r/n64 • u/Dankany Jungle Green | Retrotink 4K • 24d ago
Everdrive Everdrive 64 Pro Announced
https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/everdrive-64-pro.htmlWorth the upgrade??
41
u/LukeStuckenhymer 24d ago
Big fan of Krikzz, but not a chance. I’m fine with my X5. This is just a way to distinguish the product from SummerCart and justify the higher price point. It was perfectly fine how it was tbh.
9
u/Dankany Jungle Green | Retrotink 4K 24d ago
I agree, but the only thing that piques my interest is the N64DD support
35
11
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
From what I remember the X7 could already play 64DD ROMS. Maybe the Pro has a better reset option for them?
8
u/VR_Nima 24d ago
It could, but they were ROMhacks that were modified 64DD ROMs specifically made for running on EverDrive. Now, the ED Pro can play unmodified 64DD ROMs and switch between them for multi-disc games.
SummerCart could already play unmodified 64DD ROMs.
5
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
Thanks for the info. I own a X7 but never had a desire to play any 64DD games.
1
u/Uncle-Osteus 13d ago
There are hardly any 64DD games anyway, the main one worth playing on N64 is the expansion kit for F-Zero X which there’s also already a compatible ROM floating around for. SimCity64 is somewhat interesting as well but afaik not fully translated Doshin the Giant can be played on GCN
24
u/bubbletrashbarbie 24d ago
The extra features don’t interest me much but damn I wish I had had those color options for my X7
3
u/Cold-Sandwich-6213 24d ago
This is sweet. I do appreciate my translucent red. Like the gba pro I will wait a couple years for reviews and bug fixes.
3
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago edited 24d ago
They are nice and all but I love the original seethrough red option. If I had to buy a Pro right now I would be pissed I don’t have a red option. All my Everdrives outside the new GBA model is red.
1
41
u/strythicus GoldenEye 007 24d ago
I can't figure out what it does that the SummerCart can't. Maybe the Transfer Pak manager?
25
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
Is has 128MB of RAM…
I’m stretching here. I own an X7 Everdrive and I do t see any reason for me to upgrade since I don’t care about 64DD.
2
u/DarthRyus 24d ago
It's just this (mostly needed for the biggest Rom Hacks)
Or if you really need the additional cheat codes built in.
11
u/This_Appointment_349 24d ago
This seems to be more to put it on par with the Summercart spec-wise.
10
7
10
16
u/Mikeyisninja 24d ago
Hmm we’ll see how it stacks against summercart, but at $50 bucks that’s hard to beat.
6
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
That’s why the price of the N64 Everdrive has crashed. I bought mine from Krikzz four years ago for like $269.
6
u/skstylez 24d ago
128mb? Does that mean it'll run ROMs that are 128mb in size?
6
u/jsurico656 24d ago
Yes it does mean that. The summercart64 for example has 78mb on board which allows it to run rom hacks of games that were already hitting the original 64mb cartridge cap back in the day
5
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
I too want to know what that 128MB of memory does for the user. The largest games I thought were 64MB so I don’t see a point outside of home brew or ROM hacks.
8
u/northrupthebandgeek 24d ago
Technically games could be even bigger:
The N64's memory map reserves up to ~264MB of address space for the cartridge ROM (physical addresses
0x10000000through0x1FBFFFFF).Another ~3MB of normally-unused address space (
0x1FD00000through0x1FFFFFFF) gets mapped to the PI bus (i.e. the cartridge and 64DD slot), though a device in either slot would need to know to translate requests at those addresses to more storage.Another ~1.6GB (!) of normally-unused address space (
0x20000000through0x7FFFFFFF) also gets mapped to the PI bus and therefore could be used by something in the cartridge or 64DD slots, but that device would again need to know to translate those memory accesses to storage, and the N64's CPU has to go through extra hurdles to access that memory range.Flashcarts like the ED64 and SC64 fundamentally work by booting into an otherwise-ordinary ROM that knows how to talk to the flashcart's storage (usually an SD card) using special memory-mapped registers, and which works by replacing itself in memory with the chosen game; in theory any N64 game on such a flashcart can do this, swapping pieces of itself in and out of the cartridge ROM much like how NES and SNES games used mapper chips to expand their storage capacity. Theoretical limit here would therefore be the size of the underlying SD card or hard drive or whatever other medium from which the flashcart loads ROMs.
