Nintendo 64

[gilded whale]

None of this affects the Japanese original. You just have to select the time every time you start a game, just like the translation

[ripe cargo]

Hmm. I know it loads on the newest core, but im not sure what specific issues it has beyond that? I haven't actually tried to play it.

[gilded whale]

This is what I’ve been told and what research I’ve done. On the older core it should work.

Now you know as much as me lol

[ripe cargo]

ok. i'll probably just try it and see if I run into any issues on the old core

[gilded whale]

I think it’s just related to save data, that’s all I’ve heard

No freezes or anything like that that I’m aware of

Oh and it’s controller pak saving

You let me know what you find! It’s exciting to possibly eke out one more n64 title for the list, even if it’s in a roundabout and janky way lol

[ripe cargo]

lol. Yeah. It would be really cool to figure out the issue with the patch and maybe fix it.

[gilded whale]

I think if you do run into the issue it’ll be the game telling you that your save is corrupted.

And I’ve heard it should be only a few days of progress? Unclear on that part

[gilded whale]

In a perfect world they’d fix their own work. Not sure where they’re at. I’m sure this game will get properly patched one day, even if it’s someone else.

[chrome quest]

If your looking for Animal Forest failure data, this should help
#n64-dev message

I've two saves in the post just after. Japanese and the translated ROM. IIRC files are identical, just name change to get game to see it.
Japanese no issue, Translation will fail as it tries to load in the world after RTC, selecting villager

[ripe cargo]

Thanks for the info!

[hidden bolt]

I updated the forum post with a new N64 PWM build. (also updated Saturn Core)

[zinc dew]

You are genuinely a very kind person. Thank you for doing that.

[dusty tusk]

I may be a bit dumb, but I can't find the PWM builds, just the patches

Nvm, found it:
https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=84648

[hasty musk]

What is a PWM Build?

[dusty tusk]

Builds that use some tricks to get 24-bit color out of older 18-bit video boards

Helps with banding and such

[tulip pendant]

will running a patched rom from the recent game fixes cause an issue with the newest core builds?

[dusty tusk]

Without pwm builds, you'll be missing accurate 24-bit for ps1/saturn and 21-bit for n64 on a CRT (unless you have a 24-bit dac).

[cerulean elk]

Pulse wave modulation. The pulsiest of wave modulations

[zinc dew]

I thought people loved sharp pixels, why don’t they love sharp color gradients?

[cerulean elk]

This always confuses me. To keep color banding down in cinema cameras we are NOWHERE near 24-bit

I need to read why this is at some point

4:4:4 always does the trick for us

[mortal panther]

It's the widthiest of pulsed modulations.

[topaz otter]

Sharper ones and rounder zeros

[lone geyser]

It's because 4:4:4 isn't about color, it's the relative resolution of luminance and chrominance. 4k 4:2:0 is basically 1080p color but with the luminance of every pixel being true 4k. I believe 24-bit color is still the standard for most modern digital videos

[cerulean elk]

I only know the science on one end haha not the other

[lone geyser]

Well...I guess it is about color, but not bits, lol

[dusty tusk]

Where's the rest of those 64 bits of color nintendo? Sad.

[cerulean elk]

It’s about kibbles…not bits

[lone geyser]

All you have to know is that you're being lied to and almost any digital video you've ever watched is in 1080p but with adjustments to how bright each pixel is and we never notice because we're way more sensitive to light than color

[cerulean elk]

I learned on 16/35MM motion picture stock. Times have changed haha

Now all we care about is exposure latitude and “look” (color science)

[thorn quiver]

But 4:4:4 is 24 bit

I mean what the other Lemon said

[cerulean elk]

My math wasn’t mathing haha

[thorn quiver]

Send it to summer school

Someone mentioned the N64 did 21 bit

[cerulean elk]

69bit

[thorn quiver]

I need to read up

[mortal panther]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling

[thorn quiver]

Yeah

[cerulean elk]

The most exciting bit rate. Because it involves…bits

[thorn quiver]

I can't abide by non powers of two

Wonder if the VI stuff in the N64 does some kind of filtering like the 3dfx

Ah no

"The Video DAC uses a 7 bit multiplexed data bus that receives the video signal from the RCP. This allows the N64 to output a 21 bit color output even though internally the N64 can store 24 bits. Why this lower bit was not used is not explained in any documentation found at this moment."

Saved three traces I guess

[cerulean elk]

“We forgot the traces. Bodges are too expensive. 21 bit it is” (not true but funny I am sure)

[thorn quiver]

There's probably an embarrassing reason or rationale somewhere yeah

Only reason I can possibly glean is that they have an 8 bit wide bus where r,g,b,sync data is multiplexed onto and it somehow worked out better this way

Yeah that's probably why

They needed a bit for dsync

Maybe that signal wasn't in the original design but the sender/receiver kept going out of phase, so they repurposed D7?

Who knows!

[lone geyser]

Powers of two means you'll never have equal bit distribution for R/G/B (an I believe this is still true in YCbCr colorspaces) because a prime factorization is unique so powers of 2 will never be divisible by 3

[hollow rune]

What is this

Also super sorry. I have been super busy lately. Know that I still love this Discord

[zinc dew]

I made fun of Majora’s Mask but I actually love the game. I was testing out the telescope bug and it was eventually fixed afterwards.

Telescope bug was that you can see the entire frame briefly before the fade to normal occurs when you first peer through the telescope as part of the Bomber’s mission.

[hollow rune]

I almost got all the heart pieces, but those arrow mini games are murder!

[plush summit]

Its why I told myself: "I love MM, but not this much" 😂

[hollow rune]

It really is a so close but so far away situation

[plush summit]

yeah 😔

[thorn quiver]

I use Alpha 😎

[magic girder]

Can’t believe y’all are playing the N64. You guys do realise Nintendo have released like 4 home consoles since then, right?

[rare flint]

No, we don't.

[plush summit]

Didnt they just release the Gamecube 4 times over?

[topaz otter]

Name them, without googling

[mortal panther]

They've only made like 3 or 4 versions of Game Cubes and like 15 different DS handhelds since then.

...oh, and a tablet.

[cerulean elk]

I mean GameCube is GOAT when it comes to Nintendo 3D consoles

[plush summit]

Aint a thang to me, re-releasing the GOAT is a win

[neat sierra]

It had a handle, no other console offers that

[cerulean elk]

I guess technically Playdate has a crank and that could be considered a handle haha

[neat sierra]

Probably would instantly break because it’s not made with miyamotos love

[magic girder]

Wii, Wii U, Wii U2 and that one that nobody bought

The purple GameBoxStation with the handle

[gilded whale]

Bono loves the Wii U2

[cerulean elk]

Soon I’ll have the video about how the purple lunchbox was almost the 3DO M3

Poor 3DO engineers. Designed five consoles. Only two ever saw store shelves

But one was one of the most successful consoles of all time so they won

[magic girder]

Pretty crappy track record. You think they’d have learned

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day though…

[cerulean elk]

Just always bad luck until they finally got the 360 to market

[magic girder]

RRoD, good design there bro

😉

[lone geyser]

There have been a bunch of Twitter threads recently where people are discussing the supposed pattern Nintendo has of success and failure and people are getting really up in arms when their beloved 3D Mario machines are disparaged without realizing that "commercial failure" =/= "dumb and bad and you should feel bad"

[magic girder]

Big N’s software output is consistently better quality than most I think

But they do love to try and innovate with the hardware. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t

But without them I think the gaming industry would be far worse off

The switch is probably my all time favourite console though, in terms of the joy it gives. Makes me feel like a kid every time I play it.

[zinc dew]

Switch is incredible!

[lone geyser]

I don't think they necessarily made any mistakes in those eras, either. Beyond erosion of consumer confidence a la SEGA, it's pretty hard to guess which features will become the most salient. For N64 they chose speed over space and lost, for GC they chose not to double as a DVD drive and lost. I don't think either of those are obvious without hindsight. PS3 tried to copy the PS2 with BD and it wasn't as important that time around. It's tricky stuff

[magic girder]

Yeah, there’s definitely more to a successful console than just the hardware itself

I really do feel like the switch is basically perfect though. It still supports couch-multiplayer, you even get two controllers out of the box without needing to buy a second. So you’ve got that multiplayer social aspect right away, as well as the portability which can give you the solo/quiet time as an adult

And like I said with that sense of childlike-joy, the games have a kind of retro feel, in terms of simplicity but while still being modern, but not bloated.

It’s like they really focused in on what makes both hardware and software successful and just designed the perfect product imo

But I guess I’m taking us off topic. Sorry!

(@zinc dew can we have a modern games channel please? General gets taken off topic by specific gif posters too much :D)

[cerulean elk]

General should just be renamed to “monkey and simian chat”

(Not that I don’t find it hilarious)

[magic girder]

Yeah, I don’t mind. It’s just not my kinda thing 😂

[hidden bolt]

Here is a patch to fix the speed in Knife Edge. theboy181 on github https://github.com/mupen64plus/mupen64plus-core/issues/930#issuecomment-1989025250 had previously made some cheat codes to slow down the game on emulator but they weren't really suited for the mister core. It did send me in the right direction, there is a framerate limiter that sets the limit to 20fps when there is text displayed. I modified this to also limit the framerate to 30 fps during normal gameplay. I got pretty far into the game and the speed seemed normal compared to real n64 footage I found.

[magic girder]

Awesome, thanks @hidden bolt!

[topaz otter]

Nintendo's biggest strength and weakness is that they are famously cheap

Sometimes this works out great

[mortal panther]

theboy had his go. Now it was time for theman to step in.

[magic girder]

You’ll run out of things to fix soon!

[mortal panther]

There's always Superman...

[chrome quest]

The Ruleset patches keep droppin. Unbelievable. Thank you so much!

[magic girder]

Breakin’ all the rules

[spare meadow]

Thanks @hidden bolt ! Is it possible to release a Star Twin pach too?

[lean vector]

If limiting frame rate is a fix for multiple of the timing related bugs couldn't you just have the core look at a title id and say oh this is Batman beyond I need to limit the frame rate to 30 with vsync or is that not at all viable? Regardless great work @hidden bolt thank you.

[gilded whale]

Rugrats will be @hidden bolt’s magnum opus. Save the best for last. Thank you so much for all the patches and fixes!

[hidden bolt]

No, that wouldn't work, if the vsync interrupt is halved on Knife Edge the audio breaks.

[hidden bolt]

Yeah, I forgot the jp version is a thing, I will make a patch

[gilded whale]

@hidden bolt do you have a Patreon or anything of the sort?

[hidden bolt]

no, just doing this for fun.

[gilded whale]

I’d totally toss you some bones retroactively for all of this work

At least enough to buy a Rugrats mug 😛

[jovial briar]

i appreciate all your hard work Ruleset, all of these patches and updates make me very happy

[vapid hawk]

thanks and i hope it stays fun for you!

[spare meadow]

I would be glad to join his Patreon

[gilded whale]

I was thinking even just sending him a chunk of money for a meal or something

[hollow rune]

I also think Bluray is kind of a lousy name. I don't think it resonates

[gilded whale]

And stuff like this does nothing to ease people in lol

I think it’s part of the reason why people were so willing to completely jump over to streaming at the time. Simplicity.

They really screwed the pooch with bluray 3d and 4K blu ray requiring different players. There’s too many variants of the format.

[compact depot]

What’s missing for a new release build of the core?

[gilded whale]

The snac fix I think?

Actually disregard that, I thought the snac fix was forked off for some reason. I didn’t realize Robert did that.

Somebody was asking about snac a few days ago in regards to smash bros tournaments though.

[magic girder]

There’s a snac fix?

I thought the last core was the telescope fix?

[gilded whale]

I thought this was an unofficial fork I misremembered. My apologies for the confusion

Somebody was asking about it before, but they probably just wanted it in the turbo core come to think of it

[magic girder]

I hadn’t realised that didn’t make it to the turbo core

[gilded whale]

Somebody specifically mentioned snac and the n64 horipad though. I’m not sure if that was resolved or not.

[zinc dew]

Oh yeah I got one to help @desert crow test it. I forgot what were the results or if it needs retesting.

[gilded whale]

Dang you bought a horipad thats dedication

[zinc dew]

I bought a transparent red and clear one for cheap and I didn’t notice in the photos that a child/animal had bitten the analog stick. I mean it works fine and you can’t feel it but it looks mangled lol.

