"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'" Isaac Asimov
After roughly a year of silence from the N64 emulator Project64, there has now been a new post over at the official homepage, to announce some changes - take a look at the whole post:
The project has been on hiatus for a little bit, well probably about a year! With the payments, I have found another company to try. I have re-enabled the donation page to see how they work out.
The account creation process is not automatic so I will have to create the accounts by hand.
I still have a busy life, things have not slowed down. My wife is now currently 8 months pregnant. If this payment method works,
then I will over the next few months look at doing some work on improving the site.
Then I will get back to the actual coding of the emu, where I am sure everyone of you would like me to be.
Interrested? Check out the official PJ64 homepage for more details. A big thanks to Luzifer (the user!) for the news.
After several months of intensive development, the Mupen64Plus team has recently released the latest update (v1.4) to their great N64 emulator - the current release is for linux users only though!
A lot of work has gone into this version, not only has compatibility been increased but neat features such as Gameshask support have been added. Here is the complete list of changes taken from the changelog:
New feature: adjust emulator playback speed up or down in 5% increments
New feature: Rumble Pak support with force feedback
New feature: Map emulator functions (fullscreen, stop emulation, etc) to joystick buttons or axis movements.
New feature: Volume up/down
Blight Input: Individually configure each direction of X and Y axis, which allows inverting the axis
JTTL_Audio: libsamplerate support for high quality audio resampling
GTK GUI: Removed second status bar which was not used
GTK GUI: Implemented accelerator keys
GTK GUI: Replaced custom directory browser with GTK file chooser
GTK GUI: numerous small changes and fixes
Added Mupen64Plus 'man' (manual) page
Removed mupen64_audio plugin, as it was unnecessary and mostly broken
Added NoMemoryExpansion parameter to emulate 4MB console; fixes some games
Overhaul of rom handling functions; numerous small fixes
Such a great emulator of course deserves it's own section, so you can now find additional information over at our Mupen64Plus section. Now for the downloads:
Many users of the great wrapper/plugin combination Glide64 have suffered from the missing ability of the plugin to offer resolutions for widescreen monitors. These users can rejoice now, as mudlord informed us that Gonetz posted a new version over in this thread, which adds a new function to detect ALL available resolutions. Here is a snipset from the post:
As you know, current versions of Glide64 have problems with widescreen monitors. The wrapper allows you to select one of predefined screen resolutions, and none of them corresponds to the native resolution of widescreen display. This project is a prototype, aimed to solve this problem. KoolSmoky rewrote the wrapper, so it probes your system for all supported screen resolution, and now you may select any fullscreen resolution, supported by your video card. I modified the plugin, so if a wide resolution is selected, plugin will render in that resolution, but keep original 4:3 screen aspect; image will be centered on the screen. The prototype is based on Glide64 WonderPlus HQ code. If this solution will satisfy you, I’ll add it to ‘Napalm’.
As this version is for testing purposes, we haven't aded it to our plugin/wrapper database yet. For now, just use these direct links to download them:
After four years of silence, nikiwaibel released an update to his N64 emulator running on linux called TrueReality over on his SourceForge project site. On the slightly chaotic homepage, there was no information to be found about what has actually been changed in this new version, so linux users should just go ahead and give this one a try.
True Reality was originally started to show, how emulation code can be made highly portable - while this emulator plays commercial games to some extend, you shouldn't expect too high compatibility from it, there are other emus available with better compatibility rates.
Another significant update to the Glide64 plugin for Nintendo64 emulators.
The Glide64 Team proudly presents you the new release of our project – ‘Napalm’!
The project now consists of three parts. The main part – Glide64
graphics plugin – was changed a lot since the previous public release.
It’s simply impossible to list all modifications. New version has tons
of bugfixes and optimizations. Large number of special effects
implemented. Lots of hacks removed, because they are not necessary
anymore. Lots of previously unplayable games are playable now. Lots of
games, which worked good before now work even better. Screen shots of
most noticeable improvements were posted on our forum. Check also the
updated screen shots gallery.
The second part – Glitch64 glide wrapper – was also changed much.
Beside various fixes and optimizations it now supports anisotropic
filtering and compressed textures.
The third part – GlideHQ – is a new module, which implements various
texture enhancement techniques. It supports 6 texture filters, 7
methods of texture enhancement, 2 methods of texture compression.
Beside that it fully supports Rice’s format of Hi-Resolution texture
packs, with various optional techniques to save texture memory.
Project related documentation was improved too. We put all useful docs
in one file ‘Glide64 Info.chm’. Please read ‘Readme’ part of it, at
least first two chapters, with general information and setup
instructions.
Due to huge number of changes, new bugs might be introduced too.
Despite the intensive beta testing during all period of development,
some issues had been found and fixed right before the release. Thus, if
you will find an issue, which is not mentioned in the ‘Known Issues’
part of the documentation, please report about it on our forum.
