emulation discussion is a moot discussion. If you want to read some lengthy discussions about why it can or can't be done, I would suggest going to www.dcemulation.com and searching their forums for "n64 dreamcast" or something like that and read what has been said about it.

16 mb of ram!? yet all those fancy graphics, dreamcast never ceases to amaze me

[Kyraka]

is there a way to upgrade the DC's ram?

[quzar]

you could of course. yet the dreamcast wouldn't support the added ram. AND even if you got it to work, you would have to rewrite parts of the bios and kos and whatever emulator there is in order to get it to be useful. and by then it's hardly dreamcast emulation anymore is it =P

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

Rand has discussed on the dcemulation (www.dcemulation.com) forums about how bleem had been researching concepts for a hardware addon for N64 emulation, and felt the DC was capable of n64 emulation. The major drawback is that the paralell port is the only one fast enough, but is also the most complex to use out of the three different possibilities (parallel, serial, and controller).

u mean like a super gameboy-esque phisical emuverter?

[quzar]

No, because the super gameboy had all the hardware of a gameboy inside the cart, and simply used the snes as a video output. Same as the gameboy player for the gamecube. The closest analogy i can think of is that pirate gba player for the GC that runs off the memory card slot, as it is just a physical interface for the cart, and all the real work is done through emulation.