Amateur emulators are better than the official
ones. I don’t even think it has to be argued at
this point, it’s just a plain fact. I’m not aware of a single Nintendo platform
where fan emulators aren’t more accurate and equipped with better enhancement and control
options. And this doesn’t just pertain to Nintendo;
Sega has screwed up their emulation with ultra high latency and bugs in the past. Sony didn’t bother creating an emulator
for the Playstation classic and instead grabbed an open source emulator from the internet,
apparently without regard for how poorly it performed on their hardware. Companies don’t half bake retro products
like this because they’re greedy or evil; it just might not be viable to create an emulator
that can rival a long term fan project. Fans can spend decades perfecting software
out of sheer passion without expecting a dime in return; a business can’t. I’ve come to accept that commercial emulators
will never catch up and in a way it’s not even fair to expect them to. But I do think it’s fair to ask that they
at least try. And with Switch online, it’s clear that
they did not. Now, I didn’t buy the expansion pack. Someone was generous enough to lend me their
account to do the testing and I wanted to note that for later. There’s no controller pak support, leaving
game features or even basic save systems inaccessible. You cannot save using Winback’s original
system. It seems that a warning about the mempak has
been removed from the title screen; Nintendo may have altered it to make this less of a
slap in the face right at startup. You have to rely on savestates, and one of
the problems with that is that any bugs you encounter are likely to resume again when
reloading the game. Instead of an applause feature maybe they
should have mapped a pak swap button, and games that don’t support rumble should use
the memory pak by default. There have also been a lot of complaints about
lag from some of the most knowledgeable speedrunners, and the most detailed test I’ve seen claims
Mario64 has double the lag it did on the N64 or the Wii. It also has more lag than the All Stars version
despite running on the same system with the same core emulator at the heart of both. Some media outlets have tried to downplay
this by doing tests that seem a little skewed- putting the original at a disadvantage by
running it into an LCD- or that only check one game and proclaim that everything on the
service is fine, with no details on their methodology. I’m not equipped to do much better, but
I’ve got an old Wii I stole from a hobo in a gutter, a cheap HDMI adapter, and a monitor
that I know to have two frames of lag- which I’ll be subtracting from the results. I don’t know how much lag the adapter adds
but screw it, the more the merrier. The Wii version of Ocarina of time consistently
lags 12 60fps camera frames, which amounts to 166 milliseconds or about 3 in-game frames. That’s quite a bit lower than what IGN lists
for their CRT lag, and again, I’m not compensating for the frame or two the adapter is certainly
adding. Let’s try project64 this time. Again, I end up with 166 milliseconds on average. And finally is the expansion pack- the results
here were less consistent, but the average was 216 milliseconds. It tends to lag behind project64 by one game
frame, which may not sound like much but that would be equivalent to 3 frames in a 60fps
game. For the sake of being complete, I also tested
handheld mode and found it to lag by the same amount, 15 frames on average. I don’t know how much display lag the screen
has so I’m not compensating for it, but the results suggest that it’s the same as
my monitor. I tested Mario64 in both All Stars and Project64
and found them to respond about the same with 100 milliseconds of lag, which is 3 game frames
again, although All Stars stretched into four frames slightly more often. The Expansion pack consistently responded
with four frames of lag, 133 milliseconds. I wanted to cast a wide net and test a few
more, but I can only measure these in comparison to project64. Yoshi’s Story was a rare 60fps for the time
and Switch lagged behind project64 by two of those frames, an 33 extra milliseconds. Winback was also 33 milliseconds behind, which
is just one game frame this time. Sin and Punishment averaged 50 milliseconds,
which is one to two game frames behind. And finally Starfox was one game frame behind,
about 33 milliseconds. Every test that I’ve seen from every source
has found more lag on Switch; it’s indisputable. The only argument is how much. People have reported wildly different levels
for different games, and I think what’s going on is that certain games just have more
lag by nature. Yoshi’s Story is a responsive 60fps game,
so it still feels decent with a few frames of delay. Zelda takes over twice as long to respond
with all else being equal; this has led people to claim that some games have lag and some
don’t when that’s not really the case. I found that all games consistently lagged
one game frame later than project64, sometimes two, but I need to stress that this is not
the total lag Switch is adding; there would be a wider gulf when comparing against real
hardware connected to a CRT or a good digital converter. Personally, I didn’t find the games unplayable,
but then again I haven’t touched real hardware for years. I see no reason to doubt that someone used
to original hardware may struggle with the expansion pack. The controls have been widely criticized for
