Fuck you, project 64 assholes!

I remember back some years ago, when I was in college and Nintendo 64 was all the rage, hanging out in the hallway of the dorm I overheard the sounds of a Nintendo game coming from someone's computer speakers.  A little peak into the open door, and it was Zelda II being played on a computer. 

Uh....holy shit, how'd you do that? 

Oh, dude, just do a google search for emulators and roms.


And my life was never the same again.  Well....ok, maybe discovering emulators and roms wasn't exactly a religious life changing experience, but it was pretty damn cool.  I got to go all retro for Nintendo, and download the games that I hadn't played in some time, and couldn't easily play since the Nintendo was back home while I was away at college.

And now as time goes on, I can get retro for newer things.  As I mentioned, at that time, Nintendo 64 was all the rage.  We had one, and it was damn cool!  One year after Christmas, me, my brother and sisters all figured out, if we pooled together our Christmas money, we could buy ourselves a Nintendo 64, which was the hot item at the time.  I remember the store demo units and spending time over at the video game store at the mall playing Mario 64 and being all like, this is awesome, I so want one of these.  So, I was all about pooling the money together.

My brother, on the other hand, wanted the PS1.  With the disc based format, you could get more realistic graphics he insisted.  And I do remember being impressed at a demo of some hockey game, and you're starting the game and it was like video quality of the team coming out to play....but that wasn't the gameplay.  You get to the game, and it wasn't that realistic looking graphics.  Not that PS1 was anything to sneeze at, but I looked past the distractions and saw that, in reality, the graphics weren't as much better as one was trying to suggest if they were pointing that those realistic videos.  Plus...PS1 was pretty heavy on the sports games, and I wanted to play Mario.

So, after much debate and discussion, we decided to all go in on the N64, and my life was never the same again.  Ok....exaggerating again.  And I grew up with such classics as Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Diddy Kong Racing, and Ocarina of Time.

So, those classic games are games I can go back to and really have fun with, when I have the time.  Which isn't all that often.  But lately I've been taking a break from some things on the weekends, and spending more time with my stereo system and video games.  I was able to purchase Mario Kart 64 and Mario 64 from the Wii virtual console store, but then I was thinking back to when we bought our N64, and when we bought it, we decided instead of getting Mario Kart to get this new racing game that had recently come out, Diddy Kong racing.

Oh man, that game was fun.  Having this adventure mode, collecting balloons, having hover carts and planes in addition to go karts.....good times!  Hmmm....I don't recall seeing that one in the virtual console store, but....maybe they haven't gotten to it yet....or maybe it wasn't all that popular.

So, I did a little looking online, and found that it was actually quite popular, which makes sense.  It is a pretty awesome game.  It had been a while since I checked the virtual console store, maybe by now they've added it, after all, it was pretty popular, and the whole point of the virtual console store is to sell popular titles that people want to play.  But.....no.....nowhere to be found in the store.

What gives?

Well, turns out, it's another case of one big business and another big business waving their big dicks around and intead of working together to both profit and bring the customers what they want, would rather keep the product the customers want away from them since they're both big powerful pricks that wouldn't want to do anything that could be beneficial to the other.  Or something like that.  Basically, the company that made the game, Rare, was obtained by Microsoft, direct competitor to Nintendo.  So, some of the characters in the game are owned by Rare/Microsoft, some by Nintendo, giving neither company the right to do anything with it anymore.  A bunch of jackassery that means my early adulthood memories, and a kickass game that many people would love to play, gets caught up in corporate limbo.

Fuck you Nintendo, and fuck you Microsoft.

But.......that's ok.......because I remembered all those years ago, playing Nintendo games on my computer using an emulator.  And I also remembered all those years ago there was work being done on N64 emulators, which were a bit spotty.  Certainly by now there have been great advances in emulation, and I could get Diddy Kong going again on the computer.

So, I hit the internet, and hit the emulation and rom sites, and obtain a copy of Project 64 1.6, a bunch of N64 roms, and am on my way to reliving my early adulthood.

Just one thing....uh....N64 controls on a keyboard?  Yeah.....that's gonna suck.  NES and SNES controls on a keyboard back in those days were no big deal, but with the N64 came a shit ton of new buttons on a big ass clunky controller.  What do to do about that?  Well, I found that thinkgeek had something pretty awesome, usb N64 controllers.  SWEET!!!

So, I've got my usb controllers hooked up to the spare computer that's on the 42" TV, and I'm ready to relive my early adulthood.  Except that.....well.....shit, this emulator isn't nearly as far along as I would have expected N64 emulation to be by now.  The gameplay is mostly good, but the sound keeps having regular dropouts.  And, every now and then, the thing would crash out. 

