The Nintendo 64 has always been a difficult machine to emulate correctly. But in 2025 - we should be well and truly past all of it right? Not exactly. Issues with Plugins, performance, graphical glitches, stutters. Unless you have a very powerful machine, these are common things many of us will run into when emulating the Nintendo 64. But why? And Is there any hope for fast, accurate N64 emulation in 2025 and beyond?
I had no issue emulating n64 games on my piece of shit machine almost 20 years ago. What even is this?
The core if it boils down to, when emulating older machines, is the consoles processor speaks language A, and our computers all speak language B
The emulator has to translate back and forth between A<->B faster than the speed the original processors would’ve just spoken A
So translating A<->B is a way tougher task than just reciting A. So you need a tremendously better CPU than what the console had to emulate it.
It’s kinda like, Dropping a rock in a pile of sand is easy. Simulating dropping that rock into the pile of sand in real time accurately is really challenging.
It’s even more complicated than that, because for full accuracy, it must also emulate the clock speed at which the emulated processor ran, as well as the various memory busses etc
Emulators exist for the Switch. So it’s not just the fact that the emulator needs to translate, there is something specific about the N64’s ‘language’ that makes translating more difficult and time consuming.
The easiest way I could describe it, is that the languages are much, much more similar. Translating for the switch is like going from Spanish to Latin, while the N64 is more like going from Chinese to Latin - much less 1-to-1 and objective.
The “language” that the n64 used was basically in a totally different language family than what PCs and later Nintendo consoles use.
Think of it as if the N64 spoke Japanese, while PCs speak Spanish. There’s a lot of things that don’t translate cleanly from one language to the other, you can’t just feed it into google translate and expect what comes out the other end to make sense, you’re going to need someone who understands both languages to go over it, rewrite some of it to make sure all of the nuance is coming through, add some asterisks and translation notes to explain some concepts that don’t really have a direct equivalent in the other language, etc.
Later Nintendo consoles spoke something more like Portuguese or maybe even Mexican Spanish instead of PC’s Castilian Spanish. They’re much more similar languages that translate more directly and some things may not even really need translation as long as both parties slow down, speak clearly, and maybe throw in some hand gestures here and there, and google translate will get you like 99% of the way there, without the translator needing to add as many explanatory notes.
All those translation notes are what the emulator is doing, and the N64 to PC emulator has to do a lot more interpreting than the Switch to PC emulator.
There isn’t actually a ton of translating going on with the Switch, as it’s basically just a computer (an ARM computer, but still). The N64 had a very different architecture that doesn’t work like modern computers do. On top of that, games on it relied on low level graphics code that makes it very difficult to cheat like other emulators do.
EDIT: Sorry, I mixed up my comment chains.
Is Switch emulation HLE? Because if so, the Switch isn’t relevant to what the other commenter is explaining.
HLE just means the emulator needs to have the same output as the Switch.
LLE means the Emulator is kind of running an entire Switch.
There’s a difference.
EDIT: I think it’s more that the Switch’s “language” is much closer to a computer’s “language” today. Older consoles were complex beasts built completely differently from contemporary computers, let alone modern ones.
Back in 2015 I used the emulator “1964” to play some MarioKart64 and it ran well on a very weak computer, fwiw.
Do you remember if you had the black screen in this track?
It’s a classical issue in n64 emulators.
It looks different than I remember. Usually it was just a black screen.
N64 stuff runs brilliant on MisterFpga tho.
FPGA mimics hardware 1:1 without overhead, which is why it works well. This is talking about software emulation, which has to use lots of shortcuts to make it fast enough (for most machines). The N64 has a weird architecture though that makes it difficult to find shortcuts that work well.
FPGA emulation is another level. The video says that FPGA emulation is near flawless except homebrew.
I didn’t have time to watch the video at the moment. What’s wrong with Dolphin?
Or is this about things people that had a n64 back in the day don’t even recognize as wrong?
Edit. Just saw its a MVG video. Everyone calm down, I’m going to watch it.
Edited: Good video. It makes sense to use cheats for each game, and it makes sense it’s hard to play lesser known games because of it.
Dolphin is not an N64 emulator.
Yes, you are correct Dolphin will not play N64 ROMs directly. It will however play SOME Wii virtual console games which includes around 22 N64 games. Soooo, sorta?? 🤷♂️
It’ll emulate an emulator on another emulator!
Xzibit approves
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And yet I play all my N64 games on it.
Then you are playing virtual console roms/injections, which typically have more issues than current proper n64 emulators.
If it’s good enough for you, that’s fine but it’s far from perfect.
What issues do you notice while playing the games?
Edit: Also, what you said has nothing to do with the video. So…
If you are only playing officially released virtual console games then they only have minior issues, Nintendo did a really good job with n64 on the Wii. With injected roms you will run in to a lot more issues. Like I said, if it’s good enough for you then that’s fine but a proper n64 emulator will be more responsive and give you more options.
Ah, an emulator within an emulator. Yes, I’m sure the results must be just like the original hardware!
The games work just fine. I played them when they were new, and get just as much enjoyment out of them now.
I’m not sorry i don’t care about milliseconds or whatever technical details the programmers care about. I am thankful for their hard work though.
How are you using dolphin to emulate N64?
Dolphin has no native N64 emulation support. Are you using N64 ports from the Wii? Those are running using Nintendo’s Wii-based emulator (which also has known issues) on top of the Wii emulation. That introduced a whole second layer of technical issues.
Not that the N64 roms aren’t playable, but the problem is more technical on why it’s so difficult to emulate the specific N64 hardware perfectly using just modern software
Thanks. Like i said i haven’t been able to check the video out yet.
I am enjoying everyone jumping down my throat about being able to play n64 games with no issues though. It’s giving me a good laugh with my coffee.
I thought Kaze pretty much reverse engineered the whole thing? Or is that just for Mario 64?
Kaze just works on Mario 64. He’s torn that game up and rebuilt it for his needs. He’s even mentioned that emulators won’t even work with some of the hardware tricks that he utilizes.
Feel free to commit a pull request. Don’t talk about it. Be about it.
“If you aren’t a programmer, don’t speak” is about what I expect from programmers, yes. That kind of elitism is why most programmer-only projects are utter shit.
