The State of N64 Emulation

[Reznor007]

I highly doubt any one could build a working PCB out of an emulator source. You would have to have a good understanding of programming, electronics, and microprocessors. By the way no one in there right mind would want to build a PCB by looking at the original unless they were trying to make a schematic of it because one doesn't already exsist. You would be better of just building it with an already made schematic that is nicely layed out and color coded. Also why does every one seem to throw around LLE and HLE?? There almost like anoying catch phrases. Get with the program...they either hacked it to get it to work or they didn't. Hmm anyway most emulators use little hacks to get stuff working, even nes emulators do. The only exception I could think of would be mame. As for n64 emulation it's horribly inaccurate..the n64's texture filtering doesn't even look like it's supposed to since they are using the computers graphic card to draw everything to the screen. Of coarse like other people said n64 emulation wouldn't be playable at all if you did strait emulation. The only thing thats good about emulation is it gives me a chance to play afew odd games that I could never get to play like some one said afew posts back.

That's true about N64 emulators being very wrong. N64 doesn't really do bilinear filtering, it's a cheap hack. You could probably get LLE N64 by doing a dynarec CPU core for both processors and offloading only the final rasterization(like PSX emus). It would need to be cycle accurate(at least mostly).

 

[Curious]

Its great

Its great to see the passion for emulation is still there. And nice to see a genuinely interesting conversation taking place again on this forum. Just my perspective.

C.
^_^

 

[Vchat20]

The only thing that would make N64 Emulation complete at this point would be if someone could take and pull the important hardware (graphics, sound, etc.) out of a N64 and adapt it to a PC. But that would be highly impossible, not to mention writing the driver's for it. So, that idea is either never or very far down the road. (Unless a Rebel N64 Techie could do it for emulator's but that is very Doubtful. LOL)

 

[thedaemon666]

yes but that also would defeat the purpose of emulation because that would be just using the real hardware to play the roms...
maybe you should look up the definition of emulation...
then rethink your statement although it would still be interesting to see a computer work in harmony with the N64's hardware

 

[Vchat20]

Ive seen people talking about Ultra64 and have seen that in some video rental places. What exactly is it? Is it like the Arcade N64 Games? If so, then how exactly does the Rush game work? (im interested in how the code/stats part works). Does it actually connect to the net in some way and post the stats and your code to some server or is it only for one machine? But I am very interested!

 

[Flash]

I didn't say it would be identical to the original, but you could get something working

I can build something that will run Perfect Dark but it will be not a real N64.
And who will need to develop new hardware, it can take many years and huge amounts of one thing called money when it's
possible to use software emulator ? For now DC,N64 and modern arcade machine emulators are quite slow, but Doom was slow for my 386SX20 in 1993
and now i have 70+ fps in UT. And if somebody want to keep hardware for his grandchildren it's better way to buy real machines and open museum or find schematics (i know, it's hard, but nothing is impossible).

And Ultra64 acade boards are not rare. I've seen 10 on ebay in the last 2 weeks.

It was just an example, i can say Naomi or System246, what's the difference .... I have KI board and complete KI2 cabinet.

 

[thedaemon666]

yeah ultra 64 is the arcade version...
and i believe that the stats are stored per machine cause it would be a bitch to have an internet connection on an arcade machine let alone in an arcade

 

[Vchat20]

That would be cool though. My idea for new game machines.

Small version. Multiplayer couple of the same arcade machines but have them scattered across the arcade.

Large Version: Multiplayer Arcade machine's accross the World!! Have like a T1 or OC3 connection to all arcade machines and play them multiplayer to anyone in the world!

That would be cool!

 

[Zuzma]

yeah ultra 64 is the arcade version...
and i believe that the stats are stored per machine cause it would be a bitch to have an internet connection on an arcade machine let alone in an arcade

The ultra64 name was more of a gimmick then anything. It kinda reminds me of when sega claimed there genesis did "blast processing". The Ultra 64 hardware actually had almost nothing in common with the n64. Killer Instinct and killer Instinct 2 used a similer cpu to the n64 one but thats about it. The game actually just used a frame buffer to render everything you'd see on the screen it didn't have any 3D hardware. Then crus'in USA and crus'in world had NOTHING at all in common with the n64 they just stuck the name ultra64 on it.

Nintendo 64 CPU: MIPS R4300i
Killer Instinct 1/2 CPU: MIPS R4600
Crus'in USA/World CPU: TMS32031

 

[Dominator]

It is really odd to oppose HLE to LLE methods.

LLE "kings" pretend to spread the truth over the emu community because they accurately emulate games?
Fine.
Where are the FPS and playablity accuracy? If we just speak about technical marvels, then sorry but some PC demos are much more impressive to me.
Emulation is about accuracy, that is right. Technical accuracy but also look & feel accuracy. What is the point in your favorite game revival if it just running at 2 fps?

Frankly, imagine yourself showing to your kids the games you were playing at. "Look that great 2d game running at 2fps. Isn't that wonderful?".
Admit that there is something wrong in there.

