n64

Experimental low-level N64 emulator written in C and a bit of C++.

Still under heavy development and not ready for prime time. Compatibility is not high and performance is not great (yet.)

The goals of this project are to create a low-level emulator with good compatibility, while learning a lot along the way.

Goals

Reasonably accurate low-level emulation
Decent performance. Because this is a low-level emulator, it will never be as fast as high-level emulators.
Reasonable amount of automated testing

Features

Keyboard and gamepad support
GDB stub for debugging

Limitations & TODOs

Only Linux is currently supported, as I use Linux-specific features. This is planned to be fixed.
The dynamic recompiler currently only supports x86_64 with the System-V calling convention. Microsoft's x86_64 calling convention, as well as aarch64 support is planned.
Only little-endian host platforms are planned to be supported.
Only gcc and clang will be supported. I unapologetically use extensions like case ranges and binary literals.
Only software that uses NTSC video modes is currently supported. This is planned to be fixed.

Building

Currently, only Linux on x86_64 is supported.

Install dependencies: SDL2, Vulkan, and optionally Capstone
Run the following commands:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make

Running

Run with no parameters to use the default settings and load your ROM using the GUI, or run with options:

./n64 [OPTION]... [FILE]
n64, a dgb n64 emulator

  -v, --verbose             enables verbose output, repeat up to 4 times for more verbosity
  -h, --help                Display this help message
  -i, --interpreter         Force the use of the interpreter
  -r, --rdp                 Load RDP plugin (Mupen64Plus compatible) - note: disables UI and requires ROM to be passed on the command line!
  -m, --movie               Load movie (Mupen64Plus .m64 format)
  -p, --pif                 Load PIF ROM

https://github.com/Dillonb/n64

Progress

CPU

An interpreter and a basic dynamic recompiler are available, able to be switched at launch time with a command line flag.

The dynamic recompiler currently only supports the System-V calling convention.

RSP

Reasonably complete, enough for most games to run.

Hardware-verified over the EverDrive 64's USB port using rsp-recorder.

Still greatly in need of optimization.

RDP

Not started. parallel-rdp by Themaister is integrated in the meantime.

Credits

Stephen Lane-Walsh for cflags, gdbstub, and moral support
@wheremyfoodat for his help with x86 assembly and moral support
Giovanni Bajo for his automated RSP tests
Peter Lemon for his tests, and permission to use his ASM code and font as a template for my own tests

Libraries Used

DynASM as the emitter for the dynamic recompiler
SDL2 for graphics, audio, and input
Capstone as a MIPS disassembler for debugging
parallel-rdp as the RDP until I write my own
Dear Imgui for the GUI

Kime78/n64

n64

Links