What was the N64 Expansion Pak actually used for?
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- Опубліковано 27 кві 2024
- A closer look at one of the more interesting peripherals for the Nintendo 64 - the Expansion Pak. Released in 1998 With Donkey Kong 64, it expanded the N64 System RAM from 4MB to 8MB and was also said to improve visual quality, framerates and more. It was rumored that it was essential in fixing a memory crash with DK64 - it didn't - and there are over 60 games supported the Expansion Pak with 2 games requiring it. But did you miss out if you didn't own one? In this episode we deep dive and discuss the myths and the realities of the N64 Expansion Pak.
Dreamcast, Saturn, PS2, and PS1 Images - Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Credit: Evan Amos - CC BY-SA 3.0
Timestamps:
00:00 - 02:44 - Introduction to the N64 Expansion Pak.
02:45 - 05:15 - DK64 Expansion Pak Myth.
05:16 - 06:11 - What is a Memory Leak.
06:12 - 08:11 - Debunking the DK64 Expansion Pak Myth.
08:12 - 11:29 - Games with Resolution Increases.
11:30 - 12:29 - Games with Texture Increases.
12:30 - 13:52 - Games with Other enhancements.
13:53 - 14:43 - Conclusion
14:44 - 15:03 - Outro
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#N64 #ExpansionPak - Ігри
StarCraft 64 is a big user of the Expansion Pak. Not only does it unlock multiplayer mode, it also unlocks the 3 Brood War campaigns. That's basically 50% of the game locked without the Expansion Pak.
Me and my brothers used to play the multiplayer as kids, back when pc Lan play simply wasn't an option for us.
It's a port that plays better than it has any right to. A lot of thought clearly went into it.
I wanted to bring up SC64 as well. The multiplayer had a few co-op maps that I thought were very fun to play.
@@zanmaru139 I'll have to check that out. My brother and I spent SO MANY HOURS on starcraft / broodwar. SC64 was interesting, but never played it.
It's a lot like C&C Red Alert: Retaliations on the PS1. A port that punches hard for a console RTS.
@@brandonkick Starcraft 64 is a very interesting port all things considered. It had some special "extra missions" in multiplayer that got later ported to the PC version like after a decade or so, included like 6 more units per control group (18 instead of 12, letting you move more units at a time even if you were limited to only a single group instead of 10 or so on the PC) and while it lacked voice acting in the cutscenes and every unit had like 2 noises it made (compared to the classic Blizzard 3 greets 6 "stop poking me" types of 'pissed off' lines) it is a miracle that the whole game and the expansion (like 1.4 gigabytes of data) fit onto a 32 mb cartridge.
i always wondered about this. was it a technical reason brood war required the expansion pak or was it just a fun thing they did ("you need the expansion pak to get the expansion hue hue")
Majora's Mask and Perfect Dark are such good games it made the purchase of an expansion pack completely worth it.
I actually wasn't a fan of Majora's mask. 007 and eventually Perfect Dark were amazing though. "DON'T LOOK AT MY SCREEN!" As we share a 24 inch TV. haha
@@ItIsYouAreNotYourMajora's mask is my all time favorite Zelda game. It's notable that my other favorite was links awakening and both of these games were directed by the same director who I believe was from some Mario games as well. Anyway those two are different from other Zelda games for that reason. The hate MM gets isn't fair. I thought it was much easier to get through without losing any interest than OOt was 🤷
@bigbangatk3076 I feel like a lot of the people who hate on MM got stuck on the first 3 day cycle and didn't go back to replay it. I know bc I was one of them - I only very recently got back into it and fell in love with the game.
I totally understand if people get frustrated with the difficulty, but compared to OoT, there's a lot less fatigue in the busy work and I found the side quests way more interesting
i never finished MM, i got stuck and couldnt figure out where to go and it wasn't interesting enough for me to bother finding a gamefaq guide... OOT on the other hand, i 100% it like 20 times, including several times on the 3ds re-release....
@@dreadwolfrisingthank you, I will try again. I was one of the few people who didn’t complete it back then but after reading your comment I think it’s time to start.
I remember getting the expansion pack just to play Rogue Squadron because I read how much better it was with it. I'm glad I did, it's still one of my favorite Star Wars games.
I still have that title. If my memory doesn´t trick me, it made the fog less noticeable, but I haven´t played it in a long long time, so I don´t remember if it did something else.
You are speaking with a Supreme Allied Commander
Same here.
Same!
Same here. I believe it added some dynamic lighting as well. I can remember watching laser bolts lighting up the scenery on night missions that you couldn't see without it, unless I'm misremembering. That was a long time ago :P
I mean, PD was such an iconic 64 title that I would argue that alone makes the expansion pack a must have.
Facts. I consider it one of the best shooters of all time to this day.
I remember reading gamepro book a week b4 it release in class. PD is iconic
Very true! This is the reason why I got one.
That game was way ahead of its time. The multiplayer on it was better than so many games multiplayer modes even today.
Exactly! I've even been following the PC port progress a lot lately, which to be fair looks every bit as good visually (with some included filtering) as the game itself looked on original hardware back in 2000
It translates pretty well to keyboard and mouse given that control style 1.2 i believe uses digital movement (c buttons) and analogue look/turn.