Also you shouldn't disrispect the HLE approach. HLE doesn't make anything easier. Fine, technically, you can get better speed if everything is correctly implemented/optimized. But when it comes to compatibility, would you seriously believe that the HLE approach has any kind of superiority?

 

[CanSee]

Aye, emulation surely is a struggle...
I kinda cannot await the days where I´m gonna be able to play any N64 game without issues of any kind, and hope that´ll be like ZSNES, so that it looks much better than on the N64 (maybe multiple anisotropic filtering, FSAA, pixel shading ?)

 

[Vchat20]

I admit, their are a few bugs with it, but the SNES is like 99.9% emulated so far in my opinion. For all the SNES games I have played on ZSNES, not one has given me a problem.

 

[Dominator]

I admit, their are a few bugs with it, but the SNES is like 99.9% emulated so far in my opinion. For all the SNES games I have played on ZSNES, not one has given me a problem.

Nice point there. To come to such a conclusion, you had to be able to play a game. Pretty hard to really beta test a game and debug your emulator on an emulator when running at 2 fps.

 

[Vchat20]

Nice point there. To come to such a conclusion, you had to be able to play a game. Pretty hard to really beta test a game and debug your emulator on an emulator when running at 2 fps.

Yeah, and Ive run ZSNES with all options at full, and the FPS was always either 59, 60, or 61 FPS. AND I HAVE 333MHZ!!!

 

[Reznor007]

It is really odd to oppose HLE to LLE methods.

LLE "kings" pretend to spread the truth over the emu community because they accurately emulate games?
Fine.
Where are the FPS and playablity accuracy? If we just speak about technical marvels, then sorry but some PC demos are much more impressive to me.
Emulation is about accuracy, that is right. Technical accuracy but also look & feel accuracy. What is the point in your favorite game revival if it just running at 2 fps?

Frankly, imagine yourself showing to your kids the games you were playing at. "Look that great 2d game running at 2fps. Isn't that wonderful?".
Admit that there is something wrong in there.

Also you shouldn't disrispect the HLE approach. HLE doesn't make anything easier. Fine, technically, you can get better speed if everything is correctly implemented/optimized. But when it comes to compatibility, would you seriously believe that the HLE approach has any kind of superiority?

So what if it's slow? Just get a faster CPU. Being slow is not a bug. It merely shows how powerful the hardware is. Even full Dreamcast emulation is only expected to take 8GHz, and we have 3GHz CPU's right now. Wait a year-year1/2 and we should be at least at 6GHz.

LLE is always superior, no question. The only possible exception is speed, but that is always fixable by buying faster hardware.

And for what it's worth, MAME will eventually emulate N64 hardware, as one arcade game used it(Mickey's Tetris or something).

 

[Reznor007]

Nice point there. To come to such a conclusion, you had to be able to play a game. Pretty hard to really beta test a game and debug your emulator on an emulator when running at 2 fps.

You can always play a game no matter how slow it is. Cruisin'USA in MAME was developed on a 2GHz P4(IIRC).

Even one MAME dev uses a P1 133MHz, yet works on things all the way up to Sega System32.

 

[Doomulation]

New hardware COSTS MONEY! And everybody does not have MONEY!
'Nuff said. I think that covers it.

 

[Reznor007]

New hardware COSTS MONEY! And everybody does not have MONEY!
'Nuff said. I think that covers it.

If that's the only thing you can come up with against that, then you are into emulation simply for free games. Afterall, if you simply wanted to play the game, you would own the original right?

 

[RatTrap]

that's ridicules..

if you are spending SO much money on the hardware for your PC just for emulation.. i consider you to be just fruity ..

if your fanatic.. you would buy the arcade/console instead.. if you feel that your hobby is worth the huge amount of money your talking about.. buy the cabinets.. and stop acting like ppl that don't buy 4Ghz machines and tweak their OS to run a sertain game at 4 fps instead pf 2.. are just in it for the games.. coz that's not true.. you can love many things in life.. and believe me.. there's more to life than emulation.. many ppl here have children and wifes.. ok not many but some.. some others have things that are far bigger to them than spending money on new hardware.. just because that is life.. it does not mean that they are just in it for the casual game playing..

you can say that I am not in it for eather emulation or the games.. i don't give a flying rat bout eather.. i rarelly play any games at all on my PC.. and when i do.. it's PC games.. i hang here because i've found some good friends online.. and because it's turnd into a hobby for me.. also.. the whole emulation thing is getting abit dull latelly.. it's been a long time since something trully revolutionary happend.. and you could say that i'm not supporting the emulation scene by not doing or helping anyone while nothing that interests me is happening.. but hey.. i help when i can and feel like it.. and i have in the past.. does that make me a non supporter?.. a rom kiddy?.. a guy that's just in it for the games?.. i doubt it.. and there's more guys like me than you think..

if you feel a passion big enugh to love MAME for at least.. what it's TRYING to do.. then go ahead and do that.. but saying that ppl that don't understand or don't like the idea of LLE and cycle acurate etc etc on a N64 emulator coz the games won't run on their machines are just in it for the games then is just plain silly..

