The Emulators Thread - RPCS3 now runs PS3 Games in 4K

Kriken wrote:Not exactly emulation but thought this would be the most relevant place to talk about the Majora's Mask recompilation, and recompilations of other N64 games thanks to a tool that allows N64 roms to be translated into PC ports.

Been playing the Majora's Mask one and it's great. 60fps, easy to use settings menus, ocarina/mask shortcuts on the d-pad.

Nerrel going into it in more detail on his video: https://youtu.be/ywWwUuWRgsM?si=LGd3Xap-OIVIPzeI

You can see a few N64 games have been ported with the tool there, but at the moment it seems Majora's Mask is the only one at the moment that has a seperate tool where its as simple as dropping in the rom and doing it all for you. Its a more involved process with the other games right now but it looks like it won't be long until pretty much every n64 game is playable that way.

Outside of romhacks this is pretty much going to bypass the need for n64 emulation on anything that can run it - Windows and Linux I believe, which means it'll run on Steam Deck too.

Lylat Wars plz

Cumberdanes wrote:

Carlos wrote:PPSSPP is worth a shot too. Runs like a dream.

Just spotted this, since I’m sick of waiting for Sony to add it to PS+ Jeanne D’Arc on my phone sounds like a solid compromise

Thanks to the magic of the Shortcuts app you can add PSP games (or any really) straight to your home screen too.

You just search for the ‘open file’ shortcut and then tell it to open your .iso file with PPSSPP. Hold down on the shortcut and select ‘share’ followed by ‘add to home screen’. You can then change the icon name, replace the generic icon with something from your photos library (ie a custom icon) and then have it sat with your other apps or in a folder.

This works with other emulators too, for example opening a GBA title with Delta.

Kriken wrote:Not exactly emulation but thought this would be the most relevant place to talk about the Majora's Mask recompilation, and recompilations of other N64 games thanks to a tool that allows N64 roms to be translated into PC ports.

Been playing the Majora's Mask one and it's great. 60fps, easy to use settings menus, ocarina/mask shortcuts on the d-pad.

Nerrel going into it in more detail on his video: https://youtu.be/ywWwUuWRgsM?si=LGd3Xap-OIVIPzeI

You can see a few N64 games have been ported with the tool there, but at the moment it seems Majora's Mask is the only one at the moment that has a seperate tool where its as simple as dropping in the rom and doing it all for you. Its a more involved process with the other games right now but it looks like it won't be long until pretty much every n64 game is playable that way.

Outside of romhacks this is pretty much going to bypass the need for n64 emulation on anything that can run it - Windows and Linux I believe, which means it'll run on Steam Deck too.

Funnily enough I have been looking in to this very recompile this morning, and I think i'm going to give it a go on my Steam Deck as it seems fairly simple to do.

One question - is there any kind of save state mechanic available? When I played it on 3DS I got frustrated and anxious with the time constraints in the dungeons, which meant I lost a load of progress and never went back. I was hoping there might be something that resolves that issue here.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:One question - is there any kind of save state mechanic available? When I played it on 3DS I got frustrated and anxious with the time constraints in the dungeons, which meant I lost a load of progress and never went back. I was hoping there might be something that resolves that issue here.

There is not.

I will say though that the save system on 3DS was more generous if you fancied going back to that one. I don't know if the game makes it clear, but the owl saves on 3DS are permanent saves so they basically act as a save state when you get to one. Save at one when you make significant progress and then reload if you find you haven't used time efficiently.

Also if you didn't know if you play the song of time backwards it slows down the timer and gives you much more time in the cycle.

The recompile adds an autosave feature which is on by default and it triggers occasionally to replace the previous owl save. It's permanent until the next autosave. So it's not as generous but if you find you haven't made much progress I guess you could switch off the game and reload to see how much time it gives you back (it'll respawn you by the dungeon's owl statue or clock town's). The N64 version also slows down the timer more when you play the song of time backwards, so there's that (they either changed it for whatever reason on 3DS or it's a bug). But if you turn off autosave in the settings the owl saves revert to normal, deleting themselves when you load them.

Kriken wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:One question - is there any kind of save state mechanic available? When I played it on 3DS I got frustrated and anxious with the time constraints in the dungeons, which meant I lost a load of progress and never went back. I was hoping there might be something that resolves that issue here.

There is not.

I will say though that the save system on 3DS was more generous if you fancied going back to that one. I don't know if the game makes it clear, but the owl saves on 3DS are permanent saves so they basically act as a save state when you get to one. Save at one when you make significant progress and then reload if you find you haven't used time efficiently.

Also if you didn't know if you play the song of time backwards it slows down the timer and gives you much more time in the cycle.

The recompile adds an autosave feature which is on by default and it triggers occasionally to replace the previous owl save. It's permanent until the next autosave. So it's not as generous but if you find you haven't made much progress I guess you could switch off the game and reload to see how much time it gives you back (it'll respawn you by the dungeon's owl statue or clock town's). The N64 version also slows down the timer more when you play the song of time backwards, so there's that (they either changed it for whatever reason on 3DS or it's a bug). But if you turn off autosave in the settings the owl saves revert to normal, deleting themselves when you load them.

Thanks very much for that. Yeah, playing the song of time backwards did help for the most part, but I remember one part really stressful, and then I got horribly lost and ran out of time just before finishing it. I think it involved the Zora and collecting eggs, but my memory is hazy as I have tried to block it out.

