The State of N64 Emulation on Consoles
Hello, DCEmu, Eviltaco64 here (off for 3 days :D).
Today, I'm going to take a closer look at how far Nintendo 64 emulation has developed and progressed on video game consoles (as of August 30, 2008). Only legal methods are mentioned here, although, technically, N64 is emulated fullspeed on Wii and Gamecube...by buying Zelda Collector's Edition or Virtual Console games the legal way ;).
http://www.rombay.com/images/consoles/nintendo_64.jpg
Nintendo 64 had some wonderful AAA games that are too good to pass up. I'm sure a lot of you would love to see the N64 running fullspeed on any console, and by fullspeed, I mean, no lag, no skipping, no temporary freezing, no faulty audio, no missing polygons or textures, etc.
Lets Begin:
MICROSOFT XBOX
Surreal64 v1.0/XXX/FDB:
http://www.tdubel.com/artikkelit/kuv.../surreal64.jpg
Surreal64 is actually three ports of N64 emulators combined into one (1964/Project64/UltraHLE). Surreal64 is probably the best N64 emulator you could use on any console as of right now. Emulation is great (with a few missing polygons and some occasional lag and skipping), it even plays the more advanced N64 games at a decent speed (like Conker)! Still, it's seems to be an unstable emulator. If you make a savestate in a more advanced game, and load that state more than twice, it usually crashes the game, If you go to a certain area of a game, it will freeze, etc.
One thing I cant stand about this emulator is that if you set audio to basic audio, the game will run too fast, whereas if you have the audio set on a more advanced setting, it will lag. It can also be difficult to fine tune the settings for a game to get it to work. For example, say I select a game like Zelda: Majora's Mask, first you would choose which emulator to use, then you must choose what plugin to use. Little do I know, Zelda: MM doesnt work on the more advanced plugins (Rice 6.11), so after the rom is loaded, it goes to a blank screen and freezes, where you must turn off the xbox and go back into the emulator to try another plugin. Each version of Surreal64 has better compatibility with certain games as well. For example, Surreal64 v1.0 is the best emulator to use for Super Smash Bros, Surreal64XXX/FDB is the best emulator to use for more advanced games, etc.
The sad part about Surreal64 is that it was made with a leaked official Xbox SDK, making it technically illegal, and therefore, is a lot more difficult to obtain.
Daedalus X:
A port of Daedalus.
This emulator came out early in the xbox's lifespan, and was pretty incomplete, but still showed that N64 could be done on Xbox.
UltraXLE:
A port of UltraHLE, this emulator was later used in Surreal64. Although compatibility was low, quality was high on the games that it did play.
Project64X:
A port of Project64, this emulator was also used in Surreal64. Compatibility was great and it was definitely the best N64 emulator for Xbox out until Surreal64 was released.
NINTENDO GAMECUBE/WII:
Mupen64GC/WiiN64:
http://mupen64gc.googlecode.com/svn/...jo%20Tooie.jpg
The reason I group Gamecube and Wii together is because they both have very similar ports of Mupen64 (the Wii version runs a little better) developed by Emu_Kidid, Sepp256 and tehpola.
Both versions are still under development as we speak, and look very promising. They promise fullspeed N64 emulation on both Gamecube and Wii, and I believe them. :)
SEGA DREAMCAST:
DaedalusDC:
http://www.emunova.net/img/actu/d797...93f01b02ef.jpg
Ported by Simpson474 in 2007, DaedalusDC comes in two versions. One version is a port of PSP Daedalus R8, and doesnt run very fast or very well at all, but still amazing to see running on the Dreamcast. The second version utilizes the DC hardware in a much better way, but has more limitations (it wont play any roms bigger than 8MB), and can only seems to work ingame with Super Mario 64, but it is faster.
Nincest64 DC:
Ported/Developed by DCEmu's own GDF, this emulator is only a tech demo, and isnt very playable at all. Still it showed that it was possible (even if not at 5%) to emulate the N64 on Dreamcast.
SONY PSP:
Daedalus PSP:
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/8...shot003es1.png
One of the best emulators to come out of the PSP homebrew scene, Daedalus PSP, developed by Strmnnrmn, showed what the PSP was capable of.
Although he currently seems to have fallen off the face of the Earth, I have faith that he'll come back, and hopefully that R14 will show much improvement :). A few games run fullspeed without sound, such as Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64. Others run at playable speeds.
Monkey64:
Developed by DCEmu's PSMonkey. It showed a great amount of potential by V2, but unfortunately PSMonkey had to stop developing it due to an agreement between him and the game company he's working with. Don't ask him if he can start working on Monkey64 anymore, ok ;)?
Nincest64 PSP
Also ported by PSMonkey, this was pre-Monkey64 and was the first N64 emu to be ported to PSP. I dont believe it did very much, but then again, this isnt an emulator I've really tried.
GP2X:
Nincest64 GP2X:
Very slow, only plays 2 demos and no commercial games whatsoever. Still, it shows that N64 could be done on GP2X, and I wonder if we'll ever see any more N64 ports to GP2X.
I think I've covered most of the legal ports of N64 emulators to consoles. It makes you think where the N64 emulation scene will be in the next year or so, with Pandora available and maybe even Xbox 360 or PS3 exploited/hacked. Think conker or mario party online on your PS3 :D! But as of now, it seems like a pipe dream.
Here are download links to the above emulators:
Nincest64 (GP2X)
Nincest64 (Dreamcast)
Mupen64GC/Wii64 (NGC/Wii)
DaedalusDC
Daedalus R13 (PSP 1.5)
Monkey64 v2 (PSP)
Thank you for reading,
Eviltaco64
