You have probably seen the website updating almost all the time everyday since the overhaul, so let’s talk about that.

Somehow, the overhaul was done at a time when Talent Studio suddenly became popular across a certain community. I couldn’t have timed it better if I tried, the overhaul took me days of work once I finally figured out a direction to take (which I’ll be honest was something I was ruminating for probably a year or something).

But the result of this is that I see feedback, and let’s be honest, a motivation to work a little harder about the accessibility of playing 64DD games. I was definitely not planning these changes, but for once that I get to have some feedback, it was a now or never thing.

So, among the changes made:

• I’ve detailed versions when it is relevant, such as the emulators, but also in the Games page where I now detail the version of the english translation, and requirements, in hopes of making it clearer.
• I have added some extras to the Games page, because I felt maybe people would love to look at prototypes and more, and in this way it’s a lot easier to find.
• I have updated Project64 to a development version of 3.0.2, where the N64 Mouse can be emulated a lot easier than before.
  • I had actually done the work of N64 Mouse emulation on Project64-input plugin but only for 4.x, the lead developer, zilmar, actually backported it to 3.0 a few months ago, but he forgot one detail about it which I’ve changed in this development version of 3.0.2.
  • The choice of using Project64 3.0 is purely for stability reasons. Using 4.0 is simply too experimental at this point, it might work, but it also might not. Too risky.
  • I am aware of N64 Mouse being a little sluggish. I am not entirely sure why and definitely isn’t the intended behavior, but I hope it is enough regardless.
  • I have also updated GLideN64 to a development version, and also updated parallel-rdp to the latest version.
• I have added M64Plus FZ and RMG tutorials, and also updated all other emulator tutorials to be more in line with the new standards I set up for the website.

I really hope these changes should make things a lot easier, but unfortunately, Nintendo 64 emulation is still in a bit of a mess. There are definitely stuff going on right now that should massively improve things once it’s time, but in the meantime we gotta deal with what we got.

I don’t exactly remember when 64DD.org got to exist, but the origins of it came from 2015, 10 years ago from now.

December 2014 is also when I’ve began work on the first version of the 64DD Disk Dumper that would be completed that same month. All retail disks would also get dumped by NESWorld by the final day of that year. I still believe without my involvement, that 64DD preservation would still be terrible today. There are definitely things I would change as I look back to some of the mistakes I’ve made, but I’m still proud of what I did, despite not knowing anything about programming on Nintendo 64 before that point.

I would then start sharing the fruits of that labor on a small website that wasn’t 64DD.org just yet, but eventually, it happened and I’ve learned a lot about making websites. Especially regarding trying to convey the user better instructions.

It’s been some time however that I started to feel like 64DD.org was a messy website that didn’t quite know what it wanted to convey.
With some trial & error, I’ve figured out how to do an overhaul with a lot less dependency on stuff. I’m sorry that some links broke in the process, but it felt like a necessary evil.

Among the changes made:

• Complete overhaul of the design and navigation
• Downloads page split into How To Play and Tools page
  • How To Play talks about Emulators and Flashcarts, you can also find tutorials there.
• Games page is now Database page
  • Let’s face it, that page was kind of a mess but I still felt that page was important, so I kept it in a way that makes more sense.
• A brand new Games page
  • This page would be a curated list of games, with links to the essentials. I want to do more about it eventually.
• Added Music rips
  • I’ve done these for some time, so I felt it was important to put them here too.

I hope this new website is a lot easier to navigate for newbies especially. I want to further updates at one point, I have a lot of other fun plans for this website.

Thanks to ConsoleVariations and GamingLegend64, we got some internal Randnet stuff, and we’re releasing the dumps of 4 blue development disks from Randnet!

All of them are some form of the Randnet Disk Internet Browser:

• The first one (BD113) is a debug test of different features of the Randnet API with a very early web browser that unfortunately refuses to let you browse the web.
• The second one (BD-104) is actually possibly a build we’ve seen before from the japanese TV show GameWave, with very early title screen and menus.
• The third one (H0000819) is just the same build as final Rev. 00.
• The fourth one (T0000017) is a build from after final Rev. 00 by a few weeks, but still before Rev. 01.

For more information about them, Hard4Games has prepared a video about it here: https://youtu.be/lZT6x0Egdz4
The video will do a reminder of how things were, including a “playthrough” of those disks on real hardware! Though there isn’t really much to do here but hey, that’s how things are. They also show the disks!

You can find those dumps in Database page in the Development tab.

Oh yeah, I made another update: you can now directly link to a tab in a page for easier sharing, see the link above where it should link you straight to it. I hope the small update makes it a bit easier for people to browse through.

Zoinkity is back at it, with the help of Whowasphone404 for the translation itself, the english translation patch of Dezaemon 3D, the Nintendo 64 shoot ‘em up maker by Athena, is now released!

You can find it in the Games page, in Translations tab. Unlike most things on this website, you can notice it is actually a Nintendo 64 cartridge title this time, but this has heavy use of the 64DD and N64 Mouse to unlock its full potential, I would actually recommend using either the unreleased Dezaemon 3D disk, or using the provided tool by Zoinkity alongside the patch that can actually create and manage Dezaemon 3D 64DD disks, to make even better games with it and unlock its full potential.

There’s also a page with Dezaemon 3D Tips if you want them, and the readme includes even more information to enjoy Dezaemon 3D.

Zoinkity has also uploaded (slightly outdated) videos of the lengthy and fully translated tutorials of the game, which you can also look with the translation if you want to more easily skip around: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7VAoXQYoWiC6zfJajZvy7vcM_YWj7JiD

This is legit exciting to me. Dezaemon 3D was actually the first N64 game released that supports 64DD expansions, as well as the N64 Mouse, way before any other game. It might be very daunting to use, some of it is definitely more complicated than it should be, but it has a lot of potential, definitely look into the sample games.

So we got more H8/3294 Drive Controller ROM dumps, 3 more of them from different kinds of development drives, for posterity, courtesy of Willis, GamingLegend64 and Zoinkity! Specifically:

• GS01X02 (1997-01-14): Earliest ROM date so far
• GS01B01 (1997-12-09)
• GS01B02 (1998-03-12)

We don’t really get the differences that much, but they seem to have a different purpose in mind maybe? It’s hard to say.

And then, something a little Rare: 2 new Blue Disk dumps, also courtesy of GamingLegend64 and Willis!

Now, I don’t wanna hype them too much, because none of these are playable, but they are a look into how Rareware actually used the 64DD back then, with crash dumps of Banjo-Kazooie. It seems Rareware was a fan of the 64DD purely for debugging purposes, if it wasn’t for games, it was at least for that. Unfortunately I’m no expert of Banjo-Kazooie code, and would rather leave the reverse engineering to people who knows the game in and out.

It’s not as hype than you would hope, but I hope they might uncover something interesting. I’ve also taken the liberty to directly offer extracted files from them alongside the dumps.

You can find everything in the Games page, in the Development tab.