[gilded whale]

Could you salvage one off of a tribute 64?

Or a gamecube stick if it fits

[solemn marlin]

Don't diss my 240p test suite machine, convergence must be assured across every console known to man before we can rest

[fierce girder]

Arguably the worst console for using as a dedicated 240p Test Suite machine

The rom is incomplete and will probably never be finished

[vapid hawk]

wasn't there a new release of it like this month

[fierce girder]

Was there?

[vapid hawk]

(it is still the worst version though thats fair)

[fierce girder]

That’s exciting

[vapid hawk]

pretty sure i saw some news on his patreon

cos yeah its been in alpha for about a decade lol

[fierce girder]

I’ve been using one from a GitHub that was posted years ago

Yeah

[solemn marlin]

Yea it didn't look to hot. I like it when my favorite game (240p test suite) has console specific tests, like mode7 for snes

[fierce girder]

Crazy how 240p test suite and update_all are the only two games ever made for retro gamers

You’d think there would be a few more…

[solemn marlin]

It's a very blurry interface at least which makes it easier to recognize as n64

[vapid hawk]

its pretty cool to think of how many different projects have been helped by 240p testsuite at this point

[solemn marlin]

My favorite game is actually the playstation boot screen which I refuse to turn off, it gives you just enough time to change your mind and pick another game so you get to see it again

[zinc dew]

The MiSTer core is better than running the N64 on my Pi 5. Not sure who needed to hear that but there it is.

[solemn marlin]

Aw I had hopes for pi5

[zinc dew]

Pi5 rocks and the games run well, but I just like the N64 core better.

Feels better, looks better (thanks to shadowmasks and filters)

[solemn marlin]

Oh okay yea well it's almost perfect in my eyes, the filters are really the cherry on top for that authentic feeling

But n64 runs much better then?

Than on pi4

I actually have pi4 for dreamcast which is really good for some games, less so for others, surely that one must be even better

[gilded whale]

Mister always feels more immediate and snappier

Like og hardware

Even when the 64 core was less accurate and we were driving black squares around, it still “felt” better than most emulators

Well minus the bits of slowdown that was mister exclusive at the time lol

[wanton sun]

this is already inside the official mister branch. Once the next release for normal/turbo core is made, it will be part of it. It's also part of the latest test core

[hasty musk]

Overclocked or stock ?

And how can you tell that in detail?

[zinc dew]

Overclocked to 3Ghz and I didn’t tell that in detail. Core is more response and easier to use. Framerate also feels more consistent and smoother.

[thorn quiver]

The pi5 runs at 3ghz? Jeez

[zinc dew]

my Pi 5 runs at 3Ghz 😎

[thorn quiver]

But still!

It's a far cry from the ~1ghz parts

[zinc dew]

Also like I’m obviously biased here

[storm vessel]

Water-cooler pi 💪

[thorn quiver]

Pi driven toaster

[zinc dew]

And I’m just some rando who has both and prefers one over the other, doesn’t mean the other is bad or inferior.

Actually I’m taking my pi 5 on an international trip and leaving my mister behind

[thorn quiver]

It's ok to be MiSTer supremacist

[vapid hawk]

can't pi5 actually play gamecube games? i think it makes a good pairing with mister

[zinc dew]

I am a MiSTer enjoyer

Yeah it runs GameCube games, sorry I’m getting off topic, this is my fault

[thorn quiver]

They're very different devices yeah

[thorn quiver]

Yeah you better stop before you promise a GC core

thems the rules

[cerulean elk]

Banned. Ban this man

[elfin relic]

we can no longer hang out at the texaboo bar

[hasty musk]

Pi5 is cheaper to loose than a mister.

He also lets his wife home and drives with his girlfriend 😉😂

[drowsy lantern]

Well except for the sound pops/clicks in many games. I really hope a fix is found for this eventually. 🤞

[wanton sun]

many? so far i never encounted it myself and have only reproduced it in conker in a specific spot

if there are many spots, it should be easy to debug, so please tell me where it can be reproduced easy

[vapid hawk]

perfect dark had quite a lot too iirc

i have a terrible ear for this kind of thing though, and i'm never sure if it might just be the same on original hardware

[wanton sun]

maybe only games with framerate issues have it?

[vapid hawk]

maybe but thats a lot of games on n64 😄

[wanton sun]

@jolly turret also found that Turok has it(in some spots), but also on real hardware

i have some ideas, but would need at least a good way to reproduce it

[vapid hawk]

maybe there's a game with a cutscene where it happens

[desert crow]

I never fixed hori pad with the turbo core. I assumed clk_1x was changed from 62.5 mhz to something else in turbo core and that these couple numbers would need tweaked https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/N64_MiSTer/blob/main/rtl/N64_SNAC.v#L18

[simple olive]

localparam THIRTYTWOuSECONDS = 11'd2000;

[desert crow]

But I'm not sure now looking at it again how the turbo core works 🙂

[jolly turret]

The part in Turok is replicated by real hardware, but there are still many audio clicks happening whenever new sound events get triggered. I run my Mister internally at 96khz and here is what I found out. When I run my audio interface at 96khz internal sampling rate as well, I get lots of audio clicks, when I change the interface to 44.1khz internal sampling rate, while not changing anything about the Mister, the audio clicks go away entirely. So it seems to be some kind of issue with correct audio synchronization in the output. Please check our last messages, you said you could record the audio output from within the FPGA to check on this. I provided a new version of the 240p Test Tools for N64 that you could use to check this with.

The audio test using the 240p test tools keeps clicking like crazy throughout the entire test consistently, it's easy to replicate it each time.

[arctic swift]

Is there a spreadsheet or someplace to report issues with specific games? Mario Tennis seems to experience serious slowdown on multiplayer. I compared to real hardware and it was a night and day difference

*Just want to add that I appreciate the incredible achievement that the core represents and am hoping to help it get even better, not complain

[jolly turret]

I can replicate the issue even in Mario Kart 64 consistently, it doesn't seem to be related to a specific game but rather happens with all of them.

[magic girder]

The gauntlet has been thrown

[drowsy lantern]

Just play the first level in Perfect Dark. It clicks/pops constantly, especially when voice plays (NPC barks, death voices, etc.). Also I remember you asking me at some point if playing the Turbo core fixed/improved the issue. And no it doesn't. So it's not just a matter of speed. Both PD and Conker use MP3 compression for voice clips, so that might have something to do with it.

[wanton sun]

yes, turbo core runs the 62.5mhz clock at 80mhz

[wanton sun]

if it works fine with 44.1khz then it's something about the mister framework and not the core, so should hit every game (and also other cores). I'd rather debug the core internal stuff first

[jolly turret]

I will still be doing more tests with different sampling rates to see if I can find out anything more. I just haven't had much time to do it lately.

[surreal bay]

Ah. If there’s any way I can help with testing or anything please let me know. There’s been a lot of excitement for the n64 mister core in the smash community and the turbo core would be the preferred option for competitive gameplay.

[wanton sun]

i will adjust the timer in the new turbo core

should be "localparam THIRTYTWOuSECONDS = 12'd2560;" for 80mhz maybe @desert crow can verify

[surreal bay]

Ty so much!

[desert crow]

yeah that seems right, you need to change the others 3 numbers also. It seems like you could probably multiply my numbers by 1.28. So something like this

localparam THREEuSECONDS = 8'd245;
localparam TWOuSECONDS = 8'd161;
localparam ONEuSECONDS = 8'd82;

reg [10:0]waitTimer = 11'd0; might need increased by 1 bit also

[wanton sun]

i see, thank you. Will use those

[desert crow]

thanks for looking into it. 👍

[wanton sun]

if someone wants to try: here is a testbuild that shows an error overlay (must be enabled in audio/video) whenever the audio fifo runs dry.
You should not hear any pops/clicks when this does not come up.
My results:
BattleZone shows it all the time as the game has some bug on the core and emulators, reason unknown. Probably timing.
Goldeneye shows it whenever a new audio file is loaded (e.g. someone dies and screams), but only if the FPS are low.
Perfect dark i couldn't get it
Many games show it on loading screens, but that is expected.
Otherwise my quick tests show that other games don't have issues. But you can test for yourself.

[jolly turret]

Thanks. I'll be testing this core on Sunday, using different sample rates, and will report back about my findings then.

[zinc dew]

Yes, on GitHub - https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/N64_MiSTer/issues

[worn delta]

Could it be an issue with MiSTer not outputting 44.1k, but 48k or 96k?

[drowsy lantern]

Hey Robert! I tried on Perfect Dark and the overlay is flashing like crazy. Also hear the loud pop at the 5 seconds mark in the video:

Also just letting Jet Force Gemini run at the Title Screen, I hear slight clicks at moments and they specifically happen when the overlay appears on screen. So it seems related.

Listen for the click at the exact moment the overlay appears:

It’s less hearable through my shitty phone mic.

[jolly turret]

The Mister can actually only output either 48khz or 96khz. It's weird that when I set my interface/dac to 44.1khz and created a sample rate mismatch, the audio clicks were gone entirely and I couldn't trigger them anymore at all. I will test several different scenarios using both possible sample rates over the weekend with the the audio fifo test core and post the audio files here. I'm hoping that the solution might be something fairly simple.

[jolly turret]

Is it the patched or unpatched version that you're using?

[drowsy lantern]

Patched of course

With Conker the overlay flashes like crazy also. Listen to the click when she says “dear”:

[little bane]

Will we also have the gamma option for the N64 core?

[quick otter]

I think that's not true. You can output 22.050khz or 44,1khz just using less samples on the same clock

[drowsy lantern]

Robert has previously said that no. There is no space.

[quick otter]

MiSTer framework has audio clock, just using more or less cycles for sample you can have more or less quality

[little bane]

Okay, thanks...

[jolly turret]

As far as I understand the cores can use whatever sample rate they need to use, with the core output then being upsampled to some value into the megahertz region before being downsampled to either 48khz or 96khz for the final audio output. I'm not sure if it's possible to adjust the final audio output to anything else besides 48khz or 96khz.

[quick otter]

Maybe we are talking about different things, dac has their limits

[zinc dew]

what's the latest test build?

[sullen harbor]

Here I think @zinc dew

[zinc dew]

Thank you! I think it might go live soon so I'll just update the pins in this channel

[solemn marlin]

How many patches are there now?

[viscid gate]

Ruleset has an up-to-date list in the forum link here
#1096015979055697940 message

[gilded whale]

7 games?

[solemn marlin]

Thanks, yea seems like it

Never heard of knife edge

[gilded whale]

I played it last night

It’s like a Zellers brand Starfox

It’s not bad, slightly above average

[solemn marlin]

Sounds pretty awful ngl

[gilded whale]

The music is decent, it plays a bit like panzer dragoon too

But much quicker

[solemn marlin]

Well I might try it but honestly not even very hot on starfox or panzer dragoon so probably not the best to judge

Something about the on rails stuff isn't fun to me

[gilded whale]

Then I wouldn’t recommend it

If panzer or star fox don’t do it for you this won’t do anything for you either. Those two games are like the best in their genre

This would be more for somebody who’s played and liked all that stuff already

[solemn marlin]

I think panzer dragoon is neat and I appreciate the aesthetics and the design but I just kind of want to.. fly some other way sometimes

I get what you mean

[gilded whale]

It’s like I wouldn’t recommend an average ass platformer game until you’ve played Mario sonic etc

[solemn marlin]

True, I like jumping flash but maybe objectively not the best intro to platformers if you've never played them or dislike the idea

[gilded whale]

Jumping flash is amazing

But also unique enough I’d recommend it to anyone

[solemn marlin]

Sure but I played with my niece before, she was definitely more receptive to the clarity of banjo kazooie and mario than anything on ps1

[magic girder]

Only 5 of them should be needed with the most recent test cores though

(Conker and Gauntlet not needed anymore)

[solemn marlin]

It has some weird controls in my opinion, they are rewarding eventually but still a bit weird. I think it's a great game tho, don't get me wrong

[gilded whale]

Tank controls for platformers, those were the days

[solemn marlin]

Also I'm wrong in a sense, it could be considered the first 3d platformers so it was literally the "intro" to the genre... it's cool

Since you're some kind of robot/vehicle? Idk

[gilded whale]

If you want to play the VERY first 3d platformer I did a 0mhz pack for Alpha Waves

Talk about primitive

[vast delta]

fellow canadian, eh?