I gave this version codename ‘Napalm’. ‘Napalm’ is also the codename
for VSA-100 graphic chip, on which 3dfx Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 series
were built. I still use Voodoo 5 in my home PC. This version of the
plugin uses a lot of VSA-100 special abilities; therefore it was also
named ‘Napalm’. BTW, there are few effects, which you can see only on
VSA-100 based cards, or on N64 itself. Check ‘Games Tips and Tricks’
part of the documentation for details.
Two updates have been released since the last news about the N64 plugin Glide64.
This plugin allows you to modify N64 games with high-resolution
textures to get better graphics during gameplay. For those without 3DFX graphic cards, a Glide Wrapper can do the trick.
Reportedly, update 4 of GlideHQ brings higher compatibility with RiceVideo hires textures format; and a noticeable improvement in image quality.
Update 4:
Fixed many problems with texture/palette CRC calculation. Almost all hires textures are loaded now.
Note: GlideHQ does not support textures in jpeg format. If your hires
pack has textures in jpeg, you must convert them all to png.
Fixed texrects alignment issue.
Note: There is an issue with texrects size in Mario Kart, which causes
black lines in many menu textures. Thus, old texrects size
calculation method are used for this game, which causes fewer artifacts.
Update 3:
Fixed crash in Zelda OOT
Fixed an issue with alpha channel of hires textures, which become
apparent as a black boarder around texture. Added new option, related
to this issue:
Use alpha channel fully. When this option is off, 16bit rgba
textures will be loaded using RiceVideo style – with 1bit for alpha
channel. When it is on, GlideHQ will check, how alpha channel is used
by the hires texture, and select most appropriate format for it. This
gives texture designers freedom to play with alpha, as they need,
regardless of format of original N64 texture. For older and badly
designed texture packs it can cause unwanted black boarders. Default
value: Off.
-» Check out this thread for more infos about this plugin.
Two updates have been released since the last news post about the N64 plugin Glide64. This plugin allows you to modify N64 games with high-resolution textures to get better graphics during gameplay. The changes are as follows:
Fixed CRC calculation for 4bit textures.
Fixed a lot of problems with texture CRC calculation. Now most of hires textures are loaded.
Instant load from saved texture cache. You have to wait while hires textures are loaded only on the first run. Game will be loaded in a blink on subsequent runs.
Various fixes in texture coordinates calculations.
Various attempts to increase plugin’s stability. Not all problems are fixed here. Plugin may crash on exit if texture cache is not saved yet (on the first run of a game). Temporal workaround: On the first run, close game/emulator right after all hires textures are loaded and the game is started to run. Texture cache will be saved, and you should not have problems on subsequent runs.
Two new options:
Texture enhancement – Ignore backgrounds.
It is used to skip enhancement for wide narrow textures, usually used for backgrounds. This may save texture memory greatly and increase performance. Default value: On.
Hi-resolution textures – Alternative CRC calculation.
This option enables emulation of palette CRC calculation bug in RiceVideo. Default value: On.
» Download the binary or the source of Glide64HQ.
» Check out this thread for more infos about this plugin.
» Big thanks to mudlord for this news item.
A new version of the N64 GPU plugin Rice Video has been released, bringing this high-res plugin to v6.1.3.1! Not many changes in this release, here is what the mudlord posted about this version:
I decided to release this new version now, considering that things for me in real life in general are getting quite hectic and involving. Only major new things in the builds are 8x and 16x texture rescaling support for hi-resolution textures, and revisions to the texture pack format to make way for more changes in the future, to make it easier for texturers to organise and other things. This includes removing JPEG image support for hires textures as well as leaving only CI BMP support left in terms of BMP support in hi res texture packs.
Looking forward to see some texture packs for 8x (or even 16x? Memory upgrade anyone?).
mudlord was kind enough to inform us about the second release of Glide64HQ over in this thread. If you ask yourself now what the heck Glide64HQ might be, here is a small snipset from the readme:
This is a realtime texture enhancer library with hi-resolution texture pack support for Glide64. Traditional and non-traditional techniques have been used to achieve speed and high image quality even on a 9 year old 3Dfx Voodoo2 (...)
Note: Current version is a prototype, based on Glide64 "WonderPlus". That is, for end-users this is Glide64 "WonderPlus" with texture enhancements. Since it is a prototype, it can be buggy, slow, inconvenient and so on. Thus, we need your feedback to make it better.
zilmar has finally opened the new Project64 website to the public. The website is brighter, cleaner and will be updated more often. It will act as a blog for the authors to post their progress on Project64 1.7.
Like promised, the author of sixtyforce, a Nintendo 64 emulator for Mac, has released a new version earlier this week. Here's what he had to say :
What's new in 0.9.0b1 since 0.8.5 --
- A new high quality audio option to process audio with
full low-level emulation on Intel machines. (This feature has been ported over
and upgraded from the PowerPC version.)
- Zelda now shows indoor backgrounds
correctly on Intel machines.
- Diddy Kong Racing will now save games
properly.
- Mario Kart with no longer crash after the 4th Race.
- Other
minor bug fixes throughout the application.
The new high quality audio option is a full low-level
emulator for the dsp that processes sound. That's why it took a while! You can
turn it on in the 'Preferences'.
