Is there any hope for me?

[defdave]

Hey guys. I have a slower computer, but I really would love to play Mario 64 and WWF No Mercy at full speed. Right now, most n64 games go only as high as about 30-35 fps. I know No Mercy has a target fps of 60, so I'm way behind.

I have a family to support, and there is now way I can afford to buy another computer or upgrade this one right now.

Is there any hope for me in my pursuit of video game joy?

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Here's my system specs:

Windows 2000 Professional, Service Pack 4

Dell OptiPlex GX110
533 megahertz Intel Pentium III
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

133.59 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
54.32 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
c: (on drive 0) 13.59 GB 1.63 GB free
e: (on drive 0) 120.00 GB 52.70 GB free

Intel(R) 82810E Graphics Controller [Display adapter]

I'm using PJ64 1.6 and rice's latest video plugin (beta 10).
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So there you go.

I'm sure the graphics card is part of my problem, but like I said, I can't afford to buy any new computer hardware.

Are there any tweaks I can do to the configuration to speed up my fps from 30 to at least 50? I have read parts of pj64's readme and I've done a couple of things to try to speed up the fps, but there are some things I really don't understand. I feel like an idiot when it comes to this.

So anyway, am I just plain out of luck because of my computer's age, or is there hope that with some adjustments I might be able to make games on pj64 at a "somewhat" normal speed?


:happy:
Thanks in advance,
def_dave7

 

[ScottJC]

Only thing that may help is to try 1964 with project64's plugins, or Ultrahle 2064. Project64 is one of the higher spec requiring emulators.

 

[Clements]

Little hope I'm afraid. You may be forced to use another emulator. To run PJ64 confortably at 60fps you'd need around 800MHz or better with a separate graphics card.

You're at a particular disadvantage since you have both a fairly weak processor and very weak graphics that don't help you at all, so it'll be both slow and have extra glitches that above spec hardware does not have. You may have to live with any glitches and use 1964 or UltraHLE with Jabo's D3D6 1.5.2 (since it'll be faster than the other plugins and be fairly compatible with the Intel) and you may get it playable at a good speed. That is what I suggest.

 

[defdave]

ok

sigh....ok guys thanks.

I guess I'll have to try jabo's d3d6 then.

I really wanted to try out rice's newest plug-in so I could update with hi-res textures, but I guess that'll have to wait until I get better hardware.

So do you guys think that if one day I get a better video card that I maybe could run pj64 with rice's video beta 10 plug-in? I hope so. There's no way I'll be able to get a better processor anytime in the next couple years probably. But a video card MIGHT be do-able sometime. (lay-away)

Now one last thing...I googled jabo's d3d6 and found plenty of links to forums like this, but no downloads. Can someone link me to a download of jabo's d3d6 (the latest)?

Thanks again!
def_dave7

 

[Clements]

http://www.pj64.net/code/mainiframe_downloads.htm

Comes with v1.6.

A new video card would enable you to use more plugins (and thus, be able to play more games) with less errors and increase the speed depending on how fast the card is and resolution/filtering used over integrated graphics, while a CPU upgrade would increase the speed by a lot.

For hi-res textures with Rice's, you may need an entirely new PC, since you'll probably need a large amount texture memory as well as a fast processor due to the overhead of using the new textures on top of the emulation, but a new graphics card is a good start, an FX 5200 would set you back $43 and that's probably the cheapest card I'd recommend for N64 emulation.