nice job with n64

mediamogul

Times have changed. Last I tried lr-mupen64, it would hardly run anything due to the overhead introduced by RetroArch. Still, N64 emulation under ideal conditions is well below what I would consider acceptable. With all the small graphical, audio and timing issues that add up, the games generally feel incomplete to me.

KN4THX

Last time I went through the compatibility lost to set up more games to my collection, I noticed many games were listed as 'Stable' but no matter what settings or emulator I tried I could not even get to a 'playabke' status. One that comes to mind is Nightmare Creatures. Other games I swear worked when I first started playing the the N64 on an earlier Pi no longer work as well. I played Mario Kart 64 on my cousin's Pi I set up for him a long while back, which is never updated, and it seemed to play noticeably better than what I play on my current 3B+ setup. It's funny how things change for the better and the worse as things get better overall. I really hope the next Pi has VC5 support more than anything as it does so much already with so little.

Brigane

@darishzone I know this probably ain't the same thing as playing it on a N64 emulator but, what you could do is install Doom 64 Retribution Mod in the "Ports" Section. It works quite brilliant from there.

Ranma

@mediamogul said in nice job with n64:

@quicksilver

Times have changed. Last I tried lr-mupen64, it would hardly run anything due to the overhead introduced by RetroArch.

Yeah it's definitely much better now. In fact it's my main N64 emu on the Pi. What with the improvements made to it and the GPU overclock settings recently posted here, though it's not perfect it is certainly good enough that it puts a big smile on my face. :-) All my favourite stuff works extremely well on the Pi3.

DarishZone

@ranma Can you provide some titles which works good? I am concerned about some results provided on Github list.

BobHarris

@darishzone The games that I play frequently and run very well (non overclocked) are Doom 64, Wipeout 64, Super Mario 64 and Mario kart 64. I do play all of them on a lower resolution. I only use the libretro emulator for Wipeout 64 (didn't even ran on non libretro core).
It's all a matter of trial and error.
I don't have the latest N64 build so my experiences may differ from others.
I get best results with mupen64plus-gles2n64 at 720x576.

DarishZone

@bobharris Thank you, i'm interested on that list, will make a try.

quicksilver

@darishzone first read through this guide https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Optimization-for-Nintendo-64

Over clocking does make a very noticeable difference with performance it will make a lot of marginally playable games run very smoothly. Specifically core_freq. Also read the section on audio as it has a tweak that will smooth out audio issues.

Here is a short list of popular titles that I have running perfectly or near perfectly on my pi:

1080 snowboarding - lr-mupen64plus
Diddy Kong racing - glide
Wave race - rice
Mario64 - gles2n64
Mario kart - gles2n64
Mario party 2 - glide
Hydro thunder - gles2n64
Crusin world - gles2n64
Zelda OOT - rice
Majora's mask - rice
Battle tanx - glide

A bunch of others too but I can't remember their settings off my head.

DarishZone

Thanks, are those good without overclock?

quicksilver

@darishzone some of them are ok without overclock. But for best performance overclocking core_freq really makes a big difference.

Ranma

@darishzone said in nice job with n64:

@ranma Can you provide some titles which works good? I am concerned about some results provided on Github list.

Yes I'll post up my favourite titles that work well later on after work. I can say to you now though that I set my Pi to 720p, and my N64 runs at 640x480. I find these are the best settings for a decent experience. I've switched mostly to lr-mupen64plus, but occasionally use GLES2N64 or RICE for those titles that don't work so well.

I can tell you off the top of my head that Mario 64, Mario Kart, OoT, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, Starfox, Wave Race, 1080 Snowboarding, Fighter's Destiny and Donkey Kong 64 work extremely well in this set up. My Pi3 (not 3+) runs at 1350Mhz overclock with core_freq set to 565. I have a SNESPI case with a fan and heatsinks, and an official power supply. I only ever see occasional slow down. Nothing upsetting though, and it is a good experience. Good enough to make me sell my Android console and stick with the Pi solely, put it that way.

Like I say I'll check the finer details for you later and post back. :-)

sirhenrythe5th

I fiddled around with N64-Emulators since the late 90s, starting with Nemu, UltraHLE and so on.
Had a lot of Fun with them, no doubt!
But a lot of games will never work, i.e. those using U-Codes.

I simply love the N64 since i had one back in 1997.
And after years of playing arround with Emulators i decided to buy a real System + an Everdrive64.

Gosh - this rules!!!
This one is not for those, who only want to play Mario64 or MarioKart64, but for those who want to play "the real thing" (#NEOGEO 😊): get yourself an Everdrive and stop playing with Emulators!!!

