Nintendo 64

[wanton sun]

(this does only affect RCP, not the CPU)

[zinc dew]

FUN FACT: RCP stands for Robert Computer Processor.

[iron wren]

I happened to play that level the other day and that particular section slowed down quite a bit on the turbo core for me. Might be I’m hallucinating and it actually didn’t, though

[lament escarp]

A user mentioned today that the weave deinterlacing for 480i games can be pretty comby, I noticed the same thing in star wars episode 1 racer with expansion pack enabled. Would it be a huge change to add optional bob deinterlacing? 👍

[topaz otter]

It stands for Roberts crazy project

[wanton sun]

why not use clean hdmi mode with 480p? it works great in this game

but sure, bob would be possible

change is minimal

[zinc dew]

I would hope so, you’re a Bob after all!

[wanton sun]

if anyone wants to try, it's just a simple status bit like in psx core: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/PSX_MiSTer/blob/main/PSX.sv#L1540

add status bit in CONF_STR , use status bit for VGA_F1, get shaky image

[lament escarp]

Because it's TOO clean! #1096015979055697940 message if you prefer the smear you're stuck with weave or an external scaler.

[wanton sun]

be aware that many games don't use AA or bilinear filtering anyway in 480i mode, because that would require too much RDRAM bandwidth

this is 480i vs 480p. I will not tell which is which 😛

[lament escarp]

Left 480p, right 480i

[green epoch]

please be quiet, I'm trying to count pixels

[marble cargo]

@wanton sun The HDMI mode doesn't work over direct video when I use my Morph 4K. Is this a bug?

Same thing with the fixed blank being off breaking the signal on bootup.

[lament escarp]

I'm only making my guess! I'll tell you my reasoning when the answer is given. 😋

[neat sierra]

You used the force

[vapid hawk]

i wonder if HDMI clean mode could be made to work with DV, as at least a clean 480p signal with correct metadata sent for crops

it'd only work on external scalers though really

or maybe just forcing DV off when it kicks in, since then you could configure the scaler to do that

[wanton sun]

i can't see why not. If the external scaler accepts 480p, the scaler should be able to output 640x480?

can these scalers scale up hdmi content?

[marble cargo]

They can, in fact that's what I do with my set up to get the cleanest picture possible with the MiSTer.

That's why I'm wondering if this is a bug.

[wanton sun]

well, you cannot use directVideo, you would instead set up the scaler to produce 640x480 with the core

a good scaler could then identify if it gets 240p content or 480p from the same interface....haha....sounds like problem for other developers 😛

[lament escarp]

Robert you can't just leave me hanging with the 480p vs 480i riddle! I need to know if my guess was correct!

[wanton sun]

it was double blind 😅

(well, i turned on clean hdmi for the second screenshot, so i guess sherlock will find out)

ok, ok, you were right

[lament escarp]

See? It's a difference I took a good look at the lap number. One seemed slightly better definitely and less smudgy.

[wanton sun]

i checked all the VI settings and the only real difference is the bilinear filtering, every other feature is off. So yes, 480p has forced bilinear off.

[cunning fern]

So is it possible to keep the other vi settings enabled while using 480p?

[wanton sun]

no

Vi options are all forced off, because VI is not used with clean hdmi mode

[cunning fern]

Thanks, then bob could be the better option for those running 480i and original vi settings.

[civic wind]

What’s the problem with external scalers? Maybe I can help

Can mister output 480i over hdmi?

[lament escarp]

Yes, it does so in direct video mode, aka dv1, aka original game resolution with meta data for cropping ect.

[marble cargo]

Basically what happens is that the Morph 4K fails to recognize the HDMI mode in the Nintendo 64 core while using DVI. It always displays a black screen.

There is also a similar problem where if you turn off the fixed blank on the initial boot (i.e. before you boot a game), it gets stuck on a black screen.

[civic wind]

Oh ok. I can try to debug it. Does it work on other hdmi equipment?

What do I need to set on my mister to try it out

I just have the non turbo n64 core

[marble cargo]

I don't use and switchers or strippers, so you can just do a basic connection through the HDMI port.

[civic wind]

So it’s clean hdmi via direct mode?

Does this work on the tv directly, or on any other scalers?

[vapid hawk]

i think something about the two modes conflicts and you get no valid output at all

it also doesn't work on the rt4k

[marble cargo]

Okay so this is an issue with the core itself.

[vapid hawk]

so yeah, enable directvideo in ini, and enable clean hdmi in the core osd

and play something 480i so it actually engages

[civic wind]

Yeah at first glance it sounds like the mister hdmi signal needs conditioning before it leaves the mister

[vapid hawk]

it was never intended to work tbf, and before external scalers there was little reason you'd ever want it to

[zinc dew]

@civic wind can I help in anyway? I’m at the post office now but when I get home I can corroborate any of your testing.

[civic wind]

I’ll let you know. My first step was to plug it into my fancy 4k hdmi analyzer but it doesn’t accept the mister direct video signal at all

[hushed nova]

does 'clean hdmi' break a normal analog signal out of the mister?

i.e not dv, but actual analog

[civic wind]

Ok so I hooked it up to the morph and used its rx analyzer

The morph reports 362i, 450i, 222i in clean HDMI mode

It seems random

[zinc dew]

N64 games I think use all sorts of resolutions, play Resident Evil 2 lol

[civic wind]

Not this one

and the resolutions I posted are vertical resolution

I tested with Indiana jones which is 640x480i

Kirby doesn’t work in clean hdmi dv1 for me either, which is a 240p game

🤔 not sure what it could be

But now I might just play some Kirby…

[hushed nova]

"INFO: Video resolution: 640 x 160, fHorz = 15.7KHz, fVert = 59.8Hz, fPix = infMHz, fVid = infMHz"

that seems......potentially bad

[vapid hawk]

i think if DV was forced off when it does 480p you could get the misters scaler to pass that through 1:1 with a 480p modeline

[hushed nova]

you can kinda fake it with ini video= sections, but I'm not sure how good of an experience that'll be

of note: the tink 5x black screens with 'clean hdmi', and that's over analog out

so whatever that mode is doing is probably just going to make most things slightly angry

[languid dune]

Interesting. I was trying out Madden 2001 and 2002 on the core just now, and noticed that both games have issues with exploding polygons showing up randomly. Similar to what I remember Daytona USA doing on the Saturn core back in the days of its early development. Not able to test it against real hardware though, so no clue if it's normal for the games or not. I did check a youtube video that claimed it was recorded from real hardware, and didn't notice the issue there though.

[weary perch]

it's a known issue with the core with those games, it doesn't happen on a real N64

it doesn't on face appear to be a timing issue, possibly an FPU thing according to Robert

madden games on n64 are niche enough in this community that it hasn't been a factor for most people, but very likely solvable on DE-10 nano

there's a similar issue with WipEout 64

but that one is very minor on the NTSC version

[languid dune]

Yeah, I rarely play sports games. But I sometimes bring them out when my brother in law visits, so I was testing them out.

[neat sierra]

You got that normie bro in law who doesn’t want to be seen playing some game like ‘twinkle star sprites’ or whatever those mister nerds are into

[rich warren]

It was a nice era where we could meet in the middle with Blitz and Jam

[languid dune]

Yep. Says it all that today was the first time I ever tested those games on the core. 😅

[neat sierra]

Yeah I even enjoyed those

[languid dune]

Blitz and Jam were my jam.

[latent dagger]

based on the fact that the colors are little richer and you get less transparency on the green arrow on the right, I am going to say the right image was progressive while the left image was interlaced

[wanton sun]

i lifted some posts after: left was 480p

about the clean hdmi output: this is framebuffer output of the scaler only, so no analog out. (or maybe it has some, but i don't take care of it)
So if you want to output this, you would have to either enable the vga scaler if you want to go over analog or use HDMI, e.g. with mode 2(720x640) or mode 6(640x480)

640x480 should be basically no scaling at all. You could even force that. Then this 480p signal could be feed via HDMI into a scaler and i don't see why this should not work

The only thing I cannot tell is how you can set the ini up that the "normal" 240p output will use a different output resolution, so that both can be used in parallel

But for a test that would not matter, in worst case 240p is integer scaled to 480p before going to the external scaler

[hushed nova]

you can do video-resolution specific ini sections [video=640x240] and then set whatever you want as far as video mode. I'm not sure how good of an experience that would be with the video mode switching tho

[stone pilot]

I tried using a bunch of those to fake a PSX scandoubler, and it didn't work well. The video mode takes a few seconds to apply after each mode switch, so if you're switching frequently (e.g., pausing in SotN or Chrono Chross), the experience is really bad

[vapid hawk]

you probably want to like, try and only double the vertical right? i.e double 240p to 480p, leave 480i 480p, then have one fixed very high horizontal output res

like 2048x480p

[stone pilot]

Yep - something like 2560x480 was the best luck I had

[languid dune]

Tried a few more sports games, and noticed that International Superstar Soccer 2000 runs super fast when using the high resolution mode with the expansion pak enabled. It's like playing in fast forward! No clue if that's normal on real hardware or not. It runs at normal speed in the low resolution mode.

[trail swallow]

Most aftermarket N64 controllers don’t have the coreect analog gate

Even though the Tribute64 was modeled after the Hori Mini, which has the correct gate, Retrobit, for whatever reason, made it an equally-sided octagon.

Incorrect shape leads to bad stick readings

[zinc dew]

Fortunately the core auto corrects all analog input ranges down to the N64 value. Your point is still true, but just letting people know that the core “fixes” it but it won’t be correct if you use it on original hardware of other emulators.

[lament escarp]

You should never play anything other than MiSTer, actually.

[trail swallow]

Wait, really?! That’s pretty damn cool.

[zinc dew]

Yeah, so it’s a bit convenient if you’ve got a crappy controller haha.

[trail swallow]

Have people tested it with that test ROM? Forgot what it’s called.

[zinc dew]

Yeah, I did a lot of testing

But it’s been a while

[lament escarp]

A lot lot lot of testing... this is from when @lone geyser made me try it with 4 controllers at the same time so I had to move the sticks with my and and feet like a true gamer. 😅

[mortal panther]

Yes, there was extensive testing with that by several people back then. Absolutely wonderful addition.

[lone geyser]

That was so much fun

[lament escarp]

Yeah I remember you showing off your eldritch math. 😅

[vapid hawk]

yeah its an awesome feature and took many revisions , was fun to test 🙂

[flint thunder]

Morning guys ; PAL games are still quite blurry compared to other regions. Any settings you found that might improve that?

[lament escarp]

In the menu under audio&video there are a bunch of vi options, you can disable anti aliasing and another setting that doesn't come to mind right now that do the smear on the n64 core.

