The Bizarre Beauty of Render 96

the graphics are graphics #SuperMario64 #Render96 #retrogaming

[@Green_Stache_Productions]

3:32 not true actually. Even before the SM64 PC port there was already a rom hack made by Kaze that allowed you to run SM64 at 60FPS on emulator.

[@PhantomBane]

Damnit I forgot about that.

[@Green_Stache_Productions]

@@PhantomBane all good lol

[@RosyTheRed]

Kid named Super Mario 64 Plus.

[@ConsumerOfCringe]

Mario 64 DS ran at 60 FPS and included Wario, Yoshi and Luigi

[@Green_Stache_Productions]

@@ConsumerOfCringe Mario 64 DS runs at 30FPS. Not 60.

[@officialFredDurstfanclub]

This is what Mario will look like in 2005

[@ninjakuni]

Not really. They revamped the CGI model entirely by 2001.

[@helpmefortheloveofshrek6623]

Wtf that’s really far away 😪

[@sojutresleches]

That's literally the year they gave us the shittiest mario render ever fucking made

[@Angel-Otk]

It looks like it came out alongside Sn Andreas

[@DeskoDev]

​@@sojutresleches Just standing there... MENACINGLY!

[@BrochachoTheBro]

6:25 the Render96 Goombas are actually based off of the ones found on the painting for Tiny Huge Island. Also, as someone who DOES have a ray tracing-compatible PC (bless my 3070) it looks even more like the promo renders, especially if you make the shadows sharp and turn off global illumination.

[@InsideOutAnus]

Might have been a better idea for the author not to make any statements since he didn't research them that carefully.

[@repetitivethinking]

yo can you record it to show it off?

[@nitheal95]

​@@repetitivethinking🎉🎉🎉

[@sm3dwplessie765]

My game never compiled correctly with render 96 and rtx 😭

[@MrGamelover23]

Wait, how do you have raytracing without global illumination?

[@tek512]

Mario 64 is that one in a million game that will never age out of relevance. Just when you think it's done, people come up with ways to improve it. Whether it be gameplay adjustments, graphical improvements, or even full blown hacks. It's just never going to die, and that is very much okay.

[@badreality2]

@breadandcircuses8127 Letting the player have access to 90% of the moves needed to completing the game, in the first 15 min., and movement is fluid. Mario levels can usually be beaten as fast or as slow as you are able to play them. Meaning that, it is rewarding to get better at a level, being able to beat it in 2 min., compare to 10 min., the first time you played it. It means you are able to learn the level, without being rushed, and are rewarded, once you are better at the level. This is why platforming Mario games are the some of the most speedrun video games. Mario games have little dialog, meaning there are less cutscenes to skip, when replaying the game, and the few cutscenes that are there, are grand. Great music, great level design, also help.

[@azteciandrumset7140]

And now carpetless on runs.

[@TrialzGTAS]

The past few years have been incredible for the speed running community for SM and MK on 64

[@spyr0guy]

Truly the DOOM of platformers.

[@raeesrichards6786]

Why wouldn't it be okay? The goal of all media (literature, movies, video games) should be to last and remain timeless. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a classical canon of any media format and no way to judge something as good without novel factors.

[@notyilli_2481]

Thank you so much for showing the "bad ending" screen. I did a run through of the PC port with Render96, and used BLJ to skip some levels I wasn't familiar with. I was very confused and mildly freaked out by the Bowser getting the cake screen.

[@robertwyatt3912]

I’m p sure that’s just what happens when you don’t get 120 stars

[@asteroidrules]

Those original 3D renders probably weren't even made on a PC back in the day. PCs weren't really that good at 3D graphics back then, that was the domain of dedicated Unix workstations. Nintendo and their partners were known to be users of SGI systems, they even directly collaborated with SGI to design the N64's hardware, most N64 development and graphics were made on one of SGI's Indigo series workstations. Fun fact: this is why the rabbit in Mario 64 is named Mips, MIPS was the processor architecture used in SGI workstations and the N64 itself.

[@ArturaIndustries]

I'm pretty sure most n64 development was done on indy, indigo2, o2, and PCs (for lower cost development) with developers using onyxs before the hardware dev kit was finalized.

