N64 Flashcart Menu

An open source menu for N64 flashcarts.

Current (notable) menu features

• Fully Open Source.
• Loads all known N64 games (including iQue and Aleck64 ROMs (even if they are byteswapped)).
• Fully emulates the 64DD and loads 64DD disks (SummerCart64 only).
• Emulator support (NES, SNES, GB, GBC) ROMs.
• N64 ROM box image support.
• Background image (PNG) support.
• Comprehensive ROM save database (including HomeBrew headers).
• Comprehensive ROM information display.
• Real Time Clock support.
• Music playback (MP3).

Video showcase (as of Oct 12 2023)

Aims

• Support as many N64 FlashCarts as possible.
• Be open source, using permissive licensed third party licensed libraries.
• Be testable, using unit and smoke tests in ares emulated environment.
• Encourage active development from community members and N64 FlashCart owners.
• Support as many common mods and features as possible.

Getting started

Using your PC, insert the SD card and ensure it is formatted for compatibility (We recommend FAT32 in most instances).

ROM Boxart

To use boxart, you need to place png files of size 158x112 in the folder /menu/boxart on the SD card. Each file must be named according to the 2 letter ROM ID, or 3 letter ROM ID including media type. i.e. for GoldenEye 2 letters, this would be GE.png. i.e. for GoldenEye 3 letters, this would be NGE.png. A known set of PNG files using 2 letter ID's can be downloaded here.

Emulator support

Emulators should be added to the /menu/emulators directory on the SD card.

Menu currently supports the following emulators and associated ROM file names:

• NES: neon64v2 by hcs64 - neon64bu.rom
• SNES: sodium64 by Hydr8gon - sodium64.z64
• Game Boy / GB Color: gb64 by lambertjamesd - gb.v64 / gbc.v64
• Sega Master System / Sega Game Gear / Sg1000: TotalSMS - TotalSMS.z64 (Currently broken)

SC64 Specific

• Ensure the cart has the latest firmware installed.
• Download the latest sc64menu.n64 file from the releases page, then put it in the root directory of your SD card.

64DD disk support

For the ability to load and run 64DD disk images, you need to add the folder /menu/64ddipl on the SD card. Download and add the relevant ipl files and rename them before adding them to the folder:

• NDDE0.n64 the US Prototype IPL can be downloaded from here
• NDXJ0.n64 the JPN Development IPL can be downloaded from here
• NDDJ2.n64 the JPN Retail IPL can be downloaded from here

Note: to load an expansion disk (e.g. F-Zero X) browse to the N64 ROM and load it (but not start it) and then browse to the DD expansion file and press the R button.

64drive Specific

• Ensure the cart has the latest firmware installed.
• Download the latest menu.bin file from the releases page, then put it in the root directory of your SD card.

ED64 & ED64P Specific

Currently not supported, but work is in progress (See PR's).

The aim is to replace Altra64 and ED64-UnofficialOS.

Developer documentation

You can use a dev container in VSCode to ease development.

To deploy:

SC64

• Download the deployer here
• Extract and place sc64deployer.exe in the tools/sc64 directory.

Make sure that your firmware is compatible (currently v2.17.0+) See: here

From the devcontainer

It is not currently possible to directly communicate with USB devices. BUT, as a work around you can use a proxy TCP/IP connection Set up a proxy: open a terminal window, cd ./tools/sc64 and then ./sc64deployer.exe server

Then in the dev container, use make run or make run-debug

From your host (Windows) OS

• Run ./localdeploy.bat from the terminal

Toggle the N64 power switch to load the ROM.

ms-vscode.makefile-tools will help (installed automatically in dev container). TODO: it does not yet work with F5: see https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/now-announcing-makefile-support-in-visual-studio-code/ WORKAROUND: in the dev container terminal, use make directly, i.e.: make The ROM can be found in the output directory.

NOTE: a "release" version of the SC64 menu is called sc64menu.n64 and can be created for when you want to add it directly to the SDCard. This is generated by running make all or running make sc64.

Others

• Add the required file to the correct folder on your SD card.

GDB in devcontainer

Note: only supported on flashcarts with USB functionality

( via WSL )

In your WSL instance, to install the necessary drivers and udev rules, run the command:

    wget https://github.com/buu342/N64-UNFLoader/releases/download/v2.1/UNFLoader-Linux-x64.zip && \
    unzip UNFLoader-Linux-x64.zip -d /usr/local/unfloader && \
    yes Y | . /usr/local/unfloader/installer_linux.sh
    rm -rf /usr/local/unfloader/

In Windows run PowerShell as Administrator.

• install usbipd: winget install usbipd.
• run usbipd list and note the bus id for the flashcart.
• run usbipd wsl attach --busid <busid>.

When the devcontainer is started, run:

• gdb-multiarch and then set architecture to confirm support for GDB on mips:4300
• lsusb and ls /dev/tty* to confirm the flashcart is mounted in the container.

Add launch.json to .vscode folder

Via Windows

It is not currently possible to directly communicate with USB devices. BUT, as a work around you can use a proxy TCP/IP connection

• Download UNFLoader here
• Extract and place UNFLoader.exe in the tools/unfLoader directory.
• Set up a proxy: open a terminal window, cd ./tools/unfLoader and then ./UNFLoader -g

Add a launch.json file to .vscode folder TBD: add content.

Update Libdragon submodule

This repo currently uses the unstable branch as a submodule at a specific commit. To update to the latest version, use git submodule update --remote from the terminal.

Generate documentation

Run doxygen from the dev container terminal. Make sure you fix the warnings before creating a PR! Generated documentation is located in output/docs folder.

Open source software and licenses used

• libdragon (UNLICENSE License)
• libspng (BSD 2-Clause License)
• mini.c (BSD 2-Clause License)
• minimp3 (CC0 1.0 Universal)
• miniz (MIT License)