[solemn marlin]

I like that instead of a cutesy mascot you have an abstract ironing machine that bounces around.. back before they cracked the code, now everyone knows platforming should be done by a goggle eyed freak

[thorn quiver]

You mean mysteriously potbellied Mediterranean handymen

[little bane]

https://x.com/DefaultDNB/status/1824574399753642121?t=7ye4qngdE4TdgNOAs8yfMg&s=33

KiiWii (@DefaultDNB) on X

My ROM info tool is out now #n64

Twitter · Aug 16, 2024, 10:30 PM

[solemn marlin]

One could think that but it turns out the formula was perfected with crystal dynamics seminal work gex 3 deep cover gecko

[thorn quiver]

Did he have the right amount of attitude?

[solemn marlin]

The perfect ratio of clever quips and goggle eyed freakishness. Yea he watches tv all day and dates super models, clearly zooming in on the most important aspects of 3d platforming

[thorn quiver]

Yes

A bit like Chuck Rock in that regard

[gilded whale]

Gex is for filthy casuals, Bubsy is the epitome of the genre

[solemn marlin]

I love all the little freaks tbh. Nothing like wasting a day with some horrible mascot from the 90s, sometimes even the game is good

[gilded whale]

Rocky Rodent

Mohawk and Headphone Jack I think might be the worst one I’ve played

[solemn marlin]

Bubsy will always be awful, yea I hate even knowing what you're talking about

[gilded whale]

Bubsy on the jaguar, the stars aligned that day

[solemn marlin]

His quipping managed to even bother me as a kid with the limited sound capabilities of the snes which is impressive

[gilded whale]

Ain’t I a stinker 🐱

I don’t remember what he actually says

“You’re the reason your parents got divorced” 🐱

[solemn marlin]

Half of it was too low resolution for me to hear but I distinctly remember disliking "I really don't like heights" which is just nothing

Not funny, not clever, not even some form of characterization

[gilded whale]

Bubsy is the shittiest because he has fall damage

Gex quips might actually be worse, even if his games are better quality

[thorn quiver]

Come on now, it's a character trait

Perhaps his most memorable

[solemn marlin]

Yes he is lowest of the low, a beast forsaken by the gods. Gex is bad but I enjoy the dated references even if it's not funny

[gilded whale]

That and his sick exclamation shirt, that was one cool cat

Anybody who hasn’t needs to watch the Bubsy pilot

[gilded whale]

… I actually love that

[solemn marlin]

He's referencing (region specific to the LA area?) commercials from the 80s and 90s which is a funny idea because the designers knew kids weren't going to catch even half

[gilded whale]

Kill your tv mannn

[thorn quiver]

It's all Bart Simpsons fault

[solemn marlin]

I could go through a hundred gex quotes and understand two or three, specifically the ones referencing classic movies

Or I can kind of infer when something is from star trek but still

[paper crescent]

Isn't the latest game a bit trip runner reskin?

(Bubsy)

[gilded whale]

Funny I usually watch Star Trek and am able to infer when something is from Gex

🦎

[solemn marlin]

So true, nothing quite like looking at clouds and suddenly I'm being struck with visions of gex

I love a subtle gex reference

[turbid warren]

Gex's famous catchphrase "Time for tail"

[solemn marlin]

https://tenor.com/view/surprise-shock-light-hugh-jackman-gif-7902590

Me when I find the exact 50s commercial for soap that gex is talking about and I finally understand

[gilded whale]

🦎 “Don’t forget to bring a towel!”

[solemn marlin]

So true, Gex

[turbid warren]

🦎 "Kids, there's nothing more cool than being hugged by someone you like. But if someone tries to touch you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, that's no good!"

[solemn marlin]

"Do you feel blame? Are you mad? Uh, do you feel like wolf kabob Roth vantage? Gefrannis booj pooch boo jujube; bear-ramage. Jigiji geeji geeja geeble Google. Begep flagaggle vaggle veditch-waggle bagga?"

[gilded whale]

🦎 “Trying to strike a chord and it’s probably a minorrrr”

[mellow raft]

And Rez... Though it's a little unique

[gilded whale]

Rez is right up there too for sure

Internal section on ps1 id put up there too but barely anyone knows about it.

[rich warren]

Or Gamera 2000

[zinc dew]

GAMERA 2000 THE GOAT

fully in english too

[lament escarp]

My showa era gamera box and my hesei era gamera box make 1 entire gamera!

[wanton sun]

so basically later Rare games will show it. I will take a look.

[zinc dew]

So I don’t hear any clicks and pops but I can get the error code to flash constantly in Conker. In the save file screen/bar select multi and then back out.

[wanton sun]

tested JFG title screen and intro, both previously had AI fifo running dry, not happening anymore. Same for PD first level at the inner stairs. Please test more if you like @drowsy lantern

the change is the internal audio buffer request frequency. Previously it was using the DACRATE. However, it seems it must be 1 tick slower.
n64brew says: "The sample rate is the Video clock, divided by one more than this number. "

E.g. with JFG, the DACRATE is 2944. So the previous core had audio running 1 tick faster, resulting in 0,03% faster audio playback, probably causing desync and missing samples if the game cannot compensate

[lyric sequoia]

Something like that might have an effect on rhythm games...

[wanton sun]

yes, DDR was desyncing over time in the previous versions. I always thought it's the random RAM timing causing it, but maybe this here also has some effect

[magic girder]

Thank you!

[compact depot]

It’s SO GOOD seeing some new development on this awesome core! Thanks @wanton sun

[vapid hawk]

awesome a new core for my birthday, thanks @wanton sun ❤️

i wonder if thats anything to do with the music getting messed up in RE2 jpn

[magic girder]

Happy birthday @vapid hawk! May your N64 games run as laggy as original hardware, and with as many clicks/pops as original hardware too 🎉

[zinc dew]

DDR Disney and I think that’s it?

[twin barn]

I always forget there was a DDR for n64

[magic girder]

The N64 uses DDR3, I wonder if that’s why it’s too fast sometimes

gets coat

[gilded whale]

Hey! It’s my birthday too! Nintendo sixty fouuuur omg

[gilded whale]

Blues brothers 2000 has rhythm games that I think might have been affected because I couldn’t seem to play them right

[vapid hawk]

happy birthday!

[weary perch]

i don't think this is fixed because the issue occurs in Ares which i don't think ever had this audio issue

am cavalierly speculating because i can't bring myself to actually play more of BB2000 😄

[gilded whale]

Yeahhh I more than had my fill last week playing the first two stages. Good lord

[gilded whale]

I can’t test this weekend, but might this have an effect on Duck Dodgers? All the cutscenes get out of sync really quickly

[jolly turret]

I have tested the two new audio test cores and have found out that we are actually dealing with two different clicking issues.

The first clicking issue happens when the audio fifo error message pops up. This issue happens consistently regardless of which sample rate is set at the audio DAC. The dacrate version definitely makes for a noticeable improvement with this clicking issue.

Examples:

-Battlezone Intro (not fixed)
-Conker New Game Intro (fixed by dacrate test core)
-Jet Force Gemini Intro (mostly fixed by dacrate core - still causes dropouts at the Rare logo in the intro)
-Jet Force Gemini Menu (fixed by dacrate test core)
-Perfect Dark Stairs (fixed by dacrate test core)
-Resident Evil 2 (there is a specific door which triggers the fifo audio error almost every single time using the door both ways, possibly due to the background music track being changed. It's the large blue door in the police station leading to the office room with the locked safe, located just to the left side from to the main police station entrance door. Interestingly the fifo error pops up 98% of the time but the actual audio clicking noise doesn't always come with it, so there seems to be some inconsistency here. The main police station door provides two audio fifo errors per one door animation, but the actual audio issue seems to appear less often with this door. A save file is attached.)

The other clicking issue doesn't show the audio fifo error at all and happens only with 48khz and 96khz sample rates set at the DAC, but is however entirely gone with using both 44.1khz & 88.2khz sample rates with the DAC. This behavior is identical across both 48khz and 96khz internal Mister sample rates.

What I have also found out is that the clicking noises are more prevalent when using a 48khz sample rate with the DAC, and the clicking sound patterns change depending if the Mister is using a 48khz or 96khz internal sample rate.

Based on my findings it appears that the second clicking issue is somehow caused by the core audio or Mister audio output not syncing correctly across all sample rates set at the audio DAC/audio interface.

I'm including two audio examples, the first file one showing the clicking issue where there are no fifo error messages popping up with a DAC sample rate of 48khz while running the Mister with a 48khz sample rate internally, which is the scenario where it's easiest to notice as it keeps clicking constantly while also additionally clicking when some new audio events happen, and the second file showing the same example but instead used with an internal sample rate of 96khz and 88.2khz at the DAC.

[drowsy lantern]

Oh yeah!! I can confirm this fixes all the clicking/popping that I was hearing in PD, JFG, and Conker! Amazing!! 🤩🙏🏻

I’m not sure if normal or not, but now the only way I found to get the error overlay to appear is by opening the Perfect Dark pause menu (~50% of the time), though I don’t really hear any clicking when it happens.

[drowsy lantern]

Oh BearOnGuitar is right. The overlay still appears in JFG during the Rare logo on startup, causing very slight clicks.

[fair stump]

Just want to say thank you for the testing and very detailed write up

[jolly turret]

I hope that it's valuable. We're so close to having perfect audio reproduction, I can already feel it. 😁

[vapid hawk]

isn't the n64 48khz internally?

i'm confused how setting a DAC to interpret 48khz as 44.1 actually works, is that making the dac basically just skip some samples?

(in any case though this is very cool info)

[jolly turret]

The N64 can do up to 48khz, but the core output gets upsampled to somewhere up to 7mhz if I recall correctly and then downsampled to either 48khz or 96khz depending on the setting inside the Mister.ini file.

If the sample rates are mismatching the DAC or audio interface will resample the output at noticable quality loss. Ideally i'd run both the Mister and my DAC at 96khz for best results, but doing it this way causes lots of clicking noises.

[jolly turret]

I have just checked RE2 again, the audio error at the door loading sequence happens even if the background music stays the same.

[mossy vector]

96 kHz on the N64 huh. Seems like you like 12 periods of the exact same sample repeated.

Apply liberal amounts of vaseline smoothing to the audio, too. Save your ears.

[gilded whale]

Applying liberal vaseline to my ultraracer helped it to fit into my 2p slot if you know what I’m saying

[thorn quiver]

I can't get into the Nintendo Saturn section

[iron dove]

nintendo saturn?

[thorn quiver]

It's full

[iron dove]

figured, IMO we need to get away from these limited posts-acting-as-channels
just calling it nintendo saturn got my attention 🙂

[thorn quiver]

It's colloquial, every console is a nintendo

[solemn marlin]

VIPs only

Only the best sega sanshiro gif posters may join us

[wanton sun]

all the cases where loading, screen transitioning, pausing or track change is involved would need to be checked against real hardware at least, because those naturally will cause the fifo to run dry anyway. E.g. if the audio streaming is stopped and started again, it's normal to stop for a moment or when some long transfer from pak to ram is started, it may starve.
If the other cases are fixed, which seems to be the case, then this is fine for me 🙂

(i could make the overlay only appear when the audio streaming is on and handled to filter out those cases, but it's not really worth it, it served it's purpose and will be gone in the next build)

[mossy vector]

Perfect Dark's target practice song sounds really good now with the dac rate change.

[hidden bolt]

I added patches to the forum post for the "Enhancement" cheats that Project 64 enables by default in Mario Kart 64. In certain multiplayer modes the game speeds up the gameplay to compensate for low framerates. In the turbo core (and Project 64) the game can run full speed making the game run too fast, so these patches revert this speedup. In the regular core the game can also run a little too fast but not always, so these patches may not be appropriate in that case. I added them in a "Turbo Core" folder in the archive.

I also added patches for Rugrats in Paris. This game needed a delay before RSP resume but also after a PI DMA starts.

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=8078

[jolly turret]

I explained it earlier already if you check my comments. The Mister internally upsamples the core output somewhere into the region of a few megahertz before downsampling it either to 48khz or 96khz for the final audio output, depending on which setting you have enabled inside the Mister.ini file. The Mister doesn't output audio at core's native sample rate, or the console's sample rate that it's replicating. Otherwise you'd have to change the settings of the audio dac according to every single core, and in some cases even to the specific game, including sample rate settings which consumer dacs will likely not support.

