The History of Nintendo 64 Emulators - Part 1

Project UnReality (1997)

Project UnReality

The first Nintendo 64 emulator appeared in late 1997, just over a year after the launch of the real console. The project was created by Michael Tedder, aka Breakpoint, and was incredibly designed to run on a Pentium 2 333Mhz, with 64MB of memory and DirectX 5.0, unlike its successors that required advanced graphics cards for the time. The graphical part of the emulator was developed by Dave Mayer. The documentation used in the project came mainly from the Dextrose website. Project UnReality (or unreality project), inspired by the name Project Reality, which was the initial name for the development of the N64, was first released in November 1997 for Windows. In its first version, it already ran games from the console, but without sound. It also only ran games in the Doctor V64 format (.N64, .U64, and .V64), which was a Chinese add-on that ripped games from the console. Thus, it was the first Nintendo 64 emulator to run games, even if only to a certain extent. In the December 1997 version, it began to support loading third-party front-ends, despite having its own, in addition to supporting basic 2D emulation. In the February 1998 version, it began to emulate the joypad and audio. This version is also known as the first unstable version of the emulator. On this occasion, Brian Gordon, Legerdemain, joined the project, helping to reveal many secrets about the console.

Project UnReality (Menus/Settings)

In the May 1998 version, a new sound core was created with almost perfect reproduction, in addition to starting to support the .Z64 ROM format. In general, the emulator also runs games in the .BIN extension. It has save state, pause, reset and configuration of four joypads. In the video section, it supports windowed mode, and full screen with support for DirectDraw (the 3D part of the emulator) and resolutions in sizes of 320x240 and 640x480. In the audio section, it has stereo and 44Hz playback settings, among others. Despite all this, it never left the alpha stage. The project also had DeltaPlayer, a music player in MOD, S3M, XM, MP1, MP2, MP3 and WAV formats created even before the N64 project. The last release of Project UnReality was in May 1998. At the time, rumors arose that Michael ended the project because he had been approached by Nintendo. This was never confirmed. In June 1999, the source code for the emulator was released. After the project ended, Michael was hired by Z-Axis in 1999 as a game programmer. At that time, he became known as Mike Tedder. From 2003 to 2005, he worked at Genius Sonority and in 2017 at Cold Fision, all game developers. He developed games for PS1, Nintendo GameCube and systems such as Android.

NSFE (1998)

NSFE

NSFE was created by Gordon Hollingworth as Reality64 in 1998. Its first and only version was released in March 1998 for Windows. The project focused solely on CPU emulation. It promised to run games, including those in .V64, .U64 and .N64 extensions, but this never actually happened. Despite this, it was seen as a project with a promising future. The project was mistaken for being part of the TrueReality project, but they never had any connection. In October 1998, it changed its name to NSFE, which stands for Nintendo Sixty Four Emulator. In the same month, he also spoke about the OpenGL graphics core that was being created by him and Ben Marsh, a partner in the project. Gordon said that he postponed the release of the emulator that month due to bugs found in the emulator, and that they wanted to deliver a problem-free product to users. This version was never released and NSFE was discontinued in January 1999. At the time, Gordon was working on another project for the N64, but nothing more was heard from him after that.

NINCest 64 (1998)

NINCest 64

NINCest 64 was a project started in 1998, with its first release in February 1998 for MS-DOS. It was the first N64 emulator for DOS. Known as NIN64, it was created by the Spaniard Marius P. Dumitrean, known as SuperMan or SuperMan64, and although it was also a promising emulator, it only managed to run a few demos of the console. In April 1998, it released its first beta version and in the second beta version of the same month it began to run two demo games. It ran demos in .V64, .BIN and .N64 formats.

NINCest 64 (Windows)

In the beta version of July 4, 1999, the INI file was added, which is mainly used to add new games, as well as general settings. It also adds more speed to the emulator in this version. With the following versions, other bugs were fixed and more speed was added to the emulator. In version 0.02 Beta 1 of November, sound was finally added to the emulator, although it was not yet operational. In this version, 20 demos were already running, of which 16 were fully run. On November 11, 1998, its first version for Windows was released.

NINCest 64 0.02

This version was ported by Andrei de Benson, and supported DirectX and fullscreen windows. Three days later, the Windows version of Marius, 0.02 Beta 1, was released. In December 1999, the latest version of the emulator, 0.02 Beta 2, was released, with preliminary sound emulation. The emulator worked well on video cards supporting 640x480 resolution and 160-bit color, Pentium processor, DirectX 5 or higher, and 16MB of RAM. The emulator was released in both English and Spanish. Based on the latest version of the emulator, the first port, for Dreamcast, was released in August 2004 by GPF, called DCNin64.

NINCest 64 (Options)

Its compatibility was even lower than the Windows version. Monkey64 was the port that came out soon after for the PSP handheld. It was developed by PSMonkey and was released in March 2006. It had great compatibility. It was the only port that actually made progress, including achieving the compatibility that the original emulator never managed to achieve. Later, the Nincest64GP2X port for the GP2X handheld was released in May 2008, by Grz-. This version only ran two demos and served only as a distraction. And finally, N64Dingux, a port of the GP2X version for the Dingoo handheld by Omundogabriel, also known as Dark Ninja, in April 2012, also without significant progress.

TrueReality (1998)

TrueReality

TrueReality was a project that began in 1998 by Niki Waibel. At the time, he wanted to port Project Unreality to UNIX/Linux, but its creators didn't like the idea very much, so the idea of ​​TrueReality was born. Its debut took place in the first months of 1998, with a version for UNIX, which was released in December 1999. This version, later in June 1999, brought support for OpenGL. In July 1998, the version for MS-DOS was released, but it was not continued. By October, it was considered one of the most advanced N64 emulation projects.

