Japan Pro Golf Tour 64

This game/console's online features are no longer supported. While this game/console's online features were once accessible, they are (as of February 28, 2001) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.

The first and only golf game released for the 64DD.

Development Text#

'...But what does it mean?' This game has text or audio that needs to be translated. If you are fluent with this language, please read our translation guidelines and then submit a translation!

800ABD58    f16x14.fnt
800ABD74    f12x12.fnt

800BD320    DDオペレーティングシステムの
        起動に失敗しました。

800BD354    DDファイルシステムの
        起動に失敗しました。

800BD380    セーブデータが壊れています。

        残念ながら今までのデータを
        初期化しますので、
        スタートボタンを押してください。

800BD3F0    DDファイルシステムの
        フォーマットができません。

800BD420    DDファイルシステムの
        書き込みができません。

800BD44C    ファイルを閉じられません。

800BD468    ファイルを読めません。

800BD480    ファイルに書き込めません。

800BD49C    管理領域が書き込めません。

800BD4B8    内蔵時計を
        読出せません。

800BD4D4    LEOREADできません。

800BD4E8    LEOWRITEできません。

800BD500    ダウンロードーデータを
        保存しています。
        しばらくお待ちください。

800BD544    DDWRTR.BIN
800BD550    lz
800BD554    wb
800BD558    rb
800BD55C    MF_logo.gnf
800BD568    MF_logo.bmp

800C0F28    64dd-Multi
800C0F34    64dd-Multi0101

800C0F48    エラー%2d：
        詳しくは、取扱説明書を
        お読みください。

800C109C    エラー%2d：
        間違ったディスクが挿入されている
        可能性があります。
        「日本プロゴルフツアー64」の
        ディスクを挿入してください。

800C1118    エラー%2d：
        64DDの故障、または、ディスクの不良と思われます。
        詳しくは、取扱説明書をお読みください。

800C1180    ディスクを初期化しています。

800C12F4      ～ Ａボタンを押して下さい ～  

800C1318    　パスワードを間違えています！　

800C1340    もう一度プレーし直しますか？

800C1360    います。

800C136C    あなたはすでに同じ大会に参加して

800C1390    て下さい。

800C139C    から、もう一度パスワードを入力し

800C13C0    前日の大会を最後までプレーして

800C13E0    前日の大会がまだ終了していません。

Known Crash Bug#

There's a known crash bug caused by the game repeatedly reloading animations during play. If the data exceeds the maximum size of the allocation buffer it will trigger disk error 1.

When playing a hole, all models are loaded and unpacked only once. However, each time the player's model appears, be it for a swing or victory dance, a new copy of that animation is loaded from disk. Previous animations, including prior copies of the same animation, are not unloaded. These stay in memory until the hole is unloaded.

Unused Course Maps#

Five courses were cut from final release. Although no course data exists, maps for selecting most of them from the menu are still available. Four of these courses are unique to this title.

There are three tables of tournament date data in memory. Each table entry is a count of days from December 31st, 1997 to the start of a tournament.

1. 800B5818 is a complete list of the 36 domestic tournaments.
2. 800B58A8 is a list of the 10 tournaments in the final game.
3. 800B58D0 lists 15 tournaments. These include the 10 in the final game, the known 11th that was commented out, three that have course select maps but no other data, and a final tour only mentioned here.

Using the Japan Golf Tour's schedule from 1998 as reference, this would be the "wish list" of courses the developers targeted. (An asterix indicates the course isn't in the final game.)

What is interesting is that there are five other Perfect Golf series courses that are part of the 1998 tour but do not appear in this list: (0029) ABC Golf Club, (0115) Sobu Country Club: Sobu Course, (0177) Forest Golf Club, (0226) Rope Club, and (0247) Tosa Country Club. Significant work would be needed to revise these courses, so it's no surprise focus was given to new work instead. At least part of this could also be explained with licensing. During the same period of time T&E SOFT included two of these courses in their own releases.

It does appear the "wish list" was already managing expectations at only 15. The used 64DD ID range spans 4000 to 4018, 19 courses. That's not counting the four imported from Perfect Golf or the additional five could have been. That would have covered 23 or 28 of the 36.

