Partner V64, possibly undocumented Doctor V64 variant?
Hi all!
Thanks to an exellent tip off from my good friend fcgamer (as well as organising the entire exchange in Chinese for me!), I am now in possession of an item I've had on my dream collecting wishlist for a very long time: a Doctor V64!
As soon as I saw the pics, I knew what it was and that I HAD to have it. But, I was surprised to see the box the unit came in was branded Partner V64. This branding also extends to the manual, which is fully in Chinese, and there are also some stickers on the bottom of the unit in Chinese as well that do not appear on other pictures I have seen online.
Other than the box and manual, however, all the other branding on the system and accessories are Doctor V64, just like all other units. Another thing I noticed about this unit is that the buttons are white, whilst most of the picture I see online have dark grey buttons. I have, seen a few other pictures with white buttons, but not many.
So... What are we thinking here? Is this an undocumented variant of the system, intended for the local market here in Taiwan? Or has anyone actually seen this Partner V64 branding before at all? Either way, I'm very happy with this purchase, thanks again to my mate Dave for the find and hooking me up!
P.S. I would also be very much obliged to anyone who can point me in the direction of a website or some sort of simple guide how to get started actually using this thing. Ideally I want to use it to play ROMs with fan translations of Japanese games, and perhaps a Zelda or Goldeneye hack, if I can... I have no idea where to begin, lol!
Thanks to an exellent tip off from my good friend fcgamer (as well as organising the entire exchange in Chinese for me!), I am now in possession of an item I've had on my dream collecting wishlist for a very long time: a Doctor V64!
As soon as I saw the pics, I knew what it was and that I HAD to have it. But, I was surprised to see the box the unit came in was branded Partner V64. This branding also extends to the manual, which is fully in Chinese, and there are also some stickers on the bottom of the unit in Chinese as well that do not appear on other pictures I have seen online.
Other than the box and manual, however, all the other branding on the system and accessories are Doctor V64, just like all other units. Another thing I noticed about this unit is that the buttons are white, whilst most of the picture I see online have dark grey buttons. I have, seen a few other pictures with white buttons, but not many.
So... What are we thinking here? Is this an undocumented variant of the system, intended for the local market here in Taiwan? Or has anyone actually seen this Partner V64 branding before at all? Either way, I'm very happy with this purchase, thanks again to my mate Dave for the find and hooking me up!
P.S. I would also be very much obliged to anyone who can point me in the direction of a website or some sort of simple guide how to get started actually using this thing. Ideally I want to use it to play ROMs with fan translations of Japanese games, and perhaps a Zelda or Goldeneye hack, if I can... I have no idea where to begin, lol!
Comments
http://www.nintendo64ever.com/Accessory-Details,Doctor-V64,554,70.html
http://hexigon.blogspot.com/2012/05/bung-doctor-v64-cry-for-help.html
here a white unit sold some years ago
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=119624
if ac adapter is 100V, it's for taiwan, if 200V, it's for hong kong and export. my guess is that it is 100V and for use in taiwan, hence the chinese only box, manual, and sticker under the unit
also, additional serial on the shell (7000-something) which is not found on units with box labeled as Doctor, so i suppose those are units reserved for taiwan and other chinese speaking regions
and also again, products made by bung were actually named game partners in chinese, it seems they changed to game doctor for english export, so it makes sense a version for taiwan would use the original name
see here for example, they're called game partner https://attach.mobile01.com/attach/200904/mobile01-f514d9d5ac5ffbf766d04a52b1a4ea7d.jpg
and a video which is clearly from/for taiwan
(ive seen serials going up to 43000)
Yeah, the power supply is definitely 110v, even though it doesn't have ANY voltage information on it at all, which is a little disconcerting...
I wonder if the white button units are earlier models, or whether they are later, or maybe something else? Have you seen any of these units for sale in HK before? If so, are these branded as Partner V64 in HK too, or do they use the Doctor V64 packaging?
I'm really curious, because I can only find Doctor V64 images online, nothing with Partner V64 at all.