The waveform of the same signal with a 48khz and 96khz will be identical, with the difference that the 96khz is taking more samples over the same time frame. What is however of larger importance is that with running a 96khz sample rate the Nyquist frequency is set at 48khz, therefore offering an extended frequency response to work with. This is not so that we can replicate audio that only bats can hear, but especially with using the audio filter presets which I developed for the N64 core, they will also act as very aggressive anti aliasing audio filters, preventing any sounds from reaching or extending beyond the Nyquist frequency at 48khz, preventing them to be mirrored back into the human hearing range as garbage information, and therefore very effectively reducing aliasing distortion to very low levels if not even entirely preventing it.

[magic girder]

Great work, thanks very much!

Is it worth removing the CBFD and Gauntlet patches once the new core is released? I wonder if they have the potential to confuse people since they won’t be needed with the new cores.

[jolly turret]

I will check on the few cases I listed yesterday on my real N64 console today and upload the recordings here. It's possible that some of these issues could be present with the hardware as well, as we discovered with Turok earlier.

[hidden bolt]

Yes I will remove them when the new core and turbo core are released.

[magic girder]

Thanks for clarifying 🙂

[mortal panther]

Seems bittersweet to see them go so quickly, since they were so beneficial. Almost seems wrong. 😄

It's faceless Mario all over again.

[magic girder]

I think that’s it though. Everything completable?!

[hidden bolt]

The conker patches are a pretty ugly hack and the translations take up multiple megabytes so I am happy to see them go tbh.😅

[magic girder]

The ugly hack which started it all!

[dusty tusk]

Just realized the Gemini in Jet Force Gemini is a reference to twins

[topaz otter]

does this controller actually work

and I don't mean in your prison wallet

I mean does it actually work for racing games on the

[modest helm]

Incredible work @hidden bolt ! Have you patched every game that freezes now? Rugrats in Paris was the last one I think. Very appreciative of you going above the call of duty, and for also giving us patches for games like Batman Beyond, Knife Edge and Mario Kart for turbo users like myself. Outstanding

[lean vector]

@hidden bolt awesome job thank you

Is turbo core defacto way to play N64 on mister? I see a few games that are documented to only work well on turbo but never heard any games that are specifically broken on turbo.

[modest helm]

Yes. Turbo is by far the best way to play the N64 games

The only games that gave me issues were WCW Mayhem doesn't load on the Turbo core because of timing issues likely (white screen of death) and Spider-Man has a couple of graphical issues on the opening title screens, also likely timing issues. These issues don't exist on the stock core, but I've tested every retail game

[wanton sun]

a new release was uploaded today. Thank you so much for all the research, patches, code and everything!

new turbo core will follow probably next week

[mortal panther]

Thank you very much!

[twin barn]

Can you modify the buffer size of your interface? Can you reduce the input gain? etc... Feels like something on the recording side. I'll test on my MOTU M4 in a bit here...

The mister upsampling and resampling is necessary in the framework or else you would get massive aliasing and distortion due to the Nyquist effect. Potentially a flag could be added to bypass this sampling manually if the core's native output is 48khz/96khz but it would then bypass all the audio filters too, which isn't desirable so probably won't be done as it would deviate from the framework.

there's already anti-aliasing filtering, but it's rather crude, so additional ones at the next layer up in the OSD is helpful

[jolly turret]

I have reduced the global volume inside the Mister as a precaution, and I'm already running at a very high buffer value. I will try shorter buffer values as well but I doubt that this is the issue. I can also try using the optical input signal as a clock source, maybe that might change something.

Yes, the audio filter presets will be working well in acting as very aggressive anti aliasing filters as an added bonus.

[twin barn]

if the audio output of the n64 is multiplexed in anyway where it may have variable ranges of sampling rates depending on the game (like how the sega genesis is) then it will vary game to game, but i am assuming the n64 is all digital

[jolly turret]

The sample rates within the N64 can vary on a game by game basis, I believe anywhere from 32khz up to 48khz.

[twin barn]

yeah that poses a problem then because your filtering will be good for one sample rate and not good for others

not saying it's a bad thing, just a limitation to acknowledge

[jolly turret]

The filter gets applied after the core output gets upsampled and then downsampled, and happens at the last stage before the signal gets sent to the output, so it will work consistent across all games.

[twin barn]

at least it's not as crazy as what is done on the sega genesis where you have multiple hundreds of khz in some games 😛

[twin barn]

yup, but for ringing artifacts or aliasing that are the result of the upsampling it will help mask or diminish them but it won't eliminate them, etc... given the range is 32khz to 48khz though then these shouldn't be audible after the normal IIR filtering in the framework

[wanton sun]

the range downwards is wider, there are games using less than 32 khz

e.g. JFG uses 22khz

[twin barn]

wild 😛

[jolly turret]

I haven't done any real testing in terms of aliasing, and I'm not sure I will. All that I can say, with the n64 audio filter presets starting to filter at roughly 10khz, it's very unlikely that there will be much foldback at the Nyquist frequency at 48khz, and if so it will be at least very low in level, to the point where the foldback would be barely perceptible. Judging by ear I can tell that the audio output at 96khz using the audio filters, is very clean and nice sounding, possibly cleaner than the actual console itself, which does produce some aliasing at 44.1khz and quite a lot at 48khz actually.

I do not understand the framework in how and why it upsamples and downsamples in great detail, but it doesn't seem to cause any easily detectable harm to the quality at all.

[twin barn]

yeah i prefer 96khz audio over hdmi typically, smooths it out nicer, better noise floor, etc...

[lament escarp]

Didn't get to testing before but the awful crackling when listening to the gargoyle in conker breath is gone with the new core!

[jolly turret]

It also positively affects the noise floor? I didn't actually check. The Mister already has a lower noise floor than the actual console, so by that comparison I already found it to be an improvement. The reason I do not specifically test such aspects much is because I have no real way to influence them, so there is no point in focusing my time into it.

[twin barn]

yeah it does effect it last time i checked with mdfourier anyways. been a few years though so maybe my memory is off

[magic girder]

(Just updated the post in the pins re: patches. Please let me know if there are any mistakes).

[gilded whale]

Prison wallet lol. Yes it does the spinny wheel is great, but the rest of it is kind of awkward.

There’s a ps1 version too that functions like negcon, that is easier to use in some games

[hidden bolt]

Just updated the PWM build to the latest source (DAC rate fix). https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=7565

[marble cargo]

The only reason why I don't use the 96khz is that it bugs out my capturing device.

[jolly turret]

Unfortunately not all devices will be able to support a 96khz sample rate.

[weak hill]

so, besides that issues you mention, with turbo core, you get better experience, more fps than regular hardware without speeding the game?

[jolly turret]

Yes

[modest helm]

Exactly. Only 1 game doesn't boot (WCW Mayhem) and Spider-Man has graphical glitches on the intro screen. Everything else plays better than original hardware

[weak hill]

cool thanks @jolly turret @modest helm

[modest helm]

I can't go back to the stock core now. The turbo core has spoiled me!

[jolly turret]

I think the turbo core is the better experience, and I haven't yet discovered any of my games having any issues or weird speedups with it. In that sense it's very consistent.

[hasty musk]

Update all Script?

(I'm not at home)

[wanton sun]

should be available there

[drowsy lantern]

Thank you so much @wanton sun and @hidden bolt for all your hard work! We are not worthy! 🙏🏻🤩

[weak hill]

so far this is the n64 "emulator" that is more accurate nowadays right?, that is no ez thing, simply wow!

congrats and my respect @wanton sun

[wanton sun]

It's mixed. Ares is ahead in terms of timing accuracy for PI(cart) and RSP , the core for CPU and RDP.
In terms of logic behavior they are relativly close, as i took a lot of information from the latest sources (e.g. n64brew) which either comes from the same people that work on Ares or the information is built into Ares after short time.
For CPU and DMA behavior and timing I made my own research and tests, so it contains low level cpu stuff that emulators almost always miss, but the question is how important that is in the end.
The biggest advantage in my eyes is that you get fully stable emulation speed on a small 5-10W device, making is convinient to use while still being a good playing experience

So it might not be the ultimate 100% perfect accurate solution. But who would have thought we can play almost all games in that quality 18 month ago? If someone wants to complain about the core not being perfect, I can really stand that today. I'm just happy with it 🙂

[weak hill]

awesome work! thank you.

[solemn marlin]

I'm more than happy with this tbh, the turbo core being the cherry on top

I'd literally have to invest in a new computer for okayish n64 emulation on pc and this is basically the same as console for me

One day I'll understand why specifically n64 is such a mess for emulation

[magic girder]

That’s where I was at too when I bought the MiSTer (although the N64 core wasn’t being developed then). Unless things have changed, Saturn and N64 are actually pretty demanding to emulate well. You need a relatively powerful PC to get the same accuracy as the MiSTer

[solemn marlin]

This might be the last generation where people go "oh it's decent, but not for this or this game" when talking about n64 emulation on handheld solutions or small pcs but it's an issue that has persisted literally throughout my entire life

[vapid hawk]

heh you just reminded me what absolute trash n64 emulation was on the original xbox

[solemn marlin]

Idk if it's demanding or if it has weird hardware that's emulated in an inefficient way but something is going on. I got a pi, obviously the dreamcast emulation is more tolerable than the n64 one, that's just how it is

[magic girder]

I think the Dreamcast probably is easier to emulate. Dunno why though

[solemn marlin]

"Wow so this new machine can play n64 games? Will I finally be able to play my childhood favorite Goldeneye?" "No"

[cold pollen]

I know we've had this debate before so I don't exactly want to be opening a can of worms but couldn't we just have it say "confirmed completable" or something since we've had this confusion before

[magic girder]

I’ve said that many times. I agree. That’s why I advocated very strongly for retiring the spreadsheet once the core was released and issues transferred to GitHub

But people keep pulling out the spreadsheet 😭

It won’t die!!

[rich warren]

Plus ease of CRT hookup which is essential for me. All hail King MiSTer

[magic girder]

I had a pi but it kept dropping sound periodically for like a fraction of a second if I enabled the most basic CRT shader even on simple systems. None of those issues with the MiSTer and its filters 😎

[vapid hawk]

didn't someone mve all the important issues off the spreadsheet onto github specifically so we can delete the sheet?

[magic girder]

Yep, but still it remains

[vapid hawk]

whose got permissions to delete it

or, at least make it private

[magic girder]

Even though nobody updates it. So people are saying game x isn’t completable because it hadn’t been completed back in 1905 when the sheet was last updated

[vapid hawk]

since yeah at this point it is lingering like a bad smell

@zinc dew are you an admin on the old compatability sheet?

[magic girder]

On a more positive note, I suspect quite a few GitHub issues can be closed after the new release 🙂

[vapid hawk]

yep

[jolly turret]

I actually had to select the optical input as a clock source, and it now works perfectly. Was definitely an issue on the side of my audio interface, thanks for the help.

[fair stump]

I moved over pretty much all the major issues from meauxdal's sheet which covered a bunch of the main spreadsheet. If anyone wants to move the less critical items from that to github feel free

[jolly turret]

@wanton sun I have made some test recordings with the latest core version and have found out something interesting. I hope that you find it valuable.

Battlezone still has clicking and cracking issues with Mister, these are not happening with the hardware at all. Same with the Jet Force Gemini Intro when the Rare logo appears, which crackles on the Mister but not on real hardware.

The interesting discovery however is that while JFG crackles on the Mister with the NTSC rom, with the PAL version the crackling is not present at all. So for some reason it only happens with the NTSC rom. Both roms have the Ruleset patches applied.

RE2 also has audio issues when opening doors with both NTSC and PAL roms. The interesting thing here is that the console also has dropouts when opening doors as it loads the next room and audio, but instead of producing loud pop or click sounds the audio just drops out for a moment being replaced by silence, when using the real hardware.

I'm attaching some audio recordings here showing the clicks with Battlezone and Jet Force Gemini.

[weak hill]

i thought the same hahaha

i am that people haha

was*

[twin barn]

oh glad to hear my gut was right

[wanton sun]

Maybe the real hardware has something to compensate for. E.g. i could make a soft increase/decrease whenever the stream drops out or start again, so there would be no pops at all

i'm no audio expert, so i don't know how many samples are required to e.g. go from full output to zero to make it sound soft, but i can try something

[upper pivot]

Maybe someone could make a demo that can test out these things on a real N64 and compare

Does Ares have pops in the same places?