TRWin 2.36 (Interface/About/Controls)

In May 1999, the long-awaited Windows version of the emulator with DirectX support was released, known as TRWin, and ported by RCP. From this version onwards, the emulator began to run console games, starting with Mario 64. This is considered an official port along with the UNIX port made by Niki, and is therefore part of the original project. To run the emulator satisfactorily, it was necessary to have a 375Mhz Celeron processor, which at the time few people could have. In October 1999, sound support was added to the emulator. This version already ran 88 games, many of them without a large number of bugs, such as Bomberman Hero, Mortal Kombat 64, San Francisco Rush, Starfox 64, Superman and some others. Another new feature of the emulator was the ability to use patches and cheats also used in the UltraHLE emulator, the most famous on the 64 scene at the time. Around September/October 1999, the layout changed. In one of its versions, the May 2000 version, it ran 63 games. Fewer games than the October 1999 version, but most likely they ran stably. In June 2000, the RCP port for Windows was completed. In the same month, RCP began working on KIAME, a Killer Instinct emulator. 

TRWin GL

In the midst of this, in May 1999, another port for Windows created by F|RES with OpenGL support was created, called TRWin GL (TrueReality Windows OpenGL), and it was also an official port of the project. Both TRWin and TRWin GL were developed separately. TRWin GL was launched in April 1999. The emulation was very simple, but fast and with good graphics, and the emulator had three resolution sizes. In September, the emulator was prepared to receive plug-ins, but this support never actually happened. It seems that the group produced its own video plug-in for the emulator called TRWin OpenGL, but this is not confirmed.

TRWin GL (Super Mario 64)

Regarding its layout, it changed several times throughout 1999. From September 1999 onwards, it began to feature a fixed video plugin and in December 1999, a sound plugin. In its final version in December 1999, the emulator ran 64 games in total. Its creator, F|RES, contributed to other N64 projects, such as 1964, for example. TRWin GL even had an emulator created in June based on its source code, the PC64. In July, the last official port of TrueReality was released, ported to MacOS by Gil Pedersen and which had versions until January 2000. The project also had other ports, the so-called unofficial ones. 

TRWin GL (Interface)

In January 1999 for Amiga by the famous AmiDog from the UNIX version, with the last release in April 2000 and in February 1999 for MS-DOS by Lemmy from the Nemu64 project also from the UNIX version, with a single release. In February 2000, Niki decided to give the project a new direction and left Icepir8, who was already on the project, and F|RES creator of TRWin GL in his place, claiming lack of time. In April, with the team complete, the project changed its name to TR64 (TrueReality64), and they began working on the Windows version of F|RES, TRWin GL, which had been finished the previous year. 

TR64

The first version of TR64 was released in October. One of its distinguishing features was its support for OpenGL and DirectX 11. This version also included a fixed plugin for video and sound. The second version, released in the same month, included a fixed plugin for input. In November, the last member of the new group joined, Schibo from the old N64 project, 1964. Starting with the second version in December 2000, it began to allow the installation of external plugins. It was only in the April 2001 version that support for sound was added. The emulator continued to receive updates until December 2001, when its last version was released. In May 2002, he posted some screenshots of tests of the emulator, and in August of the same year he said that the project was not dead.

TR64 (Nuclear Strike 64/Off Road Challenge)

More than a year after the last version, its final version was released in April 2003. TR64 works through plug-ins, which were added in the second version of the emulator also in October 2000. It loaded the graphic, sound, joypad and RSP plug-ins, which was the reality signal processor, a processor for autonomous graphics. A coprocessor of the central processor. The games were loaded in .ROM, .BIN, .V64 and .N64 formats. Regarding its front-end, it was modified in December 2000 and April 2003. As for its icon, it changed twice in October 2000 and once in April 2001. 

TR64 (Interface/Settings)

TR64 (Interfaces)

Regarding forks, in April 2001, the Blade64 emulator was released based on the TR64 source code. Another project by Ice and Fires was the development of a graphics plug-in that they used in the emulator, called TR64 OpenGL, developed from September 2001 to March 2003. In February 2004, Niki (the original author of the project) revived the TR64 project and released a new version of the emulator for UNIX (also running on Linux) in March. It released versions until April 2004 and returned in 2008 with versions between March and June. After that, the project was never heard from again.

Ultra64 (1998)

Ultra64

The Ultra64 emulator (based on the name given to the N64 hardware) began to be developed in 1998 by Timmy Schwartz, also known as Angelo. One of its first versions, 0.2a, was released in October 1998 for Windows. The October version only emulated the CPU, without graphics or audio. In December, a debugger was added and ROMs were loaded without running them. Since its inception (at least since December), it has released its source code. Although it does not run games, it has supported the .N64, .V64, and .BIN extensions (and from 1999 onwards, .Z64) and save states since the beginning. In 1999, it had versions in April, June and December. In April 1999, its competitor, UltraHLE (commonly confused with Timmy's emulator), gave up its website to host Ultra64. 

Ultra64 (Interface/ASCII Viewer/CPU)

In January 2000, he got his .com domain. The next version was released in May 2000, when his name changed to Ultra64X. Until this version, many things had been changed, but no games could be played, except for the N64Stars demo. His last release was dated May 2001. From this last version onwards, the emulator could already run some demos, such as N64stars, Liner and 1964. In July 2001, he released the source code of his emulator for use by anyone interested. In October, he had a project to develop a CPU core for the N64 together with Azimer from the Apollo project, which would be shared by both emulators, but it never came to fruition.