You’re a monster. Framerates were low, sure, and IQ is blurry, sure. But when played on a CRT, I think it still has the most advanced looking games of any console that generation. Like a half step up between ps1 and Dreamcast when it comes to 3D-heavy games. And the soft look works to create a coherent style.
Played on a modern screen through an upscaler, however, then I do see the issue - the games look like a blurry mess and the illusion all falls apart. PS1’s and Saturn’s 3D titles will look much better and more vibrant.
But on a CRT, I really do think N64 was the most futuristic and had more games with a modern take on 3D gameplay.
N64 certainly looks its best on a CRT imo. The soupy textures benefit from being broken up with some sort of grill or mask and it really helps with some of the egregious dithering that some titles use. I quite like the look of the N64, it’s certainly distinct from the PS1’s and Saturn’s 3d signature quirks.
An FPGA N64 that is accurate as possible that can help with CPU load to increase frame rate/keep a frame rate locked steady and increase colour depth (remove dithering) would be nice though.
Doesn’t the iQue device run games a little better than a stock N64 or was that just a myth?
They can run a LOT better, that’s why speed runners use the iQue for several games.
"It’s wired to a Samsung 16 Mbyte DDR memory chip. This seems to compare admirably to the Rambus RDRAM in the original – various choppy scenes and lag in the original games are simply gone. This is not simply a result of recompiling the games, either.
On the N64, because there was an extra 9th data bit used for antialiasing coverage during rendering, the RDRAM working packet size was 72 bits. However, this new RAM yields 64 bits per clock. To emulate the extra bits, my theory is that the RAM controller simply burns another 64bits. This would allow full MI/RI emulation, but also halve the usable RAM size back to the standard 8Mbytes. Thus, the iQue is basically a N64 with Expansion Pak built in.
As far as bandwidth, this would provide effectively 1536 Mbytes/sec, roughly 3x that of a regular N64 at 500MB/sec. Since RAM bandwidth is by far the chief reason for slowdown on N64, the iQue will be an ideal platform for possibly running brutally slow titles like Perfect Dark."
The iQue uses a flash cart but I have no idea how people put new games on the system these days considering you would have originally had to go to a kiosk or use the now discontinued online service. Would be surprised if there isn’t homebrew application to load compatible ROMs out there somewhere.
That’s really just one more analogue stick away from the ‘duke’ for og xbox.
On picture quality, the 64 is a bit of an odd ball. I like it, but that’s mostly because of the content I associate with the style and presentation of graphics. I can see how it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Same with dithering and ‘wavey’ textures on the PS1 I guess.
I don’t have much experience with the Saturn, but I’m going to say…transparency?
I’ve been having a blast with Smash Bros for 64 with the kidlets. Kirby is a house favourite already, and is a pretty safe character for the original brawler.
My 6 year old has been running around the house yelling “Falcon PAUNCH!”
Has anyone had any luck patching Mario 64 (USA) with the recent optimised patch? I keep getting rejected by the patching utility for an incorrect rom. I’ve tried a few to no avail.
Was impressed the last time I tried Parallel N64 a couple of years ago, but even a Skylake Intel Xeon couldn’t play all games at full speed (e.g. Mario Tennis), and it couldn’t play some games (like Goemon 2). But the output was basically indistinguishable from an actual N64, with the same AA and three point texture filtering among other quirks you don’t see with modern renderers.
I tried it out last night and the performance improvements are huge. Everything I tried ran full speed on my modest i3-6320 where previously it was far too demanding to run even a light title like Mario 64.
3-point filtering and the AA passes have been in most plugins for a long while now but to my eye the biggest difference with the Angrylion plugin is that it has dithering and that is what makes everything look just right. I tried it with the CRT-Royale shader and it’s the first time I have ever emulated an N64 title and have it look as I remember, it’s great that so many more people will now be able to use it.
My hashes were all correct. I tried the .bps and xdeltaui and kept having the same issue. I used an online patcher and it worked fine.
There’s some issue with my computer, it seems to hate patching files, even when I run the application as admin.
Anyway I haven’t had the opportunity to give it a whirl yet but after I finish some work I’m going to start a new game!
Edit nope didn’t work either. I’ve patched roms before but I’m having no luck with this. Edit it’s an issue with my RAID. Maybe its seek times are too slow for the patching utility or it’s causing it to hang because of some messed up writing permissions but as soon as I dragged it over to my SSD it worked first time.
Both the JP and US versions were both decompiled and are the same. If the rerelease were faster I’m sure speed runners would be using it which doesn’t seem to be the case.
I think they mention the US version since it was the final version, no? In the days before internet patching.
That’s actually an area I have interest in. I know many best selling titles, those that got multiple print runs, got updates. Famously, the Muslim chanting being removed in OoT.
