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[64bitmodels]

To recap, we got Mario 64 decompiled in 2019, which spawned many great projects like Render96 and Mario 64 online Co-op






Then we got the Sonic mobile port Decompilations in 2021, which decompiled the mobile versions of Sonic 1, 2, and CD. This lead to a couple of great projects including Sonic 1 Forever and Sonic 2 Absolute





We also got the GTA3/GTAVC decompilations in 2021 which lead to ports to the PSvita and New 3ds



And now we're in 2022, where we've got Jak and Daxter decompiled with OpenGOAL, Ocarina of Time with Ship of Harkinian, and a soon incoming decompilation of Banjo Kazooie, Paper Mario and a bunch of other N64 games eventually having their source code decompiled.

Banjo-Kazooie’s decompilation project is now 80% complete, which could lead to a PC port | VGC

A fan project aimed at decompiling Banjo-Kazooie’s game code is now 80% complete, people behind the efforts have claimed.

www.videogameschronicle.com

Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooie could be the next N64 PC ports | VGC

More than 25 fan-made decompilation projects are currently in development…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Rumour: Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, And Paper Mario Might All Be Getting Fan PC Ports

That's a "Guh-Huh!" from us

www.nintendolife.com

This is an absolute win for me and i'd love to see more games eventually get the decompilation/opensource treatment myself. No better way to preserve these classics than to have their source code out in the open for everyone to freely use, and people can use these engines as basis for entirely new games they may want to make in the future. This feels like nothing but a good thing to me, and i'm excited to see what the future holds for all of these games.

 

[BlackTron]

My USB adapter to use a real N64 controller with Ship of Harkinian just got here literally 2 hours ago.

I feel like I can finally stop port begging for a remake of OOT now, this is the definitive version.

 

[64bitmodels]

My USB adapter to use a real N64 controller with Ship of Harkinian just got here literally 2 hours ago.

I feel like I can finally stop port begging for a remake of OOT now, this is the definitive version.

still not interested until they can port over the 3ds visuals or give OOT the render96 treatment.

while i think OOT's atmosphere has aged like fine wine, the visuals on the other hand look worse than mario 64 if im being honest. im not touching that game without a massive visual overhaul

 

[BlackTron]

still not interested until they can port over the 3ds visuals or give OOT the render96 treatment.

while i think OOT's atmosphere has aged like fine wine, the visuals on the other hand look worse than mario 64 if im being honest. im not touching that game without a massive visual overhaul

I didn't like the 3DS visuals at all, ruined the atmosphere of the game for me. The new animations too were worse than the old ones....

The graphics look way worse on N64, believe me. I've played it on N64, Gamecube, Series X, Project64 and native PC in the past week. Cranking the res essentially as anti-aliasing does wonders. I find it looks very much like a retro game, but without being ugly anymore. Like a 2D title.

I felt the same way about StarFox64 running on Series X. It was very much the classic game, yet somehow not painfully ugly anymore with the settings cranked.

 

[64bitmodels]

I didn't like the 3DS visuals at all, ruined the atmosphere of the game for me. The new animations too were worse than the old ones....

The graphics look way worse on N64, believe me. I've played it on N64, Gamecube, Series X, Project64 and native PC in the past week. Cranking the res essentially as anti-aliasing does wonders. I find it looks very much like a retro game, but without being ugly anymore. Like a 2D title.

I felt the same way about StarFox64 running on Series X. It was very much the classic game, yet somehow not painfully ugly anymore with the settings cranked.

It really isn't just the resolution dude
the overall models, the smeared ugly textures, the weird animations (you may like them, i find them kind of ugly) it's just not a pretty game. I've played similar games from the same timeframe that look far better like Crash Bandicoot, Sonic Adventure, and Metal Gear Solid. I think the game could do with an overhaul visually. Even without that though, 60fps improves the experience drastically

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Wake me when the Indies start making 90's 3D games with these source codes instead of regurgitating 8-bit retreads that are actually more fuzzy than the systems they're influenced by.

 

[BlackTron]

It really isn't just the resolution dude
the overall models, the smeared ugly textures, the weird animations (you may like them, i find them kind of ugly) it's just not a pretty game. I've played similar games from the same timeframe that look far better like Crash Bandicoot, Sonic Adventure, and Metal Gear Solid. I think the game could do with an overhaul visually. Even without that though, 60fps improves the experience drastically

I agree the game has a lot of fugly imperfections, but I think they only detract from the whole, not define it.

