N64 Emulation Revolution! Holy crap!!!

[SentaiBrad]

This right here: http://www.libretro.com/index.php/first-ever-revolutionary-n64-vulkan-emulator-coming-soon-only-for-libretro-parallei/ I am excited!

[CliveBarker]

SentaiBrad said This right here: http://www.libretro.com/index.php/first-ever-revolutionary-n64-vulkan-emulator-coming-soon-only-for-libretro-parallei/ I am excited!

Yeah I read that at reddit. I like that they choose Vulkan over DX12 so everyone will be able to enjoy it. The thing I do not like is that this is not a standalone, only libretro.

[SentaiBrad]

Vulkan is only great for cross-platform, which RetroArch / Libretro is, so that makes total sense. DirectX 12 still out performs Vulkan, but because it's multi-platform it holds a certain edge. Same edge OpenGL had / has.

[CliveBarker]

I think Vulkan only needs more time. Doom+Vulkan already showed a substantial increment in performance, specially with AMD GPUs. Also I am reading some downsides about this new N64 plugin: "It's retroarch mupen64plus-only for now, which means that if you were hoping to play Resident Evil 2 N64 at full speed with full accuracy, you're gonna be disappointed. Same goes for stuff like Rogue Squadron, which is unstable on mupen64plus. You're gonna be limited to native resolution, which means that while this is great news for enthusiasts, don't expect the general public to be overwhelmed. " I really love to crank up the resolution when emulating games but anyways it is awesome to see the N64 emulation scene receiving the love it deserves!

[SentaiBrad]

Except that those issues are why they're doing this. So those issues are the entire reason why they're doing this. Those problems exist on more than just a few games and on more than just a few emulators.

[Zombeaver]

Awesome. I'm all for getting away from the patchwork garbage they talk about in that announcement. That's the kind of thing that's gotten PCSX2 into the convoluted mess that it's in. It's functional, just like current Mupen is functional, but there's so much game-by-game hacky crap going on that it's kindof a mess. I'm glad to see this is happening and I'm excited to check it out (which sounds like should be fairly soon). I just hope their next endeavor is on a better console (hate bait, I know ).

[Beatlemaniac19]

Zombeaver said I just hope their next endeavor is on a better console (hate bait, I know ).

Lol @Zombeaver. N64 is by far my favorite console ever. No offense taken. What I'd really love to happen is see CEN64 develop into the ultimate N64 emulator. This emulator is the only N64 emulator aiming for cycle accurate emulation. If CEN64 becomes almost 100% compatible (within a few years) and gets ported to RetroArch, I'll die a happy man.

[Zombeaver]

I'm not saying N64 didn't have good games, because it certainly did. I just think that when people talk about how "amazing" the N64 was, they're actually talking about a handful of games. Games that I don't debate are good. There are about 50 games on the console that are good, with about 10 that are really really good. I love Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie and Starfox 64 as much as anyone... but when you look at the library as a whole, in terms of total number of genuinely good games, I just don't think it's anything too spectacular, and is, in my opinion, massively overrated. Outside of a key group of 1st party games you've got a bunch of multi-platform stuff that are often inferior to alternate versions due to a lack of storage space (though no load time is admittedly nice). The N64 also had a complete abomination of a controller... I'm not saying it's a terrible console, by any means, I just think it's super overrated.

[Beatlemaniac19]

I can respect that. It's all about personal preference. Many people don't like the fact that the N64 has very little RPGs or fighting games. I'm not a huge fan of those genres though. The PS1 is a vastly superior console in terms of its library, but if you gave me the choice, I'd choose N64 every day of the week because the games have more appeal to me... plus it's my first console so I'm incredibly biased :)

[SentaiBrad]

