[W.A.C.]

So from the research I've done, it sounds like I'm best off playing DK64 with Project 64 version 1.6 with Glide 64. That sounds all fine and dandy, except the game is enormously buggy with that emulator. I considered Mupon 64 Plus, but the game isn't completable with that emulator. After dying three times in a row from fucking climbing (along with most of my deaths so far being from fucking bugs), I can't help but wonder if it's even possible to play this game in an emulator without it being unbelievably buggy. There's graphical glitches constantly and I've never experienced bugs this bad with any N64 game before. From the little I've played so far (unlocked Diddy and beat the first boss), it seems like a fun game but there is no way in hell I'm bothering to complete this game with it in this state. Considering this game's massive popularity, I imagine there must be someway I can play it in an emulator and not have it be a buggy mess. God, I hate N64 emulation. It's a shame Nintendo seems unlikely to ever release this game as a Virtual Console title, because holy fuck does this game deserve a release through that considering all this bullshit.

[Clownacy]

I remember a user of a branch of Mupen saying that switching from the Dynarec to an Interpreter core worked around some of the emulation bugs.

[.Luke]

Isn't the interpreter core extremely slow, even on reasonably decent hardware? I don't think I'd be comfortable with playing games for extended hours on the Interpreter, CPUs don't last forever.

Anyway, DK64 is kinda compatible with Mupen; never got past the intro, because it crashes after the dolphin scene. I absolutely loved the game on original hardware, (Got it for Christmas as a kid.) and I beat it at least twice, but I haven't been able to play the game away from an N64 for over a decade, which really freaking sucks. It was one of the N64's best collectathons, and the only DK game on the system to boot. Banjo Tooie is subject to this crashing frenzy too, and that annoys me more than DK64's emulation problems, because I only got to finish that game once on real hardware.

N64 emulation is in a depressing state compared to PSX emulation. (ePSXe has run everything I threw at it perfectly, 99% of the time without a bios file too.) If you're not using them to play Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, or Super Mario 64, you're in for a bad time. Every other game I've played on MupenPlus, 1964, or Project64, either don't work, or slow down and hiccup too much.

If you already have an N64 laying around, it might be time to get an expansion pak and the real game. (It'd be worth it, it's a great game.) RARE leaving Nintendo has not only caused problems for the developer, their old games might never be preserved in an official capacity. I hope either emulation sees improvement in general, or we start seeing more N64 clones in the future.

[W.A.C.]

Clownacy, on 02 November 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

I remember a user of a branch of Mupen saying that switching from the Dynarec to an Interpreter core worked around some of the emulation bugs.

I guess I could try that with Mupen and hope for the best. If the game ends up not being completable, that'll be infuriating. :/

.Luke, on 02 November 2014 - 04:39 PM, said:

Isn't the interpreter core extremely slow, even on reasonably decent hardware? I don't think I'd be comfortable with playing games for extended hours on the Interpreter, CPUs don't last forever.

Anyway, DK64 is kinda compatible with Mupen; never got past the intro, because it crashes after the dolphin scene. I absolutely loved the game on original hardware, (Got it for Christmas as a kid.) and I beat it at least twice, but I haven't been able to play the game away from an N64 for over a decade, which really freaking sucks. It was one of the N64's best collectathons, and the only DK game on the system to boot. Banjo Tooie is subject to this crashing frenzy too, and that annoys me more than DK64's emulation problems, because I only got to finish that game once on real hardware.

N64 emulation is in a depressing state compared to PSX emulation. (ePSXe has run everything I threw at it perfectly, 99% of the time without a bios file too.) If you're not using them to play Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, or Super Mario 64, you're in for a bad time. Every other game I've played on MupenPlus, 1964, or Project64, either don't work, or slow down and hiccup too much.

If you already have an N64 laying around, it might be time to get an expansion pak and the real game. (It'd be worth it, it's a great game.) RARE leaving Nintendo has not only caused problems for the developer, their old games might never be preserved in an official capacity. I hope either emulation sees improvement in general, or we start seeing more N64 clones in the future.

I don't own an N64 and hate playing N64 games on original hardware because of the lousy visuals and the god awful controller. That, and cartridges. Those tipsy pieces of shit easily lose all their game save data when something taps the damn thing while a game is playing. Considering how I'm currently taking care of seventeen cats that like to walk over and rub against everything, I'd have better luck completing the whole game through glitchy emulation than on original hardware.

This post has been edited by W.A.C.: 02 November 2014 - 08:58 PM

[Molotok]

W.A.C., on 02 November 2014 - 08:57 PM, said:

Clownacy, on 02 November 2014 - 02:46 PM, said:

I remember a user of a branch of Mupen saying that switching from the Dynarec to an Interpreter core worked around some of the emulation bugs.

I guess I could try that with Mupen and hope for the best. If the game ends up not being completable, that'll be infuriating. :/

.Luke, on 02 November 2014 - 04:39 PM, said:

Isn't the interpreter core extremely slow, even on reasonably decent hardware? I don't think I'd be comfortable with playing games for extended hours on the Interpreter, CPUs don't last forever.

