GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[GE MASTER]

Okay, heh, me and the boys are getting together tomorrow. I've been dusting off my brain cells (and controllers) and setting up the emulator on my new pc. I will have a full tutorial at some point because I think it needs to be done.

My findings so far? It's best to use the native 4:3 resolutions. Sure you can get the 16:9 for a 42" HDTV but it's stretched and that's not what I like. I'm using a PC with HDMI out to a 42" plasma. I bought a HDMI cable for about $25 and it's wicked. Win 7 is pretty easy to configure the TV. Just remember to set the audio to use the HDMI.

What I'm most juiced about, and something that I'm just learning about, is the 1964 Ultrafast. I did do a brief trial and um, yeah. This is something we all should be talking about. I need to test it a bit before I can claim it to be the "next big evolution of GoldenEye", but it's there imo. It's 60 FPS. I read a long forum thread from the dev which gave me some tips which I need to test.

With 1964 Ultrafast, I setup 4 players, all shooting Phantoms at the same time on Temple. Wow. Seamless. I experienced some audio issues, but that's my fault. I did a test on Archives BZ also with the All Phantoms, shooting at the same time. Again, it seems very encouraging.

So if 1964 Ultrafast turns out to be as its billed, then you could actually have GE performing at a Halo type framerate on an HDTV. I had the eye candy fully cranked. It is sharp and honestly it's as good as the PD XBLA imo. The best part is the original controllers of course. I'm sure at some point I will give my pal who loves the Xbox 360 controls a chance to play GE with that and we will use the original. Conclusion? Stay tuned.

Really excited to play some GoldenEye. Been a while.

The point is, there seems to be a real new opportunity to capture original GE fans who are unaware of the scene. I will do my best. The tutorial hopefully will open some eyes. Then I'll hit them with all the crazy new multi levels and other kick a$$ projects.

[stolen]

GE MASTER wrote:

What I'm most juiced about, and something that I'm just learning about, is the 1964 Ultrafast. I did do a brief trial and um, yeah. This is something we all should be talking about. I need to test it a bit before I can claim it to be the "next big evolution of GoldenEye", but it's there imo. It's 60 FPS. I read a long forum thread from the dev which gave me some tips which I need to test.

Ultrafast is known to emulate GoldenEye quite poorly, with stages like Depot are completely unplayable. In my experience, PistolGrip's 1964 build emulates GoldenEye without any issues.

[SubDrag]

I'm a bit confused on how the UltraFast works? Does the game run too fast? Or somehow does it handle the nuances of a particular game to just make it do 60 fps but a normal amount of work in 1 second.

I've tried GoldenEye on N64 on a HDTV, and one the newer Plasmas it looks nice, but older ones it looks pretty awful.

Haven't tried the emulated way though. I imagine it's pretty decent though, hopefully can get past the minor emulation glitches. If it's 60 fps that's a different story but I'm still skeptical on that.

[GE MASTER]

Well I've read the dev's thread which is about 13 pages long. Confusing? Yes. Again, I'm just learning about this. stolen it sounds like you know a lot more about this than I do. Can you advise?

-which build or where can I get pistolgrip's?
-does his allow or work with the jabo graphics plugin or is it limited to one or two?

Subby this is just what I can say about it. Again, not gospel, but essentially what I gather from the dev. Some games on the N64 are like PC games in that the better the hardware, they have no limitation. So think of GE and PD as being "unlocked". They only could do the FPS that the N64 hardware could allow. However, with overclocking, it can double, triple, etc the framerate that GE and PD can pump out. In other words, it can run a steady 60 FPS with 4 player multiplayer. Again, my brief test, I've never seen as smooth shooting a phantom with 4 players in my life.

I'm reading though, from the dev, that you have to use the default plugins within his zip or build. I will test those tonight I hope. A lot of people are putting and using other configs and plugins which is causing issues. Perhaps stolen could shed some light on that.

I cannot yet confirm a solid 60 FPS in levels like Archives BZ. With that said, I'm also pumping out full eye candy at the same time. I have to!

I've seen a glimpse of the overclocking at work in multiplayer. It's like a true evolution. If this is fully playable without major issues, I'll be promoting this as much as humanly possible. I realize there may be single player issues etc, but you know my focus is on... multiplayer!

[stolen]

GE MASTER wrote:

-which build or where can I get pistolgrip's? -does his allow or work with the jabo graphics plugin or is it limited to one or two?

You can get it here. I try to keep it updated, and it already includes a few plugins, such as Jabo 1.6.1 and Glide64 WIP. As far as I know, it is compatible with all plugins that follow the Zilmar/Jabo spec.

GE MASTER wrote:

Subby this is just what I can say about it. Again, not gospel, but essentially what I gather from the dev. Some games on the N64 are like PC games in that the better the hardware, they have no limitation. So think of GE and PD as being "unlocked". They only could do the FPS that the N64 hardware could allow. However, with overclocking, it can double, triple, etc the framerate that GE and PD can pump out.

This involves hacking around with the 1964 source, namely the DOUBLE_COUNT var in timing.c. By setting DOUBLE_COUNT to 2, emulation slows down to half speed. You can counter this by modding the vips_speed_limits array, along with a few other changes. PistolGrip/RetroRalph may have done something entirely different, but there is no way of knowing since they have yet to release the source of their forks.

[GE MASTER]

Thanks stolen. Will setup that version next.

