Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4

Zering

@Vasslepulver roslof posted it a while ago on this thread.

Here is the link :

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rq4shU1RUSdcc7cTVWeORMD-mcO6BwXwQ7TGw8f5_zw/edit#gid=1983504515

Vasslepulver

@Zering Thank you so much! 😊

StuA1975

For Goldeneye on the 4GB Pi4, I find that no matter what settings I try there is always a compromise.
Personally I think the best combination of settings for overall graphics/display and speed/play-ability is when using gles rice video at 832 x 624 resolution. The compromise is that the textures for the sky don't display as the right colours. On the indoor levels this isn't a problem obviously but I either need to put up with it on the outdoor levels like Dam & Surface etc.
Or I can use Glide64 and get the right colours but take a big hit on the quality of the graphics/display.
The only other option seems to be the standard mupen64 plus plugin correct colours, decent graphics with the game running at about 70% speed, which isn't an option at all.
If anyone has any better settings I'd be interested to try them as I've spent a long time trying to improve on mine with no luck so far. Maybe a better plugin/driver/update in the future might fix this.

Zering

@StuA1975 Have you tried lr-parallel-n64?

AdamBeGood

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

@StuA1975 Have you tried lr-parallel-n64?

That's what I use, but the snow still looks messed up. It runs really well though.

Evert

Hi all, I finally got myself a Pi4 and started playing around with N64 emulation. I have a Pi3B with N64 games, but decided that the Pi4 deserves a fresh start.

A few issues that I have as I am playing with it:

I cannot get the Hi Res Texture Packs to work for lr-mupen64plus-next. I have placed the .htc files in the following folder, but no change
/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/Mupen64plus/cache/
I went into the retroarch setting and turned all the hi res texture pack options on, but I still cannot see any difference. On the Pi3 (with rice) it makes a huge difference. Any ideas anyone?
I have read that the default resolution for mupen64plus-gles2rice has been set at 640 instead of 320. Someone else somewhere posted that this can be changed in the mupen64plus.cfg file in the configs/n64 folder, but I cannot see any resolution settings in that file when I edit it.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

George Spiggott

Anyone else noticed a slight boost in performance on Mupen64plus-next since the 4.7 update yesterday? SOTE no longer slows down on explosions with screen res at 320x240 and MSAA set to 2.

Dwarfboysim

@roslof just looked at your list I see you have Diddy Kong Racing listed as mupen64plus-GLideN64-highres did you find it worked OK with multiplayer. I found whilst player 1 was fine the other players graphics were a mess and unplayable

roslof

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

@roslof just looked at your list I see you have Diddy Kong Racing listed as mupen64plus-GLideN64-highres did you find it worked OK with multiplayer. I found whilst player 1 was fine the other players graphics were a mess and unplayable

Good to know. Did you find a good substitute? I'll update the list.

StuA1975

@zering Excellent! That's worked great. Now I just need to find a new package for Perfect Dark. Only Glide64 shows all textures (night vision, camera etc) but the graphics aren't as smooth as Rice or parallel, neither of which display the extra textures that load into the game.

fCIbX6r1uN

In general I find lr-mupen64plus-next gives me great performance, even in games like Perfect Dark.

One thing to note, there has been a regression since ~May, reported in this bug https://github.com/gonetz/GLideN64/issues/2329. Hopefully they can resolve it soon.

Blake0812

I'm having an issue with Mupen64-plus, Ocarina of Time turns into a rainbow mess whenever I pause using the Pi 4, but using Glide runs it perfectly, except for the lens of truth not working. Shadowman loads and stops just before the main menu with every driver I use. Rampage 64 slows to a crawl whenever it scrolls.

retropieuser555

@blake0812 Is that with lr-mupen64plus or lr-mupen64plus-next? For me Ocarina runs fine on the latter, lens of truth works & although the start menu is slower loading than the original on n64 it doesn't glitch out.

Blake0812

@retropieuser555 It runs okay with lr-mupen64plus-next, but link is missing on the pause menu. It's a bit stuttery here and there with that driver though

tommy86

Any idea, why none of my games start with any of GLES or GLIDE, even after a fresh install of RetroPie?
lr-mupen64plus-next works but it looks terrible to what N64 looks like in all the Youtube videos. I spent days on looking for a solution but all i found was "blabla runs great with gles2n64/gliden64" but not how to get it to work. lr-parallel-n64 is an alternative but it starts only a minority of my games.
I'd be grateful for any help.

Raspberry Pi 4 (4gb Ram)
Raspberry Pi OS with desktop

Release date: August 20th 2020
Kernel version: 5.4

RetroPie 4.7.1

Installed on top of an existing OS (but same result with the pre-made image)

fCIbX6r1uN

@tommy86 Check the logs; in the shell run:

cat /dev/shm/runcommand.log

Most likely it's because the files have to be decompressed since the older emulators don't read zip files. Decompress them and try again.

Although, I will still recommend you use lr-mupen64plus-next.

tommy86

@fcibx6r1un holy cow... i'm so dumb. I have read the docs at least 5 times and didn't realize, that Extensions for mupen64plus doesn't include .zip.

With -next the graphics are terribly pixelated. You can't even tell it's Link on the horse in the titlescreen of OOT. In Jet Force Gemini on a rainy map you get a black screen with raindrops, etc.

I'll unzip and have at least a test on the old mupen64plus.

Thanks for your help

dankcushions

@tommy86 said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

@fcibx6r1un holy cow... i'm so dumb. I have read the docs at least 5 times and didn't realize, that Extensions for mupen64plus doesn't include .zip.

With -next the graphics are terribly pixelated. You can't even tell it's Link on the horse in the titlescreen of OOT.

verbose log please https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand/#launch-with-verbose-logging

tommy86

@dankcushions

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

@tommy86 said in Getting the best N64 experience on a Pi 4:

@fcibx6r1un holy cow... i'm so dumb. I have read the docs at least 5 times and didn't realize, that Extensions for mupen64plus doesn't include .zip.

With -next the graphics are terribly pixelated. You can't even tell it's Link on the horse in the titlescreen of OOT.

verbose log please https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand/#launch-with-verbose-logging

Parameters:
Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mupen64plus-next/mupen64plus_next_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/n64/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/n64/Legend of Zelda, The - Ocarina of Time (Europe) (En,Fr,De) (Rev A).n64" --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg
plugin_start_gfx

dankcushions

@tommy86 this is not a verbose log - seems like a regular log to me. i guess you didn't select the 'launch with verbose logging' option in the runcommand (see my link)