I downloaded the hacked Super Mario 64 ROM, Star Road; and it works on an emulator ok, however not on original hardware. Has anyone got it working ok on an EverDrive64 v.3, and if so, any chance you could upload the file please so I can play it? I am assuming the game will work on original hardware and not just an emulator? The v.3 card will play 74 Stars hack, so does play hacks; would be nice to play Star Road.
No, many Super Mario 64 hacks won't work on a real N64, it's down to an incomparability of the N64, not a flash cartridge. The problem is, the hacks were made with an editor that was only tested on emulators, and none of the emulators were 100% N64 accurate, so the hacked roms do things that the real N64 crashes if it tries to do. Some hacks can be fixed to run, but I don't think Star Road has yet been fixed, and apparently the bloke who wrote the editor gave up N64 hacking years ago. For more information (and some real-N64 compatible Super Mario 64 hacks) go to: http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=2520.msg25278#msg25278 http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=1579.0 http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=1576.0 Most non-Super Mario 64 game hacks work on the real N64 (such as Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, F-Zero X, etc), but some others don't work, including, I think, some Ocarina of Time mods.
It's a limitation of memory, the hack requires 8MB of memory. I'd believe the ROM would need some recoding to use the expansion pack for memory. Which SM64 isn't designed to use. That's my take anyway, could be wrong.
Ah, would make sense. In the instructions for Star Road it said to edit the options in the emulator to 8Mb instead of the default; which would make sense as to why the proper N64, with less RAM (even with expansion pak) won't like it. Oh well! I'll look at the link you kindly provided above when get a chance. Thanks ("like") given.
Well, those SM64 hacks work from the links however with glitches for sure, including trees off the ground, windows in the sky, etc. The SM64 hacks that are 24Mb not 48Mb are in my view, not worth spending time with, I tried them. The ones like Star Road that would be great to play, do not work on original hardware which is a pity.
For the most part it's because these damn hacks are built and tested with emulators in mind. I remember seeing a more technical explanation for it in #n64dev but I'm not enough of an expert to regurgitate it from memory. Effectively it's the fact that these emulators are HLE and not cycle accurate so the crap you can get away with in an emulator that makes these hacks work will flat out not function on real hardware. I'm not even sure these hacks could be made to work on real hardware so enjoy them where you can. Fun fact, you can actually install 12mb of RAM into a N64 if you do it right (IIRC that is, there is some reason you can't do 16mb but I don't recall what). What? ASM and C++ are programming languages and MIPS is a RISC instruction set.
When I tried some SM64 hacks on original hardware the ones that worked were the crap ones, and there were problems like trees elevated in the air, etc. Larger hacks just did not work. No matter, can always just use PJ64 1.6 with the hacks and get an N64>USB adaptor and play the couple of hacks that are worth playing, that way.
They'll probably look pretty great through emulation as well. Let me know what you think of Star Road. I've been wanting to give it a try.