Nintendo 64
N64 Specifications
The Nintendo 64 (N64) was Nintendo’s third home video game console, built around a 64-bit NEC VR4300 CPU.
Many of its games are regarded as among the best ever made, from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to GoldenEye 007, which helped popularise first-person shooters on consoles.
Arriving later than the PlayStation and Saturn, the Nintendo 64 was the most powerful console of the fifth generation.
Its graphics chip supported trilinear filtering and other advanced 3D techniques, but the console was held back by its cartridges, which held far less data than CDs.
The limited storage forced developers to use fewer textures and rely on techniques such as Gouraud shading or very simple textures.
N64 emulation has taken a long time to mature. Nearly every game is now playable, but a few still have problems. Most of the difficulty lies not with the CPU but with the graphics hardware.
The N64’s Reality Co-Processor works in ways that are hard to reproduce on modern GPUs: although today’s graphics cards are far more powerful, emulators cannot drive them as directly as N64 developers drove the original hardware.
Poor documentation of the custom microcode some games used made things harder still. One of the best-known examples is Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.
Project64 is the most widely used emulator on Windows and now ships with the GLideN64 video plugin. For the highest accuracy, low-level graphics emulation is available at a higher performance cost.
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ares is an open source multi-system emulator focused on accuracy and preservation, covering the NES, SNES, N64, Sega consoles and more. The successor to higan.
Rosalie's Mupen GUI (RMG) is a free, open source Nintendo 64 emulator for Windows and Linux, built as a Qt front-end for the mupen64plus core.
gopher64 is an open source Nintendo 64 emulator written in Rust, with builds for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, netplay and RetroAchievements.
Project64 is the most widely used Nintendo 64 emulator for Windows. Open source since 2015, it combines high compatibility with good performance.
simple64 is an archived, accuracy-focused Nintendo 64 emulator for Windows based on mupen64plus. Its developer now works on gopher64.
1964 is a discontinued Windows Nintendo 64 emulator by Schibo and Rice. Once hugely popular, it was known for its fast dynamic recompiler.
N64 Video Plugins
Angrylion-Plus is a pixel-accurate, software-rendered N64 video plugin for Project64 and Mupen64Plus, a faster multi-threaded fork of angrylion's RDP.
Glide64 is an accurate N64 video plugin with strong frame buffer emulation and GlideHQ texture pack support. GLideN64 has since succeeded it.
GLideN64 is the most accurate and widely used HLE video plugin for N64 emulators, with frame buffer emulation, upscaling and texture pack support.
Jabo's Direct3D8, DirectSound and DirectInput7 plugins were Project64's default N64 video, audio and input plugins from 1.x to 2.x. Closed source, now retired.
Rice Video is an open-source N64 video plugin and one of the first to support replacement texture packs. It is fast, simple and has good compatibility.
Z64 is a discontinued low-level (LLE) N64 video plugin by ziggy, based on MAME/MESS RDP code. It renders difficult games accurately but is slow.
Direct64 is a dead Direct3D video plugin for N64 emulators by Orkin, based on his glN64. It is fast on older PCs but less compatible than newer plugins.
glN64 is Orkin's open-source OpenGL video plugin for N64 emulators. Light and portable, it was ported to Android and the Xbox and became the base of GLideN64.
SoftGraphic is a software-rendered N64 video plugin based on MESS's accurate RDP code. It is pixel-accurate but needs a powerful CPU for full speed.
N64 Audio Plugins
Azimer's HLE/LLE audio plugin is a widely used N64 audio plugin that reproduces the sound of almost every game accurately, with few glitches or slowdowns.
Jabo's Direct3D8, DirectSound and DirectInput7 plugins were Project64's default N64 video, audio and input plugins from 1.x to 2.x. Closed source, now retired.
Shunyuan HLE Audio is a capable N64 audio plugin with HLE and LLE modes and XAudio2 output, worth trying if Azimer's plugin gives problems in a game.
N64 Input Plugins
Jabo's Direct3D8, DirectSound and DirectInput7 plugins were Project64's default N64 video, audio and input plugins from 1.x to 2.x. Closed source, now retired.
NRage is a full-featured Windows N64 input plugin, supporting DirectInput and XInput controllers and Rumble, Controller and Transfer Pak emulation.
Octomino SDL Input is a modern N64 input plugin for Project64 that uses SDL2, so Xbox, PlayStation and Switch Pro controllers work without setup.
raphnetraw is an N64 input plugin that lets real N64 controllers, Rumble Paks and Controller Paks work in Project64 and Mupen64Plus through raphnet adapters.
Billard's XInput Plugin is a simple Windows input plugin for N64 emulators that supports up to four Xbox controllers, with rumble but fixed controls.
