MiSTer FPGA N64 Core Updates! Conker Freezing Fixed with a Patch
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the creator discusses the development of a patch for the Nintendo 64 game 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' to eliminate freezing issues on the Mr. FJ console. The patch, developed by 'rule set', utilizes the memory expansion pack to provide additional RAM, preventing memory allocation errors that caused crashes. The video invites viewers to test the patch on Mr. Discord or Twitter, aiming to ensure a stable, uncrashable experience, bringing the community closer to a fully playable N64 library on Mr. FJ.
Takeaways
- 🕹️ The video discusses the Mr FJ d10 Nano project's progress on making the game 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' run smoothly without freezes on the platform.
- 🔍 The creator has been researching memory address allocation issues to achieve a freeze-free condition for the game on Mr FJ.
- 🎉 A patch for the retail version of 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' has been developed that prevents freezing on both turbo and stock cores.
- 🤓 The patch was developed by a Discord member named 'rule set', who found a simpler solution than the creator's initial plan.
- 💡 The solution involves using the memory expansion pack to provide the game with additional RAM, ensuring there's always free space for memory allocation.
- 📚 The creator had been working on rewriting parts of the game for better sequential memory address allocation but found 'rule set's approach more efficient.
- 🐝 A specific game scenario involving Mrs. B's Hive and Hornets was a common cause of freezes, which the patch successfully addressed.
- 📊 Crash data from the debug prototype version helped identify issues related to memory mapping and allocation.
- 🛠️ The patched version of 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' has been tested and found stable on the standard Nintendo 64 core.
- 📝 The patch does not alter gameplay or content, only the memory structure to prevent crashes.
- 🔗 The creator invites the community to test the patch and report any lingering issues, emphasizing the collaborative effort in achieving this result.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video?
-The main focus of the video is to introduce a patch for the retail version of the game 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' that prevents freezing issues on the Mr. FJ d10 Nano project, both on turbo and stock cores.
What was the initial approach to solving the freezing issue in the game?
-The initial approach involved researching memory address allocation issues and rewriting parts of the game to ensure sequential memory address allocation with free blocks depending on the game's progress.
Who is 'rule set' and what did they contribute to the project?
-'rule set' is a member of Mr. Discord who simplified the solution by adding access to the memory expansion pack, ensuring the game points towards free RAM in the additional four-megabyte block.
What specific game scenario was known to cause a freeze on the standard Nintendo 64 core?
-The specific scenario known to cause a freeze was when Mrs. B's Hive was brought back and the Hornets tried to recover it.
How did the creator test the patched version of 'Conker's Bad Fur Day'?
-The creator tested the patched version on the normal Nintendo 64 core and was unable to reproduce the freeze condition that occurred in the unpatched version.
What was the role of the crash Handler in the debug prototype version from October 2?
-The crash Handler provided valuable data and insights into the memory mapping issues that were causing the game to crash.
What was the creator's original idea for addressing the memory allocation issue?
-The creator's original idea was to rewrite parts of the game to change how it writes to the initial 4 megabytes of RAM, considering the use of the RAM expansion pack later on.
How does the patch change the memory structure of the game?
-The patch changes the memory structure by allocating the game's memory usage to an additional 4 megabytes of RAM that the game wouldn't normally access, thus preventing conflicts with occupied memory spaces.
What was the second area in the game that was almost guaranteed to cause a crash?
-The second area that was almost guaranteed to cause a crash was when the player hit a gargoyle with a frying pan.
What is the expected outcome of applying the patch on the retail release of 'Conker's Bad Fur Day'?
-The expected outcome is that the game will be stable and uncrashable on both the normal and turbo cores, with no differences in gameplay or content from the original game.
How can viewers contribute to the testing of the patch?
-Viewers can contribute to the testing by joining Mr. Discord or contacting the creator on Twitter to get the patch file and then play through 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' to check for any lingering crashes.
What is the creator's motivation for working on this project?
-The creator's motivation is a dislike for the word 'no' and a desire to tackle a challenging project that goes beyond their usual area of expertise in hardware modding and arcade board development.
Outlines
🎮 Conquering Conker's Bad Fur Day Freeze Issues
The video discusses the ongoing project to address memory allocation issues in the game 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' for the Mr. FJ console. The creator has been working on a patch to prevent game freezes on both the turbo and stock cores. The initial approach involved changing memory addressing to ensure contiguous free memory. However, a community member named 'rule set' simplified the solution by enabling access to the memory expansion pack, effectively allocating an additional 4MB of RAM that the game wasn't originally designed to use. This change has been tested and has shown promising results in preventing the common freeze scenarios, such as Mrs. B's Hive level and the gargoyle frying pan incident. The patch is available for community testing and feedback, with the goal of achieving a fully playable version of the game on the Mr. FJ console.