Not to say the xbox remaster is bad, but potentiometer based thumbsticks are truly awful compared to the precision of the N64's optical sensors.
I always wanted a N64 for Wave Race 64. That game looked so "next-gen" to me as a kid. I didn't have any money, so I had to skip that generation though. Thanks for the info on the expansion pack!
can i ask you something, dude? you wrote ‘an’ N64. is that because the single consonant, N, phonetically sounds ‘en’? sorry for being so off topic here, but i’m in a never ending learning process of this language and my way to do it is by watching videos that i like, with content that i enjoy and, again, sorry for being so random.
@@diegos_world ow yeah, that’s just a typo. I’ll correct it. Should be “a”.
@@diegos_world I'm a native English speaker and sometimes I'm not sure whether to use "a" or "an" for an abbreviation either. You're correct that it's based on phonetic sounds, but for abbreviations it depends which way you expect the reader to read the sentence. If they see "N64" and think "Nintendo 64", then "a" is correct. But if they see "N64" and think "En 64", then "an" is correct. In this case, I think most people would read it as "En" rather than "Nintendo" so "an" is fine.
Waverace64 looked incredible at the time, I was blown away by it.
@@diegos_world You're right that usually "an" is only used when the following word starts with a vowel, but sometimes the rules are broken when it "sounds right" to do it. In this case, both "a N64" and "an N64" are fine, even though "a N64" is technically correct, personally I think "an N64" sounds better (in my view as a native English speaker). Sorry if that's not helpful when learning the language!
The launch PSP shipped with 32MB RAM for the PSP-1000 model, but was bumped to 64MB on 2000 and 3000 models. I would love to see a video of any potential games that take advantage of that bump. Thank you for the hard work!
As far as I'm aware, no commercial games have direct control of the other 32 MB. Only apps like Skype and some homebrew apps made use of it. Instead, the rest of the buffer is utilized for UMD data caching, so for example reloading a level/race that has been already loaded once, is often significantly faster on the later models when playing off a UMD.
@@Mates1500 I know that in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep you can control the CPU speed and color depth from options. I thought that the higher color depth option only worked with the later models because it would require more RAM, but I tried to google and couldn't find any info so I'm not entirely sure.
It also improve the web browser @@Mates1500
This was useful to emulate the N64 on it. The 2000 model perform so much better.
It was mainly done for the internet browser. IIRC no official games make use of it, but a lot of homebrew stuff did.
I will never forget seeing Mario 64 at a kiosk as a child. I was like 6 and had no idea the N64 was a thing, my dad and I were completely blown away.
I remember I was mad at my parents for getting me Donkey Kong 64 because I didn't ask for it. It actually was a really good game. As far as Mario, yeah I remember my neighbor getting it and being so amazed by the graphics and then...I forget the name I believe it was Waverunner (Jet Ski one) and Starfox. My only problem with the N64 was the lack of good RPGs, which was my thing as a kid because of the amount of hours they provided.
@ItIsYouAreNotYour bruh DK64 is my favorite game of all time. N64 WAS MY FIRST SYSTEM EVER. I had to be about 4-5. I didn't even know what N64 was. One day I'm sitting home in the living room. Next thing I notice my mom and dad walk through the Door with big green box. It was the Dk 64 Bundle. I never been so hype in my life. The nostalgia is killing me 😢
@@stax5ave380 mine was Super Nintendo and Zelda. I wanted Zelda nes and I was once again mad that I got the super nes and not the nes because it wasn’t the same Zelda lol. Didn’t understand it was better.
@@ItIsYouAreNotYour I had that kind of thing with the Gameboy color, I wanted the pocket so I could cheat my way through the dark tunnel in Pokemon Red/Blue and didn't understand that the color was much better overall.
@@grn1 haha ya. It kind of shows that as youngsters they would be happy with old stuff. Shit my parents probably would have saved $200 just getting me an NES instead haha. Reminds me of that Kat Williams joke where he says I can get you an xbox and 1 game or an N64 and 100 games haha.
Don't forget Road Rash 64 and the Expansion Pack unlocked extra bikes, some of which were outrageous in power and size that were difficult to control along with some new tracks, one of which was an airport runway.
I finished that game but don't remember being offered those extras (even with the expansion pak)
@@jonnamechange6854 They're not offered. You need to do some fancy controller keypresses to activate it. I'm sure there's a page about it with the cheat code to activate it.
I recall the 64 one being trash compared to the Sega one. But we are talking decades ago haha.
I never had an expansion pack growing up but I do remember unlocking extra bikes at the end of the game that went insanely fast. Played the heck out of that game though.
When we still had the SNES one friend brought over his new N64 to our friend's house. We were absolutely amazed by the graphics and even my friends father who didn't ever play videogames stood in the room watching us play Goldeneye.
We obviously all wanted the N64 and all my friends did get one.
I myself changed my mind when I saw a bunch of games that were only on the PS1.
So I got the best of both worlds and I have lots of super fun nostalgic moments of playing the N64 with my friends.
The end credits music of Mario Kart 64 always makes me equally happy and sad remembering the amazing times we had playing the N64
Goldeneye felt so real to me also.
I think the SNES looks better than N64 today
I enjoy these type of stories! 😁🥳 Good times.