Anyway, DK64 is kinda compatible with Mupen; never got past the intro, because it crashes after the dolphin scene. I absolutely loved the game on original hardware, (Got it for Christmas as a kid.) and I beat it at least twice, but I haven't been able to play the game away from an N64 for over a decade, which really freaking sucks. It was one of the N64's best collectathons, and the only DK game on the system to boot. Banjo Tooie is subject to this crashing frenzy too, and that annoys me more than DK64's emulation problems, because I only got to finish that game once on real hardware.

N64 emulation is in a depressing state compared to PSX emulation. (ePSXe has run everything I threw at it perfectly, 99% of the time without a bios file too.) If you're not using them to play Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, or Super Mario 64, you're in for a bad time. Every other game I've played on MupenPlus, 1964, or Project64, either don't work, or slow down and hiccup too much.

If you already have an N64 laying around, it might be time to get an expansion pak and the real game. (It'd be worth it, it's a great game.) RARE leaving Nintendo has not only caused problems for the developer, their old games might never be preserved in an official capacity. I hope either emulation sees improvement in general, or we start seeing more N64 clones in the future.

I don't own an N64 and hate playing N64 games on original hardware because of the lousy visuals and the god awful controller. That, and cartridges. Those tipsy pieces of shit easily lose all their game save data when something taps the damn thing while a game is playing. Considering how I'm currently taking care of seventeen cats that like to walk over and rub against everything, I'd have better luck completing the whole game through glitchy emulation than on original hardware.

Dude. Dude. ... Dude.

You have too much pussy.

Seriously though, I thought I was able to play Donkey Kong 64 via Project64 with minimal hiccups, somehow. It's been a while, though, so I might be misremembering. Conker's Bad Fur Day, on the other hand, ran horribly for me.

[W.A.C.]

Molotok, on 02 November 2014 - 09:28 PM, said:

Dude. Dude. ... Dude.

You have too much pussy.

My cat hoarder neighbor died half a year ago and my parents and I got stuck with his cats. We got them all fixed and found homes for some, but there's still a ton left.

Molotok, on 02 November 2014 - 09:28 PM, said:

Seriously though, I thought I was able to play Donkey Kong 64 via Project64 with minimal hiccups, somehow. It's been a while, though, so I might be misremembering. Conker's Bad Fur Day, on the other hand, ran horribly for me.

Weird. From memory, CBFD ran pretty well outside of some occasional oddities (like Conker's broken drunk vision.).

[.Luke]

That's a lot of cats, and that's with me knowing people with lots of cats. I think most N64 carts use flash-memory for saving, instead of battery-backed RAM, (I know both Zeldas on the N64 do.) so you wouldn't having to worry about losing your saves all the time.

As for controllers, you can always get a Super Pad. The arrangement's not conventional, but it's far better than using a first-party analog stick. I had one myself, they're nice. DK64 looks like an early Dreamcast game, so it should be pretty nice on the TV if it's native res is 640x480. (As other Retro members told me before, most N64 games were 320x240, which is why they are so grainy on the original hardware.)

[W.A.C.]

Judging from the searching I did online, it doesn't sound like the expansion pack increased the 240i resolution to 480i. [LINK] Also, the left handle for the Super Pad 64 Plus looks awful and Hori's decent alternative to the N64 controller is insanely expensive. [LINK]

[Billy]

I've heard that the Yobo N64 controllers are pretty good for the price. I've never used one personally, though.

[W.A.C.]

This looks worse than the standard N64 controller.

[Caniad Bach]

I've always been interested in the Hori controllers, so reading through this topic I just bought one of these:



If anyone's interested I can give my thoughts.

Can't say I know that much about N64 emulation, but Smash Bros and Mario Kart seemed to run playably on my old laptop on Project 64. I can see how Donkey Kong has issues though, since it needs the Expansion Pak merely to stop shitting itself. I never really rated the game much in the first place anyway, mind.

[W.A.C.]

How much did that controller cost you?

[.Luke]

Those controllers look pretty cool. I love the Dreamcast and Gamecube inspiration in their design. If I get an N64 one of these days, (Might have to if I want to play Banjo Tooie and DK64 again.) ordering one of those would be tempting.

W.A.C., on 03 November 2014 - 03:21 PM, said:

Judging from the searching I did online, it doesn't sound like the expansion pack increased the 240i resolution to 480i. [LINK] Also, the left handle for the Super Pad 64 Plus looks awful and Hori's decent alternative to the N64 controller is insanely expensive. [LINK]

Yeah, it's just a RAM expansion, but I guess my wording wasn't clear enough.

Those controllers were surprisingly popular, (People on the Benheck forums loved using their guts in custom portable systems.) even if you think they're a bit on the ugly side, which I'd have to agree. The grip is weird. I liked having a normal analog stick with it, though.

[Caniad Bach]

W.A.C., on 03 November 2014 - 06:54 PM, said:

How much did that controller cost you?

About £50. I didn't bother to shop around.

[Neo Hazard]

What's the latest version of Project 64 you're running? They updated to 2.1 last year and was a pretty big jump in quality. IIRC, Donkey Kong 64 did work, but there were a handful of graphical glitches and I'm not sure how well it'd hold up over the course of the game.

Caniad Bach, on 03 November 2014 - 06:45 PM, said:

If anyone's interested I can give my thoughts.

Please do, the D-Pad in the middle makes me think games like Dr. Mario and Kirby are unplayable but besides that.