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general state of N64 emulation?

underfrance

New member
Hey all. I'm pretty new to the community, finally managed to have the time to delve into emulation for the last few days. Basically, from what I've seen it's a pretty huge mess. Could anyone drop in with their own summative bits about the most up-to-date emulators and plugins and where to get them?

Here's what I've got so far - tell me where I'm wrong:
  • PJ1.7 is never going to come out, but that's ok, the big things are pretty much done.
  • PJ1.6 is the standard for newbies, has its issues, but it stands the test of time.
  • 1964 is basically just as good, except it's open source so finding release notes and source for it isn't an apocryphal adventure.
  • There's some other stuff that's less important - the most important work these days is in the plugins.

  • The best/popular video plugins are Jabo's dx8 and rice.
  • Jabo ggnore'd and released 1.6.1 (I'm not sure - is video1.6.1 or 1.7.x better?)(come to think of it - what actual benefits are there to running a 1.7 beta?)
  • rice is worse, but has shiny custom textures, and became mudlord which became aristotle which became 1964video. (is 1964video better than jabo at this point?) (also, is 1964video fully backwards compatible with rice textures?)
  • some people have made custom inis to optimise the plugins (which ones should i be looking at?)
  • I'm not sure about the best audio plugin.
  • There's a bunch of input plugins, they all pretty much work. the big names are jabo and nrage, and mudlord is/was working on one that supports rumble features and stuff.
  • Still not completely sure what RSP does.

  • ROM dump type doesn't really matter anymore, unless you ditch goodn64 for nointro because that's what frickin' hyperspin uses and hyperspin looks sexy, except nointro only likes CRCs from byteswapped ROMS so you have to find a way (tool64) to convert the files.

Also, after going through all this, I'm sort of interested in the community's history - So if anyone wants to wax eloquent and spend a couple paragraphs on the history of the N64 emulation - the important sites, the important people, what happened to the PJ64 project, where to poke my nose if I ever want to try contributing to the community, etc, I'd be grateful.

Thanks!
 

Agozer

16-bit Corpse | Moderator
* Project64 1.7 is in perpetual beta, and has come out (only for donators). I'd say that the big things really aren't done, but a casual user wouldn't be concerned about those.
* The "best" video plugin by far is Glide64. The plugin eclipses Jabo's Direct3D8 and Rice in features and compatibility.
* The N-Rage Input plugin has more features than Jabo's. Both supports Rumble Paks and MemPaks. Again, AFAIK, the key difference is that N-Rage supports the Transfer Pak, with varying success.
* For RSP: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/N64_Programming/Video_coprocessor and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64#Reality_Co-Processor
 

Rodimus Primal

New member
I wonder how many are currently active in working on either a newer emulator or updating the existing ones. I paid for the beta for 1.7 and find it to be very glitchy but I like the newer features like setting what plugins are used per game. I do wish it would save settings for the plugins themselves in each game but in all reality I'd like to see a N64 emulator that does not require seperate plugins get the same level of compatibility as BSNES with SNES.

As a user and not an author I care more about playing the games on my PC.The truth of the matter is, I DON'T CARE about texture packs or random cheats that let you walk on walls, I want to play any N64 game I choose without many problems. My N64 plugged into my TV currently looks terrible because of low res cables on an HDTV.
 

Martin

Active member
Administrator
I wonder how many are currently active in working on either a newer emulator or updating the existing ones. I paid for the beta for 1.7 and find it to be very glitchy but I like the newer features like setting what plugins are used per game. I do wish it would save settings for the plugins themselves in each game but in all reality I'd like to see a N64 emulator that does not require seperate plugins get the same level of compatibility as BSNES with SNES.

As a user and not an author I care more about playing the games on my PC.The truth of the matter is, I DON'T CARE about texture packs or random cheats that let you walk on walls, I want to play any N64 game I choose without many problems. My N64 plugged into my TV currently looks terrible because of low res cables on an HDTV.

To be fair though I think N64 emulation is quite a bit harder than SNES emulation which is probably why it hasn't progressed to the same level.
 

GE Master

New member
I'll speak from an end user of N64 emulators. I've been out of the scene for about 3-4 years. I recently discovered the 2 1964 overclock versions. Now that is exciting and that is evolution. Those are the best emulators out and anyone who tells you otherwise, is a programmer and not a user. The overclock vs. regular N64 emu is like comparing a Pinto to a Ferrari. Again though it comes down to what games you are playing. A few of the best selling N64 games all time make use of the overclock. The Pinto can never achieve what the Ferrari can.

Nobody mentions Mupen64K which is the best emulator for anyone wanting to play N64 online. Why it's not heralded here? No idea. Politics perhaps? People are using Pj64K still but that's a matter of popularity and not based on rationality.
 

Rodimus Primal

New member
I think people stick with what they're used to instead of trying new things. I admit I did the same with Nesticle and never really tried other NES emulators until trying FCEU. Now I use Nestopia. As for SNES, I think the most used for the longest time was ZSNES seconded by SNES9x. Now IMO, BSNES has been the most reliable for me. As for N64, Project 64 was the only one to come as far as it did from what I've seen but progress completely halted. Last I tried 1964 it ran everything slow and had numerous bugs from games I like to play. I am curious to test out the overclock versions. If they can run Donkey Kong 64, Shadows of the Empire(to this day my fav Star Wars game), Mortal Kombat Trilogy, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask without issue then I'm game.
 

zoinkity

New member
I can't use Mupen because it restarts my computer randomly, sometimes with but mostly without a blue-screen-of-death. Yes, XP+ people, you can still get one. That's a pretty serious error, concidering you have to do something like write outside system memory. Plus, it is a tad bit annoying setting it up.

