Homebrew Not64 Update

[luckcapsule128]

So this is how I understand Not64 behavior/performance after testing vwii mode Not64 smash remix vs vwii Not64 WUP forwarder smash remix:

vwii mode:
-FB Textures Off
-Clock Divider 1

Game runs pretty much great. Some frame timing stutter occasionally that feels like 30fps drops but it's not the actual gameplay slowing down. Out-of-bounds magnification texture of the character flying out of screen is glitched, but not distracting at all.

WUP Forwarder vwii mode:
-FB Textures off
-Clock Divider 1

Audio is delayed considerably and entering/exiting character selection causes emulator freezes causing audio garbling for a second or two.

I tried the vwii overclock plugin and didn't make a difference with the above. There's a chance the overclock isn't applying to not64 with the sig patch missing it. I used a different WUP that supposedly works with the sig patch but still no difference in performance.

 

[nexstar400]

basically acts like an emulated overclock for N64 games, if the Wii has enough CPU power then you can set the counter factor to 1 and get improved framerates, although there are very few games where it works at full speed. Smash Remix and Rush 2 are 2 games where it makes a notable improvement in performance.

So CPU Clock Divider setting 1,2,3 sets a 1x,2x,3x overclock, respectively?

 

[pedro702]

So CPU Clock Divider setting 1,2,3 sets a 1x,2x,3x overclock, respectively?

no 1 is the higher the 2nd is regular and 3rd is for gc mostly.

 

[Extrems]

Technically all options are overclocks as every instruction isn't supposed to complete in 1-3 cycles.

 

[Extrems]

Thank you.
I'll use the SD card meanwhile.

Sorry for the delay. New release is out.

 

[Sogun]

Sorry for the delay. New release is out.

Thank you. I was able to test it for a while and playing from the USB drive works fine. No more 'Exception (dsi)' after twenty or so minutes.

I did encounter one weird behaviour, although if fixed itself and I can no longer reproduce it. The first time I started a game (in this case Super Mario 64) there was no sound. At first I though I had the volume of my TV set to zero, but volume was on. Then I checked the audio settings in Not64 and those were fine too. What was actually happening is that sound had like 2 seconds of lag. But it corrected itself after playing for a minute (the lag was getting shorter and shorter until I couldn't tell it was lagging anymore).
I loaded a new rom, closed the app and started it again, turned off and on the Wii and loaded Super Mario 64 again, and that weird sound behaviour didn't happen again.

I'll tell you if it happens again or if I encounter another weir behaviour. Thanks again for the new release.

 

[cotton_arle]

does this "growing NAND pagefile" thing gets deleted after I turn off the console?? does the NAND gets back to normal after I do so??

 

[Exidous]

does this "growing NAND pagefile" thing gets deleted after I turn off the console?? does the NAND gets back to normal after I do so??

Yes. It's just like a page file on a computer: using space on the hard drive as an extension of RAM. It's only using available blank space, it's not affecting existing data stored in NAND.

 

[Sogun]

Hi @Extrems,

I've encountered one weird graphical behaviour in Perfect Dark if you run it in 240p mode. It isn't happening if you play in 480i. I'm refering to the settings.cfg video modes, not the Perfect Dark Hi-res toggle (that doesn't make a difference).
Strangely, it only happens in playable levels, not in cinematics.

For some reason everthing except your hand and gun and the HUD is rendered at a quarter resolution. I don't know if someone else already reported this or if you knew about that and couldn't fix it. I think because of the NAND page thing I've been avoiding playing large roms for a long time, so it's my first time in all these years seeing this anomally.

https://i.postimg.cc/PJj343Wf/IMG-20260524-235045.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/4ygL5L6s/IMG-20260524-235250.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/SRhTrTWZ/IMG-20260524-235358.jpg (this one is from a cinematic, so no graphical issues)

If you zoom in in the first image you can clearly see that each jaggie is two scanlines tall.


On a related matter. Would it be possible to include a Video Mode option in the Not64 main menu so we can change from 240p and 480i with ease? Having to turn off the console, extract the SD card, put it on a computer, edit the settings.cfg file, etc. is quite tedious.

