IDEA!

[Gordon1]

SO, as I'm sure you are all aware, there is two different revisions of the n64. The early models have two 2mb memory chips one the board and the later models have one 4mb memory chip without space for another. The expansion pak is another 4mb. So if you have the expansion pak in your using a total of 8mb of memory.

My Idea is to desolder the two memory chips off of an 1996/7 board and replace them with two 4mb chips either from a couple of newer boards or a couple of expansion paks. This will render the jumper pak/expansion pak port un needed (because the n64 goes through a memory check before anything starts).

Do you think this will work?

And please, if you are going to make a post like "you can rip traces off the PCB by doing that" I am fully aware of that and I can handle that. No attitude implied of you were wondering.

[eurddrue]

are you sure that the board could handle all of that? I mean, like, doesn't it have to recognize that there is an expansion or jumper pak in? you could just rewire the expansion pak using sifufs guide and it would basically be the same thing, I think.

[mothatrucka]

Someone with more experience correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the N64 designed to use ONLY the stock memory/expansion card? IIRC, although there are games that use the expansion memory, there isn't anything at all that will benefit from more memory than that. There's nothing at all to gain by trying to "max out" the memory because nothing's programed for that.

I believe you would still need to ground the certain pins of the pack slot to make the N64 think there's a pack in there. Considering Sifuf's wonderful guide, I don't understand why you wouldn't just relocate it.

[Gordon1]

are you sure that the board could handle all of that? I mean, like, doesn't it have to recognize that there is an expansion or jumper pak in? you could just rewire the expansion pak using sifufs guide and it would basically be the same thing, I think.

The n64 with the expansion pak installed has 8mb of memory. Adding two 4mb chips where there is the two 2mb packs would boost the system memory to 8mb, which is the same as the expansion pak setup, thus making no need for a expansion/ jumper pak. So, that way I don't have to even plug anything into the supplied expansion port.

Someone with more experience correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the N64 designed to use ONLY the stock memory/expansion card? IIRC, although there are games that use the expansion memory, there isn't anything at all that will benefit from more memory than that. There's nothing at all to gain by trying to "max out" the memory because nothing's programed for that.

I believe you would still need to ground the certain pins of the pack slot to make the N64 think there's a pack in there. Considering Sifuf's wonderful guide, I don't understand why you wouldn't just relocate it.

I am aware of the fact that there is no games designed to use 9+mb of memory, that is why I am only installing 8. The reason I want to do this, is because there is no relocating of anything.

This is the picture I took showing where all of the jumper/expansion pins go to, the only one I am not sure of goes to what looks like a smt inductor.


ALSO, with 8mb of memory installed on the chip, all you have to do is wire in the very few connections on the jumper pak on and, you have 8mb of ram with only 2 chips, thus making things even smaller that in sifuf's guide. You only need two heatsinks, which in theory will produce greater battery life because you are only powering 2 banks of memory.

Well that's what a jumper is used for, to jump pins. The two on-board RDRAM chips are linked together to form 4MB of RAM, and they are also set up to be linked to whatever is plugged into the RAM expansion port. The jumper pack simply has no RAM, and in short; loops back to the original RAM signifying that there was indeed no memory appended.

So, in my case there would be 8mb of on board RAM.

[eurddrue]

omfg! jesus christ you never answered my question. I asked if it would recognize it without the expansion pak because you would need some amazing skills to make it recognize that there is 8mb stock memory instead of 4mb stock, and 4mb expansion. You are pretty lazy if you don't want to move your hand 5 ft. to the left or right, stand up, open up the cover, use the supplied tool to pull out the jumper pak, and push down on the expansion pak.
If you are modding your n64 for a portable yes it may boost your battery life and it may be a little smaller than using sifufs guide, but to rewire the mother board to recognize would add a lot more wires, I believe.

[mothatrucka]

I am aware of the fact that there is no games designed to use 9+mb of memory, that is why I am only installing 8. The reason I want to do this, is because there is no relocating of anything.

