Enjoy n64 emulation?

[Hellbringer616]

Well i use "Enjoy" loosely.. Ever notice how a million and one things seem broken on n64? Look no further than Majors Mask and the lens of truth. most the time, it doesn't display correctly..

Well may i introduce you to this: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gliden64-graphics-plugin

the writer of Glide64 is creating a new graphics plugin. But he needs some help, Basically he no longer has a job, and he figured, rather than finding a new one, he may beable to crowd source one so he can spend more time writing the plugin. details are in the link. Even if you aren't interested, pass the project around. Hopefully it'll gain traction. i myself dream of a day i can play through OoT and Majors Mask with high res texture packs, and no damn bugs! haha

[LeonhartGR]

You have pm.

[Covarr]

I saw this on his blog. I'm definitely considering donating; Gonetz is one of the most talented people in the n64 scene, and quite frankly n64 graphics are a mess right now on most emulators, with most plugins.

[dkma841]

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[Covarr]

The idea is to make the plugin a fulltime job. I dunno how far $6000 USD will go in Russia, but I can certainly appreciate wanting time to dedicate yourself fully to it like this.

[Shard]

He wants $6000 ?

That's about two months' wages for a programmer. I'm surprised it's that low. A lot of kickstarter and indiegogo campaigns have an unreal fundraiser goal given the scope of their projects.

[LeonhartGR]

Well we've seen kickstarter projects going higher of course.

[Dubular]

Are n64 emulators really that bad? The last game I played on an N64 emu was Majora's Mask, and I don't recall having any graphical glitches. I don't play N64 games often at all, I admit, but I thought Project64 was pretty solid.

[Covarr]

Ignore the obvious green wingcap marios, and instead look at all the 2D HUD elements. See those odd outlines? Those are a problem with thoroughly up-to-date emulators and plugins, and have been for years. If we're gonna have issues like this on the single most played N64 game, then yeah, I think we need a newer, better graphics plugin. Based on previous work from Gonetz, I am completely confident he is able to deliver such a plugin.

There's a lot more issues visible on more obscure games, though I can't recall offhand what they are. Most plugins also have various different issues with the giant in-level screens in Wario Stadium in Mario Kart 64, also, ranging from framerate issues to simply displaying it black.

[yarLson]

Accurate N64 emulation is a long way off, which is why I invested in a framemeister and an everdrive 64.  Also I custom modded my N64 and painted it.  Took forever because I actually wet sanded and buffed for every coat, but it looks like it was actually made this color now rather than obviously and cheaply painted which so many customs do.  Also it looks brand new 

Anyway didn't angrylion already make and accurate low level graphics plugin for project 64 and other emus?  At this point I'd say retroarch's mupen64plus core is the best n64 emulator available, and you can use angry lions plugin with it too.  Works pretty flawlessly in most cases without any of the above graphical issues if your system can handle it.  Also it is the most alive with contributions and actual development.  Not to mention retroarch just kicks ass.  Project64 is actually quite dead even after being open sourced.  Sucks because I actually contributed to that project long ago.

also check out cen64 which will probably become the greatest of all 64 emulators if it is ever actually finished.  It will take probably half a decade for it to be in any respectable condition though lol.  I still hope marathon man finishes it just for documentation's sake if nothing else so future generations don't lose out on the greatness that is 64.

Haha 64 was all I had growing up if you can't tell 

[Covarr]

I have high hopes for cen64 in the future, as well as for Mupecan64 (by hacktarux, same person who made mupen64), but at the moment they're both pretty worthless. That's not a knock against their authors, they're just too young to be usable at this point.

Angrylion's plugin is pure software, and too slow to be a widely usable solution. Pixel-accurate software renderers have their place, but the world does need a good hardware renderer for people who don't have top-end machines. I think a lot of people also would not care for it rendering at native n64 resolutions (that's a hit to accuracy that I'm willing to take).

I was not aware that mupen64plus was available as a Retroarch core. I will have to check this out; I have only tried to use it command-line before, or with its many (often broken) frontends, and it's kind of a pain. As I've been using Mednafen-PSX through Retroarch for some time now, I really should've known this. :/

[DLPB_]

Are n64 emulators really that bad? The last game I played on an N64 emu was Majora's Mask, and I don't recall having any graphical glitches. I don't play N64 games often at all, I admit, but I thought Project64 was pretty solid.

Yeah, P64 is very solid.  Ok it isn't perfect, but most people won't care about the small timing issues or very slight glitches, and 99.9% won't notice anyway.

[Covarr]

The issues are more widespread than you might realize. Problem is, most people only emulate like three games so they don't notice 'em.

But seriously, there's a pretty decent sized list, and some of these are pretty major.

[KnifeTheSky77]

Picturing the slope of the graph of incoming donations, I think its pretty fair to assume his campaign will push beyond 6k-Im happy for him

[dkma841]

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[Kaldarasha]

Even the PS2 emulator can't emulate PS2 games to 100%. DQ8 has some missing effects, namely the shadow (which can only enabled trough additional hacks in GPU plugin and even with this it has not the same quality.)

[DLPB_]

The issues are more widespread than you might realize. Problem is, most people only emulate like three games so they don't notice 'em.

But seriously, there's a pretty decent sized list, and some of these are pretty major.

 That's 1.6 and much older.  Some of those issues have likely been fixed.

[Covarr]

Hardly, 1.7 is more broken than 1.6. I'm not really sure what the devs were doing with their time, but it wasn't improving the software.

[nfitc1]

Hardly, 1.7 is more broken than 1.6. I'm not really sure what the devs were doing with their time, but it wasn't improving the software.

1.7 was a members-only beta. They're on 2.1 now. There was 8 years between 1.6 and the next public release of 2.0. I'm not sure the wait was worth it either.

[yarLson]

2.1 is extremely broken.  Crashes a lot and should not even be a point release.  Most likely the authors just gave up entirely and that's why they open sourced it.  Thought maybe someone else would do something with it but I guess most devs aren't interested in platform restricted emulators these days.  The last stable release was 1.6 which is still probably the safest bet if your really against using the superior in every way RetroArch for some reason.  Might wanna wait for the next point release for a more up to date core though.

As far as cen64 and mupecan64 I kinda wish they would work together on a unified project instead of on two different projects with exactly the same goals.  But I guess that's just how they want it.  Probably foreseeing some sort of future debate as to the direction of the software.