Both consoles are nostalgic for me. I was very fortunate to have both growing up and loved their games. When I was a kid I didn't care for RPG's much, I mostly didn't know what they were until I was 7 or 8? Booting up FF7 for the first time on my uncles PS1 and not really knowing what it was. It was another year or two, in 6th grade when I had a PS1 I could play and found it out. So yea, PS1 is kind of RPG's in that era. Not that the other systems had none, N64 had a couple, GBC had quite a few too, but the PS1 is where that love of RPG's and JRPG's started for me. I love the N64 for mostly Zelda, but everything Nintendo put out on that system is gold for me, including several other random games for nostalgic reasons. Starcraft 64 is actually really competent and that is where I was exposed to it for the first time. I didn't get in to PC gaming until Diablo 2 in 2000/01. That SC64 rom is gigantic. As for the controllers, They both kind of suck, but I do prefer that N64 controller now. The first Dual Shock was very good for the time but was very quickly out paced, however I don't think it's fair to compare the two to later controllers. So both are just kind of nostalgic for me. PS1 and PS2 emulation can be played on a 360, Xbox One, PS3 or PS4 pad (I use PS4) effortlessly of course. For N64 I actually felt the need to buy a USB RetroLink N64 controller, so it is... unique.

[Beatlemaniac19]

I agree with both of you guys. I never owned a PS1, but have played it in the last year or so and realize that it's an amazing console. As much as I love the N64, I've got to admit, I can't defend the controller. It's terrible lol

[Zombeaver]

SentaiBrad said Both consoles are nostalgic for me. I was very fortunate to have both growing up and loved their games.

I had them both as a kid as well, but it was pretty much no competition for me. The PSX is my favorite console of all time. Like I said, I wholeheartedly agree that there are totally awesome games on the N64, but I think they're a drop in the bucket compared to the PSX library.

Beatlemaniac19 said it's my first console so I'm incredibly biased :)

I totally understand that. I recognize that it's part of the reason I love the C64 so much (I do think it has a genuinely great library though). Nostalgia can be a pretty potent force, and that's okay; though it can sometimes lead to disappointment when you try revisiting something many many years later and it's not nearly as good as you remember it being in your starry-eyed childhood. To me that's always been a bigger issue with movies than video games though. I think most games have held up pretty well, regardless of generation - I think that's because even something extremely simple like Pong is immediately understandable and completely playable to anyone, even today. I know Pong is a pretty generic example but my point is that good design is good design, regardless of the limitations in technology in any given period. If you enjoy N64 more than any other console, nothing wrong with that! Just don't let it stop you from broadening your horizons! There's an immense amount of awesome stuff out there.

[SentaiBrad]

There are certainly less games then PS1, for every 1 good N64 game there was probably 2 good PS1 games and 4 bad ones though. The disc was a blessing and a curse.

[Lordmonkus]

As someone with zero emotional attachment to either the N64 or Playstation I think they end up in a tie in terms of overall system and gaming goodness. By the time these systems came out I was older and moved into the PC side of things, though I did own both systems at the time. The Playstation has the sheer volume of games but the 3D games really were awful at that time (yes just my opinion) and they really do not hold up to the test of time, the 2D games on the system however do hold up extremely well. The N64 on the other hand had a relatively small selection of games but the first party exclusives were some of the greatest games ever made, they still hold up very well because of the power of the system and the N64 defined how a 3D game should play. So to me in the end it's a draw with both systems having their positives and negatives. If I look at the actual number of games from each system I go back and play it's pretty damn close in number. Obviously personal bias and nostalgia plays a big role in peoples preference in system choices. Which system they played first and have the most fond memories of.

[Zombeaver]

lordmonkus said but the 3D games really were awful at that time

Ehhh... I don't know about all that. Ape Escape, Brave Fencer Musashi, Crash Bandicoot, Twisted Metal, Dino Crisis, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, Jumping Flash, Gex 2, Ghost in the Shell, Vagrant Story... I could go on for quite a while. There's plenty of awesome 3D stuff on PSX that's still completely playable today (because I still go back to them regularly). Were there terrible games that were 3D? Sure. There were terrible 2D games too. I just think that's a pretty big overstatement/oversimplification.

[SentaiBrad]

My dad had an SNES that I fiddled around with when I was super young, then my cousins had an NES and a Genesis that I played around with, Link to the Past then Super Mario Bros are the two games I remember first, LttP specifically. Then I had gotten a Genesis with the Sega Channel, and that went away. Then a Christmas or two later, N64 comes out and I get one for Christmas of 97' I believe, with Super Mario 64, Bomberman 64 and Star Fox 64, my holy trinity of games that were mine first. Ocarina of Time came a bit later, but I got that when it launched and that was it, that's when I fell in love. Then I got Links Awakening, Pokemon etc. PS1 I didn't get right away, and really the only game from that I can specifically remember is Blasto, and that game controls like shit, but my god.. it's super nostalgic. Where as on the N64, I can remember a lot more games than that. I also said FF7 earlier, but that was before I really even had an N64, and then I had that game a little later. I played that and 9 the most, which is why 9 became my favorite FF. Oh god! Star Wars Rogue Squadron and Pod Racer, those were fun games too. I actually covered a lot of this on my channel for Nintendo's 125th birthday a few years ago.

