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Fully functioning Project64 on Macbook Pro Parallels Windows 10 TP - (some audio lag)

IntricateD

missingmyfoodstamps
I felt this might be useful for some of the mac users out there who might be running a similar setup. After hours and hours of reading about the newest EMU talk and learning about what each setting in PJ64 2.1 does, I can happily report that I have so far, not had any issues setting up PJ 64 to function in a virtual environment on my MBP. comp stats at bottom.

I have successfully run the following ROMS:

Zelda OOT - With hires texture pack
Super Smash Brothers - With hires texture pack
Diddy Kong Racing

HOWEVER, there is one caveat. Audio lag (1/8 - 1/5 sec...i think?) occurs in all of these games in PJ64. In SSB it isn't so bad because so much crazyness is happening all at the same time anyway. With zelda its annoying but not unbearable.

I suppose if I had to nitpick, there seems to be a bit of latency of the movement as well but honestly i dont mind it too much.

I have ALSO run these same roms on both SixtyForce, and Mupen64 natively on OSX yosemite.

My basic comparison is as follows:

SixtyForce -

Pros - WAY more responsive than Mupen64 in OSX or PJ64 on windows and Zero Audio latency. Seems to work flawlessly for these games.

Cons - No way to load hires texture packs :( :( :(

Mupen64 (on OSX Yosemite) -

Pros - Functional. Honestly, what is important to report here is the fact that you have the option (which is difficult to figure out because all existing mac instructions are horribly outdated) to load hires packs. I tried every version available including the modified GUI which i believe is referred to as Mupen64Plus.

Cons - when the hires packs were loaded, crazy graphic trailing occurred. I also had some pretty bad force-closes. An example of this happened in the intro scene of zelda before you press start, the horse movements trailed horribly and the cloud textures didn't have proper alignment.

All in all, I am not trying to stir anything up. I just thought my time and trials were worth reporting here. It might not be the section as it covers a few applications, and if it is not I am happy to move it elsewhere.

For now, PJ64 is hands-down the clear winner for me and my configuration. If anyone has any tips regarding the sound latency, I would love to know them. Thanks everyone for putting in so much of your time to make this community happen.

Macbook Pro (non-retina) mid-2012, i7 2.7 (8MB cache), 16GB Vengeance, 2 840 pro SSDs, OSX Yosemite, Parallels 10.1.1, Windows 10 Tech Preview Build: 9841 running on secondary SSD. Windows VM is allocated 6GB of Ram, 512MB of VRAM, and 2 cores and does not run with continuity enabled in Parallels.
 
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NES_player4LIFE

Texture Pack Invader
Moderator
Thank you for the comparison, it should prove helpful to the mac users.

Audio lag (1/8 - 1/5 sec...i think?) occurs in all of these games in PJ64. In SSB it isn't so bad because so much crazyness is happening all at the same time anyway. With zelda its annoying but not unbearable.
If you are using Jabo's direct 1.7.0.7 audio plugin try deselecting the Sync game to Audio option.

 

V1del

New member
Somewhat of a general note, take with a grain of salt as I don't use macs and if your current setup works for you that's fine:

1. What could also help with general speed is trying to use Wine instead of a virtualized environment. I don't know how well it works on macs but have made good experiences in conjunction with PJ64 and Linux.

2. If you intend to use mupen64plus as base for comparison and are not intending to compile source versions yourself, you'd do good to use the builds M64Py provides as the current state gets compiled with the releases and there are some pretty big things which happened after the current 2.0 release, including enabling texture loading from DAT files in which many texture packs are being distributed. I didn't have any issues with hires-packs and glide64mk2 but again, can't speak directly for mac compatibility although I doubt there'd be this many differences (can't confirm crashes or buggy textures in OOT for example, using Djipi's cell shading pack)
 
OP
I

IntricateD

missingmyfoodstamps
Thank you for the comparison, it should prove helpful to the mac users.


If you are using Jabo's direct 1.7.0.7 audio plugin try deselecting the Sync game to Audio option.


Thank You for this I will do so. There is a lot of back and forth trial and error that happens with emulators it seems! I will definitely try this after finals.

Somewhat of a general note, take with a grain of salt as I don't use macs and if your current setup works for you that's fine:

1. What could also help with general speed is trying to use [edited out] instead of a virtualized environment. I don't know how well it works on macs but have made good experiences in conjunction with PJ64 and Linux.

2. If you intend to use mupen64plus as base for comparison and are not intending to compile source versions yourself, you'd do good to use the builds [edited out] provides as the current state gets compiled with the releases and there are some pretty big things which happened after the current 2.0 release, including enabling texture loading from DAT files in which many texture packs are being distributed. I didn't have any issues with hires-packs and glide64mk2 but again, can't speak directly for mac compatibility although I doubt there'd be this many differences (can't confirm crashes or buggy textures in OOT for example, using Djipi's cell shading pack)

Excellent tips, thank you as well. It is great to get a second opinion on M64Py because it can be tricky to decipher what emulators are indeed being actively updated. I had a strange issue with M64Py where when I would load a ROM it would just stay black and I had to make it full screen and then exit full screen a couple of times before it would display the game graphics. I assumed that perhaps there was an incompatibility issue with Yosemite (being a new OS and all). I will now give it another shot and see if I can have more success. Using the integrated Intel graphics card would be definitely more efficient and not having to use a VM would be nice too :)

ALSO, if anyone needs advice or details on how to navigate the newer OSX folder destinations for ROMs and retexture packs and such, I would be glad to make a how-to once Im done with finals which are happening this week. Or just PM me, whichever works... I don't pretend to be an expert but if I could save a few people the hassle of having to figure out how to load up an emulator with high res packs on a mac I'm all for it. I wonder if SixtyForce dev's are planning on enabling texture packs...

(sorry for straying off topic a bit)
 

urbanman2004

Head Honcho
Stick to bootcamp. The torture of running an N64 emulator thru an 'emulated OS' is not worth the hassle
 
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