RTA Guide/Emulator
Emulators may be used for speedrunning Super Mario 64 in lieu of an actual console. They are the second-fastest platform allowed, having no lag but the same load times as N64.
Due to being very inexpensive (if not free) to set up, it is strongly recommended for new runners to start out on emulator first to get a feel for the game, before committing to the high cost of a decent console setup.
Permitted Emulators
Only these three emulators are permitted for the RTA leaderboards:
- Project64 1.6 (Windows only, recommended)
- Rosalie's Mupen GUI (Windows and Linux)
- OpenEMU (Mac only)
Newer versions of Project64 are banned from the leaderboards as load times tend to vary across computers, whereas load times are fairly consistent on version 1.6.
If you are using Project64 or Rosalie's Mupen GUI, you must set Counter Factor to 1 in your emulator settings to remove emulated lag, otherwise your run will be rejected on Speedrun.com. If you are using OpenEMU, in which Counter Factor cannot be toggled, please indicate so in the run's description when submitting.
Obtaining the ROM
You will need a ROM of either the original Japanese (NTSC-J 1.0) or North American (NTSC-U) version for speedruns.
Distributing official ROM files is illegal, so they cannot be provided here; you will have to obtain one on your own. N64 ROMs are stored as either .z64 or .n64 files, or a .zip containing one of the two (never as an .exe file).
To verify that you have the correct Super Mario 64 ROM, you can use this tool to compare your ROM's MD5 hash to the following:
NTSC-J 1.0Super Mario 64 (J) [!].z64 |
MD5:85d61f5525af708c9f1e84dce6dc10e9
|
NTSC-U Super Mario 64 (U) [!].z64 |
MD5:20b854b239203baf6c961b850a4a51a2
|
The other two versions, namely the European version (PAL) and the Shindou Edition (NTSC-J 1.3), should be avoided:
- The European version runs ~17% slower, at 25 FPS rather than 30 FPS. This results in significant timeloss compared to any other version of the game.
- The Shindou Edition patches out BLJs, making any category below 70 Star impossible, and suffers from slower load times. (Shindou's primary benefit of less lag is irrelevant due to emulators completely bypassing it.)