Emulators

Emulators are programs made to emulate certain consoles on a PC. They can be used to play most console games on PCs, and they exist for nearly every console on the market.

The most common N64 emulators are Project64, Mupen64 and Bizhawk.

N64 Emulators

Project64 is used to play most N64 games and Super Mario 64 ROM hacks, but has no TASing capability. The 1.6 version is used for Super Mario 64 speedrunners.

Mupen64 is most commonly used for playing Super Mario 64 and making TASes for it. Though the main emulator does not have TASing capability, many forks of it exist, one of which is Mupen64-RR which is nearly always used for TASing.

Bizhawk is a multi-emulator program that can emulate most consoles, including the N64. Bizhawk is also used for making TASes, but it has inaccurate emulation. However, it is preferred over Mupen64 on TASVideos because it standardizes loading times. Mupen64 TASes can be converted into Bizhawk TASes.

Bizhawk's N64 emulation is based on Mupen64plus, a fork of Mupen64.