BOTW can look pretty ugly at times, but then when the lighting and camera is right it becomes gorgeous. I find OOT inconsistent in this way also. Yeah it's bad but there's still genuine good in there too. For that matter....Twilight Princess only looking good in the Twilight Realm lol.

I'm mostly talking about Link's animations that you see constantly while playing the game, like walking and running. Maybe everything else was an improvement on 3DS so I didn't notice, but Link walking you have to watch all the time lol.

 

[64bitmodels]

Wake me when the Indies start making 90's 3D games with these source codes instead of regurgitating 8-bit retreads that are actually more fuzzy than the systems they're influenced by.

more fuzzy? its the complete opposite in my case lol, indies oversharpen the pixels and bring em out as an artstyle even though the original games were made with the intention of the pixels being blended so you never notice the pixellation to begin with. it's actually kind of irritating considering the original intent behind old game pixel art to begin with, to be unseen

nevertheless, you're getting your wish seeing all the new 3d indies that are out now.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

more fuzzy? its the complete opposite in my case lol, indies oversharpen the pixels and bring em out as an artstyle even though the original games were made with the intention of the pixels being blended so you never notice the pixellation to begin with. it's actually kind of irritating considering the original intent behind old game pixel art to begin with, to be unseen

nevertheless, you're getting your wish seeing all the new 3d indies that are out now.

Not based on old consoles, I'm seeing basic Unity or gamemaker 3D games.

As for the imitation 8-bit sprites, it's actually both, your issues are also common, but I've notice the stuff I mentioned gaining a lot of ground too.

 

[00_Zer0]

I have been paying attention to all of these and I can't wait till things like Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Goldeneye get reverse engineered. I have all my carts dumped and waiting for those to be complete. As for Zelda it will be a long time if ever to be able to use your own legal copy of the game to get it up and running.

 

[OmegaSpirit32X]

Wake me when the Indies start making 90's 3D games with these source codes instead of regurgitating 8-bit retreads that are actually more fuzzy than the systems they're influenced by.

Not direct source codes, but there are plenty of N64/PSX inspired indies already.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Not direct source codes, but there are plenty of N64/PSX inspired indies already.

None that look like them, at least from what I've seen.

 

[Fess]

Is this in some grayzone regarding legality or are we truly free to do what we want here?
I play around with game development as a hobby, wouldn’t mind a hint or two how to get platforming correct.

 

[Thabass]

The Zelda RET team is also working on other decompliations.

Minish Cap looks to be the next to be finished and could be Majora's Mask after that. They're also working on Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild.

https://zelda64.dev/ <-- If you want to see the progress of the decompilations.

 

[BlackTron]

Is this in some grayzone regarding legality or are we truly free to do what we want here?
I play around with game development as a hobby, wouldn’t mind a hint or two how to get platforming correct.

Depends on the project, but in the case of OOT for example, the "ideal" way would be to dump your own ROM and use it to build the game, but it requires a very specific ROM of the game that you're not going to have, so it's impossible to be 100% compliant even if you own the game.

Give me a break though. If you own a copy of a 23 year old game and the IP holder hasn't given you a better version yet, take matters into your own hands.

 

[Fess]

Depends on the project, but in the case of OOT for example, the "ideal" way would be to dump your own ROM and use it to build the game, but it requires a very specific ROM of the game that you're not going to have, so it's impossible to be 100% compliant even if you own the game.

Give me a break though. If you own a copy of a 23 year old game and the IP holder hasn't given you a better version yet, take matters into your own hands.

Yeah okay, just wanted to know. Mods came in elsewhere and said it’s dump your own game or don’t talk here, so could be worth keeping in mind.

 

[BlackTron]

Yeah okay, just wanted to know. Mods came in elsewhere and said it’s dump your own game or don’t talk here, so could be worth keeping in mind.

 

[Shifty]

You love to see it.

My sole complaint is that the open-source scene for these projects is fucked in some cases. The Ship of Harkinian approach of an organized core team is probably the best of them, since it's decently centralized so you can hack on it and contribute back without feeling like your work is going to be lost to an ever-growing sea of hostile forks.