 

[Extrems]

This is the same issue as reported here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/not64-update.333569/post-10772222

 

[AlfredoDore]

There's a fairly old plugin that I used to use (2003, 2004) and that I tested today and it's still excellent, it's called icepir8's. It runs Rare games very well even today, and also runs other titles well, not just Rare, and the performance is great. Is there any way you could try it? Because generally if Windows 98 supports it, the Wii should too. I used it on Windows 98 (I had dual-booted it) and it worked perfectly.

 

[Exidous]

There's a fairly old plugin that I used to use (2003, 2004) and that I tested today and it's still excellent, it's called icepir8's. It runs Rare games very well even today, and also runs other titles well, not just Rare, and the performance is great. Is there any way you could try it? Because generally if Windows 98 supports it, the Wii should too. I used it on Windows 98 (I had dual-booted it) and it worked perfectly.

Porting a graphics plugin is a big job.

AFAIK icepir8's graphics plugin is the default in Project64 Legacy. That was basically redeveloping PJ64 from an earlier version for older systems. It's plausible that it's in the right power/performance range for the Wii, but so were the PC emulators and plugins that Not64 came over from.

It's not enough that this plugin could plausibly run on Wii, it needs to be a significant enough improvement over what we have now to justify the labor of porting it. If you want to pitch such a task, that's what you'll want to show.

 

[AlfredoDore]

Porting a graphics plugin is a big job.

AFAIK icepir8's graphics plugin is the default in Project64 Legacy. That was basically redeveloping PJ64 from an earlier version for older systems. It's plausible that it's in the right power/performance range for the Wii, but so were the PC emulators and plugins that Not64 came over from.

It's not enough that this plugin could plausibly run on Wii, it needs to be a significant enough improvement over what we have now to justify the labor of porting it. If you want to pitch such a task, that's what you'll want to show.

Do I need to provide screenshots to demonstrate this?

 

[Disorarara]

Porting a graphics plugin is a big job.

AFAIK icepir8's graphics plugin is the default in Project64 Legacy. That was basically redeveloping PJ64 from an earlier version for older systems. It's plausible that it's in the right power/performance range for the Wii, but so were the PC emulators and plugins that Not64 came over from.

It's not enough that this plugin could plausibly run on Wii, it needs to be a significant enough improvement over what we have now to justify the labor of porting it. If you want to pitch such a task, that's what you'll want to show.

Yeah all N64 renderers for PC use either OpenGL or DirectX. Which is completely different from how the GameCube and Wii render things, that's the main issue. Although OpenGX might help with porting OpenGL based plugins.

 

[Exidous]

Do I need to provide screenshots to demonstrate this?

Think about it like you're setting up a coding bounty. It's a thing that you want someone else to do. You're trying to convince someone to work for many hours on something. You want to be able to say (1) what needs to be done (2) why it's worth doing (3) and as much preparatory work as you could to make the project seem smaller/more manageable.

If, hypothetically, I thought this plugin performed very well on my whitest of whales for N64 on Wii emulation, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, I could be fanatically committed to your goal.

I don't think screenshots are sufficient for (2). You'll want to rule out the possibility that the plugin's apparent advantages wouldn't appear on Wii. And since it sounds like you're not paying anyone for this, the coder is going to want to think it's a big enough advancement for the scene - that it's really improving available emulation of particular titles, either with middling or bad performance now. Maybe test relative performance between troubled Wii N64 titles and baseline on PC (and know why! if pj64 just has endless custom optimizations that improve bugbear games, that's likely not attributable to the graphics plugin)

I'd research the code base/general design of the proposed plugin, to see if it's designed with optimizations for particular hardware. If you're really lucky, there's something for PowerPC already in there (which is related to the Wii hardware). If on the other hand, it was optimized for (and the apparent benefits are largely because of) some other architecture, that might doom it as a porting candidate - it then wouldn't actually outperform other plugins on a Wii like it outperforms on your, maybe, x86 Intel PC.

From what I've already seen, PJ64 is a different emulator than the one Not64 is based on (I think mupen?) so a preliminary question is if the graphics plugins are even interchangeable, and if not, what it takes to port from one to the other. It might be a nontrivial addition to the project's workload. Has the plugin been ported to other emulators? Is there open source code concerning that port?

There are a lot of questions. This would be a serious pitch.

 

[AlfredoDore]

Ah, I searched and it seems it's not PowerPC. I thought that because it works on older systems it would be suitable.