So, I did the logical thing one would do in these situations. 

(The following is the assholes over at Project 64's version of what happened next)

I put on my black hat and black cape, evil guy mustache, laughed a mighty evil laugh, and said to myself "Buahahahahaha!!!!!!  Clearly, this is a problem that can be solved by doing the obvious.....stealing!  I will go online, and steal the newer versions of this emulator that work better, because clearly I am someone that knows that newer versions exist that are made available to people who donate money to the developers, and I know that it would piss them off mightily to go and steal it, and then I'll go flaunt it in their face.  Because, I'm an evil dick and asshole like that."

I then went and looked up the address of the developers, drove to their house (because they all live together in one house), threw a rock through their window, jumped in, kicked all their asses (because I'm just that strong), stole a box of 5.25" floppies that contain the source code for their legendary version 3 of the emulator (because it totally exists), pissed all over their keyboards, and went off into the night with my stolen spoils.

(Ok, now for what really happened)

Yeah....lets backtrack a bit and get back to reality.

So, I did teh logical thing one would do in these situations.

I googled the error message.  I found pages with people having similar problems discussing them with other people that figured out how to fix them.  Someone posted a reply "oh yeah, I totally had that problem, I had Project 64 1.6, and I fixed that by upgrading to Project 64 1.7"

So, I figured, hey, I should check my version....shit, maybe the site I downloaded it from wasn't being updated regularly and I got an old version.  Sure enough, I'm on 1.6.  Well, no wonder I'm not seeing all that I expect N64 emulation should be by now.  Lets get that shit updated.  So, I do a search for Project64 1.7, find a link to a download, install it, and done.  I patted myself on the back for a job well done, and went along my way.

Except that....hmm.....it won't list the rom names now.  That's odd.  And the error it was listing, kinda vague.  Well, shit, maybe it's time I dig deeper into this, take some time to become a part of the online community and see what I need to do to better understand emulation and tweaking and fine tuning and whatnot.  So, I find project64 has a forum.  And, I did some looking at their page, figured may as well see if maybe there's an even newer version or something.  And I find their latest update about how they're working on the latest and greatest version ever, which will take time to develop.  It will take so much time, it won't be available until possibly mid 2010.  This update was from 2008.


Hmmm.....seems like the project is dead.....5 years without a new version or update?  Doesn't sound good.  Ah well, at least this 1.7 version fixed my sound dropout issues, and plays the games right, good enough for what I'm doing, but still, rather annoying I can't see the rom titles.

So, I started a thread explaining what I've done, and asking about what this error means, and how to fix it.

And I get a reply suggesting I should support the developers.

Um.....support the developers, that haven't developed anything available on their site for 5 years now?  Uh....ok, that's a nice thought, was just looking for a bit of information about the rom title stuff.  But, I mean, hey, I've got my hobbies that I devote hours and hours of time to in my free time.  So, I figured a fair offer would be to say, hey, any developers of project 64....since you've allowed me to freely enjoy the programming you do in your spare time as a hobby, you are free to enjoy any of the quadraphonic to dvd-a conversions I've made in my free time.  Heck, I'll burn copies and mail them to you, just send a PM.

I got some sarcastic reply about midi to dvd conversion.  Midi?  Ok....wrong crowd.  But then I get all kinds of shit for stealing, called a theif, told that they refuse to help me because I've stolen their software without supporting the developers.....

.....woah woah woah, those are fightin' words.  Now, lookit here, I just innocently went online, searching for an emulator, and downloaded it.  I didn't break into your house and steal your shit.  Back off!

So, I'd just like to say, to you assholes over at project64, with your rudeness to me, you lost any chance you had of me offering any financial support.  I very well may have thrown a $20 your way if someone helped me and pointed out the version I downloaded was not shared legitimately and was supposed to only be available to people that donated money.  But, when you go treating me like an ass without giving the benefit of the doubt or nicely asking things, you lose any sympathy from me.  Not to mention....if supposedly the newest version isn't shared, and the next newest version is free.....then with all this talk of the version 2 versions floating around to those that pay their $20, SHOULDN'T THE 1.7 ALREADY BE FREELY AVAILABLE BY NOW?

I don't want to demand you give away your work for free to me, but it seems kinda stupid to suggest you offer the 2nd latest version for free, when in reality you decided to over 5 years ago stop offering anything free to those that don't give you money.

Anyways, a little more googling, I found the solution myself.  I'm good here.  But, to you rude assholes over at project 64, go fuck yourselves.

Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna go play some more diddy kong racing.