 

[64bitmodels]

I play around with game development as a hobby, wouldn’t mind a hint or two how to get platforming correct.

copy nintendo's homework, make it different, and you'll never be sued
seriously though, as long as you just use it as a basis for your engine and don't take anything directly from there you should be good

 

[64bitmodels]

They're also working on Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the what now? the game's only 5 years old, you can't be serious

 

[OmegaSpirit32X]

None that look like them, at least from what I've seen.

I've seen some like Yo Noid! 2 (which is a memey fangame so Idk if it counts) or the Toree games (though they also aren't very accurate, so idk if it counts) and various horror games. Then again, accuracy isn't the most important thing when most "NES style" indie games look more like Genesis or 32X games.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I've seen some like Yo Noid! 2 (which is a memey fangame so Idk if it counts) or the Toree games (though they also aren't very accurate, so idk if it counts) and various horror games. Then again, accuracy isn't the most important thing when most "NES style" indie games look more like Genesis or 32X games.

But that was my complaint in the first place that no one is actually trying to imitate those, so it's unlikely we are going to see a Crash bandicoot, or VF style indie anywhere.

 

[64bitmodels]

which is a memey fangame so Idk if it counts

A good one though, and considering that Noid got an NES game, a Playstation one isn't very far off
There's Petscop but that's not even an actual game as much as it is an ARG
and yeah, Toree isn't exactly accurate considering that it doesn't have any FMVs like an actual PS1 game would (and it runs in widescreen as well)

 

[rabbity-thing]

It really isn't just the resolution dude
the overall models, the smeared ugly textures, the weird animations (you may like them, i find them kind of ugly) it's just not a pretty game. I've played similar games from the same timeframe that look far better like Crash Bandicoot, Sonic Adventure, and Metal Gear Solid. I think the game could do with an overhaul visually. Even without that though, 60fps improves the experience drastically

I feel like this is a pretty good description of the entirety of the N64's library.

 

[Shifty]

I play around with game development as a hobby, wouldn’t mind a hint or two how to get platforming correct.

Where to even start. 3D movement is hard.

Tip one: Don't use Godot. I run a discord for a quake map import plugin, and getting good non-buggy locomotion with its physics engine is easily the #1 issue I see people face. The above gif is only a mild exaggeration on the length of content I've written for FAQ purposes, and circa the recent 3.5 release it's still far from the solved problem it should be.

Tip two: Learn about shape casting in your physics engine of choice. It's comparable to raycasting, but projects a whole shape along the ray instead of a single point. Borderline necessary for robust kinematic collision detection unless you have a nice depenetration system that can solve the bullet-through-paper problem.
Though you may find that the latter is a better choice depending on physics engine - some of them seem to have trouble with making accurate casts when the collision distances get small enough, and leaving collision resolution to the backend is nice and simple if it fits your needs.

seriously though, as long as you just use it as a basis for your engine and don't take anything directly from there you should be good

This is actually pretty solid advice, though it's probably worth learning the fundamentals separately before you try to reverse-engineer an open-source (or 'open source' in Ninty's case ) implementation.

I've ported accurate Quake 3 movement into game engines a couple of times, and it's an instructive exercise, but not very intuitive since old codebases in old languages tend to be structured somewhat esoterically.

 

[64bitmodels]

I feel like this is a pretty good description of the entirety of the N64's library.

nahh its just OOT. Theres a lot of other N64 games i can think of that personally look far better like Mario kart 64, Wave Race 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Diddy Kong Racing

 

[OmegaSpirit32X]

A good one though, and considering that Noid got an NES game, a Playstation one isn't very far off
There's Petscop but that's not even an actual game as much as it is an ARG
and yeah, Toree isn't exactly accurate considering that it doesn't have any FMVs like an actual PS1 game would (and it runs in widescreen as well)

Yeah, I guess Yo Noid! 2 is the closest we have.

 

[Thabass]

Breath of the what now? the game's only 5 years old, you can't be serious

Click the link and you will see they're working on the decompilation. But, at the same time, it is YEARS away from completion.