[@ssg-eggunner]

Fr, the best PC could do was what? Unreal Tournament & Quake II

[@westingtyler1]

You can see some sgi workstations in jurassic park in the control room. I'm making my own jp style game and had to learn their computers were sgi irix 4 workstations. Sgi was huge back then

[@ArturaIndustries]

@@westingtyler1 the specific computer in Jurassic park was the IRIS Crimson

[@westingtyler1]

@@ArturaIndustries yeah it seems the hardware was called a Crimson, running the Irix 4.x os.

[@McLightZ]

You get the "bad ending" by finishing the game without getting all 120 stars

[@BottomOfTheDumpsterFire]

2:11 bet you it was more than a day and that it had to be on the real expensive silicon graphics workstations because there's just so many light sources

[@n0vi]

was lookin for this lol rendering was insane back then

[@ssg-eggunner]

Unless the lighting is replicated with baking and camera based textures maybe

[@alejandrotality]

Now, when you say that "people didn't expect the game to look like it did in the magazines," we didn't think like that back then. To us, the high poly render and the game model were both 3D Mario in our heads, as if they were identical. This is because 3D games at the time felt magical, so we didn't have any expectations of them. The 700-triangles Mario looked like the 100,000-triangles Mario from the magazines as we played the game. Simply put, we, the pioneer Nintendo 64 gamers, weren't desensitized to 3D graphics and made no distinction between low and high poly. That happened gradually as the game models in the N64 and PS1 became more detailed over time.

[@selohcin]

Nahhh I'm gonna check you there, friend. I had no problem with Super Mario 64's graphics, but I still would have loved it if it had looked like the magazine renders.

[@Stuke51]

Compiling this to work on PC wasn’t so bad in my experience, but getting Render96 itself to work with it feels like rocket science.

[@jaz093]

What was the main issue? I haven't tried it yet

[@Zarnubius]

@@jaz093 there are auto-installers out now so it's not really an issue.

[@ferisu5634]

That last messege "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TO WATCHING MY VIDEO!" really got me! xD

[@newtzrcool]

Render96 is AMAZING and my preferred way to play SM64. And, to my understanding, it's still being worked on to this day! Although its mostly just them redoing stages. Very fun spin on a game that I otherwise didn't care to give a real chance.

[@hectorg5809]

He said in the video more than once that it was still being worked on

[@Comunposting]

It's so weird for me to know there are people who never played sm64, I'm so happy people are still looking up for this gem

[@etherealsoulgazer]

What Nintendo should’ve done with 3D All Stars

[@KatexNebula]

Then again, could the switch even run it? I’d say it should be done on a newer generation of consoles

[@HaiKaizo]

​@@KatexNebulaSwitch ports of Render96 already exist actually, so it DEFINITELY is possible.

[@ALIS3R5]

Facts

[@HOTD108_]

Ah yes, because who cares about preserving the original presentation of video games, right? I mean, it's not like video games are art, right?

[@HaiKaizo]

@@HOTD108_ Peak sarcasm my guy✊💪

[@LostSoulSilver]

Someone once said, it's so wonderful and rare to see a mod with an actual Art Direction

[@Starman256]

You all seriously need to keep this on the down low. You know how Nintendo be

[@SuperMarioSwagger]

They can't do much about it anyway

[@MarioMastr]

They don’t provide the actual ROM file that you need so legally nintendo has no basis

[@Fatih_M177]

This is basically how i remember the game as a kid, weird and magical dream like visuals which is something I really like!

[@VGEmblem]

Yes

[@il_mae]

ㄷㄷ

[@muizzsiddique]

6:27 -How did they get the Goomba that wrong? The image and the in-game model/textures don't even look anything alike.- BrochachoTheBro explains that the models are actually from the Tiny Hude Island painting.

[@DeozWorld]

yes

[@akirapink]

did you knoooow! the textures featured in Render96 are the real high resolution versions of the ones from the original game! really cool nerds actually found each and every single one!!

[@2401blue]

Oh that's kinda sick, I wouldn't have expected that :o

[@stacksparrow]

How/where did they find all of them?

