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General Emulation Discussion
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looks like there will be a retro Amiga release
https://www.facebook.com/THEC64andMoreByRetroGamesLtd/posts/2425340997771127
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Retr0gamer wrote: »What's the best N64 core to use with Retroarch?
My preferred shader isn't working with the N64 cores I've used.
I don't use shaders with N64 content...upscaling the internal resolution is much more effective and more visually pleasing. Though at that stage you're moving away from the 'authentic' look, and more towards 'what the N64 would look like if it was more powerful'.
You can of course choose settings that will be much closer to the look/feel of how N64 games look, but I mean, who the hell wants that
As for the core, it'll greatly depend on your cpu. I use the Parallel core...Info and configuration here - https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/parallel/
That's considered quite highly currently.0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
I don't use shaders with N64 content...upscaling the internal resolution is much more effective and more visually pleasing. Though at that stage you're moving away from the 'authentic' look, and more towards 'what the N64 would look like if it was more powerful'.
You can of course choose settings that will be much closer to the look/feel of how N64 games look, but I mean, who the hell wants that
As for the core, it'll greatly depend on your cpu. I use the Parallel core...Info and configuration here - https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/parallel/
That's considered quite highly currently.
The shaders I use give it more of a high quality CRT look, looks gorgeous for all the games I've tried, particularly PS1 as it works in conjunction with the dithering nobody likes to create the fake high colour that was originally intended.
I'd prefer to have that over something approximating the N64's original look (whichout the awful blur, that can **** off). I'm currently playing PS1 games in the original resolution with this shader and they look stunning. Was hoping for the same effect with N64.
I've tried Paralell but the best CRT shaders either plain don't work or there's issues with static 2D images for some reason (jumping around like it's interlaced or something?). It's probably an issue with the core rather than the shader, I might need to change the settings a bit to get it right.
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
Whatever shader I'm using makes ps1 games look gorgeous.. except kings field because that might just be the ugliest game ever and there's no hope for it.
I have basically been using the mugen and parallel as default and both are t playing nice with my shaders. Not sure why it's just n64 as everything else is fine. I'll check the settings. It could be a resolution issue maybe?
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
Hard to say what I'm using as when I accidentally deleted the settings trying to fix n64 it takes me about an hour to find the right one. I do know I've tried cry royale which gives the jumpy 2D assets. also tried hyllian and easy mode halacation. Not sure what their issues were but I'm pretty sure they just didn't work.
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
I'll give it a try but at the moment I'm loving the look of raw native resolution pixels put through a good scanline shader with slight phosphorous glow. Looks stunning to me. It doesn't look great with a downscaled image but I'll give this one a go and see if it sorts it out.
N64 is a weird one for me because everything else is working beautifully with shaders.
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
I'm finding PS1 looks amazing with a good CRT shader really suits it.
I'll see if I can find the shader I was trying to use. I haven't messed with any of the emulator settings. I kind of get the feeling it might be renderer at high resolution or something at default and it's not working right. I'll check.
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Also just very briefly....I had some spare time this week so I set up FM Towns (and Marty) in LaunchBox. There's no RetroArch core for this system so a dedicated emulator is required (which I've moved away from as much as possible...no shaders & no unified controls
)
Anyway, the system itself is hugely impressive. Not quite up to x68000 standards, but from what I've seen it surpasses an Amiga. The Super SF2 port is damn near arcade perfect (with only minor downgrades), & there's a nice collection of shmups for it too.
Setup was, to be fair, not easy. Not particularly difficult when following the guide, but because the emulator can't run disc images & instead needs images mounted to a virtual drive...it greatly complicates things.
The guide below will automate the entire process though:
1) Double click the game in LaunchBox
2) This automatically mounts the required cd image file
3) Runs the emulator automatically
4) Sends the correct full-screen keystrokes to the emulator to make it fullscreen
5) Plays the game
6) Uses the escape key to quit the game & emulator
7) Automatically unmounts the cd image from the virtual drive
8) Brings you back to LaunchBox
^^ a retroarch core would go a LONG way here
Anyway, here's the appropriately titled guide - https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/51492-fm-towns-unz-guide-not-for-the-faint-hearted/ 0 -
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
Preferences aside, it's nice to hear others praise RetroArch shaders....they're absolutely amazing.
N64 RDP options are quite in depth, I'd say the low level renderer isn't liking those shaders as a guess. There will be ways around it but I likely won't be much help to you on this one. Maybe if you can find out the name of the shader, and give me any Parallel settings you might have changed, I can try recreate it on my end.
I had the same experience. PS1 had that horrible scanline banding I spoke of, but only because I was running it at x3 or x4 upscaled....so the two didin't gel. I turned off the crt shaders for that system too and found at these resolutions, I'm perfectly fine without them.
