Remember the absolutely stunning showcase of Super Mario 64 with ray tracing? Well, the same individual is now working on a new project that could evolve N64 emulation. Modder turned software developer Dario has just revealed 'RT64' (the path tracer behind the sm64rt project) is being transformed into a Nintendo 64 emulator plugin.
It started out life about "a month ago" as a way of optimising the "PC port's backend" and developed into a "generic emulation solution" that could be applied to a much larger library of N64 games. It can add ray-traced lighting, object motion blur, widescreen, DLSS and improve frame rate - going beyond 60FPS.
Of course, it is still in the early stages which means it's got a long way to go before a public release. It also remains an "impossible task" to make it compatible with every N64, and creating light for titles is a manual process. In time, a list of compatible games will be made available, so users know what games do and don't work with the plugin.
Below is just a small selection of games that currently support RT64. As you can see, there are games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, and the original Paper Mario game. Even the Snowboard Kids series is getting some love.
Dario reiterates how it won't be made available "any time soon" as there are still hundreds of issues to solve and features to add. The game library as already mentioned is also "extremely limited".
One other "interesting side effect" of this project is "researching a method to interpolate the rending commands sent by an N64 game without actually modifying the game at all" - which means games that didn't have 60FPS patches on N64 can now run at higher frame rates, without requiring unique patches.
Here are some additional screenshots - showing off series like Goemon and Rocket: Robot on Wheels:
What do you think of this early look? Leave your thoughts down below.
[source twitter.com, via gamesradar.com]
Comments 43
I'm fine with the originals (that ss doesn't even look very nice to my eyes), although I did play OoT with an HD texture pack in my phone and it did look pretty good.
If OOT needs anything it’s a fully controllable camera
To be fair, it makes the colours pop and the games look more solid because of it.
@Mr_Fox
That's what Ship of Harkinian is for.
The N64 emulator raytracing plugin is only a graphical mod, the underlying program will run exactly the same (unless you mod that, too.)
For emulators and what it brings to those old games, I actually like it. Now you only need to buy a £2000 GPU card
Wake me up when we get Space Station Silicon Valley with ray tracing
jk
It looks really good. Paper Mario and Kirby Crystal Shards really benefited from it
That’s pretty damn impressive. I’d love to see a new game with this style.
This would look even better with a HD texture pack like ai upscaling! Some games like Paper Mario maybe not since their textures are pixel art with heavy filtering so it would benefit those just toggling one-point filtering.
Can't wait to see Star Fox and F-Zero getting this treatment.
These look unbelievably good.
Looks incredible. I would love to see Wave Race at 60 fps and in 16:9
I just bought a japanese version gamecube with zelda tp and fzero gx.
don't get me wrong, I believe in forward progress, but the future might be better building media segments for fzero tv and zelda tp speed runs instead. Like, with the recent release of the retro consoles, perhaps if beckoned toward, they could remanufacture more gamecubes to more people.
watched miyamoto's keynote for mario galaxy - he explained why there wasn't a mario 128 sequel after mario 64. he said, well you already played mario 128 - that was pikmin.
@Mr_Fox that was one of the best improvements for MM on 3ds, shame they never went back to patch that in for OoT
It's neat to see, but personally it has an uncanny valley effect for me.
It's odd to see such unrealistic shapes/textures have such a realistic lighting source.
Gotta say they look impressive. Well done.
It looks very very impressive. I’d play Ocarina of Time again with this. Well, maybe I’d get back into the randomizer anyway, only so many times you can play the vanilla game.
This is eye opening. I always thought that generation was kind of ugly. I wasn't sure devs would lean into it as much on the indie side. I always understood the charm in pixel art and could appreciate what pixel art has been doing in the indie scene for the last ten years or so. Now that I see this, I could definitely see a resurgence of low poly throwbacks that could be stunning. We are just a few years away from games like this supporting real-time global illumination as the average. Pretty exciting.
I love how Paper Mario looks pretty much the same. Such a beautiful looking game.
OoT actually looks impressive with ray tracing. Neat.
People keep complaining that emulation is piracy and that piracy is "stealing games", but pirates keep doing a better job than Nintendo and other companies.
A wise fat man said that piracy is not a problem of price, it's a problem of service, start treating pirates like competitors.
@victordamazio I only Emulate games I own but I don't care if people emulate games they don't own because let's be honest here how else are you going to play these old games now anyway? I find emulation handy for when you're travelling for example. I can play my favourite games on both my PC and Phone.
I'm not too fussed about raytracing, especially for anything that isn't going for modern realistic visuals, but how I would love Zelda OOT and Mario 64 running at 60fps. I don't even want any silly texture packs, I like the original textures, I just want 60fps
“RTX On” meme comes to life
I hate edgelords like this, if you are never going to release it, why mention it in the first place? 🙄🙄
Amazing! I’ll always play on original hardware + CRT for nostalgia and to avoid too-sharp polygons which look a bit odd with N64 - but this project is very interesting.
Cool for people who like this sort of thing but I've no interest in this ongoing process of bending old games into new shapes, it always looks awkward and unpleasant. If I want a modern game I'll play a modern game. If I want an old ugly 3D game I'll play an old ugly game. These skin graft projects are weird.
Super good news And I hope it will be compatible with texture packs.
Emulators are no more encouraging of piracy than owning a knife would be of stabbing someone. It's what the user does with it that counts.
@wonderclassic Yeah I mean if you got old game discs and have an emulator and a disc drive for them, you can basically use the emulator as a game console substitute. No piracy involved. In a sense they just help preserve these games, making them accessible and giving you different options on how you can play them.
To me, Kirby 64 is the most impressive. Kirby and Waddle Dee both look they have WAY more detailed models than they actually do, and it looks so weird, but still nice.
What angers me most about this is that Nintendo could be doing this for their fans. I would love to be play OoT at 60fps and a nice resolution boost to the textures. And yes, I do own the 3DS version.
& Nintendo's switch online expansion won't do any of that lol
@TheMelodiusRose love the Goemon games! Souch character and humor. And i don't know why, but those N64 graphics just grab me. Love it.
If 30 fps can be turned into 60 fps, that is an absolute gamechanger not only for this emulator, but all emulators. Imagine playing Wipeout 2097 on PSX at a smooth 60 fps!
That Goemon dude with the big blue hair is gonna have his face permanently in shadows lol
Love these kind of upgrades. Like Silent Hill 2 Enhanced Edition.
Heck yes. Ray traced Zelda. Just what I always dreamt of. 😉 I am perfectly satisfied with the 3DS remakes myself. Those were updated versions in Nintendo's vision, which was at its apex in creativity during both the Wii and 3DS era. Fantastic remakes of both Nintendo 64 Zelda games.
@RupeeClock Really not keen on having to get a ROM and decompile just to work on SOH. Too much work.
Boring. Just play the originals. A new effect here or there is not gonna change the game any better. It might even look out of place compared to the rest of the artstyle.
Why aren't all these people making their own games instead of modding games belonging to Nintendo? If they created their own IP they could even get paid for it.
@mikegamer
You don't decompile the ROM, you just provide it to the PC tool and it makes OoT playable on PC with configurable enhancements.
I will say to get it running myself, I did have to dig out the N64 ROM out of my personally dumped copy of the Ocarina of Time bonus disc I had for GameCube.
@RupeeClock Still sounds like a hassle
Always frustrates me what hobbyists are able to do in their spare time. Just think what Nintendo could do, but won't.
@Link-Hero Not my problem
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