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Optimization for Nintendo 64

READ FIRST - Why N64 emulation on the Pi is difficult

N64 emulation on the raspberry pi is difficult due to the pi's under powered GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and lack of certain GPU features found in more modern devices.

If you are looking for a more perfect N64 emulation experience you should seriously consider different hardware first (i.e. a desktop computer, modern mobile phone/tablet etc.). However, listed below are several tweaks that can be made to your raspberry pi that will help maximize N64 performance and make many of the popular N64 titles playable.

Hardware and Configuration

A Raspberry Pi 3 or later model is highly suggested to maximize performance.

Overclocking

Overclocking should only be attempted by advanced users who understand the risks. An unstable overclock will lead to freezing, crashing and SD card corruption. Back up your image before attempting to overclock. Proceed at your own risk!

NOTE Setting any overclocking parameters to values other than those used by raspi-config may set a permanent bit within the SoC, making it possible to detect that your Pi has been overclocked. The specific circumstances where the overclock bit is set are if force_turbo is set to 1 AND any of the over_voltage_* options are set to a value > 0. Setting the overclock bit can void your warranty.

Overclocking is setting a hardware component to run faster than originally intended by the manufacturer. It can add instability if not done properly. It will also make your pi run hotter. There are no standard settings for overclocking and not all pis will handle the same amount of overclocking. Therefore before you begin overclocking please review this article first for proper overclocking methods and stability testing to prevent SD card corruption and potential loss of your data.

For boosting N64 performance, it is thecore_freq(GPU core) setting that will give the most benefit. Most pis I tested were stable between core_freq=500 and core_freq=575 with some amount of over_voltage applied. Again, it is important to remember that not all pis are equal, some will only overclock a little or not at all. You will need to experiment to see how much your pi can handle. If your pi freezes or crashes then your overclock is unstable.

Overclocking sdram_freq will give a very small boost to performance. Going from 450mhz to 550mhz yielded at best about a 1FPS increase. Sdram has its own over voltage value over_voltage_sdram.

v3d_freqcan also be overclocked. This helped improve performance for a couple games I tested. Most of the raspberry pis I tested were stable to at least v3d_freq=500 but not much past this.

arm_freq(CPU) overclocking is of little to no help for boosting N64 performance on a pi3. There was no discernible FPS increase overclocking the Pi 3b's CPU from the standard 1200mhz to 1350mhz. Though it may help increase performance for other high CPU usage emulators such as PSX or MAME. Overclocking arm_freq may benefit pi 1, 2 and zero models for some N64 games but offers no benefits for the pi3b or pi3b+.

CPU-Governor

The CPU governor controls when your overclock is applied. With the cpu-governor set to performance mode your pi will run at full speed while running ROMs but will down-clock when sitting idle in Emulation Station. You can enable it from the retropie setup menu. In Emulation Station go to Retropie-Setup - Setup and Configuration to be used post install - Configure the runcommand launch script - cpu configuration - force performance then cancel, exit and reboot.

Selecting the Correct Emulator and Graphics Plugin

Just as important as overclocking, selecting the right emulator/graphics plugin from the runcommand menu on a per game basis will also increase performance. Selecting the right plugin can make all the difference in making a game playable.

The current default emulator is mupen64plus-auto which will attempt to select the correct graphics plugin for you, however for best results it is best to test each plugin for yourself on a per game basis. It is recommended that you confirm a game runs well with the standard low-res plugin before attempting to use the hi-res option.

Each N64 emulator/video plugin should be set to the lowest resolution (CEA-1 for most displays) through the runcommand menu. This will slightly increase performance by limiting the up-scaling the pi has to perform. This is not necessary for the gles2n64 video plugin.

NOTE The gliden64 video plugin currently has issues with frame buffer emulation on the pi that causes visual glitches which lead to a crash after about 10-20 mins of playtime. A recent update has taken care of this issue so it is highly recommended that you update mupen64plus to the latest version.

High Resolution Texture Packs

From Current version forward High Resolution Texture options are automatically configured to True in the configuration files for Rice and Glide. You should not need to modify them as you did with previous versions. Some libretro emulators support loading Hi-Rez textures and you can look for enabling those options in the libretro xmb.

You need to place high res texture packs in the directory /home/pi/.local/share/mupen64plus/hires_texture

Download the texture packs to that directory and then unzip them:

mkdir /home/pi/.local/share/mupen64plus/hires_texture
cd /home/pi/.local/share/mupen64plus/hires_texture

wget http://websitewithtexturepack/texturepack.zip
sudo unzip texturepack.zip

Texture packs are available for download here.

The folder name in that directory must match the core name in the rom header or the texture pack will not be properly applied.Most cases the default directory name is ok but you may need to check if you find if your rom is not correctly launching the texture pack.

Here is a list of the proper format of names for the top level folder on texture packs that have been tested: - F-ZERO X - MARIOKART64 - PAPER MARIO - SMASH BROTHERS - STARFOX64 - SUPER MARIO 64 - THE LEGEND OF ZELDA - WAVE RACE 64 - ZELDA MAJORA'S MASK

To confirm the correct name for a texture pack you may not be able to get to load you can use the command to display the core name just use the command below in terminal then exit and scroll up I do it from a remote ssh session like putty cause you can scroll up and read it. In the first few lines it will show the core name

cd /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/n64
/opt/retropie/emulators/mupen64plus/bin/mupen64plus.sh mupen64plus-video-rice rom name

You can use the same command to launch the rom correctly loading the texture pack.

Two things you need to do once you have texture packs placed in the proper directory and named correctly.

You need to make sure you are launching that rom specifically with either Glide or Rice (maybe libretro if you have enabled libretro specifically to load hi rez textures) and You need to make sure you are using a resolution at 800x600 or higher in order for the texture pack to load. You should use the highest resolution setting you can get the game performing well on it will look better the higher the resolution.

Please also feel free to reference the Rice 64 github page for the source documentation https://github.com/mupen64plus/mupen64plus-video-rice

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