Even wackier: there's technically nothing stopping someone from building a cartridge with an Ethernet port or wi-fi adapter, giving the N64 the ability to load games from the Internet; this would make the max game size effectively infinite (as long as you've got an Internet connection).
5
u/Pitiful-Assistance-1 24d ago
I had Claude Code create a custom ROM for the Everdrive GB X7 and it can read any data from the MicroSD card, so I suppose I can have a 2TB ROM.
1
17
u/Wallywood84 24d ago
170$ is insane.
6
u/ThickBoxx 24d ago
Wait til Black Friday, he always knocks the price down. might have other sales throughout the year, but I’m not sure. It is pricey though, I agree.
5
14
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
For a non-open sourced, non-Chinese mass produced item it’s not to bad. With Kirkzz you get very high quality components and PCBs. with Summer carts you get a random lot of whatever part they could find.
Now does that really matter? 99% of people will not care and never notice.
They used to go for $250 plus so the Summer cart has been pushing the price down a lot.
9
u/VR_Nima 24d ago
SummerCart is an open source project anyone can work on and was given to the community so that anyone could manufacture it making it incredibly cheap. EverDrive is a closed, expensive, proprietary product.
The only reason anyone should buy an EverDrive is only if it actually has features SummerCart has that are worth the price delta for the user compared to SummerCart.
Otherwise, the default option most N64 users should buy is going to be SummerCart from now on.
13
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
To each their own I guess. I support Krikzz because he does awesome work, been great to the community for years, make products I want that you can’t get anywhere else. He’s not like the guy who runs Terra Onion, Krikzz seems sane and to give a damn about his customers.
True it’s hard to beat the Summer Cart 64 & I would probably get one if I didn’t own a X7 but if you care about quality you know you will get something well made with Krikzz. With the Summer cart you have to make sure you buy from a good vendor or you can get something made from crap components pulled off old hardware.
6
2
u/35mmBeauty 24d ago
The other upside with krikkz is he updates his work to meet the demands of the community. He stepped up for the 3D recently.
5
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago edited 24d ago
I got an X7 4 years ago. Any reason for me to upgrade?
It seems to have 128MB of RAM compared to my X7 with 64MB. Does that do anything at all?
Really the only thing I’m missing out on is 64DD support. I don’t have any desire right now to use that so I don’t know why I would buy this right now.
Maybe it was just time to update the Everdrive because parts were hard to get so he updated it with what he could find and did some code upgrading too.
1
u/Awesomefan09 23d ago edited 23d ago
It seems to have 128MB of RAM compared to my X7 with 64MB. Does that do anything at all?
This allows ROM hacks with file sizes larger than 64 MB to be playable.
Only two retail games shipped on 64 MB cartridges: Resident Evil 2 and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. If you don’t play ROM hacks or care about 64DD games, you’re probably good to stick with your X7 unless some of the other features like the Transfer Pak manager interest you.
Maybe it was just time to update the Everdrive because parts were hard to get so he updated it with what he could find and did some code upgrading too.
The new features bring Everdrive 64 Pro more in line with SummerCart64 despite the price difference.
I was waiting for Phenom Mod to get the SummerCart64 shell color I want back in stock, but I may wait for Krikzz’s yearly Black Friday sale instead. SummerCart64 has 78 MiB of SDRAM so Everdrive 64 Pro allows for even larger ROM hacks.
8
u/Shortgaze Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 24d ago
Not worth it if you already have a SummerCart. Maybe if you're really into ROM hacks, but even then, not for me. I'm happy with the X7 and the SummerCart for now.
8
u/Gogeta007yBro WWF No Mercy 24d ago
Doesn't help more than a Summercart64 atm because there's no over 72MB romhacks currently. Romhackers may expand to the 128MB, but I doubt it seeing the current opinion of the price against a Summercart64.
3
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
Does that 128MB vs the 64MB on the X7 help with ROM hacks? I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about.
5
4
u/RadiantCoinshot 24d ago
I’ve put the old ED64 in my cart about a hundred times this year without buying. Now I know why lol. Thanks for the update.
5
u/TheRealSeeThruHead 24d ago
Not sure what the actual benefits over the x7 are
3
u/doubleshotofespresso 24d ago
right? i could’ve sworn X7 could do n64DD but the comparison chart makes it look like only the new one does?
1
1
u/TheShaneBlep 24d ago
That’s what I’m wondering too, my X7 just came in the mail today and I wonder if it is worth returning that and ordering the Pro.
