Nintendo 64 emulators

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Revision as of 10:21, 26 July 2013 by GPDP (talk) (Comparisons)
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The Nintendo 64 (N64) console

The Nintendo 64 is a 64-bit, 5th generation console released by Nintendo in 1996.

Emulators

Name Operating System(s) Latest Version Active Recommended
Mupen64Plus Multi-platform SVN
Project64 Windows 2.1
1964 Windows 1.1 (official), 1.2 r146 (SVN)
Daedalus Windows, PlayStation Portable 1.1 (Windows), SVN (PSP)
Not64 Wii, Gamecube 20130408 ?
Wii64 Wii, Gamecube 1.1 beta

Comparisons

In terms of compatibility with the N64's game library, vanilla Mupen64 was basically on par with if not superior to Project64 1.6, with 1964 lagging quite a bit behind the two. Mupen64Plus improves upon Mupen64 even further, while Project64 2.1 only fixed a few things and broke a whole bunch more. Mupen64Plus is receiving far more updates, and will likely be the N64 emulator of the future.

That said, as things stand, N64 emulation is a complete mess. Every emulator has its own unique compatibility issues, and it varies significantly even within one emulator if using different plugins. Refer to this link for optimal emulator settings based on the game you want to play.

For Daedalus, results are even more hit-and-miss than on other emulators due to being made for PSP first and foremost. On PSP, most games are unplayable, but there's a small amount of them that work really well with the right settings (Quest 64, for example). It's the only option for N64 emulation on PSP.

Wii64 and Not64 are both based on Mupen64, with Not64 being a fork of Wii64. Not64 claims to be better optimised, as well as having higher compatibility and more frequent updates.

Emulation

The N64 was an overly complex machine that was difficult to program for. For this reason, creating an emulator is quite difficult.

One of the biggest hurdles is accurately emulating the N64's graphics hardware, known as the Reality Display Processor, itself a part of the N64's Reality Co-Processor. The RDP is a fully featured and very complex GPU, and emulating it at a low level has proved to be a daunting task that requires a lot of research, coding expertise, and immense amounts of resources. For this reason, most developers have instead opted to approximate its functions using high-level emulation through various APIs such as Direct3D, OpenGL, and even Glide. While this results in much more reasonable system requirements for emulation along with high resolution graphics, this can be hit and miss, often requiring per-game tweaks and settings to prevent graphical glitches, and even then some games that implemented custom microcode (which has yet to be reverse-engineered) do not work no matter what. It should also be noted that even though most games "work" through this method, it is not an accurate representation of what the N64 hardware's output actually looked like, but rather a rough approximation by PC graphics hardware. Your mileage may vary on whether this is a good thing or not, given the N64's often blurry, low-res output.