GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[SavantStrike]

So I'm new to the forum (howdy!) and also in desperate need of help, though it looks like you guys can help me

I just got a gameshark rev 3.3 on ebay and was lucky enough that it had the LED on it (woohoo!) but unlucky enough that the last person who owned it must have toasted it. Sooo I bought a NIB gameshark 3.3 (hope it has that stupid LED!) and have a parallel cable all ready to go as soon as it gets here but I need some pointers on how to do this fix.

I am supposed to
1. Put the working GS on the bottom inside the N64
2. Put the dead GS on top of that
3. Put an old game like Goldeneye, etc. on the dead shark
4. Turn N64 on?? (The post I read didn't say)
5. Use the parallel cable?

Also, I'm running XP with the latest service pack, so if you guys have a copy of that SP2 patch, I'd appreciate it!

Lastly, if all goes well, am I always going to have to put in an older game to activate the zelda code and then drop in PD, etc?

Thanks for the help!

[radorn]

mmm, let's see.

When you say you have the latest sp you mean sp3?
I don't know what sp2 patch you are talking about, and I'm totally clueless about any way to downgrade sp3 to sp2 if that's what you are talking about.
I also don't know if having a sp3 installation poses a problem to using parallel port devices such as the AR/GS more than sp2 or any other NT based Windows version.
NT Based Windows OS's protect the access to IO ports such as the parallel/printer port and programs like the GS/AR tools expect to be able to directly access them like they did in 95, 98 and ME.
I use a little program called UserPort to overcome this "issue" and it worked perfectly for me. You shouln't have problems finding it. There are others, like directio, but I only used UserPort, so that's what I can recommend.

That procedure you described seems right to me. A sixth step would be "perform a firmware upgrade" if we are to be meticulous, but I guess you get the point.

About the "Zelda" keycode.
Yes, everytime you need to boot a game that uses a bootchip different to the "Mario" chip (6102 for NTSC, 7101 for PAL), you need to use a mario-chip game to get into the menu, select a bootcode, swtich off, swap games and swtich on again.
And, after you have booted that game (I mean actually having got INTO THE GAME, not just the menu), the next time you power-cycle the console, the boot-code on your GS/AR will have reset to Mario bootcode, and you'll need to go through the process again.
I can get really old if you need to restart many times.
However, a reset won't bring you back to the GS/AR menu, it just restarts the game, but you are stuck with the same settings you already had when you first booted (loaded codes, codegenerator active/inactive status...).

By the way. Where did you get that NIB GS from?

[SavantStrike]

Well... I got it online. I'm taking a risk with it though as I could get a NIB shark that doesn't have the LED... ugh.

As for the firmware upgrade though, whats to stop me from just performing a firmware upgrade on the dead shark with the proper file to put on it?? Did I need the new shark for this? If so, does anybody have a copy of the right file or is Ar3.enc in the shark utilities the right file (dont actually even know what it is for starters...

As for Userport, that sounds really nice, I'll use that. I don't feel like having to build a win9x machine just for this. I usually like to keep one up and running for old games, but haven't done so recently.

This whole fiasco has gotten expensive though as two 3.3 sharks aren't exactly cheap compared to just about ANY n64 game out there. I could have gotten quite a few for this price...

EDIT: I'll actually just come out and say I got it on ebay Ebay's got everything. If you're looking, there are two more. Most likely some old store inventory showed up and various gaming sellers bought some up (pretty suspicious that 4 NIB sharks were available at the same time...). Anybody looking may want to wait until I can confirm that they have the LED's. No sense paying such a premium if they're not the right shark..

[radorn]

I assumed you got it online, I was asking which store/ebayer/whatever.

As for what stops you from upgrading a dead AR/GS just by itself alone, the answer is simple:
The sucker will only communicate with the PC when you have it connected into the n64, powered on AND at the menu. If your unit is dead/corrupted, you'll find it quite "difficult" to reach that point, so no upgrades for you.
The device is not exactly designed with reliability and robustness in mind and there's no emergency recovery provisions in it

[SavantStrike]

Ugh, but then of course if the LED isn't in the new one I'm still hosed... though I'll have a (un repairable) new one to play with (which is better than the nothing I had ).

I forget the name of the ebayer I got it from, but they had a couple of rare stuffs (they had some neo geo AES stuff... wish I could afford a Neo...).

If you search for gameshark 3.3 on ebay right now there should be two NIB ones that show up. I'm guessing they all came from the same guy at one point as how many NIB sharks are floating around these days??

