this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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The Nintendo 64 has always been a difficult machine to emulate correctly. But in 2025 - we should be well and truly past all of it right? Not exactly. Issues with Plugins, performance, graphical glitches, stutters. Unless you have a very powerful machine, these are common things many of us will run into when emulating the Nintendo 64. But why? And Is there any hope for fast, accurate N64 emulation in 2025 and beyond?

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[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 41 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The core if it boils down to, when emulating older machines, is the consoles processor speaks language A, and our computers all speak language B

The emulator has to translate back and forth between A<->B faster than the speed the original processors would've just spoken A

So translating A<->B is a way tougher task than just reciting A. So you need a tremendously better CPU than what the console had to emulate it.

It's kinda like, Dropping a rock in a pile of sand is easy. Simulating dropping that rock into the pile of sand in real time accurately is really challenging.

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 24 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Not only that. Emulators must often ”cheat” to achieve high speeds. This means emulators doesn’t try to achieve a 1:1 replication of what’s happening inside the hardware, but something that’s gives close enough results and better tailored for modern hardware.

The reason why N64 is particularly difficult is because each game must be optimized individually (due to the heavy reliance on microcode). The emulator must replicate the hardware at a much lower level for an accurate emulation of all games. Emulator developers can apply optimizations on each individual game, but it’s incredibly time consuming to do so for every game in the N64 library.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago

And that's the reason MVG is telling other devs: stop using those cheats, if the sceen is going progress they have start using low level standards.

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[–] Feyd@programming.dev 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's even more complicated than that, because for full accuracy, it must also emulate the clock speed at which the emulated processor ran, as well as the various memory busses etc

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 5 points 3 months ago

Emulating DK’s Jungle Parkway in MK64 goes brrrr

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Emulators exist for the Switch. So it's not just the fact that the emulator needs to translate, there is something specific about the N64's 'language' that makes translating more difficult and time consuming.

[–] rhombus@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 months ago

There isn’t actually a ton of translating going on with the Switch, as it’s basically just a computer (an ARM computer, but still). The N64 had a very different architecture that doesn’t work like modern computers do. On top of that, games on it relied on low level graphics code that makes it very difficult to cheat like other emulators do.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

EDIT: Sorry, I mixed up my comment chains.

Is Switch emulation HLE? Because if so, the Switch isn't relevant to what the other commenter is explaining.

HLE just means the emulator needs to have the same output as the Switch.

LLE means the Emulator is kind of running an entire Switch.

There's a difference.

EDIT: I think it's more that the Switch's "language" is much closer to a computer's "language" today. Older consoles were complex beasts built completely differently from contemporary computers, let alone modern ones.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 27 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Back in 2015 I used the emulator "1964" to play some MarioKart64 and it ran well on a very weak computer, fwiw.

[–] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 29 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Do you remember if you had the black screen in this track?

It's a classical issue in n64 emulators.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 11 points 3 months ago

It looks different than I remember. Usually it was just a black screen.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Or in perfect dark when the camspy didn't work with a black screen thus being hard locked out of the game pretty early in

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[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The video says that emulation has always worked better on popular games. But if you try to emulate a less popular game, you will run into major issues. This is because the emulation must be tweaked for each game specifically due to how N64 hardware works.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 11 points 3 months ago

Especially Nintendo's own games. Mario 64, Mario kart, etc, were usually the first to be emulated correctly.

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I've never been able to play though Goemon's Great Adventure on emulation. It always hits a game-breaking crash :/

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[–] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I respect MVG a lot but this is honestly clickbait. All you have to do is:

  1. Download RetroArch
  2. Install Mupen64Plus-Next core
  3. Enable ParaLLEl RDP and RSP plugins in core settings

and you can play every game without issues. Not a broken mess by any means.

If you have resources leftover, you can even go into the core settings and turn internal resolution to 4x for better 3D graphics

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You didnt watch the video, did you?

Cause the whole needing plugins and hacks to run games was exactly the point he was making, on why emulation of n64 is still in a poor shape, despite consoles before and after being emulated just fine without issue.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Right, and on different platforms, too. Yes, your gaming PC can do it fine, but a PS Vita should have the horsepower to do it, too, and that's not where things are at.

And then there's homebrew stuff. Works fine on real hardware, but emulators often fail.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I didn't have time to watch the video at the moment. What's wrong with Dolphin?