Like wise. After seeing the PS1 and getting to play Resident Evil.. I knew then there was only one console
I wanted.
I always thought the Mario Kart 64 credits were particularly well done
Kaze Emmanuar's optimized Super Mario 64 engine requires an Expansion Pak. He explained in "Fixing the entire SM64 source code" around 5:30 that it helps improve RAM speed by minimizing DRAM refreshing. N64 RAM is split into 1 MB banks, so a stock N64 has 4 banks and the expansion adds 4 more. The four extra banks allow Kaze to separate CPU-only memory and graphics memory into separate banks.
I love watching Kaze's indepth explanations and I'm not even a programmer.
did he explain something about why it's split into banks like that? like, that's peculiar especially for a system with 64 in the name. board lines? cpu pins?
Someone also brought up DK64 there and I quoted the quote from this video on his stream just now. Kaze's theory is that they didn't really need it, but that their implementation of it was really low quality and very memory inefficient, so they needed the extra RAM.
@@fungo6631IIRC, Rare actually spoke about this in 2010 or so, and they said it was a mixture of new hardware and a bunch of fresh hires combined with no idea what to do about a memory leak. In fact, the expansion pack doesn't even fix it: if you leave the game running for over... I think it's 12 or 14 hours straight, the game still crashes.
EDIT: MVG partially mentioned it. I'll see if I can find any solid evidence other than the Stop Skeletons From Fighting video.
EDIT 2: Jesus Christ can people please read the full comment chain. I wrote this ***before I finished the video.***
@@AngelaTheSephira Did you watch the video? No memory leaks were detected by speedrunners. They would've been the first ones to notice crashing.
I've got a very silly expansion pack memory. In high school, my friend and I really wanted to play Perfect Dark split screen co-op but we needed the expansion pack to do that. I went to a local NYC game store which was only slightly shady and thought I'd save a few dollars buying a third party knock off expansion pack. It worked great! At first! The game would crash after about an hour then start crashing more and more frequently at random times. I went to check the knock off pack and it was blazing hot! Figuring that it was over heating, we spent the rest of the night playing co-op just fine with a medical ice pack sitting on top of the N64; dumping the water and refilling it with ice every half hour or so. We returned it the next day and bought an official pack.
That's awesome 😂
Great video! For those of us at the time it was immediately obvious that the increased memory gave big benefits - try playing something like the Star Wars titles Rogue Squadron or Podracer and you get far increased rendering distance which really adds to the gameplay. I remember searching for ages for objectives and landmarks in Rogue Squadron prior to getting the pack, and afterwards the increased render distance just blew me away and the things you were looking for were far more obvious. Likewise, Podracer had a great draw distance with the pack and much better multiplayer visuals as well. It was a great add-on and a really cool feature of the system.
The very first time i tried the N64 was with Starfox 64 and, after a 30 minutes session, my legs were literally shaking, I could barelly stand on my feet.
It was so amazing!!
The next generational leaps never felt anything like it.
I remember playing Starfox 64 (Lylat Wars here in Europe) in a department store that was hooked up to like a 50 inch rear projection screen. The rumble pack just blew my 10 year old mind away.
I bought the game the very next week :D
I take it you never played the original star fox!
wrong shot@@Boberman286
they have, but we were kids, I felt the same but the modern jumps have been equally incredible.
I played it once at someones house.I gotta say...i wasnt too impressed, i recall it feeling laggy and the visual kinda confused me. I did play it after the N64, so its most likely due to me being spoilt with the updated version@@Boberman286
I mostly only got the Expansion Pak so I could play Perfect Dark with all features with my friends, and it was totally worth it, because that game rocked! Thanks for the informative video and stay safe out there!
By far the best game and 007 before it with friends. I remember they added stats and bots in perfect dark and I would just practice all day. I can't recall what I was trying to do, but I was trying to get specific stats.
It’s funny how performance and fidelity modes existed all the way back on the N64 with certain games. I’m really impressed with RE2’s dynamic resolution as well, truly ahead of its time.
Command and Conquer 64 looked amazing with the expansion pack but it really slowed the game down. That, sometimes, was a blessing though giving you extra time to make commands
Reminds me of making the original GTA much easier on my Pentium 3 by turning the frame limiter off. The time limits were the same but the cars were 5 times faster!
I bought my N64 at launch, along with a copy of Super Mario 64. I spent a VERY long time with SM64, finally beating it months later. That game still holds a special place in my heart, and I'm very happy to see the community still working on it.
check out Kaze’s work on SM64 if you haven’t. it’s incredible the support it gets, but shows how special it is to people to this day.
See "Mario is of the devil" among my uploads.
@@sc3ku2nd this! Kaze is a madman of epic proportion, and his videos are incredible! 👍
@@scintillam_deiNo.
My friend got one they day they came out. It came without a power supply. My friends mom called and they told her she had to purchase it separately. My friend's mom flipped tf out on Nintendo, and they sent her one for free. But they tried to get her to buy one first.
