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Mario Kart 64 is still one of the most beloved entries in the Mario Kart franchise, with it being the first 3D entry in the series, and bringing a whole new slew of memorable courses and music to enjoy a good race with friends, or duke it out in Battle Mode.

While certainly Mario Kart 64 hasn't been the most hacked or modded entry in the series (with that honour being taken by Mario Kart Wii by a long shot), MK64 has still seen its fair share of modifications throughout the years, with some notorious ones being a 60fps hack by the boy181, a widescreen hack courtesy of gamemasterplc, and the recent Mario Kart 64 Amped Up, which features brand new tracks, and tracks from other franchises.

Alongside those great hacks and modifications, AndratVA has been working on an HD texture pack for Mario Kart 64 for almost 2 years, and the amount of work and dedication put into the project has been nothing short of outstanding. For those unaware, Mario Kart 64 uses prerendered sprites for the characters, and with that, Andrat and his team went to the extend of fully recreating the 3D models for each Mario Kart 64 character to make the new HD textures/graphics for all of them and their karts:

Mario Kart 64 certainly takes on a whole new light and polish with this great project, and if you're interested in experiencing it yourself, you can easily grab the assets and play it through any N64 emulator and even Dolphin.

GitHub Page

 

[Ryab]

My only question is did they fix the music cutting out in multiplayer?

 

[RedoLane]

Absolutely insane. Gonna try it now!

 

[JuanMena]

I don't know what you're talking about. This is how it looked in my mind way back in the 90's.
Good Job! Hopefully, this could be used with Wii64 (HD Texture Support) to use with CRT's!
Actually, Computer + CRT would work too.

 

[Plazorn]

wow, this looks great, but as you know, a Nintendo DMCA may be incoming...

 

[ciaomao]

How is the performance with the latest switch retroarch core?

 

[Hanafuda]

I'll try it and probably like it, but DKR is the better game of this type on 64 and would've been the better project.

 

[BaamAlex]

but DKR is the better game of this type on 64

Totally agreed.

 

[x65943]

That's beautiful

Amazing what can be achieved even without a decomp project

 

[raxadian]

Wait until the original game gets fully reverse engineered then we will get a version with all the upgrades that doesn't need an emulator.

 

[Bladexdsl]

possible incoming DMCA!

 

[ShadowOne333]

I'll try it and probably like it, but DKR is the better game of this type on 64 and would've been the better project.

Totally agreed.

Diddy Kong Racing had HD texture packs since a long time ago, and that game already uses full 3D models for the characters compared to Mario Kart 64.
There's not much that can be done to DKR to improve its graphics with mere texture packs in that regard compared to this.

 

[Hanafuda]

Diddy Kong Racing had HD texture packs since a long time ago, and that game already uses full 3D models for the characters compared to Mario Kart 64.
There's not much that can be done to DKR to improve its graphics with mere texture packs in that regard compared to this.

Didn't know this, thx. I mostly never use emulators anymore so I'm behind on the info. Went 99% team real hardware (and flashcarts) years ago.

 

[HinaNaru Cutie]

This was really sweet of them - thank you for sharing this ♡♡! Will be downloading it on my dolphine emulator, my sibling will really be surprised seeing the huge change to this old game ♡♡

Also the gif mario is cute funny well needed, the commercial was cute.

 

[Moorshou]

This might not be my thing right now, but in the future I'll try this out!

Amazing work!~

 

[Urbanshadow]

Hate to repeat myself but does this work with an ED64? Or is it just like that Odyssey 64 only running on emulator?

 

[Jayro]

I avoid romhacks that don't play on real hardware. Maybe we'll play this on a good FPGA someday though.

 

[x65943]

Hate to repeat myself but does this work with an ED64? Or is it just like that Odyssey 64 only running on emulator?

You won't be able to use humongous textures like that on real hardware - not sure you would be able to tell a big difference anyway since the resolution of real hardware is so tiny

 

[Urbanshadow]

You won't be able to use humongous textures like that on real hardware - not sure you would be able to tell a big difference anyway since the resolution of real hardware is so tiny

I was hoping the bunch of hundreds of bucks on progressive upscalers, 0 delay HDMI buses and displays would handle part of that. I am guessing by your comment and other comments it wont run. Pity.

 

[Jayro]

I was hoping the bunch of hundreds of bucks on progressive upscalers, 0 delay HDMI buses and displays would handle part of that. I am guessing by your comment and other comments it wont run. Pity.

I hate "emulator-only" rom hacks. Or games like Bloodborne PSX that don't actually run on the system, just modelled "in the style of".