About The Nintendo 64 (N64) Console

What Is The Nintendo 64?

The Nintendo 64 is a video game console released by Nintendo in 1996 in Japan and the United States. The N64 is the successor to the Virtual Boy. The jump in graphics going from 2D to 3D was revolutionary at the time. It was the last console on the market to use cartridges instead of CDs. When released, it was met with a bit of a lackluster response for choosing to stick with cartridges.

Fear of Piracy

Nintendo was uncomfortable moving into putting their games on CDs because they worried that it would potentially cause them to lose control over certain licensing and production which at the time was still a very lucrative endeavor for them. Nintendo outright claimed that this choice was made due to piracy concerns with CD based games.

Competition

Cartridge based systems did load quicker than CD based ones. When it released, its main competitors at the time were the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn, both of which had their games on CDs.

The Nintendo 64 is in the fifth console generation and was at the forefront of 3D gaming. Games like Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64, Mario Kart 64, and many more are iconic classics that have stood the test of time. They were genre defining and paved the way for many games that we see being released today.

The N64 didn’t sell as well as the competition at the time. It released a bit late into the console generation lifecycle. This allowed Sony’s PlayStation to dominate the market and really pick up steam, considering it released an entire 2 years before the N64 hit shelves. Sony was a bit of an underdog at the time and came out swinging.

How To Emulate The N64?

Depending on your setup and what you are wanting to play games on, you have a few options when it comes to N64 emulation.

These days, Nintendo 64 emulation is quite fantastic. Because the emulators that are available have been around for years now, the developers have been able to fine tune them and ensure their compatibility with most games. The Nintendo 64 console can be emulated on Windows PC, Linux, Mac OS, Android, iOS, and even on a Raspberry Pi using the RetroPie software.

If interested, check out our guide on how to setup RetroPie for N64.

PC

Project64

If you’re a Windows user, Project64 is the best N64 emulator for the PC. It’s easy to get installed, setup, and running and it requires minimal technical understanding to do so. Many N64 games run very well and performance wise, Project64 is top notch. There are additional plugins like the GLideN64 graphics plugin that can be used to upscale games and improve their graphics and more.

Mac

OpenEmu

Mac users can use OpenEmu for their N64 emulation. OpenEmu technically isn’t an emulator, but is actually an emulation frontend that lets users download and install game emulator cores to use to play games from that console. The N64 related core that you’d need to install on OpenEmu is called the Mupen64Plus emulator. It runs well and has solid performance, with many games not having issues.