The world of game modding is truly something else, and one modder has managed to fix the entire original source code of Super Mario 64.
Super Mario 64, like any game on the Nintendo 64, is a little janky. This obviously isn’t a huge problem, considering the game is old as hell and is a product of its time. On the other hand, we’re living in the future, baby! There are no flying cars or giant hologram women pointing at us from billboards and blowing us kisses, but some of the biggest brains around are putting microchips in ape brains and charging wacko fun bucks for ugly monkey pictures, so that’s definitely some kind of future world.
It’s been a while since Super Mario 64 released, and we’ve come pretty far in terms of technology. This means that those that have the power to make these relics of the past look and play as smooth as butter can do so, and they are!
Kaze Emanaur is a German programmer and game designer and has posted an incredibly detailed look into how he has ‘read, optimised, and bug-fixed the entire Super Mario 64 source code’, spending weeks rewriting the code to improve performance. His modding work has allowed for the game to run at a smooth 30fps on an original Nintendo 64 console. This means that Emanaur has managed to fix the actual game’s code on the original console, rather than on an emulated version of the game.
You can check out the full video below.
In order to show off the impressive work he’s done, Emanaur has shown side-by-side comparisons of the game running its original code and his new and improved code. The difference is significant and pretty jaw-dropping! While I know absolutely nothing about coding, the hours and hours of work Emanaur has done is very cool, and his respect for the original work is very admirable.
According to the video, Emanaur says that he’s about halfway done with the source code work. He also mentions that he plans to continue posting updates on YouTube until the mod is completely finished. These videos, similarly to the one above, will be covering various optimisations that he’s had to make to the source code in order for it to run swimmingly.
If you’d like to see more, you can head over to his YouTube channel, or you can support his work on Patreon.
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