[@ssg-eggunner]

​@@stacksparrowi assume they've explored some CDs sold at the time, those said CDs had stock textures

[@TEMINIX]

My Render96 game got screwed up. And I could not figure out how to fix it. Had to scrap the whole thing. It was a shame. I had the Mario Odyssey moveset installed and that broke the game wide open. I've never had more fun playing SM64.

[@gamertypeawesome]

yeah somehow it hard bricked for me (i think that's the right term?) no amount of reinstalls would fix it

[@UnSwe3t]

I got this on my PC a while ago then recently I upgraded to a 4070 and Raytracing look's so good!

[@0DRONZER]

oh hell naw they put ray tracing on my mario

[@joshuawright8990]

I tried running the RT version of Render 96 on my PC, and it was super buggy. Textures were all messed up. But I’m also running an RX 6800. Could just be an AMD problem.

[@glen366]

This is how I remember playing it first time

[@glen366]

@breadandcircuses8127 because the graphics were mind blowing at the time, not so much now

[@yourmum69_420]

these graphics look worse than the original though

[@thomasnesmith5426]

Cool video. When you said, "This much be what people who only knew Super Mario must have thought when this came out". As a kid in my head it did look like that. I played Sonic on Genesis to death right before 1996 and the release of the 64. I tell you it blew my little child mind. I could not fathom you could go running around in world that looked so.... real....

[@DrewStalgic]

Bowser stuck with his feet apart just looks so funny to me 😂

[@slvcontentfwd]

I appreciate that you consistently referred to the graphics as an alternative rather than an improvement. I personally far prefer the original look of the game as (in my opinion) the levels were not designed to suit modern textures. However, the work done here is very impressive and I commend everyone on the project.

[@get_stached]

"You're welcome to a-for watching your video!"

[@mccloaker]

Even better would be to do this with Mario 64 DS. Then we'd have the perfect version of the game.

[@SugarPopLauren]

That mario impression at the end was class Good vid

[@spellcastingprofessional]

Love the video dude. Any time i find a seemingly interesting video that pertains to my taste in older games, its always some pasty virgin with glasses and a voice that lacks any sort of testosterone. As well as a complete lack of (actually funny) humor. This video shattered all these expectations. Awesome stuff, earned a new sub

[@joelchaney6901]

That looks fun the graphic s are out this world

[@lrgogo1517]

The alternate end card sounds like part of a creepypasta

[@PabbyPabbles]

I wish they'd find a way to do the atmospheric lighting like in those renders

[@nixel1324]

I imagine that's what the ray tracing is for.

[@VGEmblem]

You nailed it with the "this is probably what the game looked like to people back then" comparison. This barely even looked different to me at the start, just higher res

[@zantsmedia]

Wish I had found your channel sooner, good stuff 🤗

[@froulouxio]

i have on and off cycles with this game but i've literally been captivated by this game since i was 5 playing it on my uncles n64 and watching scatman videos on youtube😂 its crazy how this game has been analyzed all the way down to a molecular level.

[@TheHylianJuggalo]

Something I would like to see is this combined with a "Continuous Course" mod and "DS Content" mod. Specifically, this art style, but: 1 - Courses play more like Banjo Kazooie, with all objectives present and completable in one go, B, bring in as much of the DS version content as possible.

[@Chickenz663]

The original mario 64 has such vibrant colors. Can't say the same for this.

[@Die-Coughman]

Yeah. Some of the level remasters leave much to be desired. You can turn them off though. It falls back on a pretty faithful hd texture pack.

[@zZiL341yRj736]

Wait till you see the shitty DS version.

[@Chicky_Lumps]

​@@zZiL341yRj736 I will not stand for slander against the DS version! (Except the controls.)

[@simpson6700]

@@Chicky_Lumps and the audio

[@rommix0]

@@zZiL341yRj736 What do you mean s***ty? the DS version was great.

[@scrung]

a big part of why the prerendered artwork looks like that is the lighting, so even if you up the polys on mario you’re not gonna make it look authentic unless you modify the environment as well

[@SpacePineapple]

I'm definitely going to start using "whacky-ass" to compliment things from now on

[@spyczech]

I'm not cus no one uses it that way and it's an insult in my region. Wack ass is a serious dig here

[@Maxutko901]

@@spyczech Damn, that sucks

[@TheEternalHyperborean]

Yeah, it looks okay, but it's not going to going to look like the renders without some sort of ray tracing, it just looks like updated models right now, nothing more.

