Feature Request Thread
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07-09-2019, 12:02 AM
Perhaps it is a bit too far-fetched, but it would be awesome if the RAM limit for games could be increased. Especially the 4MB RAM of the Nintendo 64. That would prove very useful for loading in more higher detailed objects at once.
I managed to load most of the objects at once in Super Mario 64 and likely the game is running against the 4MB RAM limit with it, as described here: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-su...#pid495159. 07-09-2019, 10:42 PM
(07-09-2019, 09:44 PM)Admentus Wrote: Perhaps it is a bit too far-fetched, but it would be awesome if the RAM limit for games could be increased. Especially the 4MB RAM of the Nintendo 64. That would prove very useful for loading in more higher detailed objects at once. The 4 MB RAM limit is set by Nintendo's N64 emulator and can only be changed by applying patches to that emulator, not by changing how much memory Dolphin provides. 07-09-2019, 10:47 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2019, 10:47 PM by ExtremeDude2.)
(07-09-2019, 09:44 PM)Admentus Wrote: Perhaps it is a bit too far-fetched, but it would be awesome if the RAM limit for games could be increased. Especially the 4MB RAM of the Nintendo 64. That would prove very useful for loading in more higher detailed objects at once. Seems possible for dolphin, don't know about getting the games to actually use it (sorry this was the only thread I found with the amount of time I looked) https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-ga...pid=440974 Edit: oh, I assume you mean for VC games? (07-09-2019, 10:42 PM)JosJuice Wrote: The 4 MB RAM limit is set by Nintendo's N64 emulator and can only be changed by applying patches to that emulator, not by changing how much memory Dolphin provides. So, theoretically that could be modified through the use of AR Codes? Using Project64's memory debugger and it seems that all games use an universal RAM address for the expansion pack. GameShark: F0000319 0040 (searching for the RAM Address: 80000319 in Project64). Setting the value to 0080 and the Expansion Pack is basically enabled (8MB RAM). I tried looking it with Dolphin, but it seems N64 Virtual Console games don't share the same RAM Address for amount of RAM (4MB or 8 MB). I don't think there is an universal RAM address for that? Would that even exist within Dolphin's Virtual Console? (07-09-2019, 10:47 PM)ExtremeDude2 Wrote: Seems possible for dolphin, don't know about getting the games to actually use it (sorry this was the only thread I found with the amount of time I looked) Yes, VC games indeed. More specifically the N64 VC. If I'm correctly, the Wii has about 88MB RAM. So that's more than plenty for the Virtual Console. If only more of that could be assigned to the N64 VC. 07-09-2019, 10:57 PM
(07-09-2019, 10:53 PM)Admentus Wrote: So, theoretically that could be modified through the use of AR Codes? Possibly, but it depends on whether the emulator is coded in such a way that the ability to emulate the Expansion Pak is present but disabled for the emulator binaries distributed with games that don't use the Expansion Pak. Otherwise you might need to do VC injection. I don't know enough about Nintendo's emulator to say which case it is. (07-09-2019, 10:42 PM)JosJuice Wrote: The 4 MB RAM limit is set by Nintendo's N64 emulator and can only be changed by applying patches to that emulator, not by changing how much memory Dolphin provides. (07-09-2019, 10:57 PM)JosJuice Wrote: Possibly, but it depends on whether the emulator is coded in such a way that the ability to emulate the Expansion Pak is present but disabled for the emulator binaries distributed with games that don't use the Expansion Pak. Otherwise you might need to do VC injection. I don't know enough about Nintendo's emulator to say which case it is. Ok, last one. I promise. So if I am correctly the WADs themselves contains the system emulator, in my particular case the Nintendo 64. Changing how much memory Dolphin provides obviously wouldn't work then, since the WAD N64 emulator is still limited to 4MB (or 8MB in the case of Majora's Mask). So Dolphin can not intercept the code in some way of the WAD's N64 emulator to increase the limit from 4MB to 8MB? Which would mean that WAD N64 emulator is it's own enclosed system? Most of the time, VC injections don't take that kindly on the 8MB RAM. Since Majora's Mask is the only N64 Virtual Console with 8MB that would have to serve for the injection. But Super Mario 64 doesn't seem to work too well on that. Besides, I rather avoid injecting when possible. It kinda messes up the RAM addresses, meaning that all previous AR Codes would have to be recoded, and not to mention it would be quite the hassle for users. There have been quite a few N64 SM64 rom hacks, with most of them being extended to 8MB, but none of them seem to work on the Virtual Console. Using the expansion pack for 8MB on Project64 is quite easy and can be enabled for each game (even if it doesn't benefit them). I just wished that would be that easy on Dolphin as well. The reason why I am searching into increasing the N64 VC RAM from 4MB to 8MB (or higher) is because I am trying to load in more objects at once in Super Mario 64. And... overdoing that causes the game to softlock. Near reaching the limit the HUD and the fonts will start to disappear or glitch out, most likely to make place for the additional objects to load in, just so to kill off popups of objects. Once the HUD starts to be replaced with black textures, you know the game is about to softlock soon. Project64 seems to have fewer issues with this, even with the expansion pack disabled. In fact, Project64 seems to do very well when increasing the draw distances. Which leaves me to wonder, why Dolphin has issues with this. So far, I have been thinking it was due the limit of the 4MB RAM of the N64. But perhaps it is because some of object limit itself in Super Mario 64. I don't even know if the N64 RAM affects the object limit of SM64. Perhaps increasing the RAM wouldn't increase the object limit. But that still doesn't quite explain why Project64 doesn't have these issues. Does the Virtual Console N64 emulator cause any kind of overhead that further reduces the 4MB RAM? 07-10-2019, 02:53 AM
Just something I thought about recently about AR Coding.
It would be a great feature if a single AR Code entry could exist in multiple variations. Project64 does this. Normally you would add two different codes for having two different variations of the same code. $Variation 1 02B387BA 00002C40 $Variation 2 02B387BA 00002C80 So why not combine both codes variations into a single code? $Code 02B387BA 0000???? Then when the user double clicks that code or something, the ???? values can be assigned with pre-determined values assigned by the coder, such as 2C40 or 2C80. That should help users not getting overwhelmed by a huge amount of separate codes. |
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