Zelda 64

Ender · Post by **Ender** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:25 pm

Ok, so I'd heard that the Gamecube disc with OoT and MM were emulated versions of the N64 games. I was kind of interested in getting the GC version so that I can get rid of my N64 (as those are the only games I have that are keeping the N64 around).

Anybody know if there are emulation glitches, or if I'm better off keeping the originals? Is the sound the same, etc...

Pyrosurfer · Post by **Pyrosurfer** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:33 pm

I have been playing through OoT on my cube. The only part I have noticed slowdown on is the end when you escape from the castle. I never played the game on the n64, so I'm not sure if this is due to emulation.

MulletMan13 · Post by **MulletMan13** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:01 pm

I played through both the N64 and GC versions of OoT (not MM), and they are identical. I've run across no glitches or anything that I've come across, and it is exactly how it was on the N64 (slowdown was also on N64, due to the sluggishness of the console).

Sir Savant · Post by **Sir Savant** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:08 pm

Same, but just get used to the controls, cause your used to the old n64 controls and then you use the GC ones.

I wonder if the emu can be ripped from the dvd......

butters · Post by **butters** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:14 pm

Dark Savant0 wrote:I wonder if the emu can be ripped from the dvd......

IIRC someone has, and they did it pretty quickly after it came out.

Post by **melancholy** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:41 pm

Majora's Mask has various sound glitches. Nothing serious, and they are noted in the manual, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Raijin Z · Post by **Raijin Z** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:48 pm

Those discrepancies are also noted in a warning when you start the game.

The Ocarina/EX pack (red packaging) is kinda cheap on eBay... everyone who preordered Wind Waker got it... like myself. Everybody who WAITED to buy a Gamecube got the Zelda Collection disc (gray packaging). It costs as much as a regular game on eBay. Goddamn bullshit. Now I can't even trade my bonus disc because all the latecomers got a better one.

abydos1000 · Post by **abydos1000** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:37 pm

They both run in Hi-res (640X480) with the GC. OoT on the N64 was definitely running at a lower resolution.

This doesn't do anything magical like increase the polygon count, but it does make things appear sharper and more colorful.

Smiley · Post by **Smiley** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:15 pm

Best thing about playing them on your cube: if you have a high-def tv, you can play them in progressive scan mode.

I got mine through Nintendo Power, and since I missed the zelda 64 games the first time around, I really regret selling my 64 so many years, and missing these great titles...

I have found the controls very easy to pick up, and remember.....

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:29 pm

I have the OoT/OoT:MQ disc (the one that came with WW reservations) and I've noticed a couple of flaws. The music skips when you're changing screens, such as going to the start menu, and being that it is on a disc the start menu takes a little longer to load up. Also, I've had my game freeze several times, and that was back when both my GC and game disc were new.

Gmc · Post by **Gmc** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:43 pm

The game doesnt read from the disc at all once its loaded, so all those little errors you mentioned are just emulation glitches.

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:45 pm

Gmc wrote:The game doesnt read from the disc at all once its loaded, so all those little errors you mentioned are just emulation glitches.

Actually the manual states:

"This Nintendo GameCube game is a port of a game previously released on an N64 Game Pak. Because of the transfer process from Game Pak to Game Disc, you may experience brief moments where the Game Disc pauses to load. These pauses are normal and not indicative of defective software. When this occurs, wait for the game to finish loading and continue playing."

That means the GC reads the disc even after it has loaded. Don't ask me why or what for. Why?

The Gamecube has 40 MB of RAM.

For OoT: 32 MB for the Game + 8 MB for RAM (because of the higher resolution, 640x480 instead of 320x240) + Emu = +40 MB. Something must be still in the disc.

For MM: 32 MB Game, + 16 MB Ram + Emu = +48 MB RAM needed. Thats why the music can skip.

Looks like the N64 emu in the GC streams the data when it doesn't have it in RAM. Impossible? No. After all, they designed the N64.

Also, IIRC, the N64 can access a max of 128 Mbit at one time. The Zeldas where divided in 2 banks, so maybe thats why is possible to have one complete bank and a piece of the other.

And remember, Nintendo has the source code, so it can modify the game fto make it Streaming friendly.

mikozero · Post by **mikozero** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 4:57 am

i can tell you the games are all ripped and run as normal n64 roms in pj64 and 1964 etc, afaik they're not modified.
would you like to see a pic ? (i don't know if that's allowed)

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:14 am

mikozero wrote:i can tell you the games are all ripped and run as normal n64 roms in pj64 and 1964 etc, afaik they're not modified.
would you like to see a pic ? (i don't know if that's allowed)

neoak wrote:And remember, Nintendo has the source code, so it can modify the game fto make it Streaming friendly.

