The best N64 Emulator for Windows may finally be coming back to life:
The project has been on hiatus for a little bit, well probably about a year! With the payments, I have found another company to try. I have re-enabled the donation page to see how they work out. The account creation process is not automatic so I will have to create the accounts by hand. I still have a busy life, things have not slowed down. My wife is now currently 8 months pregnant. If this payment method works, then I will over the next few months look at doing some work on improving the site. Then I will get back to the actual coding of the emu, where I am sure everyone of you would like me to be.
The Glide64 Team proudly presents you the new release of our project – 'Napalm'!
The project now consists of three parts. The main part – Glide64 graphics plugin – was changed a lot since the previous public release. It’s simply impossible to list all modifications. New version has tons of bugfixes and optimizations. Large number of special effects implemented. Lots of hacks removed, because they are not necessary anymore. Lots of previously unplayable games are playable now. Lots of games, which worked good before now work even better. Screen shots of most noticeable improvements were posted on our forum. Check also the updated screen shots gallery.
The second part – Glitch64 glide wrapper – was also changed much. Beside various fixes and optimizations it now supports anisotropic filtering and compressed textures.
The third part – GlideHQ – is a new module, which implements various texture enhancement techniques. It supports 6 texture filters, 7 methods of texture enhancement, 2 methods of texture compression. Beside that it fully supports Rice’s format of Hi-Resolution texture packs, with various optional techniques to save texture memory.
Project related documentation was improved too. We put all useful docs in one file 'Glide64 Info.chm'. Please read 'Readme' part of it, at least first two chapters, with general information and setup instructions.
Due to huge number of changes, new bugs might be introduced too. Despite the intensive beta testing during all period of development, some issues had been found and fixed right before the release. Thus, if you will find an issue, which is not mentioned in the 'Known Issues' part of the documentation, please report about it on our forum.
I gave this version codename 'Napalm'. 'Napalm' is also the codename for VSA-100 graphic chip, on which 3dfx Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 series were built. I still use Voodoo 5 in my home PC. This version of the plugin uses a lot of VSA-100 special abilities; therefore it was also named ‘Napalm’. BTW, there are few effects, which you can see only on VSA-100 based cards, or on N64 itself. Check 'Games Tips and Tricks' part of the documentation for details.
- Fixed many problems with texture/palette CRC calculation. Almost all hires textures are loaded now. Note: GlideHQ does not support textures in jpeg format. If your hires pack has textures in jpeg, you must convert them all to png.
- Fixed texrects alignment issue. Note: There is an issue with texrects size in Mario Kart, which causes black lines in many menu textures. Thus, I use old texrects size calculation method for this game, which causes fewer artifacts.
- Fixed crash in Zelda OOT
- Fixed an issue with alpha channel of hires textures, which become apparent as a black boarder around texture. Added new option, related to this issue: Use alpha channel fully. When this option is off, 16bit rgba textures will be loaded using RiceVideo style – with 1bit for alpha channel. When it is on, GlideHQ will check, how alpha channel is used by the hires texture, and select most appropriate format for it. This gives texture designers freedom to play with alpha, as they need, regardless of format of original N64 texture. For older and badly designed texture packs it can cause unwanted black boarders. Default value: Off.
This project dedicated to bring you, Glide64 users, various advanced texture enhancements. The author of GlideHQ is famous Hiroshi ‘KoolSmoky’ Morii, well known as an author of 3dfx drivers and tools. I also must thank Rice for his indirect help – most of texture enhancement algorithms were taken from RiceVideo sources.
GlideHQ is a separate optional module. That is, Glide64 can work without it, if you don’t need texture enhancements. GlideHQ can apply various filters (smooth, sharp), enhancements (X2SAI, HQ4X etc) and compressions to input texture. Resulted texture is used instead of the original one.
To install and test GlideHQ, download GideHQ distributive and unpack it into Plugin folder. In Glide64 configuration dialog, open “Texture enhancement” tab and select options you like.
Current version is a prototype, based on Glide64 “WonderPlus”. That is, for end-users this is Glide64 “WonderPlus” with texture enhancements. Since it is a prototype, it can be buggy, slow, inconvenient and so on. Thus, we need your feedback to make it better.