I guess Partner64 is when Doctor64 finally owns part of the practice.
rimshot
Anyway, that brick is very different from my Hong Kong and North American PSUs since it hangs off the wall instead of sitting in the floor. The unit my friend bought around '96 or '98 had dark buttons but the manual showed one with white buttons. I always thought the white button units look weird!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and theorize that the "Partner V64" name was meant to market it to devs as an alternative to Nintendo's own Partner64 but the name was too close and invited trouble. Believe it or not, but Bung was always mindful about this sort of thing. They tried to maintain the illusion that it was only intended as dev hardware by doing things like disabling the Backup option in their official BIOS releases (always re-enabled by the community by changing one single byte).
That probably means this is an early version. Early versions worked well with launch consoles but Nintendo slightly tweaked something with the shape of the port underneath the N64 and Bung was forced to revise the little adapter. Hopefully this will fit one of your consoles.
I also recall hearing about another "Partner" unit called a "Supercom Partner 64" but I really doubt that one was from Bung.
As for using it, does the disc drive still work? If so, that's going to be the easiest way since a PC with a compatible parallel port is hard to come by these days. I know some people disassembled their units and powered their CD-ROMs with a separate PSU since the Bung unit seemed to have trouble over time, especially with faster drives.
What BIOS does it say when you boot it up? Just plug composite into the output and you can check that. It doesn't need an N64 connected or anything.
There are two formats for N64 ROMs which are really the exact same except for the byte order. People refer to them as V64 and Z64 formats but they are really Big Endian and Little Endian. There are a ton of utilities that can convert the ROMs between formats. Heck, I think some emulators even did that (for auto-patching with IPS files). Just dump a bunch of games in the correct format onto a CD with appropriate filenames (might need short 8.3 filenames... I can't recall).
Actually, you may not even need to change the format since later V64 BIOS versions could byte-swap the ROM in memory. If it has an older BIOS I believe you can update using the disc but you may not have to if you don't need any of the fancy new features. You can still find the last "Backup Enabled" BIOS online but, these days, do you really need the backup function? It might be useful for dumping a prototype or something but getting every N64 game in one big download should be relatively simple.
I recall fitting nearly 80 ROMs on a my first CD-R so you won't feel too limited compared to an Everdrive. They load pretty fast from CD too, since it loads into RAM and doesn't have to flash anything.
Since you have UltraHDMI you won't have to patch NTSC to PAL but the tool people used to make the patches was called PALaddin. Normally the N64 Composite Video runs through the V64 and it auto-switches to the N64 when you power it up. It can overlay some text on the N64 screen or you can get back to the V64 by pressing something (probably Stop/Pause) while the N64 is being displayed. I think it toggles back and forth between the N64 and the V64. Even back then I didn't like the degraded audio and video when running it through like that so I always just switched between two inputs on the TV with the N64 connected directly, and that's kinda what you'll have to do with UltraHDMI plus V64's composite out.
If it fits your EXT port, here's how I'd typically do it for most games:
V64 to composite input
N64 to HDMI input
Set the N64 on the V64 with the port connector on the bottom
Plug in power to both
Power on the V64 and TV
Pop in the disc containing ROMs
Chose the option to load a ROM from disc
If it's a standard 6102 or 7101 game (with or without internal EEPROM for saving progress):
Load the game into the V64's DRAM
Insert a real 6102 or 7101 game with EEPROM into the Emulation Adapter and put that in the top of the console
Turn the console on
Switch to HDMI input
Alternatively you can use a game without EEPROM if the game you want to play doesn't require it but it's easiest to stick to one 6102/7101 EEPROM bootcart for all 6102/7101 games. Another alternative is to use a non-EEPROM 6102/7101 game with a Bung DX256 SuperSaver but you may need to modify it to work without the Emulation Adapter (some were sold for use with original games and not backups). A game like Mario 64, Cruis'n' USA, or Goldeneye 007 works well as a 6102/7101 EEPROM boot cart.
