Can it be true?

[novac]

Apparently a memory upgrade will not be needed to play larger games on the Z64.
Don't believe me? http://www.interesting-devices.com/discuss

http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/smile.gif

[RedboX]

For the lazy...


>Hello
>
>There will be no need for a memory upgrade on the z64 to play the larger games.
>The developers are using virtual memory technology in the bios to enable you to play the larger games.
>
>This is good news for all you Z64 owners as there will be nothing more than a Bios upgrade needed.
>
>Regards
>
>Justin (Sysop)
>Interesting Devices Ltd


I dont think this is going to be possible, knowing how fast you can load data off a IDE zip drive, it dont really compare to the speed data comes off ROM across the n64's ROMBUS...

but I could be wrong..

I'd be very supprised tho...

[Baba]

What i want to know is if the backup devices plan on adding new Flash Ram chips for saving. And also, when is the other units going to upgrade to 512? Im sort of surprised that flash ram chips havent happened yet especially since the the jr came out with a 512mb upgrade. I mean we dont even have 512mb games here in the US yet but we do have flash ram games. Does anybody know?

[jb0395]

Whoah, yyyeeessss. Now the only problem is Flash-ram. Z64 is the greatest.

[_kid]

It's completely impossible. Even if the speed was not an issue
(whereas it IS, for the PI bus does not have a "generate waitstate"
linne) the Z64 would need a "memory access detection" device like a
MMU and this MMU should be linked to the PI bus in some not very
obvious way...

[actraiser_old]

Yes, the z64-engineer already stated some weeks ago he had something like that in mind, still i doubt this is possible with all games to run fluently.

Anyways, we will see ...

-act

[just64bits]

yes, it would need MMU but 386 already has the unit inside. what Z64 needs would be something like a more advanced OS (than Caldera DOS 7) or something like a memory device driver (such as Phar-Lap extender) to handle demand paging (and/or memory compression in real-time. though it would be sloooow due to 386 speed and ZIP)

this could be transparent to N64.

sorry I have almost 0 knowledge in N64 internals so I am just speaking from OS point of view...

[_kid]

> yes, it would need MMU but 386 already has the unit inside. what Z64
> needs would be something like a more advanced OS (than Caldera DOS
> 7) or something like a memory device driver (such as Phar-Lap
> extender) to handle demand paging (and/or memory compression in
> real-time. though it would be sloooow due to 386 speed and
> ZIP)

First the "virtual cartridge" is *NOT* memory mapped in the 386
address space.
Second even if it was, the 386 MMU would be only able to monitor the
access made by 386, which is useless. The MMU-like device should
monitor PI accesses; the Z64 does not have such a hardware; besides
the PI bus does not allow the device to HALT the host during data
access, so you could't even "freeze" the N64 while loading. For this
reason I strongly doubt that a Mr.Backup hardware designer ever said
something about these tecniques...

[Gyro]

If they can use virtual memory to store the games, why wouldn't they be able to do the same with the Flash-Ram?



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"Where'd you get the coconuts?"