This is amazing! It's important to note that Battle for Naboo doesn't crash wit the Pal version. I played until the third level without issue.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Interesting. I’ll be looking into Naboo after the holiday

@nathanddrews

9 күн бұрын

​@@VideoGameEsotericaCelebrating independence from PAL? 😂

@neocaron87

9 күн бұрын

@@VideoGameEsoterica Just to give you some context, I was playing on a CRT with an analog board on the regular N64 core, no OC on anything and using the Pal version, it was also true for other games a few months ago, who had reduced crashing in their Pal versions (RE2 and Conker)

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

🤣 nice

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Thanks for the info!

No way Jose!!! JFG was Gonguered already??? And all it took was just removing some simple check???? Crazy development we're going through here man... Ruleset almost feels like carrying some of Robert's wizardly energy right now.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

It’s a fun week for N64 on MiSTer FPGA that’s for sure

I'm am so excited. JFG might be my favorite n64 game and I'd be stoked to try it again on mister.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Have fun with it!

What an interesting state of affairs where I am more excited for the Saturn core going update all and Jet Force Gemini being playable than for any upcoming retail release. Still awesome news and what an absolute bunch of legends both working on the core and patching ROMs that don't play well with the cores. Awesome work everyone involved!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

New releases have been a little meh lately so it totally makes sense

LaC patched Jet Force Gemini shortly after it came out in 1999, not “15 years or so ago” and not for the flash carts that “were just starting to come online.” If we were talking about LaC’s Banjo-Tooie patch from 2009, then you’d be absolutely correct. ;) That one mentions 64Drive and gets shared everywhere as “Everdrive Patched” but it’s still for all backup units and even patched save types specifically for them. The scroller/readme kinda trashes on the Z64 though (old scene feud: LaC hates it!). So, yeah, JFG was patched exclusively for use on N64 backup units of the ‘90s. Namely, the unit LaC was concerned with were Doctor V64 (1996), Mr. Backup Z64 (1997), CD64 (1997), and V64jr/512 (1998/1999). At 28, the oldest is almost twice as old as the flash carts from ~15 years ago!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Lot of time has elapsed for sure

@LegendaryWizball

9 күн бұрын

I remember this. Pre patch the character would just run on the spot. Think he patched DKR too. Unpatched collecting balloons wouldn’t register.

@emmettturner9452

9 күн бұрын

@@LegendaryWizball Yeah, the early JFG patches didn’t quite catch all the protection checks since it used the new “Zelda boot” CIC-NUS-6105. It had some kind of algorithmic challenge/response check during runtime that the boot emulators couldn’t replicate. It seems Banjo-Tooie used it to greater effect since it wasn’t cracked until 2009+… and by the time it was, the 6105’s algorithm had already been extracted/reversed by Jago, MarshallH, and crew (UltraPIF, UltraCIC, etc). You could play unpatched JFG with a matching boot/save type game inserted on some backup units but that was pretty much just Majora’s Mask… and you’d be unable to backup/restore your save progress in Majora’s Mask after JFG saves over it. It was more likely that you’d be playing unpatched Majora with JFG, the cheaper/older game. You could also stick an actual 6105 into a cheap FlashRAM game like Command & Conquer, Slugfest, or Courtside 2 to play JFG… but Mickey’s Speedway USA was probably the only Zelda boot game worth less than JFG to begin with. DKR was the first game to use CIC-NUS-6103 “Diddy boot” so a lot of backup owners bought it to use as a boot cart for itself, 1080, Smash, Banjo, or many others. Of course, people wanted to patch it anyway to play with a standard 6102 “Mario boot” game, and that’s where the issues would have come from. Since the scene release of Star Fox 64 had already been changed to 6102, there were no boot emulators and backup users weren’t used to matching boot types yet. Of course, CD64 users were screwed since games had to be patched for its controller-operated menu system that only ran on the N64 with a 6102 boot cart. They needed it! Before long we had DKR patches and a 6103 boot emulator. Eventually we got a universal boot emu thanks to LaC. It worked for everything but Tooie and JFG… even other Zelda boot titles from Rare, like DK64 and Perfect Dark. It was literally just Tooie and JFG using that challenge/response feature to beat the boot emu. I almost want to go back and try Obsidian’s MotetIII to patch the DKR header to 6102 and see if it triggers that balloon glitch/protection. :) All it does is change the header and entry point to boot with a different CIC but it doesn’t remove any other protections.