[flint thunder]

Thanks it improved things (removed anti aliasing, dithering and de dedithering) but it’s definitively not as sharp as NTSC games.

[marble cargo]

It's an Nintendo 64, so you're going to experience that softness regardless.

If anything, it would be abnormal if it was super sharp.

[flint thunder]

I know n64 quite well. My point is that PAL games (in 288p) more blurry than NTSC ones (240p) and I’m looking for tips to help with that.

[magic girder]

Might just be a scaling issue? 1080/288 = 3.75 vs 1080/240 = 4.5. I suspect the 0.75 is worse than 0.5 if you’re doing non-integer scaling? But also it depends if games are taking up the full 240/288 - which is often not the case on N64 games afaik

[flint thunder]

PAL vs NTSC same settings

[flint thunder]

Does it matters with a CRT?

[magic girder]

What’s it like over HDMI? I don’t think Robert plays on a CRT/I think someone else helped with analogue out - but given that he’s in Germany, I wouldn’t expect mistakes in PAL 🙂

[magic girder]

I hadn’t realised you were using a CRT. My bad

[flint thunder]

I haven’t tried ; I will

[magic girder]

I wouldn’t be surprised if PAL games didn’t take advantage of the additional number of lines and instead there was just some terrible scaling happening somehow though

Developers in the 90s didn’t really tend to take a lot of care over the PAL releases unless they happened to be based over here

Generally the NTSC releases will be better - but you may be willing to trade e.g. a worse framerate for being able to play in another language

[flint thunder]

Ok I got much better definition with Perfect Dark compared to Pokemon Snap.

This is quite sad. I would need to find a way to force 240p rendering on PAL games

[rich warren]

Is it a PAL or NTSC crt? Don't PAL TV's have more physical pixels on the screen? Guessing PAL since I've never seen Thomson here.

[ivory laurel]

Not sure if suggested already, but the core has a nice deblur option. Also you could completely disable VI bilinear filtering

[flint thunder]

it's a PAL CRT that can handle higher resolutions. So I on perfect dark I actually get more pixels but on Pkm Snap it's a blurry mess. Especially with text. Disabling VI bilinear makes 2D elements broken

[marble cargo]

Perfect Dark is probably PAL optimized, considering Rare is a British company.

[rich warren]

I'm guessing they didn't scale the 2D graphics when they ported, so when it's blown up a bit by the higher PAL resolution it gets blurry.

[weak hill]

i finally bought a mister pi, to be sent in february 2025

im just so happy, and the first core i will test its of couse robert´s core, 64 core 🙂

[zinc dew]

The core only works if you have love for the N64 in your heart

So if that’s not the case now, you’ve got a couple of months to get ready

[weak hill]

hahahahahahaha, let put it this way, the only reason i bought a mister pi, its because of my love for the n64 in my heart hahahaha

so i think i may be worthy

[zinc dew]

THE CORE HAS CHOSEN YOU AS WORTHY!!!

[weak hill]

hahahahahaahah thank god!!!

[wanton sun]

yes, that's exactly what happens in many pal games: they use the same internal framebuffer as ntsc, but scale bilinear to the target, making it blurry.
Two ways to improve:

• turn off bilinear -> can mess up texts and aspect ratio
• use clean hdmi (obviously not for CRT)
  At least on CRT it is exactly as blurry as a real n64 with the same game 😅

[magic girder]

Thanks for clarifying ❤️

[neat sierra]

You guys didn’t get into N64 to not play blurry games. Embrace the blur 😉

[ember linden]

modern games abusing TAA will get more people used to the N64 blur again

[lament escarp]

PSSR even more.

[magic girder]

Nintendo did PSSR first

[lament escarp]

Let's have those two sue each other and leave the world in peace.

[iron wren]

The jankier the games look the better imo

[magic girder]

They could unite against a common enemy… like… emulation

[lament escarp]

Just cut out the middle man and sue your customers directly!

[zealous hull]

I don't suppose there is a way to set Video and Audio settings at a per-game level, is there?

[magic girder]

Umm.. using MGLs is the only way I can think of doing it. @zinc dew is the resident MGL expert, since he uses them for almost everything I think

[zealous hull]

I use MGLs as well. 🙂

[zinc dew]

Yeah that’s basically it and it would be nuts

[green epoch]

I was going to say MGLs. But it requires you to have an MGL for each game/setting

[zealous hull]

Eh, I'll just set the crop settings in PM every time I boot. 🙂

Thanks folks.

[magic girder]

I crop on a per-game basis. It’s not such a big deal when you consider how much time you save pressing a button for a game vs getting it out of a box etc 🙂

If I’m playing the same game for a long period of time, I might set that one as the new default

[zealous hull]

I like that attitude. 🙂

Yeah, it isn't a big deal. Just couldn't find any documentation on it so I thought I'd ask.

[zinc dew]

Don’t crop, stop killing pixels.

[mortal panther]

...and stop buying CRTs!

They're crop city!

"It's like a little city of crop."

[turbid wigeon]

Out of curiosity is it possible to make controller presets? For 3D games that treat the c buttons like buttons I like C->dpad dpad->right stick but that bind is atrocious for 3D platformers

[zinc dew]

Controller settings are per controller id so you can do unique settings per controller

[iron dove]

could also make an MGL to the core with a unique setname
Then you can have the same controller mapped differently depending if you load the core directly or via the MGL

[zinc dew]

Yeah I was going to recommend that next haha

[iron dove]

eg 'n64-2d' or something
its mapped per-controller-id/per core 🙂

[mortal panther]

Someone beat Robby to recommending MGL files?? 👀

[zinc dew]

Yeah I don’t want to explain MGL no more lol

[iron dove]

its all about the rpi game shortcuts now, you've changed robby

[lament escarp]

Just when I worked up the courage to ask about them.

[tender pine]

I crop therefore I am.

[flint thunder]

thank you ! could there technically be a CRT equivalent to the clean HDMI?

[wanton sun]

if you disable all the VI things, it's nearly the same.
However, the core currently cannot output arbitrary resolution to a CRT, so if you turn off bilinear, you still get the stretch of the pixels instead of 1:1 source material with black bars around

[chilly pivot]

what´s the status about the correct speed? For Example WCW Nwo Revenge intro?

[zinc dew]

there's an issue with it?

[chilly pivot]

if i remember correctly, the intro is too fast on mister

[eternal ravine]

https://tenor.com/view/cliç-monkey-run-fast-monkey-run-gif-24513140

[magic girder]

I think it’s safe to say that anything that remains broken is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. The core isn’t actively being developed any longer.

In the future, maybe someone else will create some pull requests, or maybe Robert might decide he wants to make additional changes, but nothing is being worked on right now, as far as I know

[zinc dew]

Please no monkey gifs here, sorry

[neat sierra]

Sorry Donkey Kong

[wanton sun]

unless someone finds some magic on the de10-nano, i guess the timing accuracy of the core has reached it's maximum

[lament escarp]

Was sure the n64 core was using magic already. 😋 even more impressive it works that well with regular physics!

[mellow terrace]

@Robert — any chance you are secretly working on the DS core with a surprise release on Christmas day??? 🎅 👀

[iron wren]

He’s got the ps5 and Xbox series X cores done and lined up for a cycle accurate Jan 1st release

[wanton sun]

for both there is a chance as you didn't specify a year 🙂

[lament escarp]

A ds core would be amazing. Radiant historia, pokemon heart gold, smt strange journey, devil survivor, infinite space...

[mellow terrace]

Id settle for a 2D Chrono Trigger DS only version

[iron wren]

Ds core would be swood as the kids say.

[lament escarp]

There is always the secret plan ||of sending Robert and srg320 a potara earring|| once the saturn core is finished.

[mellow terrace]

Remember the magic of the Ms Pacman only N64 core??? Wasnt that long ago

[lament escarp]

My favorite moment was when majoras mask became playable and link had ALL the ocarinas. 😂

[mellow terrace]

And never forget three eyed Pikachu…and no eyed Mario!!!

[neat sierra]

Best game on the system

[mellow terrace]

Mary Kate and Ashley could be the best game on the DS

Game would get more plays than it ever did

[inner bronze]

Which canon? Is the fusion permanent or temporary?

[lament escarp]

Permanent till they're swallowed by a pink dude. I'm not a fan of dragon ball super in case they added something to the lore.

[storm vessel]

DS core would mean the last three 2D Castlevanias MiSTer time happy 😁

[chrome pier]

so even the stock n64 core runs a bit smoother than hardware in some areas i notice

like hexen (the entire game is a lagfest on hardware) and jolly roger bay in mario

im sure this is well known already, its just surprising to me

[zinc dew]

Do you have any debug options turned on?

[chrome pier]

hmm i dont think ive messed with that but i could check

there aer some on by default , everything except fast ram/rom and dtlb mini cache is on

for the record i havent touched the menu, it must have been set up that way on my mister

[zinc dew]

I just compared Hexen on my N64 against the core and the intro area feels like it runs the same on both

Yeah Jolly Roger Bay on the MiSTer core definitely does not have its fps dip as a low as real hardware. I think that was known though.

[magic girder]

From my memory of what Robert said before, the real N64 was often constrained by the speed of its memory. Because the DDR3 on the DE-10 has variable latency (which can be quite high), the average memory speed of the core is slightly higher than the real system (to prevent the worst case being too bad) which means that occasionally the core can be slightly faster than the real thing

That’s my understanding anyway

Or maybe the average is the same, but the core is occasionally faster - I can’t remember. It’s faster sometimes anyhow 😅

[zinc dew]

If the core is slower than real hardware then people get big mad. If the core is faster then most people either don’t notice or do notice and don’t care.

[magic girder]

Generally I think Robert optimised to make it as accurate as he could, but the memory had to be slightly faster so that the worst case wasn’t so awful that everything fell apart. The core is faster at some operations, slower at others, but generally when it comes to gameplay it’s pretty accurate

I think gaining 1fps every now and then isn’t the worst thing in the world 😅

[chrome pier]

Im not criticising it to be fair of course. I just saw a difference and was curious as to why

[zinc dew]

Yeah, we get ya. Appreciate you having eagle eyes and sharing your findings. 🍻

[chrome pier]

I actually really want to try the turbo core, it might help with 4 player games and making them more playable with friends

Mario Kart 64/ perfect dark on real hardware is a bit difficult to go back to hehe. :)

[magic girder]

I didn’t read it that you were criticising 🙂

[chrome pier]

Oh dw i didnt see it that way

So this is kind of like an n64 with better ram access ability?