but on the other hand.. yeah if anything i WOULD be in it for the games.. the games are software.. i feel i can remember them alot more than i can remember the SNES while using ZSNES.. and i loved the SNES games.. the SNES i have in a box somewhere.. so what's wrong with loving the games?.. and if you love the games.. you love to play the games.. if you love somebody.. you love to grab that somebody and hold it till it pops (ok that's abit much).. eather way.. just staring at it at 2 fps don't make you amazed at anything.. the achivement they are going for is hardware.. we love the machines but also the games.. and how can you love something you can't even see?.. it's possible.. yet ridicules in a way since you can have all the stuff in your harddrive.. but then again.. what good does it do?.. does it give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside?.. you can't even see it anyways..

and as for 8 Ghz machines.. you can't know that.. it's very hard to know.. since todays processor architecture is generally using as much of what todays technology can achieve.. i bet there will be 8 Ghz machines.. there are today.. but who in their right mind would buy a $50k processor.. just to run MAME?.. if you want to preserve the machine.. buy a N64.. don't go emulation.. because what emulation has been from the very beginning.. in general.. is some guys thinking "i wonder if i could run NES games on my PC"..

then again.. if your trully into emulation.. and not in it for the games.. don't try MAME.. try projects that are emulating actual usefull systems.. your only talking bout Game systems.. this is the very well known part of emulation but emulation has been around longer than games have.. and it's used for far more complex things than arcade or console gaming..

 

[Reznor007]

that's ridicules..

if you are spending SO much money on the hardware for your PC just for emulation.. i consider you to be just fruity ..

if your fanatic.. you would buy the arcade/console instead.. if you feel that your hobby is worth the huge amount of money your talking about.. buy the cabinets.. and stop acting like ppl that don't buy 4Ghz machines and tweak their OS to run a sertain game at 4 fps instead pf 2.. are just in it for the games.. coz that's not true.. you can love many things in life.. and believe me.. there's more to life than emulation.. many ppl here have children and wifes.. ok not many but some.. some others have things that are far bigger to them than spending money on new hardware.. just because that is life.. it does not mean that they are just in it for the casual game playing..

you can say that I am not in it for eather emulation or the games.. i don't give a flying rat bout eather.. i rarelly play any games at all on my PC.. and when i do.. it's PC games.. i hang here because i've found some good friends online.. and because it's turnd into a hobby for me.. also.. the whole emulation thing is getting abit dull latelly.. it's been a long time since something trully revolutionary happend.. and you could say that i'm not supporting the emulation scene by not doing or helping anyone while nothing that interests me is happening.. but hey.. i help when i can and feel like it.. and i have in the past.. does that make me a non supporter?.. a rom kiddy?.. a guy that's just in it for the games?.. i doubt it.. and there's more guys like me than you think..

if you feel a passion big enugh to love MAME for at least.. what it's TRYING to do.. then go ahead and do that.. but saying that ppl that don't understand or don't like the idea of LLE and cycle acurate etc etc on a N64 emulator coz the games won't run on their machines are just in it for the games then is just plain silly..

but on the other hand.. yeah if anything i WOULD be in it for the games.. the games are software.. i feel i can remember them alot more than i can remember the SNES while using ZSNES.. and i loved the SNES games.. the SNES i have in a box somewhere.. so what's wrong with loving the games?.. and if you love the games.. you love to play the games.. if you love somebody.. you love to grab that somebody and hold it till it pops (ok that's abit much).. eather way.. just staring at it at 2 fps don't make you amazed at anything.. the achivement they are going for is hardware.. we love the machines but also the games.. and how can you love something you can't even see?.. it's possible.. yet ridicules in a way since you can have all the stuff in your harddrive.. but then again.. what good does it do?.. does it give you a warm fuzzy feeling inside?.. you can't even see it anyways..

and as for 8 Ghz machines.. you can't know that.. it's very hard to know.. since todays processor architecture is generally using as much of what todays technology can achieve.. i bet there will be 8 Ghz machines.. there are today.. but who in their right mind would buy a $50k processor.. just to run MAME?.. if you want to preserve the machine.. buy a N64.. don't go emulation.. because what emulation has been from the very beginning.. in general.. is some guys thinking "i wonder if i could run NES games on my PC"..

then again.. if your trully into emulation.. and not in it for the games.. don't try MAME.. try projects that are emulating actual usefull systems.. your only talking bout Game systems.. this is the very well known part of emulation but emulation has been around longer than games have.. and it's used for far more complex things than arcade or console gaming..

Like I said, it's always better to have the original, however, it's not always possible(Bradley Trainer, the military version of Battlezone..less than 5 exist).

As for cost, if they absolutely cannot afford hardware needed to fully emulate something, just don't play the game. Don't complain about how slow it is, or how it shouldn't require so much power.

If you say nothing revolutionary has happened, what do you mean? Almost 3GB of games were added to the current release of MAME over the last one, from old prototype games to CruisinUSA and Area51 and Steel Talons.