@emmettturner9452

9 күн бұрын

@@LegendaryWizball oh yeah: The security checks limited jump height in JFG with the incomplete patches too.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Rare did so many odd things

Unbelievably quick coming off the Conker fix. Such great people in the community. Thank you Ruleset, and thank you for the video to hype up this Sunday :D

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

This one was one single change that fixed it all. Funny how that works

“Conker and JFG are not playable on Mister” Ruleset: “nah”

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

I’m just glad I didn’t start researching JFG like I did Conker hah

This is a big win! Also glad you're going to give this a full playthrough - double win!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

The winning has been epic this week

Has Robert had anything to say since these patches have come out? Some of his comments at the end of development made it seem he was a bit disappointed that the complete library wasn't playable. If so, hopefully these patches have given him a bit of relief 🙂

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Yes. He’s been excited to see it happen mostly

Glad this is working! I never played much of JFG, but my father, who passed away a few years ago, really loved the N64 and JFG. Now I can play it and remember him, Thank you.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Sorry to hear about your dad. Glad this is a fond memory :)

About 3 hours into a new playthrough of Jet Force Gemini on MiSTer. Seems stable, no issues yet. Would like a Discord invite if possible. One in the video description expired.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

I’ll try and remember to fix that tonight : discord.gg/cZPm7Jkk

Thank you so much for putting out the news.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Happy to do it :)

Wa Wait WHAT!!? First Conker's Bad Fur Day and now Jet Force Gemini!!!? 🤯

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Yep! Both work great now

Now that it is known what it is and where it is in the code, it could be a nice acid test for the core's timing, seeing how it worked on all original hardware

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

At some point I’ll compare to real hardware

Well. That was far simpler than i expected. Awesome!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Everybody wins :)

Woohoo! Loved this game as a kid and still have my cart. Kinda figured it might be something like a DRM check stopping the game. Rare was notorious for using crazy DRM checks in their games.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Yes rare did so many one off checks and other features in late stage games

Good morning and great news.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Great news indeed

Hell yeah dude awesome!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Getting close to 100%

I enjoyed Jet Force Gemini back in the day. Didn't quite complete it, I seem to remember the final boss being pretty difficult and I missed the homing missiles along the way which didn't help

@VideoGameEsoterica

8 күн бұрын

Not the first person to say you got stuck in the end

Does the Master Expansion Pack support it? It improves graphics in games that should support Turk 2-3, Major's Mask and Perfect Dark. Make a video comparison.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

This game doesn’t use the expansion pack

Thanks for everyone involved with creating these game patches. Does Tonic Trouble still crash? It's one of the games that I was never able to play back then.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

No should he 100% fine

Wonder if Robert would be able to add these implementations into the actual core itself so removing the need for a patched rom??

@VideoGameEsoterica

8 күн бұрын

The game needs to be changed, not the rom so it wouldn’t really be a core side change

This was wild when it hit yesterday! So damn cool.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

And Saturn in update all this week too. Hot week for MiSTer

@METR0lD

9 күн бұрын

And now I just saw a Saturn Radiant Silvergun patch that makes it fall more in line with the later re-releases (Xbox 360, Switch)!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

@METR0lD gonna work on a vid for that tomorrow

I'm familiar with emulation, but FPGA is still something of a mystery to me, specifically how cores are made for chips that are not well documented. Are these games now working because the FPGA core has become more accurate overall, or is the core being tweaked in order to make specific games work?

