Forest of Illusion is on a roll, when it comes to uncovering gaming history. Their latest find is a copy of Dinosaur Planet for the Nintendo 64–a game that never saw an official release, as the project was moved to the Nintendo GameCube and eventually came to be known as Star Fox Adventures. They’ve dumped the game where it can be now be found online, preserving it forever. This build of Dinosaur Planet is dated December 1, 2000 and is playable, though the ending levels are reportedly unfinished and potentially unable to be completed without the use of cheats. According to Forest of Illusion, emulator compatibility with the game is spotty, leading to multiple instances of slowdown and graphical glitches, however it works fine on official hardware through flashcart use.

As a reminder, sharing links to ROMs is against the rules.

Forest of Illusion official Twitter account

 

[Spider_Man]

So unless it's in another thread or I missed it, is this not running well on the Everdrive 64? I've got the Ultra ED64 which basically was re-labeled the X7.
I've tried it twice so far, first it crashed after breaking the first crate I could and when it was doing the first item(egg) pickup sequence. Second time was after Scales got off the ship and it started to pan along the side with the fire out, and it locked with the music continuing as normal.

Saw this quote: "Yeah it works. Had to edit my Everdrive 64's save file (rename the rom "Dinosaur Planet" and add the line "DP=5 (Dinosaur Planet)" to your "save_db.txt" file in the Everdrive directory on the SD card) to get it to work."

I did that, so if that's just to get it running or to save, good, I mean it will do that. But is it supposed to bomb all the time?

I've been hoping for years I'd get another crack at this game as I was in the industry long ago and I was at E3 in 2000 and got my experience on the floor there with the mid-year build which didn't have Fox yet. This is a pleasure and disappointment if it's basically for now unplayable though I do understand it is being worked on.

Where as i never had to do anything other than change save type to flash and select rom only and press start to boot game, this fixed the fox falling off map on boot.

But i get black screen with crash error codes.

And i get the same using pj64, at first i thought it could be the cheat codes i made, but when it did the same for ed64 with no cheats, it must be random bugs due to beta.

Also

What is the actual difference in the ed64 7x

 

[VmprHntrD]

Where as i never had to do anything other than change save type to flash and select rom only and press start to boot game, this fixed the fox falling off map on boot.

But i get black screen with crash error codes.

And i get the same using pj64, at first i thought it could be the cheat codes i made, but when it did the same for ed64 with no cheats, it must be random bugs due to beta.

Also

What is the actual difference in the ed64 7x

Well I just tried it again and now I'm disappointed and pissed. I've done as requested and claimed to work by multiple sources with that renaming of the rom and using that line to use FLASH save. IT doesn't work. This time it didn't bomb until after I got up to Fox. The kid gets walked off, I get control, and I pull a 180 to return to mash that crate inthe cave... he falls through the floor and locks the game up with the error codes. I restart the cart, load the save, and I'm back to the introduction with Crystal on the dinosaur in flight. W T F

The Ultra Everdrive64 I'm using has firmware 3.04, it's the current model still out there that does it all including the RTC stuff (which doesn't apply here) it just got rebranded as the X7.

I'd love to know what is going wrong here.

 

[Spider_Man]

Well I just tried it again and now I'm disappointed and pissed. I've done as requested and claimed to work by multiple sources with that renaming of the rom and using that line to use FLASH save. IT doesn't work. This time it didn't bomb until after I got up to Fox. The kid gets walked off, I get control, and I pull a 180 to return to mash that crate inthe cave... he falls through the floor and locks the game up with the error codes. I restart the cart, load the save, and I'm back to the introduction with Crystal on the dinosaur in flight. W T F

The Ultra Everdrive64 I'm using has firmware 3.04, it's the current model still out there that does it all including the RTC stuff (which doesn't apply here) it just got rebranded as the X7.

I'd love to know what is going wrong here.

Ive had fox fall off map once when running.

I did a save and when loading the cut scene where prince is getting attacked and triggers the race thing doesnt happen, theyre stood there with no ai.

I had to run the race to its end then prince pops up but then get the error code screen.

Ive not had to rename anything or edit save file.

But on ed64 i couldn't get past the first ship without the error screen.

Id take it as a beta thats not a complete game and maybe cheat code patches are needed to make it more stable, as its said its not fully playable.

 

[VmprHntrD]

Ive had fox fall off map once when running.

I did a save and when loading the cut scene where prince is getting attacked and triggers the race thing doesnt happen, theyre stood there with no ai.

I had to run the race to its end then prince pops up but then get the error code screen.

Ive not had to rename anything or edit save file.

But on ed64 i couldn't get past the first ship without the error screen.

Id take it as a beta thats not a complete game and maybe cheat code patches are needed to make it more stable, as its said its not fully playable.

I realized there was another firmware (3.05) I got much further before it died again. Hit this place with some dinosaur trapped under a log in the ice, couldn't figure out how to free him. Did this round about way away with some digging involved, then swam off some waterfall I guess and it crashed. The game is a little sticky with the menu management but that's not a deal breaker like the random crashes. I'm thinking this is a really really good game, even by Rare standards as it's not some asinine collect-a-thon nightmare but more like Conker with good design and story behind it.

