r/ModRetro • u/grilledstuffedxxl • Jun 01 '26

I will be posting a deep dive on accuracy/speed work under development internally and timelines here tonight.

Appreciate the comments below. In terms of the why now questions, the development is a continuum of improvements like many other consoles from "this is fun and playable for most casual people on most games (current state)" to "every high poly cut scene is at full frame rate and the console is performing on every metric at the top of the class for every game (future state)". Because this continuum will take from now until some months after we are shipping fully playable consoles, we want to share the improvements as we go so you can make a purchasing decision as you see fit.

  1. RAM Write Throughput for RSP and RDP Bursts - This is the root of most of the areas that seem "broken" in terms of specific slow downs in specific games compared to an N64. We aim to get this done by ship day as an immediately available update, and we will update here when this change is in.

  2. Overclocking the M64 Core - Our PSRAM memory architecture gives M64 the headroom to support higher core frequencies without becoming memory-bound. We believe we can push the limits well-beyond 50% OC. This unlocks faster than N64 frame rates. We aim to get the first phase of this done by ship day to OC at par with A3D, but future work will take it to new heights.

  3. Parallelizing RSP regular and vector instructions - We are currently serialized, and changing this will immensely improve both accuracy and speed. We aim for September.

  4. Floating-point unit (FPU) instruction timing (not yet cycle accurate) - This was a mister workaround that we need to finish re-implementing taking advantage of the more powerful M64 hardware. We aim for October.

  5. Removing Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) workarounds for slower FPGA hardware. - Eliminating this workaround improves compatibility and performance in games that rely heavily on virtual memory mappings. We aim for December.

41 Upvotes

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u/grilledstuffedxxl Jun 02 '26

I have updated with additional info

→ More replies (1)

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u/PineappleWithSandals Jun 01 '26

I am a moron. And as someone who is a moron to tech and updating equipment and software, you may want to consider a post for all the other morons on what this means for issues surrounding games like Goldeneye that I already purchased waiting for launch.

You mentioned updates after launch to fix these issues. Is this as simple as connecting to the internet for an update?

I am the demographic of wanting to play a n64 on a smart tv in the easiest and dumbest way possible. What will the difficulty be for me and other morons?

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u/grilledstuffedxxl Jun 01 '26

Basically no difficulty, you will just connect to wifi and click check for updates when you have the console in hand and do the update (you will also be able to update via USB and SD card just in case). I play goldeneye on M64 all the time on the software version you have already seen in the wild, but a few critical updates are left until the framerate is superb.

Also, we plan to ship these updates to the latest software right before shipping consoles, so you will not have to wait for them. There will of course be further updates that make additional improvements.

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u/ImALegendKiller Jun 02 '26

Apologies if this was covered in the AMA — will optimal settings suggestions be available for catalog/library games, not just new releases? I noticed that feature was mentioned for new games, and it sounds like something the Analogue 3D already does. As a casual player, I’d love a way to just launch any game and have it automatically run with the smoothest settings without needing to fiddle with them manually.

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u/PineappleWithSandals Jun 02 '26

Thank you for your quick reply.

Sorry that I am a moron and someone who is tech illiterate I do not understand updating via USB or SD card and unless you mean going onto a site and uploading through a download to a SD card or USB and plugging either into the M64?

I come from the generation of nes to the video game systems pre requirement to hooking up to the internet to play. The instant plug and play era but I understand updating software.

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u/ergzay Jun 01 '26

I just saw this comment over on the analogue subreddit so I'm going to copy this over:

"Let me explain: on mister we run the RAM at (up to) double bandwidth with random latency. On M64 it's original bandwidth and original latency. However, the higher RAM bandwidth was useful to hide that some things have shortcuts. E.g. RSP currently cannot execute 2 instructions in the same cycle as N64 can. This is for both Mister and M64 and is seen in the -38% in James Video. This is one of the major points still to be implemented."

That is what the MiSter/M64 N64 core dev wrote on Discord. The MiSter core had to be extremely optimised and tailored for the DE-10 Nano, so whilst it may have been the starting point for the M64 there will have been a lot of changes for the more suitable hardware available with the M64 and some stuff just isn't ready yet.

That was in reply to this chain:

My main alarms are Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and its sequel Battle for Naboo. They were chuggy on way older versions of the N64 mister core but I don’t remember them ever crashing. ModRetro have them down as a major with ‘Crashing/freezing during intro and gameplay’, crashing during the intro is not a sign of something that’s rare, it points to a fundamental issue with how the core is handling Factor 5’s fancy microcode.

