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They should have released a Nintendo 64 Plus sometime before the release of the Gamecube that would have doubled its RAM to provide hi-res textures.

TAForObvReasons 6y ago
64DD was an expansion to the 64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64DD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64DD . It was a commercial flop
- echelon 6y ago
  It may have done better if Nintendo didn't take so long to develop and release it. I bought one on eBay, and it's a quirky device. It's essentially a glorified floppy drive with proprietary disks, and it makes loud, albeit amusing scanning noises. Every Nintendo console prior to the Wii had some sort of "expansion" or upgrade capability for future peripherals to be added. Hardware revisions took the place of this model.
- Sevaris 6y ago
  Man, it sounds like it was in development hell. I wish we could get somebody to talk about what it was like developing the 64DD and what problems they ran into. Probably won't ever happen, but I can dream.
- lumberingjack 6y ago
  We called it 64 cd we where kids so we where waiting every day for a n64 cd kit
duskwuff 6y ago
That... doesn't work. The games which were released for the N64 were all designed to run within the limits of the hardware. Adding more memory later wouldn't give existing games higher resolution textures. Plus, adding more texture memory would have meant respinning the RCP silicon. That would have been a significant expense for marginal returns. Besides, Nintendo had already sold a memory upgrade in the form of the Expansion Pak. A second memory upgrade which couldn't even be installed into existing consoles would have been a very difficult sell, and could have soured customers on their future consoles. ("Why buy a Game Cube when they'll just release a Game Cube Plus next year?")
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  It only works today because devs can update games post release and there is enough speed to use abstracted libraries rather than designing a game to the letter of the spec sheet
jerrysievert 6y ago
they technically did. the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expans... raised main memory from 4mb to 8mb. it was required for one of the Zelda games, but also helped with graphics for some games if it was inserted. seemed to be a decent success.
- opencl 6y ago
  DK64 required the expansion pak due to a bug (it was intended to work in either 4MB or 8MB modes and they couldn't fix a crashing bug in the 4MB version) and then Rare spent an obscene amount of money shipping an expansion pak with every copy of the game. That was probably responsible for a large fraction of the units shipped, with most of the rest accounted for by Zelda (which did not include the pak even though it was required).
  - rlanday 6y ago
    The truth of this claim is disputed: https://www.reddit.com/r/n64/comments/ft63zn/dk64_memory_leak/ https://www.reddit.com/r/n64/comments/ft63zn/dk64_memory_lea... The lead artist claims they’d always been planning to make use of it. There’s compelling evidence of a memory leak or similar issue since the released version of the game apparently crashes if you leave it running for some amount of time over 10 hours (which wasn’t usually a problem in practice except for very long speedruns until it was released on Wii U Virtual Console and people started using save states which don’t reset the timer the same way as turning the game off and on does).
    - monocasa 6y ago
      I've heard the the lead programmer confirm it, and I trust him more than the lead artist. I _think_ it was on the documentary clips shipped with Rare Replay, but I'm not 100% on that.
lumberingjack 6y ago
they made a Expansion Pak allows 8MB of RAM. I just replaced mine it was bad I couldn't play perfect Dark with out it
deleted 6y ago
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robdachshund 6y ago
They released the expansion pack which doubled the rdram and allowed for 480i
deleted 6y ago
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TAForObvReasons 6y ago

64DD was an expansion to the 64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64DD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64DD . It was a commercial flop

echelon 6y ago
It may have done better if Nintendo didn't take so long to develop and release it. I bought one on eBay, and it's a quirky device. It's essentially a glorified floppy drive with proprietary disks, and it makes loud, albeit amusing scanning noises. Every Nintendo console prior to the Wii had some sort of "expansion" or upgrade capability for future peripherals to be added. Hardware revisions took the place of this model.
Sevaris 6y ago
Man, it sounds like it was in development hell. I wish we could get somebody to talk about what it was like developing the 64DD and what problems they ran into. Probably won't ever happen, but I can dream.
lumberingjack 6y ago
We called it 64 cd we where kids so we where waiting every day for a n64 cd kit

duskwuff 6y ago

That... doesn't work. The games which were released for the N64 were all designed to run within the limits of the hardware. Adding more memory later wouldn't give existing games higher resolution textures. Plus, adding more texture memory would have meant respinning the RCP silicon. That would have been a significant expense for marginal returns. Besides, Nintendo had already sold a memory upgrade in the form of the Expansion Pak. A second memory upgrade which couldn't even be installed into existing consoles would have been a very difficult sell, and could have soured customers on their future consoles. ("Why buy a Game Cube when they'll just release a Game Cube Plus next year?")

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
It only works today because devs can update games post release and there is enough speed to use abstracted libraries rather than designing a game to the letter of the spec sheet

jerrysievert 6y ago

they technically did. the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expans... raised main memory from 4mb to 8mb. it was required for one of the Zelda games, but also helped with graphics for some games if it was inserted. seemed to be a decent success.

opencl 6y ago
DK64 required the expansion pak due to a bug (it was intended to work in either 4MB or 8MB modes and they couldn't fix a crashing bug in the 4MB version) and then Rare spent an obscene amount of money shipping an expansion pak with every copy of the game. That was probably responsible for a large fraction of the units shipped, with most of the rest accounted for by Zelda (which did not include the pak even though it was required).
- rlanday 6y ago
  The truth of this claim is disputed: https://www.reddit.com/r/n64/comments/ft63zn/dk64_memory_leak/ https://www.reddit.com/r/n64/comments/ft63zn/dk64_memory_lea... The lead artist claims they’d always been planning to make use of it. There’s compelling evidence of a memory leak or similar issue since the released version of the game apparently crashes if you leave it running for some amount of time over 10 hours (which wasn’t usually a problem in practice except for very long speedruns until it was released on Wii U Virtual Console and people started using save states which don’t reset the timer the same way as turning the game off and on does).
  - monocasa 6y ago
    I've heard the the lead programmer confirm it, and I trust him more than the lead artist. I _think_ it was on the documentary clips shipped with Rare Replay, but I'm not 100% on that.

lumberingjack 6y ago

they made a Expansion Pak allows 8MB of RAM. I just replaced mine it was bad I couldn't play perfect Dark with out it

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

robdachshund 6y ago

They released the expansion pack which doubled the rdram and allowed for 480i

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]