Fan-made Mario Kart 64 PC port released, with track editor and ultrawide support (www.videogameschronicle.com)
from tonytins@pawb.social to games@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 21:37
https://pawb.social/post/26852206

#games

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Green_Mouse@piefed.social on 22 Jun 21:59 next collapse

The fact that they are adding more features and modding for these fan ports is incredible, I just hope that Nintendo doesn't come in and shut down these fan ports like they like to do with fan games/projects/etc.

mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 22 Jun 23:56 collapse

like they like to do with fan games/projects/etc.

Cries while staring at the defunct AM2R project

Green_Mouse@piefed.social on 23 Jun 09:59 collapse

I remember a few years ago I played and finished AM2R, such an incredible game, of course, not on the level of the official remake, but still.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 22:00 next collapse

Nintendo cease and disist in 3…2…1…

LorIps@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 22:26 next collapse

Probably not, they don’t provide copyrighted files and Nintendo reeeeeaaaally doesn’t want to create precedent that decomp is fair use (which it probably is) which could make emulators 100% legal.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 22:29 next collapse

Emulators ARE 100% legal.

It’s the roms that are illegal.

tonytins@pawb.social on 22 Jun 22:33 next collapse

Which is pretty fucked up logic.

catloaf@lemm.ee on 22 Jun 23:04 next collapse

Why do you say that?

tonytins@pawb.social on 22 Jun 23:10 collapse

It’s like being handed a MP3 player but being told you’ll go to jail for playing music you ripped yourself.

catloaf@lemm.ee on 22 Jun 23:16 collapse

Generally, ripping for personal use is not litigated, only distribution. It may technically be illegal in most places, but then, reproducing someone’s work without compensation should be prohibited.

Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 00:28 next collapse

There was a point in the 1980s where PC games fully allowed and encouraged you to copy your games for backup purposes. They even had some companies who gave detailed steps explaining how.

What ended up happening is you owned a PC, your buddy owned a PC. You made two backups of the game. One for you, and one for your buddy. Now between the two of you, you buy half the games, because you buy one, your buddy buys a different one. And now you both have two games.

Now multiply that by however many friends you knew who owned PCs. You might buy 1 game, but own 15 games.

By the 90s, PC game makers did a 180, and were now trying to prevent archiving of their games, but it was too late. Laws had been written to allow for backup of personal data. Yes, you WERE breaking the law by giving your buddy the backup, but they couldn’t prevent you from creating the backup.

And in a pre-internet world, how would they ever even know you made a backup?

f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz on 23 Jun 06:40 collapse

Of course companies wanted people to share the free demo versions but some full games did have annoying protection schemes in the '80s. Obfuscated data and purposely “bad” sectors on floppy; cardboard decoder wheels; asking for word #x from line #y of page #z of the game’s manual, or, similarly, a page of codes printed in black ink on dark maroon paper to prevent photocopying… leading to folks distributing cracked versions and the cracking tools themselves!

To be fair, it was a pretty ridiculous time. Computer club meetings just turned into floppy-copy-fests.

JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works on 23 Jun 10:18 collapse

Then you had bands like SOAD, who released an album titled “STEAL THIS ALBUM!”
Some music stores put their own stickers on the cd cases saying things like, “please don’t”, it was a great time.

mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 22 Jun 23:55 collapse

Not really; The emulator doesn’t use any copyrighted code, but the ROM is copyrighted. That’s just basic IP law.

What is fucked up logic is Nintendo encrypting their ROMs, then providing decryption keys on the console. So the emulator itself is legal, but actually booting a ROM requires decrypting it, which requires keys from a legitimate console. Nintendo has argued that those keys are illegal to use in an emulator, even if the user rips them directly from the console that they own. So you have the keys. You own the console they’re stored on. But it’s illegal to use those keys anywhere except on the console they came on, because Nintendo said so.

yucandu@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 02:17 next collapse

Because US DMCA law has provisions in it about copyright circumvention. Same thing led to the “you can’t repair your own John Deere tractor” debacle.

Cocodapuf@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 13:13 collapse

It’s sort of brilliant, in a Lex Luthor kind of way…

trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 23 Jun 11:43 collapse

If you are in the US, ROMs aren’t illegal either. You’re just required to rip them from a cartridge/disc you acquired legally (including second-hand purchases) and you can’t distribute it to others. It’s the latter part that makes it illegal (but not at all immoral). If you wanna do that last part, god bless. Fuck these companies.

blackjam_alex@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 22:33 next collapse

Decomps are legal because they’re clean room reimplementations of the original code rather than exact copies.

It’s the same approach IBM PC compatible manufacturers used back in the day to create their own BIOSes.

Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 22:51 collapse

There’s no precedent. Nintendo sues, the developer doesn’t have money for lawyers to defend themselves so they remove it.

That’s how it’s been going for a long time.

altima_neo@lemmy.zip on 23 Jun 01:52 collapse

Problem here is Nintendo doesnt have much to sue them on. They were even pretty careful about how they named the project. Naming it Spaghetti Kart and making no references to Nintendo or even Mario Kart.

SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 10:23 next collapse

They can sue if they can prove that the code wasn’t reversed engineered in a clean room. Meaning nobody who wrote code looked at the original code. One person or group examines the software and writes the specifications and another group implements the specification without the teams interacting with each other. And usually a lawyer has to be involved and review the specification. The separation of teams is called the “Chinese Wall”

And depending on interpretation of the law if the people writing code used a decompiler that can be seen as breaching the “Chinese Wall” since the implementation is then not based solely on the specification but based on the original code.

Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 14:03 collapse

It doesn’t matter that they have no basis for a lawsuit. Nintendo starts a lawsuit, no matter how ridiculous, and the developer has to pay a lawyer to defend or they lose to default judgement.

The US isn’t like EU. Everyone pays their own costs whether you win or lose. If you win, you can then start a new lawsuit to recover legal costs but that costs more money and you aren’t guaranteed to recover the money.

Edit: I don’t understand the downvote. It’s exactly how the US system works. I experienced it with a contractor. Contractor took the money and didn’t finish. I sued and won. He then sued saying he was owed all that money back for absolutely no reason. Of course it didn’t even go to trial but I still had to pay my lawyer to defend myself. Otherwise it would have been a default judgement for him.

Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip on 22 Jun 22:47 next collapse

Nintendo hasn’t really C&D any of the previous decomps. they can for people who upload the whole precompiled executable, but none of them that requires actually ripping the original assets yourself to create the required game.

Animal Crossing is next, as 6 days ago, the gamecube version of the game was decompiled to completion. It’s a extremely big prime candidate for modding IMO.

Psythik@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 06:05 collapse

Nope. Ship of Harkinian and 2 Ship 2 Harkinian have been around for years with no issues from Nintendo, and this port is being developed by HarbourMasters, the same people behind those ports. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

victorz@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 22:19 next collapse

Man, MK64 already had a pretty high FOV as it was, and now with ultra wide support lol

RobotZap10000@feddit.nl on 22 Jun 22:22 next collapse

How else am I supposed to see the green shells behind me?

Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 22 Jun 22:23 collapse

360° monitor setup including rear view mirrors.

victorz@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 10:43 collapse

I love the idea of having a 360° monitor and rear view mirrors instead of just smaller rear view screens, or even digital on-screen rear view mirrors. 😄

Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 23 Jun 11:36 collapse

New proposal:
360°C monitor setup
3 small (something like 10") monitors as side/rearview mirrors
actual side-/rearview mirrors

victorz@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 14:51 collapse

360°C monitor setup

Better wear some oven mitts. 🔥

Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 23 Jun 17:54 collapse

Lol…Neat typo xD

Psythik@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 06:07 collapse

As someone who uses a 65" LG OLED as my primary monitor and sits 5ft away, the FoV can never be high enough in nearly every game.

victorz@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 10:42 collapse

You’d think it would be the opposite? High FOV when you are far away doesn’t match the expected projection of the things you see on screen. 5 ft is pretty normal I would say, I sit that far from my LG 65" OLED, too. I turn down my FOV in Rocket League so it doesn’t mess with my perception, even though you’d think a high FOV in that game would benefit you as you can avoid demolitions easier. (I do keep the FOV at max in Rocket League when in front of my PC though, because I’m so close to my monitor, probably 2 ft or so.)

Psythik@lemmy.world on 24 Jun 01:32 collapse

5ft is close for a 65" screen. Most people sit about 8-10ft away from a screen that size. And to be clear, I’m referring to distance from my eyeballs. The foot of the recliner is about 2ft away.

victorz@lemmy.world on 24 Jun 05:26 collapse

It’s not that close. You were right about one thing, the front end of my couch is probably 5–6 ft away from the TV. But I crouched down at exactly 5 ft and the TV still has a smaller apparent size than my 27" LG OLED PC monitor when I sit by the computer for gaming. I would turn down the FOV if I were you, to match the expected projection, but that’s just me. You can of course do what you feel is comfortable. But the distance argument doesn’t hold up is all I’m saying. 😁👍

hddsx@lemmy.ca on 22 Jun 22:22 next collapse

And Nintendo has not yet sued because…?

catloaf@lemm.ee on 22 Jun 23:02 next collapse

On what grounds?

baldingpudenda@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 23:54 next collapse

For making a port? A succulent Japanese port of a 30 year old game? Unhand me, sir!

the_q@lemmy.zip on 23 Jun 02:17 collapse

This is Nintendo manifest!