[eternal ravine]

In the world of audio editing, you had to deal with clicks at non-zero crossings

[thorn quiver]

Ramping might help to soften the transients yeah

[worldly quartz]

so does n64 work on direct video -> retrotink 4k?\

It's not listed as incompatible but all I get is 240p (according to tink) - black screen

pressing menu does not show anything

tested using direct connection from mister to tink 4k

[vapid hawk]

make sure you don't have clean-hdmi enabled in the cores OSD

[thorn quiver]

What is dirty hdmi?

[quasi storm]

So, @wanton sun ... I thought N64 core development had reached its apex. Just couldn't leave it alone, could you? 😆

[silent marten]

Lol Turbochop xD

[marble cargo]

Direct Video does work, the issue is that you need the vertical/horizontal blank settings on during the boot-up, otherwise it locks up on a blank screen.

Though you can turn it off after you've boot up a game and it should work fine.

[worldly quartz]

Ok will check that out thanks

[thorn quiver]

Or in other words what is clean hdmi?

[vapid hawk]

bypasses the n64s VI

[thorn quiver]

Ah, I see

[marble cargo]

Also converts interlaced signals into progressive signals

[drowsy lantern]

Very interesting that the crackling occurs in NTSC but not PAL. Some more timing shenanigans I assume?

[vapid hawk]

pal might just have more headroom rendering at a lower fps

or be better optimized by rare (they are uk based aferall)

[thorn quiver]

I wouldn't be surprised if the NTSC port didn't receive as much attention and may have less timing slack

[drowsy lantern]

I would be very surprised if the NTSC version has crackling on a real N64.

[thorn quiver]

No it probably doesn't but might be more sensitive to divergent timing

[jolly turret]

I was able to isolate two audio dropouts in silence, making it possible to measure the length. It seems to be varying by quite a bit, with the shorter sample being 85 samples in length and the longer sample having an approximate length of 800 samples at 44.1khz.

I suggest to try out both values of 800 and 1000 samples for your soft audio fade. Possibly having the fade slightly longer than the longest detected audio dropout is a good way to go about it, to leave some slight buffer and to make sure to fully catch all audio droput noises. Depending on the internal sampling rate a value of 1000 samples would still only be around 0.02 up to 0.04 seconds of a soft fade.

There is another part to the Battlezone intro where you see some gamplay action, where the audio crackles almost the entire way through this specific section. On the real console there is no crackling but you can definitely notice the audio is quickly fading in and out repeatedly, if I remember correctly. I will try to also record it when I get the time to do so, but it seems you are correct with your assumption that the console applies some quick audio fades to prevent these noises from developing.

[gilded whale]

Aside from mahjong and the audio issues that are being discussed… What’s even left that could benefit from a patch?

Mahjong, nintama, blues brothers? Duck dodgers, the wrestling games?

Oh and with Rugrats patched, are we at 100% ntsc compatibility??

[mossy vector]

What is the shape of the curve?

[quasi storm]

Played a rail shooter that ran way too fast. Knife Edge: Nose Gunner

[gilded whale]

That’s been fixed!

[quasi storm]

Aroo?

[gilded whale]

Ruleset has been killing it

[quasi storm]

Well, shut my ass up, will ya!

Is it a patch, or the latest test core?

[gilded whale]

Patches coming out so fast I haven’t even had time to test them all

Patch

[quasi storm]

Jesus... Go @hidden bolt !

Just saw the pins.

[mossy vector]

What is the overall shape of the audio fade out curve? (Same with a fade in) For example, is it subtracting a value, is it bit shifting as a power of 2 exponential decay. The SGI hardware designers had an audio and DSP background so nothing is off the table here.

[vapid hawk]

have we come across something here that emulators havn't discovered/documented?

[jolly turret]

Here is a closer view of the crackling sounds, I had to increase them in volume quite a bit to see that they are actually far longer in length than initially stated. I'm also attaching them here in case anyone wants to check them out.

RE2 Crackle 1 Length: ~7000 Samples
RE2 Crackle 1 Length: ~7000 Samples
RE2 Crackle 1 Length: ~6000 Samples

@wanton sun my suggested value in samples for the fade to start with is 7500 samples. I would also try 7000 and 8000 samples as well, so we can find the shortest possible value that still efficiently deals with these crackle sounds, and to also find out how much buffer or additional sample length is required.

[jolly turret]

I have no clue how this would be facilitated within the console. It's definitely more of a question for @wanton sun.

[wanton sun]

7000 samples on RE is like 300 ms?

are you sure it's not 7000 on your 96khz sampling?

[jolly turret]

The audio recordings were made at 44.1khz sample rate.

[mellow raft]

sound is something that emulators usually disregard. @woeful grove has noted on this in the past... Windows' (and I imagine other operating systems) audio subsystem makes it difficult to get it right because you have to resample every bit of audio. Windows doesn't support the odd bitrate all these retro consoles generally run at. I mean, it was analog audio at the time, not really as set in stone like today

[jolly turret]

I was however running the Mister at an internal rate of 96khz

[wanton sun]

i mean, the pop itself is likely a 1 sample action of sound dropping from x to 0, then it stays at 0 until new samples are fed into the audio stream

[woeful grove]

windows audio has a 20khz brickwall filter by default afaik

[jolly turret]

Let me try to find a section of my N64 RE2 recording, where you can definitely hear a slight audio dropout or fade that happens whenever the Mister would create a crackle sound.

[mellow raft]

So I expect a lot of emulator devs didn't bother fixing clicks if they didn't know if it was the emulator or Windows. Can't troubleshoot that easily

[vapid hawk]

hmm, so if this pans out it could be applied to emulators and improve those too, pretty neat

[woeful grove]

it's sort of like nes with the triangles

[jolly turret]

It's definitely possible that the issue internally may be much shorter in duration, I can on my side only measure what shows in my recordings.

[wanton sun]

there is currently no n64 emulator to my knowledge that applies asynchronous VI/AI clock. All use RSP or CPU clock instead as far as i know

[vapid hawk]

ah so they wouldn't really have this issue to begin with ?

[wanton sun]

so in theory they should all run into "fifo running dry" issues at some point

well, the core was about 1/4000 off for e.g. JFG. With wrong clock you could be only 1/200.000.000 off, so maybe would not be able to notice so easily

[vapid hawk]

interesting! thanks

[jolly turret]

@wanton sun check this out. This is from the same section where the Mister core would produce a loud crackling noise, but played on the N64 PAL hardware console. Towards the end of this clip when I open the door, instead of producing a loud crackling noise, with the console the audio instead momentarily drops out entirely, creating a slight stuttering effect.

[vapid hawk]

is it worth making a core with a menu option to change the pop supression length so we can quickly zero in on the right value?

[wanton sun]

i will play around with it using battlezone and then share a test. But probably not until the weekend

if my method can stand battlezone, it can stand everything 😅

[magic girder]

Can’t believe you guys are still going after it! A real dedication to preservation 😎

[jolly turret]

Actually the audio doesn't drop out entirely when looking at the waveform, marked with the red circles. It's possible that it could be some sort of fade, hard to tell what happens exactly.

[jolly turret]

I think so to, it's the best example for the crackles. I'm happy to help with testing where needed.

PS: The length of the dropout visible above is either 300 or 500 samples, depending on where exactly you measure it from. This recording was taken from the console at 44.1khz sample rate.

[cerulean elk]

ok so with Rugrats and Knife Edge patched...what ISNT working now?

before I do VO

[silent marten]

WCW games are too fast and that 1 Mahjong game but I don't know what the issue with that is

[cerulean elk]

that I believe works with turbo

seeing if I can make the "100% of library is playable and beatable" claim

[silent marten]

I dunno about that until the speed issues in the WCW games get patched but 100% playable yes

[spare meadow]

I remember that Mickey Speedway has some freeze problems sometime ago. Has it been fixed?

[cerulean elk]

I was on vacation Thurs-this morning so have only been casually reading info at random times

[silent marten]

I will test this soon, let me get the most recent games patched up and copy over DACRATE core 🙂

I been ultra busy with work and havent been able to do much testing at all recently

[lean spruce]

I appreciate all the work still being done to the core both by Robert but also Ruleset and BearOnGuitar. I just am the wrong person to test sound stuff, since I cant hear the things you lot hear. 😅

[silent marten]

I just completed a whole race in Mickey's Speedway USA with no issues, do you know how or where it crashes normally?

[cerulean elk]

and this has been merged into update all yeah?

[silent marten]

I used the DACRATE core that Robert posted a couple of days ago buddy

[cerulean elk]

this is why I cant take vacations lol

[silent marten]

hahaha

[cerulean elk]

yep devel has a commit core build of 20240818

so its updated...all I needed to know!

[silent marten]

ohh ok 🙂 I was gonna ask Robert if the DACRATE change got merged but hopefully it did

not sure if the new turbo core with all the changes are done yet though

[jolly turret]

The dacrate core is already on update_all. I might be wrong, but I think the only things improved are that it fixes most of the audio crackling and beeping issues. The remaining audio crackling issues are only present in a few titles and are mostly hard to notice if you don't know where they happen, except for the Battlezone intro.

[silent marten]

thank you BearOnGuitar 🙂

[gilded whale]

Duck dodgers is working but has significant audio desync during cutscenes.

As far as I know 100 perfect of the ntsc library boots and can be played reasonably. Except maybe the wrestling games…? I haven’t tried myself yet.

[cerulean elk]

I tried the wresling games...id call them "playable"

I guess its subjective

[spare meadow]

Unfortunately I don’t know where its crash. I was trying to remember where I read about it and only find this information at meauxdal list:

Anyway, thanks for testing

[gilded whale]

Honestly to me every wrestling game feels like you’re moving through molasses.

[vapid hawk]

some of the 2d ones are a bit more responsive but generally yeah

way too much animation priority

[gilded whale]

And everybody squat walks like they have a dump in their shorts

[silent marten]

that was quite a while ago so hopefully this latest build with all the recent fixes has sorted that out

[silent marten]

same with rugrats in paris from my testing today

[vapid hawk]

does it say who logged that initially ? could ask them

[silent marten]

I guess then you can say 100% playable and beatable in your VO 🙂

[wanton sun]

According to Ares bug list, Mickey does use the same cart copyprotection check that JFG uses. However, it seems it must be either less strict or does not happen that often. Anyway, this was most likely the reason for the crash in earlier version, as the cart timing was completly wrong until the last weeks of core development in march

IF that issue still persists, it probably needs the same patch as JFG

[magic girder]

Robby said that Mickey’s Speedway worked fine for him 🙂

So hopefully it’s fixed now

[magic girder]

Actually maybe you go on vacation more often

[cerulean elk]

all the shit happens when I do. Ive got a list of 8 videos to make by tomorrow 4PM now...three down, five to go

[mortal panther]

Robby says a lot of things... 😏

[magic girder]

He might have been playing it on his pi

Plot twist: he doesn’t even have a MiSTer

[lament escarp]

Neither do I. Is that a prerequisite?!

[cerulean elk]

@zinc dew only owns a HaNkHiLL FPGA

[mortal panther]

PiSTer

[cerulean elk]

and a Boomhauer Pi

[lament escarp]

@cerulean elk I'd like to see a video where you rank ALL games on mister. Every last one.

[magic girder]

1. Bomberman Hero
2. Saturn Bomberman
3. Bomberman 64
4. Bomberman 64: The second attack
5. Bomberman World
6. Bomberman 94
   …

20,465: Superman 64

[cerulean elk]

nailed it

[lament escarp]

You might wanna start from the bottom to keep the tension up.

[silent marten]

yeah we don't talk about Superman 64

[thorn quiver]

Did they go directly from bomberman 64 to 94

What kind of craziness is that

[magic girder]

Maybe Hudson partnered with Microsoft on that one

[eternal ravine]

Maybe Supes 64 is the Key To Everything

[languid dune]

F-Zero X
F-Zero
F-Zero Maximum Velocity
F-Zero GP Legend
F-Zero Climax
F-Zero Climax N64 rom hack

[eternal ravine]

FZ for GC is all you need

[magic girder]

Better than his list for sure

[solemn marlin]

Is the music weird for sim city 64? It's a hack so it might not be interesting tho

[silent marten]

Does it sound different than the core on either OG Hardware or an Emulator?

[spare meadow]

Maybe @hidden bolt could take a look at it

[inner isle]

What would clean hdmi look like if it was direct video via hdmi to Rgb Scart CRT?