 

[Moon164]

It is kind of bizarre that many scenes were kept the same, even the dialogues of Fox are basically the same, the decision to move the game to the Game Cube must have come very late in the project.

PS: One thing I noticed is that unlike Crystal, Fox doesn't have facial expressions, it could be that they put him at the last minute too.

 

[jnl1]

i just got it to work with alt 64, it uses flash yes , but the cic needs to be at 6101 , tv needs to be NTSC , rating common , country NTSC and it boots, game will still crash at certain points

did you get the bug where the character is just falling through the floor or did you get crashes with debug infos?

 

[Jv5_Guy]

crashed with debug infos at certain places

 

[Moon164]

Hey guys, how long is the demo ?, I was really having fun playing Dinosaur Planet (which is kind of ironic, why I hate Star Fox Adventures) but I got stuck in a part where the mammoth is hungry, I looked for food to him and I ended up finding an apple, but whenever I try to get the apple the game crashes on a black screen.

I have 50 minutes of play and this was my first and only crash so far, is there any way to get past that part?

PS: Has anyone tried to run this game on the Wii or Wii U Virtual Console?

 

[ShadowOne333]

Hey guys, how long is the demo ?, I was really having fun playing Dinosaur Planet (which is kind of ironic, why I hate Star Fox Adventures) but I got stuck in a part where the mammoth is hungry, I looked for food to him and I ended up finding an apple, but whenever I try to get the apple the game crashes on a black screen.

I have 50 minutes of play and this was my first and only crash so far, is there any way to get past that part?

PS: Has anyone tried to run this game on the Wii or Wii U Virtual Console?

You're supposed to give him the seeds that are buried around him, not apples afaik.

 

[Moon164]

You're supposed to give him the seeds that are buried around him, not apples afaik.

Thank you, I will try this.

PS: I tried to run the game on the Wii U Virtual Console, I used the Injectiine with the Excitebike 64 and ini DK64 USA and also tried it with DK64 EUR with .ini of the European DK64. Unfortunately the game did not boot.

 

[jnl1]

crashed with debug infos at certain places

Thanks. I will try this. Perhaps it will work better than with official ed64plus OS.

 

[VmprHntrD]

My understanding that using real hardware gets the best results, but it still likes to bomb, so save often. You could play 10 min or an hour before it craps out.

As to the mammoth. Look for a dent in the ground with a sprout, use the kid, dig it up like a puppy, and then take that and feed the guy to get the story moving. I stopped shortly after that a couple days back, haven't had time to touch it since.

 

[FAST6191]

I am curious about this emulation vs hardware lark.

While N64 emulation is still a bit lacking compared to some things I thought it was generally considered fairly accurate and mature, just somewhat demanding.
What the failing for emulators is with this I will be interested to hear.

 

[Deleted member 323844]

I am curious about this emulation vs hardware lark.

While N64 emulation is still a bit lacking compared to some things I thought it was generally considered fairly accurate and mature, just somewhat demanding.
What the failing for emulators is with this I will be interested to hear.

N64 emulation compatibility should have been completed since GlideN64 Team emulated the legendary Factor 5 F3DEX Z-Sort Mod microcode, used in Battle for Naboo and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

Parallel should have the best all-around compatibility, I think.

 

[Tiger21820]

Video game preservation is doing all of us a great service! Shame that Nintendo doesn't honor the blood, sweat, and tears that we put into preserving THEIR games so they never be lost or forgotten! Bunch of ungrateful *CENSORED, OH NO!*

 

[KiiWii]

Decompilation project eta wen?

 

[jnl1]

Put together a deblur patch for ED64 if anyone else is interested in using it.

Original vs Deblur:
View attachment 247780 View attachment 247785

Made for SHA-256:
F8CAE52C3DF720604D89056F313B9BD77A6C3822191C7A8C59CD3A8C9B3A05F4

^ This is the SHA-256 after patching the original ROM (SHA-256: 22830780902F51AEA442825C574B88D404CCF30D726219E4B000EDC64BCC60A6) to bypass Rare's dev-ROM protection, and is outlined here.

How do I install this? With bps patcher?

 

[8BitWonder]

How do I install this? With bps patcher?

I use WinAPS for aps patches.
If you're just going to use it on Everdrive you can set it to patch the ROM on-the-fly instead of doing it yourself.

 

[jnl1]

I use WinAPS for aps patches.
If you're just going to use it on Everdrive you can set it to patch the ROM on-the-fly instead of doing it yourself.

Will I use my savestate when I update my rom with this patch?

EDIT: I can´t get WinAPS to work on my laptop. Is there any other aps patch program?

 

[8BitWonder]

Will I use my savestate when I update my rom with this patch?

EDIT: I can´t get WinAPS to work on my laptop. Is there any other aps patch program?

WinAPS is the only APS patcher I know of.
I only made it a .aps since that's what Everdrive would expect if you wanted to patch it on the fly, but I can also make an xdelta if you'd just like to patch it on PC and use that.