GlideHQ 0.4:
I've restricted memory cache to 128Mbytes. It will grow till it reaches 128mb and swap out old texture cache. The memory cache will be dumped to disk when you stop emulation and loaded when started. A "*.dat" file will be created for each game under .Plugincache. For now they will be saved uncompressed.
GlideHQ 0.3:
I've added memory cache to cache filtered textures. Once a texture is filtered it will stay in the cache and be used until you exit emulation. For now only memory cache. In the Glide64 configuration dialog, open “Texture enhancement” and tick "Cache texture to system memory".
More than a year since the last release, Gonetz assures us his plugin is still alive.
• Improvements in hardware frame buffer emulation for Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, Mickey's Speedway USA
• Added support for highlighted objects in Perfect Dark. Added support for coronas in this game (requires software depth buffer rendering). Both features are very important for correct emulation. Now Glide64 emulates PerfectDark nearly perfect, only sky is still missing. Needless to say, that all frame buffer based effects work too (there are many of them in this game).
• Fixed combiners in several games.
Hacktarux's glide wrapper has seen some improvements as well.
• fixed dithered alpha emulation on ATI cards
• fixed chromakey functions
• fixed Lens of Truth problem in Zelda MM
• added some missing combine modes
A new version of the Nintendo 64 emulator for the Mac known as sixtyforce has been released. Here is what Gerrit posted for version 0.8.5.
sixtyforce 0.8.5 has been released. It is hands down, the best release in years.
While it is nowhere near perfect, compatibility is at its highest ever and sixtyforce has become the first (and only) Nintendo 64 emulator to dynamically recompile to both PowerPC and Intel.
This version includes lots of changes, but most importantly game freezing and autosaving are back and better than ever. This is also the first release that runs as well on Intel machines as it does on PowerPC. In fact, it runs better.
WIth the Intel conversion complete, the plan for future versions is to go back to the basics: higher compatibilty and better emulation.
Also if you want to help support this project and take full advantage of sixtyforce you will want to register your copy over at the official site.
"I've recently continued working on the N64 emulation. After fixing some RSP bugs and adding tons of features to the RDP emulation, many games are starting to look quite good."
After a long time without activity, Rice decided to release the sourcecode from the very latest version of his famous video plugin for Nintendo 64 emulators.
Here is what he had to say about this release:
Hi, everyone
I have not touched my RiceVideo project for quite a few months. I really do not have time to actively do anything about it. I understand that it has many major/minor problems with different games, but I don't feel to have the motivation to fix them.
So, I would like to release the source code right here. I don't think it matters too much to the N64emu community anyway. If someone, somehow could do something with it, or borrow some ideas from it, I will be happy.
02/10/06 - 64th Note v1.1 FINAL released
* Proper initialization of tag flags (FIFOFull, CountException)
* 1.1 has been stable for a while, it's time to get the memory fix out there.
zilmar posted some interesting news on LLE emulation at EmuTalk:
One of the new things that have now been added in to the current beta of project 64 is low level graphics. It is slow running at 5-30 fps on my machine, so you would not want to play a game with it. Some games look great, others not so good. Here are a couple of screen shots. Feel free to discuss this here.
Check out the screenshots and join the discussion here
12/04/05 - 64th Note v1.1 beta 4 released
* In a lot of situations the Fade Type dropdown list didn't appear, this has been fixed. Also, "no fade"
has been added as an option, for those who would like an abrupt ending (or want to let their output plugin
handle it)
12/03/05 - 64th Note v1.1 beta 3 released
* reg caching reenabled (was disabled in beta 2, it caused problems which are now fixed), better speed
12/03/05 - 64th Note v1.1 beta 2 released
* implemented method for register access via exception handler that works with new memory allocation,
needed for several games, also allows Animal Forest to run under interpreter
It took longer than expected but it's now out. This version is probably still in a beta stage but the porter needs as much feedback as possible to understand which systems are having troubles with mupen64. You can give your feedback on the mupen64's message board. This build is supposed to work on both PowerPC Macs and future MacTels.
What's new:
• Fixed many bugs in combiners (mostly for Voodoo 4/5).
• Fixed bug in large textures support, which caused texture distortion in few games, e.g. Yoshi's Story.
• Fixed texrects with zero height.
• Hack, which I used to enable videos in Resident Evil 2, is proved to be useful for some other games to show previously hidden graphics. For example, you now can see race map before race start in LEGO Racers.