🛠️ Patch Implementation and Testing Call to Action
The second paragraph continues the discussion on the 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' patch, emphasizing that the patch changes the memory structure without affecting gameplay or content. The video creator appreciates the collaborative effort in debugging and testing, which has led to a significant reduction in game crashes. The creator also reflects on their motivation to overcome the challenge of making the game fully playable on the Mr. FJ core, despite not being a software developer. They express excitement about the progress made and invite the community to test the patch on Mr. Discord and provide feedback. The ultimate goal is to add 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' to the list of games that run flawlessly on the Mr. FJ console, bringing the community closer to a complete, playable Nintendo 64 library.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Mr FJ
💡Conker's Bad Fur Day
💡Memory Address Allocation
💡Patch
💡Turbo Core
💡RAM Expansion Pack
💡Memory Mapper
💡Crash Handler
💡Discord
💡Rule Set
💡Testing
Highlights
Introduction of a patch for the retail version of 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' that eliminates freezing issues on both Turbo and stock cores.
Background work on memory address allocation to provide more contiguous free memory addresses, addressing frequent game freezes.
Collaboration with 'rule set' from Mr. Discord who simplified the solution by utilizing the memory expansion pack.
Explanation of how the game would freeze due to memory allocation issues when trying to read or write data.
Testing on the standard Nintendo 64 core showed no crashes in areas previously known to cause freezes.
The patch directs the game to use an additional 4MB of RAM, which was not originally intended for writing.
The memory mapping issue was identified as the primary cause of game crashes.
Data from the crash Handler in the debug prototype version was instrumental in understanding the problem.
The patch has not been fully tested and requires community involvement for further testing.
Instructions on how to access the patch through Mr. Discord or Twitter for those not on Discord.
The retail release of 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' will have no differences in gameplay or content post-patch.
The patch aims to achieve a completely playable Nintendo 64 library on Mr. FJ without game crashes.
The project's goal was to overcome the limitations of 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' on the core, driven by dissatisfaction with the word 'no'.
The importance of community collaboration in identifying and solving complex issues like memory allocation.
The simplicity of 'rule set's solution compared to the original, more complicated approach.
A call to action for the community to test the patch and help ensure 'Conker's Bad Fur Day' is fully functional on Mr. FJ.
The speaker's passion for research and problem-solving in the gaming community, extending beyond their usual hardware modding expertise.
A potential future project to apply similar research methods to 'Jet Force Gemini'.
Transcripts
hey everybody welcome back to video game
so ter continuing series on the Mr FJ
d10 Nano project more importantly today
conquering conquer if you haven't
noticed I've done a four-part series
researching all of the different memory
address allocation issues trying to get
conquer Bad Fur Day to a freeze free
condition so that everyone playing on Mr
fpj can play one of the best Nintendo 64
games of all time and I'm happy to tell
you today there is now a patch for the
retail version of conquer Bad Fur Day
that is not freezing on the turbo core
nor the stock core now this is something
that I was working on in the background
and my idea was that we could change
around the memory addressing so that we
had more free contiguous memory
addresses because every time this game
would freeze it would be down to a heat
memory allocation or other issues in the
memory address space where when it was
trying to read or write data it would
hit up against a block that had not yet
been freed now another member of Mr
Discord watched these videos he goes by
the name of rule set and he decided to
do things easier than I was thinking
about them my plan was to rewrite parts
of conquer that the memory address
allocation would be sequential and you
would always know that there would be
free blocks depending on what part of
the game you were playing I probably
started work on this about a week ago
and it would take me a few months based
upon the amount of stuff I have to do in
any given day and week all what rule set
did was go in and add access to the
memory expansion pack the ram expansion
so that the game is going to point
towards free Ram at that extra four
megabyte block so that you know there
couldn't possibly be anything occupying
it because the game was never intended
to write to that space in the first
place now one of the first earliest
tests where you could basically
guarantee a freeze if you were on the
normal cord not turbo was when you
brought back Mrs B's Hive and the
Hornets came to try to recover it on the
standard Nintendo 64 core 9 out of 10
times you would get a freeze condition
right here I just tested this on the
normal Nintendo 64 the release version
core and I was not able to crash it a
single time and that again crash was
always due to some issue in memory
mapping application where you would
either try to be reading or writing from
a specific address that was occupied or
allocated so the game basically couldn't
access the memory it needed to allocate
and it would Crash from there and we got
all this data from the crash Handler in
the debug prototype version from October
2 and you'll see there you have so many
different bits of information and all of
this information was super useful when I
was talking to rul set he said one of
the videos when I talked about disabling
some of the tlb things in the core led
him to start thinking about how he could
patch this out and try to get conquer
running at 8 megabytes now this has not
been 100% fully tested this is day Zero
stuff right here but I wanted to bring
it to you guys first because I need your
help in testing this we will have the
patch over on Mr Discord if you're not
on Discord you can find me on Twitter
and just ask for the patch file I will
send it over just not something I'm
going to have in the description of the
text it gets a little bit problematic
here but I tested this as much as I
could before I went to voice over to get
you guys the video because I need a
large body of people helping us play
through conquer Bad Fur Day to see if
there's any lingering crashes but in my
experience I went through the level
select I went to the areas that were