[zinc dew]

I like this chat because it’s two cats and an idiot talking to each other

[chrome pier]

Thats the best type of conversation

[magic girder]

That’s a technical detail. I think it’s better to look at it as in: it’s the most accurate N64 we can get within the limits of the DE-10 - but to make it that way, it occasionally is faster than real hardware (because the memory is a little faster sometimes)

[chrome pier]

as long as it plays mario 64 with latency similar to real steel, im happy

It visually looks the part too unlike stuff like switch online

[magic girder]

On balance I think it’s the best thing outside of real hardware - and even then it has more advantages which make it worth it to me

[chrome pier]

its nuts we even got an n64 core

[magic girder]

All of the 5th gen console cores blow my mind

[chrome pier]

Also going back to my comment about hexen, this feels actually way way better than real hardware. Hexen had absurd frame drops for how simple it was

On real hardware

Its basically an early 90s fps game yet they managed to make it cripple an n64

[magic girder]

The turbo core makes a huge difference on some of the games

Although I generally play everything on the stock core. I like original slowdown 😅

[chrome pier]

Im talking about the stock core with hexen hehe

It just runs like an actual video game on mister

[zinc dew]

Oh, I just played the intro area, it wasn’t bad there on real hardware. I probably needed to play further to reach a bad area.

[chrome pier]

You can get some moderate lag spikes in the winnowing halls in only two major areas, in the central area with that ambush if you let it draw all the geometry in the room you can get some choppiness

And when you climb up the stairs to hit that moon button to open a gate

Its not THAT bad but its a moment where its probably in the teens fps wise

Whereas mister is probably low 20s?

[zinc dew]

Yeah

[chrome pier]

Theres a non zero chance the different display and controller latency is affecting my perception of the lag too

[zinc dew]

For what it’s worth Jolly Roger Bay was a noticeable difference in FPS.

[chrome pier]

Which is interesting because i always thought the cause was that fog effect!

Like a graphical overload

[jolly turret]

Tested the core side by side with the console. With both Goemon and Star Fox slowdowns were less severe and I believe also shorter in duration. There would always be some spots in Star Fox that would trigger slowdowns consistently, where as with Goemon running through the starting town had overall less slowdowns in busy areas. Otherwise they feel entirely identical, it's next to impossible to notice any differences by using your own senses.

The only exception might be RE2 which had noticeable slowdowns in the beginning section, but plays the same section perfectly fine on the turbo core.

[weak hill]

killer instinct slowdown is still happening in the core right?

[wanton sun]

to be more accurate, the core would need

• faster fabric, so TLB check can be done in a single cycle, some FPU edge cases can be faster and RSP dual issue can be done
• dedicated ddr3/4 so the worst case latency is low and the real latency and bandwidth can be used
  overall, i would estimate 3-6 months of work to get to 99.9% correct once future hardware is available

The reason why i made the core on average slightly faster is that games react to slowness much worse. We can see this with turbo core, which helped to prevent some crashes until we had patches for these games

[cunning fern]

Thanks for the detailed explanation! Something to look forward to when new hardware arrives. It's simply amazing you got the core as far as it is now.

[magic girder]

On the last point - I wonder if you’d then get a load of bug requests complaining that the new core is slower than the old 😜

[knotty zealot]

new hardware incoming. 788899999usd.

the DE-dual

it looks like a smash burger

[lament escarp]

De10 still has a lot of potential. DS for sure.

[vagrant ivy]

no DS was tried by Robert and it was not considered possible

[neat sierra]

Even when we have hardware that can do DS that’ll be a pain to figure out the touch screen part

Like would you expect to use a custom controller with a touchscreen on it? Or just like a dual sense and you use the touchpad? It would be pretty awkward

[wanton sun]

• psx on the de10-nano was "ok". VRAM cannot be replicated 100%, but no issue for 99.5%(?) of all games
• n64 on de10-nano was borderline. Full external RAM cannot be replicated by a good margin, but good enough for 98%(?) of all games
• ds on de10-nano would be insane. Basically all internal and external RAM cannot be replicated in terms of both timing and bandwidth. Accuracy would be clearly below current state of the art software emulation
  Now, if i learned something from N64, it is that some fun can be still be possible.
  But if it's worth it to spend a significant number of extra months(!) to work around these limitations? Hard to say

[magic girder]

I suspect your numbers are slightly pessimistic there 🙂

[quick light]

Waiting patiently for that Gamecom core

[magic girder]

But I guess it depends what the definition of “good enough” is 😅

[wanton sun]

Maybe. i don't think the exact numbers are very important, it's mostly for the comparison. For DS i would guess 80%+ would still play absolutly fine. That's thousands of games. And still the accuracy would be a fail compared to software emulators

[magic girder]

Yeah, I agree (in terms of the numbers not being important) 🙂

[lament escarp]

As long as the atlus rpgs play fine that's good enough. 😅

[magic girder]

Aside from the “all in one” aspect, or the fact that some people do FPGA core development “zum spass” - is there actually a tangible benefit to an FPGA DS core in terms of playability?

[quick light]

Only DS game id play would be that Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Blue Rescue Team. (I headbutted the top screen of my ds as a child in rage playing that game). But there's a port on the GBA, red rescue team.

[lament escarp]

I didn't touch ds emulation in like 10 years, but it wasn't all that great back then

[vagrant ivy]

its very good now

well that that hasnt been Nintendoed

[lament escarp]

By Nintendoed you mean nuked from orbit? I used desmume back then.

[rare relic]

I wonder what ds would look like on a crt. I couldn't imagine it looking good cramming the top and bottom screen

[marble cargo]

For an average CRT screen, absolutely not. But there is potential for a vertical "tate" screen to work well with the DS.

[rich warren]

I have a foldable touchscreen laptop for DS emulation

[zinc dew]

@wanton sun yoo, do you think the multi palette bugfix is stable enough to push as the latest build?

[wanton sun]

yes, can do it later, please remind me if i forget it

[spare meadow]

Do you plan to release a new turbo core with the multipallete fix too?

[wanton sun]

a lot of effort for this change...

maybe, let's see if it's too cold in my room

[spare meadow]

Thanks for considering it😀

Turbo core already runs RE 2 near perfection with the multipallete fix it will be the best away to play it, in my opinion, better experience than the real hardware

[broken creek]

The inevitable question any time there is an update 😂

I love the Turbo core though so if you didn't ask it me or the other hundreds of lurkers would. 🙂

I’ve said it multiple times already, but the Turbo core is the N64 I wish I had as a kid. I will use it over the standard core 99% of the time.

I did my time in N64 slideshow jail

[spare meadow]

How can we not love it?😍 The turbo core is what N64 should be! If we got the Multipallete Turbo Core, my N64 will be back into its box for good. Just love the N64 RE 2 version that much 😂

[wanton sun]

ok, ok, i will do it the next days. Just let me pick a day where i can stand running the PC for 8-12 hours at maximum power 🙂

[vital narwhal]

Ok so when I try to load the n64 core my mister stops outputting any hdmi signal, and the green lights that indicate the sd card is being read turn off?

[vagrant ivy]

which N64 core, where did you get it how did you transfer it to the De10. where did you get the bios from ?

[eternal ravine]

DS screens also have a little gap between them
SW emulation allows you to choose the layout for the screens and the size of gap

Like that Contra game uses both screens for actual gameplay IIRC

[vital narwhal]

Lol it's working now, I just had to reinstall the core 🙃

[mellow terrace]

One playable DS game by Christmas??? 😁

[vagrant ivy]

There is no DS core

#1096015979055697940 message

Robert says why here also this isnt the DS channel its for the N64

[languid dune]

I read that in the Wave Race announcer's voice. Maximum powerrrr! 🌊

[topaz otter]

bobs your uncle

[topaz otter]

its true the DS is a beast and it has dual screens, I don't know how we could swing that one the mister

maybe have two raspberri pi screens hooked up?

[vagrant ivy]

or try not posting in the wrong channel

[topaz otter]

its true, the DS core does not exist

but the Deez core does

[vagrant ivy]

if you want to wax about the DS start antoher thread

this is for the N64

[mellow terrace]

@vagrant ivy Sorry about that. If someone has permission to create a DS thread, please do so. I do not.

[vagrant ivy]

you should have permission

have you gone into channels and roles and ticked the give me eveything option

[mellow raft]

What's the purpose of making one, I'm curious? The MiSTer won't be able to run DS. DS is more powerful than the N64 and the N64 neatly didn't run on the MiSTer at all

[mellow terrace]

#psx-chat message

[vagrant ivy]

To keep the crap out of the N64 Channel

Link to the Thread

https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/1315734482317344860

[mellow terrace]

You dont have to be rude.

I brought it up because it appeared that Robert had a WIP core from before PSX and N64. #psx-chat message And I had hoped that he may have learned from developing those two cores to reconsider the DS one.

[vagrant ivy]

thats not being rude. Thats being restrained

if you feel it was rude then I am sorry but the N64 channel is not the place to discuss it

[tender pine]

Why so much talk of NDS in the N64 channel??

[green epoch]

because it was a better system

[mellow terrace]

Diddy Kong Racing vs Mario Kart 64… which was the better kart racer on the system???

For me, hands down Diddy Kong Racing

[zinc dew]

For single player Diddy Kong Racing, for multiplayer Mario Kart 64.

For me

[marble cargo]

Crash Team Racing is better than both.

[languid dune]

Super Mario Kart is better than them all!

[turbid wigeon]

MK64 was made for multiplayer, DKR was made for singleplayer

[ivory laurel]

Mickey’s speedway USA is very nice, also from Rare. Probably some DKR went into it

[turbid wigeon]

speedway is okay but its not the greatest in either catagory

[topaz otter]

We rented Diddy Kong racing specifically for multiplayer

[turbid wigeon]

its singleplayer is just occasional postcards between races, and its multiplayer is just a laggier mario kart

[turbid wigeon]

I mean thats fair, it did have an okay multiplayer

[marble cargo]

You can absolutely tell that Diddy Kong Racing was rushed, because it is not even remotely balanced.

You can very easily break the game using the blue balloons and the "zip" trick to gain a lot of speed. There is absolutely no rubberbanding, so you can easily lap the other racers.

[mellow terrace]

Will have to try that

[tender pine]

Personally, I've moved on from these arguments. Neither is better or worse. Both have pros and cons. Both are worthwhile experiences.

[latent dagger]

or outsource the job to someone else with a decent PC

I don't know what kind of specs you have though to help put the 8 hours into perspective

[zinc dew]

It’s not an argument it’s my personal preference. If you think differently that’s cool, no need to argue.

Both games are cool as hell.

[latent dagger]

hey robby, did you have anything to do with this new indiana jones game?

[zinc dew]

Nope

They probably used a few systems I designed though.

