6 ms·

I watched the video through only once, but unless I'm mistaken (the video is a little confusing on this point), the claim is that the original game did run cons

I watched the video through only once, but unless I'm mistaken (the video is a little confusing on this point), the claim is that the original game did run consistently at 30fps (the design framerate of the console), and the point of these hacks is to improve framerate for mods and devices that can play the game at higher rates. Unless I misunderstood something, it sounds like the original game was exactly as good as it needed to be, as released. And that's before you get to the fact that the mods require the RAM expansion pack.

kibwen 5y ago
The original Mario 64 would suffer lower framerates in certain areas (e.g. Dire Dire Docks). We can also imagine that if the artists had had more headroom to work with, then they would have spent it on making levels larger and more detailed.
- jbay808 5y ago
  Wasn't that because it had compiler optimizations disabled, due to a bug in the compiler that was subsequently fixed after the initial cartridge release?
  - jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
    No, it wasn't compiler flags. Put simply, there are too many objects on the screen in that particilar part of the level, and the engine has wasteful code that computes a certain piece of physics three times for every object on the screen iirc, among other things
  - ed25519FUUU 5y ago
    That’s particularly why performance in dire dire docks was bad, but Kaze goes WAY beyond just enabling -O2 in the compiler.
  - mcronce 5y ago
    It wasn't the only reason, but -O0 was a contributing factor. -O2 alone improves things, but doesn't bring the frame rate in DDD up to 30
- pjerem 5y ago
  Is it only a techno limitation concerning the size and details of the levels ? Mario 64 was already pioneering basically everything in the 3D platformers, and maybe even 3D games as a whole. Given it was a launching title, they had to stop somewhere and ship the thing. So, like any software with ever, they had to make tradeoffs. And, well, here we are talking passionately about this game 26 years after. For me it’s an amazing proof that they made amazing tradeoffs. Because, yes, we now have plenty of time to analyse the thing and find issues with the game. But, the 6yo me, the player me, they have nothing to criticize about this game. For me it is still a perfect masterpiece given its era and technical context. I don’t think the game could have been really better than it is without breaking something and I’m pretty sure that the engineers at Nintendo considered the game as « finished » and liked the result themselves. It shows in the game. The better would have been the enemy of the good. But in the meantime you are also right because Mario 64 DS was a really good extension. I miss this game, it really deserve to have its remake. But this version hugely benefited from the evolution of the Mario universe and the technical superiority of the DS so I’m not even sure it could have been done in the 90’s. I hope we’ll today be able to play a newer version of this game. Be it official or not, I crave for SM64DS with the original controls.
  - skocznymroczny 5y ago
    Quake launched a day before Mario 64, so I think 3D games would be fine without M64.
    - pjerem 5y ago
      I have nothing against Quake, it’s also a wonderful game. But Mario 64 solved more complex problems of the 3D nature : huge scenes with a lot of (moving) objects, moving in all directions, complex move set, camera, camera, camera… Quake is a nice game as it is but it’s much simpler when the player is the camera.
      - kolanos 5y ago
        Quake supported cameras, as you put it. People made movies in the Quake engine with literal camera shaped models floating around. Also, Quake levels could be huge, much larger than Mario 64. Take a look at Ziggurat Vertigo [0][1], for example. Mario 64 was much more colorful, though, Quake had an intentionally limited color palette. [0]: https://quake.fandom.com/wiki/E1M8:_Ziggurat_Vertigo https://quake.fandom.com/wiki/E1M8:_Ziggurat_Vertigo [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a72k_XBi2ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a72k_XBi2ls
- dudeinjapan 5y ago
  The epic music of Dire Dire Docks compensated for the framerate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqa2mgjbOIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqa2mgjbOIM
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    The music practically eased you into accepting the frame rate, slowing the player down a little with its calming mysterious chime.
    - sitkack 5y ago
      Pairs nicely with Opus 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7xn5zeJ4D4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7xn5zeJ4D4
      - dudeinjapan 5y ago
        I see your Opus 1 and raise you Billy Cobham - Heather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3E9vx5vVck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3E9vx5vVck
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Assuming they had the spare capacity on the cartridge and the time to develop additional content. Neither of which is a given.
prophesi 5y ago
I think the main thing is that Nintendo had splitscreen multiplayer planned, but performance prevented it. Edit: Got farther into the video and he talks about this at 14:50 ( https://youtu.be/t_rzYnXEQlE?t=890 https://youtu.be/t_rzYnXEQlE?t=890 )
- dudeinjapan 5y ago
  L is real 2401
amilios 5y ago
the framerate dropped in certain areas, it ran mostly consistently at 30fps but not perfectly consistently. These mods make it so that even in those areas it still maintains 30fps.
bredren 5y ago
The video is confusing on this point. The focus is on all the cool improvements and it seems like there is a lot to like. But at 6:40, the dev says their solution would not work on the stock 4MB ram included w the N64. It is kind of snuck in there. It’s kind of an important detail, because like the GTA loading screen fix last year it’s way more interesting when stories like this have a What If?! slant to them. Another commenter mentioned this below, but it’s buried. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31104112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31104112
- joshenders 5y ago
  About midway into the N64 lifecycle a ram expansion card (expansion pack) was released. His modifications sound like they still play on a stock N64 but the expansion pack is needed. This was fairly typical with higher end games made by Rare. Even as a purist, this added detail doesn’t really detract from the outcome of the project to me.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    Almost all games worked without the Expansion Pak ("Pak" intentionally spelt without a 'c'). In fact there were only 3 released games that required it[1] and even some of those were still playable without it, you just lost some content (eg Perfect Dark). If this Mario 64 mod requires the use of the Expansion Pak then it's definitely not typical of other N64 games and a point that, like the GP, I felt needed more emphasis rather than a passing remark that was very easy to miss. I'm not taking anything away from the incredible work that developer has done though. It's impressive and really interesting to see. From a hacker perspective it makes total sense to use the Expansion Pak because most retro gamers who might be interested in this mod would likely already have one. But from an authenticity perspective, this is a little bit of a cheat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expans...
    - propertymagnate 5y ago
      For perfect dark the content you lost was the main game, so it was pretty essential for it.
rawbot 5y ago
I believe the game can run at 60 FPS on a real N64 with the Expansion Pack installed using his modifications. I don't think all these changes, and mods, are limited to usse on emulators.
- avidphantasm 5y ago
  Noob question, how does one get his code to load on real N64 hardware?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/ed64x7.html https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/ed64x7.html These things are amazing for retro gaming enthusiasts because they let us play patches, mods, homebrew, and hard-to-find games on real hardware. Not that emulation isn't also wonderful.
    - Narann 5y ago
      An anecdote is that Krikzz was a Ukraine company. He moved to Spain when war begin and is slowly starting to ship stuff again. Its hardware are amazing.
nemetroid 5y ago
Target FPS varied between N64 games. F-Zero X, Super Smash Bros. and some others ran at 60 FPS, while Zelda only ran at 20 FPS (17 FPS in PAL regions).
- Narann 5y ago
  One reason for the gap in those specific titles is FZX and SSB use 1 cycle color combiner. Zelda use 2 cycles. SSB also have a very specific Z management. Levels are drawn without Z buffer, from bottom to front, then the character section (1 meter width) is drawn with Z buffer enabled, and the rest of the from level is drawn without Z buffer, once again from bottom to front. I never inspected FZX but I suspect its Z management is managed is a similar way.

