Project 64 on secondary display?

[Bloodlvst]

I've had some issues with performance in the Mupen64Plus RetroArch core. I went ahead and tried the latest PJ64 and it works fantastic.

However, there is no option to launch PJ64 in fullscreen on another display. Does anyone know of a way this can be done?

If not, does anyone know of some more performance friendly settings for Mupen64Plus that don't look like hot garbage?

[shinra358]

use the ahk feature to do what you want. also, the retroarch core has a cache feature so the more you play, the more textures youll cache and the faster it will be the next time you play.

[Bloodlvst]

Just now, shinra358 said:

use the ahk feature to do what you want. also, the retroarch core has a cache feature so the more you play, the more textures youll cache and the faster it will be the next time you play.

I'm assuming you mean use LaunchBox to issue a Shift+Win+Right keystroke when PL64 launches?

Also wasn't aware of the RA cache feature. Are there any games you've come across which are noticeably better in either emulator? Or is it really just one of those user preference type of deals?

[shinra358]

Nope. An ahk feature is built in. you could code ahk to put that particular emulator window to your 2nd screen like you want.

mupen64plus core is good. only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't have anisotropic filtering to get rid of horizon jaggies/shimmering like pj64 standalone does. I keep pj64 because of this reason. When it is added, I'll stick with mupen64plus core.

[mothergoose729]

This is really the emulator you want to use

https://m64p.github.io/

The mupen64plus core in retroarch is very out of date, and it won't be supported anymore. I use it for some of my games, but for the most part you should look to parrallel for accuracy, or the above for performance and enhancements.

M64p supports AF, bloom, MSAA, and HD textures, if you are into that kind of thing. Personally, I prefer to play at native res, and it does that too.  

[Lordmonkus]

Just now, mothergoose729 said:

The mupen64plus core in retroarch is very out of date, and it won't be supported anymore.

What are you talking about ?

The parallel core is the one that has been pushed to the back burner because they ran into issues with it. The Mupen64plus core is the one that Glupen64 core got rolled into and now uses the GlideN64 plugin and supports texture packs, MSAA.

[mothergoose729]

 

 

 

I never know who is actually in in the know when I read comments like this. I would say mupen64plus in RA is dead. GlideN64 will be rolled into parrallel... some day. 

Parallel just had an update on the 25th. They are implementing hardware accelerated VI filtering in a future release. The worse problems in parrallel are not getting addressed at this very second because tinytiger left (the OG guy on the project), and nobody else seems to have jumped onto it yet AFAIK. legendofdragoon expressed interest in it, and I he contributes to other n64 emulators, although he didn't commit to anything in the thread I was in. 

[mothergoose729]

I will add that from my testing, and I have tested a lot of games, the mupen build I linked is much better than RA in pretty much every way. It emulates a lot of very difficult games really well, mostly because of the SSE accelerated CXD4 RSP and the bleeding edge glideN64 RDP. I haven't found a game that won't play on it at all, although there are a few that parrallel can emulate better (Turok 2 comes to mind). 

[Lordmonkus]

Well unless they up and changed things again (which is always possible) the Mupen64plus core right now for general every day use is the one to use.

For a shot while there were 3 cores, Mupen64, Parallel and GlupeN64.

Mupen64 was based off the stand alone. Parallel was the low level one using Vulkan and GlupeN64 was the newest one that used the GlideN64 video plugin which was the most advanced. They ran into some unexpected roadblocks with the Parallel core and pushed it to the back burner, not abandoned but needed to overcome some issues. They had a disagreement with the GlideN64 plugin developer and decided to part ways. At this point they decided to just roll the Glupen64 core into the old Mupen64 core so now there is only the Parallel and Mupen64plus core.

N64 emulation as a whole is messy and there is no perfect or best emulator for it. I personally have had the best luck with the new version of the Mupen64 core but PJ64 is also very good (relatively speaking) and so is the stand alone Mupen64 emulator. They all have their pros and cons however, some games work better with certain emulators and others work better with another.

The Parallel core though is certainly the one with the most potential for accuracy due to the fact it is built from the ground up as a low level emulator hence the name ParLLEl. If they can overcome the roadblocks they have run into it can become the most accurate N64 emulator while PJ64 and Mupen64 use high level hacks and plugins to get the job done.

[mothergoose729]

7 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

Well unless they up and changed things again (which is always possible) the Mupen64plus core right now for general every day use is the one to use.

For a shot while there were 3 cores, Mupen64, Parallel and GlupeN64.

Mupen64 was based off the stand alone. Parallel was the low level one using Vulkan and GlupeN64 was the newest one that used the GlideN64 video plugin which was the most advanced. They ran into some unexpected roadblocks with the Parallel core and pushed it to the back burner, not abandoned but needed to overcome some issues. They had a disagreement with the GlideN64 plugin developer and decided to part ways. At this point they decided to just roll the Glupen64 core into the old Mupen64 core so now there is only the Parallel and Mupen64plus core.