[wanton sun]

clean hdmi doesn't work with direct video unless maybe with some weird vga scaler mode. I wouldn't even try

[wanton sun]

would only make sense if there are really issues with it. It seems there are none?

[gilded whale]

I played through all the cups earlier in the year. I don’t know the specifics of the bug though.

[solemn marlin]

Unfortunately can't compare on console or emulator, I can check a youtube video

[obtuse estuary]

jep thats true. but i've noticed that you only get 240p in Direct Video with "Fixed Video Blanks On" and "Crop Vertical None". "Fixed Blanks Off" gives you 237p and Scanlines-Filter has artifacts.

[hidden bolt]

Here is a patch that slows down the gator in Blues Brothers 2000. It works on emulator but I haven't tested it on the core. Apparently there is another chase level later on in the game so that will probably have to be fixed as well. If anyone ever gets there please post a save file so I can test it out, thanks.

[weary perch]

good lord, crazy stuff

the MSUSA crash is almost certainly fixed, but i couldn't 100% rule it out. that's what that last page is for, issues that couldn't be fully verified. most of them were already fixed at time of logging, but you can see there are some relevant ones in there for audio issues which may be fixed soon

but they were subtle and no one else had mentioned them so i stashed them away there

at this point the amount of NTSC games with major issues is vanishingly small

[solemn marlin]

Yea it's weird on the core but not on youtube, might be the hack idk

[weary perch]

Waialae Country Club can't save, Iggy's Reckin' Balls will crash after 9-2 in the main race mode unless you use the turbo core, Pro Mahjong Kiwame 64 crashes with controller pak inserted (works without or on turbo), Nintama Rantarou Game Gallery 64 randomly crashes (not playable), and the aforementioned WCW games running too fast

there's nearly nothing left to fix at this point, ruleset has been straight beasting lately

there are some other little things like Rush 2049 not working with more than 1 pak inserted, and the text issue with Monster Truck Madness 64

has anyone tested the DDR game to see if it runs better with the audio fixes?

[glass walrus]

Can these game patches be converted to cheats?

[iron trail]

Just finished Castlevania Legacy of Darkness; all characters all endings. Played in "High-Res" mode which is notorious for slowdowns on original hardware. The turbo core ran it flawlessly. Absolutely the definitive way to play this game. Give it a chance, it's really a great game!

[vapid moat]

Does Wonder J2 still freeze at the shop or has that been fixed?

[weary perch]

i will try and get my mister plugged back in so i can test some stuff like that

it worked on the turbo core already, possibly could be fixed on the latest test core

[vapid moat]

Yeah, I'm really hoping I can use the regular core now for it

[random portal]

F-Zero GX demake overdrive 1.0 now reaches the pilot stats after selecting a machine. Hangs up on black screen though.

[quick arch]

it was the case before also on I read this hack is not working on real hardware so not many chances it will work on the core

[random portal]

ah ok I didn't know real hardware also had issues. before the 24.08.18 core, it would hang after selecting a pilot.

[spare meadow]

Just curious, JFG has some strange colors transitions at the game intro and I am curious if is it the same playing in real hardware. I am sorry for question this but I am colorblind and don’t know if this colors are normal or not😂

[blissful plaza]

The colors are normal.

[gilded whale]

It freezes on anything that isn’t a turbo core

At least as of the telescope build

[fair stump]

They say @zinc dew is still, slowly, making his way through his Quest 64 playthrough

[quick arch]

to confirm it will not work on real hardware, could someone test it ?

[gilded whale]

@hidden bolt Man you are REALLY going for it. That is incredible. Blues Brothers is a level below even superman 64 lol. We couldn’t even stomach it to test it…

The cutscene desync in Duck Dodgers is my lone request if you ever have the time or the desire to give it a look

Beyond content with your output. So so happy. Thank you so much for elevating the already stellar core by @wanton sun
You two are retro royalty

[spare meadow]

Thanks. For me its all yellow or green, couldn’t say. A few seconds later it change for normal colors. Like a ray tracing effect

[random portal]

oh yeah I gotta ask a friend I sent the rom to. he never got back to me.

[winged garden]

@zinc dew possible to pin this plz? #1096015979055697940 message

@wanton sun Will the Turbo core be updated in near future?

[vapid moat]

So no fix yet? Bummer

[mortal panther]

He's already stated that the turbo core should be released sometime this week when he announced that he had uploaded the latest normal core.

[severe rock]

just came to say, amazing work Robert! the mister is now complete for me

[winged garden]

Ok, i missed that, thank you

[mortal panther]

It's far more complete for me than I ever expected or even dreamed it could be 6 years ago.

[severe rock]

I know right? Back in 2019 none thought this was possible

[mortal panther]

It's astounding to me how far this project has come in that relatively short amount of time.

[hearty oar]

like all the other MiSTer cores it's pretty much killed my desire to use original hardware, I was originally thinking of modding my n64 with RGB but now I can get pretty much perfect output out of almost every game in the library using the core

[broken creek]

The core is my main N64 now, but I still like to maintain, refurbish and mod my original hardware so that it is pristine while it spends its life on a display shelf.

[hearty oar]

haha yep I don't regret the time I spent on my consoles cleaning them up and reparing and modding them, but yeah not really using them at all now

[turbid warren]

Yoooo, a 32x

I recognize that mushroomed size console anywhere

[magic girder]

Tower of power standing proudly right there

[broken creek]

That’s the one setup I’d keep if I could only keep one.

[magic girder]

All those consoles and more, replaced by a tiny little box in the MiSTer 😎

[broken creek]

I love it. Neo Geo core alone was worth it.

[jolly turret]

Same for me. The Mister feels and behaves like the original consoles, offers improved image clarity, added functionality such as ability to run NTSC and PAL region games at their correct clock speed, all without requiring the user to use flash carts and other potentially hard to find and very expensive original console accessories, and most importantly doesn't suffer from issues present in original hardware such as issues to read games, cd-drives and other parts failing, etc... In my opinion it's the perfect hardware based replication of the systems that it supports. I'm still constantly exited about it, and I'm so looking forward to Taki Udon's protable Mister builds.

[magic girder]

Came here for the 4th gen, stayed for the 5th gen 😎

[jolly turret]

For example I own two PS1 consoles. One of them is still in almost perfect condition but won't power on, the other one has an issue holding CDs correctly causing the CD to either sit too high up or causing it to tilt while it spins, loudly screeching when it turns on and potentially scratching up my games, and just overall not wanting to read and boot the actual games. There's not too much fun in dealing with such issues. I'm getting these repaired at the moment so that I can create the PSX audio filters next and retire these consoles for good.

[vapid moat]

I almost explored getting an Orange Funtastic N64 just to play few games that can't run on this core but all these optimizations is giving me a sigh of relief~

[magic girder]

Found the Rugrats fan 😉

[vapid moat]

No, I meant Conker

What kinda rugrats-game was on N64

[magic girder]

I think there are two. Rugrats in Paris was the broken one. I’ve not yet played either though

Even if the gameplay sucks, the graphics at least look pretty nice

[lament escarp]

Sounds like a candidate for an xstation mod tbh. If you're into ode.

[jolly turret]

I want to keep them entirely original, especially since I intend to use these for audio development. I might have to revisit them again at a later time to work on a new platform sometime in the future.

[turbid warren]

How difficult is it to install an xstation

[lament escarp]

From what I read it's very delicate soldering, bought mine premodded.

Shortly after I learned of mister, which is objectively just as good.

[turbid warren]

Yeah, sounds like most ps1 odes are a pain in the ass to install

[lament escarp]

You're not missing out if you have mister.

[turbid warren]

True

[lament escarp]

Maybe I'll sell mine in the future. It's a really nice mod and I have a memcard pro for it so it's really the best it can be.

But the best is still the same as the mister core in the end.

[turbid warren]

Better even because you don't have to worry about an actual memory card with mister

[lament escarp]

The memcard pro talks to the xstation and changes cards for each game, so functionality is pretty much the same.

[eternal ravine]

MiSTer is the best PSX

[lament escarp]

https://8bitmods.com/memcard-pro-for-playstation-1-smoke-black/

There are also memcard pros for ps2 and gc. Work great.

[mortal panther]

For me it made absolutely no sense to mod any of my consoles if they won't ever get used again... so I keep all of them stock. If all they're going to do is sit on shelves looking pretty, modding is a complete waste of money.

[broken creek]

Modding is fun tho

[mortal panther]

I agree.

[lament escarp]

Yeah but ps2 and gc are saddly not on mister (yet)

[mortal panther]

I should have stated that I still mod consoles that don't (and will never) have a presence on MiSTer... like the Dreamcast.

[broken creek]

I also like the idea of showing my son dad’s old systems and hooking up the wires to dad’s old CRT lol

[turbid warren]

I like having my n64 and Saturn despite the mister cores existing

[broken creek]

Real Saturn hardware is still obligate in my opinion

Core is getting close though

[jolly turret]

I'll probably just get a second PS2 at some point just to mod it, and keep my original one that I bought new as is. Some people say that emulation for higher gen consoles is perfectly fine and nothing is really gained by playing on a real console, or a theoretical fpga core.

[lament escarp]

Ps2 mod is reverseable though.

You just need a hdd adapter and a memory card with fmcb on it.

[broken creek]

Yeah, like PS3. I probably won’t own a real PS3 because RPCS3 is so good. I do own real DualShock 3s for the emulator though

Plus I have no childhood connection to PS3

[turbid warren]

Thinking of modding my bc ps3 as my ps2 solution

[lament escarp]

The hdmi out on my ps3 died but I'm not gonna replace the console. It's a mgs4 machine anyway.

[broken creek]

That’s the reason I dabbled in RPCS3 in the first place

Other reason was for Afterburner Climax

And that’s pretty much it

[lament escarp]

Ps2 is still hugely important to me. When I've last tried software emulation it wasn't nearly up to snuff and so many good games on that that never got ported.

And the GC is just so neat with the GCLoader, which theoretically is also a reversable mod.

[broken creek]

Yeah PS2 is a system I got on launch. I sold my original back in the day. It actually had a really desirable mod chip in it that’s was able to run Toxic OS.

[mortal panther]

My original phat model was the MGS4 bundle. 🙂

Still works.

...on Rebug

[lament escarp]

Ps3s seem to have aged way worse than ps2s have.

[broken creek]

That’s why I won’t get one

Too many issues

[storm vessel]

I did the original mod to my N64 - the cart slot tab removal 😎

[mortal panther]

I loved the PS3. The slim was one of the best, most reliable, and most used consoles I've ever owned.

[gilded whale]

As somebody who used to have a psio, I can confirm. The only thing you miss are the “feelies” the spring of the power button, the sounds the lid makes etc

[turbid warren]

I like that the only thing keeping the n64 from playing all regions of games is some plastic

[broken creek]

If they were reliable I’d love an original fat. They could play every format under the sun. Even SACD.

[mortal panther]

The half dozen memory card slots were a curious inclusion though.

[storm vessel]

At least NTSC J & U. 👍

[turbid warren]

Right, pal is weird

50hz

[storm vessel]

It was kind of fun to use the camera ‘s memory stick on the PS3 even just as a novelty. I don’t recall what the actual uses of that were.

[vast delta]

The accuracy + some QoL improvements is what does it for me. MiSTer is by far the coolest piece of tech I own

[cunning cradle]

I keep my fat hooked up for Third Strike OE. I had a scare a couple weeks back where it got stuck in an update loop but turned out to just be the HDD. Replaced it and good as new.

[rare relic]

anyone know of any n64 games where enabling 24 bit gives a super obvious difference? in ps1 games i can pick it out easily but n64 not so much

[latent dagger]

You might not notice it at all even with FMVs, and especially if you have all the N64 default filters and smoothing stuff enabled

[gilded whale]

Blues brothers 2000 patch works. Regrettably I can confirm.

I was able to fumble through a rhythm section finally, but my inputs didn’t seem to line up with the music at all, I’m not sure if it’s just ineptitude in the original game, or I’m just really not understanding how these mini games work.

[rich warren]

Ruleset is on a mission from God 🕶️

I will gladly add BB2K to my working rom set

[gilded whale]

Watching footage seems to confirm that the game has no rhythm at all. Youre just meant to fumble through the segments I guess? One thing I can confirm that’s different though is your opponents don’t dance to the music, they just stand completely still.

[gilded whale]

For sure, it is indeed a rom.

