For decades, Nintendo fans heavily relied on emulation to preserve their past games including the N64. Over two decades, 3-D emulation has become more impossible to process on modern PCs as they demand GPU processing and high RAM usage. Due to these limitations, access to a powerful PC has grown more expensive.
But recently, a programmer, Mr. WiseGuy, discovered a brand-new way to preserve N64 games through recompilation coding.
What Is Recompilation?
Recompilation is a coding process for computers to continuously operate a program’s execution file by repeatedly compiling strings of codes and assets. For years, N64 gamers relied on emulation with Project 64 and plug-ins to play games on a PC.
The problem with emulation is that it requires tinkering with your game ROM to make it properly run with your PC limitations. With recompilation, it can preserve many of the game’s assets and code with less manual labor involved.
How Majora’s Mask 64 Became A PC Native
WiseGuy developed Majora’s Mask 64 test ports in February 2023. Then, on May 10th, 2024, he released a trailer for Zelda64Recomp using the program he developed called N64 Recomp. The trailer demonstrates a side-by-side comparison to show how a recompiler can operate an N64 game on a PC without sacrificing its quality.
There are additional improvements to graphics and gameplay input. What N64 Recomp does is analyze the original game’s metadata from its binary code and convert them into singular C function inputs. This allows Majora’s Mask 64 to play with any USB controller the compiler detects, display it in widescreen, fix N64 effects, faster load times, and improve sound and framerate without overclocking.
Depending on the emulator, you may go through too many menu tabs or have trouble installing plug-ins to improve its game-running capabilities like decompiling. N64 Recomp does not require plug-ins thanks to gathering a ROM’s metadata and will set up the game in minutes. Its menu navigation is user-friendly to find your settings easier.
WiseGuy discovered a way to preserve and play N64 games using a recompiler by test playing on Rocket: Robot on Wheels, an N64 3-D platformer by Sucker Punch Productions and Ubisoft. The game functioned smoothly during playtime without buffering the game to compile shaders or slowing down framerate from large assets or sound files.
Furthermore, there is planned raytracing to enhance shading, texture packs for smoothing or texture customization, modding for those who love experimenting with 3-D models, and finally, a randomizer for Majora’s Mask 64 speedrunners and veteran players.
Is Majora’s Mask 64 Recomp Illegal?
Nintendo has a long history of shutting down ROM sites that provide their fanbase with any games from their library. Some sites like EmuParadise closed because they profit from donations while distributing ROM downloads.
Nintendo is also seen as a company that does not care for preservation. Recently, last month on the 8th of April, they shut down their Wii U and Nintendo 3DS online servers. And before that on April 3rd, 2023, they closed their Nintendo eShops for both systems, preventing anyone from accessing digital copies of their games and systems’ exclusives.
This is why most of their players turned to emulation to experience the games they never thought to preserve or create remakes of until late 2023 with the announcement of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Super Mario RPG for the Nintendo Switch. So what makes N64 Recomp different?
WiseGuy created N64 Recomp with a pre-built setup to open N64 games as a PC game’s execution file. They do not distribute the ROMs to prevent legal disputes with Nintendo. The purpose of the recompiler is to create a PC port of the original game, not emulating the original game console it was built for.
Recompilation: A New Way To Preserve Games
With recompilation still in development to test its other features, game programmers could start developing their version for the past 3-D consoles, the PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, and Xbox. N64 Recomp is the start of an era of new game preservation since emulation.
It’s absolutely incredible how one person learned to create PC ports of a game instead of programming a plug-in for an existing emulator. I hope to see its full potential someday. If you want to see N64 Recomp in action, check out this video from BOSSzombie.
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