Well Nobody Saw This Coming! Nintendo 64 Core Announced

[werpu]

I guess on the 1st of April 2026 he will announce a working Ps3 core for the MiSTer...
Just kidding, I am absolutely psyched for this core.

[softtest9]

Hats off, this is unbelievable.

[thorr]

Same for me and add buying an EverDrive 64 during the chip shortage to that
That being said, I'm not selling anything until we get working core
Also, good thing I purchased those Tribute 64 wireless controllers that come both with an N64 and a USB dongle

Nice! There are only a handful of games that I have nostalgia for, so I opted to get real cartridges and have that "insert the cartridge" nostalgia feeling with it. I have the Retro Fighters controller and it's really great, and wireless, but it doesn't have rumble, and I don't think it will convert to USB but maybe with a cable (I have to check). They have a USB wireless version of it. I also have one original controller with rumble. The Tribute 64 controller looks like a good option, but I am not sure about the layout of the controls. I would have to try it. It does have rumble. Probably with the MiSTer, I will just use my DS4 controller, although the button layout might be a problem, so maybe not.

[Waifu4Life]

Nice! There are only a handful of games that I have nostalgia for, so I opted to get real cartridges and have that "insert the cartridge" nostalgia feeling with it. I have the Retro Fighters controller and it's really great, and wireless, but it doesn't have rumble, and I don't think it will convert to USB but maybe with a cable (I have to check). They have a USB wireless version of it. I also have one original controller with rumble. The Tribute 64 controller looks like a good option, but I am not sure about the layout of the controls. I would have to try it. It does have rumble. Probably with the MiSTer, I will just use my DS4 controller, although the button layout might be a problem, so maybe not.

Here's a good video for N64 wireless controllers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia9MknVDxaI

[thorr]

Here's a good video for N64 wireless controllers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia9MknVDxaI

Interesting. When I searched for the Tribute, the image looked similar to this, which is why I questioned the layout: https://www.amazon.com/Retro-Bit-Tribut ... B084Q9VZ71 The image in the Youtube video has the D-pad off to the left which is what I would prefer. I will check out the video. Thanks!

Edit: watched the video and it's great! I have the N64 version, not the USB version, so it will be interesting to test the Mario starts to run distance to see if it works better than the USB version on the real hardware.

[Ashfall]

Amazing! I've been using the Wii for N64 and Gamecube games, but it's just not the same.

for n64 on wii, not all games are compatible with that emulator right?

21 N64 games are Nintendo official virtual console. For the rest you have to use either Wii64 or Not64 emulators in a jailbroken Wii. And yes, not all work well.

[Neocaron]

All those N64 games are gonna look so good with true hdmi 1440p native scaling and shadow masks. I just can't wait!

[Waifu4Life]

Amazing! I've been using the Wii for N64 and Gamecube games, but it's just not the same.

for n64 on wii, not all games are compatible with that emulator right?

21 N64 games are Nintendo official virtual console. For the rest you have to use either Wii64 or Not64 emulators in a jailbroken Wii. And yes, not all work well.

22 actually, Custom Robo V2 was released in on the Japanese Virtual Console.

[jordi]

I do have a real n64 with everdrive and no expansion, but Nintendo did very bad for pal version and video output is crappy on modern tv. S-video fixes it a bit, but not as a real crt.

Mine has a sad story: we played a lot with it and goldeneye with a friend who died by cancer. So for me it's like remembering such afternoons.

[RetroP]

I do have a real n64 with everdrive and no expansion, but Nintendo did very bad for pal version and video output is crappy on modern tv. S-video fixes it a bit, but not as a real crt.

Mine has a sad story: we played a lot with it and goldeneye with a friend who died by cancer. So for me it's like remembering such afternoons.

I RGB Modded my PAL N64 with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxGIhH4mSoI

It now outputs RGB to Scart with de-blur.

[callanabrown]

An Ocarina of Time hack called Sealed Palace was just released yesterday, apparently 20 hours of gameplay that I'm excited to try. The core can't come fast enough!

[jordi]

FpgaZumpass be like

342975702-1414176739347278-6809231972539248109-n.jpg (126.19 KiB) Viewed 9246 times

[aberu]

So does that mean that Killer Instinct Arcade also has a chance?