Taiheiyo Club: Ichihara Course#

The first is course 0116, "Taiheiyo Club: Ichihara Course" (太平洋クラブ市原コース, or ﾀｲﾍｲﾖｳｸﾗﾌﾞｲﾁﾊﾗｺｰｽ in halfwidth situations). Unlike the others, this course has a commented out entry in 'crs.lst' and can also be found in other Perfect Golf series games. From the maps it's clear the course data underwent significant revision. These images can be found in m0116fcg.dat.

Course 4003#

Unfortunately this course, like all 4000 IDs, is unique to Japan Pro Golf Tour 64. Its real-world reference is "Fuji Country: Dejima Course", host to "Nikkei Cup Torakichi Nakamura Memorial" in 1998. These images can be found in m4003fcg.dat.

Course 4014#

These images can be found in m4014fcg.dat. This is "Sanko 72 Country Club", host of "Sanko Grand Summer Championship" in 1998. Although not specified, this would be the East Course. What makes this one peculiar are the number of non-playable holes appearing on each map. Normally they're trimmed to a short distance around the playable area. There's a chance it was not finalized. Besides clipping non-playable area, courses were revised so a ring of fair surrounds greens and hazards like bunkers are surrounded by rough, often reducing the fairway in the process.

Course 4015#

These images can be found in m4014fcg.dat. Notably, almost every hole is a long drive with the second to last over open water. The course is "Grandage Golf Club", host of "Japan PGA Championship" in 1998. The first nine holes are from the East Course, the final nine from the North Course.

Course ID Unknown#

The "wish list" tournament table includes an entry for September 3rd. That's the date for the "Japan PGA Match-Play Championship Promise Cup" at "Nidom Classic Course". It does not have an assigned ID or any included maps. This course was not part of the Perfect Golf series, so its ID would have been in the 4000 range.

Unused Course Select Images#

Four unused course select images, slightly off from the game's normal standard, can be found in addfcg.dat. They're derived from four of the five bonus courses found on the Playstation title Eikou no St. Andrews, also a part of the Perfect Golf series.

Although the filename implies they'd could be used for DLC upload courses, course select images for those follow a different standard and are expected to be embedded in their data, not referenced from an outside archive.

Course Revisions#

Compared to their Perfect Golf 2 counterparts, all courses received some degree of revision. Some features are new. Object positions for spectators, used only during tournament modes (Pro Tour, Tournament, and Net Tournament), were added along walkways. Some holes have stands, a type of object node first used in Eikou no St. Andrews. Foundations for these stands were added to their respective holes, sometimes causing minor revisions.

Holes were revised with a design standard closer to their real-world counterparts. Straight edges are now curves, increasing vertex density. A rim of fair was added to all greens. When hazards lie on the fairway the fair is reduced and the hazard surrounded by rough. Walkways were added to holes lacking them and all now extend into forest. Non-playable area surrounding the current hole is rounded instead of straight cut and oftentimes reduced or removed altogether. In these cases trees will be added to hide the new edges. Trees in high-density areas are thinned out and some low density areas - especially behind tees - have additional trees. That said, the vast majority of objects are at identical locations.

Japan Pro Golf Tour 64	The Perfect Golf 2

Although visually Nintendo 64 courses use generated display lists separate from their collision data, collisions are almost byte-identical to course data in Perfect Golf 2. Using that, direct comparisons can be made between holes.

0040 Omotezao international Golf Club#

Due to its tournament-based nature, all courses in Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 include exactly 18 holes. Perfect Golf games provide three sets of nine holes for this course. Holes 1 through 9 are from the east course (OE* in TPG, 0040A* in TPG2) and the south course (OS* in TPG, 0040B* in TPG2). The west course is omitted. Due to filename lookup conventions, only "A" is used for map names, not the "A/B/C" pattern from Perfect Golf. In this case, 0040AA corresponds to 0040B1 in Perfect Golf. Course loader code supports "A/B/C/etc" lookup as one of the arguments but none of its callers utilize it.

0110 Seve Ballesteros Golf Club: Izumi Course#

The Out and In course for 0110 was reversed. Perfect Golf holes 1-9 correspond to Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 holes 10-18 and vice versa. Only minor revisions were made to the course. Notably, walkways now extend through the forested areas and higher vertex density allows more curved shapes.

