Thinking about getting a refurbished N64 someday

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With Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

Any suggestions for buying a very old game system and how to properly take care of it and play it on an HDTV?

I dislike all these new game systems like the PS4 and Xbox One. They suck and the games suck! I'd rather play games that I already know I like.

Old game systems are always fun to fiddle around with. The N64 has a great game library and you can find them on eBay for pretty reasonable prices.

I'm also thinking about possibly getting a PlayStation or PS2 and getting Resident Evil 1, 2, 3 and maybe Outbreak.

I'm more into convenience, so I'd rather use Project 64/Mega64 with a PC or Android device. You get added portability, along with quality of life improvements such as save states, cloud saves, customisable controls, turbo modes, and improved performance and resolution. Plus you don't have to worry about issues like trying to adapt old video connections to modern ones, or replacing batteries in cartridges and memory cards. I used to use an old Android phone paired to a PS3 controller with a clip attachment for N64 emulation as well as for other systems, but nowadays I prefer to use my GPD Win 2 because it's more ergonomic, portable and versatile.

If you're not interested in portable play, you could just use a cheap Intel NUC or an old phone and keep it plugged into the TV. If you don't have an old phone you could pick one up cheaply on ebay.

For PS2 emulation, you'd have to go for a PC with some sort of decent graphics capability - not even discrete graphics necessarily, just a decent integrated chip. It'd be a more expensive setup because PCSX2 requires a fair bit more processing power than N64 or PS1. A modern Intel i3 or low end Ryzen would do the job fine.

Aye, same here.

Those old devices often just arent quite worth the trouble, even if the games are good.

Not to mention that they're designed for old CRT screens, which hardly anyone even has these days.

Much easier to just emulate. No hardware troubles and you have a bazillion options for running the things.

Not to mention that the overall process is just dramatically faster. Like the NES for instance. I recently sat down to play through a few games on there. But if I'd done it with an actual machine, it would have taken forever, and another monitor, and there'd be the issues of figuring out where the games actually are, and then making them actually work, and finding the controllers....

...Instead I just downloaded the entire NES library. Took 5 minutes. Grabbed all the Gameboy stuffs while I was at it. I can either play them normally with my PS4 controller or do them in VR, either way is fine. And no battery issues.

N64 controllers deteriorate pretty badly, the analogue sticks become very difficult to use. You can do some sort of DIY repair job (see YouTube), but it looks a real pain and I'm not sure how effective it is. Third party replacements don't seem to have a very good reputation. I also found the placing of a key button on the underside of the controller made it practically unusable for my style of play.

The '1964' emulator is quite impressive, but I think it only works for Goldeneye64 and Perfect Dark.

I don't own a PC and I really don't see myself staring into a tiny android screen to play Resident Evil.

I'd rather play these games the way they were meant to be played on a game console. If the system messes up it shouldn't be that hard to fix or replace.

It's a lot harder to fix or replace compared to modern hardware. The N64 analog stick is notorious for its lack of durability, and repairing it is a fairly involved process.

You'd definitely want to be replacing all the batteries in your N64 cartridges and memory cards these days before you even think of starting a long game of something like Zelda or Resident Evil too. Which means opening them up, removing the solder and resoldering in new batteries. Not to mention the expensive modding required to use an N64 with a modern TV, which will typically only have HDMI or maybe some component inputs.

In comparison, it's far easier to replace an old phone or tablet. You don't actually use the 'tiny Android' screen, you plug it into the display you want to play on. If you really want to make it closer to the actual experience, you could get an 8bitdo N64 bluetooth controller.

Last edited by Enigmatic_Oddity on 28 Jan 2019, 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah well... I might as well just give up video games I guess. New game systems suck, old game systems are dead, and I'm too much of a dinosaur to figure out how to play games on an android or pc without a real controller in my hand. Oh well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilEHLgNlV-U

I want the translucent one.