I got the expansion pack for Perfect Dark. Excellent game. Best thing ever was the simulants in the multiplayer mode. Each simulant had a different style - like one would always go for the best weapon, or one would grab the health all the time... one of them was the Revenge Sim (or Venge Sim?) and it would hunt down the last player who killed it. The Area 51 map had a bunker in the middle, so we made all the sims Revenge Sims and me and my brother held up in the bunker and the Revenge Sims just swarmed us. It was like the precursor to Horde Night on 7 Days to Die.
Yep. Perfect Dark was so great & the expansion pack unlocked more stimulants (bots) in multiplayer matches. Used to have a 2 player game with like 16 bots playing also and the ability to customize their gameplay style of them really made those multiplayer modes feel like large scale battles. It was very fun.
Indeed. The sim fights were great.
Although the Perfect Dark Sims didn't use weapons and all they did was slap you until you were dazed senseless were the ultimate challenge
*attempts to shove a lobby full of MeatSims into the closet
I don't know what you guys are talking about
MVG I absolutely adore how you're able to take complex technical topics and break them down into easy-to-digest videos. I could legit watch your content all day and not get bored or overwhelmed with overly technical details. Keep up the great content man!
His N64 videos aren't always completely factual tho.
When it comes to N64 programming stuff, Kaze Manuar does give more accurate explanations.
My favorite expansion pack benefit was for Excitebike 64. They used the extra ram to increase draw distance and push the fog distance out.
Definitely StarCraft 64. One of the ganes that makes great usr of the EX Pak.
It is super hard to find for PAL though, as it was only released in Australia.
Was so fortunate to import a CIB copy and love playing the game with EX Pak!
Glad someone else mentioned SC. that definitely needed the expansion pak
You mean NTSC yeah? Australia used PAL and all N64 games released here are in PAL
Oh my bad. You meant the pack haha.
Didnt realise there would be a difference as i always assumed the Ram amd Rom reading were identical between the 2 versions.
But looking into it they arent.
@@VolkovAlexandernovskiOfficial I have no idea what you are talking about...
I was referring to StarCraft 64 AUS version. Which is the only PAL release of that game that exists.
There are only about 4000 copies out there and I was lucky enough to get one Complete in Box and imported it to Europe (we also use PAL systems here)
The game also makes great use of the expansion pak.
There is an NTSC version of the game (and obviously if the EX pak) but both are USA, so not relevant for me and my PAL collection.
I remember the big hype for the Pak was Turok 2 and Star Wars Rogue Squadron, and then soon after it became a thing on the N64 peaking with Perfect Dark. I don't know about anyone else, but for me at that time, in that era, I preferred cleaner visuals over framerate. Probably because I was already used to framerate drops in games anyway and didn't think that would improve anytime soon on the N64. Although the framerate in Perfect Dark definitely got annoying at times, on the other hand seeing Rogue Squadron's graphics cleaned up was pretty awesome.
The n64 changed gaming for me to, playing goldeneye for the first time just blew my mind, perfect dark was the game i obsessed most over though.
When I got my N64 for Christmas, the two games I got with it were Starfox 64 and Star Wars SotE... loved both of those games and had them for a very long time. Shadows of the Empire is one of my all time favorite games and I would LOVE it if we could get a Star Wars re-release on the Switch with all of those games on the N64 and Gamecube.
I got mine from my DK64 copy. Then bought Majora's and that was my favourite game of all time. So I could say I did see the value in it.
Great video and thanks for explaining memory leak, really insightful!! This is why i love your channel 👌🏼
Perfect Dark and Counter-operative mode was fun AF. Rare was thinking ahead of its time in so many ways.
You missed the most important part of having the memory pack.
You felt so much cooler pushing it into your N64 when your friends were over.
There's one case where having the expansion pak is a bad idea: Early revisions of Space Station Silicon Valley will crash during startup. Beyond that, it's a pretty amazing upgrade.
That's one of my favorite games. I never heard about that before. You mean they released updated cartridges later on?
We had that game back in the day as well as the expansion pack but I don't remember having any issues.
@@tribaltroll Early copies crashed if the expansion pak was installed, because the game's code was specifically written with the 4MB RAM in mind. If it tried to use the extra 4MB from the expansion pak, it would crash, because the game never prepared that area of memory for use beforehand. They did fix this on later releases though.
Ah yes, the game with that uncollectible collectible 😂
Goldeneye had problems with it too
As I understand it, Nintendo provided the Expansion Pak with Donkey Kong 64 at a loss, that is, they paid for it, not the customer.
It's a loss for the customer if you consider having to buy DK64. :U
I remember back then that DK64 wouldn't even work if you did not have the expansion pack.
Something I remember learning very quickly because of trying to rent the game from Blockbuster and being greeted with "You need the expansion pack!"
I got Majora's Mask for a Christmas at my Grandma's house. I brought my N64 just so I could play it Christmas morning. Boy, was I miffed that I had to get home, go to a store, and buy an expansion pack before I could play it.
@@ryukami404 Eesh I remember that error when we got our second N64 without the Expansion Pak.
@@kjrehberg Wow, I did end up getting to play DK64 during the rental period though. Remember being a little bummed about it and then one day my mom came home with the N64 bundle that had the expansion pak and Dk64. Definitely one of the weirder gaming stories I have.
