"R4: Ridge Racer Type 4", probably.
Overclock the n64?
- Thread starter Fox5
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jandlecack
Banned
Aaaah. Cheers bud 
I only ever know those games as RR/Ridge Racer.
I only ever know those games as RR/Ridge Racer.Some of the multiplayer maps, not all.
BTW, that damn ram expansion was the single worst thing Nintendo ever did to the N64 from a consumer perspective. Having to buy/rent an expansion pack just to play some games was frigging stupid.
It's one thing if it was a Sega-CD/FDS/etc type expansion. That's legitimate, IMO, and something I'd be willing to pay for. But at least with those you couldn't get games that needed the expansion device and games for the normal system mixed up. you could easily do that with the N64 expansion pack needing games...
Of course, my argument is pretty much blown out of the water when you consider only three games needed it...
If any of this post was poorly phrased/rambling, blame it on my tiredness and the medication I take that tires me the fuck out.
A fair amount of games did use it but...
I think only Donkey Kong 64 required it (and it came with it), Majora's Mask required it, and Perfect Dark basically required it.
I think it started as a way to salvage the 64DD games, which relied on the extra 4MB of ram in the system.
Quite a few games used the expansion pack for hi-res or hi-color modes. It helps a lot in Quake II, Rogue Squadron, Battle for Naboo, Excitebike 64, Rayman 2, RE2, Shadow Man, and Turok: Rage Wars. Mostly, it bogged down the frame rate enough that it wasn't worth enabling the features, but it was certainly useful for more than three games.
The RAM expansion was also used for GameShark Pro's cheat creator, which let you search RAM for specific values/comparations (X >= 30) or relative changes between searches (X has decreased since last search) and use those to locate game variables for things like life, ammo, etc.. It's like what modern emulators (ZSNES, Gens, VisualBoyAdvance, MAME) frequently offer.
I said required, not useful. Only three games needed it.
But more than three games benefiting from it would mean it's not the "single worst thing Nintendo ever did to the N64." In fact, I don't even see it as a bad thing at all. If it were only useful for three games, then perhaps, but it gave substantial benefit to an N64 owner, so it had good value. It's certainly more useful than a DDR mat.
Since when is "worst" not a word?
This thread got my retro juices flowing, so I busted out my N64 this weekend. Wow. Just... wow. Everything is so blurry and low-res I was literally getting a headache trying to play Goldeneye. Interestingly enough, I played Wipeout via PS3 emulation after playing the N64, and it looked a TON better than the N64 could handle, lack of decent texture filtering and all.
I don't think overclocking the N64 would help much for most games... the awful physics and woeful texturing can't be helped unfortunately
I don't understand why I liked it so much at the time... it hasn't held up well at all, while surprisingly the PSX has held up okay.
I don't think overclocking the N64 would help much for most games... the awful physics and woeful texturing can't be helped unfortunately
I don't understand why I liked it so much at the time... it hasn't held up well at all, while surprisingly the PSX has held up okay.
jandlecack
Banned
@mech: Great contribution. Retro games look crap when you're used to modern ones. Want a cookie or something?
The games back in their respective era were flippin' amazing (I mean the good ones), and it's not because they now have pathetic technology that we still hold them in high regard, it's because they were so great back then. Not now.
The games back in their respective era were flippin' amazing (I mean the good ones), and it's not because they now have pathetic technology that we still hold them in high regard, it's because they were so great back then. Not now.
This is what Im talking about. Nobody used to bitch about SD back in the day and yes it was all we had but I say why bitch about it now. Is MM9 going to really look any better on your xbox360 or ps3 than it is on your Wii?
DeadlyNinja
Veteran
Plus, the purpose of overclocking isn't there to solve issues with textures and resolution -- at least to my knowledge -- but to improve frame rate. People have overclocked to systems to avoid slow down and frame rate issues. Goldeneye at 60fps is better than high resolution textures.
BTW, how do you overclock a console anyway? I mean, I'm spoiled by the easy sliders on the drivers, but consoles have no such features. How do people do these things?
BTW, how do you overclock a console anyway? I mean, I'm spoiled by the easy sliders on the drivers, but consoles have no such features. How do people do these things?
Wipeout 64 looks really good, but I hate the Wipeout style of futuristic racing to begin with. F-Zero X and Xtreme G are both much, much better.
To my knowledge, replacing the RAM on the N64 simply can't be done. I brought this question up some time ago, actually, and I think it has something to do with the memory controller or something...basically, DRAM is the only thing that works. It can be overclocked (you need a later model IIRC), however, this makes some games run faster, as they are locked to the CPU clock.
To be frank, if you really want to fix resolution and frame rate problems, your only real option is emulation.
To my knowledge, replacing the RAM on the N64 simply can't be done. I brought this question up some time ago, actually, and I think it has something to do with the memory controller or something...basically, DRAM is the only thing that works. It can be overclocked (you need a later model IIRC), however, this makes some games run faster, as they are locked to the CPU clock.
To be frank, if you really want to fix resolution and frame rate problems, your only real option is emulation.
Same way people used to overclock Macs, or anything before software was available for it.
You modify something on the hardware that changes the divider ratio. After all, the system has a base clock and then the processors run at some multiple of that clock. (I'd imagine you can only overclock the cpu and vpu, I doubt you can overclock the memory as it probably runs at the base clock speed with no adjustments available)
To be honest, emulation was capable of playing goldeneye at 60fps back in 1998/1999. My 500mhz athlon + voodoo3 had no trouble with it at 1024x768, though emulators that worked properly with multiplayer didn't come around until later. Still, I played through a good part of goldeneye using a keyboard and mouse, made the game wicked easy.
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