Glide comes the closest, but quite honestly the RSP is just not emulated well. High-level emulation allowed games to at least run, and if you've ever tried a low-level RSP emu you know a lot of computers simply can't keep up.
Sure, quite a few popular games have most of their features, but get off the beaten track and you run into unsupported effects, seemingly random errors, and unsupported microcodes. At the very least Glide has seemingly-complete support for all the low-level constructor commands: that's autogenerated skies in GE/PD.

When you concider that an abysmally old emulator like Nemu still has higher compatibility than 1964, there's something wrong with focus. When you also concider that it's only one of what? 2 emus with debug support? What's the point of artificial overclocking when you still dont' have complete emulation?

More to the point, it is a bit questionable why there aren't a stack of backup/copier devices out by now.
 

Martin

Active member
Administrator
When you concider that an abysmally old emulator like Nemu still has higher compatibility than 1964, there's something wrong with focus.

Well the last version of 1964 was released january 1 2004 (v 0.9.9) so that's quite a while ago too. :) The mods of 1964 are using the 1.1 source code but I don't know how much has changed from 0.9.9 to 1.1.
 

zoinkity

New member
In particular, 1964 is relatively okay if you run only software from the US (N??E). There's quite a few completely unsupported japanese games handled fine by the other emulators.

Interestingly, not all the opcodes are implemented in all emulators. Granted you'd be hard-pressed to find an official release cart that uses the Trap commands or writes to some of the more esoteric registers that are usually read-only. This really explains why some post-development stuff won't work on emulators without patches. In particular the SCUMM demos do both, and there should be some patches floating around to fix this to run in Nemu.

Mupen might account for this, but never was able to test the compatibility due to the system issues.
 

etking

New member
All current N64 emulators are full of crazy Bugs and have big stability issues. Developers should join forces and concentrate on bug fixing before developing any new features or the 101st new N64 emulator. This applies to all major emulators and video plug-ins.

Rice is the most buggy and unstable emulator plugin ever created, best choice is Glide64. No current Audio Plugin is even close to Azimer.

Project64 1.6 or 1.7 would be the best emulator but is full of bugs. It also does not support rice textures since developers do not like open source and their great video plugin cannot be used in other emulators.

1964 1.2 or older is soooo buggy and unstable. 1964mod is more stable but has other annoying bugs, latest version cannot even enable fullscreen without crashing.

Instead of joining forces together, every developer team creates his own little N64 project and no overall progress is being made.

Wii emulatuion is currently in a much better shape than N64 emulation ever was and far more professional, stable and reliable.
 
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Rodimus Primal

New member
mupen64plus doesn't have a user friendly Windows GUI available that I can think of. I'm eager to see what Hacktarux's work will produce with a cycle accurate N64 emulator.
 

Rodimus Primal

New member
How does Aracanoid act on Project 64 1.7? I'm going to give it a try when I get the chance but would like to know of any quirks it may have. Mupen64plus doesn't like my N64 controllers no matter what plugin I use.
 

yukon

New member
All current N64 emulators are full of crazy Bugs and have big stability issues. Developers should join forces and concentrate on bug fixing
I'm disappointed too. I haven't tried in years, having been spoiled by MAME and Dolphin.

Things changed since I was in N64 emulation's community. Most N64 emulators are dead, not having time to maintain that 101th N64 emulator. Competition is good, but there's more focus now. If I find one more forum link that 404's, I'll start mirroring files. The 2 main emulators are open-source and friendly, so past progress will be built on and shared, not obsoleted. Developers now use version-control, with code.googles and mercurials and githubs, so it's organized. I don't know the Project64 leak story, but 1964 and Mupen64Plus are GPL, so licencing is easier. Considering N64 emulation's past, planning matters.

I'm most familiar with Mupen, which was redesigned properly, now easier to code for, more portable, and more efficient. Other projects create GUIs, also portable and better designed, leaving Mupen64Plus programmers to work on N64 emulation. Redesigning took time, but with frontends like M64Py they're caught up and working in the right framework.

Computers are faster. UltraHLE running Zelda64 on a Pentium2 was astonishing, but now code can be portable (eg. not assembly) and more accurate. Games look good effortlessly, and while performance matters for mobile ports, it isn't the driving concern it once was. I don't know how many years a P2 would need to render a frame of an N64 game accurately.

Overall, the N64 emulator space seems less visionary & amateur & erratic, more managed & cumulative & stable.

The emulators themselves simply are more stable. Years ago, it was about playing the game until it froze. Now it's finding another game that works and then playing through it. Maybe it's the meticulously collected variety of 3044 ROM revisions, or the removal of hacks for more accurate code, but compatibility isn't good yet. Other console emulators are practically 100% compatible libraries, or run games released this year, but N64 emulation had false-starts.

N64's controller is difficult to reproduce -- impossible on a keyboard, not quite the X-Box standard, and rare for a controller to have enough buttons. The emulators aren't entirely good at controllers, but at least bluetooth isn't involved. N64 adapters seem less shady now, and there are purpose-made USB controllers too.

My conclusion is that N64 emulators don't replace the hardware yet, but they're finally moving forward.

I'm eager to see a cycle accurate N64 emulator.
Accuracy is difficult and good (arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator). I'm eager too. I'm sad to see WaveRace 1080p-HiRes-HQ4X at <18% CPU usage when most games don't run. I don't know what hardware cycle-accuracy requires, but I could use an excuse to upgrade. Until LLE and cycle accuracy, I'm hoping the frontend developers will take a Dolphin approach to compatibility databases.

--
Much love to N64 emulator developers. Sometimes we're critical because we love.
 

squall_leonhart

The Great Gunblade Wielder
cycle accuracy is thoroughly overrated, overstated, and almost entirely misunderstood by the majority of people who actually emulate games.
 

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