Zelda Collectors edition... SUCKS

[Valientlink]

Okay, so in July, I purchased zelda collectors edition. Ocarina of time and all other games play perfectly.... Until, I played majoras mask and it suffered horrible lag. My first playthrough had 2 freeze's. 1 in Ikana while getting a heart piece. My second had deleted my file when I talked to those gophers in great bay. My second playthrough, had no freezes. But this current one that I just had, was the WORST ONE EVER!!!!!! F****CK. I beat great bay, I had 9 hearts. I got the heart container (had 10), all stray fairies, double defense etc. I got 2 heart pieces and the mask of truth. I also got more rupees in the bank. I did the don gero thing to get my 11th heart, I got the captains hat.... But after doing the don gero heart piece, I went to cut some grass. Then BUZZZZZZZ I heard. It froze. I now have 9 hearts, no heart pieces collected, and only 2 remains..... Please someone tell me this isn't just my game. Please.... This is so aggrivating. I'm so mad :mad: Also tell me if there's any way at all to... ahh.... Guess I gotta do it again. It's not even scratched.

[Mak-X]

Majora's Mask is known to have emulation problems, its not just you. I stopped playing that version after it froze on me in the snow mountain Goron area where you follow the ghost. I had the Lense of Truth on and moved to the exit when it froze. It's thought to have something to do with NST not properly emulating the N64 Expansion Pak that Majora's Mask used. Some say disabling rumble helps, or not rushing anywhere that would cause heavy loading. The saving system in the game makes it even worse.

Currently, the best way to play it legally is the original N64 cartridge until it gets a virtual console release.

[aces2022]

I never had a problem with freezing but my game definitely lags. Playing it on the Wii is much different than playing it on the Gamecube though. I played it on my Cube.

[ShadowTiger]

I played it on the PC (Emu/Rom.) without any problems. But that's not really peoples' cup of tea, for the most part, so...

[MottZilla]

The problem is the emulator used sucks. It's simple as that. You have to remember that the Collection was basically a promotion item so they weren't going to bother making sure it was perfect. Your best hope is that when the Virtual Console gets the game that they have a better emulator (which is likely) or spend a few bucks on the N64 and the game cartridge. Seriously that stuff is cheap because no one wants N64 stuff anymore.

And infact I highly recommend that you play the game on the original system. It's much better to play the games as they were intended.

[Nicholas Steel]

The N64 version heats the N64 up pretty quick and when it gets hot, very odd things can happen in the game such as freezing, going through walls and floors and other stuff. So, to me based on what you have all said, it is emulating the overheating issue's of the N64 version of the game ;)

[DarkFlameWolf]

well, you just get around the system. The save system has two save slots for a reason. If you do a bunch of work in one 'cycle' and don't want to lose it due to freezing, find the nearest owl statue, quick save. Copy the file over to file two. Then restart the original save file, if it ever freezes, you can just copy file 2 to file 1 and not lose a thing. A bit of a small hassle, yes, but its worth it to save your progress. And when you go back in time officially for that cycle, you can clear out file 2 in preperation for the next one.

[Darth Marsden]

I have to say, I played this on my Gamecube about a year ago and never suffered any real problems, so I guess I just got lucky. Might have been some slowdown, but it couldn't have affected the game that much or I'd have remembered it.

[MottZilla]

The N64 version heats the N64 up pretty quick and when it gets hot, very odd things can happen in the game such as freezing, going through walls and floors and other stuff. So, to me based on what you have all said, it is emulating the overheating issue's of the N64 version of the game ;)

N64 systems did not have "overheating" issues. In any reasonable room this won't happen no matter how long you leave it on. I had my N64 on for something like a week straight because I couldn't save in "Quest 64" so I had to leave the system on. It had no problem being on all that time. And none of my friends had any trouble with their N64 systems. What you describe happening makes it sound like your N64 was defective or subjected to extreme conditions.

[Nicholas Steel]

It could be related to the expansion pack I have, it is a 3rd party one made by Pelican. Do you have an official Nintendo expansion pack MottZilla?

[Warlock]

I had my N64 on for something like a week straight because I couldn't save in "Quest 64" so I had to leave the system on.

God that game was such a POS :P

[MottZilla]

It could be related to the expansion pack I have, it is a 3rd party one made by Pelican. Do you have an official Nintendo expansion pack MottZilla?

