Project64

Project64

Project64 is an open source, plugin-based Nintendo 64 emulator.

Downloads

• Latest version on EmuCR
• This bundle includes PJ64 1.6, PJ64 2.1 and various other plugins.
• Project64k

History and Review

Projec64 has had an interesting history. It first came out of nowhere, purely as an experiment for developers zilmar and Jabo, yet it quickly revolutionized the N64 emulation landscape. For many years afterwards, it was considered to be the best N64 emulator, with only Mupen64 and 1964 posing any real competition. By version 1.6, it was touted as being not only highly compatible, but also the most stable of the lot.

However, upon announcing the development of version 1.7, the project became closed off to most of the public. The only way to keep up with the latest developments was to donate $20 to obtain beta testing privileges. However, there were several development version leaks, most of which turned out to be unstable, prone to crashes, and full of performance and compatibility regressions, which cast doubt upon the competency of the developers. Upon Jabo's departure from the project in 2011, most people came to regard Projec64 as being stuck in development limbo, if not completely dead.

In 2013, however, zilmar, now the lone developer of Project64, released version 2.0, including its source code. Quickly afterwards, version 2.1 was released. However, these versions proved to be a mixed bag in comparison to the older, long-standing 1.6 release, and even the leaked 1.7 betas in some respects. Several compatibility issues were fixed, and the interface was cleaned up, but the default plugins were largely inferior to earlier iterations, and even the core itself saw compatibility regressions in some games. Worse still, several games suffer from timing issues not present in earlier versions. After the source was made Public, the code was uploaded to GitHub, where Zilmar maintains and accepts pull requests and bug reports - Link

In the end, there is still some worth to Project64, as it still plays some games better than any other emulator, but for the most part, it would seem Mupen64Plus has surpassed it in a general sense.

Plugins

See the Recommended N64 Plugins page.

NetPlay

Use Kaillera , or the AQZ netplay plugin for P2P netplay.

Downloads

• Project64k

Review (Kaillera)
PROS	Support for up to 4 simultaneous people playing No fiddling with router settings and port forwarding Netplay traffic is handled by a central dedicated server that helps keep things synched Private game chat support and public chat to speak people outside your game room Being able to drop out of a game at any time without disrupting (much) your teammate(s). Kicking/banning/muting people from your room It's a matchmaking service where you can join other people's rooms, too
CONS	Disables Transfer, Rumble and Memory Pack emulation (AFAIK, not 100% sure about Memory Pack) It sometimes fails to properly initialize Glide64 video plugins, giving them a black screen when the game starts It also seems to hate certain older video plugins, causing massive FPS drops It's slightly (significantly still) prone to freezing/crashing/BSOD (in that order) Random, inconsistent FPS drops due to the server trying to keep everyone synched, sometimes stuttering. It's annoying, but rarely does it make it unplayable Everyone needs to have the exact same ROM version or Netplay won't work (if it somehow does, it'll desynch rather quickly) Everyone needs to have the exact same save file, or no save file at all. Else, it desynchs You need to constantly switch focus back and forth between chat and emulator window in order to chat. You will hear no sound while the window is unfocused.

Review (AQZ)
PROS	Allows for unlimited (???) connections (4 players only, the rest are spectators) Unusually low bandwidth usage Can change latency on the fly to smooth out netplay experience at the expense of input lag Works very well with 2-3 Players, even with +200ms Only the host needs to open a port
CONS	Definitely disables Transfer, Rumble and Memory Pack emulation If a client drops while a game is in session, the entire server stops automatically The server seems to work reliably smooth with 3 people, but might stutter and lag with 4, regardless of latency It sometimes fails to properly initialize Glide64 video plugins, giving them a black screen It also seems to hate certain older video plugins, causing massive FPS drops It's sometimes troublesome to get it to properly synch during the first few minutes, but works flawlessly after you get it working Randomly freezes the emulator with no warning VERY rarely produces a BSOD