• Hardware frame buffer emulation is tweaked to support all effects in Paper Mario. Now this game works almost flawless on Voodoo 4/5. It is recommended to use Mupen for this game with "Get frame buffer info" enabled to get correct background in the main menu (this feature is finally works too).
This release also contains updated version of Hacktarux's glide3x wrapper, which fixes fog problems with latest ATI drivers. Updated versions of special ini files from Federelli and olivieryuyu are included too.
Smiff posted another RDB and GameFAQ update for Project64.
RDB updates fix configuration problems on some games and add new games to the ROM database of PJ64.
GameFAQ updates help fixing possible problems with games and has information about games with problems that cannot be fixed.
For more information you can visit this thread on EmuTalk and the Project64 Official Site.
After some months without updates Smiff posted another RDB and GameFAQ update for Project 64. You can view the full list of changes in this EmuTalk thread.
Head over to the Project64 Official Site for more info.
A new beta version of this USF-plugin for Winamp has been released.
* removed DirectSound buffer problem workaround, turned out to be unneeded
* pause/unpause now only occur when they'd actually do something (fixed ASIO crash)
* updated in_usf.ini (Mario Kart 64 no longer set for Auto Audio HLE, Shadowgate 64 added)
A new beta of this USF-plugin for Winamp has been released.
* Fixed bug with loading save states with FR in the status reg set (Turok 3)
* Workaround for a buffer problem with DirectSound output plugin, track would cut off half second too soon
Bighead has updated his very nice online Nintendo64 Emulation Configuration List with a whole new layout and much easier to use format. This is a very nice list for those looking to see what configuration works best with each game.
Head on over to Bighead's site to check out the new look to the configuration list. :)
A new beta build of 64th Note (USF plugin for Winamp) has been released. Here is what was posted for the beta 20 build.
Hmm, like Josh I've been unable to get it to open two windows at once. What version of Winamp are you using? I tried on 5.07 and 2.95.
In any case I've modified it so that it won't allow two info windows even if winamp requested it.
I changed a few instances of MessageBox that were left in the RSP (and some in the Audio HLE that hadn't really been a problem) to DisplayError so they're now affected by the configuration. All the TLB errors, however, were already DisplayError, so those shouldn't show up if Display Errors is disabled anyway.
Head on over to the official site for more information.
A new beta build of 64th Note (USF plugin for Winamp) has been released. Here is what was posted for the beta 16 build.
round frequency is now stored in in_usf.ini, as I might have to add new dacrate settings to the list and there's no sense in rereleasing the plugin every time that happens. plus the easy user-editability.
It now includes a setting for Mortal Kombat 4, so that should now work with out_asio.
Head on over to the official site for more information.
A new beta build of 64th Note (USF plugin for Winamp) has been released. Here is what was posted for the beta 15 build.
• removed a warning and interrupt in GenerateSectionLinkages (needed for Mario Tennis)
• added Auto Audio HLE (included file is incomplete but should be correct for those games it supports)
The Auto Audio HLE function depends on the in_usf.ini, which isn't nearly complete. I'll test some more as I go along. If you want to play with it yourself it is documented in the included 64thv100b15.txt. It's pretty basic, and I just use a checksum because I didn't know CRC32 off the top of my head.
Head on over to the official site for more information.
A new beta build of 64th Note (USF plugin for Winamp) has been released. Here is what was posted for the beta 14 build.
Fixed tab order (at least it's logical now). Focus is set in info window now so tabbing will get your right into the fields rather than having to click first.
minor change, but I figure I should get it out there anyway...
Head on over to the official site for more information.
A new beta build of 64th Note the USF plugin for Winamp has been released. Here is the changes for 1.0 Beta 13.
* added alternate fade types (linear, log, cos)
* cleaned out unused options
* added "Track" field to USF Info window
* changed "Tagger" to "Tagged by"
* generally rearranged USF Info window
I don't like the empty space in the info window next to the track field, but I can't figure out a way to eliminate it. Track should be the first field in the window, so I can't just shove it in a corner.
Also, the three fade types discussed are now implemented and selectable in a combo box (which I just learned how to implement). cosine is the default at the moment, as it has won me over, but I'm still not sure it should be the default in the final version.
Something else I should mention: before release I intend to add a setting in the INI that specifies which version the settings are for, and if the version is different from the current version (or not set) the default settings will instead be written and used. This is to start everyone off with a clean slate after this beta test period has ended.