I dont know the prices for the US, but i got a mint N64 in purple-clear with controller for 35 Bucks, so it is not more expensive than a Raspberry.
With this + Everdrive you can say Byebye to emulation with all its Bugs and speed-issues and have Fun with the real experience 😊

and you can even play 64DD Games!!!

https://ibb.co/gtmS2d

quicksilver

@sirhenrythe5th last I checked, everdrives were selling for around $200+. Then you have to buy the system and controllers. And if you don't want it to look like garbage on a HDTV you have to modify the video output which is also expensive. I personally like playing N64 games on my pi because I like tweaking settings seeing how far I can push a $35 computer. Not because it's the best option for emulation. I could just use my desktop PC but where's the fun in that?

mediamogul

People are always going to have different priorities when playing these games. For me personally, the emulation just isn't accurate enough to thoroughly enjoy them. However, it is down right amazing that the Pi can play them in any capacity and some of the early ones even play quite well. Being as old as it is, the Pi's GPU is likely to get an update in the next iteration and there will be much less for anyone to complain about. Until then, there's still a lot to enjoy no matter what your preferences are.

quicksilver

@mediamogul video core V gles3 GPU running near flawless N64 and dreamcast! Thats my wish. Then everyone will complain that their $35 pi4 doesn't run ps2 and GameCube games well. :)

mediamogul

@quicksilver said in nice job with n64:

video core V gles3 GPU running near flawless N64 and dreamcast! Thats my wish.

I couldn't agree more. That would be great!

Then everyone will complain that their $35 pi4 doesn't run ps2 and GameCube games well. :)

You had me at "Then everyone will complain". ;)

Ecks

@mediamogul said in nice job with n64:

Someone managed to perfect Nintendo 64 emulation? How long was I asleep? Did the 'Fast and the Furious' franchise ever finish its trilogy of films?

You mean their saga of films since there is way more than 3 movies lol.

Ranma

However you choose to approach it, there's always a compromise. Sure you could buy either an N64 plus a load of classic games or an Everdrive, but the compromise is that will cost a lot of money and it will only play N64 stuff, albeit completely authentically.

You could buy a powerful gaming rig and play everything accurately, but that will also cost a heck of a lot of money (potentially more) depending on where (and if) you draw your line.

The Pi is another compromise. It's pretty cheap to get it going, and it plays a lot of classic systems extremely confidently. N64 isn't perfect, but taking into account all the other things it does, the wonderful community, and the general collective ownership of it, it's the one that suits me the best.

Anyway, I generally only play about 20 games on N64 (the ones I have), and the details are below, though my settings were posted above:

1080 Snowboarding - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
Banjo Kazooie - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well though the jigsaw transition error is present on the Pi
Castlevania - lr-mupen64plus - runs very well indeed though I've not played a great deal of it
Diddy Kong Racing - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
Donkey Kong 64 - Rice - runs really well
Doom 64 - lr-mupen64plus - some slowdown on the intro screen but perfect in play
Fighter's Destiny - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
Forsaken 64 - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
F-Zero X - lr-mupen64plus - largely excellent with only occasional stutter on vehicle select
Hydro Thunder - lr-mupen64plus - runs really well
ISS 98 - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well only some slowdown on cutscenes
Majora's Mask - lr-mupen64plus - runs really well but misses the opening mask zoom intro for some reason
Mario Kart 64 - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
ShadowMan - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
StarFox 64 - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
Super Mario 64 - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
Ocarina of Time - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
Rocket - Robot on Wheels - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well
Wave Race 64 - Rice - runs extremely well only very rare stutter
Wayne Gretsky 98 - lr-mupen64plus - runs extremely well

To be fair there are one or two others that run OK too like Mystical Ninja and Snowboard Kids, but you may find their slowdown unpalatable to your gameplay experience so I haven't listed them. These are the ones I play and that work well enough for me. YMMV. :-)

sirhenrythe5th

@ranma "a lot of money" is relative imo.
As i mentioned above i paid 35$ (30 Euros to be exact) for the N64+Controller here in germany.
If you take an ordinary black one you can get it for 25$/20€.

The everdrive is about 180$/150€.
Ok, seems much, but its worth every penny in my eyes.
A 4GB SD-Card is more than enough, this one is about 5$.
Buying all the Games would be much more expensive.

CRT are given away for free here in germany, ebay is full of people that are happy when someone takes away those heavy monsters.
So i took two of them and paid nothing.

So in the end i spent about 200€/250$ for everything.
This is absolutely o.k. imo.

Btw, i also bought a second Raspberry which is also connected to the CRT.
So i have got all the classic consoles, Arcade- and Computergames plus a real N64 with all games ever made ready to go in my bedroom.

BobHarris

@sirhenrythe5th There are always alternative solutions..but this is a Retropie forum, so mostly filled with people interested in getting stuff to work on the Pi. :-) I will never go back to those crt's, especially now emulated consoles look so good on an hdtv with a crt filter applied.
I've only got a passing interest in N64, mostly games that are related to PS1 games (my favorite console)..so I don't mind if it takes a couple more years to get affordable N64 emulation on a future Pi. In the meantime I just play the N64 games that the Pi 3 does run well.