[@thecallumvibes]

I’ve always seen game remasters try to make everything way TOO realistic (in my opinion), so it’s really nice that this mod maintains that nostalgic 90s style

[@redyyz4489]

Luigi & Wario really make Render96 complete The fact this isn't just a graphical upgrade but they have clever ways to unlock the other plumbers is very neat Also Luigi keeps his DS moveset and Wario's German again, 11/10

[@brandonnetwork]

But no Waluigi. So this is still incomplete

[@redyyz4489]

@@brandonnetwork Debateable.

[@YeetoTheYeetafic]

i love how bro sounds like zxmany while being sick

[@TheLlamaFarmer3]

I don't know if the Monsters Inc. thing was a joke or not... But if it took 12 hours per frame then they'd have to have started rendering the movie in 1821... (92 minute movie = 5520 seconds, 24fps = 132480 frames, 12 hours per frame = 1589760 hours = 66240 days = ~181 years

[@NexusVGM]

Definitely a hyperbole

[@gaburieruR]

A hyperhole, or they had many workstations, with is pretty common. Also, not every frame took this much time, just the ones were complex geometry and simulation were in

[@alyssad.harper]

Not really hyperbole, even then companies like Pixar had dedicated render farms full of computers whose ONLY job was to render frames. And yeah, the render time was definitely variable depending on the complexity of the shot 🙂

[@slvcontentfwd]

Concurrency. They wouldn't have had all the computers rendering the same frame one-by-one, they would've had many computers each rendering a frame at all times.

[@thischannelisforcommenting5680]

you can speed those up with more pc, a lot more pc in facts

[@Cincy32]

4:03, I can confirm. Super Mario 64 was revolutionary when it came out.

[@coltonk.3086]

I want Mario 64 rom hacks with render 96's style

[@MechaTengu21]

2:15 - one hour for old hardware to render this is being generous.

[@van4195]

this is how i remember the game looking when i was a kid

[@MrMaxta]

The RTX version is a night and day difference. It looks even more like the boxart style and seeing the dynamic lighting working perfectly from fire or lava/daylight is insane. I can't go back any more and have to play the RTX render96 version whenever I play mario 64 now 😂

[@McKraber]

4:32 my jaw dropped. I NEVER knew this was possible

[@adversariespurified]

I always thought it looked weird, render96 Mario doesn't fit low poly Marios animations

[@somerobloxdude3699]

I think the opposite

[@sboinkthelegday3892]

It's dumb. It's like taking a dresser carved out of wood with traditinoal tools, and painting it to look plastic because it's "better" than wood grain or the particular edges only those tools would create. Goes to show again what gamers really think when they say "art". Mona Lisa is tiny and dreary, and Sistine chapel is too vulgar to bring your kids in. Adn preservation? Print posters for free, online, to everybody so they might as well wipe their butts with that oversupply.

[@robertwyatt3912]

I think it fits them perfectly

[@MattRoszak]

I love the look of this! I've played a lot of ROM hacks on real hardware, but this looks like a totally different type of project. I'll see if I can manage to install it...

[@jhnyjoejoe69]

SM64 is THAT game that became a timeless classic and those of us who grew up with it never really let it go and even jew generations have enjoyed the game as much.

[@hypotheticaltapeworm]

Fan games like these always feel like bootlegs. They're so janky and unpolished because the actual project was way too ambitious but the fanndevs undertook it anyway because of their hubris. They think they can do better than the official devs because they know how to use a computer but there's a reason why HD texture packs don't touch most of the game, never get finished, look like shit, and break the game. You think you can do these things, but you just can't, nemo.

[@sadham2668]

Calm down bro, it’s Mario not Moby Dick.

[@RexyRonin]

Honestly I was just watching the entire video with my jaw dropped at how they managed to make my childhood look just like the cover art.

[@Scripture-Man]

I was going to say this looks pretty perfect, apart from the flat lighting and shadows. Then I looked up a version of this with ray tracing - now that IS perfect!