Issue resolved. Went into the parallel core options and it was rendering at a high resolution. Turned it down to native 640x480 and it's working.
Seems the shader was working but the scanlines are based on pixel density so the more pixels the smaller the scanlines. Looks gorgeous now and I also set texture filtering to 3 point so it's looking very authentic.
Any way to check what current share you have selected so I can share it? I can't seem to see where it is?
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
In order to check which shader is currently running, press F1 (when in-game), scroll down to Shaders and go onto that. From there, have a look at Shader #0 to see what shader preset is running. If you're running a more complex shader like crt-royale, there'll be multiple passes of different shaders, so there'll be a shader #1, shader #2, etc.
I've done that and it's a more complex shader with 8 shader passes! I'll try figure it out.As I've said in the main/general thread....N64 emulation has come a LONG way from where it was just a few years ago. Granted it's not yet perfect, but many people still think of it as a mess, when it really isn't.
It's still not quite rights, something off about it. It does look an awful lot better now that they support 3 point filtering.
However the inaccuracies caused me a lot of frustration last night. Was trying to play mischief makers and my controls just would not work. Tried everything, deleting config files and everything. Just would not work.
Turns out due to inaccuracies in the emulation controls don't work with the second revision of the game released in the US, the first revision is fine.
Speaking of mischief makers you are going to call me out as a hypocrite.
It's one of the few 2D games on the N64. I started playing it with the settings as close to the N64 hardware as possible with 3 point filtering and it looks.... god awful. But it looks god awful on original hardware as the 3 point filtering blurs everything. So I switched to good old nearest neighbour blockiness and the game looks incredible with it's art allowed to shine in it's full detail glory.
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Retr0gamer wrote: »I've done that and it's a more complex shader with 8 shader passes! I'll try figure it out.
Another (more convoluted way) of doing it is to run the content you want. The hit F1, Shaders, hit save, then hit save game preset. Then, in your RetroArch folder, there's a folder called Config. Inside this will be a folder named after the core you used to run the game, and within that, will be a GLSLP file matching the games name. Right click & edit that GLSLP file (using notepad++ ideally), and within that config you will see which shader has been specific to run (eg crthylian.glslp). That's definitely a shortcoming in RetroArch....you should be able to see on demand which shader is running.However the inaccuracies caused me a lot of frustration last night. Was trying to play mischief makers and my controls just would not work. Tried everything, deleting config files and everything. Just would not work.
Turns out due to inaccuracies in the emulation controls don't work with the second revision of the game released in the US, the first revision is fine.
That's very odd, are you certain that's the issue? Controls not working in a v2 release whereby they do in V1?Speaking of mischief makers you are going to call me out as a hypocrite.
It's one of the few 2D games on the N64. I started playing it with the settings as close to the N64 hardware as possible with 3 point filtering and it looks.... god awful. But it looks god awful on original hardware as the 3 point filtering blurs everything. So I switched to good old nearest neighbour blockiness and the game looks incredible with it's art allowed to shine in it's full detail glory.
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Join Date:Posts: 49969
Another (more convoluted way) of doing it is to run the content you want. The hit F1, Shaders, hit save, then hit save game preset. Then, in your RetroArch folder, there's a folder called Config. Inside this will be a folder named after the core you used to run the game, and within that, will be a GLSLP file matching the games name. Right click & edit that GLSLP file (using notepad++ ideally), and within that config you will see which shader has been specific to run (eg crthylian.glslp). That's definitely a shortcoming in RetroArch....you should be able to see on demand which shader is running.
Cool, I'll post up what I'm using when I get homeThat's very odd, are you certain that's the issue? Controls not working in a v2 release whereby they do in V1?
Trust me.... it took me a looooooong time blaming myself for messing with config files before I googled it and found it's an issue with the mupen core that parallel is based on. Got the v1 rom and it works perfectly.
I'm actually considering a N64 usb controller now. The controls of a lot of the more complex games that I tried last night (specifically Castlevania, Mischief Makers and Sin and Punishment) are made specifically for the N64 controller and don't map well to 4 face buttons.
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The shaders in Retroarch are awesome, but also the bane of my emulation life(just like MAME HLSL was years ago). I've very fussy with how things look so spend hours/days playing around with the shaders to get the look i want. For 240p stuff my technique was to put the PVM/BVM I prefer next to my screen and load up the same games on hardware and emulation, then try to get the shaders to look like the CRT.
Couple of comparison pics below. It's kind of hard to get a decent photo of the crt, but you get the idea. The crt photo colours don't quite match the screenshot, but in real life they look the same. You'll probably need to click the images to see the full size.
Retroarch Screenshot
Photo of PVM Screen
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