The N64 will quickly flip 30, but hackers and homebrew builders are nonetheless discovering out new issues concerning the {hardware} – and one esteemed member of that neighborhood, Kaze Emanuar, simply dropped a bombshell: the N64 has entry to extra RAM than we beforehand thought.
It’s lengthy been believed that Nintendo’s 64-bit console has entry to 4MB of RAM, with a further 4MB being delivered through the Expansion Pak. However, as Kaze Emanuar explains within the wonderful video beneath, there’s truly an additional 0.5MB of obtainable RAM from each sources – giving the machine a theoretical complete of 9MB.
Where does this further reminiscence come from? Well, it will possibly all be traced again to Silicon Graphics, the corporate which designed the N64 {hardware}.
The console has 4.5MB of RAM linked utilizing a 9-bit information bus – with the ninth bit reserved for the GPU. Anything apart from the GPU solely has entry to 4MB of RAM – except you’ll find some {hardware} quirks, which Emanuar explains within the video.
Only one recreation truly makes use of this ninth bit successfully, and that is Zelda: Majora’s Mask for its “Lens of Truth” impact. One of the the explanation why it wasn’t used all that a lot is the sheer effort required to extract what’s, on paper, a somewhat small quantity of additional reminiscence (we cannot try to faux we perceive all of this utterly, nevertheless, so make sure to watch the video’s extremely detailed and informative middle-section for the entire image).
Could this further reminiscence have been utilized in, say, Donkey Kong 64 to keep away from the usage of the Expansion Pak? Kaze Emanuar’s analysis means that it would not have made a dent within the quantity of reminiscence required to run Rare’s 3D title, which is already utilizing over 7MB of the console’s out there RAM.
The different difficulty, shifting ahead, is that modern-day builders who make use of this further reminiscence are limiting their potential viewers, because it at present solely works on precise N64 {hardware} – even probably the most correct N64 emulator can’t replicate this characteristic.
It stays to be seen if the FPGA-based Analogue 64 will enable for this workaround, however within the meantime, this little hack is unique to actual N64 consoles.