 

[Soodanim]

Breath of the what now? the game's only 5 years old, you can't be serious

Makes sense to me, people emulate it because the performance is poor on native consoles but it would be even better performance with a decomp

 

[Kyo]

It really isn't just the resolution dude
the overall models, the smeared ugly textures, the weird animations (you may like them, i find them kind of ugly) it's just not a pretty game. I've played similar games from the same timeframe that look far better like Crash Bandicoot, Sonic Adventure, and Metal Gear Solid. I think the game could do with an overhaul visually. Even without that though, 60fps improves the experience drastically

Yeah, I've always thought that parts of OoT were inconceivably ugly even at the time. I can live with the low-poly models and the low resolution, the hardware was just too weak for more, but Nintendo really skimped on the quality of some textures and particularly the rendered backgrounds. Whenever you were climbing a ladder, the camera would get pretty close and thus expose the ugly texture work - and then you'd have areas where you were climbing vines even without a ladder, meaning you'd just see those ugly-ass low-res textures from very close. Ugh. And those pre-rendered city backgrounds were so incredibly low-res - guess they ran out of space on the cartridge, so they couldn't even include those backgrounds in the already low rendering resolution of the game. And so it's a real mess visually.

That background at 14:01 in the above video is an example. It's just inexcusable. That so-pixelated-it's-barely-recognizable tree in the top-left corner just makes me laugh. And then you get to the market at 14:14 with its scrolling background and the pixelation and blurriness gets even worse!

Sure, the game was always atmospheric. But I was always bothered by the Nintendo fanboys around me falling over themselves to praise its graphics. Most of it was merely serviceable visually and some of it was insultingly ugly.

 

[cireza]

But that was my complaint in the first place that no one is actually trying to imitate those, so it's unlikely we are going to see a Crash bandicoot, or VF style indie anywhere.

Then these people should develop on original hardware then embed the game in a good emulator. That's what competent developers do (Xeno Crisis, GG Aleste 3).

 

[64bitmodels]

Yeah, I've always thought that parts of OoT were inconceivably ugly even at the time. I can live with the low-poly models and the low resolution, the hardware was just too weak for more, but Nintendo really skimped on the quality of some textures and particularly the rendered backgrounds. Whenever you were climbing a ladder, the camera would get pretty close and thus expose the ugly texture work - and then you'd have areas where you were climbing vines even without a ladder, meaning you'd just see those ugly-ass low-res textures from very close. Ugh. And those pre-rendered city backgrounds were so incredibly low-res - guess they ran out of space on the cartridge, so they couldn't even include those backgrounds in the already low rendering resolution of the game. And so it's a real mess visually.

That background at 14:01 in the above video is an example. It's just inexcusable. That so-pixelated-it's-barely-recognizable tree in the top-left corner just makes me laugh. And then you get to the market at 14:14 with its scrolling background and the pixelation and blurriness gets even worse!

Sure, the game was always atmospheric. But I was always bothered by the Nintendo fanboys around me falling over themselves to praise its graphics. Most of it was merely serviceable visually and some of it was insultingly ugly.

I don't hate low res textures, I hate when Nintendo filters them because you take a perfectly fine grass texture and turn it into giant green sludge. The low res texture work for crash and MGS because those games never filter it to begin with, so everything looks crisp. (In the case of sonic adventure, it was on the dreamcast so they could afford to have better textures anyways.)

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Then these people should develop on original hardware then embed the game in a good emulator. That's what competent developers do (Xeno Crisis, GG Aleste 3).

Many Atari and Sega pre-Saturn guys do that, but nobody else seems too for some reason.

 

[cireza]

Many Atari and Sega pre-Saturn guys do that, but nobody else seems too for some reason.

This is most probably due to a lack of tools. MegaDrive has the SGDK available. Games in development have been more numerous since this was made available. Every new game uses it.

 

[64bitmodels]

PROGRESS UPDATE (a lot of decomps are coming out this year)

GitHub - n64decomp/banjo-kazooie: A decompilation of Banjo Kazooie. (MIRROR of https://gitlab.com/banjo.decomp/banjo-kazooie)

A decompilation of Banjo Kazooie. (MIRROR of https://gitlab.com/banjo.decomp/banjo-kazooie) - n64decomp/banjo-kazooie

github.com

The game's at 97.85% completion. I think we're gonna be hearing from the project very very soon (impressive work too, the last we heard of it was in October where it was at 90%)

GitHub - pmret/papermario: Decompilation of Paper Mario (2000)

Decompilation of Paper Mario (2000). Contribute to pmret/papermario development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

The US version is at 98.13% completion as well. Ditto

https://ryandwyer.gitlab.io/pdstatus/ Project Dark
every version of the game seen here is at 97% completion

https://github.com/zeldaret/mm Majora's Mask
The game's at 74% completion. I think it'll reach around high 80s this year, well i hope anyways....

