Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Anyone else remember the age-old but classic Ocarina of Time romhack, Zelda's Birthday? Well I sure do, and I also recall the issues it had with running in most emulators. People like me have been wanting to TAS Zelda's Birthday for a while (youtu.be/i8Pj_QDo4Zo) but unfortunately had to deal with that sad fact. But good news: A user known as hcs has provided a temporary solution to this by disabling the TLB setting in Bizhawk's Mupen64Plus core!
NOTE: BEFORE PLAYING THE GAME, PLEASE PAUSE THE GAME WITH START, PRESS L, AND THEN USE YOUR D-PAD CONTROLS TO NAVIGATE TO THE HIGHLIGHTED VALUE AND PRESS C-LEFT TO FLIP THE BIT IN ORDER TO AVOID A CRASH WHEN ENTERING KOKIRI FOREST: drive.google.com/file/d/1n0FHfrS8ya-AMRWsh5YnmajQ84o6t8LD/view?usp=sharing
YOU ALSO NEED TO CONFIGURE YOUR EMULATORS GRAPHICS PLUGIN TO COPY FRAMEBUFFER FROM RDRAM/EMULATE FRAMEBUFFER IN ORDER TO AVOID CRASHES FROM PAUSING THE GAME, AND YOU NEED 8MB RAM ENABLED IF YOU DECIDE TO PLAY ZELDA'S BIRTHDAY ON ANY EMULATOR OTHER THAN BIZHAWK. ALSO, DON'T USE FILE 1 BECAUSE DEBUG/DEVELOPER TOOLS ARE ENABLED IN THIS HACK.
DOWNLOAD LINKS:
Here is a download for TLB-free Bizhawk 2.8: drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1zVc2I6jKuHzU6rwvIinPYDVSIpuL2V9h&export=download&confirm=t&uuid=c742530a-e3b8-424b-8a82-f04b9d00efd5&at=ALgDtsxPK4psYeWx9BRrbY6G3M-i:1677945317118
^ This build is for windows. You can find official releases from Bizhawk's github releases page: github.com/TASEmulators/BizHawk/releases
To download zelda's birthday, here's a patch for OoT 1.0 (U): drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1yOCcbrb7MRhN5EOyAYpy4A5yws251JEx&export=download
To download flips (the patching tool), click here: drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1oq_Oktsvf-_una9oWNPUcrFMRCp7TKqg&export=download&confirm=t&uuid=c1d71385-e715-4f1b-8a29-c50f1b9a135e&at=ALgDtsz8rJ5ImrZzUyghO0xbaHsg:1677947423286
I also recommend subscribing to Zeldaboy, they are working on a project that fixes the bugs in Zelda's Birthday to make it console-compatible, unlike this hacky method that I've described here: youtube.com/@JamesJAKAZeldaboy14?sub_confirmation=1
And no, this does not mean I'm making a Zelda's Birthday TAS. At least not at the moment anyways. The footage recorded in this video is just demonstration that TAS'ing is possible, I made it very quickly and didn't even bother trying to optimize it. But this video also proves that it's possible to complete Zelda's Birthday without entering kokiri forest if you don't want to do the bit flip technique I mentioned above.
Anyone else remember the age-old but classic Ocarina of Time romhack, Zelda's Birthday? Well I sure do, and I also recall the issues it had with running in most emulators. People like me have been wanting to TAS Zelda's Birthday for a while (youtu.be/i8Pj_QDo4Zo) but unfortunately had to deal with that sad fact. But good news: A user known as hcs has provided a temporary solution to this by disabling the TLB setting in Bizhawk's Mupen64Plus core!
NOTE: BEFORE PLAYING THE GAME, PLEASE PAUSE THE GAME WITH START, PRESS L, AND THEN USE YOUR D-PAD CONTROLS TO NAVIGATE TO THE HIGHLIGHTED VALUE AND PRESS C-LEFT TO FLIP THE BIT IN ORDER TO AVOID A CRASH WHEN ENTERING KOKIRI FOREST: drive.google.com/file/d/1n0FHfrS8ya-AMRWsh5YnmajQ84o6t8LD/view?usp=sharing
YOU ALSO NEED TO CONFIGURE YOUR EMULATORS GRAPHICS PLUGIN TO COPY FRAMEBUFFER FROM RDRAM/EMULATE FRAMEBUFFER IN ORDER TO AVOID CRASHES FROM PAUSING THE GAME, AND YOU NEED 8MB RAM ENABLED IF YOU DECIDE TO PLAY ZELDA'S BIRTHDAY ON ANY EMULATOR OTHER THAN BIZHAWK. ALSO, DON'T USE FILE 1 BECAUSE DEBUG/DEVELOPER TOOLS ARE ENABLED IN THIS HACK.
DOWNLOAD LINKS:
Here is a download for TLB-free Bizhawk 2.8: drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1zVc2I6jKuHzU6rwvIinPYDVSIpuL2V9h&export=download&confirm=t&uuid=c742530a-e3b8-424b-8a82-f04b9d00efd5&at=ALgDtsxPK4psYeWx9BRrbY6G3M-i:1677945317118
^ This build is for windows. You can find official releases from Bizhawk's github releases page: github.com/TASEmulators/BizHawk/releases
To download zelda's birthday, here's a patch for OoT 1.0 (U): drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1yOCcbrb7MRhN5EOyAYpy4A5yws251JEx&export=download
To download flips (the patching tool), click here: drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1oq_Oktsvf-_una9oWNPUcrFMRCp7TKqg&export=download&confirm=t&uuid=c1d71385-e715-4f1b-8a29-c50f1b9a135e&at=ALgDtsz8rJ5ImrZzUyghO0xbaHsg:1677947423286
I also recommend subscribing to Zeldaboy, they are working on a project that fixes the bugs in Zelda's Birthday to make it console-compatible, unlike this hacky method that I've described here: youtube.com/@JamesJAKAZeldaboy14?sub_confirmation=1
And no, this does not mean I'm making a Zelda's Birthday TAS. At least not at the moment anyways. The footage recorded in this video is just demonstration that TAS'ing is possible, I made it very quickly and didn't even bother trying to optimize it. But this video also proves that it's possible to complete Zelda's Birthday without entering kokiri forest if you don't want to do the bit flip technique I mentioned above.
