Star Fox 64 Finally Barrel Rolls Onto PC Thanks To An Unofficial Port

Amazing news!!! This is one of my all-time favorites!!!!

Can't wait to try it after work 🥹💜🙏🏻

Not me foolishly waiting for a battletanx pc port that will never happen since it's not a widely known game.

This is great news however.

Nab this before Nintendo sycophants alert their idol to this project's presence.

can't wait the inevitable unfunny "Nintendo takedown" comments

@axelhander there's one.

I will say it again, Nintendo should be on the blower to NightDive Studios and have them give all N64 games their HD remaster treatment.

All the N64 games would benefit massively from improved framerates, HD sheen and widescreen support.

Happy holidays

Active verbs in the headline will soon become past tense. Thankfully we might have 4 days before the C&D is issued since their legal team might - just might - be on vacation this week.

@SBandy1
I doubt Nightdive will do exclusives for Nintendo, as all their remasters are always multiplatform.

Those who did the 1080p Zelda HD Remasters for Wii U, Mass Efffect 3 Wii U and Deus EX Revolution Wii U could have done N64 remasters, but they have been silent for years now...
Perhaps they have merged with Tantalus.

"Straight Right" were the masters of ports on Wii U as they also always added bonus features not in the originals.

now they gotta add wii remote controls and it's the perfect game

I just tried it on PC now, and it's a lot better than i expected.

@Toastmaster

Really it is just a pipe dream of mine as I think Nightdive are masters of their craft when it comes to remastering games from that era.

Finally being able to play Turok 2 at 60fps as opposed to 5fps (it really got that bad on N64) is glorious.

@SBandy1 Nightdive are the masters as they know how to do it properly. They even upgrade graphics on a few now without ruining the original look. Turok 3, Killing Time and The Thing for example.

Nightdive remasters are how we remember the games, but as you know the originals aged as bad as milk and had poor frame rate.
As far as i remember the graphics on N64 were also darker than the remasters.

Nightdive seem to do several remasters at the same time as they release several every year.

I hope someone port "Beetle Adventure Racing" from N64 as it were a very good racer that would be even better at 60 FPS and high resolution.

@Toastmaster

That would be amazing, loved that game back in the day!

@SBandy1 It was a unique racer, and people still talk about how good it were.
Hydro Thunder aged well, and i think Beetle aged as well too.

I found this info.
"Nearly all Nintendo 64 games can now be recompiled into native PC ports to add proper ray tracing, ultrawide, high FPS, and more"

Hopefully Beetle is among them.

@Toastmaster

I may have to finally become a PC gamer if that's the case and Nintendo and others won't provide an alternative.

@N00BiSH What’s wrong with comment #2? Battletanx is an amazing gem on the N64. 3DO deserved so much better.

I would love a Star Wars mod where they are X-Wings that would be sick

@SBandy1 Super Mario 64 emulated at 900p is what happens when Nintendo do these things themselves.
Nintendo didn't even bother to do anything with Goldeneye, while Microsoft made a upgraded Goldeneye that runs natively on Xbox, twice...
Microsoft hacked over 600 Xbox 360 games too, where many got upgraded graphics, 4K etc. All upgrades were free for everyone.
Nintendo's only hack were Super Mario 64 perhaps, and their emulator that ripped off Kaillera from PC so N64 could work online.
If Nintendo add GameCube to Nintendo online for Switch 2, the games will most likely only be emulated.

Would be cool if they added in the Star Fox 64 version of Krystal that someone made into the game. You can find that model and rig on the Krystal Archive to see what it looks like. It's as if she was already a member of the team to begin with (so she's in the flight suit and jacket, scarf, boots, gloves, and even has a blaster).

That's one wide screen

@N00BiSH A joke is intended as humor, but mine is entirely serious. If you think it’s funny, that’s on you, but please refrain from harassing my neural divergence as I am a literal thinker.

Cool to see though I wouldn't change anything on the original so I won't play this. Patiently waiting for the Body Harvest port. Or a remake. Or sequel. Anything, really. I need more of that Starship Troopers x GTA x Metroid vibe and nothing has come close since, and BH is far from perfect. At least playing it again on the upcoming Analogue 3D will be a blast.

