A new PC port of Super Mario 64, with native Linux version. It comes as an AppImage, and requires a ROM file of the original game.
Seems to work well. FPS is locked to 30 by default, but you can change that from the settings. It even supports ultrawide resolutions, with the possibility to change HUD aspect ratio to 16:9.
It also supports HD texture packs, such as this one: https://github.com/GhostlyDark/SM64-Reloaded-GS. Just decompress it in to the mods folder, and toggle between original and alternative textures with the Tab key.
What’s the benefit of using this over an existing emulator (e.g. Mupen)?
Emulators are emulating N64hardware running a game pak, this is a native port of the game to Linux and unlocks several benefits. Off the top of my head:
The other comments pretty much covered it, but a small nice thing that a port of the game can do that an emulator can’t do is increase the draw distance and disable the LOD to always draw maximum quality models
This is a full native recompilation of the game for x64 processors, so you don’t need an emulation layer. Should also make it easier to make custom texture packs and mods.
If this is a full recompilation of the game, why do I need the ROM file of the original game then? Just like an emulator. That doesn’t make any sense.
Because Nintendo would sue them if they included any assets of the game
https://github.com/isledecomp/isle
This decompilation of the game Lego Island doesn’t need something like that.
It’s possible withoit the company behind the game suing the devs
That entire project takes about 1.1 MB of space, which isn’t nearly enough for an entire 3D game. It’s only the executable file, and some other required files. You need to provide the assets.
I actually followed some devlogs for this, and nobody knows who owns the rights to that game anymore. The original developing company was bought out, then merged, then bought out again, then the rights sold off in a bundled deal, and whatever else. They can’t figure out the legal shit for that project, and no company knows if they own the rights to even sue over.
Implication from the readme is that the lego island decomp does indeed need original assets:
Read before that:
And after that:
Those look like build prerequisites. Many decomp projects do not need original game assets at build time, just runtime.
I read this as another implication that original game files are required. Otherwise, why would you need a registry key telling the new game engine where to look for assets? The
/assetsfile in the git repo contains only 3 pngs of icon images. There’s no way they’ve secretly bundled a whole game’s worth of models and textures in the codebase.This is native code, so you’d expect much better performance, but mostly this is just a really great foundation to build on.
Current features are thin, but you should expect a lot of improvements going forward, compare it to something like Ship of Harkinian (same team) for an idea of what might be to come. Features like high framerates and texture packs, built in randomizer and tracking support, modding support, a ton of features and tweaks for speedrunners, etc, and a metric ton of QoL features.
Ship of harkinian (OOT) has all kinds of features like straight up adding buttons to the game and modifying the HUD accordingly, so I assume there will be things like that. Some of those features like adding right stick camera even make the game feel a whole generation newer.
Not only requires emulating the game more resources, its also the configuration and imperfect N64 emulation state that muddies just a little bit. Plus a native port to PC can use everything that a normal PC game could too without tricks, such as widescreen, better controller support with new features, higher fps and so on. Emulating a game still uses the same CPU of the original system and other constraints.
Frame rate, wide screen, mouse input… You can pretty much do anything you want with the game. Vs an emulator that runs the official ROM as it was.
This can run without an emulator, being the biggest difference/pro, depending on how you feel about that.