Yes I did. That could be the problem then. Maybe the quality of the 3rd party pack was not so great or maybe the one you got was defective. I have the box for my expansion pack somewhere and I'm pretty sure it was official Nintendo.

[Icey]

I've played MM on the collectors edition disc as well, on both Gamecube and the Wii and never had any problems, maybe some slight lag.

Also, I must have beaten MM at least 5 times, and I have never used one of those owl statues to save.

[Daputti]

Same here, Icey. Valientlink, where did you buy your disc? Does it have scratches?
My disc has only frozen Majora ONCE in three years, but some very slight lag tends
to happen.

[Nicholas Steel]

What consoles did everyone play it on? the original gamecube? or one of the newer models of the system? same questions for Wii users.

MottZilla, I just bought a new Memory Expansion Pack for the N64 and the issue of poor frame rates persists (dunno about the other issues since i can't be arsed playing at what, 15FPS?). Any game I try just stutters at a consistent rate unlike what they did before I first played Majora's Mask on the console 2 or 3 years ago >.>. I assume either some memory, heatsink, fan or general circuitry in the Base Unit has been damaged from excessive overheating possibly caused by playing the console during summer >: O

I don't have the tool necessary to open the N64 or SNES so I can't check them out properly and diagnose the cause of the problem. The overheating most likely was caused by dust since I can't open the console to clean it and as such, it was never cleaned of dust.

[MottZilla]

Well what games? All games run at a poor framerate? You should remember that 007 and Perfect Dark 64 never ran very smooth. The N64, has heat sinks, but there is no fan. It could have overheated and become permanently damaged. The N64 was rather fast for having no fan. 93mhz.

[Daputti]

Well, if every game runs with 15FPS your console has seen it's days.

[Darth Marsden]

Yeah, I'd recommend grabbing a new(!) one from eBay. Shouldn't cost you too much.

[Nicholas Steel]

Well what games? All games run at a poor framerate? You should remember that 007 and Perfect Dark 64 never ran very smooth. The N64, has heat sinks, but there is no fan. It could have overheated and become permanently damaged. The N64 was rather fast for having no fan. 93mhz.
Well...

Banjo Kazooie 1 & 2*
Duke Nukem 64
Donkey Kong 64*
Mario 64
Zelda OoT
Zelda MM*
(*) use Expansion Pack

...and some other good games I have, don't run smooth anymore. I really wish I could get A video of it but I aint good at video authoring and I suspect the file that I could make would be huge :P and I am too lazy to wait for it to upload at 256kbps >.>
I am considering a new N64, if the price is right :P

[Linkus]

Sounds like one or more of your RAM sets blew out. If you've got a multimeter somewhere, get that and the in-depth hardware info for the N64. Open it up and set the multimeter to 10V, and test the traces (the little gold lines) from where the RAM is located. If it's okay, test other locations like the CPU. Not to mention to clean out the dust as well; a lot of performance problems are caused by dust.

[MottZilla]

Well Super Mario 64, should play smooth. If it doesn't there is certainly something wrong with your system. I would say it makes little sense worrying about fixing it when you can get another unit for very cheap. If you do you might open it up and dust it if you want. But given that the N64 is a fairly closed up system I don't think that much dust would get in it.

[Dark Knight]

Well what games? All games run at a poor framerate? You should remember that 007 and Perfect Dark 64 never ran very smooth. The N64, has heat sinks, but there is no fan. It could have overheated and become permanently damaged. The N64 was rather fast for having no fan. 93mhz.


Never played Perfect Dark(which requires the RAM expansion to really play anyways) but Goldeneye had a rather high framerate and no slowdown except when I caused large explosions(8 remote mines and other things exploding > N64) until I installed the RAM expansion. Afterwards I'd get random slowdown, even when standing still looking at a wall. It got so bad at times that I couldn't even finish some missions in enough time to unlock the cheats. I couldn't even stomach 4-player deathmatches as they'd slow to a crawl when using anything but your standard weaponry(no explosives).

I remove the expansion and put the original RAM module in and the problems would vanish and yes, the RAM expansion was the official Nintendo expansion pak. Not really a big deal though as Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini and Majora's Mask are the only games I've ever seen that actually required it, I could be wrong though.

