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The Nintendo 64 Appreciation/Collecting/Emulation Thread.

S

Shadow Hog

Member
Except it's not natural at all, because I'm looking down when I'm expecting to look up. It honestly renders the game extremely difficult to play, and clearly I'm not the only one who's had this problem, given Cormano up there. They should've had a toggle for this - simple as.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
hey so since i found good everdrive shells for genesis, NES & SNES: anyone know of a place selling N64 ones? planning on getting that board down the road, just thought it'd be good to have. if not, i guess i'll sacrifice conker or something cheap like that

ps #TeamNonInverted
 
A Black Falcon

A Black Falcon

Member
Shadow Hog said:
Except it's not natural at all, because I'm looking down when I'm expecting to look up. It honestly renders the game extremely difficult to play, and clearly I'm not the only one who's had this problem, given Cormano up there. They should've had a toggle for this - simple as.
Click to expand...
It is natural, though. Tilting down to look up is how we look up in real life... it's not Turok's fault if you learned it backwards thanks to other games.
 
M

Mercutio

Member
So as part of an auction that went way cheap, I got a handful of N64 carts in incredibly rough shape. No labels, but they work without a problem. I don't know WHY you'd take the labels off and replace them with masking tape, but that's what they are.

Does anyone out there do reprint labels for N64 carts?
 
D

Deleted member 74300

Unconfirmed Member
Mercutio said:
So as part of an auction that went way cheap, I got a handful of N64 carts in incredibly rough shape. No labels, but they work without a problem. I don't know WHY you'd take the labels off and replace them with masking tape, but that's what they are.

Does anyone out there do reprint labels for N64 carts?
Click to expand...

I'd like to know also. Front and back.
 
R

RoadDogg

Member
sixteen-bit said:
I think the disconnect is where you're examining the action. If you think about the actual joint, the back of your head does down when you look up.
Click to expand...

You tilt your head back to look up. Just pretend the joystick is the top of the head of the character your are controlling. Don't bother with up/down talk for the movement, it just confuses things. The only way tilting the stick down to look down makes sense is if you pretend the joystick is the face of the character your are controlling and they are looking at you. That is just weird.
 
TheMoon

TheMoon

Member
#teamflightcontrols

just putting it out there ;)

edit: the joint thing is also why I don't have an issue with something like Wind Waker not having inverted Y-axis controls since the camera is not based on a rotating joint but on an actual third person camera zoom.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Why is everyone coming in here telling me to relearn to play games with inverted controls, anyway? Screw that noise - I don't want to relearn things I've spent over ten years learning in the first place. If I want to aim up, I push up. This is how I do it, and will always do it.

And if you think that's "wrong" for some reason, then frankly: why the hell are you so obsessed with how other people play games? That's extremely arrogant of you. Butting in and trying to argue that this is some sort of objective issue is completely insufferable - kindly stop it, thanks.

Turok still should have had an option to invert their inverted vertical-looking controls. That they didn't was an oversight that alienates people who don't play with inverted aim; if they had, both sets of people would have been satisfied. I am not budging from this stance.
 
P

Peltz

Member
RoadDogg said:
You tilt your head back to look up. Just pretend the joystick is the top of the head of the character your are controlling. Don't bother with up/down talk for the movement, it just confuses things. The only way tilting the stick down to look down makes sense is if you pretend the joystick is the face of the character your are controlling and they are looking at you. That is just weird.
Click to expand...

Um, how often do you crane your neck to look up or down? My eyeballs handle most of the movement, and non-inverted joystick controls represents the direction of my focus. Check out the Wii remote for 1st person shooters.... Pointing up, moves the camera up. This makes sense.

Most people who use mouse and keyboard play without inverted controls as well. The cursor on every mouse in every computer OS in existence also has non-inverted controls. Thus, the reticule on a videogame should work the same way.

The only exception that I would make for is flight paths because it makes sense to push forward to take a nose dive.
 
TheMoon

TheMoon

Member
Peltz said:
Um, how often do you crane your neck to look up or down? My eyeballs handle most of the movement, and non-inverted joystick controls represents the direction of my focus. Check out the Wii remote for 1st person shooters.... Pointing up, moves the camera up. This makes sense.