While it won't fix every single problem with sound
(skipping is next on the hit list) it greatly increases sound compatibility
because it should work in any game and improves the quality
because it produces sound that exactly matches the original. (Minor bugs in this
beta release aside!)
In short: A number of games that didn't have sound before
work fine with the new audio processing. (For ex: Paper Mario.) A number of
games that had sound, now sound much better. (In particular reverb effects in
games like Zelda.)
It is significantly slower than the audio plugin sound,
but it's more than fast enough on my 1.83GHz Mac Book Pro and sounds much
better!
Sound skipping is the first project for the next release,
and hopefully will be the last of mucking about trying to work magic in real
time.
Don't worry Mac lovers! You have not been forgotten! The author of N64 emulator, sixtyforce, for Macs has updated his website with a progress report and a release date for the next version of his emulator. Here is what he had to say:
Progress report: The next release of sixtyforce will be
out this Tuesday! Several major bugs have been fixed:
the Zelda "broken background indoors" bug
the
infamous Mario Kart crashing after the 4th race bug
the bug that prevented
Diddy Kong Racing from saving properly
at least one quirky core issue that
could be affecting any number of things
There may be other goodies as well, depending on what I
can get done by Tuesday!
» Visit sixtyforce's website for the latest information
tekken1096 was kind enough to inform us about the release of Glide64 Wonder++, a twice improved version of the original Glide64 wonder release. More than a year passed since the last (the "plus") release and quite some things changed - let's take a look at the changes:
Improvements in hardware frame buffer emulation for Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, Mickey's Speedway USA
Added support for highlighted objects in Perfect Dark. Added support for coronas in this game (requires software depth buffer rendering). Both features are very important for correct emulation. Now Glide64 emulates PerfectDark nearly perfect, only sky is still missing. Needless to say, that all frame buffer based effects work too (there are many of them in this game).
Fixed combiners in several games.
Furthermore, the glide wrapper (so these few of us who don't have a 3Dfx card any more can also use this great plugin) has also been updated by Hacktarux with the following features:
The last official release from sixtyforce dates back to early 2004. A few months ago, beta versions of sixtyforce 0.8.5 were released but now the official version is out! Here are a few words from the author:
While it is nowhere near perfect, compatibility is at its
highest ever and sixtyforce has become the first (and only) Nintendo 64 emulator
to dynamically recompile to both PowerPC and Intel.
This version includes lots of changes, but most
importantly game freezing and autosaving are back and better than ever. This is
also the first release that runs as well on Intel machines as it does on
PowerPC. In fact, it runs better.
With the Intel conversion complete, the plan for future
versions is to go back to the basics: higher compatibilty and better emulation.
This is by far the best news on the mac emulation scene this year. Sixtyforce requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later and at least a G4 or Intel Mac with 3D graphics acceleration.
A new rom database for the well-known N64 emulator is out. Download this to improve performance and compability for many games. Here is what the author wrote on his website:
Another RDB update that v1.6 users should download. The update package now includes a compatibility list (in sync with the latest RDB changes of course), which many new users might find helpful.
We've also been adding large numbers of saves for users to download, special thanks to Typify and Nevinsb who've supplied most of the saves on the site and must play PJ64 way too much ;)
Work continues on v1.7, we now have a new core thanks to Zilmar and what I would call substantial improvements since v1.6. We intend to provide more details here soon, for now check the GameFAQ (comes with RDB update) although that's not the complete picture.
Thanks Martin for your help during last week's server problems, without it we wouldn't be here or we'd be wasting a lot more time on managing the site vs. working on the emulator.
Our buddy Rice decided to release the latest source of his Nintendo 64 GPU plugin in this thread over at Emutalk. Here are his words attached with this release:
Hi, everyone
I have not touched my RiceVideo project for quite a few months. I really do not have time to actively do anything about it. I understand that it has many major/minor problems with different games, but I don't feel to have the motivation to fix them.
So, I would like to release the source code right here. I don't think it matters too much to the N64emu community anyway. If someone, somehow could do something with it, or borrow some ideas from it, I will be happy.
I will be still around here.
Rice
If you think you can fix some of the remaining bugs or add new features to this already very compatible plugin, you can grab the source right here.
This is your chance to let the authors of Project64 know what you want in the next release. There are already quite a few new features that are considered for Project64 1.7 and some of them will most likely make it in the release. Those include :
High texture replacement
Net play
Quick switching mempacks
Configuring short cut keys
7zip support
Cheat Creation tools
Transfer pak for pokemon stadium
Save selected plugin per game
Backup instant saves
Better widescreen support
If there is something that is not on the list and that you would like to see in the next release, be sure to mention it in this thread over at Emutalk.
Project64 is one of the best Nintendo 64 emulator out there and it's still getting better. Many improvements for version 1.7 are planned and zilmar has unveiled one of them today. Here's what he had to say :
One of the new things that have now been added in to the current beta of project 64 is low level graphics. It is slow running at 5-30 fps on my machine, so you would not want to play a game with it. Some games look great, others not so good. Have a look at some of the pictures on this emutalk thread and discuss it there. This version is currently available to beta user, to find out more about being involved in the beta program read about it here.