0116 Taiheiyo Club Ichihara Course#

Only course select images ("map files") exist for this course, but it's obvious that it's been revised from its Perfect Golf counterparts. Sharp-cut map edges were rounded but nearby holes are still present. Like Omotezao, bunkers are now surrounded by rough and the fairway rimming greens has a narrower, consistent width. Object positions are, generally, untouched.

0117 Taiheiyo Club Gotemba Course#

A major revision from The Perfect Golf series. Walking paths were added to all holes. Sharp-cut map edges were rounded. Nearby holes were clipped away and forest created to make each hole largely independent, sometimes inventing their surroundings. Greens are only lightly ringed by fairway and surrounded by rough, sometimes reshaping forest to accommodate these changes. Tree density on the whole was vastly reduced. To properly track the sun, correct orientations toward north were set instead of using a default 180 degrees.

Unused Course Properties#

Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 supports a superset of features from both the Perfect Golf and Eikou no St. Andrews games, though some of these features are either unused or only partially supported.

Background Objects#

Eikou no St. Andrews introduced support for background objects and embedded textures in map files. These are used for outlying buildings alongside the holes. This feature is supported, but unused, in the 64DD iteration as well.

Bnod, or background node tags, are similar to Snod spectator node tags in format. Unlike how Snods are only drawn in tournament mode, Bnod is always processed. They must fall before the course data in the Tnod to avoid massively corrupting textures and normals. Placing it before an Snod allows any loaded textures to pass through. A major limitation is that only vtxt-style vertices with UVs can be used, not the vtxg variety with normals. No background object will be affected by lighting in a natural way.

Seasonal Greens#

All Perfect Golf series games support defining multiple greens and 64DD is no exception. Real-life courses sometimes have seasonal greens, where one green had a type of grass better for warm weather and the other green a cold-weather grass. The intent was to limit damage due to foot traffic. Multiple greens are defined in course data. This consists of the definition for the green itself, terrain type flags to distinguish primary, secondary, and non-playable greens, and multiple tee sets with adjusted yardages and what type of grass it uses.

When a course is loaded the selected green is forced to the first entry. All other code, including that within the course loaded, refers to this value and selects between the two sets properly except for minimaps. There are already existing checks and corrections for when an alternate green is used on a single-green hole. Code disables the alternate greens (but preserves the flag) in professional tournaments.

Time conversion functions accept a number of days and seconds since the UNIX Epoch and return the current time. Besides the standard date & time data, it also produces a flag that's false from April until September and true until next April. This flag is followed by the season (January through March, April to June, etc.), day of the week, and so forth. Unlike the other values, this "greens" flag is never accessed. The final game's only apparent use for the current season selection is swapping the texture library used.

Five of the seven courses that include double greens mark the regions correctly and provide complete data for the tees and cup. "Sports Shinko Country Club" and "Ube72 Country Club" have incomplete data. Neither provides the tee info. "Sports Shinko C.C." marks all of its alternates as nonplayable greens but the collision layer provides undulations for them (albeit not as dense as the primaries). "Ube72 Country Club" only provides undulations for two of its holes, the 16th and 17th. Five holes - the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 15th - are marked correctly as alternates but the surface is completely flat. The remaining are all flat and marked unplayable.

"Taiheiyo Club Gotemba Course"'s 13th hole reuses the primary green's tees despite each green having its own set. Despite that, the tee marker pins are positioned at the correct angle. The tee locations were correct in both Perfect Golf titles so this is very likely a simple typo. This is the only hole in any course with incorrect tee locations.

All courses lack minimaps for the greens. Unlike the PlayStation variants, the Nintendo 64 games provided minimap images displayed when within the bounds of a green. Space for four minimaps is allocated but only three are used: the entire hole, the primary green, and fairway approach. There is partially removed code that appears to support tags for a secondary green, but this is in conflict with code that switches between the full map and the fairway map. Either way, the minimaps would need to be generated and embedded in the course data. Displaying minimaps requires generating several matrices. The buffer only has room for three matrices, not four.

Out of Bounds#

All surfaces on the map have a terrain type defined. This also accepts an out-of-bounds flag, used in earlier titles. The flag is fully supported and if the ball stops in this area will display the same messages as its earlier counterparts in the series.