Well its a bit more complicated then people would like to believe. For example,they had to lower the resolution for conquers bad fur day to a very low resolution in order to avoid using it. If you try to make a new scene in ocarina of time that is rather large, the object memory can quickly become too low. Allocating more memory and using 8mb can easily remedy this issue. It is interesting none of these videos touch on Majoras Mask which would most certainly crash without the extra memory.
You couldn't even play mm without it. I tried it before and it doesn't load
Another great video! Thanks! Yup perfect dark was the reason for me - outside of that there were only a handful of experiences that i remember making use of the addditional memory I seem to remember it only giving a slight resolution boost in certain titles like Hybrid Heaven.
Great job and thanks for clearing up the DK 64 myth. The Expansion Pak was my console upgrade. I love playing Rogue Squadron with the increased visuals. For me the Expansion Pak was a must and I felt it unleashed the full protentional of the system.
I'm glad you mentioned Gauntlet Legends as I loved that game & being able to play with four players made it so much better.
Yeah, that was a really great game. Man, I'm getting massive nostalgia in this comment section. N64 was king of multiplayer games with friends.
What a great video! Such a clear and concise explanation of the N64 Expansion Pak! Haven’t played my N64 since my Sony CRT died, but I’m looking forward to the Analogue 64, and more of your videos, so I’m subscribing! Now let’s see what other goodies you have to show me . . .
The explanation of memory leaks was amazing, thank you!!
I agree - the jump from the Super Nintendo to 64 was the most amazing in gaming history. I was 11 in 1997 when the N64 was released in the UK, and as I had spent my childhood on the Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and Mega Drive, the leap to 3D was huge for me.
3 years after the Playstation though
@@richy69ify And worth the wait.
I bought this for Majora's Mask and paid to have Toys R Us "install it" because I was a literal child and didn't know better.
Great video! I appreciate your knowledge. I had no idea you were from Australia. Thank you for all that you do.
My second favorite game was Perfect Dark. After a link to the past for the snes. Excellent video, really happy that there is more coverage in the myth of the DK64 game breaking bug, there is a fair amount of content in youtube about how the expansion pack was the chosen option to ship the game for the deadline.
As someone who has recently joined the Donkey Kong 64 community. They are recompiling the Kiosk demo beta in its full form. They already did pick up on the dynamic lighting a long time ago.
Now just in general the Expansion pak was a massive flop but without it some life changing games for some wouldn’t have been playable.
Thanks for this video too as I just bought an Expansion pak an N64!
I wish more games used the expak like Quake 2, also thanks for dispelling the DK64 memory leak bug myth
Rush 2049 is the only game I owned that needed it, and the expansion pack drastically improved the gameplay experience with additional audio, dynamic track elements, and the obstacle course mode
Rush is a certified hood classic. My brother and I still play it sometimes.
Rush 2049 one my top ten all time Hood Classic no lie
Very good video, and I'm glad you've focused on DK64 too. It's annoying how rumors spread like this and I knew something was going very wrong when I saw people calling the devs at Rare "lazy" over this supposed bug that they "didn't bother to fix". Yes, forcing the game to be released bundled with an expansion pak near the end of the N64's lifetime and putting the game's sales in jeopardy that way was the "lazy" option. Incredible.
So thanks for this video!
It sounds silly when it added only 4MB, but that was also doubling the console's RAM from 4 to 8MB. That's pretty significant. Imagine if they released an add on that doubled the RAM of recent consoles - you'd be seeing games going absolutely nuts with what they could do.
my first PC only had 4MB of RAM, and in order to play DOOM i had to reboot it into a special "non-TSR" mode because it didn't have enough RAM to handle it otherwise. I got an upgrade from my uncle that added an extra 4MB, and after that, I never had to touch non-TSR mode again! For kid me, it was magical.
I would kill for something like that for my laptop, but that stuff is expensive as all get out.
ehh, most games are more limited by cpu/gpu cores/clocks than ram these days
In the old days of the Atari 2600 and other consoles they put the extra memory chips on the cartridge and did bank-switching to swap in and out the extra memory. Very clever.
Perfect dark is still one of my all time favorite fps games. Way ahead of its time and sadly most goldeneye lovers never even discovered perfect dark and thats just a shame, it was so good. Good story, good levels, good challenges, so much to do and different difficulties. I swear this game was massively underrated
Underrated? Not in my town or corner of the Internet.
Perfect dark was way ahead of Goldeneye it showed reloads and they talked. There was also being able to get out of the menu and go do other stuff. The main issue was it didn't come out til 2000 which was pretty late for the 64
Thanks for this video, really interesting to know about the exact impact of the expansion pack.
your B-roll footage is giving me Nostalgia
I was just about to roast you for not mentioning my favorite N64 game that made A LOT of use of the Expansion Pak, San Francisco Rush 2049! 😂 Fortunately you ended the vid with footage and I was glad to see it. SF Rush 2049 adds new cars, full music tracks, additional sound effects, and even a new race track with the pak. Full experience for sure!
I agree with you on the feeling of going from SNES to N64 feeling like a giant leap in gaming. I remember seeing Mario 64 for the first time and I dont think anything ever came close to that except when I saw sonic adventure on dreamcast. awesome video!
N64 to GameCube was massive.
