Mario Kart 64 PC Port Is Out

No because CRT filters are a thing and this on ultrawide 165+fps is much better. 🤷‍♂️
We are talking about the original game, not the upscaled/improved decompilation project.

Also, CRT filters are great but they only replicate a part of a CRT. And most of the time the actual good ones are found on homebrew emulators only.

The vast majority don't replicate the CRT's intense glow or motion clarity. The few ones that i know of that do require very specific setups and hardware and even then the result is far from perfect.
 
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We are talking about the original game, not the upscaled/improved decompilation project.

Also, CRT filters are great but they only replicate a part of a CRT. And most of the time the actual good ones are found on homebrew emulators only.

The vast majority don't replicate the CRT's intense glow or motion clarity. The few ones that i know of that do require very specific setups and hardware and even then the result is far from perfect.
Still far closer to perfect than low res, low Hz, low aspect aspect ratios CRT's.

 
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Shaderglass is cool but again, doesn't replicate CRT glow or morion clarity.

Even for modern games i would happily trade any modern panel for a Sony FW900 CRT high-res monitor.

 
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Anyway, regarding this port, this is the stuff i really like:

rTPHTSyrA4TlfKUv.jpg


The unlimited draw distance really transforms some of those tracks.

Imagine F-Zero X with such an option. There's a mod that pushes back the fog quite a bit on emulators, here's how it looks:



Now imagine no fog at all, unlimited draw distance without any artifacts/glitches.
 
Most people also forgot how CRTs had much clearer motion/scrolling without motion blur.

Even at 60hz/fps a CRT has so much more clear motion than a modern panel that you need about 360fps (on a 360hz monitor) to match it. BFI and other techniques/hacks simply don't work as good as a real CRT. Input lag was also a non-issue back then.

Yes, big modern LCD panels look fancy and have way more detail but there were a lot of regressions that we still haven't managed to fully fix even now.
Yup. Temporal resolution > static resolution.

It's why I always choose 120 fps modes when possible. It actually looks sharper despite the resolution being "lower".
 
Man the turning style in MK64 was so weird. Like coming from SNES where you push left and your kart goes left. 64 you push left and you aim left while schootching right. Like you are turning from your back wheels.
 
Mario Kart 64 never had any major frame rate issues, it's a pretty stable 30fps game on native hardware.

And the resolution was fine on a CRT, which is what the N64 was made for. In fact, even now it looks way better on a CRT compared to any setup/emulator/upscaler on a modern TV.

So we were fine.
This is coming from memory but framerate could get awful in split-screen with 4 players on original hardware. To this day me and a group of friends still get togeher to play MK64 on some weekends, but since we nowadays play on emulator the framerate probably doesn't drop as hard. This at locked 120fps widescreen is going to make them crazy next time they come over.
 
I'm just waiting for the android port. Ship of harkinian was a blast on my handheld with all the tweaks.
 
Based on the N64 decompilation of Mario Kart 64 and just like we saw with the Star Fox 64 PC port as well as the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask PC ports.

Widescreen, higher frame rates, better graphics, mod support with custom tracks...and that classic MK64 look and feel on PC


Still one of my favorite games of all time
 
Someone needs to get on a CTR PS1 decompilation PC port.
There's one in the works.

Here's a video from last year showing early progress at 70%.

 
Anyway, regarding this port, this is the stuff i really like:

rTPHTSyrA4TlfKUv.jpg


The unlimited draw distance really transforms some of those tracks.

Imagine F-Zero X with such an option. There's a mod that pushes back the fog quite a bit on emulators, here's how it looks:



Now imagine no fog at all, unlimited draw distance without any artifacts/glitches.

How is unlimited draw distance even possible?
 
How is unlimited draw distance even possible?
I suppose by disabling whatever line of code is responsible for hiding distant parts of the environment and allow them to render everything from every position. Which would tank the frame rate on a real console but on a system with a lot more processing power to spare, this is a non issue.
 
I suppose by disabling whatever line of code is responsible for hiding distant parts of the environment and allow them to render everything from every position. Which would tank the frame rate on a real console but on a system with a lot more processing power to spare, this is a non issue.
Ah, so it's a hardware limitation issue that's been resolved? Awesome.
 
Ah, so it's a hardware limitation issue that's been resolved? Awesome.
Yeah, racing games always had this issue on older generation consoles due to limited power. Fog and pop-up to hide distant details was the norm. In many other genres too but in racing games it was very rare to not see it. Only after 6th gen you could see such games using impressive draw distances.

To be fair though, Mario Kart 64 in particular was one of those rare games as it suffered a lot less from this issue. Other than Rainbow road (which i used as an example), the pop-up was subtle and you could see a lot further in the distance compared to other racing games.

F-Zero X though did hide most of the track. You can't see how massive these structures are normally. Which is why it will benefit a lot more from such an improvement.
 
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Is it compatible with the HD texture and sprites project? The HD pre-rendered sprites are amazing and can't play this game without them anymore.


Wow that looks great. What a shame Nintendo doesn't usually put that effort into remastering their games
 
I had my friends come over for a 4 player session, and we ended up playing on an emulator after a few races. The current alpha version of the port is too glitchy with 4 player split-screen: We had sprites showing incorrectly, songs overlapping each other when going from race to menus, trouble recognizing multiple xbox controllers simultaneously (we ended up using an xbox one controller, an xbox series controller, a dualshock 4 and a dualsense to avoid conflicts) 120fps not really feeling smooth even though it's barely using CPU/GPU, etc.
 
Yeah, racing games always had this issue on older generation consoles due to limited power. Fog and pop-up to hide distant details was the norm. In many other genres too but in racing games it was very rare to not see it. Only after 6th gen you could see such games using impressive draw distances.

To be fair though, Mario Kart 64 in particular was one of those rare games as it suffered a lot less from this issue. Other than Rainbow road (which i used as an example), the pop-up was subtle and you could see a lot further in the distance compared to other racing games.

F-Zero X though did hide most of the track. You can't see how massive these structures are normally. Which is why it will benefit a lot more from such an improvement.
You should see Open Driver. It's Driver 2 with unlimited draw instead of popup right in front of you.
 
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