Universal N64 flashcart menu for wide variety of devices
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Robin Jones 70675d085c
Minor improvements for maintainability (#77)
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## Description
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* Update SC64 F/W version.
* Update build actions.
* Improve credits (use my name rather than twitter pseudonym).
* Improve function name for bool conversion.
* Use arg for SC64 tools version in dockerfile.

## Motivation and Context
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Improves code maintainability.

## How Has This Been Tested?
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Works on my local devcontainer, cart and fork.

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## Types of changes
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- [x] Improvement (non-breaking change that adds a new feature)
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- [ ] Breaking change (breaking change)
- [x] Config and build (change in the configuration and build system,
has no impact on code or features)

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Signed-off-by: GITHUB_USER <GITHUB_USER_EMAIL>
2023-12-22 20:50:54 +00:00
.devcontainer Minor improvements for maintainability (#77) 2023-12-22 20:50:54 +00:00
.github Minor improvements for maintainability (#77) 2023-12-22 20:50:54 +00:00
assets Moved assets to the DragonFS 2023-12-08 19:49:50 +01:00
libdragon@6323128d72 Updated libdragon 2023-12-19 18:17:55 +01:00
src Minor improvements for maintainability (#77) 2023-12-22 20:50:54 +00:00
tools/sc64 Moved assets to the DragonFS 2023-12-08 19:49:50 +01:00
.gitattributes Mark src/libs folder as vendored code 2023-07-26 12:43:18 +02:00
.gitignore Moved assets to the DragonFS 2023-12-08 19:49:50 +01:00
.gitmodules Suppress dirty submodules in VSCode (#38) 2023-08-09 20:49:10 +02:00
Doxyfile Simplified build action + ROM stripping fix + Makefile fix 2023-08-05 01:37:09 +02:00
localdeploy.bat Added USB debug commands handling + file_get_sectors refactor 2023-09-04 21:09:46 +02:00
Makefile Add settings viewer (#23) 2023-12-17 21:47:56 +01:00
README.md Minor improvements for maintainability (#77) 2023-12-22 20:50:54 +00:00
remotedeploy.sh Added USB debug commands handling + file_get_sectors refactor 2023-09-04 21:09:46 +02:00

Build

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)

N64FlashcartMenu Showcase

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)

Menu Settings

The Menu creates a config.ini file in sd:/menu/ which contains various settings that are used by the menu. Currently these are read-only (can be viewed in the menu by pressing L on the Joypad). If required, you can manually adjust the file on the SD card using your computer.

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 v2.18.0+) 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.

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 and auto published to the gh-pages branch when merged with main.

Once merged, they can be viewed here

Open source software and licenses used