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

The games are working via patches to alter their behavior in the instance of Conker and JFG

@thepenultimateninja5797

9 күн бұрын

@@VideoGameEsoterica Is that because the core is not 100% accurate, thus necessitating the patches? If so, how is this FPGA implementation better than software emulation? I'm not being critical by the way, just trying to understand the advantages, because I'm considering upgrading from emulation to FPGA.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Didn’t come off as critical :) on the N64 core the ram is shared between the core, the scaler and other low level OS functions for MiSTer. N64 is the first core that has butted up against read/write cycle speeds. So the call/response timing might get out of sync. In gameplay that’s not noticeable if the timing is a tiny bit off. But on a security check the timing is tighter

@thepenultimateninja5797

9 күн бұрын

@@VideoGameEsoterica I think I understand, some compromises/workarounds had to be made because of the limitations of the MiSTer hardware itself? That makes sense, because when I was looking into this a while back, the consensus seemed to be that N64 would never be possible due to the limitations of the FPGA hardware. I guess someone forgot to tell that to the people who made this core lol. Lack of N64 was the only thing stopping me buying a MiSTer, so I guess I have no excuse now...

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

It was all possible except a few obscure timings in ram that affected Conker

Oh wow, was waiting for this one to get fixed

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Today is the day!

Battle for Naboo lets go! I believe in you!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Haha I had nothing to do with JFG but I’ll look at Naboo

Two Questions: 1) Turbo Core support? 2) Will you do Streams or Let's Plays for Conker's Bad Fur Day and Jet Force Gemini?🥺

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

No streams. No time. Works for turbo core yes!

Where can we find the patch?

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

MiSTer Discord : N64 channel under pins

Wow!!! So at this point, which games still have issues? This is super exciting!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

RE 2 Claire campaign for some (inconsistent), Battle for Naboo, Polaris Snowcross and a mahjong game

Can you make a video tutorial on how to apply these patches?

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

I will do one next week :)

when should the patches hit update all?

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

They won’t hit update all. You need to manually patch the game files

Amazing news 🎉

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Conker for Friday and JFG for Sunday

Ruleset is goated! He's also responsible for the incredible PWM cores!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

They are doing awesome work

Just how many more problem games are left besides RE2 and Gauntlet?

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Gauntlet works 100% on the turbo core so that’s off the list IMO

first Conker works and now JFG. once some arcade games get added (assuming they aren't already on there), you can have all of Rare Replay on MiSTer. hoping RE2 gets patched cause the N64 version is very interesting though it IS already playable on MiSTer on the PSX core so i can see that not being a priority

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

I’m sure RE 2 will get looked at. I’ll start looking at Battle for Naboo soon now that I don’t need to look at JFG

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

Is Rare Replay any good, or is it a lag fest, so many of these compilations are released with 50ms, 100ms, or even more latency, making them so frustrating to play, many people just think they got too old to play them lol, but truth is they have too much latency for time sensitive retro games, they also often don't have proper 240p modes, or scanlines and so on. I do like compilations that double up as a museum style experience, along with properly optimized and adjusted timings for modern hardware, CRT shaders and so on (M2 are the bees knees at these things).

@DisasterMillennial

9 күн бұрын

@@Wobble2007 Rare Replay is incredibly solid imo. They even gave Jet Force Gemini dual stick controls just like how the 360 version of Perfect Dark got dual stick controls. If you buy the digital version of Rare Replay you even get Goldeneye which also got dual stick controls. i don't think there are proper 240p modes though and i didn't really check a lot of the older games that were on ZX Spectrum (btw, Rare's ZX Spectrum games are also in Rare Replay) but from what i checked, it's a solid compilation

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

@@DisasterMillennial Sounds cool, but you can do that on the OG versions via the C-Buttons I believe, or even dual wielding (lol) a pair of N64 pads nunchuck style, probably how they implemented it into the 360 versions, if the XB1 wasn't such a lag-fest, I'd have picked one up just for Rare Replay (and maybe a few other titbits as I'd have one at that point), I don't why the XB1 has so much input latency in singleplayer games, as much as 150ms in some of the launch games for the system, was never fixed. kzread.info/dash/bejne/g6ep0pSwZNW3qKg.html&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo

I'll tell my speed running comune asap. Good job

@VideoGameEsoterica

7 күн бұрын

👍

great news. This game has it's flaws I would say and isn't Rare's best but it does remain one of my favourite games for the system regardless along with the amazing Diddy Kong. Nice to see this has worked out

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Always good when one of the last few games moves to the playable category

I wonder why they bothered with a “security” check that literally passes on all existing backup units from before the game was launched.