This is the picture I took showing where all of the jumper/expansion pins go to, the only one I am not sure of goes to what looks like a smt inductor.

ALSO, with 8mb of memory installed on the chip, all you have to do is wire in the very few connections on the jumper pak on and, you have 8mb of ram with only 2 chips, thus making things even smaller that in sifuf's guide. You only need two heatsinks, which in theory will produce greater battery life because you are only powering 2 banks of memory.

So, in my case there would be 8mb of on board RAM.

]



So... rather than relocate the relatively few wires of the jumper/expansion pack, you're going to replace two surface-mounted blocks of memory? With, as you say, "no relocating of anything"?
Excuse me while I laugh my @$$ off in the corner.

In addition, I guess I didn't make myself clear in the above post. What's the processor going to think when it finds twice as much RAM in one place as it thinks their should be? Seriously, what happens to your computer when you have larger RAM blocks on your memory than your computer's designed to handle? Is your theoretical gain of draw even worth any of the risks? Sure doesn't sound like it.



Whoops. Guess I wasn't done laughing. Excuse me again.

[Gordon1]

omfg! jesus christ you never answered my question. I asked if it would recognize it without the expansion pak because you would need some amazing skills to make it recognize that there is 8mb stock memory instead of 4mb stock, and 4mb expansion. You are pretty lazy if you don't want to move your hand 5 ft. to the left or right, stand up, open up the cover, use the supplied tool to pull out the jumper pak, and push down on the expansion pak.
If you are modding your n64 for a portable yes it may boost your battery life and it may be a little smaller than using sifufs guide, but to rewire the mother board to recognize would add a lot more wires, I believe.

Umm, calm down please. No. 1, it is for a portable. What kind of idiot would relocate the expansion pak on a home console. Also, what kind of home console runs off batteries? If you looked at my picture you would have noticed that most of the pins for the expansion memory go to the exact same traces one the main board with the other RAM chips. then to think is has a jumper pak there is only like 20 or so easy connections to make.

So... rather than relocate the relatively few wires of the jumper/expansion pack, you're going to replace two surface-mounted blocks of memory? With, as you say, "no relocating of anything"?
Excuse me while I laugh my @$$ off in the corner.

In addition, I guess I didn't make myself clear in the above post. What's the processor going to think when it finds twice as much RAM in one place as it thinks their should be? Seriously, what happens to your computer when you have larger RAM blocks on your memory than your computer's designed to handle? Is your theoretical gain of draw even worth any of the risks? Sure doesn't sound like it.

Whoops. Guess I wasn't done laughing. Excuse me again.

I am not relocating anything, I am rather replacing two components. as for the processor, it know there is 8mb when the expansion pak is in, what is the difference? (serious question). The n64 is designed to handle 8mb of RAM, I have made that very clear in both of my posts. also you say "in one place" well, if you looked at my picture, the expansion memory actually goes to the exact same cpu pins as the stock memory.



so, all I see that I have to do is add those few componets that are on the jumper pak and I have a 8mb n64 with very little work.

When I say very little work, I don't consider hot air soldering very hard.

[mothatrucka]

Look, I answered your question you asked in the first post: "Do you think this will work?"

Politely, no, I don't. I have no interest in continuing to argue with you about this, so in short, put up or shut up if you don't like the answer I gave.

[timmeh87]

There have been threads on this. The games wouldn't use the extra ram anyways. So no one has bothered to try it.

[HazmatB]

Memory
The N64 has a whole 4 megabytes of Rambus RDRAM memory. Yes, the same kind of overpriced memory that hit PCs years later. This stuff was unfortunately the fastest stuff Nintendo had to design with. Anyway, the capacity is 36MBits. Why not 32MBits? Because there is an extra bit on each byte for parity. This allows Rambus to make memory cheaper by lowering their specs, because the extra parity bit is an error-prevention measure.
Later on, Nintendo released a plug-in memory module, called the Expansion Pak, boosting the total capacity to 8MB or 72Mbits. Taking advantage of this memory isn't hard, its memory space is mapped right next to the first 4 megabytes. The N64 OS has a function for checking for its existence, it's called osGetMemSize. The first 4MB are mapped to 0x80000000 - 0x803fffff.