[edit]
Bah, looking at the info window the spacing between fields is a bit uneven and this is irritating me. I don't consider myself much of a UI designer but I do like consitancy in my dialogs. So here's the fastest new version yet.
A new version of 64th Note, a USF player for Winamp has been released. 64th Note alows you to play songs from your favourite N64 games on Winamp as long as the music of these games have been ripped to USF format.
For more information you can visit the 64th Note Official Site.
Hacktarux has just updated the Windows version of the recently released Mupen64. Here is what was posted about the update.
Update: Because of a problem in the framebuffer code with glide64 (introduced while packaging mupen64 0.5 for release), i had to update the windows version to 0.5.1. You can download this updated version from the download section of the site. Now the framebuffer effects i was talking about should really work with glide64 ;) I have also updated the linux archive with a fixed Rice's plugin : changing the resolution should work now.
Head on over to the official site more information.
Hacktarux let us know that Mupen64 0.5 has been released at last:
Yes! Finally! A year of work is out. It's a compatibility and stability release. That kind of improvements are very hard to do but i think it was worth it. Look at the what's new list if you want to know the detail of what's been changed. A few notes on this release : the linux version is using gtk2 and all plugins should be compiled for gtk2. The source code archive includes the source code of many plugins (it means everything's ready to start playing after compiling it). On linux, you can compile a command line version named mupen64_nogui. The multi-users installation has been improved and should work now. The windows GUI is much more stable now with all plugins : everything is closed correctly when stopping emulation. I've also worked closely with Gonetz for this release. I have added some framebuffer functions that are currently only enabled in Glide64. To try it, don't forget to enable the Get Frame Buffer Info option in the Glide64's configuration dialog box. Mario kart's first race monitor should work almost full speed with this option as well as many other frame buffer effects. I'm very sorry for OSX users, we couldn't get something stable released at the same time as the other versions... but don't worry lamer0 is working on it and it should be released soon ;)
I'm now accepting donations. This release is the result of years of work. If you enjoy using it or if you like any of my n64 emulation project, please consider making a donation to support mupen64 development. Even a small donation would be very encouraging.
Binaries for Windows and Linux are available from the Mupen64 website, while the source code can be grabbed in this thread at EmuTalk. Leave your comments here!
Project64 author zilmar has just posted a thread regarding Project64's future in this thread:
As you might know the Project64 team mostly have busy lives these days. Improvements, fixes and new features still get added to PJ64 behind closed doors. We've always tended not to talk about what's going on, it probably seems like PJ64 happens only every few years, but really its more like a continuous process; sped up around releases and at many other times with no public sign. We always try to maintain a high quality complete release, so even if a nice feature is added it will not be public until everything else is complete. You've probably noticed public PJ64 releases are irregular, and they are difficult due to a natural reluctance to release – it's risky and actually takes time away from dev., and because everyone needs free time at the same time.
Where are we going with this? Well, no we're not planning a major change to our public release schedule, it works for us and we've been going for a long time. We once ran a program where if you donated money then we would be able to help beta test. We are considering doing something similar again, some type of donated subscription where you get access to all the latest test builds, bug tracking information, latest news of what the different team members are planning to do, what we are doing. This might even include just saying we are too busy with real life and we will be back on such-and-such a date. That way you could see whenever you want exactly what is happening.
This idea and point of this is that it allows you to show real practical support to the PJ64 team (who are btw, not rich). Firstly, it would let you thank us for all the work we've done over the 5+ years, if you just wanted to do that. Secondly, it would be a real way for anyone to improve the prospects for next few years of Project64. In the short term, it will give you access to all new features and fixes, and more as they appear. It would also give users who subscribed more voice and what should be added/fixed with PJ64, for we would like to set up some private forum for these people (unlike the public forum which has always had a 'no requests' policy). We cannot promise to do everything that people want, Project64 will still be a free hobby project, but if someone is supporting us of course we would like to support them too. Subscribers would be viewed as partners, not customers, with certain things expected (e.g. not leaking builds), although the amount you participate would be up to you. To be blunt, the support we do or don't get with this setup, if we went ahead with it, would likely have big effect on the future of Project64. We've long passed the point where we've done everything we set out to do for ourselves - future progress is dependent on motivation, from in and outside the current team to take things further.
Any suggestions or comments? This is only something we're thinking about at the moment.