I like how at the beginning you mention what a huge leap it was to go from SNES to N64. It was amazing to go from 2D games to Mario 64. I think it was the last console that really wowed me with the graphics. Although Shenmue on the Dreamcast was pretty amazing but after that the graphics just got slightly better each generation. There has never been as huge of a jump as there was from SNES to N64. I realize the Playstation came out in 1995 but I had never played one when I got my N64 for Christmas 1996. I actually got the PS1 after the N64. And as for things like the 3DO and Jaguar I didn't even really know they existed at the time. I went straight from Inspector Gadget on SNES to Super Mario 64. I can remember that I had rented a couple SNES games from the video store that used to be in Wal-Mart and one I had when I got my N64 was Inspector Gadget. I remember being amazed by the N64 but also a little sad in a way. It sounds weird but I thought that it was kind of sad that the SNES was basically done for and I wouldn't play it anymore since I had an N64. That ended up not being true and even to this day I play more SNES than N64.
nah, the cleaner/crisper framerate in 6th gen consoles is also something to be wowed at. I love N64, but I much prefer 6th gen or later for most racers like san fracisco rush.
Majora's Mask was when I was introduced to the expansion pack luckily the guy at the store told my mother who purchased it for Christmas in 2000 that it was needed to play it
I can remember waiting almost a full year after release to finally get to play it and it is still my Favorite Zelda to date
Your best video in a long time. A little coding, some cool retro tech, and a great delivery.
One vote here for Donkey Kong 64. Played it on release (it’s how I got the expansion pack), and it’s great.
Megadrive to Saturn was my generational leap. Dreamcast was incredible but felt like a 'fixing' and polish up of the restrictions of gen1 3d.
I remember being sick as hell as a kid when I got Majora's Mask for my birthday. I got home, put in the cartridge, started up the N64 and sat down, bundled up because I had the chills... and I got the expansion pack warning because I didn't have one. I was so defeated I just went to sleep.
2:12 LEMMINGS WAS AWESOME IT DROVE MY LITTLE BRAIN INSANE 10/10
Wow, fascinating. I think the Expansion Pak made a big difference in Rayman 2. That game also looks amazing for its time.
It actually had progressive scan hi-res mode i think.
I didn't know there was a version of the DK64 rumor where it was called a memory leak since the only solution to a memory leak is to stop it from leaking. I've always heard it as just "a bug" but Neato to know the expansion helped more with lighting.
There is another method, but I've only heard of it being used on the original Xbox. It's possible to reset some devices without interrupting the loading screens.
Donkey Kong 64 was my favorite game on the N64. It revolutionized what a game could be and was challenging
I remember being blown away by the transition between the SNES and the N64 when I was a kid. Seeing Mario and Zelda in 3D blew my mind.
I remember getting DK64 for Christmas from my grandparents in 1999, my siblings and I played it a ton (even the multiplayer!) and had a great time with it. Even though it's not perfect it still brought us a lot of joy, and I have fond memories of it. We also played World Is Not Enough a lot (instead of GoldenEye for some reason? idk) so I'm glad to hear the expansion pak was helping with that game as well!
1999 was peak humanity.
Honestly, to me the early 00’s up to ‘07 felt like an expansion of the 90’s
30 years later, Nintendo hardware continues to show what developers could be doing if they had a little more memory.
Ingenuity*
Developers today have plenty of memory to work with.
true, only problem is that N64 still has massive drawback which is the used of cartiges which 3rd party hated.
@@joeyreidelbach5509 Meh. It was both a pro and a con.
Good video, my favorite N64 Expansion Pak trivia is that Space Station Silicon Valley cannot use the Expansion Pak because the game crashes in certain areas without a Jumper Pak.
1:49 I grew up with PC Engine, I was very familiar with memory upgrades, and many games on the CD Rom library took advantage of the various expansions very very well
Coming up next video: "We're gonna talk about Yuzu Emulator..."
Perfect dark having bots in multiplayer made for infinite replay ability. build teams with different outfits and difficulty and just go at it in SP or MP
5:15 this was excellent, I never truly understood exactly what this term really meant at the core, I knew it was runaway, but your simple explanation just made it so much clearer and easier for me to understand. I thank you. That said, all it would take is a simple additional code instruction set to automatically free up like 95% percent of ram used by said instruction after it gets to a "such and such" value. I do enjoy my chaos - seeing debris, tire tracks, pieces of zombies etc. 😅 left on the field when I play games, and having a well set code to keep this stuff on the field without letting it cause unnecessary issues would be fantastic.
That's not how it works. A memory leak is a result of sloppy programming when a function requests additional long term memory for "doing the thing", but never gives it back. When memory is requested, the system gives a RAM address for the size requested that is currently unused. Functions normally send the RAM address to the system to give up the extra memory when no longer needed. Let's stay every time you press the jump button, there is a function with jump that calls for an extra 2 bytes. 1st time you jump, the system hands out 2 bytes of RAM, 2nd time you jump the system hands out another 2 bytes of RAM. What happened to the first 2 bytes of RAM though? It's lost/unaccounted for/leaked. The program isn't tracking it/doesn't have the address anymore, and cannot give it back, the system knows the 2 bytes were asked for and will only free it if it's been given up.