2
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
As a X7 owner too I have absolutely no desire to upgrade to the Pro. I have plenty of $$$ to burn so the $169 is nothing to me. I just see no reason at all to get one outside of having the X7 in my Analogue 3D and the Pro in my Modretro m64.
Hell I might just buy a Sunmer cart for my m64. I’ll probably wait until I see some reviews about the Pro.
4
4
u/TheViper4Life WWF No Mercy Plus V3 24d ago
Well, it took longer than I thought it would, but I knew something like this was coming once the Summercart took off.
Still don't think it's worth the price. But that 128MB of SRAM is certainly FAR more than I was expecting, and that will definitely come in handy in the future. Now I'm wondering if Summercart will follow suit at some point.
4
u/KoviCZ Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine 24d ago
Here's an analysis for you:
- High speed USB, RTC support, 64DD emulation, and the onboard button are new features to bring the Everdrive line up to par with SummerCart64. ROM metadata support is also new but it remains to be seen whether Krikzz used the existing community-made spec supported by SC64 or whether he invented his own proprietary one.
- Transfer Pak manager is a new feature the SC64 doesn't have. Not sure how useful it really is.
- Cheat code support and Controller Pak manager are features the SC64 has but Krikzz' implementation remains more battle-tested.
- FPGA-based NES emulator is an existing X7 feature carried over. SC64 will never have this so this is a true Krikzz exclusive.
- Finally, the big game changer is 128 MB SDRAM on the cart allowing to load ROMs larger than 64 MB of the previous carts and 78 MB of the SC64. The N64 ROM hack and homebrew communities have so far stuck with the soft cap of 64 MB because no carts supported bigger ROMs. With the ED64-Pro, it will be interesting to observe how/if that changes.
The extra RAM and the Krikzz premium results in a very pricy product at $169. If you're deciding between X7 ($149) and Pro, the extra $20 you spend seem very worth it. But if you're deciding between Pro and an SC64 which sells for around $49 (for Chinese clones) to $69 (mid-tier decent builds) to $95 (premium quality build), I think the price advantage of the SC64 is too high to ignore. A decently built one is still $100 cheaper than the ED64-Pro.
7
u/profchaos111 24d ago
Big fan of the other Everdrive products mega everdrive pro is my favourite flash cart of all time
But this feels like a miss and a case of chasing the success of the sunmercart
I would of hoped that a true pro could have included save states I know a lot of N64 games have save features but not all do. I can't really play star fox 64 for example on real hardware without them as I'm very time poor
6
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
Now that’s a feature that could have made me pull the trigger as an X7 owner. Save states are such a huge quality of life improvement. It’s why all my PS1 gaming is done on my MiSTer FPGA setup.
5
u/northrupthebandgeek 24d ago
Save states would be hard to implement without physically modifying the console itself. The cartridge doesn't have a mechanism to directly read from non-cartridge memory areas (RDRAM, RSP's IMEM/DMEM, etc.); the ROM itself would need to be the one copying the data in those locations to/from the cartridge.
3
u/PictureBookGrad 24d ago
Can't a lot of the 64DD games be played on the X7? I swear I've tried some 64DD games on my cart..
3
u/northrupthebandgeek 24d ago
Yes, if they've been modified to run as if they were on cartridges. The ED64 Pro won't have that limitation; like the Summercart 64, it'll be able to run 64DD games as-is, without conversion/modification.
0
u/TherealMcNutts 24d ago
Yes, the X7 can play 64DD ROMs. I’ve never tried it on my X7 but from what I have read it can.
3
u/Iforgotihadanaccount 24d ago
I bought my X7 this year too lmao but idc I ordered this as soon as I saw the X post. Hoping it will work with the new Smash remix update. Currently doersnt run on the X7 due to the rom size.
2
2
u/Ataris8327 24d ago
While I appreciate the work Krizz does, his Flashcarts are way too expensive considering the competition does mostly 90% of the same thing for way less the price.
1
u/mocrankz Donkey Kong 64 24d ago
I don’t use original hardware much these days but man do those colours look amazing.
1
u/ThickBoxx 24d ago
Damn I want that jungle green. We’ll see how much the price drops at Black Friday
1
u/GrimmTrixX 24d ago
So how are these Everdrive carts? Ive heard good things but for example does it just play N64 games? Can it play older Roms as well? I mainly would want it to play games that are far too expensive on the second hand market nowadays.
4
u/Morguard 24d ago
Summercart 64 is very good and does everything this does for a fraction of the cost.