Probably a lot harder to accomplish for bandwidth reasons. KI Arcade used an IDE hard drive for graphics, so this implies some kind of cache added to handle the streaming data as opposed to a ROM being loaded into sdram. the hard drive image could probably be treated similarly to a cd image in other cores. the original board also had multiple altera FPGA and CPLD on it, maybe handling things like the hard drive controller and other basic tasks. There was also a GAL20V8 onboard (Lattice PLD), probably used for copy protection? Not sure. Recreating these would probably be skipped in favor of simpler glue logic and leveraging existing stuff in the Main MiSTer binary. There was also 1M x 4 DRAM, 32k x 8 SRAM, an ADSP-2105 DSP processor (N64 port doesn't use any DSP, so not sure what differences are involved here), I think the KI Arcade hardware is a very different beast and is not identical to the N64 the same way the PS1-Based Namco hardware is to the PS1.

Finally the KI Arcade hardware uses a MIPS 4600 CPU whereas the N64 uses a MIPS R4300i CPU. The R4600 had less transistors and was technically a lower SKU in many ways, if it weren't for the doubled Cache size (16k --> 32k) which could be an issue. It also could run at higher clocks, but it looks like they ran it at only 50MHz for KI Arcade.

[Waifu4Life]

FpgaZumpass be like

[Milspex]

request : rename thread to N64

[Jegriva]

So does that mean that Killer Instinct Arcade also has a chance?

Didn't the Ultra 64 arcade hardware use to be famously totally different than the home console?

[rhester72]

So does that mean that Killer Instinct Arcade also has a chance?

Didn't the Ultra 64 arcade hardware use to be famously totally different than the home console?

100%...and thus less than zero chance for KI. It was a marketing stunt by Nintendo, and it worked (very well).

[eldritch]

Looks like there's already an N64 test core now and we might see games running on it in the next few months!

https://twitter.com/AzumFpg/status/1662 ... rF5pEuAAAA

On a side note would it be possible for us to get dedicated forum boards for Sega Saturn and N64?

[FPGAzumSpass]

we might see games running on it in the next few months!

That seems very optimistic, but i guess it depends on how "many" months is still "few"

[SegaMan]

Einstein: "Zeit ist relativ"

[hitm4n]

we might see games running on it in the next few months!

That seems very optimistic, but i guess it depends on how "many" months is still "few"

If you don't get the entire library working flawlessly within 6 months, you aren't doing it right

[AtomicShroom]

So does that mean that Killer Instinct Arcade also has a chance?

Didn't the Ultra 64 arcade hardware use to be famously totally different than the home console?

100%...and thus less than zero chance for KI. It was a marketing stunt by Nintendo, and it worked (very well).

Oh I know the hardware is completely different, but I meant it in a sense of “if there’s enough power in MiSter for the N64, then perhaps there’s enough power for that one too?”

[eldritch]

we might see games running on it in the next few months!

That seems very optimistic, but i guess it depends on how "many" months is still "few"

With your work, I tend to be pretty optimistic There was a time when nobody thought a PSX core was possible and look where we are now. I'm just thankful that this might even be possible. Thank you for all of your hard work.

[Waifu4Life]

I guess the only positive out of this system is that not counting region variants, there's less than 400 games and probably less than 200 worth playing.

[Duffygag]

I guess the only positive out of this system is that not counting region variants, there's less than 400 games and probably less than 200 worth playing.

[Atohmdiy]

I guess the only positive out of this system is that not counting region variants, there's less than 400 games and probably less than 200 worth playing.

Personally i have no interest in the N64 and have 0 nostalgia for it, but i still support this core on patreon for the beauty of the project

[Waifu4Life]

I guess the only positive out of this system is that not counting region variants, there's less than 400 games and probably less than 200 worth playing.

[aberu]

I guess the only positive out of this system is that not counting region variants, there's less than 400 games and probably less than 200 worth playing.

Personally i have no interest in the N64 and have 0 nostalgia for it, but i still support this core on patreon for the beauty of the project

Paper Mario is worth playing regardless.

[Waifu4Life]

Let's be real, when people say they like the N64, it's for: The Nintendo published games, the RARE published games, the Konami published games, the Hudson published games and the Midway published games. You'll only find a handful of titles worth playing outside of these 5 publishers that you can't find on other systems of the time like PS1, Saturn and Dreamcast which are all better due to the higher storage capacity.

[Mr. Encyclopedia]

I guess the only positive out of this system is that not counting region variants, there's less than 400 games and probably less than 200 worth playing.

I assumed this meant fewer games means less time spent debugging edge cases, and not an attempt to complain about the N64's limited library. You could say that "200 games worth playing" was maybe not the best way to phrase it, but then again how many consoles had more than 200 games "worth playing?"