@whickervision742

9 күн бұрын

Because it's nice to get paid as an employee when management gives an ultimatum and not worth arguing over.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

It slows launch window copies down

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Haha exactly

Can't believe it's patched already, this puts a smile on my face, thanks again guys, always wanted to play JFG (not great in soft emulation either), will play it in 480p like I did CBFD (looks really nice too, especially with the mClassic on my Sony 21" CRT monitor @ 960p), I imagine if it gonna crash at all, running JFG @ 480p will do it, so will let you know if it does, will play it for an hour or two now.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Res shouldn’t affect anything but lmk if anyone goes wrong

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

@@VideoGameEsoterica Okey doke, Hi-Res mode can make it crash on real hardware though to be fair, CBFD doesn't crash on MiSTer even after being left on for 20hrs (can crash on a real N64 after that long).

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

@Wobble2007 ooh I didn’t realize that. Good to know

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

@@VideoGameEsoterica Not keen on Hi-Res though as it's widescreen only sadly, great for modern 16:9 screens though.

Well holy crap, THIS is a nice surprise to start my day with! GFG's in my N64 library, so seeing it get patched into a playable state on MiSTer is just fantastic news for me! So, Claire Bear's still giving some people some trouble on her route, eh? I bet Leon's got something to do with it. Probably not returning her calls because he's too busy lusting after Ada. Chris is NOT gonna be happy with this, because not only is Leon refusing to continue the Redfield bloodline he's now ALSO holding back 100% compatibility on MiSTer, too. Dang it, Leon (I'd swear, but I worry KZread would remove my comment).

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Claire’s route seems to present more freezing. But it hasn’t yet for me. Very organic freezes

@Genesjss

9 күн бұрын

@@VideoGameEsoterica Which makes it harder to nail down what the exact cause behind the crashes are. RE2's certainly one tough nut to figure out.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Yes. And no debug info either easily accessible

I have mostly positive memories with this unique game, with the exception of that part on Goldwood towards the end where you have to shoot diamonds into a giant…sucking machine…? I gave up and never actually beat the game. 😂

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Haha time to beat it then!

Can the core yet play 100% off the n64 games or is a game that not work? Thx for this great news ❤

@secretaccount2565

9 күн бұрын

Battle for Naboo freezes very often and Resident Evil 2 freezes occasionally

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

See below

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Also mahjong for what it’s worth

@cardetailingstudioaustria4121

9 күн бұрын

@@secretaccount2565 2 Games that make Problem this year is year for a 99,99% N64 core and Saturn 😁

I like causing large frame-rate hitching explosions. The stock sound effects get annoying.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Haha you do you

I love jet force it's the best

@VideoGameEsoterica

7 күн бұрын

It’s a fun one for sure

The texture work that Rare could eke out of the N64 was nothing short of masterful. Seriously. The last few Rare games on N64 were darn near Dreamcast quality stuff. Seriously. If this game ran at a consistent 30fps, nobody would bat an eye if you said it was on DC.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Rare’s late game N64 games feel like N64 2 or GameCube .5 as far as the look is concerned

@RegalEagle1979

9 күн бұрын

@VideoGameEsoterica Yeah. It's really impressive. It's such a shame that Nintendo decided to let MS buy the studio. They were some of the most talented devs in the world back then. After MS acquired them, they basically died almost immediately. They put out a few OK games very early in the X360's lifecycle and have done basically nothing since. Their best games all happened under the watchful eye of Nintendo. A REAL Banjo 3 on GCN or sequels to some of their other games would have been great. The Rare/Nintendo partnership was almost on par with Disney/Pixar. It should have continued.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