Also, Goldeneye reached 49% decompilation status... not much from what it was in October. I hope the Perfect Dark decomp has some shared code so this one can speed up a bit.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Good stuff, nice thread mate.

The one I'm the most hyped about is Perfect Dark. Game's already playable at 60fps with M+KB on an emulator, but having it in native form could mean a revival for it's multiplayer, with stuff like mods, custom maps, tournaments... Please happen.

 

[64bitmodels]

Good stuff, nice thread mate.

The one I'm the most hyped about is Perfect Dark. Game's already playable at 60fps with M+KB on an emulator, but having it in native form could mean a revival for it's multiplayer, with stuff like mods, custom maps, tournaments... Please happen.

For me it's actually Smash Melee, as that will be the first Gamecube decomp (which will open a SEA of new decompilations if it ever happens) and could also radically shake up the competitive community of that game, no longer being restricted to 60hz CRTs.
unfortunately it has the lowest of all i listed at a staggering 14.89%. It is what it is though, new system means more complex code to reverse engineer

Redirecting to https://doldecomp.github.io/melee/progress/

 

[64bitmodels]

OH SHIT, there's actually a discord focused entirely on Gamecube/Wii decompilations. They aren't very far in development probably but there's a whole crapton of them in the works

Here's progress on the few I could actually get a percentage on (not many of them have made todo lists, these are very early in development)

Mario Kart Wii https://github.com/riidefi/mkw
DOL 11.71%, REL 1.18
Metroid Prime https://github.com/PrimeDecomp/prime
Code 8.15% Data 3.51%
Super Smash Brothers Melee 14.89% https://fluentcoding.github.io/Melee-Decompilation-Website/

and here's how many of them are being made.

you're probably gonna see more about these like 2-3 years down the line. which is a long time but for Gamecube & Wii it's definitely worth it

Now, if only we could get some Playstation decompilations....

 

[64bitmodels]

SUPER METROID HAS BEEN DECOMPILED THIS IS NOT A DRILL
PC PORT HERE ----> https://github.com/snesrev/sm


while there's no enhancements currently and there's plenty of bugs, the game is playable

it's only a matter of time before the game gets a crapton of mods to enhance and make it more playable

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

No better way to preserve these classics than to have their source code out in the open mes.

I disagree, because now people are passing the changed versions as the originals, and people who aren't paying attention, don't remember, don't care, or too young won't be able to tell. This was already an issue with emulator shots/gameplay videos.

I have nothing against Decomps, I just am not entirely sure it's going to lead to the preservation you think it will when in the future there may be various downloads and none of the are the original source code unless you go digging, and like i said, unless you're paying attention, or hardcore following in this area the average person isn't going to bother with that, and over time that's going to become a problem.

Instead there should be a couple maintained hubs for all open source gaming stuff that's easy to find and supported by the gaming community so it's a major site to easily search up on any search engine or social media. That way that won't become a problem in the future. Also more gamers who do streams of video uploads should be more honest if they are using original hardware or not. Which millions will have no clue.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Out of sheer ignorance from an accountant pencil pusher: How feasible would it be for folks to decompile Bloodborne. Would it take a JLA/Avengers team of programmers to perform such a feat.

 

[64bitmodels]

Out of sheer ignorance from an accountant pencil pusher: How feasible would it be for folks to decompile Bloodborne. Would it take a JLA/Avengers team of programmers to perform such a feat.

considering the fact all decompilations that have been out are games from before the 7th gen or indies.... it'd take a lot of people and YEARS of development for Bloodborne to get such treatment. you'd be better off waiting for a PS4 emulator

 

[Scotty W]

From what I understand, which is not much, decompilation takes a long time.

If ai can be trained to do it, the game industry will be splayed.