Most people who use mouse and keyboard play without inverted controls as well. The cursor on every mouse in every computer OS in existence also has non-inverted controls. Thus, the reticule on a videogame should work the same way.
Click to expand...

The Wii remote pointer is a pointer. You look up by pointing up because you're "pointing" at something.

The computer mouse is a real world abstraction of the screen where the mouse itself is the cursor you're pushing across the screen.

On a game controller with camera control on an analog stick and camera movement based on a rotating camera, the real world analog is your head on your neck. Or a camera on a tripod. It was mentioned a few posts ago but the disconnect comes from where you personally consider the movement occurring. If you think of the tripod example, it's a very clear analog to inverted controls if your tripod has one of these handles that control the movement. You push it down to tilt up and push up to tilt down. If you're thinking of your head then you either land on the side that imagines this happening on the front of your had, like grabbing the chin and pushing it up or you're internalizing it as standing behind yourself and putting a hand on your head and thus pulling it down to make it look up. The analog stick is a more direct analogy to the latter example. Think of it as if your analog stick had eyes on the outside, looking in the direction of the shoulder buttons.

Obviously with the C-buttons on an N64 controller it's whatever you want it to be and there is no wrong or right way to control that in game, just whatever you think feels right to you.
 
C

cacildo

Member
Had to change my 10 year old computer last week. It finally gave up. So i choose the parts and got a new computer working. Then i decided to try the old Project 64 emulator to see 1) if it runs better now, on better hardware 2) How´s the difference between the emulated game and the cartrige + real N64 i own

(Please notice that my 10y.o. computer was barely able to run project64 at all)

The results... were depressing.

pilotwings64usnap0003nrs3j.jpg


Here´s a screenshot of Pilotwings 64.

I own a real Pilotwings 64 cart, and a real N64. And on the "real" machine, on my tv, its almost impossible to see anything. The game is dark and muddy to the point i cant even see the character faces on the character select screen

I know, i know, its obvious that the emulator would show a better picture. But i didnt imagine it would be THAT better. Everything is clearer, almost no jaggies at all and even the frame rate is better. I assumed the bad frame rate was a natural thing of every N64 game...

That was sad. I want a way for my real N64 to show the same picture quality as the emulator. Even if i know its impossible

"Why dont you just play your games on project 64?" I dont like to play games on the PC, i like the couch. And i own 2 N64 controllers, they´re both fine, i dont want to buy a "USB n64 controller".

(tried two more games i own: Mission Impossible (also looks great on emulator and a complete disaster on N64) and Shadows of the empire (this one didnt run great on the emulator, to be fair...)

This is terrible... people nowdays can create anything, program anything, why cant they just create some way to make a real N64 to up-res its cartriges.....
 
C

cacildo

Member
Peagles said:
^ what sort of TV do you use and what video connection?

please say rf lol
Click to expand...

My long lost gamecube RCA cables. And a plasma tv

We even chatted about any alternatives for me in this thread, but most people pointed me to the "mod your console" thread, which was pretty messy and i couldnt get any info there.

But it seems even the "RGB mod" isnt supposed to perform miracles right?
 
M

Mzo

Member
S-video and a CRT would look a hell of a lot better. Nothing but an expensive upscaler will make it look good on an HDTV.
 
P

Peagles

Member
Miracle? If you mean improving the frame rate then no.

But it is a huge visual improvement running on a proper display through RGB. Heck even svideo is an improvement.
 
S

soxinthebox

Member
S-video on a HDTV makes a massive difference in clarity on its own but I think it's just a fluke that my TV actually has that as an option.
 
IrishNinja

IrishNinja

Member
oh yeah, it's by no means common on newer sets. my first panny plasma had it, my current one doesn't (has a single shared composhit/component port haha)
 
C

cacildo

Member
soxinthebox said:
S-video on a HDTV makes a massive difference in clarity on its own but I think it's just a fluke that my TV actually has that as an option.
Click to expand...

Peagles said:
Miracle? If you mean improving the frame rate then no.

