The N64 is a beloved console and home to some amazing games, such as GoldenEye 007, Super Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time and many, many more.

However, it has had its critics for years, most of whom love to take aim at its low-poly visuals and blurry textures.

Modder Kaze Emanuar has spent the past four years learning the complexities of N64 development and feels that many of the 'limitations' of the console are due to choices made during its inception and devs in the '90s not fully getting to grips with the intricacies of the hardware.

Thanks to years of accumulated development knowledge combined with modern-day tools, modders like Kaze Emanuar are slowly but surely overcoming the N64's limitations and creating some truly incredible pieces of software, as you can see in the video above.

Kaze Emanuar explains the techniques used to produce jaw-dropping games on N64 that far outstrip the best commercially released games on the system – but, as we've already noted, modern-day modders are benefitting from decades of homebrew development to get to this stage. N64 developers back in the day didn't have that luxury.

Kaze Emanaur is currently working on a version of Super Mario 64 which completely retools the engine to achieve 60 FPS and improved textures – and it works on real hardware, too.

Portal 64 developer James Lambert is also pushing things to the max; he recently demonstrated "MegaTextures" on Nintendo's 64-bit console.

It would seem that the N64 is enjoying something of a renaissance right now – and we're all for it.



Posted: Feb 16, 2024 11:36 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/02/how-modders-are-overcoming-n64s-hardware-limitations