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

[Jac6]

Is anyone on this board smart enough to make a cartridge for N64? Like featuring all the new created awesome levels?

And a built in gameshark lol.
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[SubDrag]

If only. Using Dr V64 is as close as I'll likely get.

[D.J Cat]

I'd buy it, even pay full price for it.
Having all the multiplayer levels and weapon sets - would be sweet.
And maybe chop out single player, just so the cart can be stacked with more multiplayer features!

Too bad its probably impossible.

[Jac6]

What we need... is a team of highly trained programmers ( we already got what 5 - 6 code gods ?)
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[Dragonsbrethren]

As SubDrag said, the best you can do right now is pick up a Doctor V64.

It's possible to build your own cartridge from an existing one I'm sure, people do it for NES and SNES games, but I know I don't have the skill to do it nor do I know anyone that does.

Quote:

What we need... is a team of highly trained programmers ( we already got what 5 - 6 code gods ?)

Programmers aren't going to help you, you need someone experienced with the hardware itself, someone who can remove the ROM chip from a compatible cartridge, burn a new one, and solder it onto the board.

[The Extremist]

Why not make a whole new cartridge from scratch?

Find some companies that make custom circuit boards and plastic parts, find some blank chips and a device to write to them, and away you go!
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[zoinkity]

-because that would be impractical, and you'd need the BIOS for the CIC chip on board, among other things. It is infeasible to build one from scratch, though you can probably order blanks.

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If you really, really want to gut a N64 cartridge, you can build an flash cart from one. I've done this with a few other systems, most notably SMS, since older AWARD BIOS chips just happen to use the same pinout...

First, you open an existing cartridge using a 3.8mm security screwdriver. You can get this from ebay, or probably order them from overseas. You can also use them to mod a rumble pak so it doesn't need batteries, but that's another story...

Secondly, it is important to choose the correct cartridge. If you're buggering a GE cart for a GE ROM, then there's no big deal. Otherwise, you need to use a cartridge that uses the same CIC chip as the ROM, and also uses the same save type. eeprom 4kb is mapped differently than 16kb, sram is not the same as flash or eeprom, and there are patches that flip all these around including the bootcode.

What you do is unsolder the ROM chip from the board. You'll probably want to replace it with a socket to make swapping these things easier, especially if you use maskrom. I can't remember what chip models they used for N64 or how many variations there can be, but you can just look it up from the ID numbers on the surface.
Now, build up a nice, backup compatible ROM image and toss it on a disk. Most Radio Shacks still offer this lovely service where they will order and encode a chip with the data on the disk. The local one does atari 2600 chips on a regular basis. There are some places online too, like recoverBIOS.com, though you need to know exactly what you're asking for. The service can be expensive too, depending. Then, insert the new chip into the socket or if you're insane you can try resoldering it the board.

Otherwise, you'll need a eeprom encoder and matching chipset, which will probably run you more than a v64. On the plus side if you use eeprom you don't need to go running off every time you want to try something new. Technically I think you can re-encode an eeprom from PC using a hack of the GS utilities, supposing the thing was booted to begin with...

Look though. Seriously, building a flashcart is a fun hardware-sort of thing to do if you're into screwy hardware hacking, but it really is out of the range of most people.
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