being clunky and leaving no button option for C right. The Gamecube scheme had all three C actions
mapped to buttons, and that controller had three fewer buttons than a modern pad. The buttons you do get also make no sense
in certain titles, with Winback’s lone camera button rotating in one direction. It’s completely useless, and it makes me
think no one even tested this because weapon swapping was obviously a better choice for
that button. There’s also an odd asymmetrical trigger
layout where ZL is used but not ZR. The problem here isn’t the default scheme,
it’s the fact that you can’t remap it. It’s critically important to be able to
remap those weird N64 layouts on a game to game basis. Having to do system wide remapping in the
Switch settings menu is not good enough for a premium emulation service. There have also been rampant complaints about
the online play being… this. It seems that if any player has a connection
issue then the quality for everyone in the match suffers. Some have defended the service by claiming
that it’s not possible to handle online emulator play any other way, and that might
be true but it doesn’t make this any less of a screeching mess. And then there are just straight up fuckin’
bugs. This one is not only a visual glitch but a
gameplay glitch, since the fight depends on the boss being invisible. Star Fox has strange artifacting during cutscenes
and the filters used for explosions and fire apparently aren’t emulated, leaving those
effects looking static and flat. There are pervasive texture seam issues that
GlideN64 manages to avoid with its more accurate filtering. I also noticed a lot of audio bugs and warbling
pitch issues. Ocarina of time has been hit hardest by the
ugly stick, with the fog being completely broken throughout the game. Instead of being a mysterious landmark off
in the distance the deku tree now just looks like a really ugly model right on the edge
of the village. Alpha texture effects have never worked in
any of Nintendo’s emulators and they continue to suck on Switch; any object with the extremely
common shine effect is broken. Various other bugs have been reported but
the most infamous by now is the dark link room. Multiple glitches had to come together to
ruin almost every part of this scene. It’s time to play “can I fuck this up
as badly as Nintendo?” Where I maliciously attack the highest rated
game of all time to see if I can get it to look as bad as this premium service. I started with the obvious stuff, like removing
the alpha channel from the water caustic texture and changing its levels, and while that got
close it wasn’t quite shitty enough. Then I noticed that the rock texture used
on the side of the room looks very similar to the water on Switch, so I replaced the
water texture with it and that did the trick. I fucked it. What seems to be happening is that two textures
are blended for the water in this room; the semi transparent water caustic is the main
effect, but if I paint it solid you can see that the rock texture is overlaid very faintly
as a second layer. N64 games did this often to save memory; instead
of using a unique texture, they would pull a texture already loaded in RAM and layer
that over something for some extra grit. Somehow the Switch emulator is only showing
the rock texture at full opacity and nothing else, killing the reflections in the process. So in addition to everything else the texture
blending also seems completely busted. These are not small issues; developers had
to work pretty hard to squeeze any kind of atmosphere out of that primitive hardware
and Switch is sideswiping large amounts of it. They’re also not new issues; the Wii U emulator
introduced many of these problems and they’ve somehow just gotten worse; at least on Wii
U the fog worked. A lot of people have pointed out that- somehow-
the Wii is still the best N64 emulator Nintendo has made. It had problems of its own and doesn’t deserve
to be romanticized, but for 2006 it was good. I’ve made the point before that Nintendo
is decades behind amateur emulators but now they’re over a decade behind their own emulator. I’ve been testing a bunch of N64 controllers
for another video and have had to dig back through years of plugins like jabo and pokopom
looking for the one that would finally work, and the experience has reminded me of just
how much of a mess N64 emulation is on PC. It’s a mostly stagnant scene fragmented
into dozens of old plugins and it’s so complicated to get into that even with an auto installer
many people still found it too much of a hassle to try when I released my texture pack. If there was any system where Nintendo could
have pulled ahead of fan emulators, it was the N64. Instead, they’ve released yet another revision
where the emulation is outdone by a tangled pile of plugins. I’m a big fan of Gonetz, but he’s just…
some guy in Russia, doing this for fun, and his plugin got these effects right while the
paid staff behind the expansion pak failed for the second or in some cases third time
in a row. Is that the way it should be? I assume that they’ll act quickly to patch
the worst issues, like the lack of save support, but even so- it matters that Nintendo launched
a high priced tier in this state. It shows how little they think of both their
classic games and their customers. But the most disappointing thing about this
launch has been watching Nintendo fans fall over themselves to defend it. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the
service; it’s not as if the games have been completely drained of their appeal. But there is a problem with lashing out at