[@JohnHolmes-h1b]

judging from the renders at the time for Silent Hill (1998) I'd say that single image took 6 to 12 hours to render

[@metalgearskeletor]

I appreciate all the work that went into this, they actually found the sources for most textures from Silicon work stations too iirc. I can’t really say I think the new models look too accurate to the renders though but maybe that’s just me? Still an amazing project with a lot of dedicated people behind it though

[@brenscott5416]

Man its so good, honestly if they just improved the lighting and shadows it would basically be there and done

[@XUVI-hn6so]

5:46 koopa the quick looks like he has diarrhea and peanut butter on him

[@Sumnantic]

Certain parts of this rework look like they came out of Super Mario Galaxy

[@jamesprumos7775]

I can't wait for Render98, which is basically this concept applied to Ocarina of Time

[@theWayoftheHero]

God I can't wait for that. I will cry when it gets released

[@newsuperbowserworld]

It is released tho

[@jamesprumos7775]

@@newsuperbowserworld when did it get released? Last time I checked the developer was still making the models. Also I wrote this comment 2 months ago.

[@newsuperbowserworld]

@@jamesprumos7775 wait, I thought you said render 96 not 98, sorry

[@jamesprumos7775]

@@newsuperbowserworld it's ok

[@goshator]

5:56 the controls and physics staying the same aren't the uncanny part imo. It's the level geometry, lighting and character animations - the visual elements that remain unchanged - really clash with the new entity models and high resolution textures. Compare the lighting on the render at 6:15 to the gameplay around it - the difference is really clear

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

the propostal of this project and the end result is much better than those stupid atempts of "mario but made on unreal", there are still some things that i would complain about, somethings that i prefer in the n64 version or that dont look like the promotional material (im looking at you bowser) but at least there are some things that look good and look like how the game should look like, im surprised to see that some things indeed look better this time.

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

and considering this is a work in progress the end result may look dam close

[@rmat9023]

this is like sm64 box art made real. But I Want Unreal Engine mario 64.

[@JackBond1234]

It didn't take 12 hours to render one frame of Monsters Inc. It took 12 CPU-hours, that is, 12 hours divided by however many processors they had.

[@Schwarzorn]

Render96 is a miracle. It took an amount of effort that no company would ever bother with, and also most fans would never bother with. I do wish people would stop messing with Bob-omb Battlefield, tho. They added hills that block the skybox, and cleaned up the battlefield to look like a park with nicer paths and a wooden fence imstead of barbed wire. Plus they started replacing many of the textures with different, unrelated ones, which defeats the whole point of Render96 and all the effort spent looking for the original textures.

[@softdreams1776]

Well, at least Mario 43 gave you the more detaild giant mario head with the stars and lighting effects and you can pull on Mario nose and ears and mouth and spin him around, we thought that was more fun then playing the game back when it came out lmao

[@Alexander-ix2jp]

I hope they finish this project and I hope Ocarina of Time is next on the list. Hm, would also like to see a FF8 community remaster too.

[@tomocomosthe1st]

Oh god watching this video made me realize that I compiled the files wrong and didn’t get some of the level revamps *im gonna have to wait another while as day for it to compile aren’t i*

[@unoriginalname9556]

really wish the M64 port was as easy to install as the OOT Ship of Harkinian port is.

[@MadChristoph]

If they were to remaster SM64, this would've been it

[@chicaroo1]

I love playing the m64 port with render 96 Im suprised i got the game to work and run amazing!

[@umbertosansovini9173]

Does this new game also weight 64 MB? La cosa più incredibile del Mario 64 originale è quanto poco pesasse, oggi 10 fotografie scattate col telefono occupano lo stesso spazio di memoria dell'intero gioco (senza contare il sistema operativo). Davvero un enorme lavoro di ingegneria poter contenere un mondo così vasto in così poco spazio

[@guillaumefigarella1704]

i want to build a small pc, put it in an n64 case, and run render 96 at 240p with n64 anti aliasing, and pretend its how it alwaus looked

[@bowserlv100]

The True Graphics for a possible, N64 PRO edition... but...

[@FalconFlyer75]

Is there a place we can go to get updates on the status of this project? I went on their channel but it’s just too much unrelated content I did see a video showing the first 6 levels completed, but that’s about all I could find Don’t get me wrong it looks breathtaking and I can’t wait to play it in its entirety I just don’t know where to see where it’s at

[@0nick0nick05]

Discord server

[@Taniniver]

You sound like a new york cartoon character who smokes 4 packs a day.