But I wouldn’t know

[latent dagger]

it's using what looks to be an iteration on some ID Tech stuff

hella optimized and smooth asf

with RT

[zinc dew]

Yeah they use idTech exclusively

[latent dagger]

I don't have a 4090 though so can't be trying the full path tracing option but that's fine lolol

[zinc dew]

Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is a cool game to check out on the N64 core if you’re into Indiana Jones.

[languid dune]

I played through The Fate of Atlantis on the DOS core recently!

[latent dagger]

is that a point and click?

[languid dune]

Yeah, Lucas Arts.

[latent dagger]

nice.

[modest helm]

No rubber banding is one of Diddy Kong Racing’s best features. It’s pretty cool to have a kart racer with no rubber banding. Makes it unique. Truly the most skilled player wins

[cerulean elk]

So…3DO confirmed? 🤣

[green epoch]

Shh shhh shh. People are working on the jaguar core again. We cannot be greedy.

[trail swallow]

HyperScan core??

[storm vessel]

I would love that 80% if the Castlevania trio were in it 😅

Would it be 3D games that would be the most troublesome or games that use both processors in tandem or something else?

[dusty tusk]

I'd kill for ZN-2 and Sh-2 arcade cores. We've got playstation and Sega Saturn

I want more Tetris Grand master goodness

[ember linden]

Someone ported TGM1 off arcade to Playstation so you can play that on MiSTer

[dusty tusk]

Hm, maybe tgm2 can be ported to Saturn...

[ember linden]

TGM2 is on some weird Psikyo board, idk enough about it to know if it would work on mister

ah i guess it was sh-2 based

[cerulean elk]

Let me take a peek

[ember linden]

https://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=811

[cerulean elk]

Yeah nothing would preclude that on paper. Unless the memory presented an issue

[ember linden]

probably wont see anyone mentioning it until saturn is practically "done"

[dusty tusk]

Cool, I'll expect it next Christmas 🎁⛄

[ember linden]

the same board that ran the original time crisis has an exclusive silly armadillo racing game that you play with a trackball, now that is something i want to see on mister

doesnt look like it's equivalent to playstation though, it'd be its own thing

[cerulean elk]

Armadillo Racing!

[cerulean elk]

There are a lot of SH2 arcade boards that could come to MiSTer once the core is finished. I have a vid on it soon. Same with STV

[ember linden]

all except cps3 😔

unless something changed since the last i heard about it

[cerulean elk]

No new news really

[wanton sun]

bought a 13900k with the fast ram for core builds and simulation. For these release builds however, more cores would probably win over time.
The issue with outsourcing is that it's more difficult to start these parallel runs (not a simple button press) and the evaluation which to choose is kind of...gut guessing.
Will just run it this weekend for normal and turbo build

[glass walrus]

Can the build enviroment be containered? If so it could be compiled the same by lots of diff people to find the closest timings

Like mining for best slacks lol

[wanton sun]

in theory yes, but it's not worth that much effort. So far all turbo builds have been stable

[latent dagger]

Ah, I hope you've kept up to date on your BIOS for that chip to fix all the crap with it overvolting itself cuz Intel being dumb

[tender pine]

I want my MTV...

[eternal ravine]

https://tenor.com/view/dire-straits-mtv-80s-cgi-dog-gif-26346897

[woeful grove]

no

[green epoch]

Now that's a take

[zinc dew]

yes

[woeful grove]

n64 failed

carts and hardware bottlenecks hobbled it, which is why all the good games are for other systems

[magic girder]

I love the N64. It’s my second favourite 5th gen console, but it gets absolutely demolished by the PSX

[zinc dew]

Then why did it sell better than GameCube, that didn’t have carts

HMMMMMMMMM?????

[magic girder]

She didn’t say that the GameCube also didn’t fail 😉

[zinc dew]

lol damnit

[woeful grove]

people wrongly assumed it would follow in the footsteps of snes. by gamecube they knew better.

[zinc dew]

N64 sold better than the Genesis too, did that fail

HMMMMRRHRGHSHFJFJD?????

[woeful grove]

genesis was weak

[magic girder]

Wasn’t the market bigger though?

[woeful grove]

every generation has a larger market than the last

[magic girder]

Exactly. So raw numbers don’t mean as much

[zinc dew]

ok but then N64 outsold the Dreamcast, did that fail?

HRRUBGSGSHSJSJSK????

[magic girder]

I think the MiSTer has probably sold more units than the Dreamcast

[woeful grove]

lets get you back to bed grandpa

[zinc dew]

😪💤

[magic girder]

Serious though - that’s probably actually true for the CDI/Jaguar/3DO, when those cores arrive/are complete

[green epoch]

Because it road the coattails of the SuperNES. The gamecube road the coattails of the........n64

[magic girder]

(I mean, it’s not, but I want to believe it is)

[magic girder]

Shows how much of a screw up the Wii U was then

[zinc dew]

I love the N64 and GameCube but when you put it like that, shit is funny lol

[magic girder]

Although a lot of the market probably did think the switch was the successor to the Wii

[green epoch]

The N64 has some of the best games of all time. It just wasn't a very good system

That generation was fucking cool though

Watching 3 companies figure out the 3D transition was cool

[magic girder]

I dunno. I think if you don’t compare it to the powerhouse that was the PSX, it probably would have come out better

I don’t even include the Saturn because that only really sold in Japan

[zinc dew]

I love the Saturn thanks to MiSTer

[magic girder]

I love it too, but I don’t think it was really the main competitor in the race back then. Maybe I’m wrong though

Might just be an unintentional western bias coming out too

[zinc dew]

It was the system to beat for like a year or two, then it got absolutely steamrolled by the PS1

The N64 hung on in third place because its Nintendo and sold great outside of Japan

[green epoch]

and mario 64 was a revelation

like, we didn't know how to do 3D platformers until Mario 64

[magic girder]

I reckon remove the PSX, and the N64 would have won the race

Damn Sony, upending the console wars

[green epoch]

that's an actually interesting thought experiment because the saturn would have been the only game in town for a full year

[zinc dew]

In Japan? Probably not. Globally? For sure.

[magic girder]

Imagine FF7 on the N64

[neat sierra]

12fps everywhere

[magic girder]

Or maybe square would have gone to the Saturn because of the CD drive

[green epoch]

there is test video of it somewhere. I swear I have seen it

[magic girder]

I didn’t even know they started developing anything for the N64. That’s cool

[green epoch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QhlJ317mZk oh yeah. but they couldn't do what they wanted to do on a cart. I suspect that one of the reasons FF7 is so cutscene heavy is Square glaring at nintendo saying "SEE? SEE?" over and over

[magic girder]

Imma watch that now. Thanks for sharing

[zinc dew]

People like to downplay it but that was genuine in-development work for the next FF on the N64. It was a tech demo to come to grips with the hardware.

That was FF7, using previous game assets, but they were building the engine.

obviously what we got on the PS1 was way better but I would’ve loved to see Square’s creative might and full budget create a fully polygonal RPG on the N64

But yeah, the pre-rendered backgrounds was a brilliant decision for both tech and creative reasons

Square USA da GOAT!

[green epoch]

That generation really is the fucking goldilox bears. Nintendo was too ambitious, Saturn not ambitious enough, sony was juuuuuuuust right

[marble cargo]

Final Fantasy VII was definitely a byproduct of the development staff lacking experience with rendering polygons. There are a lot of rough edges that would get improved on in later games on the PS1.

Even between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII, it's apparent that the experience between games showed the developers were understanding the hardware better.

[zinc dew]

Oh holy shit, the jump between FF7 and FF8 was so huge in my eyes for exactly the reason you said

[tender pine]

Sob sales! What are you people gamers or CEO's? What matters is how the N64 impacted, improved and left a legacy few can follow. It's impact can't be undersold.

PSX and Saturn were jack of all trades, master of none. N64 is a bespoke machine for the connoisseur.

[magic girder]

lol

You’re doing a bit, right?

[tender pine]

Nope. I'm talking my real world experiences with all 3 main machines from that gen. Both at the time and revisiting each of them in 2024.

It's funny. Take PSX and Saturn for example. A wide catalogue of games so wide you could get lost. When the Wii had that it was called 'shovelware' by most.

[iron wren]

Psx had more than 10x the amount of games that n64 had, so I’d have to agree that n64 had a larger percentage of quite distinct games

Saturn “only” had around 3x

[tender pine]

As I said already, less can so often feel like more. Another example is having an A-Z loaded Everdrive of roms. You can get lost in what to actually play. Having a curated best of is often the better course of action. N64 has/had some of the all time greats.

[iron wren]

Very true. Lots of garbage in the psx library made simply because the system was popular.

[green epoch]

I bet the garbage ratio was just as high on the n64

[turbid warren]

"The N64 had less garbage than the PS1! 🙂 " yeah it also just had less in general lmao

[iron wren]

Yeah true, it was still fairly early video game times.

[tender pine]

Right but I'm also not focused on what's 'garbage' or not but what's well worth playing today.

[weak hill]

way to go, nobody messes with the n64 😛 haha

[zinc dew]

N64 is king!!!!

Or Queen, I don’t know

[magic girder]

PlayStation invasion!!!

[tender pine]

N64 has for me 10-15 games which almost transcend the traditional videogame experience. Many if these games are a way of life.

[magic girder]

transcend
Yeah, you’ve gotta be doing a bit

[tender pine]

No. I'm not. Out of interest. Can I ask your age and experience with N64 @magic girder

That's sort of important for context.

[magic girder]

Old enough to have been there at the time, but didn’t deep dive until years later

Like yeah, there are some good games, for sure - but it’s not a very deep bench

[lament escarp]

Your opinion is only valid if you grew up with leaded gas and asbestos in your nose.

[tender pine]

Again with the 'deep bench' nonsense. Stop focusing on what's not available but what is...

[magic girder]

SM64 isn’t that good a game 😂

[tender pine]

I just loath people speaking on a subject with little relevance or context. Sadly it happens much to much.

[magic girder]

Like yeah, it’s fun, and yeah, it helped people see how games could be controlled in 3D, but it’s clearly very early

And therefore a little rough around the edges today

[tender pine]

Take the rough with the smooth.

[lament escarp]

I'm enjoying the roughness tbh. I don't thing that streamlined modern games are necessarily better.

[neat sierra]

It’s how nostalgia works. For older guys like me just move the transcendent games back a gen to SNES

Or even NES

[lament escarp]

But I also enjoy NES.

[tender pine]

It's true. Something can often feel too polished, weirdly. Like an artist who doesn't know when to walk away.

