Modder Touches Up Ocarina of Time, Other N64 Games With Ray Tracing, Widescreen, 60FPS Gameplay
Posted on June 07 2022 by Mike Midwood
Emulators are an important tool for video game preservation. I’ve never heard anyone besides corporate lawyers dispute this. Moreover, software emulation is often a better way of experiencing classic games than official rereleases. This is especially true when passionate fans are more willing to put effort into revitalizing those titles than gaming conglomerates are, and we’ve got an excellent example of that right here. Emulator developer Dario has begun work on a plugin that would bring modern visual enhancements to classic Nintendo 64 games, including The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Dario had previously modified an unofficial PC port of Super Mario 64 to support widescreen displays, a 60fps framerate, and ray traced light and shadow effects. In a recent Twitter thread, Dario states that he realized his work “…could evolve into a generic emulation solution that would allow me to apply these enhancements to far more games.” Also in that thread was a brief video showing the effects if his plugin on a handful of N64 classics, including Ocarina of Time. You can check out that video in the embedded Tweet below.
I’d like to reveal that RT64, the path tracer behind sm64rt, is evolving into an N64 emulator plugin.
Here’s a small reel of footage I’ve captured from games that are already showing results.
Ray traced lighting, object motion blur, widescreen, DLSS and 60+ FPS. pic.twitter.com/qLJHzGfKUc
— Darío (@dariosamo) June 3, 2022
Ocarina of Time has long been my favorite video game and seeing it use the original engine to run these graphical enhancements is insane. I have a soft spot for the blocky models of that era, so seeing them in this new light is almost revelatory. Widescreen displays have been the standard for nearly a decade and 60fps framerates should be considered standard, though many developers still have issues achieving that. The truly spectacular addition here is ray tracing. This remains a fairly novel feature even in modern games. I can tell you you from experience that turning on the ray tracing options for most modern games tanks performance unless you have a supercomputer, so it’s great to see it operating smoothly hear, albeit on a much less demanding game. N64 technology was too primitive for true light sources or reflective surfaces, so it’s impressive that these features could be added.
What do you think? Are you interested in checking this out when it’s finished? What other N64 games should get this treatment? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: dariosamo (via Gamesradar)
Hi, I’m Mike Midwood and I’m a Senior Editor at ZeldaDungeon! Video games and literature are my greatest joys in life. An avid Zelda fan, some of my other favorite games include the Resident Evil and Dark Souls series. I hope you enjoy my content here on ZeldaDungeon!
“The sword has no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage.”