I just did another test run with V3 Overclock. I used the default plugins as suggested by the dev. I had it HDMI onto HDTV at a resolution of 1280 x 980 I think. Heh, pretty sure. Full eye candy settings, 4 players, all phantoms, all shooting at the same time. Audio fine. Results? Unlike anything you most likely have seen. The kicker? It was on Archives BZ. As might be the thought moving foward, those levels that sucked such as Control? May need to rethink. It may just be fully playable with 4 players at a solid FPS. I did some all grenade launchers, 4 player on Temple. Result? Flawless FPS even when creating large residuals clouds. Fun! Smoke and no slow down that I could sense.

One downside. The default video plugin I believe is Rice, which is cool, but it screws up the Temple wall texture. Trust me, you will be able to live with that.

Big note here. You must follow my setting in the video plugin to remove the flicker. Got it? Read here: http://www.goldeneyeforever.com/goldeneye_emulation_emulators.php

edit: I may be sneaky and try the Rice version that fixes the wall textures and see how it works out. Stay tuned.

[Sogun]

I don't know if it was made with Ultrafast or Pistolgrip's tool, but you should check this video, it's Perfect Dark 60 fps 720p:
http://vimeo.com/5068728
In order to see the video at 60 fps you should download it. There's a link in the descripction, but here it is http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CYPAG276
I think it was uploaded by some Neogaf user, but I can't find the original source. Chicago rain is amazing!

Nintendo 64 games usually have a fps limiter. GE and PD are weird games where this limiter is variable, so you can get 60 fps sometimes but not everywhere (it happens to Blast Corps and Diddy Kong Racing too, so it must be a Rare's thing; the limiter, not the 60 fps). For example, PD multiplayer is limited to 30 fps and some sections of Blast Corps can't run higher than 15 fps.

There are some N64 games that can run at 60 fps through emulation without special hacking even if in the real hardware they weren't that smooth. Bomberman 64 and Shadowman are some cases I know.

Unfortunately I can't set GE/PD to 60 fps. Seems that my laptop lacks the power

[Trevor]

hmm, well If I disable speed limit I get over a hundred fps...

only problem is everything is fast, not crisp...

I read that overclocking N64 caused timers to also speed up due to GE relying heavily on CPU ticks rather than separate clock.

Games with a clock can have the CPU multiplier upped to 3* (giving 180MHz) and they can use extra speed for frame rate without 'speeding up'

Trev

Some guy without success though other have had success, just look at you tube with overclocking and youl see people who look like they have fast animation on:
http://www.gamesx.com/misctech/n64oc.htm
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[GE MASTER]

Yeah I think it's important to distinguish what an overclock is vs. speeding the game up. It's not like getting a turbo mode. It's more like silky smooth response and visuals. It's like 2 player framerate, but you are using 4 player. That type of thing. I don't know when it's being played, how odd it's going to feel. Stay tuned for that.

Note: I found that simply clocking double speed was the best results. Going more than that caused speed flux in my initial testing.

[SubDrag]

Wow that Perfect Dark video is impressive. Does 1964 allow GS codes? I'd like to see someone try 4P Co-op Carrington institute (using the GS code for 4P) or even just to see 2P coop there.

[stolen]

Sogun wrote:

I don't know if it was made with Ultrafast or Pistolgrip's tool, but you should check this video, it's Perfect Dark 60 fps 720p: http://vimeo.com/5068728

That video was made using PistolGrip's build.

SubDrag wrote:

Wow that Perfect Dark video is impressive. Does 1964 allow GS codes? I'd like to see someone try 4P Co-op Carrington institute (using the GS code for 4P) or even just to see 2P coop there.

Ultrafast (1964 1.1) supports activators, while PistolGrip's build (1964 0.8.5) doesn't.

Last edited by stolen on Sun Dec 18, 2011 9:14 am; edited 1 time in total

[SubDrag]

Where's a link to Pistolgrips?

[GE MASTER]

I just did a small play test. I can confirm that using the other, non default Rice video plugin does cause slowdown issues. Default plugins, 4 player, all phantoms, egyptian, smooth!!

[GE MASTER]

Well 4 player multiplayer session via emu on hdtv with 1964 ultrafast v3.0 is in the bag. My friends commented that it was as smooth as Halo. We pushed a lot of different levels and weapons. When it worked, it was the best GoldenEye multiplayer experience ever. We did experience freeze ups often. That isn't good. Bunker 3 player had some slow down issues with Power Weapons. I do not know how v3 compares to pistolgrips version. I do not know how play tested these ultrafast versions are. I would think most people aren't playing with 4 players on full screen at a 1280x980 resolution.

So I'm hoping that the freeze ups and odd slow downs using 3 players on Bunker isn't permanent. Ultrafast uses an old Rice plugin which isn't great in comparison to the 5.5.1 version which does show more accurate graphics including fixed Temple walls.

I can honestly say though, with the freeze ups being a WIP, this is the greatest GoldenEye multiplayer experience on the planet. I dare say that when you are flying around at 60 FPS with 3 or 4 players regardless of weapons, you will be saying the same thing. All grenade launchers with 4 players has always been a jerky experience until now. I've been a big emu fan but it's not until now, I can say that GoldenEye can fully keep pace with the most modern shooters out there. It can and does with the overclock.

[stolen]

GE MASTER wrote:

I do not know how v3 compares to pistolgrips version.

They have very much the same emulator, except Ultrafast is forked off the experimental 1964 1.1 core, which in my opinion, was a rushed untested released. I've experienced more crashes with Ultrafast then with PistolGrip's 0.8.5 build.

But at the end of the day, they are very much the same emulator, and if Ultrafast works for you, then by all means use it. Have fun!