kibwen 5y ago

The original Mario 64 would suffer lower framerates in certain areas (e.g. Dire Dire Docks). We can also imagine that if the artists had had more headroom to work with, then they would have spent it on making levels larger and more detailed.

jbay808 5y ago
Wasn't that because it had compiler optimizations disabled, due to a bug in the compiler that was subsequently fixed after the initial cartridge release?
- jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
  No, it wasn't compiler flags. Put simply, there are too many objects on the screen in that particilar part of the level, and the engine has wasteful code that computes a certain piece of physics three times for every object on the screen iirc, among other things
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  That’s particularly why performance in dire dire docks was bad, but Kaze goes WAY beyond just enabling -O2 in the compiler.
- mcronce 5y ago
  It wasn't the only reason, but -O0 was a contributing factor. -O2 alone improves things, but doesn't bring the frame rate in DDD up to 30
pjerem 5y ago
Is it only a techno limitation concerning the size and details of the levels ? Mario 64 was already pioneering basically everything in the 3D platformers, and maybe even 3D games as a whole. Given it was a launching title, they had to stop somewhere and ship the thing. So, like any software with ever, they had to make tradeoffs. And, well, here we are talking passionately about this game 26 years after. For me it’s an amazing proof that they made amazing tradeoffs. Because, yes, we now have plenty of time to analyse the thing and find issues with the game. But, the 6yo me, the player me, they have nothing to criticize about this game. For me it is still a perfect masterpiece given its era and technical context. I don’t think the game could have been really better than it is without breaking something and I’m pretty sure that the engineers at Nintendo considered the game as « finished » and liked the result themselves. It shows in the game. The better would have been the enemy of the good. But in the meantime you are also right because Mario 64 DS was a really good extension. I miss this game, it really deserve to have its remake. But this version hugely benefited from the evolution of the Mario universe and the technical superiority of the DS so I’m not even sure it could have been done in the 90’s. I hope we’ll today be able to play a newer version of this game. Be it official or not, I crave for SM64DS with the original controls.
- skocznymroczny 5y ago
  Quake launched a day before Mario 64, so I think 3D games would be fine without M64.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    I have nothing against Quake, it’s also a wonderful game. But Mario 64 solved more complex problems of the 3D nature : huge scenes with a lot of (moving) objects, moving in all directions, complex move set, camera, camera, camera… Quake is a nice game as it is but it’s much simpler when the player is the camera.
    - kolanos 5y ago
      Quake supported cameras, as you put it. People made movies in the Quake engine with literal camera shaped models floating around. Also, Quake levels could be huge, much larger than Mario 64. Take a look at Ziggurat Vertigo [0][1], for example. Mario 64 was much more colorful, though, Quake had an intentionally limited color palette. [0]: https://quake.fandom.com/wiki/E1M8:_Ziggurat_Vertigo https://quake.fandom.com/wiki/E1M8:_Ziggurat_Vertigo [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a72k_XBi2ls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a72k_XBi2ls
dudeinjapan 5y ago
The epic music of Dire Dire Docks compensated for the framerate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqa2mgjbOIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqa2mgjbOIM
- JetAlone 5y ago
  The music practically eased you into accepting the frame rate, slowing the player down a little with its calming mysterious chime.
  - sitkack 5y ago
    Pairs nicely with Opus 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7xn5zeJ4D4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7xn5zeJ4D4
    - dudeinjapan 5y ago
      I see your Opus 1 and raise you Billy Cobham - Heather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3E9vx5vVck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3E9vx5vVck
hnlmorg 5y ago
Assuming they had the spare capacity on the cartridge and the time to develop additional content. Neither of which is a given.