I know it loads in N64 emus.

mikozero · Post by **mikozero** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 9:06 am

i didn't mean to imply you didn't, sorry

only saying the're dumped and you can play through them as normal,
i found your comments on the GCs ram and steaming very interesting as i heard some of the xbox emus use a similar thing to work within ram limitations and i've always wondered since if anything similar could be done on the DC.
sorry if it came out wrong

Veggita2099 · Post by **Veggita2099** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:36 pm

I found it ran faster on the Gamecube. On the N64 when you hit Ganon with the light arrow it always slows down to a crawl for a couple of seconds. On Gamecube it did not do that. I noticed Ganon coughs up green blood on GC as where my N64 version it is green (guess green makes it less violent).

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:25 pm

mikozero wrote:i didn't mean to imply you didn't, sorry
only saying the're dumped and you can play through them as normal,
i found your comments on the GCs ram and steaming very interesting as i heard some of the xbox emus use a similar thing to work within ram limitations and i've always wondered since if anything similar could be done on the DC.
sorry if it came out wrong

Its ok. You can play them normally, except Master Quest. When you kill Ganon at the end, the game freezes at the ending. It doesn't have the data.

In the DC is not possible, because the 128 Mbit are 16 MB, the main memory of the Dreamcast. Also, there is the issue of the CPU, etc etc. If SNES emulation is still not perfect even using SH4 assembler code, well...

Veggita2099 wrote:I found it ran faster on the Gamecube. On the N64 when you hit Ganon with the light arrow it always slows down to a crawl for a couple of seconds. On Gamecube it did not do that. I noticed Ganon coughs up green blood on GC as where my N64 version it is green (guess green makes it less violent).

Yeah. If you also noticed, the Mirror shield and the blocks at the Spirit temple have different patterns.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:03 pm

And remember, Nintendo has the source code, so it can modify the game fto make it Streaming friendly.

They shouldn't need to modify it; from the specs I've seen the N64 cart interface is designed to be used like a very fast CD anyway (i.e. random accesses are painful, block transfers to RAM are okay; in any case you will certainly not get full speed running things from the cart).

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:24 pm

Very fast CD-ROM?

Dr Zoidberg wrote:Q17 But what if you "stream" the ROMs off CD?
Nice idea, but it's been thought of before. The problem with it is the massive difference in speed between CD-ROM and Cartridge systems. N64 cartridges have an access time of about 500ns (500 x 10^-9 seconds). CD-ROM systems are around 100-200ms (100 x 10^-3 seconds.) Cartridges are 1,000,000 times faster! The problem with streaming the ROM is it would be insanely difficult to figure out exactly what code/data piece would be needed next, and get it into RAM when the game wanted it. It's a nice idea, but unless you come up with code that verifies it, it's a pretty much dead end.

Nintendo 64 Introductory Manual wrote:1.2.6 PI (Parallel Interface) Resources
The PI is the 16-bit parallel bus connection the N64 Game Pak or the N64 Disk Drive. The average transfer rate for the Game Pak is about 5 megabytes per second. (The peak performance is about 50 megabytes per second.) The PI uses DMA transfer to move information from the Game Pak or N64 Disk Drive to RDRAM.

Devices Connected to the PI
The PI is the DMA engine that connects the N64 Game Pak and/or the N64 Disk Drive with RDRAM. The average transfer rate for the Game Pak is 5 megabytes per second. The maximum transfer rate for the N64 Disk Drive is 1 megabyte per second.

Skater_dusto · Post by **Skater_dusto** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 1:21 am

I just beat OoT a couple of times through and it was awesome. I haven't played it in about 5 years so I really, really, really rallied it hard. I love the fact that everything was sharp and seemed to run more smoothly? Or maybe it's because I have glasses/contacts and a much more kickass tv to play it on.

Majora's Mask does have minor sound discrepencies, but I've played it more on the gc than the n64 to even bother. The only thing I hate is that when you have the sound enabled the game can freeze!! I've never had a game freeze on me in my life, I'm being honest hear. So when I was playing through the snow temple and it froze on my almost 5 times, then later on in the game twice I damn near threw up from anger. lol.
The temples in MM are much longer too and finding all of the annoying faeries just makes them far less enjoyable.

All in all I'd say get it if you don't have the n64 games anymore. I sold mine a long time ago for pocket change and I regret it.