 

[rosarioliccardo]

@Exidous
Hi there,
I hope you don’t mind me going slightly off-topic, but I felt compelled to reach out and express my sincere appreciation for your work on Not64. I can only imagine the sheer amount of time and effort required to develop such a project, and the end result is absolutely mind-blowing. I recently pulled my Wii U out of storage to revisit some classics. While I’m not typically a fan of emulation, I decided to give your latest release a try, especially since it’s been updated since April. To be honest, I’ve been incredibly impressed; it has been running flawlessly every single game with the only minor exception being Shadowman.
Your dedication to keeping the Nintendo 64 library accessible on the Wii U is truly remarkable. It’s rare to see this level of stability and attention to detail, and your work contributes significantly to keeping the retrogaming scene alive and vibrant.
Thank you for your hard work and for sharing this project with the community. It’s genuinely appreciated, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the emulator continues to evolve.
Keep up the fantastic work!

 

[Dakangel]

Think about it like you're setting up a coding bounty. It's a thing that you want someone else to do. You're trying to convince someone to work for many hours on something. You want to be able to say (1) what needs to be done (2) why it's worth doing (3) and as much preparatory work as you could to make the project seem smaller/more manageable.

If, hypothetically, I thought this plugin performed very well on my whitest of whales for N64 on Wii emulation, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, I could be fanatically committed to your goal.

I don't think screenshots are sufficient for (2). You'll want to rule out the possibility that the plugin's apparent advantages wouldn't appear on Wii. And since it sounds like you're not paying anyone for this, the coder is going to want to think it's a big enough advancement for the scene - that it's really improving available emulation of particular titles, either with middling or bad performance now. Maybe test relative performance between troubled Wii N64 titles and baseline on PC (and know why! if pj64 just has endless custom optimizations that improve bugbear games, that's likely not attributable to the graphics plugin)

I'd research the code base/general design of the proposed plugin, to see if it's designed with optimizations for particular hardware. If you're really lucky, there's something for PowerPC already in there (which is related to the Wii hardware). If on the other hand, it was optimized for (and the apparent benefits are largely because of) some other architecture, that might doom it as a porting candidate - it then wouldn't actually outperform other plugins on a Wii like it outperforms on your, maybe, x86 Intel PC.

From what I've already seen, PJ64 is a different emulator than the one Not64 is based on (I think mupen?) so a preliminary question is if the graphics plugins are even interchangeable, and if not, what it takes to port from one to the other. It might be a nontrivial addition to the project's workload. Has the plugin been ported to other emulators? Is there open source code concerning that port?

There are a lot of questions. This would be a serious pitch.

Ah, I searched and it seems it's not PowerPC. I thought that because it works on older systems it would be suitable.

AI exists precisely for this reason: if no one wants to help you or creates excuses for not doing so, computers will always be ready to step in and assist you in doing what humans cannot.
Go ahead for it!

 

[rosarioliccardo]

AI exists precisely for this reason: if no one wants to help you or creates excuses for not doing so, computers will always be ready to step in and assist you in doing what humans cannot.
Go ahead for it!

In this case, AI is useless. It only knows what it's told, but it only gets so far. I don't think it could ever help with not64. For simple projects, it's fine, but for complex things like this, I don't think it can.

 

[Exidous]

@Exidous
Hi there,
I hope you don’t mind me going slightly off-topic, but I felt compelled to reach out and express my sincere appreciation for your work on Not64. I can only imagine the sheer amount of time and effort required to develop such a project, and the end result is absolutely mind-blowing. I recently pulled my Wii U out of storage to revisit some classics. While I’m not typically a fan of emulation, I decided to give your latest release a try, especially since it’s been updated since April. To be honest, I’ve been incredibly impressed; it has been running flawlessly every single game with the only minor exception being Shadowman.
Your dedication to keeping the Nintendo 64 library accessible on the Wii U is truly remarkable. It’s rare to see this level of stability and attention to detail, and your work contributes significantly to keeping the retrogaming scene alive and vibrant.
Thank you for your hard work and for sharing this project with the community. It’s genuinely appreciated, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the emulator continues to evolve.
Keep up the fantastic work!

While I'm flattered to be confused with @Extrems , you sound like a bot. At least, someone using an LLM to write/translate his posts.

Dear bot owner: it's an obvious design mistake having software whose job it is to read only check the first two letters of a name. That's a huge blind spot in production accuracy in exchange for trivial memory or processing savings.