Nintendo Switch Online’s Nintendo 64 games suffer from input lag, sound delays, frame rate problems and wonky controller layouts.
A quick glance at the popular gaming forum ResetEra reveals several posts focused on the issues. There are also reports across Twitter surrounding input lag issues, particularly with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Holy shit OoT on Switch is so bad it might actually be worse than WiiU VC
— ZFG (@zfg111) October 26, 2021
[Expansion Pack – Nintendo 64]
The emulator used in Super Mario 3D All-Stars for Super Mario 64 makes its return.
– Possibly codenamed “Hovercraft”?
– Uses JIT dynarec to emulate the N64 CPU.
– Uses Vulkan as its graphics API.
– ROM files are zlib-compressed .n64 files.— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) October 26, 2021
Ocarina of Time
N64 vs Wii VC vs Switch
(h/t @zfg111) pic.twitter.com/HM9renorc3
— SSFF | ➕🔥🔥 (@stopskeletons) October 26, 2021
HAHAHAHA pic.twitter.com/S2h4C7ahtF
— MutantAura (@MutantAura) October 26, 2021
There are even graphical glitches in several games tied to fog, draw distances and water textures, as well as other weird quirks, including Mario Kart 64 thinking a Controller Pak is required to save time trial data.
If these problems were tied to a free emulator and ROM files, they’d be far easier to swallow. However, Switch Online Expansion Pack games are official emulations offered by Nintendo and at a pretty expensive cost, too. Nintendo’s new ‘Expansion Pack‘ online tier costs $63.99 for a 12-month individual membership (one account) or $99.99 for a 12-month Family Membership (up to eight accounts).
Notable launch N64 titles include Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Yoshi’s Story, Mario Tennis 64, Super Mario 64 and more. Along with N64 titles, the subscription also includes access to Sega Genesis games like Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe, Contra: Hard Crops, Shining Force and more. It’s unclear if Sega Genesis titles also suffer from emulation issues.
It’s unclear what the source of the poor N64 game performance is, but it seems to be tied to shoddy, lazy emulation and the fact that these are likely ports of the Wii U Virtual Console versions of games. Hopefully, these are issues Nintendo can fix because right now, the additional Switch Online cost to access N64 titles isn’t worth it.
I’ve yet to test out N64 Expansion pack titles, but with these issues in mind, I think I’ll likely wait to see if Nintendo irons out the issues. That said, I do have a Switch N64 controller on order, so I’ll probably end up checking them out anyways.
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