[@etherus819]

That "involved process" took me 2 minutes.....

[@santyproductions359]

HA THIS PRO MOTIONAL RENDER OF MARIO & BOWSER WAS MADE IN A SILLICON GRAPHICS

[@AllieRX]

I wonder what the former Silicon Graphics employees think of this.

[@Sebbajo]

2:20 highly unlikely that a single frame of Monsters Inc. would have taken 12 hours to render. If I’m not mistaken, the whole movie would have taken about 180 years if true (the movie runs 92 minutes at 24 frames per second), so I highly doubt that fact lol

[@Nyomtwom._.]

it would be pretty cool if there’s a mod for super mario 64 ds that’s the beta with that 4 player multiplayer

[@NOT_POLLY_YT]

The coins and keys are for Luigi and wario to unlock them

[@irugirug]

Now someone please remake súper Mario 1,2,3 and World with cartoonish graphics from the manuals and publicity ♥️

[@alejandrotality]

wait wait wait... you can kill the snowmen throwing snowballs at you by running in circles around them?!

[@eric.waffles]

You sound like the chocolate hating lady from Spongebob I'm sorry

[@bigbrungus]

Great video, but I’m in awe that after 10+ years of playing this game, this video only just made me find out that you can kick bombs to defeat them.

[@raphael1622]

Same here lol I've known and played this game for 10yrs or something and I've just found out that you can kill those snowmen that throw snowballs at you. I always believed that they were invincible. I even had to open the game and test it to believe they were fr defeatable lol

[@PerpleX_Plays]

I've played the game over and over for like 22 years and never knew you could kill the snowmen until I saw it happen in this video

[@marsoulini]

That is so cool! I’ll make sure to play it when I get my new pc :)

[@AVerySillySausage]

Why is the information on the sm64 pc port so spare compared to Ocarina of Time which as I understand was decompilled later? There is a dedicated user friendly site with clear setup instruction and an explanation as to what it is and how it works. Can't find this for SM64, just lots of vague videos without direct instructions referencing multiple different ports. A site with nothing on it that just links to discord for information. It's for some reason a lot more of a hassle to setup and understand than Ocarina of Time, is there a some technicaly reason or does OoT just have more of a fanbase and more developers that working to towards the project?

[@DylanMatthewTurner]

2:19 Monster's Inc is 92 min. If it took 12hrs per frame, then at 24 fps, that's 181 years of rendering, so I think they must've improved it by the end of the film lol

[@andreakitty8483]

APPLY THAT LOGIC TO 6 MILLION IN 5 YEARS LOL xD

[@SomeRandomMF0416]

My only complaints are that the vocals are WAAYYYY too loud and fsr they’ve never fixed that, and the old Render96 Bowser looked so much better (why’d they change it 😢)

[@cgxs-h9f]

This video is fire!

[@dirkdex]

Funny - my thoughts exactly about getting this to work. However, you’ll have to recompile at some point and add ray-tracing because it’s really a thing of beauty in this classic game!

[@HDGamerofficial]

7:52 what a reference 😂😂

[@TurkeyFaceX]

My PC is equipped for raytracing but I only know how to turn on raytracing or the box art style. I can't figure out how to turn them on at the same time. I've sunk many of my weekend hours into figuring this out, but no dice. If anybody here could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

[@0nick0nick05]

When selecting Render96 on PCbuilder2 go to the “options” menu, at the bottom there’s a button that says “s.options” or something like that, the option is there

[@sithlordmikeyp]

@7:35 I love Pikmin. It's the best

[@JAR-HIPHOP]

Should’ve been a option to do this in 3d all stars

[@PrestoJacobson]

Agreed. This is actually on hacked switches, at least v8.

[@jeremysart]

I had the same experience trying to get the thing to compile on my PC… I really need to just go back and try again.

[@FroggoBeanYT]

You forgot to disable the 2d billboards. The trees are all supposed to be 3d models but you got yours acting as 2d billboards.

[@JagoShogun]

I miss the mario rpg model... Oh wait.