Just waiting for the white knight Nintendo sycophants to all come marching in lol

Just waiting for the “Nintendo evil! Grrrr!” crowd to keep filing in. Seriously you all act like the ghost of Iwata is haunting you lol…eats popcorn

I'm tempted to start a fan redub project, if only so I can have an excuse to do some of my favorite voices from the game!

@N00BiSH Aww and I didn't even have to try

I'm still waiting for Banjo Kazooie. It's wild that no one has ported it yet despite of the decompilation being finished.

@N00BiSH As previously stated, it’s not meant to be funny - not my fault if you think it is. It is a literal interpretation of the chain of events. You sure as hell could’ve convinced me otherwise considering that you have gone out for your way to target everyone who made a comment that even remotely comes off as a joke to offer your “you’re not funny” feedback. So yes, you’ve managed to trigger my RSD. If you were really sorry you’d go back and remove your hateful, discriminatory rhetoric you’ve been spewing out at all the other commenters and myself whom you don’t think are funny, but you haven’t.

@Wilforce okay, I can recognize when I've crossed a line. I'm sorry if I've made you feel uncomfortable with my comments(which I'll gladly rescind most of), but try to understand I wasn't trying to be hateful or discriminatory towards anyone. I've no ill will towards the people who made those comments, I didn't reply to target or bully, just to highlight the usual response that stems from articles about Nintendo fan content like this.

I've been hotly anticipating this port, I needed some good news after dealing with an odd issue from my main PC. thankfully these run like hot butter on my potato of a laptop.

@Toastmaster @SBandy1 A surprising number of N64 games can run at 60fps via emulation, simply by turning up the overclock setting- this includes Beetle Adventure Racing! There are also a bunch that work well with emulators' built-in widescreen hack feature, though it can be hit-or-miss.

Still, a proper remaster is even better than even this, and I'm all for some skilled studios getting more N64 games cleaned up. That was such a great generation for fun, varied, and interesting games, but the technical issues (particularly around performance) really hold things back, making this possibly the era most in need of remasters.

@smoreon Yep, i know you can play them at 60 FPS in emulator too which is nice, and also add HD texture packs with upgraded graphics.

In January 1999 when the first N64 emulator came, i connected my real N64 controller to PC using Adaptoid to play Mario 64 on PC at 60 FPS thanks to my 3DFX Voodoo 2 card.

Nintendo 64 still isn't 100% perfect emulated after 25 years in any emulator, and is why they are porting them to PC instead now so the games can be ran properly like the originals.
Perfect Dark 64 supports 1000 FPS natively...

When the N64 games runs natively on PC, the graphics isn't stretched.
Also...Back in around year 2001-2002, i used Kaillera to play Mario Kart 64 online with a friend for the first time.

This is such an anticipated release! It is like another dream come true every time I can play an old classic that I've enjoyed, but now at 240 frames per second (or whatever higher frame rate a future monitor I buy can display, hopefully 480fps soon!). It really is incredible to play Starfox 64 at a high frame rate. So beautiful, so responsive, so fun! Thank you Harbormasters!

Reading the comments I just want to add that I've definitely noticed how great Beetle Advemture Racing looks via emulation. Basically locked at 60fps.
I've also enjoyed some Diddy Kong Racing over the past months. It has a 60fps hack for emulation that works OK. It seems to crash a bit often.
Can't wait to see what Harbormasters do next! I hope it is Wipeout 64, but won't hold my breath!
Oh, it was also cool to read that a longtime Nintendo dev who helped make Starfox 64 said he was happy to see the PC port.

@Toastmaster That's amazing. I didn't know people were playing Mario 64 at 60fps back in 1999. It blew me away when I first got Mario 64 running on my Deck and saw it at 60. Since I got my new laptop I've been playing it at 240, which is incredible. So fun!

I think it should say "Starship", not "Starlight" in the article.

@120frames-please Cool. Starfox 64, Perfect Dark and Zelda Majora's Mask PC ports runs perfect on my Legion Go PC Handheld with it's 8.8" screen.

UltraHLE shocked Nintendo and the world January 1999 during prime time of N64. It only supported 20 games or so.
The only reason why the emulator ran fast, were because it required the fast 3DFX Card on PC to run.
The 10 +/- other 3D card brands were mostly too slow.

