Why? Surely it's more straightforward to do binary-to-binary translation. No human input needed!
Skimming the Github repo, looks like this uses rt64 under the hood for the raytracing support ( https://github.com/rt64/rt64 ), and that uses the ubershader technique to emulate the GPU. This excellent article talks about the what, why, and insanity that are ubershaders: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2017/07/30/ubershaders/
Static recompilation from one machine language to one other language is somewhere between extremely difficult to not being generally possible in practice [1]. To make recompiling something like this properly, you need some help from the binaries that make recompilation easier [2] and on top of that you need to patch certain things to make this work [3].
Dynamic recompilation doesn't have this problem. It allows you to create software you can dump the original binaries+assets ("ROMs") in and it will generally emulate it.
There's a lot of confusion about how generic this solution it. It's extremely impressive in how much work it saves making recompilations/"ports" much easier, and it will be very valuable. But it is not able to replace the need for traditional emulators.
[1]: https://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/155511/why-is-static-...
[2]: N64 game binaries may happen to avoid a bunch of things that make general static recompilation hard that help this approach, but I don't actually know.
[3]: The Majora's Mask recompilation repository contains a lot of handcrafted patches to make it work: https://github.com/Mr-Wiseguy/Zelda64Recomp
HOWEVER.. writing an recompiler (not feasible for 8bits due to the amount of self-mod code) you could probably insert pattern checks to detect writes to DMA-starting locations,etc (thinking back to our PS2 games) and transform it to safe sequences without accurate timing for most games that really only would be happy with some extra cycles.
https://andrewkelley.me/post/jamulator.html
There is also Winlator for running Windows programs on Android:
https://github.com/brunodev85/winlator
Also is the youtube video linked in the article using an AI voice?
At least Mr WiseGuy seems to care. From the N64Recom Github repo[0]: "This is not the first project that uses static recompilation on game console binaries. A well known example is jamulator, which targets NES binaries."
The N64 is fixed hardware, so it's a little bit easier. Even so, this project still uses emulation for the RDP. I don't know how it handles generated RSP microcode, maybe it doesn't. A lot of games just used the official libraries.
That's just Nerrel, a real person, narrating. It's crazy (in an interesting way, not necessarily a doom and gloom way) how we have AI voices these days so good we start to suspect people who don't speak like we expect are AI.
Older consoles had even more dedicated chips doing relevant stuff other than "simple" I/O, like e.g. the SNES's sound chip, which was a completely independent CPU running its own little programs in parallel with the CPU and GPU.
Of course you could "mandate" a high-level VM for all future game development, but given the static nature of console hardware specs, that wouldn't be competitive for titles wanting to make use of cutting-edge graphics.
On Debian, I found I had to run
dpkg --add-architecture i386 && apt-get update
What saddens me is that open-source OSes do not want to provide a common set of APIs so that the developer only has to write and test the code once and it works everywhere. There is flatpak, but as I understand, it doesn't provide a set of APIs, it simply packs a Linux distribution into a virtual machine without any specifications or documentation. So ugly, and no compatibility for smaller non-Linux OSes.
It's funny how the Mac is more compatible with old Windows programs than old Mac programs.
It models statically-typed compiled languages in a much superior way to WASM, there are projects showcasing how well e.g. Rust maps to it[0], and C++/CLI existed for a long time (although it's not cross-platform, and is considered cursed).
C and C++ could be mapped in a perfect manner to IL and then AOT compiled in ways that GraalVM's Truffle can only dream of (given that .NET exposes a very wide set of intrinsics allowing a lot of code to be ported that way).
Wine (+ Steam's Proton) works incredibly well these days, a huge improvement from the old days when barely anything ran, and what did run required heavy tweaking or even custom compilation.
On Linux, my Steam library of about 300 games runs almost in its entirety without issues (except for Last Epoch).
An example of this can be found here: https://github.com/Mr-Wiseguy/Zelda64Recomp?tab=readme-ov-fi...
Huh, I wouldn't have expected that. I don't know much about the specifics of N64 emulation, but I've had N64 emulators running perfectly since the early 2010s. I played mostly the big classics, so I'm unfamiliar with more niche title performance.
Some other madlad then took that approach, and ported it to a GPU Shader, because fuck yeah thousands of cores! It actually greatly improved the situation, as you didn't need a super powerful GPU, just a somewhat modern GPU.
That development means devices like the steam deck actually have zero issues running awesome N64 emulation, including allowing for upscaling to much higher rendering resolutions without artifacts because you are literally telling a virtual RDP to do it, and it happily complies.
Before AngryLion and ParaLLEl, we were stuck with basically the same graphics plugins, glitches, and tweaks as the late 90s.
https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/parallel-n64/ for a more detailed description of how this changed things.
For example Mario64 and Ocarina of Time are completely reverse engineered and have native support for Windows and Linux and they run perfectly on those systems as where they really struggle when trying to emulate.
EDIT - But hey, you can always just add another layer of emulation via Proton to run it in Linux.
The modal aspect of aiming combined with the travel time/return-to-center of the cursor is a really fun part of the game. If you could just free-aim while running a la PC FPS it would kind of ruin the campaign since everything is designed around this. Picking your spots and keeping cool while aiming are the appeal.
That said, if you keep the modal aspect and have the mouse just 1) rotate Bond like left/right on the stick does and 2) control the cursor only in "aim mode" (hit R)..then I think that could be fun.
Tbh, I wish shooters didn't go straight to Quake-style WASD+mouse free-aim across the board. The modal aspect makes gives Goldeneye a certain physicality I really like.
The goal of N64 emulators (generally) is to accurately recreate the behavior of the original console.
Conversely, there is a large crowd of people who just want to play SM64, OOT and MM with a bevy of "graphical enhancements" like 60fps, widescreen, texture packs, randomizers, etc.
For these people, the fact that these games originally ran on the N64 is practically irrelevant. In fact, it's a hindrance; The N64's graphical pipeline is cumbersome to emulate and actively stands in the way of modern 'enhancements.'
This project is more aimed at giving the games themselves modern treatments, removing the N64-centric aspects of the games from the equation entirely.
What interests me more about recompilation is it can produce very efficient binaries instead of having to emulate everything. And also makes it easier to add new features.
Interpretation involves writing a VM that represents the state of various parts of the machine, and executes instructions that change the state of the VM, with varying levels of accuracy.
A straight recompilation is one thing, but what this tool does is recompile with the target system’s apis for input and output in mind. A straight recompilation would offer less than an emulator, really.
This tool knows (or is told) where rendering routines are, for example, so that they can be replaced with destination platform versions. That’s how higher resolutions and different aspect ratios are supported in a recombination.
I would love to play a source-port of arcade “GTI Club”! <3
OTOH, I haven't tried the Switch Pro controller with anything else but a Switch, so maybe it can be made to work? (EDIT: just tried it: my Mac connects to the Switch Pro via BT, haven't actually tried it, 'cuz damned work is in the way.)
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/nintendo-64-contr...
Why do people even bother when they know they'll get lawyers at their door in 3... 2... 1... ?
This project isn't distributing any of Nintendo's code, game assets, or other intellectual property.
https://www.nerd.nintendo.com/files/Secu%20Job%20Offer%20202...
How anyone has any sympathy or hope for Nintendo not going after their users in 2024 is beyond me. This is GameCube era games, and they’re still litigious.