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N64 Bootleg Carts

There's a little bit to cover on the topic and this page will likely get rearranged as we find a better way to explain the important info.

The N64 cart is broken up into 4 areas we need to think about:

  • Physical cart type (NTSC / PAL)
  • CIC type (The security Chip)
  • Save Type (SRAM/EEPROM4K/EEPROM16K/Flash/None)
  • ROM Size (Mbits)

NTSC/PAL

These are region specific, you should know the system type you have. Order a bootleg for that system type. You can 'modify' your console to accept both but the CIC code differs between countries. You can also modify the cart's region code but for many, this may be too complicated.

Update! Thanks to TheGent, you can find a whole lot of awesome NTSC to PAL, and PAL to NTSC patches HERE

CIC Type

The security inside the cart must match the region of your console. Furthermore, it must match what the game code is expecting. If the ROM needs a 6102 type CIC, the cart must contain a 6102 type CIC. For this reason, order your bootleg cart with the correct CIC type. Note, you can change the CIC type using a programming cable. This may be explained at a later time.

Save Type

Some game carts included internal save storage while others used Save Pak's or no save data at all. What you need to know here is, if a ROM needs SRAM save hardware in the cart, it will NOT boot without SRAM save hardware. The same goes for EEPROM4K, EEPROM16K (they are each unique and not interchangable), FLASH Save. 93% of all N64 games did not use cart saves so any of the above cart types will work. If a ROM never used cart save, it won't check for it and will play OK. You still need to respect the CIC type.

ROM SIZE

This simply means, if you have a 128mbit rom, your cart must be 128mbit or larger. Larger is fine, smaller is not fine.

GB/GBC/NES ROMs on a N64 Cart

To run these emulators on a N64 cart, you will need a CIC-6102 cart with SRAM save storage. The ROM size of these emulators is so small, all known bootleg carts will fit these ROMs.

Suitable Bootleg carts for GB/GBC/NES ROMs include:

  • Harvest Moon
  • Mario Golf
  • The New Tetris
  • Ogre Battle
  • Resident Evil 2
  • Waialae Country Club
  • WCW nWo Revenge
  • WWF WrestleMania

I'd suggest Resident Evil 2 as the donor cart is it has the largest ROM size of any of the SRAM carts and is currently the cheapest on Aliexpress ($12)

To generate the GB/C ROM you can use this link. Use mode Z64 when flashing byteswapped ROMs.

 

ROM Hacks

Hacks should follow closely to the original requirements. For example, Mario Star Road hack will need the same CIC and Save type as Mario64 (CIC-6102, EEPROM4K) though the Hacks are typically much larger in size. I recommend Mario Party as the donor cart, it matches CIC and Save type and is 64mbytes in size.

My Cart Recommendations:

Unfortunately one cart can not suit all roms, you'll only need a few carts to support any ROM you come across. These are my recommendations:

  • CIC-6102, SRAM - Resident Evil 2 (Ideal for 95% of all ROM's, suitable for NES/GB/GBC emulation. 64Mbyte ROM capacity.
  • CIC-6103, FlashRAM - Pokemon Stadium 2 (The largest of the 6103 FlashRAM carts)
  • CIC-6102, EEPROM4K - Mario Party 2 (The largest of this type with 4k EEPROM)
  • CIC-6105, EEPROM16K - Conker's Bad Fur Day (The largest of this type with 16K EEPROM)

With these 4 carts, if you have the ability to change the CIC code (using an AVRISP cable), it'll cover all known ROM's. Without changing CIC code, it'll cover around 98% of all ROMs.

You should be able to easily find databases on google with all N64 carts with their respective CIC, Save types and ROM sizes. Visit our discord if you have any issues.

The fastest, easiest way to Flash a N64 cart? Our JoeyN64 of course!