I can’t decide if it is better or worse than the movie it’s based on…

[wanton sun]

maybe not super obvious, but Mario64 has a lot of such things as it uses gouraud shading instead of textures for many parts and you lose shading steps with 7 bits(standard VI output) or 6 bits(old VGA board)

i posted some comparison shots in the past, but have no idea how to find them now

[supple musk]

hi. I just got a snax64 for the specific purpose of playing hey you pikachu using a real VRU.

I have a real N64 controller plugged into port 1, the VRU plugged into port 4, and in the menu all the controllers are set to SNAC. the port 1 controller works completely fine, but the VRU just will not detect no matter what.

any suggestions?

i'm using the 20240807 test version of the core.

[wanton sun]

maybe @zinc dew can tell more, he tested the VRU initially and confirmed it to be working

first i would check the port works, e.g. by using a controller at port 4 in some game

[supple musk]

i searched it and it seems some users have gotten it working, but I don't know what else to try.

[supple musk]

sure. I'll give this a shot.

okay. it seems like only port1 on my snax64 works.

that's....very disappointing.

I'm going to try a different core and see if 3p and 4p are working.

[random portal]

is the 80MHz core going to be updated too?

[storm vessel]

Robert said he is going to after the regular core. It’s coming.

[supple musk]

no luck with snes.

[hearty oar]

SNES doesn't have a 3 and 4p...

you would need to plug a real multiptap in to get that to work in a supported game, AFAIK

[supple musk]

the snax64 page says it's compatible with snes 3-5p but ok

I enabled multitap in the core settings

regardless, if anyone knows why only port 1 on the snax64 works in N64 for me, please let me know.

[hearty oar]

if you read carefully

*Multitap must be plugged into the correct ports relative to original hardware

[supple musk]

I added the controllers to the correct slots in order and all that jazz

[hearty oar]

right mate, what that means is that the multitap is required and needs to be plugged into p1 or p2 (whatever the original game and hardware expects)

like a physical multitap

[supple musk]

ah. right, that makes sense.

[random portal]

this is gonna be awesome for Conker's. I forgot how laggy 4 player split screen was.

[supple musk]

so I guess if my ports 3 and 4 aren't passing through hardware controllers, if won't work in any other core.

since...there are no other cores that support 4 controllers with snax passthrough

I sent a message to misteraddons to ask if it was a defect

[storm vessel]

Never played Conker but perhaps it’ll help a little in GE or PD

[hidden bolt]

Thanks for testing, was the alligator too slow? on emulator it felt about right but emu is a bit faster than the core sometimes. If you ever get to the second chase please let me know so I can try to fix that too.

[vapid moat]

@hidden bolt @wanton sun

Do any of you know what's going on behind the shop menu freeze in Wonder J2 Project ?

[hidden bolt]

Since it reportedly doesn't crash on the turbo core it is probably another timing issue.

[vapid moat]

Minor or major?

[hidden bolt]

Since it works on the turbo core I don't think it really needs a patch. Unless there are some downsides to using the turbo core in this game.

[vapid moat]

I guess to me its bit... excessive (?) to keep the intensive turbo core around to progress through this sole freezing issue in single game - unless the timing issue's hard to fix (especially since it seems it won't be getting the PWM-mode + the general availability + of turbo core). Idk, I guess Robert didnt create the turbo core, the game would be considered unplayable otherwise.

The other reason was me wondering if the turbo core is related to overclocking DE-10 Nano and I try to avoid overusing it if so, hence me wishing this to be fixed somehow so I don't have to rely on turbo core

[ivory laurel]

The turbo core isn’t overclocking the DE10, it’s a beefed up N64 that works within DE10 specs

[vapid moat]

Hooh~

Well maybe I might have to consider getting the newer Analog IO Board in the future and default to using Turbo Core then (unless it breaks some games)

[hidden bolt]

The PWM core is a valid reason, maybe I should try to build a PWM turbo, although I only have a 12600k.

[vapid moat]

Is that too low to squeeze it in?

[hidden bolt]

It will just take a lot longer then on a cpu with more cores.

[broken creek]

I would love a PWM Turbo core. I kind of don't want to upgrade my Mister's IO board if I don't have to.

[wanton sun]

Your de10-nano itself is not overclocked, but the logic elements are driven with a clock that is not guaranteed by Altera to function. Kind of like driving 120mph with a car where the specsheet says it can only do 90.

wait, maybe that is not a good comparison outside of germany, haha 😅

[hidden bolt]

Do you have an updated turbo build you can share? I might as well give it a try for the PWM build.

[wanton sun]

i didn't upload the turbo sources yet, will do that together with a new build. It's still old framework and so, need to clean this up first

[silent marten]

Robert I know this is slightly off topic but how is your GBA game coming along?

[wanton sun]

slowly, but yes. Hopefully the test version will still make it into this summer

[rare relic]

what framework is this? and what does the new framework have?

[twin barn]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Template_MiSTer/tree/master/sys this

It's how every core connects to the de10-nano correctly

[rare relic]

whats missing out of curiousity? 24 bit stuff? i wonder if thats why i didnt notice any changes with the 9.2 board on n64 core. because i use the turbo core?

[twin barn]

It's kind of the inner plumbing of a MiSTer core that loads roms from the microsd, handles audio, video, etc...

[wanton sun]

i forgot to update the framework also for the normal release, so it's still using something from march, turbo core even older

there will likely be another one anyway

[rare relic]

9.2 board is supported right? or is the framework version used in normal and turbo core an old version that doesnt support it?

[jolly turret]

Can someone here record audio from the Battlezone game via an NTSC console? I need recordings of all the various gameplay intro scenes. Unfortunately I can't do it myself as I don't own an NTSC console.

[twin barn]

Yes it looks like the 9.2 board is supported by the current N64 core but probably not the older turbo core.

[hearty oar]

can confirm the regular core works with it at least

[cerulean elk]

you can always go faster than the stated speed...just gotta hope the police arent around 🤣 (says man who went 144 on the highway in wisconsin late at night in a 65)

[kind nimbus]

I cannot figure out where pins are in Discord mobile anymore 😕

[magic girder]

Tap the name of the channel, then settings, then pins

It’s insane, I know

[kind nimbus]

Good lord.

Thank you

[zenith maple]

What power supply are you using? Is it enough to power everything?

[paper orchid]

hey clue o/ just to confirm, is the VRU from the US

I don't recall if the region lock presents you with the same or a different screen but I figured I'd rule that out

[mellow raft]

As stated, the N64 expected specific controllers in the right ports. You couldn't have things in random ports when dealing with oddball controllers. Also legit the VRU would not fully connect well 60% of the time. It's a known issue on real hardware. Definitely make sure it's fully seated in the port and try a few times.

[weary perch]

i got you. give me a minute to upload it

i don't actually know how many demo scenes there are, so it's still recording at the moment, haven't seen a dupe yet 🙂

[weary perch]

maybe it's just me but n64 controller connectors seem corroded more often than you'd expect. had the same issues with transfer paks - super flaky and unreliable just to connect, then god forbid you bump the controller while saving in GB Tower, you might lose your entire pokemon save

might be worth keeping a controller pak in your controllers just to keep the contacts protected lol

even with regular CPaks sometimes you have to reconnect them a few times or they'll tell you they are corrupted

rumble paks don't seem to have the issue so much, but anything with data i find surprisingly unreliable

[weary perch]

https://youtu.be/gxZzdeMd_Qk

might still be processing, can share a raw video too if you need one

[obtuse estuary]

i've a snac adapter and a power supply 5V 4A and the wireless adapter from the Brawler64 Wireless Edition is not working. With a raphent adapter in a normal usb port it's working. i guess there is not enough power over snac for some controllers.

[jolly turret]

Many thanks, this is absolutely awesome!

[daring meteor]

One playable game before Christmas

[wanton sun]

creating a core is somewhat easier to fulfill: you have a fixed goal instead of a moving target where you change one thing and suddenly another thing feels weird and you also have to change it

if i only had to program a game from a fixed design and requirement, it would be a dream

anyway, back ontopic:

here is a comparison of Battlezone with the current release and the new test core

feel free to try it

[gilded whale]

Yeah the gator was a bit slow, I had to stall a little to have the gator gain on me a bit. Otherwise you’d be running and seeing nothing behind you most of the time, until around the end.

[magic girder]

Much better! It sounds like there’s a bit of vibrato on the new one - is that like the original, or caused by the method you used to fix/work around the problem?

[thorn quiver]

It's a common trick among singers, if you can't keep the pitch add some vibrato

[magic girder]

N64: X-Factor edition

[wanton sun]

you can compare against @weary perch capture at around 1:40-2:00

to me, both don't sound clean, but i would probably not be able to tell blind which is better

[magic girder]

You know, I’m an idiot. I didn’t see that 🤦🏻‍♂️

Sorry for wasting your time

[wanton sun]

no worries, i had to search myself if the same sample is inside the video

[magic girder]

You’re right though - they both sound very similar!

Same kind of effect going on

[desert crow]

someone reported weird issues when they tried the brawler64 wireless with other controllers. wondering if you get the same behavior? <#1096015979055697940 message>

[weary perch]

much better and very close to console audio output now

[orchid nimbus]

so - eh... does that mean N64 development is back on again? 😛

[random portal]

I thought Perfect Dark already worked on the normal core.

[pallid moth]

how is your indie game development? are you going to show it on some nintendo direct or gamescom in the future?

[silent marten]

Inb4 Robert is actually at ONL

[wanton sun]

no 🙂 i'm just a single dev making a game, no company behind. The main marketing will be some posts on twitter when it's ready

also I cannot spend thousands of hours, so the scope is limited. I aim for 5 hours playtime to see most stuff and even that is hard to reach, creating enough content for that

Maybe if it's succesful, I will spend more time and ressources for another game, but for now I cannot take any risks

[wanton sun]

not really. The sound pop issue was the last one for now. New release + turbo core release and it should be fine to rest for a good while 🙂

[silent marten]

So you are gonna merge the pop fix and a new release will appear on update_all?

[orchid nimbus]

@wanton sun thanks ^_^ just like the PSX core then. It works and the outcome of all tests passed.

it's been a blast 🙂 (btw I'm Vampier - just changed my name to reflect my personality a bit more)

[wanton sun]

i see, but the image still tells the truth, haha

[wanton sun]

some days of test for the new version before a release, but yes that is the plan

[weary perch]

at this point, i think the only unplayable game (unrelated to hardware e.g. Mario no Photopie) with no workarounds left is Nintama Rantarou Game Gallery 64

[silent marten]

Awesome, thanks again for all your hard work 🙂

[weary perch]

the only other crashes left can generally be bypassed (Pro Mahjong Kiwame only saves on turbo, Tonic Trouble PAL crashes but NTSC doesn't, Rush 2049 has CPak issues but only on NTSC, Iggy's Reckin' Balls is not completable on vanilla core+NTSC but works fine on PAL or any version on turbo, Wonder Project J2 crashes in shop but not on turbo, WipEout 64 PAL randomly crashes but NTSC is stable)

[wanton sun]

oh no @cerulean elk must create a new video: hidden gem japanese puzzle game unplayable 🤣

maybe some day it's found. Ares seems to have the same issue, so eventually it will be discovered

[cerulean elk]

Hahaha I refuse

[hasty musk]

@wanton sun is there a psx turbo core? Just asking, because n64 got one.

Will a n64 half turbo core have more cycle accurate between and more speed possible?
Between normal and turbo n64 core

[remote hatch]

https://github.com/birdybro/PSX2X_MiSTer/blob/master/releases/PSX2XCPU_20240411.rbf

[hasty musk]

Thx

[jolly turret]

After comparing the recordings again, it indeed appears that the core actually works around the popping sound issue in a much cleaner way, not causing this vibrato type effect. Since it's probably the only game with this specific popping issue to such a high degree, any such small differences probably don't matter much.

[weary perch]

am i correct in reading this that the core sounds cleaner than hardware on the new test core (where pops would occur in the old core)?

[jolly turret]

Since the dacrate update most clicking sound issues are already fixed. This new pop fade version takes care of the remaining issues which I encountered, and it acts almost exactly or possibly identical to the console. The only difference that can be heard is with Battlezone where the console seems to work in a way that is not as clean as the core, potentially using a shorter value for fading the clicks to the point where maybe some residual of the clicks still comes through and affects the sound in some way. I'm not entirely sure.

In all other cases clicks only appear by themselves or in clusters of a few clicks (example JFG Intro), where it will be incredibly hard to notice any meaningful differences.

