this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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The Nintendo 64 has always been a difficult machine to emulate correctly. But in 2025 - we should be well and truly past all of it right? Not exactly. Issues with Plugins, performance, graphical glitches, stutters. Unless you have a very powerful machine, these are common things many of us will run into when emulating the Nintendo 64. But why? And Is there any hope for fast, accurate N64 emulation in 2025 and beyond?

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[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 40 points 4 months ago (8 children)

The core if it boils down to, when emulating older machines, is the consoles processor speaks language A, and our computers all speak language B

The emulator has to translate back and forth between A<->B faster than the speed the original processors would've just spoken A

So translating A<->B is a way tougher task than just reciting A. So you need a tremendously better CPU than what the console had to emulate it.

It's kinda like, Dropping a rock in a pile of sand is easy. Simulating dropping that rock into the pile of sand in real time accurately is really challenging.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's even more complicated than that, because for full accuracy, it must also emulate the clock speed at which the emulated processor ran, as well as the various memory busses etc

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 5 points 4 months ago

Emulating DK’s Jungle Parkway in MK64 goes brrrr

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 25 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Not only that. Emulators must often ”cheat” to achieve high speeds. This means emulators doesn’t try to achieve a 1:1 replication of what’s happening inside the hardware, but something that’s gives close enough results and better tailored for modern hardware.

The reason why N64 is particularly difficult is because each game must be optimized individually (due to the heavy reliance on microcode). The emulator must replicate the hardware at a much lower level for an accurate emulation of all games. Emulator developers can apply optimizations on each individual game, but it’s incredibly time consuming to do so for every game in the N64 library.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 8 points 4 months ago

And that's the reason MVG is telling other devs: stop using those cheats, if the sceen is going progress they have start using low level standards.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Back in 2015 I used the emulator "1964" to play some MarioKart64 and it ran well on a very weak computer, fwiw.

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 22 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The video says that emulation has always worked better on popular games. But if you try to emulate a less popular game, you will run into major issues. This is because the emulation must be tweaked for each game specifically due to how N64 hardware works.

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I've never been able to play though Goemon's Great Adventure on emulation. It always hits a game-breaking crash :/

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[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 months ago

Especially Nintendo's own games. Mario 64, Mario kart, etc, were usually the first to be emulated correctly.

[–] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 29 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Do you remember if you had the black screen in this track?

It's a classical issue in n64 emulators.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Or in perfect dark when the camspy didn't work with a black screen thus being hard locked out of the game pretty early in

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[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 11 points 4 months ago

It looks different than I remember. Usually it was just a black screen.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I thought Kaze pretty much reverse engineered the whole thing? Or is that just for Mario 64?

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 17 points 4 months ago

Kaze just works on Mario 64. He's torn that game up and rebuilt it for his needs. He's even mentioned that emulators won't even work with some of the hardware tricks that he utilizes.

[–] KRAW@linux.community 18 points 4 months ago

Just Mario 64. However there is a very good implementation of the N64 in the Mister FPGA project. The downside is there aren't many emulation features that you'd expect out of a software emulator (e.g. save states)

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I didn't have time to watch the video at the moment. What's wrong with Dolphin?

Or is this about things people that had a n64 back in the day don't even recognize as wrong?

Edit. Just saw its a MVG video. Everyone calm down, I'm going to watch it.

Edited: Good video. It makes sense to use cheats for each game, and it makes sense it's hard to play lesser known games because of it.

[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 31 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Dolphin is not an N64 emulator.

[–] OR3X@lemm.ee 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, you are correct Dolphin will not play N64 ROMs directly. It will however play SOME Wii virtual console games which includes around 22 N64 games. Soooo, sorta?? 🤷‍♂️

[–] SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It'll emulate an emulator on another emulator!

[–] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Xzibit approves

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

And yet I play all my N64 games on it.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee -3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I boot up Dolphin, and then choose the game I want to play.

[–] Tronn4@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago
[–] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

no but, how do you make it handle n64 games? i'm interested in setting this up. like i have this old rom of airboarder 64, which to my knowledge was not on the gamecube, and it emulates terribly. how do i set it up to run with dolphin?

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I just use the wiiware games. It covers pretty much all the N64 games I care about.

It's funny, I can picture the Airboarder cover in my head. Kinda crazy how those things can get burned into your memory.

[–] Sabin10@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Then you are playing virtual console roms/injections, which typically have more issues than current proper n64 emulators.

If it's good enough for you, that's fine but it's far from perfect.

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

What issues do you notice while playing the games?

Edit: Also, what you said has nothing to do with the video. So...

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[–] Zarxrax@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah, an emulator within an emulator. Yes, I'm sure the results must be just like the original hardware!

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

The games work just fine. I played them when they were new, and get just as much enjoyment out of them now.

I'm not sorry i don't care about milliseconds or whatever technical details the programmers care about. I am thankful for their hard work though.

[–] Mojave@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How are you using dolphin to emulate N64?

Dolphin has no native N64 emulation support. Are you using N64 ports from the Wii? Those are running using Nintendo's Wii-based emulator (which also has known issues) on top of the Wii emulation. That introduced a whole second layer of technical issues.

Not that the N64 roms aren't playable, but the problem is more technical on why it's so difficult to emulate the specific N64 hardware perfectly using just modern software

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Thanks. Like i said i haven't been able to check the video out yet.

I am enjoying everyone jumping down my throat about being able to play n64 games with no issues though. It's giving me a good laugh with my coffee.

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