But it is a huge visual improvement running on a proper display through RGB. Heck even svideo is an improvement.
Click to expand...


Both my tvs dosen have S-Video... and im moving for a smaller apartment, where i probably will be for a long time. No space for CRT tv...

It seems my only way is the RGB mod, right?

Two questions:

1) When you all say "RGB mod", are we talking about buying the chip from this guy? Is the only way?

(im asking because it seems he dosent ship to Canada)

2) Cant seem to find if Brasilian N64 models are compatible with the RGB mod. (model NUSM-001 ). The only way to find is opening up, right?
 
K

-KRS-

Member
Doesn't Brazil use the PAL standard, and therefore the Brazilian N64s are PAL? As far as I know it's not possible to RGB-mod a PAL N64 except for like the very first French release or something.

I'd get one of those PAL N64 S-video cables from consolegoods.co.uk if your TV can take S-video inputs. If the TV has SCART it's usually possible to use one of those S-video -> SCART adapters to get the TV to accept S-video through the SCART input.

Edit: Also, a ~20 inch CRT doesn't take up that much space.
 
nkarafo

nkarafo

Member
About inverted controls...

I'm a bit weird with this thing. I used to play inverted with everything, PC FPSes and consoles. Turok was fine for me and i used inverted controls for Goldeneye as well.

Today though, for some reason, i mostly use non-inverted for console games but still use inverted for PC/mouse. And yet, if a game uses inverted only (Turok) i get used to it quickly. But i can't get used to play non-inverted on a mouse. What is wrong with my brain.
 
TheMoon

TheMoon

Member
Mousnis said:
About inverted controls...

I'm a bit weird with this thing. I used to play inverted with everything, PC FPSes and consoles. Turok was fine for me and i used inverted controls for Goldeneye as well.

Today though, for some reason, i mostly use non-inverted for console games but still use inverted for PC/mouse. And yet, if a game uses inverted only (Turok) i get used to it quickly. But i can't get used to play non-inverted on a mouse. What is wrong with my brain.
Click to expand...

image.php


too perfect to pass up
 
K

-KRS-

Member
I'm inverted on the N64 with games like Goldeneye etc, but non-inverted with dual-stick controllers and mice. It's weird. Either way, games should always have the option to turn it on or off.

Edit: Inverted Y-axis that is. Inverted X-axis is just crazy.
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
richisawesome said:
If you dont want to go the full RGB hardware route, using the N64 core in Retroarch is a good alternative. You can force it to run in native 240p mode, together with a decent CRT filter:



and a direct screenshot:



IMO it looks fantastic and is damn close to the real thing. It's gonna be amazing when the new glideN64 plugin comes out too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqZcBcsHjys
Click to expand...

1. What do I need?

2. Is there a way to play my physical cartridges?
 
A Black Falcon

A Black Falcon

Member
Shadow Hog said:
No, I tilt my head up. If I tilted my head down, I'd see the floor.
Click to expand...
What? When you tilt your head forward, it tilts down. When you tilt your head backwards, it tilts up. Flight controls work exactly this way. You can't look upwards by tilting your head foreward!

I actually sometimes play FPSes with the Y axis inverted, and other times not; it depends. With mice, I never play with inverted controls -- move mouse up to look up. But with an analog stick, stick forwards to look up makes sense, and I use it frequently. Not always, but often.
 
M

Mercutio

Member
cacildo said:
Both my tvs dosen have S-Video... and im moving for a smaller apartment, where i probably will be for a long time. No space for CRT tv...

It seems my only way is the RGB mod, right?

Two questions:

1) When you all say "RGB mod", are we talking about buying the chip from this guy? Is the only way?

(im asking because it seems he dosent ship to Canada)

2) Cant seem to find if Brasilian N64 models are compatible with the RGB mod. (model NUSM-001 ). The only way to find is opening up, right?
Click to expand...

You don't have to buy the chip from him. You can easily make one yourself with super cheap parts from eBay.

http://retrorgb.com/ths7314.html
 
C

cacildo

Member
synt4x said:
Doesn't Brazil use the PAL standard, and therefore the Brazilian N64s are PAL? As far as I know it's not possible to RGB-mod a PAL N64 except for like the very first French release or something.