[neat sierra]

Whatever you were playing at that formative period where your head meat locked the experience into a core memory

[magic girder]

I don’t even hate the N64. It’s my second favourite core on the MiSTer - it just feels a bit like @tender pine is laying it on a little thick when comparing the N64 to the other consoles of that age 😅

They’re all good and bad in different ways 😄

[neat sierra]

And in conclusion FFVI was the last good final fantasy

[tender pine]

True. But I was also playing PSX for a good year or two before I even touched an N64 and also I dabbled plenty with Saturn. Neither hold a place in my heart and mind like N64.

[neat sierra]

Actually I didn’t play FF6 until emulators, it’s just that good

[vapid hawk]

PSX: 4 Resident Evils
N64: 1 Resident Evil
Saturn: 1 Resident Evil

[magic girder]

Some of the 2D games do hold up a bit better than the early 3D games today imo. That’s not to say that the 3D games are bad or can’t be appreciated, but some haven’t aged super well 😅

[lament escarp]

So psx is twice as good as saturn and n64 combined

[vapid hawk]

i just provide the raw data

[magic girder]

And I do think that the PSX was more influential than the N64 😅

[lament escarp]

It's all just mister now. Who cares?

The same box that plays ff7 also plays ocarina of time.

[magic girder]

And that’s why we love it

But sometimes part of the retro experience is having schoolyard arguments again 😂

(While secretly going back home and playing the console you argued against)

[zinc dew]

If you think about it, we’re all like the N64 but life is the PS1.

Sometimes we have fleeting moments of pure excellence that define ourselves. But at the end of the day the PS1 will end us.

Think about it

[lament escarp]

My mister faith prevents me from discriminating against any console that has a core. 🙏 now these coreless consoles are pos though...

[severe rock]

stupid nintendo, they broke my heart back then

but it was all for the best, nintendo still had draconian policies and made it difficult for 3rd party devs

if anything, Sony showed them a better business model

[green epoch]

I'm just happy that @tender pine has found joy in a bad console

that's the takeaway

[severe rock]

why couldn't they use the n64 DD integrated into the main system from the start? cost? pfff

no cartridge port, only disk drive

a little more cost? yes but they could have saved their relationship with many devs, cheaper games

more sales

that dinosaur yamauchi was still running things so thats why

[magic girder]

It was a bad decision in retrospect, but I can kinda see why cartridges didn’t seem like a completely terrible decision at the time

Especially when you factor in e.g load times and potential for piracy

[zinc dew]

it was a bad decision for the long term but a good decision in the short term. They controlled the manufacturing of carts and made insane profit because of that.

[severe rock]

meh, they sacrificed their business over piracy concerns

[magic girder]

This is also true. More money for Nintendo

[zinc dew]

Whatever bullshit reasons they threw out, it was 100% because they controlled cart manufacturing and the entire logistical process.

[severe rock]

load times shmload times, devs found ways around this

[zinc dew]

Why would Nintendo give that up?

[severe rock]

and alienated many 3rd party devs, ha!

[magic girder]

Ironic now how Sony made such a big deal out of reduced load times on their latest console 😄

[marble cargo]

Can we at least agree the PC-FX is dog shit?

[zinc dew]

Switching to discs was basically going to cause Nintendo a massive decline in profits. I completely understand why they stuck to carts.

[severe rock]

how many awesome snes games were cut down due nintendo ditching the cd rom?

Famously chrono trigger, secret of mana, among others. can you imagine how much more we could have gotten?

same deal with the nintendo64, many games were cancelled, reduced in scope, etc.

[magic girder]

Yeah, that’s it in a nutshell

[severe rock]

yeah but they switched to carts and had a significant decline in profits hahaha

came the gamecube and they no longer had an option

[zinc dew]

Yeah true but they didn’t couldn’t have foreseen that.

[severe rock]

yeah, because they were led by a dinosaur hahaha

I kid, I kid, its all ancient history now

[magic girder]

As a person who never got to play FF8 around release because I dropped and scratched the disc literally as I took it out of the case on Christmas Day - I’d have killed for it to have been on a cart at that time 😅

[severe rock]

but I resented this for years, I wanted final fantasy on the n64

[zinc dew]

They were competing against Sega who they soundly beat during the 16-bit days in Japan. And the only other viable competitor was Sony who didn’t know anything about the game industry and who’s only track record were shitty games in the SNES.

[severe rock]

can you imagine FF8 on cart? you could only get to 1/3 of the first disk, game over hahaha

[magic girder]

Oh, sure - space limitations were an absolute nightmare - but to pretend there were 0 advantages of a cart (even if some are more profits) is silly

[zinc dew]

They thought they had the next-gen pretty locked down and for good reason. Too bad they didn’t anticipate people would get tired of their shit.

[severe rock]

in japan yes, but they were 50-50 around the world in terms of console sales... that is until the "crash" of 16bits in the mid 90s

[zinc dew]

Nintendo is very much a Japan-first company, at least they were back then. Any failures in other regions were seen as failures if the marketing department, not the games or console.

Because clearly in their home turf they were killing it and with stiffer competition.

I don’t agree with that of course

But you can see how their environment lead their decisions

[magic girder]

And they still hate their customers today 😅

[zinc dew]

No just @lament escarp

[magic girder]

But yet we’ll tolerate it because they smash it out of the park with their games 😭

[zinc dew]

Miyamoto writes me love poems every day 😍

[severe rock]

devs and players alike. to make matters worse they started dumbing down their games (looks at yoshi's island in disgust). they decided they made games exclusively for kids now, if it weren't for rare

[zinc dew]

I don’t really have any point in arguing. I’m not even excusing their bad decisions because I think there were some signs early on they could’ve reached to. I think the only perspective was that I understand why they did and probably would’ve made the same decisions considering their situation and perspectives.

[magic girder]

@lament escarp is a depressed gamer who likes to sit alone in a dark room playing slow games

[zinc dew]

I still find it hilarious Yamauchi clearly gave no fuks about anyone

[severe rock]

no arguing here, this is a fun topic for me, and gets me excited every time

[magic girder]

Everyone’s feeling really argumentative in here today. It’s funny

[zinc dew]

Yeah definitely, and I of course agree with you completely.

[severe rock]

what is done is done, they probably did everything they did thinking they were unbeatable, immortal,etc

[magic girder]

Just like Sony in the PS3 era

[severe rock]

I just get salty thinking what nintendo could have been

[quick light]

It was a shame we never got the N64 DD. Just like the FDS.

[magic girder]

Or Microsoft in the XBOne era

[severe rock]

but they recovered in the end, no? they almost bit the dust but they matched the 360 in sales

[zinc dew]

I think it’s good they got taken down multiple pegs imo

[magic girder]

They did catch up in the end, but it was probably good for them

[zinc dew]

But I like wacky Nintendo

[severe rock]

indeed. they needed to be humbled down. and humbled down they were. they immediately became friendlier towards 3rd parties in the next gen

[magic girder]

Competition breeds innovation. That’s the capitalist way

[severe rock]

they even kissed and made up with square, after they apologized, of course

[severe rock]

he was like a mafia boss in looks and speech. did you guys watch Tokyo Vice? there was a mafia boss who I swear looked just like Yamauchi, dark glasses and all

[severe rock]

ah yes.... sports, sports, sports, sports, kinect, sports. ah games? yeah we also do that... then the director leaves for zynga and leaves the mess to phil spencer, bye!

[severe rock]

yup, they got cocky and needed some humbling. it could have been worse had it not been for the RROD

[magic girder]

My early PS3 died with YLoD 😔

[severe rock]

I had a rule for sony consoles

never buy the first 3 revision or you will waste your money

first ps1 models sucked

first ps2 models sucked

and so on

[green epoch]

not true, the U5 psx's let you play CDrs

First Switch is the only software moddable switch

first gen PS3 is the only one with a PSX in it

[magic girder]

PS2?

I thought they all did software emu PSX?

[green epoch]

Yes, you're right

it's been so long

[magic girder]

I remembered a thing!

[severe rock]

the what now?

[green epoch]

They had U5 in the serial number iirc

[severe rock]

SCPH-1001?

[green epoch]

yeah, same same

[severe rock]

the first japanese release?

[green epoch]

nah, american release too

I had an NTSC U5 PSX that played CDRs by holding the "top closed" toggle

[severe rock]

you mean hardware ps2 emulation? all models could play ps1 games

[lament escarp]

This is the actual truth.

[severe rock]

who is talking about the switch?

[magic girder]

It’s not so unusual for later revisions to have more anti-piracy protections in place

But would I take more reliable hardware over more mod-able hardware? For sure

[green epoch]

Ahh sorry, I didn't see sony consoles

[magic girder]

(Although it’s not always a given that later revisions are more reliable)

[severe rock]

yeah that was cool, but speaking from experience, the lens quality sucked. I read online that it was because the cd technology hadn't been perfected (or needed something else) and that it was too close the PSU so it would get hot and underperform. as a matter of fact, I tested mine on cold and hot weather and it definitely performed better in cooler climates but still had issues

modchips were also rampant in my country so for me specifically, this was a non issue

I was just unlucky to learn about console revisions after getting an SCPH-1001

[green epoch]

You definitely had to flip it over after a while

[severe rock]

this is true but back then I didn't know better, you kind of learned this from experience. later on I was able to get stable internet and started researching forums

[severe rock]

worse if you played CD-Rs like me

in terms of reliability, my thinking back then was the first revisions always sucked

keep in mind this is what I thought back then, not saying this is a fact

but even nowadays I never buy day one, always wait to hear if there are RRODs and such

[magic girder]

Nowadays you can’t unless you’re a robot 😂

[green epoch]

I would be surprised if we ever hit a RROD problem again. That was such an incredible thing

[severe rock]

but PS5 and Xbox SX, well, they don't really appeal to me anymore, I switched to PC for modern games

[green epoch]

consoles aren't cool anymore

[severe rock]

stupid scalpers, amirite?

[severe rock]

nope. the switch being the exception not the rule

[green epoch]

yep

[severe rock]

now the switch 2 or whatever they call it

[green epoch]

We were talking about this the other day, but they are all just boxes that don't play games as well as PCs now

[magic girder]

Consoles are da best 🥺

[green epoch]

where they used to have character

[severe rock]

will they do a wii u and fail, or will they save console gaming?