I mean, if you really can't handle learning the simple process of running these games on a general computing device, you can just get a modern Nintendo system and buy into their Virtual console market. But I really don't recommend it, it's inferior to any other way you could play the games. But it is official, and technically supported by Nintendo.

I might just stick to wathing movies, listening to music, and reading books to pass the time.

That's quite a few assumptions you're making here.

Who says you cant use a controller? I do almost all of my gaming on PC, and I use a controller for nearly all of them. What's even better: You can use ANY controller you want. Just needs USB, and *everything* has USB now. I use a PS4 controller, as it doesnt wreck my arm.

But also, there's another aspect. As you say, the new consoles kinda suck. I know exactly what you mean here. Big games, even bigger greed. Shallow gameplay with an extreme focus on graphics and cutscenes. Bleh.

I grew up with the same sorts of games you talk about here. But also even older ones, going back to the 2600.

And here's the reason I do PC games: Because developers STILL MAKE STUFF LIKE THAT. Not just occaisionally. It's extremely frequent. I mean *EXTREMELY* frequent. That old style of gameplay. And if they want to, that old style of graphics too. And no greed.

But here's the other reason: You think consoles are easier than PC, but it's actually the other way around by far. Consoles are slow and convoluted. Gone are the days when you just put the game in and run it (provided it wants to work right). But PCs have eclipsed even those ancient ones in terms of how easy they are to use.

Keep in mind: These arent the PCs from the days of old. No DOS, no Windows 95, no need to look at complicated specs to see what will run on your machine and what wont.

When I want to buy a game, I open up Steam (which is always running) and simply click through their store. It's as easy as using this forum, or browsing Facebook. When I find something I want to buy, it's about 2 clicks away from happening. When I want to play a game, it's even easier than that. Click on "library" and every single one of them is there.

The thing about PC gaming is that developers have absolute freedom to make *anything*. The biggest reason that consoles suck right now is because it's always the same crap, over and over, all tailored towards the most obnoxious trends. Developers that work under big publishers have no true freedom. They cannot just make whatever they want, their contracts do not allow that. But on PC, anyone can make anything. Even I worked on a game, and nobody controlled me from above. When I had a creative idea, into the game it went. That's how development is on there.

And that means that no matter what kind of game you're after, it probably exists on there. The consoles have a few hundred games each. Steam has THOUSANDS. And that's JUST Steam. Branch out to other places like Itch.io and the selection gets even more massive (Steam is the biggest though).

And I really do mean "no matter what kind of game you're after". Want something that looks like it's straight out of the NES and plays like the old Megaman games? You got it. Something that's like Goldeneye? Yep, no problem. With the consoles, entire GENRES are missing. But all of them, every single one, are found on PC. And again, *most* things support controllers now. Oh, and did I mention these games dont cost a huge amount? Here in the US, "big" games, when new, are a full $60. And tend to suck. The sorts of games I do are almost always under $20. Some going down to 5, or even 1. And that's not even counting the sales. With consoles, when there's a "sale", it's like 10%, and it's rare. With Steam, a sale is more like 90%, and it's *frequent*. There are *always* sales. The idea of a "Steam sale" is now synonymous with "great deal". Some of my favorite games of all time, games I've gotten 100s of hours out of, were bought on Steam, for like $10. No need to pay 60 for something that'll give like 5 hours of crappy, shallow gameplay.

And no, you dont need a hyper-expensive machine to play these. Again, this isnt the days of Windows 95. Even a low-end machine will run most anything now. And there's zero effort to installing things or running stuff.


Seriously. It's *much* easier to do gaming on a PC than it is on a console of any sort. Also helps that PCs arent just gaming machines... it's not like gaming is all you get when you have one.

And all of that isnt even getting into emulators. That is a whole other bag of cats.

Interesting...

Or just really long.

Pretty sure I was jittery on caffeine when I wrote all that. Not that I'm good at being concise anyway....