guaranteed crashes for me on the normal
non-turbo core and not a single time was
able to crash on any of those test runs
and again what I talked about in the
previous four videos when I was
researching conquer and having people
help me test and submit data was that
there was an issue in the ram allocation
and that pretty much every single crash
would come down to that memory mapper
trying to read or write from space it
didn't have access to and Conquer
badford they only ever used the initial
4 megabytes of RAM on the Nintendo 64
this was not an expansion pack game so
it would never actually looked for the
additional form megab now that that's
patched in and the address spacing is
allocated to right to that additional
higher 4 megab of ram you should never
run into a situation in which the game
tries to read or write from filled space
because it's now using an additional 4
megabytes of ram that it technically
wouldn't if you just plug the cartridge
into your Nintendo 64 and that was very
smart thinking on rule set side because
again I was trying to over complicate
things as I am prone to doing by
changing around how it would write to
the initial 4 megab of ram yes I thought
maybe we could bring something like the
ram expansion pack in but I was going to
save that later on just to see if it
could be patched up in my mind easier
but again I am a filmmaker for o living
not a developer or electric engineer so
I was probably just over complicating
things in my own head doing them how I
would have done them before the second
area that was almost a guaranteed crash
on the normal core was when you would
hit this gargoyle with a frying pan 9
out of 10 times and I would hit him with
the pan I would get an error there we'd
go into the crash Handler and again we
would see that the memory mapper said we
were out of space and I've shown you
guys those memory mappers in the
previous videos it's just a block of
data a little bit of a legend showing
you where you're trying to read and
write from again on this patched version
of conquer it does not freeze there
whatsoever and outside of the patch
changing how the memory structure works
this is the retail release of conquer
there will be absolutely no differences
in the gameplay or content it will be
the same conquer you all know love and
remember just now apparently without any
freezing whatsoever and I just
absolutely love that there is a laundry
list of people that helped me test when
I was gathering all of the data that I
did the previous four videos on it was
just my imagination or presumption that
something could be done in conquer
because once you use that prototype
debug ROM from October suddenly the
crashes went from over a dozen Plus in a
playthrough to under four so I knew
there was something within that version
of the game that was treating things
slightly differently than it would be on
the retail release game going through
all of the different cores going through
the crash handlers testing it on Aries
as well as real Nintendo 64 Hardware
with a flash cart we were able to find
out a lot of things about memory
addressing the largest free allocation
and the largest free block of memory and
it really did 100% just point towards an
issue when the game was trying to write
to certain addresses and trying to fix
stuff like this it really does take a
whole roster of people to get there I
love doing the research work I love
Gathering the data and I love poke at
things kind of like being an orchestra
where you have all the different
talented musicians around you because
there's somebody out there who's going
to look at something and think about it
slightly different than you and identify
an idea where they just think to
themselves I think if we just did this
it might work Ru set decided to try to
just force everything to write into that
additional 4 megabytes of RAM on the
expansion pack and now in the initial
testing again conqueror's Bad Fur Day
has been Rock Solid stable uncrashable
on the normal Nintendo 64 core and that
should definitely extend out to the
turbo core as well but like I said
earlier we need more eyes on this
because rule set can write additional
patches if there's any other situations
in which a crash is found but honestly
the reason I started this process in the
first place is I just don't like the
word no when we decided that conquer's
Bad Fur Day wasn't 100% playable on the
core that just kind of irritated me and
I thought to myself there must be
something I can do to try to help this
situation out I've been making so many
videos on Mister so many on the Nintendo
64 guides and tutorials but I wanted to
snc my teeth into a project that was
slightly harder and more difficult than
stuff I would usually do on the channel
because my area of expertise and
knowledge really comes in more of the
hardware modding developing things for
arcade boards and such I don't really
touch software all that much the last
thing I did was a demo disc for the 3dio
M2 that I released for free so I'm very
happy to be able to tell you that if you
pop over to Mr Discord today and grab
this patch and Patch the retail ROM you
should be able B to play conquer bad for
a day from start to finish on Mr fpj
with absolutely no crashes the exact way
you would play it on real hardware and
that should lower the list of games that
quote unquote don't play on the core by
one getting that much closer to a
completely playable Nintendo 64 library
from start to finish on Mr fpj because
there's not many games that don't work
but now conquer bad F day presumably can
be added to the list of games that
you'll have absolutely no problem with
and that to me just makes me so happy I
love stuff like that I love the fact
that this can be done I love the fact
that there's people out there willing to
help just because they want to to bring
everyone a great experience when it
comes to these sort of games and it's
just a really fun thing to do whether
it's for releasing games that never saw
the light of day for free to people to
enjoy or researching situations like
conquer Bad Fur Day anytime I can do
something like this I absolutely will
and once I get a little less tired of
looking at Nintendo 64 because I am very
tired of seeing these same scenes maybe
I'll pop over to Jet Force Gemini and
see what can be done there on the
research side of things but big thanks
to rule set for developing this patch
based on information you saw in the
videos and big thanks to rule set for
making it much simpler than my idea
which was probably needlessly
complicated it would have taken me
months to derive a single patch from but
short of that go over to Mr Discord grab
the patch start helping us test conquer
and hopefully we can say conquer's bad
for day conquer has been conquered see
you next time bye-bye
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