I'd get one of those PAL N64 S-video cables from consolegoods.co.uk if your TV can take S-video inputs. If the TV has SCART it's usually possible to use one of those S-video -> SCART adapters to get the TV to accept S-video through the SCART input.

Edit: Also, a ~20 inch CRT doesn't take up that much space.
Click to expand...

Funny you mentioned that. For the past 15 years every single game/movie/etc i buy in any way in brasil needs to be NTSC. But i went to check and yes, we are PAL-M over here. Or at least were. I really dont know anymore

And in the midst of this confusion, it seems the brasilian N64 needs an small change to be able to accept the RGB mod. If i thought the rgb mod was already confuse and a lot of work to begin with, this made it worst.

I also checked some info on upscalers, SCART + HDMI converters, etc. Everything seems expensive, complicated...


I decided to go on playing my games with terrible picture quality, and wait for maybe someday the makers of RetroN 5 to release some sort of N64 clone that really up-res n64 games

I mean, they did mentioned something like that earlier this year

Who knows? Maybe it will happen
no it wont
 
K

-KRS-

Member
I think the Retron 5 emulates the games if I remember correctly, and the problem with that is that N64 emulation is shit. I heard though that supposedly the hardware patents for the N64 expires next year, so maybe there will be some clever hardware clone that can have HDMI output.
 
C

cacildo

Member
synt4x said:
I think the Retron 5 emulates the games if I remember correctly, and the problem with that is that N64 emulation is shit. I heard though that supposedly the hardware patents for the N64 expires next year, so maybe there will be some clever hardware clone that can have HDMI output.
Click to expand...

But would it be possible to release a RetroN like console that could up-res N64 games like an emulator does?

Or are we talking about an improvement more like those Wii-HDMI adapters (meaning: almost no improvement at all?)
 
K

-KRS-

Member
cacildo said:
But would it be possible to release a RetroN like console that could up-res N64 games like an emulator does?

Or are we talking about an improvement more like those Wii-HDMI adapters (meaning: almost no improvement at all?)
Click to expand...

It's certainly possible they could release a Retron that emulates and upscales N64 games, it's just that at the moment N64 emulation is not very accurate and a lot of games still have issues. So it would be possible to play the most popular games, but the lesser known/not so popular titles would most likely have issues.

But what I meant with a hardware clone is that hopefully someone can make a hardware clone that is also able to upscale the video to 1080p and output it through HDMI.
 
C

cacildo

Member
synt4x said:
It's certainly possible they could release a Retron that emulates and upscales N64 games, it's just that at the moment N64 emulation is not very accurate and a lot of games still have issues. So it would be possible to play the most popular games, but the lesser known/not so popular titles would most likely have issues.

But what I meant with a hardware clone is that hopefully someone can make a hardware clone that is also able to upscale the video to 1080p and output it through HDMI.
Click to expand...

Well, that was nice to read!

That would be a project that i could back at kickstarter or other project websites

And i bet A LOT of people would be interested in something like this too.

I know N64 emulation isnt perfect, but there isnt too many games for the system either.... maybe patches could be released for each game, after release....
 
A Black Falcon

A Black Falcon

Member
cacildo said:
Had to change my 10 year old computer last week. It finally gave up. So i choose the parts and got a new computer working. Then i decided to try the old Project 64 emulator to see 1) if it runs better now, on better hardware 2) How´s the difference between the emulated game and the cartrige + real N64 i own

(Please notice that my 10y.o. computer was barely able to run project64 at all)

The results... were depressing.

pilotwings64usnap0003nrs3j.jpg


Here´s a screenshot of Pilotwings 64.

I own a real Pilotwings 64 cart, and a real N64. And on the "real" machine, on my tv, its almost impossible to see anything. The game is dark and muddy to the point i cant even see the character faces on the character select screen

I know, i know, its obvious that the emulator would show a better picture. But i didnt imagine it would be THAT better. Everything is clearer, almost no jaggies at all and even the frame rate is better. I assumed the bad frame rate was a natural thing of every N64 game...