N64 emulation as a whole is messy and there is no perfect or best emulator for it. I personally have had the best luck with the new version of the Mupen64 core but PJ64 is also very good (relatively speaking) and so is the stand alone Mupen64 emulator. They all have their pros and cons however, some games work better with certain emulators and others work better with another.

Compared to the build I linked, the Mupen64 core is just not very good. There are lots of compatibility problems. The 2d texture alignment in a lot of games is off, particular for text (DK 64, Banjo Kazooie, Quest 64, lots of others). The LLE RSP is required for some titles and it can be very slow (although to its credit really fast considering it is LLE). The mupen64plus build you can find with a quick google search is garbage, but the build I linked above is the single best emulator for n64 anywhere. I use a patch work of emulators and plugins for my setup for various reason, but if you had to choose only one, that build really is it. There is no other emulator anywhere that can play vigilante 8 as well as it can by a mile, Star Wars Battle for Naboo can be made to run full speed with texture caching enabled, and it runs other difficult games like Resident Evil 2, Pokemon Snap, World Driver, Conker's Bad Furday, Indiana Jones, and many others really well. I haven't found any game that isn't playable on it.  It has some problems with a few games, like the sky in Road Rash 64, pokemon puzzle league is a bit of a mess, and it can't emulate the dynamic lighting or the blood effects in Turok 2 like parrallel/angrylion can. Overall though, compatibility is pretty excellent all things considered. Performance is also really good. The dynamic compiler is very fast and the build of glideN64 includes a lot of the most recent microcode make it quite well optimized.  

I have 110 n64 games in my library, and I have tested 90% of them with parrallel, mupen64 in RA, mupen64 in the build I linked above, and Project 64 with glideN64. I am actually worked on a creating a guide for the best way to go about it, because it was such a damn hassle to get everything optimal (seriously, I put like 100+ hours into the project over weeks).  You can get all but a handful of games to run really well in either in parrallel or Mupen64plus, but there are definitely some games that you can't. 

[Lordmonkus]

Well if the Parallel core has come that far that is good to hear, it's been a while since I have bothered to look at it at all. Maybe I will have to take a peak at again sometime soon, I just really don't care a whole lot for the N64. I know it's a system that a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for being many peoples first console and all. For me though the 32 bit + N64 era was just a really bad phase for gaming while it went through that awkward "puberty phase" as gaming switched from 2D sprites to 3D polygons. It took time for the hardware to do it justice and the devs to learn how to design games for it.

[mothergoose729]

10 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

Well if the Parallel core has come that far that is good to hear, it's been a while since I have bothered to look at it at all. Maybe I will have to take a peak at again sometime soon, I just really don't care a whole lot for the N64. I know it's a system that a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for being many peoples first console and all. For me though the 32 bit + N64 era was just a really bad phase for gaming while it went through that awkward "puberty phase" as gaming switched from 2D sprites to 3D polygons. It took time for the hardware to do it justice and the devs to learn how to design games for it.

A lot of people feel that way. Personally, I love the n64. It and the playstation 1 are my all time favorite consoles. After the 32bit era you started to see the same formula for games recycled over and over and over gain. Sure, they are more polished than the 32 bit era, but OMG am I bored of it after 15 years.

[Lordmonkus]

By the time the PS1 and N64 came out I was already gaming for 15+ years and to me they just looked awful compared to the amazing sprite work of the 16 era and the control schemes were so awful for the most part (Mario 64 and the Rare games were an exception).

Yeah, you could say that after the 32 bit era (PS2, Dreamcast and other consoles) used the same formula but for me that was a console problem. I was heavily into the PC side of things by then and there was so much more variety with true racing sims, online first person shooters, strategy games and the birth of MMOs.

[Bloodlvst]

Thanks for the discussion @mothergoose729 and @lordmonkus, really enlightening, and good to know ParaLLEl will hopefully make some progress in the coming months. I tried it and the core runs great, just seemed to be a little limited.

I did try the build mothergoose729 suggested, and it runs fantastically. My only issue is that I can't force it to use my TV as the audio device, but I suppose that's something I can look into.

 

Edit: @mothergoose729 - The guide you're working on sounds like a dream. Please try to remember me when you finish it. The N64 was also my favourite system growing up. Too many memories

Edited August 29, 2017 by Bloodlvst

[nathanddrews]

On 8/28/2017 at 9:47 PM, mothergoose729 said:

This is really the emulator you want to use

https://m64p.github.io/

The mupen64plus core in retroarch is very out of date, and it won't be supported anymore. I use it for some of my games, but for the most part you should look to parrallel for accuracy, or the above for performance and enhancements.

M64p supports AF, bloom, MSAA, and HD textures, if you are into that kind of thing. Personally, I prefer to play at native res, and it does that too.  

Vigilante 8 plays like a dream! Thanks for this.

[Lordmonkus]

Just to update this thread a little, the Mupen64 core in Retroarch is very much up to date and worked on and the Parallel core has seen some good updates as well when using the angrylion plugin for more accuracy, you do need a good CPU to drive it though.