Nintendo sixty…
August 31, 2009
We knew it could happen. We hoped it was happening. Today, we know it is. A new face appeared on the GP32X boards over the weekend; a coder going by the name of Ari64. If GP32X had an award for “best first post ever”, this would be leading the field.
I have rewritten the dynamic recompiler for Mupen64plus to generate ARM code. This will run on OpenPandora, TouchBook, and BeagleBoard.
That’s right folks. Nintendo 64 emulation, for real reals. Ari64 says he’s been working on this for “around 4-5 months,” wisely keeping a lid on the project to avoid an onslaught of premature hype. There is still work to be done of course:
Unfortunately OpenGL acceleration does not work. It is possible to use software rendering, but it is very slow and some of the textures display incorrectly. Since several people are working on OpenGL ES libraries, I am posting this as-is for testing purposes.
As you’d expect, some of the scene’s best known coders are now hovering around this like kids at a candy store. The next few weeks should be interesting, but before you get caught on the hype train, take a moment to tip your hat to the scene’s newest household name: Ari64.
mazza558
PlopperZ
TaG
gruso
Butterman
tovmas
The unofficial Pandora Blog 
effin’ A. Hells yes. I was hoping someone was doing this.
Ari64 is a Openpandora god/goddess. Even if the project doesn’t go through Ari64 for guru for his hard work so far.
This is one of the main reasons for me buying one of these.
(that and portable music, document writing, lecture recording, tasty wifi internet, gaming, movie watching, soft touch screen, open source, extremely awesome community support, sheer power, usb port,….. the list goes on but…..)
If this goes anywhere I will personally send him twenty bucks. Awesome.
Happiest news in the last 6 months.
guess it just needed that last thread of people spamming want for n64
boner
Nice! Hope someone attempts a Maemo port for the N900. I will try (and fail horribly) if no one else does.
Wow! how did I miss that one on the forum?
No real interest in the N64 as gaming goes really but it will be sweet seeing how well this works when all the devs have had a crack at it.
One of the things I love most about open source software is seeing it improve and evolve from basic code or unusable software, into something useful 😀
Sweeeeet! Great job, Ari64!!
This thing just keeps getting better! 😀
Thanks to Ari64 I think we’ll see a new video (from Pickle maybe) showing some early emulation on the Pandora!
Suddenly after a few months of ‘meh’ towards the Pandora I’m all excited again!
Lol don’t say nothing is impossible.
But it’s wise of him to work on with the lid on,
saves us a hell lot of posting nonsence ^^
hurray!
If this works out, I will be forced to change all my opinions on the (as stated above) ‘meh’ stage in the pandora’s developement. If I get to play portable starfox 64, and Starcraft 64, I will send Ari64 100$ and I swear that on my honour. Email is t22r91s@hotmail.com if Ari reads this at all.
An excellent choice of photo to accompany this story lol
-123,059.76 Just to sort out the yin and yang of this page.
So much positivity I had to post something negative but could not bring my self to moan about this. 🙂 Oh! That’s kind of positive.
-1.23 Sorted!
Never owned a N64 was it any good? What are the killer games?
@may88:
http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=games&platform=4
i will happily donate him (or whoever else does it first) some money if he makes portable OOT a reality!
Sweet, you can never have to many emulators 🙂
i love that picture.
i think it has to do more with the many arm powered, linux running netbooks/smartbooks coming out next quarter(in about a month). then this hand held since it has been ‘2 months from shipping’ for the past half year or longer.
Awesome! Now if we could only get a device to play it on.
Spe-sp-ss-eh-spe-spe-spe-spee-eh-sp-sp-sp-eh-spe-eh lost for words! o0
OH MY GOD! NINTENDO 64!!! >__<
Seriously. Just when things were looking a bit grim. This comes out of left field and recharges all of us to get the Pandora.
Awesome… who doesn’t want a portable Mario Kart 64?
youuhouu !!! and what ?
See the dreamcast emu, there’s no news and it’s not playable, last video is 5 months old !! Am I wrong ?
I really hope that Dreamcast and N64 emu will be usable but …..
YES! I will donate money I will use emulator I will give coder a big hug (if possible)
Thankyou SOOOOOOOOO much!
Portable OOT MASTER QUEST
I just had an orgasm. I’d always assumed no one was going to start working on an emulator until a few months after the system came out, so this has convinced me not to cancel my order.
Oh My Gosh, why are you taking so long finishing the cursed box of doom.
@May88 “Never owned a N64 was it any good?”
The PAL model was excrement compared to the NTSC one.
Im not a N64 fan but you feel the buzz over on the forum, exophase and ari64 and talking in moonspeak and everyone is getting hyped
@r00tw00t
F*ck these imbeciles at gamespot and their habit of making stupid top-ten-lists which don’t even seperate genres! That list is nothing more than an item of exhibitionism, illustrating which genres these morons prefer themselves.
@r00tw00t – Thanks for the link. Most enlightening.
@Asmo – I live in the land of PAL so may be it was a good thing I managed to side-step this one. 🙂
Also a chance to add a bugger-meant-to-say – Thanks to ari64. Whilst I may not be having an orgasm like the other guys I sure appreciate you efforts.
@Gruso – You’re a funny guy. Strange funny. Loving your work. :p
You’re the man. Well done. We should be encouraging courageous people like you.
Has nobody noticed it yet? That IS gruso in the picture opening his crimbo present with his sister. You sure did love that N64 🙂
I said it would happen. Everyone else it would be ages if it ever happened at all. I love the OS community 🙂
WaveRace64:
MAXIMUM POWER!!
excellent 🙂
All I need now is a Pandora… pff only next month.
Forget about 17th September this is still too much optimistic ! We would have receive more news if it was in 2 weeks only.
…
Good news: Pickle has started looking at OpenGL. Yessss.
@Kuribo: I’m sorry then! I was only trying to be helpful and showing him what games there were. If I had known that you didn’t like them I wouldn’t have posted, sir!
Now Cpasjuste wants to look at it too. Yesssssss.
Ari, Pickle, Cpajuste this could get ugly!
That’s all well and good, but I’m still holding out for Virtual Boy emulation.
@AndyL –
The Pandora’s screen is just about high res enough that you could have a piece of lenticular plastic as an overlay, and run Virtual Boy games in 3D without the need for any glasses or other aids. Now that would be a handheld first…..
I hadn’t even thought of that, but you’re right!
That would be the best thing ever.
N64DD FTW! Wow, this truly demonstrates the raw power of Pandora… Bravo!