[green epoch]

Nah, I imagine the switch 2 will be very safe

didn't images of it leak yeterday?

https://x.com/1DaP_PaD1/status/1866290520210984979

DP19 (@1DaP_PaD1) on X

Satisfye accidentally put a trailer for their upcoming product the Zengrip 2 for the Nintendo Next Gen Console and in it

They just show the Nintendo Switch 2 in it like straight up just show it it's blurred a bit but not much that is our first official Switch 2 look

Twitter · Dec 10, 2024, 1:15 AM

[severe rock]

they blurred and blurred the differences with PC each generation until what we finally get was a closed-market pc-like ecosystem. they basically became apple, only worse, maybe

[green epoch]

they just don't have any character. I blame xbox for that. the Xbox One was a black box, and everything after it was just a black box. even the ps3 had character

[magic girder]

Well, yeah, but good luck buying a PC with a controller and the same power as one of the consoles

[severe rock]

its like having a PC were you can only buy and install epic games, only with downgraded hardware and lots of DRM

[severe rock]

this is another of my complaints. Its been 4 years since the latest console launches and they still cost 500 bucks. In black friday you could buy a laptop that performed better for 680 bucks. consoles are still cheaper but I mean, a gaming laptop for 680.... the gap is closing fast and when that happens, consoles are done, at least the business model that sony and microsoft are trying to push

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-tuf-gaming-a16-16-165hz-gaming-laptop-fhd-amd-ryzen-7-7735hs-with-16gb-ddr5-memory-radeon-rx7700s-512gb-pcie-ssd-off-black/6560989.p?skuId=6560989

This one was selling for 750 earlier this year, around march or april, then at 680 during black friday. I would much rather have this than a console TBH

[magic girder]

I wouldn’t, but to each their own 😅

[severe rock]

there is still a market for dedicated game consoles but I suspect it will continue to reduce until the expected revenue from AAA releases can't be met

[green epoch]

Oh totally. If you want a box that just plays games, there isn't a better option. I just already have a PC, so it's hard to be excited for a console anymore

[severe rock]

many people don't want to deal with the typical windows issues when playing games, but lately I've been hearing more and more of similar issues with game consoles

[magic girder]

There is no way that PC gaming is gonna completely replace the console market

Consoles are idiot proof. That’s their selling point really

[severe rock]

if they make AAA games less expensive and more profitable, take less time to develop, and fix their business model, sure. unless they do a nintendo who knows how they will save the ever hungrier beast of their business model. it needs to change if they want to save it

[magic girder]

AAA gaming budgets will just come down as they don’t generate a profit. They’ve likely become unsustainably high

[severe rock]

buuuuut I'm just a dude with an opinion, we'll see. gaming consoles have been "doomed" according to newsmedia for 3 decades now 😂

[wanton sun]

i live on the edge, no bios update that will reduce speed for me. If it breaks at least i have a reason for a new one 🤣

[sullen basin]

Bit late on the PSX vs N64 etc thing. Owned a PSX myself and not a N64. Love so many games on it, especially rpg's but also Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Jumping Flash and infinitely more. But have to say I caught up with N64 in recent years and I think Mario 64, and both Zelda OoT and Majora's Mask are fantastic games.

[iron wren]

This is really why n64 was the ideal system

[green epoch]

No other system has a place for your mouth. Just pure ambition - they thought of everything

[mossy vector]

Nourishing Mother Nintendo feeds those who plug the center prong into their navel. For those with outies, too bad.

[magic girder]

Another skirmish in the great console wars

[knotty zealot]

..... Robby, is that you?

[mossy vector]

Those Texans and the way they let it all hang out. I'll tell you what.

[latent dagger]

lol, it's a definitely a matter of when not if. I don't think speed is affected at all though. the issue as far as I learned is that Intel decided that the issue with their 13th and 14th gen chips where the microcode says "give more voltage than is safe and necessary and cause damage while you do it" wasn't important enough to fix until people's chips started dying and it was exposed and they got public backlash for it only to then work on an update to the microcode to fix it (which you need a BIOS update to get).

but sure, if you want an excuse to buy a new platform and throw away the one you have by all means 👍

I unfortunately live in the realm of being broke asf all the time so I could personally never allow myself to just let my expensive ass hardware kill itself like that. I like being able to sell my old hardware and get some money back when I upgrade 😂

[mortal panther]

He secretly wants an excuse to replace it with a 96-core/192-thread AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO. 😏

[severe rock]

Retaking our earlier subject a bit

Check out this new APU line from AMD

https://elchapuzasinformatico.com/2024/12/amd-ryzen-ai-max-pro-395-gpu-radeon-8060s-geekbench-vulkan/

Right now they're very expensive but when they come down in price... A steam deck that is faster than a ps5 for potentially $500? Steam on the go in a portable console form factor?

Yeah, either console makers step up or go down

[raw oriole]

Sometimes things don't get cheap. They get replaced with newer more expensive things instead. Or by the time you can make a PS5-power handheld, the PS6 Pro is out.

[severe rock]

Yes, that could happen too, if sony sees the writing on the wall

[uncut gyro]

I’m particularly interested in the Fire Range APUs that are coming up

but without a dedicated processor for SSD decompression, and doing it without massive cache invalidation constantly happening, I think there’s still superior performance per watt

I’d love for that to be solved in the open standards PC ecosystem

[severe rock]

so, another point against modern consoles https://x.com/notnotzecoxao/status/1866661885191524387

Jose Coixao (@notnotzecoxao) on X

It will not be possible to remarry a ps4, ps5, ps6, ps7, ps8, etc home console bluray drive eternally forever permanently because sony now uses diffie hellman exchange to communicate with the factory servers. whoever stated otherwise is a liar. forget about it. move on!

Twitter · Dec 11, 2024, 1:50 AM

aside from DRM, planned obsolescence

[zinc dew]

It’s an educational link which I appreciate. If we want to keep talking about it then please move it over to #general-banter or #spicy-off-topic. Sorry, just trying to keep this one focused on N64.

[severe rock]

sorry, I will stay on topic

[zinc dew]

No please don’t apologize. Just posting ahead of any responses because it’s an engaging topic. Thank you so much for understanding.

[uncut gyro]

weird to name DH key exchange

[weak hill]

hi guys

i just saw this comment in a youtube video "Hi! Great video. Could you test Mario Kart 64 on MisterFPGA vs. ARES? On paper, it seems like everything is working, but if you set the game to 3 players and play on bowsers Castle, the game runs at double speed due to a timing issue. Dk mountain, and yoshi's island are also double speed maps. I don't know if they've fixed the issue yet on misterFPGA, but I opened a bug report awhile back. Would be interesting to see if ARES has the same issue"

do you know if that bug its true?

this is the video by the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z14ID19n5mI

[magic girder]

That’s a known issue. If you play it on the turbo core, I think that main specifically patches it to fix that issue (but only on the turbo core)

[weak hill]

So in the normal core, runs normal, just speeds up in the turbo core, but there are pathes of the rom to fix that while playing it on the turbo core, correct?

[magic girder]

I can’t remember the precise details, but I think on the original hardware it does something to speed up the gameplay to account for slowdown for greater than 2 players. On the regular core the timing is marginal in this instance so it doesn’t quite behave properly/consistently. However, on the turbo core, it does speed up but maybe too much and then there’s a patch to fix it up (which is applied automatically by main. You don’t need to do anything)

If you search on discord you’ll probably find the proper details. But the tl;dr is to essentially play 3-4 player multiplayer on the turbo core

Or maybe it was that original hardware does some compensation. The regular core is not quite as slow as original hardware on some courses - and faster on others, so it’s inconsistent and can’t easily be patched. Whereas on the turbo it’s consistently too fast so can more easily be patched. Or something like that

[weak hill]

i understand, thanks for the explanation, when i get muy mister pi, ill try it out

[magic girder]

No problem. Sorry it wasn’t a super clear explanation. Hope you have fun when it arrives 🙂

[severe rock]

if its on the turbo core, it wont be fixed, is my understanding

Robert shared it to be used "as is" and not fix things in it

[magic girder]

Correct, but Ruleset did specifically add a patch for MK64 multiplayer for the turbo core 🙂

So it’s not a fix to the core, but a fix to the game

[severe rock]

that works

[languid dune]

Mario Kart 64 has speed problems like that on real hardware as well. I remember it even back in the day when playing it with my friends.

Like the game wasn't coded correctly or something, and when they lower the frame rate on certain tracks in multiplayer, the game plays super fast.

[proven parcel]

The correct way to hold an N64 controller:

[iron wren]

But where does your mouth go in this arrangement?

[latent dagger]

attached to your own head which is up your ass cuz that's where it needs to be in order to fully appreciate the N64 controller design

so I guess your mouth is supposed to be busy tasting farts

[storm vessel]

AI pic? All the hands look different 😳

[proven parcel]

No, just Photoshop lol. It was 3 separate images I stitched together

[languid dune]

Now do the foot one.

🦶

[trail swallow]

You don’t wanna know how I held an N64 controller as a kid

I held it like this

And this is kid-sized hands we’re talking about. So, I always had to stretch my thumb way out to get to the analog stick.

Can’t believe I never thought of just holding the middle prong.

What a dumbass.

[storm vessel]

You must have had giant hands as a child

[magic girder]

^ found the guy who breaks microSD cards (#mister-hardware message)

[storm vessel]

How the fuck can you break a microSD? 😂

[turbid warren]

chew 'em 🙂

yummy microSD

[storm vessel]

Dats eatin’ not brekkin

[turbid warren]

if you break something it becomes unusable. if you eat a microSD card, it becomes unusable ergo

[zinc dew]

@proven parcel delivers!

[steady basalt]

You didn't read the manual.

[old iris]

Please tell me, does the conker already work or do I need a special rom?

[vagrant ivy]

works fine has done for months

roms are autopatched

[green epoch]

as long as you have the latest n64 core, the rom should autopatch (you'll get a debug message about it)

[old iris]

Thanks a lot!

[green epoch]

Actually maybe you don’t get the message? 🤷

[old iris]

I have the latest core, what should I do? Just run the conker?

[green epoch]

yeah

it booted fine for me

[mossy vector]

yes? why all the questions?

[green epoch]

deep breaths, my guy

[old iris]

I am communicating through a translator, sorry if this looks stupid....

[green epoch]

you're good. totally fine to have questions

[old iris]

Thank you friend! You always help out!

[iron wren]

It’s true

[zinc dew]

Apologies we are English focused but it’s awesome you’re using a translator. It is working great, very easy to understand you.

Thank you for being here, please ask more questions if you have them.

[magic girder]

Also some people are just angry 😅

[green epoch]

some people are also devs, which is a different mindset

[magic girder]

This is also true

[mossy vector]

yes well it's like just try it. the conker is so fragile.

[zinc dew]

It’s alright, I can imagine a lot of this is overwhelming for some and not for others.

But sometimes we do need a reminder to just try it. 🍻

[weak hill]

hi guys, i dont know how it is said

or called, but where can i fing a n64 controller converter to plug it in the mister pi

[magic girder]

There are a few different options. Search for SNAC (or SNAC64, or similar) - or there are other options like the Reflex Adapt if you want to go via USB. In the USA, MiSTerAddons is a common store. In the EU; UltimateMiSTer is common; in the UK misterfpga.co.uk. (I can’t comment on other regions as I’m not familiar who ships there).