Real world example: You need to sign paperwork, so you ask me for a pen. You don't return the pen and instead you lose it every time. You have to sign something else, so you ask me for another pen. Eventually I run out of pens for you and everyone at the office, you can't return the pens I gave you, no one can get extra pens, and now you and anyone that needs an extra pen can no longer get work done. This is like a memory leak.
Games should have limits on debris and decals/markings creation like: Bodies disappear after 10 seconds/when you look away, only 100 bullet holes can exist at any time. Excessive objects/decals isn't a memory leak, as it is still accounted for. It's just a performance issue with physics or graphically drawing it, unable to maintain the standard framerate.
@@JohnDoe11VIII get what you are saying and I meant my above statement only as an example that I have a further understanding of the general concept. It seems strange to me how things like the debris and bullet holes seem to always be so limited, like how come we can't create general code that can allow that stuff to remain as for example written to the hdd or save file over time, and only allowing the option for a wipe of, for example 50% of said debris over time after the file becomes too big? In some games such as Skyrim and Fallout 4, they seem to be able to do this at least to some extent, because bodies can still be on the ground for like 30 or so in game days. I wish more games could do this, because it would definitely make for more interesting gameplay across the board in my opinion. I appreciate your detailed explanation of a memory leak, because its something that was not so easily understood, at least to me. I may not fully understand it, but I have a better concept now thanks to the video here and you adding to my understanding. Thanks!!!
Thx for making vid about this quite interesting enhancement gadget.
Oh man, the things I learned from this video. When I was a young pup, I didn't know what framerate was, so I wouldn't have noticed any drawbacks in that regard. I just stuck the expansion card in and went on with my life, enjoyed the upgraded resolution and textures, and that was it. Crazy to find out about this years after the last time I ever had the system hooked up.
Awesome Vid!
Thank You very much for Your Work! Greetings from Germany
you left a big title out and that was Star Wars Rogue Squadron, was an awesome game and it definitely looked better after putting in an expansion pak
As a Sega owner who has to have all the pointless upgrades for a tiny percent upgrade to color or sound, yes the memory pak was needed. OH also you should have covered Rouge Squadron and Pod Racer and Battle for Naboo. They all used the expansion pak to do things with no downside like adding an animated R2 unit and the thrust exhaust animated from your ship, better lighting and shadows.
I never had the EP, and I always had the curiosity of what this beauty can do! My favorite game on the system is Turok 2 Seeds of Evil, played for hours!
Turok 2 sucked with the expansion pack or if you left Lo-res(aka performance) mode. At the start on the Port of Adia, if you are in Hi-res mode, the water looks much better with the higher textures and display resolution, but the framerate drops to like half and is painfully noticeable in even non combat areas. There was also a widescreen mode option with the pack. The framerate was already terrible in Lo-res with complex areas, spots like Hive of the Mantids queen chambers were one of the worst at maybe 1-5fps (not an exaggeration).
@@JohnDoe11VII, it's a shame that none video on UA-cam can really show the differences between the low and high resolution mode for this and other N64 games! but, it's also lucky we have Turok 2 on Pc, that can run on gigher resolutions (and even more with DGVoodoo wraper!) without a fps drop...
"SWEET NUTRIENTS!"
It also helped with Subzero Mythologies. Which is one of my favorite all time games.
Thanks for debunking the DK64 memory leak rumor! I genuinely thought that was real. N64 remains my favorite console after all these years. My original unit from 1997 still runs great!
Interesting watch, I also liked the backstory of the DVD player dongle on the original Xbox ;-) It was a software license key to facilitate the dvd player software to actually work.
I got the expansion pak for Star Wars Racer - and then a few months later, DK64 was released and included an expansion pak. My parents, who had given me both the expansion pak and DK64 as gifts, were livid that DK64 wasn't available without an expansion pak, because they had already bought one a few months earlier. I think in the end the shop took back that pak (it was half the price of a regular game, and DK64 was a third more expensive than a regular game as well, so I get it - they weren't rich). I remember SW Racer looking absolutely amazing, although it strangely became very difficult to control (in hindsight: it was the framerate tanking), and then DK64 blew me away. Perfect Dark, Majora's Mask, all of these games definitely made it worth owning an expansion pak. I do remember being disappointed that not every game benefited from the added memory though; the frame drops in the final Ganondorf fight in OoT were still present. Ah well, you can't win 'em all!
It blows me away that some of my favorite games ever, needed their available memory doubled to what is only 1/12800th of what I play with now only 25 years later.
You play with ~100 gigabytes ram?
@@RaniaIsAwesome
128. And in another 25 years, that number will probably be insignificant too.
I always love your videos. I learned so much with all your explanations. My N64 game is Banjo ! Mario pathed the way, Rare pushed it outstandingly upper ! But UltraG was good too even with the fog😅
There's definitely something to the DK64 memory leak. When I played on Wii U virtual console I always used save states and eventually reached a point where the game would keep freezing/crashing and the only way to fix it was to do a regular save and quit. Once I did a regular save and quit (clearing the memory presumably) it started working again. That was quite a few hours into playing though, I took my time playing and collecting everything and I was on the level with the day/night mechanic (last regular level I think, don't remember the level name), so probably more than 20 hours in. Speedrunners are going to reset the console and clear the memory, or whatever the issue is, long before any issues come up. If it's not a memory leak then it could be something with the play time calculation or RNG that goes out of bounds after a certain period of time. Of course it's also possible that the bug wasn't fixed by the expansion pack and that the reasons for the pack are exactly what you mentioned (and perhaps extending some memory value so it would be unlikely to overflow).