Or is this about things people that had a n64 back in the day don't even recognize as wrong?

Edit. Just saw its a MVG video. Everyone calm down, I'm going to watch it.

Edited: Good video. It makes sense to use cheats for each game, and it makes sense it's hard to play lesser known games because of it.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Dolphin is not an N64 emulator.

[–] OR3X@lemm.ee 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, you are correct Dolphin will not play N64 ROMs directly. It will however play SOME Wii virtual console games which includes around 22 N64 games. Soooo, sorta?? 🤷‍♂️

[–] SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It'll emulate an emulator on another emulator!

[–] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Xzibit approves

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[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (7 children)

And yet I play all my N64 games on it.

[–] Sabin10@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Then you are playing virtual console roms/injections, which typically have more issues than current proper n64 emulators.

If it's good enough for you, that's fine but it's far from perfect.

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[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ah, an emulator within an emulator. Yes, I'm sure the results must be just like the original hardware!

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

The games work just fine. I played them when they were new, and get just as much enjoyment out of them now.

I'm not sorry i don't care about milliseconds or whatever technical details the programmers care about. I am thankful for their hard work though.

[–] Mojave@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How are you using dolphin to emulate N64?

Dolphin has no native N64 emulation support. Are you using N64 ports from the Wii? Those are running using Nintendo's Wii-based emulator (which also has known issues) on top of the Wii emulation. That introduced a whole second layer of technical issues.

Not that the N64 roms aren't playable, but the problem is more technical on why it's so difficult to emulate the specific N64 hardware perfectly using just modern software

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 6 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Thanks. Like i said i haven't been able to check the video out yet.

I am enjoying everyone jumping down my throat about being able to play n64 games with no issues though. It's giving me a good laugh with my coffee.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I thought Kaze pretty much reverse engineered the whole thing? Or is that just for Mario 64?

[–] KRAW@linux.community 17 points 3 months ago

Just Mario 64. However there is a very good implementation of the N64 in the Mister FPGA project. The downside is there aren't many emulation features that you'd expect out of a software emulator (e.g. save states)

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 16 points 3 months ago

Kaze just works on Mario 64. He's torn that game up and rebuilt it for his needs. He's even mentioned that emulators won't even work with some of the hardware tricks that he utilizes.

[–] 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Feel free to commit a pull request. Don't talk about it. Be about it.

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 71 points 3 months ago (6 children)

The creator of this video is an emulator developer.

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[–] Kichae@lemmy.ca 30 points 3 months ago (2 children)

"If you aren't a programmer, don't speak" is about what I expect from programmers, yes. That kind of elitism is why most programmer-only projects are utter shit.

[–] hedgehog@ttrpg.network 15 points 3 months ago

This is even worse tbh, because, as someone else pointed out, the YouTuber is a programmer. This is saying “only write code, don’t discuss what kinds of changes are needed.”

That + the “commit a pull request” nonsense (you submit a pull request, which comprises commits; the PR only gets committed when it’s been reviewed and merged by a maintainer) makes me doubt that the commenter you replied to has ever collaborated productively on a software project.

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 14 points 3 months ago

Well, MVG is an experienced programmer, especially with emulation and homebrews, so he knows what he’s talking about.

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I had no issue emulating n64 games on my piece of shit machine almost 20 years ago. What even is this?

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[–] dh3lix@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

N64 stuff runs brilliant on MisterFpga tho.

[–] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

FPGA emulation is another level. The video says that FPGA emulation is near flawless except homebrew.

[–] rhombus@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

FPGA mimics hardware 1:1 without overhead, which is why it works well. This is talking about software emulation, which has to use lots of shortcuts to make it fast enough (for most machines). The N64 has a weird architecture though that makes it difficult to find shortcuts that work well.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

People tend to overstate FPGAs. They are designed as software in a funny programming language and then "burned in" to hardware. They can and do have inaccuracies and bugs.

In the long run, real hardware is going to disappear through the attrition of time, so we do need this stuff for the sake of preservation. But people tend to put it on a pedestal without really understanding it.

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[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

An interesting video, but I don't really feel it got to answer the question posed. He also didn't, for me, answer why he wants to focus on LLE instead of HLE as it's been obvious that LLE is very resource intensive.

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