Unfortunately this means that games for the N64 are programmed to not take advantage of more RAM if it is not in the expansion pack.

P.s. Grow up and stop bickering, it doesn't achieve anything.

P.s.s. What timmeh said (heh, had this reply open for a long time before I actually wrote it ).

[marshallh]

It looks like most people aren't even "getting" the idea that Gordon1 has. He's not adding extra memory, just going to the 8mb limit. I think it's possible in theory, and also possible in practice. The tricky part would be finding the handful of traces that need to be cut/rewired to match the RDRAM bank configuration.

Here's the RDRAM datasheet:
http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datashe ... 718C50.pdf

Seems to use a packet-based protocol rather than direct-access. It's possible that one could simply transplant the chips and have the new capacities detected during the initial memory chain startup. But it's more likely that each board revision with the 1 or 2 chip memories has a pull-up resistor or grounded pin on the RCP to indicate the bank configuration.

[bacteria]

Gordon1 - interesting idea you have; how about this one - is there a way to bypass the jumper pack altogether, as the jumper pack doesn't add any memory but just completes the circuit? It just means using games which don't use the expansion pack, but that isn't a problem.

[HazmatB]

I'm not sure weather that is what Gordon1 is proposing. My point was that simply wiring up larger RAM to the point on the board where the current RAM is, won't work.

Will the N64 OS be smart enough to detect larger RAM? And if so, will the games take advantage of that?

Maybe you would have to trick the OS into thinking that the expansion pack is in, because I the OS does treat the RAM as contiguous does it not?

[Gordon1]

@mothatrucka
umm, ok then. Be an @$$ about my discussion.


@timmeh87

WOW, thank you. In the thread Electric Rain described exactly what I plan on doing, replacing the two 2mb with 2 4mb to achieve 8mb. The only potential problem with this is that a jumper pack (well, at least the circuit is still needed) but many thanks for telling me that.

@Marshallh
EXACTLY, I am not attempting to add memory, just create the effects of the expansion pak through the use of 2 4mb chips in place of the 2 2mb one. Really, the data sheet means nothing to me, WAYY over my head. (although, it did confirm my suspicion of the 4 pin on the opposite side have nothing to do with the actual circuit itself).

@HazmatB

what the hell? what is you definition of bickering?

Anyway, you say "My point was that simply wiring up larger RAM to the point on the board where the current RAM is, won't work. Since this is what I have proposed, could you please explain why you don't think this will work?

In theory the OS should realize that there is 8mb there cause the expansion pak uses pretty much the exact same pins anyway.

@Bacteria

I understand what you are saying, but the way I see it, the j-pak is still needed, since the 8mb of memory are just on the given spaces, there is still that part of the circuit that needs to be used.





I think I just need to find a exp-pak and start doing some probing.

Does anyone have any good scans or pics of the expansion pak pcb. I would really like to venture further into this.

Also, will a game that only uses 4mb of ram still work with the expansion pak in? it may sound dumb, but I don't know if it will.

[HazmatB]

@HazmatB

what the hell? what is your[sic] definition of bickering?

I just thought eurddrue, mothatrucka, and you were not communicating well, and being quite childish with your comments. I suppose that is just my opinion though.

Anyway, you say "My point was that simply wiring up larger RAM to the point on the board where the current RAM is, won't work. Since this is what I have proposed, could you please explain why you don't think this will work?

This may not work because as marshallh said: "you will have to adjust the traces to match the RDRAM bank configuration". However I don't know for sure, but it seems unlikely to me that they would be that seemless.

It would be a very cool hack if this worked, and would solve a lot of the problems which having to include the expansion pack in a portable causes.

Edit: Also, is there any way to find out how the OS discovers the quantity of RAM? Does it simply check the presence of the expansion pack, or is it smarter than this? If it isn't you will have to also trick the OS into thinking an exp pack is in.