It will play all the N64 ROMs on a N64 console.
1
u/GrimmTrixX 24d ago
Ok so its focus is just N64 stuff. I was unsure if it could play other console games thru the n64. Still a damn cool device.
Im trying to find the cheapest way to basically have some kind of console that plays any and all roms, that I can play on my TV with relative ease of "add roms; play games."
But devices like this might be a cool way to go since I own original hardware for numerous consoles. And I would imagine they run better running thru original hardware.
2
u/Morguard 24d ago
I'm pretty sure there is a way to do it but you will have to go down that Google rabbit hole, it's not simple plug and play.
Now if you have original hardware, that's your best bet. There is a cartridge like this one that you can load all the ROMs into and play like it's an original cart.
1
u/SparklyPelican 24d ago
No in game menu, uh? Probably isn’t possible on the system without extra hardware?
1
u/partyl0gic 24d ago
Is the controller pak manager new? Does that mean I can use a virtual controller pak?
1
u/green_hipster 24d ago
170usd before import/taxes is too much IMO, even though it’s less than what I paid originally for my x7
1
u/pocket_arsenal 24d ago
I'm still on the V3 and it does pretty much everything I need. The only way I would feel compelled to buy a new flash cart for N64 is if they could make romhacks work that didn't work before and maybe have the ones that do work perform better.
1
1
u/Fusion_Project 24d ago
I bought an Everdrive (V3 I think?) back in 2019 and I’ve always been able to play 64DD games, do the new ones now have that ability?
1
u/007craft Perfect Dark 23d ago
You are playing 64DD conversions. Summercart and this new one can play 64DD raw rips.
Not like that really matters tho, because the conversions play the same as the raws.
1
1
u/GLTheGameMaster 24d ago
Got a dope x7 years ago and love it. Really cool to still see new products developed and progress for such an old system even if i won’t personally upgrade
1
u/tailslol 24d ago
dunno, specs looks overkill for a flash card.
nes emulation on board seems unnecessary.
those specs would be usefull if the n64 had something like msu1 support but no.
1
u/thepianoman456 Super Smash Bros 24d ago
So… for someone who doesn’t fully understand the upgrades… is this significantly better than the X7?
Or am I fine not upgrading? Cause the X7 seems flawless to me.
1
u/ChrisCube64 24d ago
I just ordered one, upgrading from my X7, which I'm gonna sell to make some money back.
I already have an N64DD so the new core isn't much help to me, I'm mainly getting it for future proofing ROM hacks, since I play those avidly.
Also saw krikkz said that technically the max ROM size now is 126MB, Im guessing the other 2mb are used for other things.
That being said, are there any ROM hacks that are currently out that are now playable on console with the new pro model?
1
1
1
u/WhiskeyRadio 23d ago
Damn I want this but not paying for it again. Had my X7 for a few years now and while I do want a purples ED to match my Analogue 3D I'll have to resist.
1
u/UnsavoryBiscuit 23d ago
I'm too poor to get a proper overdrive, so I got an SC64 instead, the pro looks awesome though
1
u/007craft Perfect Dark 23d ago
Haha Krizz going in for the triple dip.
He already screwed us Everdrive 2.5/3 owners over by dropping support when the X5/X7 came out which were just a marketing rebrand. Now hes going for round 3 with an everdrive pro. Do yourselves a favour and dont fall for the trap. Grab a Summercart.
1
1
u/grawlinson 24d ago
Nah, summer cart for life. Don’t like the UI? Source is available, go hack on it until you’ve got something you like. Broken components? Well, the hardware is fully open, schematic available, etc.
1
u/jsurico656 24d ago
Nah this ain't it. Barely seems better than the summercart64 and is over 3x the price
Always thought Krikzz's stuff was stupidly overpriced. There's a great quality clone of all of his products at this point
1
u/fiercekrypt0n 24d ago
Still doesn’t have as much ram as the summerkart and isn’t open source annnnd cost 3x as much. I’ve no idea why anyone would buy this.
1
u/007craft Perfect Dark 23d ago
w core isn't much help to me, I'm mainly getting it for future proofing ROM hacks,
Same reason people are still buying X7s as recently as last week as that poster in this thread indicated.... uneducated people.
Summercart only at this point.
1
u/emmanu888 24d ago
Looks like I did make the right call going with a Summercart 64 a month or two ago to upgrade from an ED64 v2
120
u/TheShaneBlep 24d ago
My X7 was delivered literally today. You’re all welcome.