N64 with Retroarch - best video settings for 1080p

[ckp]

Hi,

I've been talked into using a lot of my older platforms with RA. It's going ok so far, except that I am clueless with RA how to improve resolution, graphics appearance, upscaling, and stuff like that.

I added my N64 to RA and looked at a few games.

When I run N64 games from my Project64 emulator, the resolution and game looks really good on my 1080p 32" TV with custom graphic plugin settings. 

But with out-of-box RA settings for N64, it doesn't look very good and the game window uses an extra small resolution.

I'm hoping someone can let me know which video settings I should change in RA (just for N64) to make it look better on 1080p. I'm not talking about shaders here.

Thank you!

 

[Lordmonkus]

The setting you want is in the N64 core options and not the video settings. With an N64 game loaded in the Mupen core open the  quick menu and go into core options. In there look for the resolution scaling, after bumping it up to what you want you will need to do a restart for the changes to take effect.

Personally I don't recommend using the Retroarch core, I use a mix of PJ64 and stand alone Mupen64plus on a game by game basis. N64 emulation is in a not so good state and needs a lot more work, a lot of individual tweaking per game with it.

[ckp]

Thanks. I'm not that picky about N64. For convenience, I'll try looking for the resolution scaling and see how it looks after that. 

[Lordmonkus]

Well it isn't a case of picky, it's a case of different games will either work / not work better or worse in different emulators. For example Beetle Adventure racing is only playable through Mupen64plus, PJ64 and Mupen RA aren't even playable.

[ckp]

Only setting I found was to change resolution and none matched my 1080p screen. Didn't seem to help changing it. I wonder if any other settings can make it look better.

[DOS76]

Ok here is the question do you want to render the games in their original aspect ratio or do you want to have them fill your whole screen? If you prefer the latter without any core loaded go into RetroArch's menu and press right then go down to the video option and press x then go down to Aspect Ratio Index and change it to 16:9 or play with the settings to find something you like. I personally use 16:9 for all of my games in RA.

[ckp]

I don't care so much about original aspect ratio if it looks good 16:9. But if going 16:9 makes it look bad, then I would leave it with black bars on the left and right side (4:3?).

16:9 is always my preference if it doesn't look weird/bad. So far I think I have most of my RA games in 4:3 size (whatever the default is because I just started with RA) with black borders because I just assumed these old games would look awful stretched to 16:9, but maybe I should try it.

And any settings that can make the old games appear smoother and sharper would interest me also.

[DOS76]

That would be the shaders which are pretty amazing @lordmonkusis much more knowledgeable than me when it comes to shaders. Yeah try the 16:9 if you don't like it switch it back or try custom settings.

[Lordmonkus]

For N64 there aren't really any good shaders that I found to my liking. I just straight up use upscaling the resolution.

For 8 and 16 bit sprite based games I prefer a CRT shader over a smoothing type of shader, IMO the smoothing shaders only look somewhat decent in stylized art games like Mario World and Yoshis Island but games with a more "realistic" art style like Final Fantasay or Chrono Trigger they don't look so good. If you want a smoothing shader look into the sabr and xbr shaders and see what you can find.

 

[ckp]

30 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

I just straight up use upscaling the resolution

What setting is that in RA?

[ckp]

1 hour ago, DOS76 said:

go into RetroArch's menu and press right then go down to the video option and press x then go down to Aspect Ratio Index and change it to 16:9

i did this but when i launch a n64 game it still comes up 4:3?

[Lordmonkus]

46 minutes ago, ckp said:

What setting is that in RA?

With a game running, bring up the Retroarch menu with F1, go into the quick menu > options > resolution, set it to the resolution you want. Close Reatroarch and restart.

[ckp]

I found WIDE setting in the n64 core from quick menu which made the game full screen 16:9. oh boy that was terrible so i put it back to normal! haha.

I already set a global video setting "Windowed Scale" = 3.0x, so maybe that is what you mean by upscaling?

There is a Video Driver set to gl currently. Would another be better on Windows with nvidia card?

[ckp]

5 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

With a game running, bring up the Retroarch menu with F1, go into the quick menu > options > resolution, set it to the resolution you want. Close Reatroarch and restart.

There is no 1920x1080 setting. Only odd resolutions that don't look 16:9 to me.

[Lordmonkus]

Windowed Scale = 3.0 is the size of the game screen when in windowed mode and that is in the general video settings. What I am talking about is in the core options. Most (not all) cores have extra options specifically available to that core which is in the quick menu when you have that core running.

You can try other video drivers but gl is all around the best driver, it's what I use and I have an Nvidia card.

There is no 1920 x 1080, there will only be multiples of the native resolution of the original hardware so the closest would be the 960 resolution. If you want 16:9 you will have to force it in the general video settings and like you said previously, it looks bad. Though some people really prefer it.

You can turn off integer scaling though and it will get rid of most, if not all of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

[ckp]

I set Windowed Scaled back to 1.0 since I saw the 3.0 setting make no difference. 

Anyway, I think I'm using Windowed Full Screen setting. I have no idea if that's best or not, but it seems ok.

Ok, I'll take your word for it on gl. I just don't have time to play around with so many settings in RA.

My entire effort is to get all these games up and running in LB without crashes and weird things and looking decent as quickly as I can so people can play them (including myself). And hopefully the controllers will work easily also. 

I'd love to spend more time fiddling more with specific emulators and even favorite games, but there just isn't time with work and family. I'm already getting beat up by my wife with the time I've put in so far .

Sure appreciate all the help from you and others on this forum!

 

[Lordmonkus]

The windowed scale is for pure windowed mode, it will have no effect on full screen or windowed full screen mode, it only determines how big the window will be when it loads in a window.

My honest opinion for the best option for N64 emulation if you just want one emulator is to use the stand alone Mupen64plus, PJ64 is also ok. Unfortunately right now N64 emulation is kind of in a shitty state, it needs work.

[cleverest]

This is old guys, but the best N64 one I've found is Mupen64Plus-Next (or called NX) - it renders true to original resolution...very nice.

[Lordmonkus]

Yeah of course it's old, it hasn't been posted in for near 3 years until you posted now.

[Quest4SNES]

Obligatory 3 year bump!