Sucks how its a gamble to buy a NEW shark wondering if it will do what it was designed to do

Yeah, you're right, they weren't designed with reliability in mind. It's pretty bad though because all it takes is for a careless user to delete a folder, or to set the shark to work with a different game and not put the right game in, and then it's hosed.

These things are going to get pretty rare as time goes on methinks. Though at that point most people will just EMU for the carts they already own...

[radorn]

my AR died right when I entered a couple of codes for pilotwings that were tested on an emu and proved to do what they were meant to.
I hit save and the screen went fubar and now it won't load into the menu again.

[SavantStrike]

Exactly.. you need two sharks all the time... one to fix the other one...

Ugh. I had an older shark with my N64 for years and it never gave me ANY trouble. The problem was that after Zelda, none of the new nintendo titles would work with it. Recently I got a replacement N64 when my other one started acting up, and I started to capitalize on the fact that N64 games are cheap, fun, and decidely retro now. The trouble was I didn't have my shark anymore as I had loaned it out, never to return... And I needed one that would do the newer titles.

Little did I know that the new ones were so much crappier than the old ones....

[SavantStrike]

OH HOTNESS!

A rev 3.2 just popped up on ebay.. I snagged it for the price I got it for.

How does one upgrade the 3.2 to 3.3 (it's possible I hear)?

I may sell the NIB 3.3 I just bought now

[radorn]

The "N64 Tools" come with a file called ar3.enc

This is the firmware, and I guess the available comes with a v3.3 "ar3.enc" file. The PC-side program will upgrade your device from the ar3.enc file you have in the program's directory. Upgrades are done by replacing the file with the one you know is the desired version, and performing the upgrade procedure.

I wonder, though, what's up with that file.

AR and GS are the same crap, made by the same company, just rebranded GameShark in the USA because the brand name "Action Replay" was already taken. "ar3.enc" seems to stand for "Action Replay v3", I guess, but then it seems there's no separate distribution for PAL-AR and NTSC-GS, yet the firmware ought to be different because the menus in the AR say "Action Replay" and I assume (though I have not seen it myself) that the GS will have a GameShark logo and "GameShark" references in the menu and all.

I didn't upgrade my AR when it still worked because it was already a v3.3 (French version, apparently, since that's the language the box and manual came in), so I don't know if upgrading would have made my AR into a GS or what.

If someone can clarify this, I would love to hear.

[SavantStrike]

I'd like to know what's up with it too. Mainly, if I use this upgrade, will it give me rev 3 rather than 3.3 (it doesn't say 3.3.enc a bit worrisome).

Is there a way to save the firmware from a working shark to your pc, and if so has anybody done that yet? It'd be nice to make sure I don't brick the 3.2 I'm using to fix my 3.3.... and end up with two working 3.3's out of this..

Then I'm not sure what to do with the NIB 3.3 I ordered two days before the 3.2 surfaced.... Guess I'll sell it again, but right now theres a couple already on ebay.. means I'll have to undercut my price or something... Maybe keep it on the shelf for a little while? Except Id rather spend the money from it on more games...

Is there any reason I'd need three gamesharks in the next 10 years?

[thebondman]

Hey all. I’ve just been experimenting with upgrading my Action Replays recently using the N64 Utils thing (downloaded from here: http://doc.kodewerx.net/tools/n64/gs_pro_utils.zip). The ar3.enc file that comes in this zip is a Gameshark v3.3 update, which loaded no probs onto my AR v3.21 cartridge and works perfectly.

I also found another ar3.enc file amongst my old backups which I’d downloaded years ago which is a copy of the older Action Replay v3.21 firmware, so it seems there’s no distinguishing between versions in the filename. I used this file to downgrade my AR back to 3.21 so it would also seem you can upgrade/downgrade between GS and AR versions at will and the only difference is the loading screen (provided you don’t overwrite the codes list – back it up first just in case!)

I’ve uploaded the v3.21 ar3.enc file here if anyone finds it useful: http://members.fortunecity.com/thebondman/AR_321.zip

One thing to remember is not to overwrite your codes list when uploading an AR file to a GS and vice versa as the NTSC codes will be overwritten with PAL ones so they won’t work properly.

As yet, I’ve not tried the piggybacking method to repair my broken AR as I’ve heard it can damage the working one so I’m not too keen on the idea.

Hope all this helps