Something like: https://misteraddons.com/products/snax64?_pos=3&_sid=cf6709549&_ss=r
Or: https://misteraddons.com/products/reflex-adapt?_pos=5&_sid=cf6709549&_ss=r

[weak hill]

great info, thanks, ill look after those to see the best option to send to mexico

[magic girder]

(Sorry, no idea how to kill thumbnails)

[zinc dew]

Done! 👍

Wrapping your links with < > will disable embeds from appearing

[magic girder]

If you’re just looking to plug in a regular N64 controller, then something like the Reflex Adapt would be good. If it’s something more esoteric then you may want to use SNAC. There are pros and cons associated with each.

Thanks Robby 🙂

[jolly turret]

What would you guys say is currently the best N64 controller for the Mister? Is it the NSO controller or something else? I'm currently using an 8bitdo ultimate 2.4g which feels great but want to have proper c-buttons.

[magic girder]

I use a Tribute64. It’s kinda cheap feeling, but has decent latency and feels good enough to me

Only downside is that occasionally I want a proper N64 controller form factor - but that’s a me problem

[jolly turret]

Definitely want something premium feeling, maybe I should wait for the new Analogue controllers.

I don't care too much about having the correct n64 controller shape.

[magic girder]

It’s certainly passable, but not premium 😄

Although it does come in the translucent purple, soooooo… kind of a must buy for me

[weak hill]

im interested too haha

[green epoch]

I use a (wired) Hori Octo fighting pad. hoping the 8bitdo analogue 3d pad allows me to replace that

[zinc dew]

I don’t think there’s a best, there are trade-offs for every option.

I know that’s a cop out answer but it’s true. You’ll get a lot of different answers from everyone.

[jolly turret]

Trade off with NSO being latency? I'm also wondering how it feels, as my old original controllers all feel quite cheap but they are also very used up with loose analog sticks.

[zinc dew]

Yeah latency and incompatibility with some combo Bluetooth/wifi adapters

Also price and availability, since you have to be a NSO subscriber to purchase it

But for some people all of the above are non-issues

Others will tell you an OEM controller via SNAC/Reflex adapter is the best option. Hard to argue there but the lack of wireless could be a hindrance.

I think figuring out the best is just identifying what you prioritize and we can probably help you land on the best option for you.

[magic girder]

@compact depot has his cool wireless thingy, which seemed a nice compromise between using OG controllers and having wireless

[zinc dew]

Oh that’s pretty cool.

[magic girder]

Not sure if he’s still selling them though

[zinc dew]

Oh wow he made it? Damn that’s awesome!

@jolly turret I do really like the NSO controller though. I honestly don’t think you can go wrong there.

I personally don’t use it because of the incompatibility with my Bluetooth/wifi combo dongle.

I have to repair it every time, got annoying fast. I know the right solution is to get a better dongle but I am lazy!

[jolly turret]

I think that might be what I have to go for, just have to research it more, how to get signed up to NSO and what dongle to use with it.

[zinc dew]

You’ve got Amazon US?

[jolly turret]

I'm located in Europe

[zinc dew]

I do not know the return policies of Amazon EU but if you’ve got 30 days free returns then I suggest trying a Saffun controller.

But otherwise get a free NSO trial and then buy the NSO controller from Nintendo.

[steady basalt]

Iirc the NSO free trial don't make eligible to get the controller, when I got the trial I wasn't able to get icons with platinum points, nor participate on game trial events.

Only one way to be sure is trying though.

[zinc dew]

Ah damn that sucks! Thanks for posting that, I shouldn’t have assumed.

[compact depot]

I’m retired of making adapters 😅

[magic girder]

Fair 🙂

It looked awesome anyway 🙂

[trail swallow]

Pretty sure there’s a chance a Micro SD card can still be useable after it… comes out.

Apparently, USB drives can survive stomach acid

[languid dune]

But do they taste as good as Nintendo Switch games!?

[latent dagger]

The part of the drive that matters without it's plastic housing? Or will it only survive if it's in it's plastic housing.

[trail swallow]

https://www.intaforensics.com/can-a-usb-storage-device-survive-a-trip-through-the-human-digestive-system/

Here’s an interesting article about it

Says experts have still been able to retrieve data on USB devices that were fully digested

[stone pilot]

Is FAT32 saturated or unsaturated fat?

[trail swallow]

FAT32 is saturated, EXFAT is unsaturated

[green epoch]

and Fat16 is just lard

[blissful wolf]

Ext4 is transfats 🏳️‍⚧️

[topaz otter]

if you have to go this far to hide your files from the First Bunch of Idiots, best thing to do is not to download it at all

[brisk drum]

This game doesn’t get enough credit

[chrome pier]

Is there a way to get those n64 to pc adapters working with mister? For some reason i can never bind certain inputs properly

These are the ones with two sockets im talking about

[weak hill]

guys

im interested in this

https://misteraddons.com/es/products/snax64?_pos=2&_sid=4982e68aa&_ss=r

i have 1 question, this doesnt work in pc right? i cant connect my n64 controllers through this and connect it to pc right, have you tried?

[lone geyser]

Have not tried, do not need to try, it won't work

It'll work about as well as sticking wires in the N64 controller's connector and sticking the other end in your computer's USB slots

[latent dagger]

SNAC is for use with a SNAC port on the MiSTer FPGA. while the interface is USB, the data that is sent back and forth is native information to the controller no different than what is being sent to a real N64 and can only be interpreted and used with the N64 core (since it emulates the real hardware and software).

if you want to adapt original controllers to USB for use with PC and the MiSTer via the normal USB ports to then use any controller on any core as well as being able to control the MiSTer menus with the controller, you need something like the Reflex Adapter

the reflex adapt only has 2 ports on it though. you would additionally need some kind of multitap to add more.

https://misteraddons.com/products/reflex-adapt?variant=40398047477893

also, despite the name being SNAX64, it's just a SNAC adapter and works with all controllers you can buy SNAC pigtails for. it's not exclusive to only using N64 controllers, it's just called that because it is an upgrade to the previous SNAX adapter that only as 2 ports while this has 4 because the N64 does 4 Player games more-so than PS1.

[inner bronze]

SNAC uses an USB port because its small, cheap, and available. It does not carry USB signals. So no, it doesnt work on PC. If you want that, look into a Reflex Adapt, which does.

[zinc dew]

Also uses hdmi ports for the controller dongles but aren’t hdmi signals for the same reasons above. Nerds be resourceful, yo.

[topaz otter]

us nerds have to make due with small dongles and limited hardware

[weak hill]

thanks for your answers, i will consider a reflex adapt, so i can use it on pc too!

[zinc dew]

I’m friends with MisterAddons so I’m biased but the owner @graceful radish really knocked it out of the park on that one.

If you have any questions, it’s best to use the chat feature on his site. He answers pretty quickly.

[weak hill]

thanks man i appreciate the info

[lament escarp]

Always flexing that porkchop is your friend... wish I had such cool friends.

[zinc dew]

Sorry, I know it comes across that way but I just do that so people know that I am biased. I’m a mod and the last thing I want is for someone to think I’m trying to influence others.

It’s a hard thing to balance.

[lament escarp]

While I have to hang out with people like @magic girder and @languid dune and @abstract slate

[languid dune]

Well I know the bacon loving Youtubes man!

I also know some guy who has worked on Doom in the past and occasionally likes fat baby games! That's gotta be worth something!

[untold hemlock]

There's a Mr Addons discord as well. Lots of fun stuff about CRTs, controllers etc. Not affiliated, just enjoy lurking around there too.

[green epoch]

Stapletron is in the pocket of Big Pork™!

[untold hemlock]

Can we talk about Big Pork Pockets here?

[green epoch]

no no, there are children present

[untold hemlock]

Well, since I am a serial lurker, just to say thanks to @wanton sun for this core. Lots of joy from this.

[magic girder]

My MiSTer is basically an @wanton sun core box, at this point

[zinc dew]

He’s the reason why I got a MiSTer in the first place!

[stone pilot]

The Super Nintendo had some good games too

just a couple though

[magic girder]

Ditto, kinda. Once the PSX core came out, that was a “yes”, but the early hints that the Saturn core might actually be a thing too just made it a no-brainer

[magic girder]

True, but I’ll admit that I probably wouldn’t have paid extra for FPGA goodness if it was just 4th gen

(Over a pi 🤢)

[stone pilot]

Just a few short years ago, decent N64 emulation required like, a big boy computer

[magic girder]

Yeah, N64 and Saturn have always been kinda tricky, so the fact that we have both is insane!

[iron wren]

Ngl the n64 core was one of the top reasons I wanted to get a mister.

[weak hill]

mine practically will be the same hahahaha, thas why i loved the n64 case someone did here

[iron dove]

fwwwn made that awesome case 🙂
#1096015979055697940 message

[wanton sun]

thank you all 🙂

[wanton sun]

if anyone wants to try: the release candidates. If no issue is found with them, i would release them tomorrow. Turbo timing is relativly good this time, so i hope this works fine.

[quick arch]

What are the changes ?

[wanton sun]

only the palette changes to fix RE2. But turbo core mostly has always a chance of breaking due to the build and routing randomness

i would feel better if some people try some random games, but if noone will report any issue i will push it to the repo tomorrow

[blissful plaza]

I will try some games too later today and report back.
Thanks for the cores.

[spare meadow]

Thank you so much for the new cores! Already testing the new Turbo Core with KI Gold and everything seems perfect so far.

The vanilla core is the same build that is pin in this channel (multipallete test core) or it is a new build?

[wanton sun]

new build with better timing. Testbuild has random timing, this one is the best from ~10 different runs

typically i do 40 runs for release, but this time the 5th for normal build and 10th for turbo build have been so good, i just stopped there (both better timing than previous release)

[blissful plaza]

So far, so good on the regular core on the most sought upon games (Zelda, Mario, Kirby, KI, Goldeneye, WaveRace, Banjo & Conker).
Will continue later tonight.

[spare meadow]

Playing RE2 and KI Gold for sometime on Turbo and so far everything is good

[quick light]

Not had much chance to play the mister but il test the cores when I can.

[cerulean elk]

but has anyone checked Bomberman Hero? the IMPORTANT questions lol

[inner bronze]

Out of curiosity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DotEVFFv-tk

Would the listed 9th-bit quirks work on this core in its current state?

[marble cargo]

Vroom vroom

[blissful plaza]

Not at the moment.