Anyways, at least you guys could play your Collector's disc. Mine refused to run right out of the box and when it would boot up it'd freeze. No scratches or anything out of the ordinary to the naked eye. I'd rather play these games on the N64 and the controller they were meant to be played with anyways. Maybe you should do the same?

[vegeta1215]

I've had MM freeze 2-3 times on me when playing it on the Zelda Collector's Edition. It was kind of weird, but it didn't bother me that much. The lag in parts of Clock Town bugs me more, but I'm happy to be able to play it on the Gamecube instead of digging out my N64. (plus I got the disc for free)

[Valientlink]

Same here, Icey. Valientlink, where did you buy your disc? Does it have scratches?
My disc has only frozen Majora ONCE in three years, but some very slight lag tends
to happen.

I bought it at Gamestop. Every other game including OOT has no lag or sound irregularity. Just MM. I've been able to complete it 4 times on the GCN version getting all heart pieces and stuff. I'm playing it right now. Only freezes so far was when I left the goron shrine. If you use darmani to open it, and leave, it freezes. I turned off rumble. It gets rid of freezes, but caused the goron shrine freeze (I've tested it with rumble and it didn't happen). I'd love to play on my N64, but the controller is worn out, I don't want to break my thumb over the fact that link won't even do anything close to jogging even with the bunny hood. Rom is out of the question, who'd want to use a keyboard? Overall, the lag doesn't bother me. Just the freezes. I don't care about the sound irregularity. It's the same good ol' majoras mask, with smexy graphics. That's the best pard. The graphics and controls.

[MasterSwordUltima]

Rom is out of the question, who'd want to use a keyboard?

Wha? I have absolutely no problems playing it with a keyboard. Even if you don't want to use a keyboard, there are always game controllers for PCs, and if THATS not good enough, get a USB adapter so you can use an N64/GCN controller. That'll probably run you $10 or so online.

[Russ]

Rom is out of the question, who'd want to use a keyboard?
Hey, I played MM with a keyboard. What's wrong with it? Plus, with rom, you can unlock all those little beta features that were left out. Like the Japanese scroll that acted like a camera. :)

[Nicholas Steel]

you can't move in-between diagonal directions... so you are strictly limited to 8 directions also, there is no "sensitivity", so you are running flat tack all the time, that is why the keyboard is evil with N64 games.

Gametraders here have replacement Joystick parts for N64 controllers and they work.

[Darth Marsden]

Alternatively, you can get an adapter to use a PS2 controller with your PC or you can use a 360 controller. I do the former - it works great for N64 emulation, and the dongle only cost around £10 ($16 or so).

[Darth Marsden]

Slight bump (and double post) but I've been looking into Majora's Mask, and according to many reliable sources - IE: Wikipedia - and turning off the rumble does help to avoid your saves being corrupted. So if you do decide to play again, try it without and see if that helps.

[Valientlink]

OMFG I started my 7th playthrough. playtrhoughs 1, 4,5, and 6 had no freezes. But this one... oh god!!! In the first 3 days, I did woodfall and snowhead. I paused, unpaused. BUZZZZZZ I knew I shouldve played the song of time as I was worried this would happen

[Dr.Cortex]

I played through all of majoras mask on the collectors edition with no problems at all. maybe you have scratches?

[Shazza Dani]

I played through all of majoras mask on the collectors edition with no problems at all. maybe you have scratches?

It's not scratches; it's a problem with the actual game. If yours never froze then you're lucky.



Rom is out of the question, who'd want to use a keyboard?


It's stupid to assume that someone would use a keyboard to play a ROM. Have you ever heard of a gamepad? Personally I use an Xbox 360 controller for most games on my PC.

[ShadowTiger]

I had one of those Playstation adapters for the PC. I played commander keen on my dance pad.


No, it wasn't any fun.

[Shazza Dani]

I actually have an N64 adapter, but the 360 controller is better.

[Dr.Cortex]

maybe your laser is dusty, I never had any problems except the slight slowdown when I first start lol. and the text is different from the N64/GC versions

[MottZilla]

The disk isn't likely the problem. The game is emulated. There are so many factors that could cause glitches or a crash. It's possible you'd play through not seeing one of them. Or it's possible you'd encounter a ton of them. If you want to play OoT or MM you should play on a real N64 or use a PC emulator like Project64. I have a Playstation gamepad adapter for my PC that I use for all my emulators.