this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
105 points (99.1% liked)

RetroGaming

22365 readers
435 users here now

Vintage gaming community.

Rules:

  1. Be kind.
  2. No spam or soliciting for money.
  3. No racism or other bigotry allowed.
  4. Obviously nothing illegal.

If you see these please report them.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
105
Soon, You May Be Able To Play Diddy Kong Racing Natively On Your PC | Time Extension (www.timeextension.com)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
15 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Soon you'll be able to play Diddy Kong Racing natively on your PC

The Diddy Kong Racing Decompilation project is around 80% complete.

The Trend of Decompilation

This process allows the homebrew community to recompile native versions of classic games like Star Fox, Super Mario 64, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Diddy Kong Racing's Place in N64 History

Released in 1997, Diddy Kong Racing is one of the best examples of a kart-based racer on the N64. Fans even claim it trumps Nintendo's own offering on the same console.

Creating motion capture and being in control of a set of fighting characters was like a dream for me. But after taking a break from two ‘pretty gory’ and dark games, Diddy Kong Racing was like a breath of fresh air and happiness.

-- Kev Bayliss, former Rare staffer (2023)

The Road Ahead

The project is 80% complete. It should be noted that, in these projects, the final percentage points often take the longest to complete.

Potential enhancements include

  • 4K resolution
  • Ultra-wide screen support
  • Improved frame rate
  • Support for mods like new characters and tracks.

How do you think Diddy Kong Racing compares with Mario Kart?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So the solution to N64 emulation was to decompile the games to run them natively instead...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Pretty much, yes.
Developers for the older consoles employed all sorts of hacks and used all sorts of undocumented features.
Emulators of N64 would develop the emulator for something like 80% of the features of 80% of the games, then put in specific workarounds for the oddities of each game.
Which is why some games are better on specific emulators.

Also, decompilation lead to a greater understanding of the various glitches. DK64 and Mario 64 speedruns benefitted massively from this.
And also fun hack/mods like randomisers and hardcore modes, massively extending the games playability.

But yeh, the things devs did back in the day is bonkers

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I’m surprised no one ever tried to compile all the hacks into a single open source plugin or emulator. There are only around 400 retail games for the N64 which seems pretty manageable to have some sort of game detection ruleset for various hacks.

It seems like in recent years N64 emulation is finally improving somewhat with lower level emulation like the parallel64 core in retroarch.

Long term decompilation is the better solution regardless but it’s going to take a good amount of time to decompile all the games of significance for the N64.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

no one ever tried to compile all the hacks into a single open source plugin or emulator

Because the hacks of one game might destroy another one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Starcraft64 decomp when?