It’s weird Nintendo let Rare slip away for sure. Microsoft has not really don’t much with them sadly IMO

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

@@VideoGameEsoterica You know they seriously regretted letting Rare go, that is unless they knew the Stamper brothers were leaving and Chris Seavor and other tier-1 crew, then they knew Rare was gonna be a shadow of its former self, or did Rareware go tits up due to MS buying them, guess we will never know, shibby.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Today Rare is just a totally diff company that seems to share a name it feels like

😮😮😮

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Indeed 🤣

hope battle for naboo next lolz

@VideoGameEsoterica

8 күн бұрын

You never know these days

At this point, you could do a video saying that a game doesn't work and then, by the end of the same video, saying it does. 😂

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

🤣 it’s happened very close to that in the past

Might be able to put away my N64 now...wow

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Exactly. Last heavy hitter

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

Still not quite as good as playing of a real cart in real-time, but if you don't care about perfect audio timings and quality, that really won't matter to you anyway, if MiSTer had SRAM to load N64 games into, there probably wouldn't be any noticeable difference in audio quality I'd imagine, it's more of an issue for consoles with really fancy audio specs like the Saturn & PS1, Mega-Drive, Amiga etc, N64 just used the GPU and software mixing (amazing actually how good N64 games like OOT & MM sound considering, they use the GPU to process audio as well as MIDI audio samples).

@picasso27

9 күн бұрын

@@Wobble2007 Hopefully those will be ironed out in the future. Perfect Dark has some audio issues as well like crackling and such

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

​@@picasso27 N64 is as good as it will get on the current MiSTer, as there is no SRAM or plans to make real carts useable, but the upcoming MiSTer consoles will have cartridge slots, not sure if it will be N64 though, to get the best N64 audio, I suggest you get a multi-clock DAC, N64 games have so many different audio clock rate frequencies, you can get some really nice DAC's and DSP's with multiple frequency oscillators for not too much money now days, mine has 5 TCXO's with all different Mhz clocks (10/15/44/48/96), this is great for multi system use cases like MiSTer, which has so many different systems and audio specs, using the right clock will reduce jitter, stutter, stretching, popping, crackle and so on, you can even get FPGA DAC/DSP's now, that can do 1-100Mhz, digital oscillators don't sound as full & rich as analogue though, which by all accounts are basically real live instruments.

@Wobble2007

9 күн бұрын

​@@picasso27 Best way to get good audio with a system like MiSTer, that has so many consoles, computers, and arcade cabs with different audio master clocks, is get a nice DAC with multiple clocked oscillators, I have one with 7 HQ TCXO analogue oscillators, clocked at something like 10/15//22/32/44/48/96 (Mhz), this cuts jitter/popping/stretching/warping/off-key/stuttering, off-timing and so on, you can also get FPGA DAC/DSP's with a 1-100Mhz multi master-clock (it is basically a digital oscillator), but analogue oscillators offer far richer, higher-depth audio sound-stage, as they are for all intent a real-time musical instrument, and they will also really effectively get rid of that flat-band generic sounding digital audio quality that you don't rally want for video games, especially not retro video games, you can also stack oscillators too, you could run an FPGA oscillator through a bit-crusher, to inject some personality back in, but nothing beats multiple chunky analogue oscillators and a DSP for EQ, the MiSTer nuked Mega-Drive core sounds incredible going through a DAC clocked @ the OG Model 1 SMD native 32Mhz master-clock and a DSP with low-pass active, along with a few other EQ enhancements on the DSP, absolutely no artefacts at all (you might get some audio timing issues due to running from SDRAM, rather than from a low latency ROM cartridge in real-time).

I've tried, and tried, I could never get into this game.

@VideoGameEsoterica

8 күн бұрын

That’s fair. Not Rare’s best

Like I said, I'm sure the non working games will be fixed with time. lol This was fast, though.

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Yes. This one was kind of hilariously “what if I just remove X” and bam…works

FIRST!

@VideoGameEsoterica

9 күн бұрын

Faster to first than a Jet