Other than that great video as always.
Turok 2 looks incredible with the expansion, I remember that many times I couldn't play DK64 because I didn't have the expansion.
My parents had a N64 but dad already had they expansion pack always in and we never experienced that infamous DK64 bug. Always loved playing pen and ink mode on Turok though!
I remember getting perfect dark. I realized I couldn't play the campaign cause I didn't have the memory expansion pack, so I immediately asked my dad to get one. 2 weeks later, I could finally enjoy perfect dark to the fullest extent. Still love the Farsight xr20. I will sing that gun's praise til the day I die.
Hey love the Video. The n64 has been such a big part of my childhood and teen years. It is hard to classify only one game as my favorite . But relating to the subject at hand, one game game does come to mind. Please give Hybrid Heaven a try, its a hidden gem of a game. Hi-res mode this game makes it look fantastic but has a common issue like the others when in this mode. The low res mode is probably the way to play it. But yeah have a look at this game, it truly deserve just one video about it.
Oh my god. For twenty years, I didn’t know Perfect Dark had a campaign. No wonder my brother’s friend just gave me the game cartridge.😆
My friends and I played that multiplayer till the day my 64 died though.
Thank you MVG for clearing up a 20 year old mystery for me. 😅
N64 will always be known in my life time, for Wrestlemania 2000. The endless Power bombs and Pedigrees, we college students could not get enough! Thank you for this video Modern, great work as always!
I remember when I bought Perfect Dark a friend had 2 expansion packs for some reason and just gave me one.
Didn't even remember Majora's Mask needed it.
It's still in my N64 in a box somewhere.
I'm gonna quibble a bit about Gauntlet Legends being a pretty faithful port of the arcade game. I consider it a better than faithful port of the arcade game, even if it does have the least graphical fidelity of any of the console ports. If I remember correctly, neither the arcade nor any of the other ports allow you to deactivate powerups when collected. They're strictly a use-as-collected type thing, whereas the N64 version not only allows you to save powerups until you want to use them, but buy them in the shop to take into later levels as desired (if I'm remembering incorrectly about other versions, I never figured out how to do it, and I have spent a decent amount of time with the Dreamcast version).
It's one of my favorite games for the N64 and finding out how much more it could do than other versions makes it even more special to me.
Cool video! Another interesting thing is theoretically. the N64 Memory Map can allow for a maximum of 16MB RDRAM. A few years back a friend of mine in the N64 scene actually made a 12MB expansion pack to see if the max 16MB would work out of the box, but sadly the hardware capped it at 8MB. A Hardware modification was required to get all 16MB recognized, but I wonder why Nintendo chose to cap it at 8MB! Also along the same lines, the N64 Memory Map allows for the largest Cartridge Size to be 240MB (256MB-16MB), this does work out of the box on Hardware & some flash carts like the 64 Drive V2 allow homebrew to be made with this max cart size. As we only saw a maximum 64MB cart get released in retail, would have been amazing to see some games utilize almost 4 times as much ROM for a game!! (Also there is only 1 game on the N64 I know about that can use that extra RDRAM >8MB, Star Craft 64)
Probably had something to do with that disk add on that never happened
i loved many many N64 games, and we did have the expansion pack, it was ight LOL but Harvest Moon 64 Is probably what got most of my time as a kid lol. Great Video! 👏🏻🙌🏻
Same, I use to rent that game from my local movie store everytime I had money when I was kid and play for hours best farming sim to date imo, I wonder if the expansion pack enhanced that game at all
Thanks Sir for this great topic. Much appreciated. Cheers.
Ah, I've been waiting for this video for a long time
I remember playing Command & Conquer on the N64 and that also had the Expansion Pack option to enhance the graphics, which I liked. I also remember playing Rogue Squadron with it.
Great video, wish you would have mentioned Rogue Squadron, it really felt like a different game with it.
I recently saw a video showing that you can actually play Switch carts on the N64 using the expansion slot! So cool!
My two favorite games were majoras mask and perfect dark. So glad I found them all used again.
i remember playing aidyn chronicles the first mage before i had an expansion pack and it felt sluggish at times but once we got the expansion pack the game felt so much smoother. one of the few rpgs on n64 i really enjoyed especially the customization for leveling your characters.
I got DK64 when I got my N64 so I never expected an of my games without the expansion pack. I didn’t realize how my this improved my gaming experience. As a kid I didn’t think twice about this important piece of hardware.
The expansion pak is indeed a great addition to the system, same as how computers often came/come with two ram slots with the idea of upgrading the ram later when it becomes less expensive. I think the idea of the expansion pak being pointless are just fantasies by fanboys of other systems wishing Nintendo had done some messup like Sega did so many of.
Love all your explanation videos.. great work! was a big N64 fan back in the 90s.. like you i grew up with Mega Drive and Snes consoles and got super hyped with the jump to N64.. i avoided the whole playstation generation as i was a massive Nintendo fanboy.
in the amiga 500 the expansion pack was a huge game changer
you could play like a 1000 more games