For games that use other boot/save types (generally later 1st/2nd party games), it gets a little more complicated. Thanks to something called a "Universal Boot Emulator" there are a few recommended boot carts for playing the vast majority of games. A cheap game like WCW vs nWo Revenge (6102/7101 SRAM) could be used to boot virtually any 610x/710x SRAM game, like F-Zero X, Smash Bros, or Ocarina of Time. A cheap game like Command & Conquer 64 (6102/7101 FlashRAM) could be used to booth other 610x/710x FlashRAM games (Jet Force Gemini, Pokemon Puzzle League, etc). I can't recall what the suggested title was for booting dual EEPROM games but I think it might've been one of the Ken Griffey games (if it was actually 6102/7101).
Here's how that would work:
Instead of loading a ROM from the disc, load the UBE
Insert the 6102/7101 game you have with the correct save type into the Emulation Adapter and put that into the top of the console
Turn the N64 on but stay on Composite (don't switch TV inputs to HDMI)
Go back to the V64 game list and load another game while the N64 is running
I can recall if you have to press Reset or if it will boot automatically when it's done loading, but now's the time to switch to HDMI and play your game.
The UBE will boot almost everything but there are some late Rareware titles that would say "No Controller" unless they were patched to run without the UBE or paired with a boot cart that has the exact right boot/save type. I recall Banjo-Tooie and Conker's BFD doing this, but Conker is too large for the standard CD-ROM V64 anyway (512mbit; V64 tops out at 256mbit and many are 128mbit). V64jr512 can do it.
It sounds complicated but since I was still buying Nintendo/Rareware titles and was familiar with what actual cart could boot what backup, I rarely used the UBE. There are lists out there to cross-reference games with their boot and save types, like the Elitendo.com Boot/Save List. I think that one is mirrored somewhere but it's missing some later titles.
If a Z64 format ROM slips onto your disc somehow I know there is an option in some V64 BIOSes to change byte order for the ROM in memory. I don't think it was there in earlier BIOS versions and I think they made it auto-detect and byteswap automatically with later BIOS versions. Even if it is automatic it nearly doubles your load time so I suggest sticking to the right V64 format to begin with.
I'm currently trying to get my Bung V64jr and GB Xchanger stuff working with a little laptop I have which still has a parallel port. Even though the V64jr doesn't have a disc drive I'm going to be formatting a disc full of games in the right format so I'll let you know how that goes and what kind of utilities I end up using.
Hope this helps!
I have powered the unit on and the CD tray does work, so that will probably be my best bet for a lot of what I want to do with it. I haven't had time to do much more thorough testing than that though, so I'll have to get back to you with details of the BIOS version, etc.
As for the N64 connection, I also haven't attached it yet. I have heard of this slight alteration that was made to the bottom connector, but I'm not sure which kind of connectors any of my units are. Do you have any kind of picture or more detailed description about exactly what the differences are?
I can only assume, based on available information, that my unit is probably one of the original version units, with the oldest style of connector. But I won't know for sure until I test it all out!
Because the connector is removable it's possible that users with the older units may have replaced them. I don't know if Bung ever had a free replacement program or anything but I'm sure the part was available, at least. I think GameDoctor.hk may still sell them.
When I was a kid I broke mine open to look inside so it's all covered with glue. Even so, I'll dig it up for pics.
Anyway, still haven't had time to test this out, what with work and kids and everything, but I will do my best to try it as soon as I can!
From what we have surmised, a Taiwanese company called Kefeng Industrial Ltd. was responsible for either redistributing and/or licencing Bung products of the Taiwan market. Although there is no mention of this company anywhere on the Partner V64, the packaging or the manual, based on several other items in fcgamer's possession we have been able to 99% confirm this was one of their products. I think they also used the English name Top Game Ltd. to sell some items too.
With that and some other information CZroe provided, such as the different power adapter which is not the same as either the US one or the HK one, that pretty much confirms what we have all guessed that this is a (most likely early) Taiwanese release variant.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to solving the mystery!