IIRC, the original cartridge had an extra chip in it that emulation hasn’t been able to use. I’m not sure if any progress has been made on this and a few other games that used these.
Nah it didn’t have an extra chip – but large portions of the game were written in microcode for the N64’s processor specifically. It’s part of what makes it and Rogue Squadron kind of a pain to emulate – along with using their own audio drivers (MoSYS/MusyX that were later used as the basis for the GameCube sound systems).
IIRC there was an official Windows port at some point though. Not sure how well it worked or works on modern systems.
Wait… Y’all are talking about X-Wing: Rogue Squadron and Star Wars Episode 1: Battle for Naboo, right?
I owned those windows ports!
They worked great back in the day - I had such a blast with them that I begged my parents to get me a shitty Logitech joystick! If you want to check them out, it looks like Rogue Squadron is only $10 on Steam; and Battle for Naboo seems to be abandonware, but it seems to be hosted on a lot of “better spread than dead” game sites.
I’m pretty sure that has been able to be emulated and run through most emulation software now. These Star Wars games had specific code and drivers that, when I looked up why it wouldn’t emulate years ago, had not been cracked open to get the source code to enable people to program it into emulation software.
The keyboard controls are very janky. You’d have to do custom button mapping with a controller, and there’s no analog input. At least not without some mods that I’m not sure exist.
Someone fucking message me when we have a working Battle for Naboo ROM.
IIRC, the original cartridge had an extra chip in it that emulation hasn’t been able to use. I’m not sure if any progress has been made on this and a few other games that used these.
Nah it didn’t have an extra chip – but large portions of the game were written in microcode for the N64’s processor specifically. It’s part of what makes it and Rogue Squadron kind of a pain to emulate – along with using their own audio drivers (MoSYS/MusyX that were later used as the basis for the GameCube sound systems).
IIRC there was an official Windows port at some point though. Not sure how well it worked or works on modern systems.
Wait… Y’all are talking about X-Wing: Rogue Squadron and Star Wars Episode 1: Battle for Naboo, right?
I owned those windows ports!
They worked great back in the day - I had such a blast with them that I begged my parents to get me a shitty Logitech joystick! If you want to check them out, it looks like Rogue Squadron is only $10 on Steam; and Battle for Naboo seems to be abandonware, but it seems to be hosted on a lot of “better spread than dead” game sites.
SuperFX SNES games can be emulated, right?
I’m pretty sure that has been able to be emulated and run through most emulation software now. These Star Wars games had specific code and drivers that, when I looked up why it wouldn’t emulate years ago, had not been cracked open to get the source code to enable people to program it into emulation software.
Probably a lot of work for a single game.
Battle for Naboo actually had an official PC version all the way back in 2001. No idea if it works on modern PCs, though.
The keyboard controls are very janky. You’d have to do custom button mapping with a controller, and there’s no analog input. At least not without some mods that I’m not sure exist.