[shoober420]

I have always used Project64, but there have been two other emulators that I now have consideration for. One is this new one called ICE64. How does it compare to PJ64? Another is the updated versions of 1964. Which one would you say is the most accurate emulator? If there is a better one that I haven't mentioned, please tell me about it.

 

[the_randomizer]

MAME supposedly has an accurate one in the works, not sure how well it runs though.

 

[shoober420]

That's cool to hear, but out of all those emulators I posted, which one is the most accurate?

 

[the_randomizer]

That's cool to hear, but out of all those emulators I posted, which one is the most accurate?

I haven't tried ICE64, but you probably at least heard of Mupen64 Plus 1.9.9, which fixes many of the issues PJ64 had (Banjo Tooie, Excite Bike 64, Gauntlet Legends, Hydro Thunder, etc). It has better RSP emulation for its audio and I believe may even run Shadows of the Empire.

 

[[email protected]]

on the flipside

mupen is a pita to get working and all of the available frontends have problems of their own

 

[the_randomizer]

Doesn't help the fact mupen64 doesn't use Glide64 but uses the crappy Rice video plugin.

 

[shoober420]

I'm on windows so I can't try Mupen64plus. Is there a windows version of Mupen64plus?

I'm going to tryout ICE64 and report back on if its good.

 

[[email protected]]

there are only a handful of games that mupen64 emulates better than pj64, and some of these are already resolved through the changes in the 1.6.1 plugins jabo released recently.

There are also a handful of titles that mupen64 has issues with as it does not include memory patches in the rom settings file
Pokemon snap no input response in the first mission
Zelda64's subscreen taking forever to appear after pressing start
Zelda64's equip screen, link is low resolution (Rice video does not enhance the internal resolution of the copied framebuffer, and the defaults do not even enable the framebuffer compatibility settings iirc)
Of the front ends i tried for mupen, one of them does not even save applied settings, and the other does not respond to input after starting a game (while it responded in the input config screen......)

Accurate is highly subjective, the only "Accurate" n64 simulator is MAME, the rest are all mostly HLE based with an LLE Interpreter tacked on as a second thought.

 

[the_randomizer]

If he wants accuracy, then MAME is his best bet, but that too can be a real pain to configure properly. PJ64 or 1964 are easier to configure.

 

[shoober420]

I just tried out ICE64 and I wasn't pleased. Everytime I tried to go fullscreen, it would glitch on me. It used a modified version of Glide64.

Where can I download the MAME N64 emulator? I only can find the MAME arcade emulator. Will the MAME N64 emulator use the Glide64 video plugins and all the plugins that PJ64 lets me use?

 

[the_randomizer]

It's included as part of the emulator code, so you don't need a separate program.

 

[[email protected]]

and no, mame does not support common spec plugins.

 

[shoober420]

Okay guys, very funny. I just got done reading this from the MAME FAQs:

Apparently, Scramble's board was especially easy to re-use; several games were hacked to play on it. A long-running joke with MAME enthusiasts is that anything can be run on Scramble hardware - N64 games, your toaster, your automatic garage door, etc. :?) (Ironically, Scramble itself was hacked to play on Galaxian hardware!)

Well you got me. I even used 7-Zip to put the game in a zip file in the hopes that MAME would see it. I even changed the extension to bin, then it dawned on me. I'll just stick with PJ64 unless one of you can give me a legit reason to use another emulator.

 

[[email protected]]

Okay guys, very funny. I just got done reading this from the MAME FAQs:

Apparently, Scramble's board was especially easy to re-use; several games were hacked to play on it. A long-running joke with MAME enthusiasts is that anything can be run on Scramble hardware - N64 games, your toaster, your automatic garage door, etc. :?) (Ironically, Scramble itself was hacked to play on Galaxian hardware!)

Erm, neither of us were attempting to 'be funny'.
You can ask Mooglyguy yourself about Mames n64 simulation capabilities......

or i can just.... http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/MooglyGuy's_To-Do_List

 

[shoober420]

Oh, well with that being said, how do I open N64 games with MAME? Do I need MESS or will it work with MAME? I tried putting the rom in a zip file, I then gave it a bin extension, and it still wouldn't show up on my games list.

 

[KrossX]

I think MAME is for arcades while MESS is for home consoles.

 

[shoober420]

Thanks KrossX, that explains alot. I'll give MESS a try.

 

[shoober420]

Okay, well I tried out MESS, and its too slow. I loaded up Super Mario 64 as a test and it looked so pixelated. I can see why Mooglyguy wants to improve on the N64 emulation. I hope that in the future, MESS will allow you to upscale the resolution so you don't have to play at the systems native resolution. MAME lets you do this. With MAME, I can upscale games to 2048x1536 and they look great. It doesn't work with 3D games though. I wish it did. Everytime I try to upscale a 3D game in MAME the screen goes black. It only works for 2D sprite games. Anyway, thanks for showing me MESS, I'll keep an eye on it. But for now, I'll stick with PJ64.

 

[the_randomizer]

The N64 portion of MESS uses LLE or Low-Level Emulation, which is more accurate, but sacrifices speed for accuracy. You're better off with PJ64 or 1964.

 

[shoober420]

I prefer accuracy, but I didn't know I needed a super computer for it to emulate at 60fps. I use bsnes and nintendulator for my nes and snes games. Are they going to optimize MESS to run N64 games faster or am I going to have to upgrade my computer?