[Lordmonkus]

Well I did say it was my opinion. I just felt even at the time that the 3D was awful. Sure some of the game play was ok but the 3D itself was gimmicky and terribly ugly even for its time. I won't go into all the games you mentioned because I didn't play them all but FF7 was ugly as hell, I just couldn't play it back then and I really tried being a FF fan. Resident Evil was unique and an "ok" game but the controls were and still are absolute shit. Also FF7 wasn't even a real 3D game, just polygonal characters on pre rendered backdrops. If that game was done in a true 2D art style like Lunar for example the game would have held up in terms of looks and people wouldn't be asking for the remake we are getting. Yes, some games had some good game play ideas but ruined by hideous premature 3D graphics. I've said this in other threads and I will repeat it here again, the 32 bit era should have stuck to 2D games instead of cramming ugly 3D down our throats because it was the new gaming gimmick. And yes you could make the argument that it was a phase that we needed to go through to develop 3D but I still think it was way too early. Even the 3D polygonal games on PC at the time were ugly and it wasn't until we got good 3D accelerated video cards to drive those games like Quake til it got good. Go back and compare software mode Quake vs hardware accelerated Quake. Games that may have had some good game play design were ruined by extremely short draw distance and fog in or garbage controls til we got analog controllers on the N64. There is a reason my Playstation game collection is 99% 2D games. And no, I am not a graphics whore by any means but there are limits to how much fog in and low quality textures I can handle and the Playstation was the king of fog in, low poly count, ugly textures. Like I said, just my unbiased opinion. I grew up on a Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 and I cannot even go back and play those games anymore. Hell, even the NES is awful looking, for me the sweet spot in retro gaming and emulation is 16 and 32 bit 2D games.

[SentaiBrad]

I wasn't fighting you on anything... I was just sharing stories back with the thread...

[Zombeaver]

To each their own, but I don't think I could possibly disagree more haha. I thought the bit about Quake was particularly amusing because I think hardware mode Quake looks like completely dog-shit; a bunch of smeary awful bilinear filtering sucking the life out of the visuals. Yay! I'll take software mode any day of the week. Quake 2 was just as bad in that regard. I'm also not sure in what dimension FF7 was ugly as hell, within the confines of the period. Feel free to read literally any gaming magazine from 1997 and they'll all disagree with you. Primitive by today's standards? Sure. I wasn't aware anyone was making the argument that old games look as graphically impressive as current ones. I certainly wasn't. What I'm saying is that the broad assertion that "3D games were really awful" is a pretty huge overstatement. Nobody's saying that 32-bit era games look amazing by today's standards. Saying that those games were "awful" or "ruined" because they look primitive by today's standards is another matter. One that I just can't agree with. There are just way too many examples to the contrary. Primitive doesn't equal broken, unplayable, and bad, which is what you're making it sound like. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so there's nothing saying you have to like the way they look (though I actually do, even now; I think there's a certain charm to their aesthetics), but I think saying the games themselves were awful because they look archaic now is a pretty odd stance. I agree there were awful broken games that were 3D. So what? There are broken awful 2D games too; and there are many examples of good games in both styles. Again, to each their own. Wasn't trying to start a flame war, just voicing dissent.

[Beatlemaniac19]

I can see why some people think really old games are unplayable when compared to more modern games. For example, it's easy to say Atari 2600 or NES games play like crap now. What I like to do is look at the release year and pretend I traveled back in time. If I play Pong, I pretend it's 1972 and that this is the first video game I've ever played. I have the same mentality for N64, PS1 or any old 3D games. I view Super Mario 64 as the first successful 3D platformer ever, but we all know about the camera issues. However, I ignore that and focus on the game. With a less cynical eye the games are more enjoyable to me.