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    Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General Discussion and Gaming
    mupen64pluspi4 bnintendo 64
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    • George SpiggottG
      George Spiggott
      last edited by

      I'm hearing a lot about Parallel updates at the moment but I haven't been able to get better speed than Mupen64-plus next provides on my PC. I haven't tried it on my Pi. It uses Vulcan which may make it more useful in future.

      Currently running:
      Retropie 4.8.9 on a Pi Zero 2W (Overclock Settings: CPU 1400Mhz)
      ES-DE on a GMKtec K6 (Windows 11, 32GB RAM)

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      • A
        akamming @quicksilver
        last edited by

        @quicksilver said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

        @akamming the only game I got to work with parallel on my pi 4 was GoldenEye. On my pi 3 using an older version of parallel N64 I was able to run quite a few games with it but overall it's not the best choice for N64 on the pi.

        ah.. you're right.. with GoldenEye indeed it does not crash. It actually seems to have the same performance as Mupen64plus but with all the added functionality of retroarch (shaders, overlay, etc...).. nice… ! so overall much better than Mupen64plus on the pi..

        unfortunately it crashes on all the other games i try… would be nice if that could be fixed...

        quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • quicksilverQ
          quicksilver @akamming
          last edited by

          @akamming I believe goldeneye multiplayer is glitched though so you can only use it for single player (assuming there are no issues in other levels)

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            akamming @George Spiggott
            last edited by

            @George-Spiggott said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

            I'm hearing a lot about Parallel updates at the moment but I haven't been able to get better speed than Mupen64-plus next provides on my PC. I haven't tried it on my Pi. It uses Vulcan which may make it more useful in future.

            mupen64plus next works on my pi4, however performance is much worse than mupen64plus so i can only run on a very low resolution...

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            • dankcushionsD
              dankcushions Global Moderator
              last edited by dankcushions

              parallel is essentially useless to use on the pi - the meat of it is the vulkan angrylion renderer, which the pi can't run (and even if it had vulkan, it would be a slideshow), so if you run it on a pi it defers to the ancient versions of HLE renderers it also (for some reason) includes - GLideN64 i believe.

              there's no reason to use it ahead of any of the other n64 emulators on the pi. you may get ok performance on some games, but i can almost guarantee there will be accuracy or stability issues if you persist.

              they should just get rid of those plugins on it IMO. so many people must get a bad impression of those advancements when they run it on insufficient hardware. i not they have just ported parallel RDP to mupenp64plus-next, as an optional renderer. i hope that paves the way for the old cores retirement, maybe...

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              • A
                AdamBeGood @quicksilver
                last edited by

                @quicksilver I find lots of the Textures are black on Star Road on lr-mupen64plus, I am struggling to get it to work on my Pi. Any thoughts? It is vexing. Parallel-N64 works better but I can't pause and it sometimes just chucks me out.

                quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • quicksilverQ
                  quicksilver @AdamBeGood
                  last edited by

                  @AdamBeGood see my reply here https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/17605/how-to-install-previous-version-of-mupen64plus-to-get-super-mario-star-road-working/8

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                    AdamBeGood @quicksilver
                    last edited by

                    @quicksilver Made the screen update change you mentioned and Pilotwings is so much better! Thank you!

                    I think Legend of the Mystical Ninja is the only game I don't have running fairly well (Killer Instinct Gold could be better, and some of the effects on Perfect Dark like Camspy but these are trifles).

                    quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • quicksilverQ
                      quicksilver @AdamBeGood
                      last edited by

                      @AdamBeGood said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

                      Killer Instinct Gold could be better

                      If you let the game run for about a minute or so using mupen64plus-gliden64 (just play a match or two) the game will become fullspeed for the rest of that play session. Im not sure what is going on behind the scenes, but while the game is running choppily you can see that something is being loaded into memory. Once the memory usage stops climbing the game becomes fullspeed.

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                        AdamBeGood @quicksilver
                        last edited by

                        @quicksilver On it now! Thank you.

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                          AdamBeGood @quicksilver
                          last edited by

                          @quicksilver You are totally right! Damn my previous impatience, KI seems to run fine now. Just Goeman left, but I think that is a lost cause (oh, and Star Road which you are helping with).

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                          • A
                            AdamBeGood
                            last edited by

                            @quicksilver or anyone else - on another issue, I've got some crackle with voice samples on Mario Kart 64. Does anyone know how to stop that happening? It is running really well on mupen64-gliden64 aside from that.

                            quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • quicksilverQ
                              quicksilver @AdamBeGood
                              last edited by

                              @AdamBeGood to confirm you are on a pi 4 right?

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                              • A
                                AdamBeGood
                                last edited by AdamBeGood

                                @quicksilver I am indeed, yep!

                                Just trying Mystical Ninja Starring Goeman now that I have gles2rice working, but it is still poor. Is it something to do with the sky? Always seems to be when the sky is in view. So weird!

                                quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • quicksilverQ
                                  quicksilver @AdamBeGood
                                  last edited by

                                  @AdamBeGood gles2rice and gles2n64 are old and no longer developed so unfortunately things will never get better using them. You are likely to run into graphical inaccuracies.

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                                  • A
                                    AdamBeGood @quicksilver
                                    last edited by

                                    @quicksilver Goeman doesn't work on anything anyway. Gles2rice is as good as I've seen it on a Pi. Thanks for the info though!

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                                    • George SpiggottG
                                      George Spiggott
                                      last edited by George Spiggott

                                      Has anyone managed to get any noticeable increase in performance since installing the new v5.4 kernel? As with PSP I have noticed that there are definitely incremental improvements to both kernel and emulator, for example smoothing only has a small overhead and can be used in several games. Also Rogue Squadron will now play fairly smoothly in 640x480.

                                      Currently running:
                                      Retropie 4.8.9 on a Pi Zero 2W (Overclock Settings: CPU 1400Mhz)
                                      ES-DE on a GMKtec K6 (Windows 11, 32GB RAM)

                                      retropieuser555R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • retropieuser555R
                                        retropieuser555 @George Spiggott
                                        last edited by

                                        @George-Spiggott is this due to the new kernal though? I don't have it and Rogue Squadron runs for me on GlideN64. Wonder if Glide got updated and that's what caused the improvement.

                                        Pi 5 4GB

                                        Retroflag GPI with raspberry pi zero 2 w/ wifi

                                        Retroachievements:- lovelessrapture

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                                        • George SpiggottG
                                          George Spiggott
                                          last edited by

                                          I agree. I put a similar statement in my PSP post but didn't repeat it here. Will edit for clarity.

                                          Changes have occurred since I started this thread and I think the 5.4 upgrade offers a good opportunity to discuss any changes and improvements we can benefit from.

                                          Currently running:
                                          Retropie 4.8.9 on a Pi Zero 2W (Overclock Settings: CPU 1400Mhz)
                                          ES-DE on a GMKtec K6 (Windows 11, 32GB RAM)

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                                          • D
                                            Dr Nick
                                            last edited by

                                            Just got a Raspberry pi + Retropie.

                                            Some very odd experiences with the N64. Very laggy on large TV, so changed video resolution to lowest options, and moved to smaller (non-smart) TV.
                                            And the picture was off the bottom corner of the screen. Good audio though.
                                            Opened settings, and behold: back in the middle. Closed settings, off to the Right again.
                                            Reset to defaults, and back into the middle. WIth virtally no audio during gameplay (F-Zero-X).
                                            Reasonable picture (bit laggy at times).
                                            Suggestions?

                                            mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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