Origional Resolution of N64 Games

George Spiggott

I'm running N64 games on a Pi4/Lakka build at 640x480 resolution. I realise that it is Lakka not Retropie but I know people run N64 on overclocked Pi3/Retropie builds and the specific platform is not totally relevant. Is there a way to find out what resolution the games originally ran at?

quicksilver

@George-Spiggott unfortunately there is not a standard for all N64 games. Here is some info I found (though it is far from all inclusive it gives you an idea):

"While there are a few N64 games that CAN run at 640x480, such as Vigilante 8 in Ultra resolution mode, most N64 games favored one of the following due to 640x480 being impractical:

320x240 = The typical "low" resolution. Some games go below it. Conker runs at 292x214

480x360 = This was the most common "High resolution". The Turok games also use 480x232 if you run the game in "letterbox" mode.

640x222 = This was also a common high resolution. Perfect Dark uses it in high resolution mode, although the PAL version uses 448x268 for high resolution mode.)

400x440 = This is what Factor 5 games used. (Rogue Squadron/Battle for Naboo/Indiana Jones)

It was quite common for publishers to talk about their games running in "High resolution" mode, and fans and media kinda just assumed they meant 640x480 because that was the N64's maximum output resolution. It was quite common for menus and stuff to be rendered at 640x480 because it looked nice. But games almost never rendered that high. Not even Resident Evil 2, which renders in a variety of resolutions depending on scene.

When Perfect Dark is rendering the N64 logo that turns into the Perfect Dark logo, it is briefly running at 576x480."

dankcushions

gliden64 runs games at the native framerate by default on current retropie. there's an option in the config file to show the current native resolution on the OSD.

George Spiggott

Thanks for the help guys. I'm not using Retropie at the moment, I'm using Mupen64plus-next on Lakka. My old Pi3B+/Retropie setup wasn't overclocked so I didn't use N64 much.

Mariokart 64 and Rouge Squadron are my go to games for trying to judge resolution. Rogue Squadron has been covered and Mariokart has slight graphical glitches in anything above 320x2xx which leads me to think that it ran in low res.