But VERY important. 😏

[inner bronze]

Cant have an update video without Bomberman Hero

[deft tree]

Mario 64 split screen co-op, there’s several full ground up Mario 64 sequel romhacks, a couple banjo ones

And the various Mario kart ones are nice

[wanton sun]

no. The original memory controller isn't emulated at all. Not this 9th bit quirk and not the other quirks, like the boot rom waiting for it to complete init.
Also it would be much more complicated on the core as the 9th bit is stored in sdram seperate to normal rdram in ddr3 and only available to the RDP/GPU
It's basically a trick needed to perform at reasonable speed on mister

[inner bronze]

Ah, I had kinda assumed it was abstracted away with the memory controller implementation but I admit to not having checked the design

[wanton sun]

it's pointless anyway. What he doesn't even mention in the video is the super slow speed. compared to normal cached memory access this method breaks down to <1%, probably <0.1% of the performance.
Doesn't really fit to the other videos wanting to make things faster.

[inner bronze]

Oh I hadnt doubted it would be incredibly impractical

[wanton sun]

the problem with these newer hardware is that if you don't abstract things away (use HLE instead), it's way beyond what one can really do. e.g.:

• N64 emulators don't emulate the Memory controller, most don't emulate the PIF controller
• PSX emulators don't emulate the CD controller
  A company would have the resources to do so, but they are lazy and only care for some specific games to run

[inner bronze]

I think that with open-source and all that there's always gonna be a force that'll strive for more accurate implementations in name of preservation. It's just that we're also limited by the capabilities of this FPGA.

The more constrained the resources, the more you have to deviate from the original design you're trying to replicate as well

[wanton sun]

people need to be interested in it. E.g. if nothing can be won and nothing exciting happens for a low level minor controller, the motivation for most developers will be low

[inner bronze]

Of course, of course

[lament escarp]

This is how I feel about the megadrive nuked core tbh. Yeah it's great but... it's just like the genesis core we already had.

[inner bronze]

I dunno the specifics about that but it sounds like a bunch of people came together to make a 0.00001% more accurate core based on decaps.

[mossy vector]

@wanton sun not good. The non turbo 12/14 build has thin green vertical lines.

[wanton sun]

ah that bug again

maybe i just use the build before...

[weak hill]

i thought there was a slowdown when you selected a character, right?

[unique coral]

@blissful wolf I got my "saffun" controllers now and tested them. There is a minimal dead-zone along both the x- and y-axis.

btw, does anyone know a button combo to turn off the controller without waiting for the time out?

[spare meadow]

When using the vanilla core, yes. On Turbo core there’s no slowdown

[weak hill]

ohhh didnt know, NICE!

[zinc dew]

Excited to try out the new core

[zinc dew]

@wanton sun I’m not seeing this issue.

[latent dagger]

new PFP?

more zoomed out version

[zinc dew]

Weird my N64 build date still says V241109 even though I just copied over the latest build that AsumSpass posted this morning.

[latent dagger]

did you do a hard reset or a soft reset?

[zinc dew]

I copied it over while being on the main menu

[manic basin]

Ah.

[latent dagger]

ye but did you do a hard reset or soft reset afterwards

to refresh

[zinc dew]

Oh I did neither.

[latent dagger]

lol.

try refreshing

[manic basin]

It should refresh on directory browse.

[zinc dew]

I gotta do that? I didn’t know lol

[manic basin]

But because it's missing the date, you might be filtering it.

[latent dagger]

just cuz you think something should do, doesn't always mean it does do.
like all those people that have weird random issues they aren't supposed to have and end up needing to do a whole new fresh SD card setup

[zinc dew]

Weird still says the same date. I’ll try copying it again.

[zinc dew]

gonna frame this

[latent dagger]

maybe Robby will need to do a whole new SD card setup to make it show the correct build again

I haven't updated my MiSTer in a long while lol.

all these new mains and new N64 builds I need to get on top of

when Robert releases the new builds officially I'll probably then go and run update_all then grab the latest nightly main

[zinc dew]

Ok, I just don’t think it has the correct date on the build. Unless someone can verify me am silly man.

The Turbo one does have the correct date.

[manic basin]

Where are you looking for the date, exactly?

In the main menu list? In help? (I don't remember if there is help on the N64 core)

Or in file info?

[zinc dew]

Oh my bad, in the About option

In the core menu

[manic basin]

That troublemaker?

[zinc dew]

Yeah!

Is that the Turbo core

[manic basin]

Yes. And can confirm, the standard build didn't pick up the build date.

[latent dagger]

could be that robert compiled it with the same info as the previous core since it's a test build and didn't think about it

[manic basin]

Still has 241109

Yeah

That's my thought.

Buuuut, I'll just drop it in beyond compare to verify.

[zinc dew]

Ok cool, then me am not silly man

[manic basin]

Well, now...hold on....

[zinc dew]

lol noooooo

[latent dagger]

https://tenor.com/view/elmo-shaking-my-head-shake-head-smh-disappointed-gif-9643653969615227196

https://tenor.com/view/horse-man-funny-funny-horse-lol-gif-19104714

just another day for a Texan I think

[manic basin]

OK, they are binarily different, so it's def. a new build (not a 'grabbed the wrong one' scenario) so probably fine to test @zinc dew!

[zinc dew]

Ah thanks dude, sorry for the trouble.

[zinc dew]

That does actually happen, bald heads are like salt licks for horses.

[manic basin]

Trouble? This is the stuff I like doing here!

Investigation is fun!

[zinc dew]

Weird that I didn’t get the green lines but Haggerman did.

Maybe he was playing on CRT. I’m just using HDMI.

[manic basin]

@mossy vector I forget, are you using the RetroCastle pro I/O build?

[mossy vector]

I am using HDMI, on a very standard de10 nano.

[manic basin]

Copy. Thanks...hmmm. I'll see if I can mess with stuff until I break it right.

@mossy vector What are your output settings? V scale/etc.

[zinc dew]

For what it’s worth I messed with all the settings. Changing every video setting in the N64 core options and turning on/off scaler + shadowmask filters.

[mossy vector]

Don't need to to be that fancy with settings. The lines are there no matter what.

[zinc dew]

There isn’t a button combo but it turns itself off after inactivity pretty quickly. Here’s a photo of the manual of all the button combos you can do:

[green epoch]

what game is that?

[mossy vector]

Pilotwings 64

[manic basin]

Do you know the set info?

[mossy vector]

Make a suggestion, otherwise to me this is timing violation between the core's framebuffer and hdmi output. The line is much thinner than one n64 pixel width.

[green epoch]

I think it looks ok here

I included audio for maximum immersion

[zinc dew]

I was immersed and I love the dramatic camera zoom on the mountain 👁️👄👁️

[green epoch]

feels like you're there, right?

I took a couple of flm classes

no big deal

[manic basin]

Are you using the Sinden main? Or is that yellow border something else?

[green epoch]

that did it

24 bit color maybe?

yeah, I definitely see them now

[zinc dew]

Weird, still no issues for me. I even set my settings exactly like his.

[mossy vector]

Clean HDMI must be off. And look at the character select screen, not the title screen.

And the turbo core is fine. Only the normal one.

[manic basin]

Thank you, I had it backwards.

I was looking at the turbo core. Confirmed and captured

[unique coral]

Thanks!

[manic basin]

Clear as day in the intro, too.

(dunno if the direct HDMI capture helps in any way. But it's also corroboration)

[cerulean elk]

new feature....film stock emulation. Those are just lines from a rough print

[manic basin]

@wanton sun I have a 100% repro bug in the turbo core that's kind of interesting. In Body Harvest, immediately after starting a game as the pod descends, rumble is sent to the controller (non-SNAC) on an increasing scale, eventually maxing out the motors and the controller locks up. I'm using a wired 8bitdo Ultimate. I'll try other controllers and SNAC as well.

[magic girder]

Does it do that on older builds?

[manic basin]

That's what I was checking next. SNAC does NOT have the issue. Rumble over SNAC works fine.

[manic basin]

Yes. It's not a new bug.

It seems.

[zinc dew]

I can check too, just start a new game?

[magic girder]

I suspect it’s just expected turbo core weirdness due to running things faster than OG hardware

[zinc dew]

Oh Turbo core

Ok checking that

Damn didn’t happen for me

[magic girder]

I would do but I’m in bed and the MiSTer is downstairs 😅

Maybe a timing thing then? 😅

[zinc dew]

Trying with my Pro 2

[magic girder]

And/or a controller/firmware thing

[zinc dew]

Yeah can’t get it to happen

On the Saffun clone or 8BitDo Pro 2, both wireless

maybe an important distinction?

[magic girder]

Possibly. Could also depend on xinput/dinput too?

There are so many variables 😄

[turbid warren]

computers are wack

[zinc dew]

Yeah both were Xinput

Oh

It’s not when the pod touches down

It’s shortly after

But if you shoot the rumble stops

It didn’t crash for me on my Pro 2 when I connected it via cable

[cold pollen]

instructions unclear, controller blown away with a .45

[upper pivot]

https://youtu.be/DotEVFFv-tk?si=m2qWoGBEjT9HiQ0P

Is this handled properly on Mister? I imagine it would be

[zinc dew]

@wanton sun I can reproduce the issue but only with these specific parameters:

• using Turbo core
• using 8BitDo Pro 2 wired

Additional Info:

• Was only able to reproduce the issue 2/5 times with the 8BitDo Pro 2 wired.

• When the issue occurred, I left the controller rumbling nonstop for one minute, after which I fired my gun which stopped it. Did not crash.
• Using the 8BitDo Pro 2 controller wireless does not produce the issue.
• Using the 8BitDo Pro+ controller wired or wireless does not produce the issue.
• Using Nintendo’s NSO N64 controller wired or wireless does not produce the issue.
• Using my clone Saffun N64 controller does not produce the issue (can only do wireless).

[zinc dew]

No. This was answered earlier by the core developer - #1096015979055697940 message

He further elaborated that it’s a pointless endeavor as Kaze did not mention how slow accessing that extra bit would be. It would be less than 1% of the performance of normal cached memory access. However Majora’s Mask, the one retail game that does use it for the Lens of Truth, does work correctly.

[upper pivot]

Thanks @zinc dew

I think MM uses it not OOT according to the video

[zinc dew]

Oh you’re right my bad. I’ll edit my comment. Thanks dude.

[upper pivot]

Yeah the video was interesting but I also got the impression that the process to get access to those “extra” bits of RAM is so cumbersome it would never really be practical.

[drowsy lantern]

@wanton sun Some months ago I promised to you that I would play Conker through to the end if it became playable on the core, and today I am honouring this promise. I’d also like to extend my warmest thanks for all your hard and amazing work. Know that it brings immense joy to those who actually still play these old games and not just collect them. 🫶🏻

[zinc dew]

Oh damn, seems like the game locked up in one of your photos. Can you get that issue in GitHub?