- Custom Texture Packs. One of the coolest tricks in N64 emulation is re-texturing. With this technique, the original graphics of the game are taken out, redone using high resolution textures or a different graphic style (such as Cell Shading), and then reinserted for playback on the PC. These texture packs consist of zipped files that you.
- @NGNYS N64's issues ironically had little to do with its cartridges, the 4KB texture cache was far too small to use leading developers to stream texture data straight from the cartridge and its.
- I got the texture packs from textures.emulation64.com. They work great, but due to the limit list of available texture packs, I started looking around a bit more. I found a place that has texture packs for N64, but they are in '.htc' file format. The other ones are a '.zip' that I extract and place in the texture folder as per the docs.
Gaming Revived has released HD Texture Packs for a lot of classic Nintendo 64 games so far. You can find AI-enhanced packs for classic games like Donkey Kong 64, F-Zero X, GoldenEye 64.
Nintendo 64 fans, here is something really special for you today. Gaming Revived has been releasing AI-enhanced HD Texture Packs for a lot of Nintendo 64 games that PC gamers can enjoy via various emulators. What this means is that we can finally enjoy all the classic N64 games with better textures thanks to the newly introduced AI enhancement techniques.
N64 Texture Packs 1.15
Gaming Revived has released HD Texture Packs for a lot of classic Nintendo 64 games, such as Baanjo Kazooie, Conkers Bad Fur Day, Crusin USA, Destruction Derby, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong 64, F-Zero X, GoldenEye 64, MarioKart64, Mission Impossible, Mortal Kombat 4, Perfect Dark, PilotWings 64, Pokemon Snap, Quake64, Rayman 2, Ridge Racer, Road Rash, Rogue Squadron, Shadow of the Empire, Star Fox 64, Mario 64, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Turok and more.
Gaming Revived has TopazGigaPixel in order to upscale the original textures of over 150 games. Most of the HD Texture Packs for each of these games range between 1-2GB in size, and work in RetroArch using Mupen64-Next “Core” most recent release, or in Project64 and Mupen64plus using GlideN64 3.0 or GlideN64 4.0.
As Gaming Revived claimed:
“As we know most N64 textures range from 32x,64,128 so I ended up using 512 for best results. I had to keep the file sizes and texture packs to a fair minimum without running into errors even with project 64 large address aware. Some games with smaller texture packs I up-scaled to 1080p like Turok and Mario64 with nice results but didn’t look any better then the 512 versions. This whole project started when I wanted to texture MOD Perfect Dark and I stumbled upon Gigapixel and ended up texture packing up 100 games in full HD glory. The results are night and Day and brings the N64 into the modern era without all the blurry textures from 20+ years ago. I highly recommend people to Dump there own textures and purchase A.I. Gigapixel and see what kind of results the community can come up with. The potential for some very interesting texture packs could be made. This texture pack project was based on ONLY enhancing the original assets. This project does not include any ROMS and this texture project is only shared freely.”
This is a dream come true for all Nintendo 64 fans out there and, as you may have guessed, you can only enjoy these HD Texture Packs on the PC via emulators. So yeah, here is another reason why emulators are so important.
Those interested can download these AI-enhanced HD Texture Packs by joining the Discord server for this project.
Have fun everyone!
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John Papadopoulos
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved - and still does - the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the 'The Evolution of PC graphics cards.' Contact: Email
Many of the most old-school of gamers still pride themselves on playing all the classics on the original hardware and look down on emulation. Many other Nintendo fans may be loading up their Wiis with plenty of excellent N64 games on the Virtual Console. However, if you are looking for something to breath a bit of fresh air into your favorite N64 games, you may want to look into some neat little hacks you can do with an N64 emulator and some select plugins and texture packs.
More Must-Read N64 Content to Check Out
What Can These Tweaks Do?
Even though it was 64-bit, the N64 was still in that era where 3D processing was at its infancy and the graphics weren’t quite as smooth as we might like. In fact, the 32-bit Playstation had a number of later games that gave the best of the N64 a run for its money in terms of graphics. However, with some emulation tweaks, we can give some of your favorite N64 classics a significant boost to help transition them into the modern era.
While I wasn’t as impressed with most of these as much as I was with the PS1 emulation enhancements we covered a while back, there are some very interesting examples of a high-gloss finish added to some of the best of the N64 library.
Basic Image Enhancement Plugins
Without doing anything too terribly complicated, you can make most any N64 game look significantly better by using Project64 with a plugin, typically the Rice Video Plugin (find others on list of plugins here). These improvements are usually made by enhancing the 3D model textures and using anti-aliasing techniques to smoothen the rough edges of the polygons. Here are some great examples of enhanced screenshots (click to enlarge)
Kirby 64
Super Smash Bros.
Another Super Smash Bros shot
Jet Force Gemini
Goldeneye 007
Yes, you can render the Sky Box – Glide64 HQ plugin works well also
Another screenshot
Custom Texture Packs
One of the coolest tricks in N64 emulation is re-texturing. With this technique, the original graphics of the game are taken out, redone using high resolution textures or a different graphic style (such as Cell Shading), and then reinserted for playback on the PC. These texture packs consist of zipped files that you download and use in combination with a copy of the original game ROM and specific emulators. (See this guide for a detailed example)
The only disadvantage to this technique is that there is a lot of time and effort that goes into these texture packs. Dedicated members of the N64 emulation community pour their creativity and skill into these creations and is is no small task to adequately take care of one game, let alone the entire N64 library. Because of this, not every N64 game is going to have high-resolution texture packs available. Although, you are free to join in on the initiative yourself.
Below are some of my favorite examples of texture packs (click to enlarge screens), but there are more available. If you have a favorite that isn’t mentioned, feel free to drop some links in the comments section below.
Mario 64 – RiSiO’s Alternative Cartoon Mario 64
More Screenshots
Video Sample
Download Texture Pack
The Legend of Zelda: OoT – Hi-Res Pack
More Screenshots (With Before & After)
Zelda-Specific Instructions
Download Texture Pack
Paper Mario – Mollymutt’s Hi-rez
N64 Texture Packs Download
More Screenshots
Long thread with updates
Banjo-Kazooie – Macphisto’s Hi-Res Banjo-Kazooie
More Screenshots
Download Texture Pack
F-Zero X – speiles F-ZERO X retexture
More Screenshots
Download Texture Pack
Other Texture Packs (thanks CoolROM):
- Diddy Kong Racing by _pm_
- GoldenEye 007 by Kerber2k
- Legend of Zelda, The: Majora’s Mask by Djipi and MDtauk (Screenshots here)
- Mario Kart 64 by Mazzocchi
- Monopoly by krhyluv
- Starfox 64 by Kid A
- Super Mario 64 by cloudscapes, _pm_, and John Doe
- Super Smash Bros. by _pm_ and optimus$prime
- Virtual Chess 64 by sToRm_seveN
- Wave Race 64 by The Dave
- WWF No Mercy by alanchiz
Special thanks:NeoGAF members from this thread that shared their N64 screenshots and