the people who are reporting some very real shortcomings, as if they’re out of line
for not being happy with whatever Nintendo hands them. If the lag isn’t a problem to you, it doesn’t
mean that other people are making it up. This isn’t a subjective thing, people can
measure it and gather data. We shouldn’t decide whether something is
a problem based on whether twitter user ChadDeezNuts noticed it. A lot of people- and even some media outlets-
have said that the glitches don’t matter because the games look just how they remembered
them. But they don’t; that’s exactly what having
a glitch means. There’s also a lot of “the average player
won’t notice how bad it is” going around, and if that’s the best thing to say about
the service then it probably shouldn’t be the basis of a premium tier. I don’t mean any disrespect to the creator,
but IGN put up a video that amounted to praising Switch for looking better than off-screen
footage of a CRT- which… I’m not even sure it does- and hand waving
the fog issues as a limit of the hardware power… which doesn’t square with the fact
that they managed to get it right on the GameCube… and Wii… and Wii U… or that a hacked Switch
with Mupen has no trouble with it. It’s not really a start, though, is it? They’ve been doing this for eighteen years. The Wii was a good start; this is more of
a “bad middle.” The majority of issues people are complaining
about were on the Wii U six years ago. They didn’t fix it because they didn't care. This is not a company that’s struggling
to get by; they’re at their peak. They recently shared that Switch has made
so much more money than expected that they have to figure out new ways to spend it. No one should be making excuses for them cheaping
out on this emulator. There are a few promising things about the
Expansion pak- the Genesis games are apparently OK. I like that the PAL versions are provided
alongside the US ROMs. Datamining has suggested that they’ll bring
38 N64 games over, which is much better than the 21 the Wii and Wii U topped out at. There’s even a faint flicker of hope that
Goldeneye might come to the service, and if I were a Nintendo executive trying to improve
the image of the expansion pak, online Goldeneye would be the fastest shortcut there. But it won’t matter what games they have
if the emulation still sucks. If they want to save the service then they
need to do a major overhaul right now; it needs to be an all hands on deck effort like
when they scrambled to fix the Wii U OS. They need to emulate memory packs, fix the
graphics, reduce the lag, and add per-game button remapping at the emulator level. Will they? If the worst backlash they face is getting
dislikes on a YouTube video, probably not. But if subscriptions are far lower than expected...
maybe. I chose not to subscribe and you have that
power too. They just released data showing that about
one third of Switch owners have subscribed to the base service. In spite of all its shortcomings Switch Online
has done pretty well, and it’s possible the expansion pack will also do better than
it deserves. Too many people are willing to buy bad products
at first sight, realize they’re bad products, then go online and desperately spin it as
if they didn’t waste their money on bad products. You don’t have to do this; just don’t
buy the thing until you know the thing is good. And if they make the thing good, I’ll do
another video praising them for it. Until then, I’ll just be smug. Call me Mr. Smugworth… Smug Funnie… A smug’s life… The… desolation of smug. You’ve played these games a thousand times
before! Now, PAY a thousand dollars FOR them-
With the Switch Online Ultra HLE Expansion Pack! We’ve fixed our bugs- by switching to that
emulator we killed off in the 90’s! And early subscribers will get access to an
exclusive game that’s sure to drive the fans wild! The Ultra HLE Expansion Pack is only available
in 10-year contracts, with no cancellations and no refunds! All existing Switch Online members have been
auto enrolled and pre-charged for the fun, and if you’ve got a problem with that, take
it up with the architect of our plan! “We’ve got a product for people like you-
it’s called the Wii, dumbass.” The Switch Online Ultra HLE Expansion Pack…
has been cancelled to make way for the Super N64 Omegaverse. This time, we fixed the bugs of the Ultra
HLE Expansion pack, and subscribers will have exclusive access to a Wario keychain that
politely holds its farts! “OHHHH!!! Tell me more… uggh.. About your… day!!!” Pricing for the Super N64 Omegaverse is…
complicated, so ask a participating lender for the terms of enrollment.
Love Nerrel's videos
Couple weeks ago I was mulling over whether I would be getting GTA Trilogy or the 64 Expansion Pak for switch. Trying to talk myself into getting both… oh boy how things have changed
The ending part is funny as hell
I will up vote anything Nerrel tbh, underrated channel
Sucks about Nintendo but at least I found a new YouTube video maker person I like.
Nerrel always one of the best when it comes to emulation
This was a great video and he is right about Nintendo fans tripping over themselves to the current state of the N64 emulation on Switch. I hope they actually fix it.
one thing that really fried my ass a bit was the input lag when you have to do tennis with ganondorf at the end of OoT on this emu. the delay is enough where it's really hard to successfully deflect his attack back at him other than almost spamming it. /rant over