Sorry for being THAT guy... but are you using PM64 injected into DK64, with a custom ini, or is it one of the inis nintendo left us by accident?
I also noticed that on the compatibility wiki there are a LOT of entries saying they used PM64 as the host, I therefore assume legit PM64 dump VC is now now out in the wild?
I use the DK64 as the base and inject PM64 into that and I use the ini made for the USA paper mario by nintendo. there is a JAP and PAL version ini which I accidently used at first those 2 would cause this not to boot.