ParaLLEl N64 DD - Question

Libretro Cores
#1

Finally, FINALLY I found the proper 64DD_IPL.bin file… there are 5 version of this file and the one you need is the hardest to find hahaha. The prototype US version was easier to find even…

Anyway, I’ve now got N64DD games booting up - but I noticed that the BIOS boot screen vanishes extremely fast. I have to assume this is because it takes basically no time to load the game compared to a real DD system.

Which leads me to my 3 questions.

1.) Is there anyway to make it so it doesn’t insta-load the DD game? This may sound silly, but I feel it’s doing a disservice to preserving the DD if it just auto-skips this sequence. Imagine never being able to see the full dreamcast, playstation, or gamecube boot screens - and you can kind of see what I mean.

2.) This is probably an impossible idea, but is there any-way to force the DD Boot screen? Like, if I was to play Goldeneye, have the BIOS boot play anyway? I just think it would be really really cool to have an option like that - as every other system of it’s time had a full boot sequence.

3.) Some time back there was a discussion about hooking up ‘special loading’ into this system for DD expansion discs. So that you could load the F-Zero X exansion, for example. Was that ever hooked up? If so, how do I go about using it?

#2

Did you find the answers, i have never looked into DD emulation.

Would like to understand some more and play some of the games myself

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#3

Oh man. I totally forgot about this. Was this seriously only back in January? Seems like forever ago now. I know I got the games running as I was able to boot up the Super Mario DD Prototype and screw around. I never found answers for my questions though.

I feel like N64 stuff changed a bit since I was doing this though. I’ve been using Mupen Next instead of ParaLLEl as my default… not sure what I was using for DD games at the time. I’ll have to see what runs on what. If I figure anything out I’ll post back here

#4

Ok, so I played around with it a bit and figured out a couple things.

  • First off, it’s gotta be ParraLLEl - MupenNext doesn’t seem to load N64-DD. (More below)
  • You have to turn on N64-DD Hardware in the core-options before games will load.
  • For what it’s worth, I also had to set plugins to Angrylion/cxd4 to get Mario to run.
  • You have to have the exact CRC matched IPL.bin file for the DD-BIOS in /system
  • At this point it will load .ndd stand-alone games like Japan Pro Tour Golf 64 and such.
  • The latest version of ParaLLEl has a sub-system loader for “cart and disk” games.

Seriously, I just wanna stop and say thank you to whoever set that up. These kinds of options are amazing, and I really appreciate it.

  • When you select this sub-system loader, you will have to navigate to your cartridge image.
  • It will take you back to the main menu, but select that same subsystem loader to find your DD image.
  • It should now load up.

So with Mupen, I’m not sure ‘why’ it won’t load DD games, as the .ndd extension is listed in the core information. However the core information didn’t seem to even look for the ipl.bin or any other file pertaining to DD emulation… so I’m guessing maybe it’s just not hooked up yet?

The only Cartridge + DD Exp I am aware of right now is F-Zero X and the Expansion Kit. Sadly this will only work with the Japanese copy of F-Zero, but it’s not a big deal. There is however a combined USA ROM + DD Expansion in .n64 format out there. I tried it, but I wasn’t getting sound.

Sadly I can’t find a way to make the N64-DD boot sequence to stay up for more than 0.5 seconds before it loads the game. That’s probably something that would have to be changed at the actual core level.

I also don’t think there’s a way to get the USA N64-DD BIOS to work, at least not without some serious work-around on the back end. Which also, I imagine, would be the case in getting the BIOS to somehow boot on cartridge games for the hell of it lol Still, those would be ‘really’ cool features if it was possible.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be ‘much’ to the N64 DD. I found some translated roms like SimCity 64, and one of the Mario Artists titles… but those aren’t exactly anything to write home about. Really the extra F-Zero tracks are the star here. God willing, maybe we find some of that Ocarina URA DD prototype content someday, but only time will tell.

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#5

Are you still able to get this working with current cores? I tried all of your settings with Parallel, and when i try to run an .ndd game, it just says “100% scanning of file finished.” Nothing happens, nothing loads.

F-Zero Expansion Kit (translated) with Mupen64-Next
#6

Hm, yeah it’s been a while since I was playing around much with this. The last thing I did was setup N64DD with the latest Mupen core, since it now supports it. I’m no longer using the ParaLLEl core for anything. It’s been working great, though I still never found any information on booting to BIOS or stopping/delaying the boot so you can actually see the sequence.

I’d say throw the newest Mupen at it with your BIOS and see what happens. My assumption is if it doesn’t work, it could be the BIOS version. As I mentioned in the original post, there’s a few different ones floating out there on the internet, and (at least with ParaLLEl) only one of them worked for me at the time.

#7

did you all your n64dd roms work well??