Why did Donkey Kong 64 require more than 4 MB of memory?
As most of you know, the N64 Donkey Kong game had a game breaking bug on the 4 MB memory version. They needed to include the expansion memory just so that bug wouldn't happen.
I can imagine in the age of computers and emulation, we should by now have a pretty decent idea as to why this bug happened. As in, limit ram to 4 MB, see what tries to access outside there and why.
Sadly it probably is hard to figure that out, and I can imagine that at the moment of the development switch to 8 MB, they actually started using more of that ram since it was there anyway.
Does anyone know what exactly, nearly got that game pulled at all?
Best Answer
Actually, there's evidence that the memory bug is just a myth.
The origin of the story about the memory leak comes from an interview with Chris Marlow, a programmer who worked on the game. According to Chris, the expansion pak was used to resolve a last minute bug.
Mark Stevenson, lead artist for the game, says otherwise. He's quoted in this article as follows:
"This one’s a myth. The decision to use the Expansion Pak happened a long time before the game shipped, in fact we were called in by management and told that we were going to use the Expansion Pak and that we needed to do find ways to do stuff in the game that justified its use and made it a selling point. I think the bug story somehow got amalgamated into the Expansion Pak use and became urban myth."
Something that lends a lot of credence to Stevenson's story is that I can't find a video that shows the memory leak happening. There's a 11.5 hour video where the guy waits for the leak to happen, but it never appears (according to legend it happens around the 10 hour mark). If it happens through standard play, there's a 30 hour video of a single-sitting speedrun of the game.
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Why does Donkey Kong 64 need an expansion pack?
However, Chris Marlow, one of the game's programmers, has confirmed in a recent director's commentary video (which should only be viewed by mature audiences) for Conker's Bad Fur Day that the Expansion Pak was needed in order to prevent a game-breaking glitch from occurring.How much RAM did the N64 have?
In terms of its random-access memory (RAM), the Nintendo 64 was one of the first consoles to implement a unified memory subsystem, instead of having separate banks of memory for CPU, audio, and video operations. The memory itself consists of 4 megabytes of Rambus RDRAM, expandable to 8 MB with the Expansion Pak.How much does a Donkey Kong 64 go for?
Donkey Kong 64 Nintendo 64Sale Date \u25b2 \u25bcTitle \u25b2 \u25bc\u25b2 \u25bc Price2022-05-24Donkey Kong 64 (Nintendo 64, 1999) UNTESTED$19.502022-05-24Donkey Kong 64 [on PriceCharting]$24.992022-05-23Donkey Kong 64 (Nintendo 64, 1999) - Game Only$23.492022-05-23Donkey Kong 64 (Nintendo 64, 1999) Authentic, Tested$20.0026 more rowsCan you play Donkey Kong 64 without expansion pack?
Donkey Kong 64 is the first of two games to require the Nintendo 64's Expansion Pak, a console RAM upgrade bundled with the game.In Defense of Donkey Kong 64
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Images: Pixabay, chris carroll, Felix Mittermeier, Leon Woods