For some reason the Battlezone intro sequences are just full of these audio click issues, so they act as great sources for direct comparison, also in case Robert still feels like he wants to tweak and compare different settings.

[weary perch]

it's very interesting that it only doesn't sound absolutely terrible (as it did in the old core) because of some error handling the hardware was already doing

altho it doesn't exactly sound great on hardware either haha

thanks for the info, i really appreciate the work you've been doing on audio fidelity

[jolly turret]

Yes, it's such a weird thing to discover, and it seems a bit like a band-aid fix for a problem the console had, at least to me. I'm glad that someone noticed this issue and brought it up in this group here.

I just hope I don't drive Robert insane with my audio discoveries. Fortunately I don't think there is anything else to discover anymore, as the audio reproduction with the next official core version will be entirely identical to the console.

[weary perch]

🥳 🎉 🪩

[mossy vector]

Perhaps, but maybe the sneaky silicon graphics engineers shaved some bits off somewhere here too.

[magic girder]

Not to start a MiSTer vs Analogue war, but it’ll be really interesting when their N64 console comes out, as I wonder if they’ll have the same compatibly issues as the MiSTer cores and software emulators.

(I know the MiSTer core had additional issues due to the RAM, and Robert was essentially working with one arm tied behind his back - so I don’t mean those timing bugs)

It’ll be funny when the Analogue 3D comes out and the MiSTer testers are all jumping in to test Batman Beyond 😂

[mossy vector]

I'm not familiar with how analogue operates. When they first started, they refused any offers of outside help

[magic girder]

They’ve got their process and it works for them 🙂

[mossy vector]

I guess. But that also means I don't feel much empathy for them.

[jolly turret]

I was briefly chatting with Artemio about Analogue, and he basically confirmed what I was already assuming, in that their products do not recreate the tonal signatures of the hardware consoles and handhelds they replicate, as they appear to be using a full frequency range output, which is not how the real hardwares behave. I actually believe, although I'm not certain, that I might be the first person to ever recreate the frequency response of the N64 for an emulation project.

By the way, I plan on testing my audio filter presets one final time as soon as Robert publishes his next official core version, just to make sure nothing still needs to be tweaked, and will then submit them to update_all, together with making a detailed forum post including comparison clips with the real console.

I was already wondering if there would be a way to port audio filter presets from the Mister to the openfpga cores that the Pocket is using.

[magic girder]

Looking forward to it 🎉

I’ve been using your filter for a while and really appreciate the work that’s gone into it 🙂

I’m anxiously awaiting the PSX one, as that’s my favourite console 🙂
(No pressure intended though!)

[hearty oar]

I’m just keen to see what the plastic shell looks like for the Analogue 3D - they never disappoint in that department at least

[magic girder]

If anyone wants to make RF + cheap CRT audio/video filters, I’d also love those as well 😂

[jolly turret]

PSX is coming next. I just have to wait for the repair tech to come back from his holiday to get my PS1 consoles repaired, before I can start my work.

[jolly turret]

I think SNES has an RF output, I will try to recreate it as well. SNES will probably be next after PS1.

[magic girder]

I don’t have much nostalgia for the SNES, but I’ll use every filter you create as I appreciate the striving for accuracy 🙂

[jolly turret]

I appreciate the support and will do my best.

[orchid nimbus]

I need to listen less to ZZ top because I read BeardOnGuitar instead of @jolly turret (except that Mr. Beard of ZZ top plays drums... make it make sense 😛 )

[solemn marlin]

I must admit that I've mostly played the core with my own music or very low sound so I hardly noticed even the popping. Do you have any good examples of what the core does and what it should be? Not asking for an audio file, maybe just some intro sequence or something

[mossy vector]

Psst... Scroll up, it was all posted here. I'm not trying to be dismissive.

#1096015979055697940 message

[solemn marlin]

I only noticed the comparison of popping sounds, I meant the filter

Rereading my post I can see why you thought I was asking about the popping

I saw some waveforms before and I honestly haven't noticed what's off about the sound profile, I'm not good at hearing that tbh

[mossy vector]

Perfect Dark synth strings sound a bit...uh, wider. With the filter.

[solemn marlin]

Hmm

[mossy vector]

The really high frequencies are attenuated somewhat. Probably a good way to experience it is to flip back and forth while a song is playing. Yeah there's a bit of a pause.

[solemn marlin]

Well it's subtle

[jolly turret]

Yes, it's subtle with the N64, but I can still hear it. The high frequencies above 10khz are being filtered out, smoothing out the music but also reducing harshness from game sounds. I'll create a forum post with comparison audio files and frequency graphs shortly.

[solemn marlin]

That'll be interesting to read but I'm honestly notoriously bad at discerning subtle differences in sound profiles. Got it turned on tho, might just need a little time

[spare meadow]

Just curious, since you made 2 filters for n64, which one do you prefer using when you are playing ?

[storm vessel]

Multiplayer FPS hopefully is better
Have yet to play or hear that it’s higher (I think it could be though with turbo)

[jolly turret]

I prefer the Bear LPF N64 (Multi-Out), as it sounds identical to the real console.

[vapid hawk]

doesn't any console that generates audio on cpu run a risk of pop/cracking when the cpu is fully loaded?

adding that supression filter makes perfect sense really, way cheaper than adding a dedicated sound chip or beefier cpu

[mossy vector]

It would be dedicated hardware though. Because if the Cpu is too busy to give a sample, it's too busy to run a filter

[vapid hawk]

yeah but i guess a pop filter is a lot smaller/cheaper to throw in than an entire sound chip

[next kiln]

Polaris SnoCross still freezing for me with the 08/18/24 core.

[zenith maple]

Did you patch it?

[tropic cove]

Working perfect

[next kiln]

Yes.

[weak hill]

wireless right? im planning to buy that controller saffun, do you notice any lag?

[lilac portal]

@hidden bolt Is it possible to patch Mario 64 to prevent Mario’s sprite from switching to the low poly block version when the camera is zoomed all the way out?

Once you see it you can’t unsee it… haha

[vast delta]

Saffun controller? I really wanted to pull the trigger on one, but I have 1 NSO and 1 8bitdo. How's the dpad on it? And the buttons?

I always found chinese controller to have hollow buttons, something about the way they press doesn't feel right

[vast delta]

Wasn't there a version of the n64 core that did not have the LoD feature implemented? It may even be a toggle somewhere

[weak hill]

i remember re playing mario 64, when i was older, and then i realized that low poly version when camera is zoomed all the way out i was like....i didnt remember this hahaha, i gues we saw it amazing in every way in their release time

[vapid hawk]

composite video hides a lot of sins

[fair stump]

Robby posted detailed impressions a while ago #n64-dev message

I just noticed you were the comment above his post 😆

[vast delta]

That's right, the Saffun has a decorative analog stick gate

That was the reason why I did not get it

[rare relic]

you can use this patcher to do it
https://github.com/Admentus64/Patcher64Plus-Tool/releases/tag/v23.4.0

[vast delta]

7 months ago is waaaay too much time for my brain to remember

[orchid nimbus]

See timeline here https://mister.vampier.net/N64/

[vast delta]

Oh, I meant to reference Robby's mini review on the Saffun controllers

[orchid nimbus]

Oh yeah - dang it @zinc dew

[mossy vector]

Level of Detail refers to mipmapping. Which is a method of selecting a certain size texture for clarity. The classic term is imposter model but it's nigh impossible to search for nowadays.

[tropic cove]

It's pretty good for what it is, it feels the same as any other wireless one, it's not Bluetooth.

[tropic cove]

The d-pad and analog feel super good, it's better quality than those alternative controls that were available for the N64 at the time, it feels pretty good to the touch.

This controller

[orchid nimbus]

No it’s not - it’s still used a lot these days.

[mossy vector]

I meant if I search for the term imposter 3d model, I get an Among Us 3D printable model.

[storm vessel]

What’s the patch?

[obtuse estuary]

did someone got Mario Kart 64 Patcher64+ 60 fps mod working on N64 turbo core? For me it runs with 60 fps but there are graphical artifacts in the bottom of the picture so it's annoying imd unplayable.

[hearty oar]

These days we refer to it as mesh LODs at least. Maybe a long time ago they were called imposters, these days the term imposter specifically means replacing a mesh with a billboard at extreme distances, aka a projection onto a quad

As distinct from yeah, mip lods for textures

[mossy vector]

Yeah the terms morph over time.

[hearty oar]

haha yep, a lot of overloaded terms in realtime rendering as a consequence

[hidden bolt]

How often? and was it during gameplay or loading before the level?

[hasty musk]

@jolly turret are your audio filter built in, in the latest n64 core? I also cant find them on pin

[lilac portal]

#1096015979055697940 message

[chrome quest]

Not built in, but there are here;
#1096015979055697940 message

[hasty musk]

Thx

[storm vessel]

Oh!?! shite Oh. facepalm. I thought this was some separate entity like a romhacking patch. Thx

[next kiln]

During the first race, I have both patched and unpatched roms.

[hidden bolt]

the very first race you tried? or after a few races

[next kiln]

The very first one

All the other games work flawlessly

[hidden bolt]

that is unusual, I tried about 10 races in a row when I tested them out. But it is possible that the delay I added need some more tweaking.

[next kiln]

Thanks for all the hard work by the way 🙂

[hidden bolt]

np, if someone else finds another crash I will add a little more delay for a second patch.

[atomic stratus]

might be worth double checking that your patched copy is actually patched? I know I've mistakenly done that where I thought I had a patched version and I had accidentally moved the wrong file over 😅

[worn delta]

Just remembered, did that issue with the Safety Dance video ROM get fixed?

[topaz otter]

Everybody look at your hands?

[vapid moat]

https://youtu.be/VNVan4UhfYk

https://youtu.be/fmTpnboH__4

[obsidian coyote]

Perfect Dark MP has kept freezing on me. Am I missing something? Just curious if the error is just being able to keep up with the patches and fixes.

[solemn marlin]

Same but I don't know how it looks on an actual console. One could say it's only a problem if it works on console but not on the core

[weary palm]

I'll check honey

[weary palm]

still garbled.

All the YUV8 video demos are garbled. the GRB12 one's are not.

[thorn quiver]

Seinfeld bottom right

[weary palm]

It's Devo. They also made this banger. https://youtu.be/j_QLzthSkfM

[thorn quiver]

Aren't they Men With Hats

[worn delta]

Hmm, probably worth logging an issue for the garbled YUV8 video demos since they reportedly work fine on real hardware

Thanks for checking

[manic basin]

WE are Devo.

</borg>

[weary palm]

Hey Big Bunny

God. I hate that red coin star "Wiggler's Red Coins"... The camera is HORRIBLE in that area and I suck at double and triple jumping.

Wasn't too bad one I figured out I should grab the coins in order of height to make it easier on myself...

But it took me like 10 tries... 🤐

The levels where I have a tendency to fall off and die are my least favorite. Tiny Huge Island, Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride. 😭

[vapid hawk]

rainbow ride is where all my 120 star attempts go to die that level suuuuuuuuucks

come to think of it - has anyone made a romhack so if you fall off it you just respawn?

[spare meadow]

The 100 coins in Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride makes me want to throw the controller at the TV every time I play

[weary palm]

Same. Like 10 minutes into the level, 20 coins left, I die. GAAAAH

Start over, dummy.

git gud

[vapid hawk]

i can just about abide tiny huge island since it's not 100% void below you all the time, and tick tock you've at least got a chance of landing on some lower platform since its so vertical

but rainbow ride is just awful

[weary palm]

Thought I found a graphical issue in Pokémon Stadium 2. Slowking (the guy in the middle) has just thin flickering lines as pupls, BUT this seems to only affect the American and European release. The Japanese one looks correct. My guess is that it's a glitch in the ROM itself... I don't want to hook up my N64 to confirm.
Would be grateful if someone could try. What you're looking for is more or less round pupils on Slowking.

Perhaps this change was made on purpose.

It doesn't look right, though.

[weary palm]

Yeah, they're the least exasperating

It's mainly that red coin room in tiny huge I hate with all my guts.

[weary palm]

Hm, looks broken in this HDMI capture too, so I guess it's supposed to look like that. 😅 https://youtu.be/htnv3bdlyNA?t=40

Lol, if I turn of texture filter, it doesn't have any pupils at all. xD

Creepy pasta

[weary palm]

Ok this LOD stuff is cool and all, but I'm not sure what this says about Mario's dreams.