Multiple Tees#

Like its earlier counterparts up to four different tees are supported, each with their own placement and camera data. Images and associated objects are provided for all four color tee marker pins: black, blue, white, and red. All four are never used at the same time in this game. Tee selection in this title is determined by your player's handicap so, for the most part, amateur tees wouldn't be used. That limits the ones in use to the "expert" and "regular" tees.

Downloadable Content#

Not mentioned in the user manual or official website, Japan Pro Golf Tour 64 supports downloadable content...with some hefty caveats. The sole clue DLC was a feature is a small graphic of a golf club on a Randnet flier speaking generically of expansion game data.

Downloads are limited to 3MB. On a factory disk or after a disk reinitialization (hold C Up + C Down + C Left + C Right while transitioning from legal to intro attract), a file called zero3MByte.dat will be created at LBA 0CC2/0CDA. That file acts as a placeholder for an external update file called DDWRTR.BIN. At boot, the first word of this content is checked. If it's an archive starting with a Siff tag the data is unpacked and the first word overwritten with Read to avoid unpacking again. Note the LBA is read directly; the filename DDWRTR.BIN is never actively used.

Up to 54 additional courses are supported, for a grand total of 64 courses on a single disk. However, only the first 32 can be used in Net Tournaments and due to filesizes it's unlikely even that many would fit on a single disk. There's also a limit on filename lengths. Long names can't exceed 42 bytes and short names 32 bytes, all caps.

This unpacker has several flaws. The most important is that creating a new directory is fatal if the directory already exists. All uploaded courses require creating several directories and there's no way short of reinitializing all save data to delete a single item. Another is that it can overwrite but not append a course list. Given the size of content, 3MB is not suitable for more than a couple courses at a time. A bug in the unpacker will fail to write the filesize or address of the last file or directory written to a non-root directory, so it's required to end any write to a directory with a zero-size dummy file. All filenames are case-sensitive.

Another serious problem is that in the event your save data is corrupted and automatically repaired, the MFS directory is not rebuilt the same way as when it's reinitialized with the button code. The zero3MByte.dat file will not be created and its LBA range not reserved. Other data can be written to the buffer and will be automatically processed at boot the same way uploaded data is. This may cause the data to be corrupted (minimally the first word) and in the worst case will cause a crash at boot.

In truth any file can be written via this method, including content intended for other games. Files that share the same name in the RAM area will be overwritten. Only a handful of files in the disk ROM portion can be overloaded, a prime example being crs.lst. Only courses with ID numbers 5000 and up will be read from the disk RAM area.

In large part downloaded courses can't be deleted because they will invalidate both save.dat and net.dat. If either save file is longer than the number of courses it's presumed to be corrupt and both will be reformatted. This behavior is largely necessary because otherwise it won't know how much data to decrypt in those files.

Net Tournament Passwords#

Network Tournament is a play-by-email scheme. The tournament creator sends a password that encodes the game settings. When players enter this password, a game entry is added to net.dat and the game can be started.

Only the values "イウエオカキケコサスタチテトニヌネノハヒフヘホミムモヨラリルレロ" are used in passwords. These decode to hex numerals 00 to 1F.

Up to 32 courses are technically valid, but due to a lack of data validation using DLC for Net Tournaments would be fatal if a player didn't have the courses already downloaded and in the expected order.

Among the many game options is the length of the tournament, weather, wind speed & direction, 9 vs 18 holes, which clubs are available (putters only!), and what statistics are logged. You can set up a driving competition or hole-in-one tournament.

On completion, the player's name and results are encoded in a second password. Depending on which statistics were logged this can vary in size considerably. The intent was a website or service would provide the decoded results in a leaderboard.

Unlock Height & Handedness Select Options#

On the Title screen, press: C-Up, C-Right, C-Down, C-Left, Start. When creating or editing a character both options will now be available.

Reset Saved Data#

When transitioning from legal to intro attract, hold: C-Up + C-Down + C-Left + C-Right. This safely removes all saved data and rebuilds the MFS file directory, creating several default save files and reserving a range of LBAs for DLC. If your saved data was corrupt and reformatted automatically these files may not have been written. It is suggested to use the button code to ensure loss of data or crashes at boot don't occur.

References#