Two months later in March 1999, BleemCast shocked Sony and the world...lol
Bleemcast ran PS1 games better on Dreamcast and PC than a real PS1...They also looked better on PC and DC.

Here is another crazy fact.
Dreamcast launched in 1998 in Japan, only 3-4 months before Bleem. PS1 ran on the console around 5 months before Dreamcast even launched in Europe and USA in later 1999...

1999 were a headache year for Nintendo and Sony when it came to emulation of "current gen consoles"

The mastermind Randy Linden who made Bleem/BleemCast is also the same person that did the impossible port of Doom for SNES.

In 1980's Randy Linden also ported the LaserDisc Arcade game Dragon's Lair to AMIGA, so it could run from a floppy disk...
No one else on the planet would have tried that either.

Randy Linden were not involved in the impossible N64 port of Resident Evil 2.
Probably too busy making PS1 emulator for Dreamcast at the same time. lol

@Toastmaster Interesting stuff! I bought Bleem back in the day, but was disappointed that the improvements were minor. If it had bumped a game up to 60fps I would've been thrilled.
Yeah, I remember the 3dfx cards, but never got one. I remember reading, I think in Next Generation magazine or something, about wipeout xl running at 60fps on PC on a 3dfx card. They said it was amazing looking. I'd still love to see that, like in a game museum or something! But with wipeout phantom edition I am finally living that dream! It's my favorite of all the modern decompilations/PC ports.

@Toastmaster Oh yeah, the Legion Go would be awesome for decomps and PC ports with it's high res 144hz screen! I found a thread that lists pc ports, with links, and installed almost every single one on my OLED Deck. I swear these are the glory days of gaming! Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Blur, Perfect Dark, Starfox 64, the incredible Link's Awakening port, wipeout phantom edition, oh, and all the amazing unlimited frame rate Pokémon decomps! There's such a cornucopia of stuff available.

@120frames-please So you were there when it happened in 1999 too.
I still have my Voodoo 1 + 2 3DFX Cards.
Voodoo 1 is for MS-DOS Games and Voodoo 2 is for Windows.

I were one of the first in the world to buy 3DFX Voodoo 1 when it launched. Both of mine are Orchid cards which is nice.
Voodoo 2 3DFX usually ran games at 60 FPS as far as i remember.
Unlike other 3D cards, 3DFX didn't use much CPU.
The 3DFX card is what speeded up the games.

Some of my favorite games on 3DFX were Fatal Racing, Carmageddon 2, Tomb Raider and 2 Russian made games i forgot the name of.
One of them were a boat racer with great water physics, and the other one a funny racing game.

@120frames-please Yep. I had Legion Go since launch on day 1 in 2023.
That Switch clone is huge besides my Switch...

PC Gamers almost always fixed and upgraded games. Since it's all unofficial, everything stays PC exclusive.
Even the masterpiece Need for Speed III from 1997 were upgraded to 4K/60 with support for modern controllers.
Sega Rally and Outrun 2 Coast 2 Coast got upgrades to run properly on modern PC's too.

They recently figured out how to decompile most N64 games a lot easier, so i guess we will get more ports more often.
There are several different persons and teams doing these ports at the same time.
"Beetle Adventure Racing" are among mine on top of the list of ports.

"Blur" ? Do you mean the racing game that released on PC/360/PS3, that made fun of Mario in the commercials?

@Toastmaster Yeah, I love playing the model 2 and model 3 games on PC. Same with Outrun 2, gorgeous.
Yes, that Blur.

@120frames-please Nice. I just installed Blur on PC again and it's still good.
While i were at it i bought "Split Second" Steam key for 2 1/2 bucks too as i only owned it on Xbox 360 and PS3.

Teknoparrot emulator is a great Arcade emulator if you haven't tried it.

@Toastmaster Yeah, I've got Mario Kart Arcade GP whatever it's called, which I believe is a technoparrot thing. It's pretty fun and looks great.
Also, reguarding recompilation, I thought we might have more than Majora and Mystical Ninja (Japanaese version only) by now. Hopefully 2025 will see a variety of N64 games get recomps. Nerrel's video about recompilation is so good, so exciting.