That was sad. I want a way for my real N64 to show the same picture quality as the emulator. Even if i know its impossible

"Why dont you just play your games on project 64?" I dont like to play games on the PC, i like the couch. And i own 2 N64 controllers, they´re both fine, i dont want to buy a "USB n64 controller".

(tried two more games i own: Mission Impossible (also looks great on emulator and a complete disaster on N64) and Shadows of the empire (this one didnt run great on the emulator, to be fair...)

This is terrible... people nowdays can create anything, program anything, why cant they just create some way to make a real N64 to up-res its cartriges.....
Click to expand...
I don't think that N64 or PS1 games look very good in emulators. Sure, emulators can make them high resolution, but the combination of high resolutions, sharp sprites and shaded areas, and the super-blocky textures looks terrible! This applies to both consoles pretty much equally. I would say that most N64 and PS1 games actually look WORSE in an emulator than in reality, overall, and that screenshot there is a good example of it -- look at that really ugly contrast between the sharp sprite and shaded elements and everything else!
 
nkarafo

nkarafo

Member
A Black Falcon said:
I don't think that N64 or PS1 games look very good in emulators. Sure, emulators can make them high resolution, but the combination of high resolutions, sharp sprites and shaded areas, and the super-blocky textures looks terrible! This applies to both consoles pretty much equally. I would say that most N64 and PS1 games actually look WORSE in an emulator than in reality, overall, and that screenshot there is a good example of it -- look at that really ugly contrast between the sharp sprite and shaded elements and everything else!
Click to expand...
I agree.

The Mupen64 core in Retro Arch makes N64 games look really good. Use the lowest internal resolution to match the real N64 resolution and couple that with a good CRT/Scanlines shader. You get a much nicer picture than the real thing but you still keep the "low-res" feel, without the unbalancing high-res + low polygon count with low-res textures look.
 
A Black Falcon

A Black Falcon

Member
Mousnis said:
I agree.

The Mupen64 core in Retro Arch makes N64 games look really good. Use the lowest internal resolution to match the real N64 resolution and couple that with a good CRT/Scanlines shader. You get a much nicer picture than the real thing but you still keep the "low-res" feel, without the unbalancing high-res + low polygon count with low-res textures look.
Click to expand...

The PC definitely needs an N64 emulator that tries to match actual N64 image quality -- there needs to be a SSF of N64 emulation. SSF is, I would say, far better than most any PC N64 or PS1 emulator because it tries to make the screen look like it would on a Saturn, instead of completely ruining it through "improvements" like you see in that screenshot on this page. PS1 games with sprite-based characters on 3d backgrounds look similarly terrible in emulators.
 
nkarafo

nkarafo

Member
A Black Falcon said:
The PC definitely needs an N64 emulator that tries to match actual N64 image quality -- there needs to be a SSF of N64 emulation. SSF is, I would say, far better than most any PC N64 or PS1 emulator because it tries to make the screen look like it would on a Saturn, instead of completely ruining it through "improvements" like you see in that screenshot on this page. PS1 games with sprite-based characters on 3d backgrounds look similarly terrible in emulators.
Click to expand...
There are several emulators/plugins that do that on N64/PS1 too.

For N64, i already mentioned Retroarch + the lowest resolution setting in the core options. For PSX its very easy actually. pSX emulator renders the games in the same way SSF does (native res) and for epsxe you can use Pete's OpenGL plugin and in the resolution settings you choose "Native PSX Resolution" option.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Sorry, gonna disagree again. I actually like the idea of running old 3D games at higher resolution, despite the disparity of the low-res textures and HUD clashing with the high-res gameplay screen. I play tons of PC games that way; having the option to do the same with console games is a good thing to have.

If anything, it's a crying shame that all the Saturn emulators that try to do the same aren't anywhere near as good with compatibility as SSF is. Not that I disrespect what SSF sets out to do, I'd just kind of like to see what some of its 3D games would look like at higher resolution. (Knowing the Saturn didn't last for very long, the answer's presumably "not too pretty", but nevertheless...)
 
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