Empricorn@feddit.nl on 24 Jun 01:43 collapse

Get your hands off my keyboard!

huquad@lemmy.ml on 23 Jun 00:01 collapse

Its Nintendo, do they need grounds?

cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca on 23 Jun 03:31 collapse

Well I think for one, you need to supply your own rom so it doesn’t contain any Nintendo stuff?

hddsx@lemmy.ca on 23 Jun 04:56 collapse

Does this differ from emulators with which you have to supply a rom? I thought they sued for that too

Psythik@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 06:08 next collapse

IDK but Ship of Harkinian has been around for years, and Nintendo has left that one alone too. This MK64 port is being developed by the same team (HarbourMasters).

cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca on 25 Jun 11:15 collapse

Yeah you aren’t wrong, this happened with a switch emulator. I don’t think it had legal footing but it’s enough to scare people off so they don’t need to deal with a law suit

RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com on 22 Jun 22:29 next collapse

If they’re not complete idiots, they’d license this to release all their stuff. But they’re Nintendo, so…

catloaf@lemm.ee on 22 Jun 23:04 collapse

Stuff like this almost never happens due to the legal liability. They can’t ensure that the authors aren’t violating some other contract, like using some library unlicensed, or violating an employer’s noncompete or something.

AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 22:46 next collapse

Might as well link to it:
github.com/HarbourMasters/SpaghettiKart
You need to supply your own ROM of the correct version.

secret300@lemmy.sdf.org on 23 Jun 02:52 collapse

I will honestly never understand why people link shit articles instead

addie@feddit.uk on 23 Jun 05:27 collapse

They might be former users of FARK, where submitting stories didn’t allow duplicate links? And so you would see the top article in the aggregator frequently being blog links and some right weird ‘news’ websites.

Lemmy has the opposite problem, where the same link can be posted again and again even on the same instance, of course.

TwinTitans@lemmy.world on 22 Jun 23:49 next collapse

Let me know when Diddy Kong Racing’s done. GOAT.

Tronn4@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 01:01 next collapse

Nice try, diddy

Deflated0ne@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 02:37 collapse

HEY. Diddy Kong does not deserve that slander.

mondomon@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 04:46 collapse

You never heard of the banana oil freakoffs?

SomethingBurger@jlai.lu on 23 Jun 10:48 collapse

This game would greatly benefit from a PC port. It barely reaches 15FPS at times on N64, it’s damn near unplayable.

altima_neo@lemmy.zip on 23 Jun 01:50 next collapse

Not just ultrawide support, but also interpolated frames for super smooth frame rate.

secret300@lemmy.sdf.org on 23 Jun 02:51 collapse

What is that?

zalgotext@sh.itjust.works on 23 Jun 03:46 collapse

In a nutshell, interpolated frames are basically just extra generated frames that go between the frames outputted by the video game itself. They’re used to combat things like motion blur, and to make animations look smoother.

Deflated0ne@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 02:33 next collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/af601230-f944-4217-bf98-25fc3e24ecec.gif">

astro_plane@lemm.ee on 23 Jun 04:22 next collapse

I played it on my modded Switch, had to overclock it just to keep a stable 30fps. I hope we get a vulkan renderer in the future.

Psythik@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 06:01 collapse

PC gamers: Look what Nintendo needs to mimic a fraction of our power.

slaacaa@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 04:33 next collapse

POV: you ported an old Nintendo game

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b5928aae-0745-4f42-9476-88c2231a6255.jpeg">

stoy@lemmy.zip on 23 Jun 05:12 next collapse

Impressive to see that the software can distinguish between a legal and an illegal ROM file

Psythik@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 06:00 collapse

lol sarcasm aside, it actually can’t. This port is being developed by HarbourMasters, the same people behind Ship of Harkinian and 2 Ship 2 Harkinian (PC ports of OoT and Majora’s Mask, for the unaware.)

stoy@lemmy.zip on 23 Jun 06:08 collapse

Yeah, I just found the article really annoying at constantly talking about legal roms…

Denjin@lemmings.world on 23 Jun 07:12 next collapse

And 3 paragraphs talking about Mario Kart World.

Lumisal@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 10:38 collapse

I mean, have you seen Nintendo?

stoy@lemmy.zip on 23 Jun 12:26 collapse

Yeah, I know they are psychotic about this shit, doesn’t stop me from getting annoyed

twice_hatch@midwest.social on 23 Jun 06:19 next collapse

You can verify you have dumped a supported copy of the game by using the SHA-1 File Checksum Online at www.romhacking.net/hash/.

It’s so sad that Windows still doesn’t ship with an easy-to-use hash toolkit

TonyOstrich@lemmy.world on 23 Jun 10:24 next collapse

Indeed. I usually use 7-zip’s built in tool to do it when I need to.

Link@rentadrunk.org on 23 Jun 11:01 next collapse

certutil is built into windows and can be used in cmd.

I do agree there is no built in GUI method though.

Flatfire@lemmy.ca on 23 Jun 11:51 collapse

Powershell’s Get-FileHash does exactly this though.

Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works on 23 Jun 12:18 collapse

I played this for 6 hours straight. Lovely port so far but there are some minor bugs. Namely in the point scoring results screen with flickering text sometimes probably z fighting. I also had the mini map get bugged position and overlap the lap times upper right a couple times.

Other thing I noticed was timing differences at higher frame rates like the steam train crossing the desert road.

OpenGL is very slow considering what it has to render. Used Vulkan but I tested OpenGL briefly and it chugged at 2160p with 120hz and frame interpolation on. AA was off.