I can't do the 3DS version again as hand-held is just too cramped and awkward (and hard on the eyes) for me nowadays (despite the 3D looking fantastic imo) and the circle pad is... not great. I have struggled with 3DS emulators also, so it looks like this recompile is my best shot. It looks really impressive in the DF footage I saw the other day.

Thanks again

I got a Turtle Beach Atom controller for my iPhone, I’ve tried it with both Delta and PPSSPP and it works a treat.

Kriken wrote:Not exactly emulation but thought this would be the most relevant place to talk about the Majora's Mask recompilation, and recompilations of other N64 games thanks to a tool that allows N64 roms to be translated into PC ports.

Been playing the Majora's Mask one and it's great. 60fps, easy to use settings menus, ocarina/mask shortcuts on the d-pad.

Nerrel going into it in more detail on his video: https://youtu.be/ywWwUuWRgsM?si=LGd3Xap-OIVIPzeI

You can see a few N64 games have been ported with the tool there, but at the moment it seems Majora's Mask is the only one at the moment that has a seperate tool where its as simple as dropping in the rom and doing it all for you. Its a more involved process with the other games right now but it looks like it won't be long until pretty much every n64 game is playable that way.

Outside of romhacks this is pretty much going to bypass the need for n64 emulation on anything that can run it - Windows and Linux I believe, which means it'll run on Steam Deck too.

Just to let you know I got this running on my Steam Deck just 5 minutes ago and it looks amazing. The fact it does not keep stuttering (like it does in Mupen64+ on my SD) is already a big plus, but the 60fps and everything else makes it look beautiful

Ryujinx has been patched to support Paper Mario

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Just to let you know I got this running on my Steam Deck just 5 minutes ago and it looks amazing. The fact it does not keep stuttering (like it does in Mupen64+ on my SD) is already a big plus, but the 60fps and everything else makes it look beautiful

Awesome. I've been loving it as well. Glad everyone else is.

Gave the decompiled Majora's Mask port a try earlier. The one by the Ship of Harkinian people who did the Ocarina of Time decomp.

It was cool - enjoyed all the options this version has, like being able to skip the intro and other scenes, being able to assign any item on d-pad (and using the d-pad to play ocarina notes), playing as Kafei, fast mask transformations and the option of permanent owl saves like the 3DS version.

I'm sticking with the recomp port for now but this is a great version too that's only going to get better. It was easy to put together as well - just needed the rom like with the recomp.

Kriken wrote:Gave the decompiled Majora's Mask port a try earlier. The one by the Ship of Harkinian people who did the Ocarina of Time decomp.

It was cool - enjoyed all the options this version has, like being able to skip the intro and other scenes, being able to assign any item on d-pad (and using the d-pad to play ocarina notes), playing as Kafei, fast mask transformations and the option of permanent owl saves like the 3DS version.

I'm sticking with the recomp port for now but this is a great version too that's only going to get better. It was easy to put together as well - just needed the rom like with the decomp.

What's the difference between the recomp and the decomp? I've tried following along in the thread but I'm still a bit lost.

Super Dragon 64 wrote:What's the difference between the recomp and the decomp? I've tried following along in the thread but I'm still a bit lost.

I'm not an expert on the difference exactly (a lot of what I know is from Nerrel's latest video on recompilation), but from what I can tell the recompilation was made with the help of a tool that directly translates the N64 game's source code into something that's useable on PC. A decompilation is a more involved, less automated process that often involves the original code being rewritten to work.

The result is that the recomp is immediately more accurate, whereas the decomp immediately has many more options like the kind I described earlier.

They also both function a bit different, with the decomp being more CPU-bound and being a bit outdated, and the recomp being more GPU-bound. This apparently makes some enhancements easier on the recompilation. I don't know if it's necessarily this way because of the different processes they used though - the decomp is older, after all.

Ultimately I think they can both achieve the same thing as they get continually developed on, and the result is pretty similar before you dive into the options of the current decomp.

For the average user I would recommend the recomp as the default options are pretty good. Especially right now as the decomp for MM only recently dropped and is not as polished. The recomp also has a nicer and more layperson-friendly user interface to change options and re-bind your buttons. (But if you have an older laptop or a PC without a GPU the decomp might be your only option, as I found with testing both on my secondary PC).

2ship2harkinian is great, got it running on my Deck last night.

Was going to wait for more features to be added but I've been desperate to replay MM for years so decided to jump in!

Kriken wrote:

Super Dragon 64 wrote:What's the difference between the recomp and the decomp? I've tried following along in the thread but I'm still a bit lost.

I'm not an expert on the difference exactly (a lot of what I know is from Nerrel's latest video on recompilation), but from what I can tell the recompilation was made with the help of a tool that directly translates the N64 game's source code into something that's useable on PC. A decompilation is a more involved, less automated process that often involves the original code being rewritten to work.

The result is that the recomp is immediately more accurate, whereas the decomp immediately has many more options like the kind I described earlier.

They also both function a bit different, with the decomp being more CPU-bound and being a bit outdated, and the recomp being more GPU-bound. This apparently makes some enhancements easier on the recompilation. I don't know if it's necessarily this way because of the different processes they used though - the decomp is older, after all.

Ultimately I think they can both achieve the same thing as they get continually developed on, and the result is pretty similar before you dive into the options of the current decomp.

For the average user I would recommend the recomp as the default options are pretty good. Especially right now as the decomp for MM only recently dropped and is not as polished. The recomp also has a nicer and more layperson-friendly user interface to change options and re-bind your buttons. (But if you have an older laptop or a PC without a GPU the decomp might be your only option, as I found with testing both on my secondary PC).

Thanks for the explanation! I'm looking forward to trying some of these.