prophesi 5y ago

I think the main thing is that Nintendo had splitscreen multiplayer planned, but performance prevented it. Edit: Got farther into the video and he talks about this at 14:50 ( https://youtu.be/t_rzYnXEQlE?t=890 https://youtu.be/t_rzYnXEQlE?t=890 )

dudeinjapan 5y ago
L is real 2401

amilios 5y ago

the framerate dropped in certain areas, it ran mostly consistently at 30fps but not perfectly consistently. These mods make it so that even in those areas it still maintains 30fps.

bredren 5y ago

The video is confusing on this point. The focus is on all the cool improvements and it seems like there is a lot to like. But at 6:40, the dev says their solution would not work on the stock 4MB ram included w the N64. It is kind of snuck in there. It’s kind of an important detail, because like the GTA loading screen fix last year it’s way more interesting when stories like this have a What If?! slant to them. Another commenter mentioned this below, but it’s buried. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31104112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31104112

joshenders 5y ago
About midway into the N64 lifecycle a ram expansion card (expansion pack) was released. His modifications sound like they still play on a stock N64 but the expansion pack is needed. This was fairly typical with higher end games made by Rare. Even as a purist, this added detail doesn’t really detract from the outcome of the project to me.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Almost all games worked without the Expansion Pak ("Pak" intentionally spelt without a 'c'). In fact there were only 3 released games that required it[1] and even some of those were still playable without it, you just lost some content (eg Perfect Dark). If this Mario 64 mod requires the use of the Expansion Pak then it's definitely not typical of other N64 games and a point that, like the GP, I felt needed more emphasis rather than a passing remark that was very easy to miss. I'm not taking anything away from the incredible work that developer has done though. It's impressive and really interesting to see. From a hacker perspective it makes total sense to use the Expansion Pak because most retro gamers who might be interested in this mod would likely already have one. But from an authenticity perspective, this is a little bit of a cheat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expans...
  - propertymagnate 5y ago
    For perfect dark the content you lost was the main game, so it was pretty essential for it.

rawbot 5y ago

I believe the game can run at 60 FPS on a real N64 with the Expansion Pack installed using his modifications. I don't think all these changes, and mods, are limited to usse on emulators.

avidphantasm 5y ago
Noob question, how does one get his code to load on real N64 hardware?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/ed64x7.html https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartridges/ed64x7.html These things are amazing for retro gaming enthusiasts because they let us play patches, mods, homebrew, and hard-to-find games on real hardware. Not that emulation isn't also wonderful.
  - Narann 5y ago
    An anecdote is that Krikzz was a Ukraine company. He moved to Spain when war begin and is slowly starting to ship stuff again. Its hardware are amazing.

nemetroid 5y ago

Target FPS varied between N64 games. F-Zero X, Super Smash Bros. and some others ran at 60 FPS, while Zelda only ran at 20 FPS (17 FPS in PAL regions).

Narann 5y ago
One reason for the gap in those specific titles is FZX and SSB use 1 cycle color combiner. Zelda use 2 cycles. SSB also have a very specific Z management. Levels are drawn without Z buffer, from bottom to front, then the character section (1 meter width) is drawn with Z buffer enabled, and the rest of the from level is drawn without Z buffer, once again from bottom to front. I never inspected FZX but I suspect its Z management is managed is a similar way.