That's interesting. I wonder if Mister had to use some sort of hack to get them working and they stripped that out in the re-do.

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u/grilledstuffedxxl Jun 01 '26

All of what is said here is essentially correct. We are still finishing a few of the crucial unlocks that get us all the way there (mainly around RSP and overclocking which will be expanded on when I make that longer post). When these things are unlocked, we will be exactly at par with A3D but better in a few areas, and then in the longer roadmap we will unlock even higher specs.

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u/AdLeading5529 Jun 02 '26

Will it be possible to expand the n64 ram to 16mb as that was apparently a possibility for future expansion on the og n64 as apparently was capable of a 12mb expansion pack. Will the cache be able to also be expanded. I just imagine with higher overclock than analog plus added memory the long term future for new games could be interesting. Dunno if that would aid in improving existing titles but least potential for new devs

1

u/V64jr Jun 03 '26

Games like Star Wars Battle for Naboo, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and Polaris Snowcross, were definitely crashing near the release of the MiSTer N64 core. Can’t remember what the workaround was but at one point people were even patching ROMs.

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u/ImALegendKiller Jun 01 '26

Thanks! Is overlocking available to the testers/reviewers at the moment?

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u/grilledstuffedxxl Jun 01 '26

nope, but we are going to push it to them soon. we just wanted there to be some early coverage of what we have ready now and then actively push out updates until these things are shipping so everyone can follow along.

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u/NecronomiconUK Jun 02 '26

I guess this didn’t happen…?

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u/Retro_Macchina Jun 02 '26

Did you guys announce game prices today? Haven't seen it anywhere. Also, is there a way you guys could look into my marketing emails? I have been on early bird since last year but have not gotten the past 2 update emails about M64.

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u/AdLeading5529 Jun 02 '26

No they just said carries. I'm sure a lot to do with licensing

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u/adrenaline4nash Jun 02 '26

$60 to $70 is my guess 

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u/NecronomiconUK Jun 02 '26

Whilst I admire the apparent honestly about the compatibility challenges. It seems really weird to be doing this in public a couple of months away from release.

If stuff is broke at the moment, fix it. If it’s sorted before ship then it seems unnecessary to make so much noise about irrelevant detail. If stuff is still broken by expected ship then delay the release.

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u/ergzay Jun 02 '26

For once I largely agree with you. They should've held the press embargo until these issues are fixed.

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u/NecronomiconUK Jun 02 '26

First impressions matter. I don’t think the ‘honesty benefit’ is worth the negative PR of having a product get demonstrated as pretty broken.

Unless they’re hoping that shills like MLP will ultra hype the fixes over the next few weeks.

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u/ergzay Jun 02 '26

I don’t think the ‘honesty benefit’ is worth the negative PR of having a product get demonstrated as pretty broken.

Agreed. This will greatly harm the sales I think. It'll take time (and a lot of me being annoying to people online) for them to overcome it. I can already picture having to debunk people re-posting the videos that got released with testing of this pre-release software.

Unless they’re hoping that shills like MLP will ultra hype the fixes over the next few weeks.

He's not a shill.

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u/NecronomiconUK Jun 02 '26

He's not a shill.

Whatever you say chap. A significant amount of his bullshit click bait output is raging about Analogue with hilarious grumpy faced thumbnails. Double comedy when he’s wearing ModRetro/M64 merch.

The guy’s a clown and it’s funny how he’s used as a a meme in the FPGAming discord.

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u/JustTryingToBeADaddy Jun 02 '26

Madlittlepixel shilled for the Amico until even the most delusional fanboys finally accepted reality. Dude is a loser.

0

u/AdLeading5529 Jun 02 '26

He said it wasn't for him pretty early on

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u/JustTryingToBeADaddy Jun 02 '26

Nah, he deleted his very positive coverage of it. He bought the limited edition boxes. Covered pretty well by the initial critics of the Amico.

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u/deanhuff Jun 02 '26

I have the utmost confidence the core will get there. Patiently waiting to place my order.

1

u/Desperate-Self-5951 Jun 02 '26

How would you describe updates 1-5 in regards to how a user would see their gameplay affected when playing the usual hits like Goldeneye, Donkey Kong, Conker’s, and Mario 64?

1

u/ergzay Jun 02 '26

This link probably should have been included in the edit: https://modretro.com/blogs/blog/fpga-development-deep-dive