Homebrew Super Mario 64 Port

MarioKartFan

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With the internet abuzz with news of a native Windows port of Super Mario 64, I was curious as to whether the experts think there is a path for porting it to the 3DS as well. The need is much lower thanks to @MasterFeizz but a native port would still be amazing. I suppose one would also need a tool to extract assets from a ROM to avoid copyright issues.
 

MarioKartFan

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Understandable. When I referenced you above I meant that the need is lower than before because of the excellent work you have done with Daedalus64.
 

Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee

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365681-super-mario-64-ds-nintendo-ds-manual.jpg
 

FAST6191

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It seems within reason to do, how much work it requires is a different matter. I saw someone compiled it for Switch earlier but performance was not great which means even more fun for the 3ds.

The PC stuff means you can probably figure out where to change to sort the controls, saves, and graphics location issues. The trouble will probably come with Mario 64 doing quite a bit with floating point numbers, which the 3ds can do more with than the likes of the DS (see many of the issues getting various quake games to run there) but you still don't want to be operating with them as much as Mario 64 does (watching all those videos on A press runs you can see how much it does). That would require some fairly decent tweaks right at the heart of the game, though all still within reason and I don't know if there would be a suitable less accurate mode to run in for the 3ds that might do better.
The PC port stuff also looks like it uses brute force to get around some of the hardware specifics as well (any game maker that approaches things like I saw in that code for the PC since about 30 years ago would probably have been fired on the spot, but would be perfect valid in the console world) so you would probably want to unpick that and do something better too.

I don't know if anybody will bother -- the 3ds had a pretty weak homebrew scene and it is pretty much dead at this point. If someone wanted to though then I could see it happen in a reasonable timeline (mario 64 DS was a commercial effort with probably many devs all funded to do it, homebrew devs tend to be doing it for fun in their free time after all). On the other hand people do really seem to love this game (personally I think most of Rare's stuff was better but I am in something of a minority on this one) and the mere fact we have a decompilation in space year 2020/2019 (rather than space year 2024 or so which was when I was expecting decompilation to get more practical going by past developments in the field) speaks to something.
 

Zense

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Another PC port is open source and has come quite far actually, and of course the decompilation is open source too. I have a hard time seeing why you would be able to emulate the n64 hardware to play SM64 but not port the game itself.

PC Port by water111: https://github.com/water111/sm64/tree/pc
Decomp (old news): https://github.com/n64decomp/sm64

It would be interesting to see if anyone is able to tackle a port to the 3DS.
 
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cvskid

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Are the controls really that bad for the ds remake of super mario 64 that people would rather play the original vs all the new content with the ds version?
 

ShadowOne333

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Are the controls really that bad for the ds remake of super mario 64 that people would rather play the original vs all the new content with the ds version?
You basically can only run in 3 speeds, and 8 directions in the DS port.
Stand still, walk, and run, and run can only be triggered with a button input. As for directions you have S,E,N,W,SE,SW,NE,NW.
Compared to the full 360 degrees of movement and the delicate movement you can achieve with the N64 analog stick, it's a leap of a comparison.

More so in a game where precision platforming is key.
 

Zense

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I've heard people are able to make analog controls on pc out of mapping the touchscreen to a joystick for some emulator, and apparently the main issue they have with SM64DS is how jumping and movement in general feels very floaty. I don't have first hand experience with it so I can't confirm this. Still I agree that the content and assets are much better in SM64DS. The only thing the original has over the first, controls aside, is resolution, AA and sound quality.
 

FAST6191

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Are the controls really that bad for the ds remake of super mario 64 that people would rather play the original vs all the new content with the ds version?
All the new content is a few extra characters (pretty much a token effort as they do little other than spin out the hats into different characters) and some minor tweaks to a few levels/bonus sections and a forgettable multiplayer mode. Not to mention even if you liked Mario 64 DS a lot it is not like Mario 64 suddenly becomes far worse by comparison.
Also yeah the touchscreen analogue thing was an interesting tech demo, and worked better than I imagined it would, but I would take analogue stick input every time over it and never found the DS version to be fun as I was always fighting against them or hedging my bets a bit (N64 version the movement is for want of a better term pretty pure expression of your will once it clicks for you, leaving you pretty much with just the camera to worry about).
 

Kwyjor

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Are the controls really that bad for the ds remake of super mario 64 that people would rather play the original vs all the new content with the ds version?
I was perfectly happy with it. It's still an amazingly good game.

Luigi's superspin is completely game-breaking, but the brilliant solution to that problem is to not use Luigi.
 
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boomerang42

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The thing I'd really like to see in a 3DS port (besides proper analog control through the circle pad) is actual use of the 3D.

What kind of game could benefit more from true depth perception than a 3D platformer? Especially when there's jumps from floating platform to floating platform with no wall as a point of reference. There's hacks I've played where true 3D would have been useful.

I never understood why the 3D on 3DS often got called a gimmick. On a New 3DS (only kind I have), it's never given me headaches or eyestrain and generally I've felt it's added to immersion in the games which used it.
 
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Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee

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The thing I'd really like to see in a 3DS port (besides proper analog control through the circle pad) is actual use of the 3D.

What kind of game could benefit more from true depth perception than a 3D platformer? Especially when there's jumps from floating platform to floating platform with no wall as a point of reference. There's hacks I've played where true 3D would have been useful.

I never understood why the 3D on 3DS often got called a gimmick. On a New 3DS (only kind I have), it's never given me headaches or eyestrain and generally I've felt it's added to immersion in the games which used it.
I love the 3DS for its 3D, too.

But I do not know if any homebrew developers even know how to properly make use of it?
 

MasterFeizz

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I love the 3DS for its 3D, too.

But I do not know if any homebrew developers even know how to properly make use of it?
daedalusX64 has stereoscopic 3d, you can see how Mario 64 looks with it. The issues is that users don't understand how stereoscopic 3d works, not developers
 

StomperX

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I know a man by the name of SKELUX made an old test controls that had nerfed luigi and made the controls a lot better for 64ds but I don't know what happen to the project
 

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