ODroid C1 Nintendo 64 - N64 Emulation on Android using Mupen64Plus AE

[@64ios]

The Banjo Tooie frame rate isnt the emulator,its just how the game runs,at a bad frame rate. :p

[@theblowupdollsmusic]

Any news on the Odroid XU4? seems to be 4x faster then this model.

[@colmstar1]

Heyy again :D between rasp2 and c1, which do you think runs n64 better? Do you think the c1 can run 4 player n64? Currently contemplating between them to make an emulation console and get the feeling the c1 is harder to set up/buggy though the performance is higher. Which would you recommend for an emulation machine?

[@TechTipsta]

Brian Chen I think your feeling is correct. The C1 is quite a bit younger than the Pi so does not have as many people contributing to projects / emulators etc. I think overall it does emulate n64 better, but this is using Android, and it's just not as nice as having something like RetroPie where all your emulators/games are presented so nicely. We do have Lakka in development which may change the game, but they are still a long way off getting to a comparable state to what is available on the Pi. Did you see my video on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gKi4h4lprbKFrbc If not check it out! So final answer, the C1 does seem to emulate n64 better but the Pi would be better suited to an emulation system due to the software choice available. I haven't tried 4 player n64 on C1 yet but may try mario kart soon, just need to find 4 controllers...

[@colmstar1]

Oh yes I actually saw that video :D Thanks for this! Sorry if it seems like I'm badgering you, but you seem like the most knowledgeable/unbiased person to ask. This has definitely cleared up my questions. That being said haha, In terms of set up how hard was the c1 to set up? compared to rpi2?

[@TechTipsta]

Brian Chen haha all good man, I love the questions, and just talking about this stuff in general, so ask away and I will usually get back to you if I have time. So, if you compare the C1 running android and using emulation apps from the playstore, it is a breeze to set up. But, this is considering you have a xbox 360 controller as it's sort of made for that (I haven't tried it with other controllers but I believe this would add some complexity and incompatibility in some places). Also, you can easily put Kodi / Netflix / Any android app on this which makes it quite versatile. The downside with this ease of setup is you lose the ability to modify/edit/ things like you can on the Pi. In comparison, a Pi2 with RetroPie is fairly easy to set up (once you know how) but there is a bit of a learning curve (I cover most things in my vids so wouldn't let this deter you). When you get it set up how you like it, its so awesome, but it does take work. The final package is overall much nicer, and better to show off to your friends, but it does take time. So many pro's and cons for both. If you interested in doing your emulation through android then the C1 would be a good pick, if you want to set up an awesome emulation only console (that can also run kodi with some work) then the Pi would be a good pick!

[@btbking]

Did you use a controller in this android based emulator? If so, was there any controller lag?

[@TwizzleMayne]

What model raspberry pi are you using?

[@TechTipsta]

This is on a Odroid C1 which is similar to the Raspberry Pi, you can learn more about it here kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5XSc3-GnLWXmKM

[@schmidtterry]

Curious whether you tried N64 emulation on the C1 using Linux and GameStation Turbo? I head it is supposed to run better than Mupen64+?

[@TechTipsta]

Terry Schmidt I tried gamestation turbo but was not too impressed, I had video scaling issues right off the bat and struggled to get things working, importing games is a slow and tedious process.. not to discount the work they have done with that image but it wasn't for me. Check out Lakka though I am hoping that will come along nicely (they recently got an XU3 as well so we should have a build for that soon!)

[@Coastal0]

People keep asking me why an old n64 can play these games so smoothly yet a much more advanced device can not - is it just down to the emulation software or is there more to it?

[@TechTipsta]

I have been trying to think of a good analogy to help explain this to people and I think I have come up with one. Think of the N64 emulator as a bridge, back in the day a few people got together and built this bridge to let the cars (games) cross. They didn't have a very big team and had to use their engineering knowledge and material available at the time, and it was hard. They did manage to build a bridge though, but it only really worked for the really common cars, some cars like ferraris/lambos couldn't cross the bridge easily because they were too low and had trouble on the bridge joins, some cars were too wide and they need to modify the bridge to get them across, and some were so big they couldn't even get onto the bridge and try to cross! The bridge builders thought this was good enough and just left it. Now fast forward to modern day and more bridges (emulators) are being built for the gamecube/ps2/wii cars. Luckily they have bigger teams who are more organized, and better tools to work with. They can make pretty awesome bridges with all these resources that almost all cars can cross! As for the N64 bridge, this has still been left standing to this day, and some people are trying to fix it, but they just don't have enough time / resources to build a good bridge! It would be best if they could knock it down and start again but unfortunately this is a very daunting task for a 1, 2 or 3 man team. So they just slowly try to improve that old bridge and hope one day they will get there! I hope you like my story!

[@barefooter2222]

How is it getting Emulation Station set up on this? I was thinking about getting the C2 and seeing how that performs with N64 emulation. Has anyone tried this yet?

[@TheNardoBoy]

I have the C2. It works perfectly to emulate psx, snes, nes, sega master system, mega drive and dreamcast, but are several games that doesn't work of n64. Also, the emulation of Sega Saturn games doesn't work. I'm thinking on install ubuntu instead of android. (Sorry for my english)

[@JaspreetSingh-bh5hc]

Maybe if the people from Retro Pie can make a image version for this board as well , Things can see improvement

[@TechTipsta]

That would be awesome, I have seen emulationstation running on it but it's difficult to set up right now!

[@jeremias93m]

please try a youtube video and see if it can play 1080p or 480. Thx.

[@TechTipsta]

Jeremias Macias I will put this on the todo list. Do you want it run in the browser via ubuntu or on android?

[@jeremias93m]

I want try Tiny Core Linux, and use for Browsing with chrome. =) But you can try Ubuntu, Debian or android. It does'nt really matter, just one more distro then andriod please.

[@TechTipsta]

Jeremias Macias hey man, just tried ubuntu 14.04 lts, youtube at 1080 is reallly bad, doesn't even work. Didn't even want to make a video it was so bad, 480 is pretty good, and 720 is almost watchable but its at the limit. I will have to try in android

[@jeremias93m]

OK, yeah try android see if it change.

[@davidmaglioli7048]

N64 emulation is just generally a pain in the ass due to its unique architecture compared to something like the PS1 or an older Nintendo system. To this day some N64 games still don't run properly even on regular PCs

[@danielwelch907]

Err, no; my Dad's old 2004 Mac ran N64 games at near full speed. Heck, that thing still used the PowerPC architecture.

[@davidmaglioli7048]

Daniel Welch Its not whether or not the pc is powerful enough to run it its more of if its possible, and yeah most N64 games will run pretty decently, but I know its impossible (at the moment) to run a game like Pokemon Snap because a processor can't emulate the camera mechanic. Most of the issues I've had or seen with N64 emulation is graphical. I've had glitches where Mario would get stuck in the floor in Super Mario 64. I've heard horror stories of all kinds of crazy shit with Donkey Kong 64 and that game was buggy to begin with.

[@tathataway]

2 more gigs of ram will be the sweet spot.