Super Gameboy + N64 Cart = GAMEBOY N64!!!

[Airikita]

I have another post regarding a modded Gameboy Color cartridge to play any ROM I want, but I was also thinking of modding an N64 cart to play Gameboy Color games. My first intention is to merge Super Gameboy with a cheap N64 cart, or, perhaps, mod an N64 cart to load a modified version of Super Gameboy to an N64 cartridge via SD card modification, or my modding a crappy N64 game.

I will be getting a Transfer Pak for my N64, but I am wondering which would be cheaper... a modded GBC cart, or a modded N64 cart..

If it was N64, I can program for it, and it would be doable, I am already an N64 rom hacker, and I could dig out more info to create a custom GBC playing N64 cart using the Transfer Pak as a portal to read the game.

In fact, this is my first intention, to create a ROM that will read the Transfer Pak and play the GBC game in that slot.

Modifying an N64 cart to directly read from the GBC cartridge would require less programming, but more knowledge on fixing it to the cartridge.

I was thinking the latter due to the fact that there will be less coding baggage involved, even though it would be intensive. Loading the Transfer Pak could be problematic, and lead to damaged hardware... but granted the alternative could royally muck things up also.

The other problem? Button inputs - making them different from the N64 controller. I could possibly convert inputs in the N64 cart, but the know-how would require understanding how various GBC ROMs use input data.

 

[Foxi4]

Reading from the Transfer Pak is actually... very, very dodgy. I'd much sooner expect a Wide Boy-like solution, meaning a Gameboy reading and processing the cartridge, reading button inputs from the N64 and returning the video feed.

If you really want to use the Transfer Pak then my idea would be reading the whole GBA/C ROM via the Transfer Pak (will not work straight away, if at all), holding it in a buffer in RAM (you should have more than enough space if you use an Expansion Pak) and coding a Game Boy emulator that'd read the ROM from RAM - it solves your cart reading problems in the sense that you don't have to do it live.

Development info regarding the Transfer Pak
Development Tools and Manuals

 

[MatioMania]

How did Nintendo do it for the Pokemon GB Games on Pokemon Stadium

Program a N64 Cart to read other GB/GBC Games from the Transfer Pak

 

[XiTaU]

im not 100% sure but for stadium i thought nintendo just used the cart to load the saves to and from and had the game roms and emulator built into the stadium cart

 

[Airikita]

Well, the Transfer Pak already has a chip to convert the info to N64, and there could be a way to hack Pokemon Stadium 2 or 1 to use any Gameboy Game. Although finding the actual address for the Transfer Pak is the tricky part.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm pretty sure that the Transfer Pak only reads data from the save chip, not the actual ROM but go on ahead, have a blast.

 

[tbgtbg]

http://www.nesworld.com/n64-gamebooster.php

Datel couldn't get sound working, maybe you can fare better.

 

[reprep]

transfer pak can read the whole rom and SRAM. there is even an application for that for 64Drive flash card.

http://lacklustre.net/n64/agbd/

 

[Foxi4]

transfer pak can read the whole rom and SRAM. there is even an application for that for 64Drive flash card.

http://lacklustre.net/n64/agbd/

Oh, fair enough then - I thought there was some kind of a limitation when it comes to addressing. In that case, if it can read the whole ROM then it's not a far-off dream to imagine this working.

 

[reprep]

to get the whole Rom (and SRAM for 32 kb games), you have to have some info about bank switching and MBCs though.

the author of the program i linked wrote he is planning to extract the emulator. N64 and transfer pak contains no gb hardware unlike super gameboy for snes and gameboy player for gamecube. it is software emulation.

i tried some header hacks to make it run pokemon hacks but no success.

even if the emulator is extracted, it might be a crippled one to only support gameboy pokemon games instead of a full gb emulator. who knows?

 

[Foxi4]

to get the whole Rom (and SRAM for 32 kb games), you have to have some info about bank switching and MBCs though.

the author of the program i linked wrote he is planning to extract the emulator. N64 and transfer pak contains no gb hardware unlike super gameboy for snes and gameboy player for gamecube. it is software emulation.

i tried some header hacks to make it run pokemon hacks but no success.

even if the emulator is extracted, it might be a crippled one to only support gameboy pokemon games instead of a full gb emulator. who knows?

Pretty sure that most Game Boy titles work perfectly fine on Super Mario Bros. 3's MBC setup, so it could be used as the base blueprint. Alternatively, there could be a selector menu or a database of which cart uses which memory setup - there's a limited number of'em after all.

 

[enarky]

ITT: a lot of wishful thinking. Good luck with that.

 

[Foxi4]

ITT: a lot of wishful thinking. Good luck with that.

It definitely won't be achieved via ROM hacking, but it sure as hell can be done with coding.

 

[enarky]

It definitely won't be achieved via ROM hacking, but it sure as hell can be done with coding.

Of course, but you'd still have to code a full GBC Emulator. Possible, but quite a feat. This would be a ultimate "just because" project, as there are tons of better and easier solutions to play GBC games.

 

[Foxi4]

Of course, but you'd still have to code a full GBC Emulator. Possible, but quite a feat. This is a ultimate "just because" project, as there are tons of better and easier solutions to play GBC games.

I don't think it'd be insanely difficult to port one of the existing ones since the N64 does have sufficient horsepower. That being said, yes, it's a "just because" project as I can think of hundreds of ways to put a Game Boy game on the big screen, even on original cartridges since we have this thing, this thing, even this thing if you feel like building one and probably dozens more.

 

[enarky]

Enough horsepower for sure, but I doubt it has enough for one coded in a high level language. Even if it had, I'm not sure if there's even a toolchain that works on a modern PC to build such a thing (if there ever was).