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GoldenEye 007 for N64 has been '100% decompiled' — success of half-decade project opens up possibilities for complex mods and ports (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 77 points 2 months ago (7 children)

It's gonna be so weird playing this at non-slideshow framerates. Wonder if I'll even still like it lol

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I tried to replay it a few years ago and it's just so dated that it wasn't fun anymore. The auto-aim mechanic feels really awkward compared to modern shooters.

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    • [–] 49 points 2 months ago (20 children)

    I give it 3 days before the first big booba mod is released

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  • [–] 23 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Pierce Brosnan with tits?

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (13 children)

    Might need to give it a bit longer than that. There isn't a PC port.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (11 children)

    Doesn’t decompiling games make it easy to port? I’m admittedly not an expert on it

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago

    Decompilation means that they can deterministically recompile the code and get the original ROM back minus assets. Someone may be able to wedge in shims of emulator code for the subsystems that need it. But at that point you're still emulating realistically and still dealing with bottlenecks. The true power of a native Port would open it up to Modern graphics apis larger faster system bus etc that wasn't available initially. It's going to take a bit more programming work before you see something that really blows the doors off emulation. But it will happen.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    It certainly makes it easier but I don't know if I'd say it's easy. There's still work to be done to make it run natively on PC with the kinds of settings you'd expect to see on a PC game.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    In some ways yes.

    Decompiling a game means reverse engineering the game to a point that you have a program written in C that compiles to identical machine code as the commercial release. That makes it easier, but not entirely straightforward, to just compile the game for another architecture, because it might be written for hardware-specific features that might not be present on, say, PC.

    A minor example is Mario Kart 64 has these big screens around some tracks that are playing footage of the race. That relies on a hardware quirk peculiar to the N64 and it's been difficult if not impossible to get it working anywhere but real hardware.

    A really weird one is Super Mario 64. The retail version of the game was apparently compiled with debug flags on. The game has been decompiled, and then compiling it without the debug flag actually causes the game to run smoother, particularly in Dire Dire Docks which chugs so bad on a retail cartridge that speed runners use camera strategies to keep the submarine out of view for better performance.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    Having the source code makes it trivial to do whatever you want with the code. Working through an emulator is not fun from a coding perspective.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Absolutely not true. I guarantee there is a lot of code, especially hacky code, written specifically for the N64's hardware. Even if you port it to a modern PC, you're still going to have to address a bunch of unexpected behavior that relied on the quirks of the hardware. Graphics effects in particular are known for this.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (4 children)

    Why would you work through the emulator? You modify the source rom.

    Rom hacks have existed since the GB era of games, that’s not even using an emulator, played straight on the GB with a hacked cart.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

    Very simply, the source ROM is code that isn’t readable in that way. The emulator interpolates the ROM binary. While ROM hacking is a thing, it’s done through hijacking the emulator’s/platform’s API calls.

    Imagine having an audiobook as an MP3, but you want to rewrite chapter 8. You have all the words, you can hear them, but you don’t have the script. You have to transcribe everything first in order to have the book text. From there, you can edit what the book says, but it’d be easier if you just had the text in the first place.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    Uhh, no, you literally modify the source rom, if you have the source code for the console it’s child’s play. Lots are made with dev kits, or their stolen code.

    And you don’t use an emulator at all. What you’re suggesting means that game could only be played on a singular emulator with a particular bios setting. You could do that, but why?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    I’m comparing ROM hacking to decompilation. Decomp completely renders the full source code as readable and compilable for new binaries. ROM hacking doesn’t go that far.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Decompile is even easier than rom hacking… since you have the rom source code now…. So you can insert files instead of just replacing or the slightly more work of modifying (which you claimed isn’t possible…?)

    Why would you ever work through an emulator?

    You’re using an audio book, but it’s actually more an album, you can change the tracks on the cd, but you can’t easily change the song in the middle, but just like an audiobook, you can mute or just delete the content, you’re saying you can’t do anything, this is just wrong on every level. Rom hacks ARE still able to do this though. Although most just replace files with others by changing the whole data.

    A rom or iso is just a compilation of files that’s read and interpreted by the emulator or console. Why are you thinking it’s a singular file like an audio book? It’s more of a .zip file.

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    • [–] 19 points 2 months ago

    4K texture mods let's go

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    [–] 34 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Dibs on oddjob.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah, but with it decompiled we can make every character oddjob size. With DK Head mode.

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    • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (20 children)

    Fighting words I know, but the best shooter on the N64 was NOT GoldenEye 007.

    Jetforce Gemini, baby!!

    Controls were dogshit, but then so were most games' from that era.

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  • [–] 40 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    The best shooter on the N64 was Perfect Dark.

    It was GoldenEye but massively upgraded.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    In hindsight I have no idea how I managed to play it this much at such absolutely horrendous FPS, but I burned hundreds of hours in that game. The bot AI was surprisingly good in local matches.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Wave Race 64

    Here is my wishlist. Thank you in advance. :D

    • stable 120 fps
    • up to 8 drivers on track
    • editor: custom league with custom rules and earned points, each course settings such as reverse, weather and even custom placement for the buoy
    • textures touched up for playing on modern display
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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    For real, I have a 8BitDo N64 controller conversation kit to make it a BT controller with a hall effect stick. Does not change a thing. Mario Kart's controls are atrocious as the controls are for most games. I guess the 3Cs are hard when you are the first generation of 3D games.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    I never had the pleasure of owning an N64. I remember renting a machine when I was a kid and playing Super Mario. Is there any games you recommend for my retroarch machine?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Mario 64, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Conquer's Bad Fur Day, Starfox 64, Mario Party, Pokémon Snap. The problem is most games have a GC sequel that was a massive improvement, like Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart, or they were dogshit but I was too young to know better. I end up playing more SNES games on my handheld emulator system because they couldn't improve 2D games after 3D was doable.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    The other comments have good suggestions, but I'll Add Rogue Squadron. Ogre Battle 64 is also good if you like strategy RPGs.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Really never played another game quite like Ogre Battle 64, that one was great.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Absolute musts are Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Zelda: Majora's Mask. Otherwise stick with the rest of the popular ones and you'll be alright - Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64. Star Wars had a few good ones - Rogue Squadron, Shadows of the Empire (janky as fuck, probably didn't age all that well, but was pretty innovative for its time), Episode 1 Racer (although if you're also emulating PS2 games, Star Wars Racer Revenge is much better imo).

    Jetforce Gemini ofc, but I'm not kidding about the controls being dogshit - proceed only if you're willing to completely rewire your perception of which buttons are supposed to perform which actions.

    Some multiplayer greats are Super Smash Bros and Gauntlet Dark Legacy.

    IIRC Aero Gauge was a decent racer, although the SW ones are better.

    Kirby Crystal Shards was a solid 64 adaptation.

    ...I think at this point I'm just rattling off what I can remember from my own collection, lol. The nostalgia juices are really flowing!

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    I remember I recently replayed GoldenEye for the N64 at a local brewery and not knowing how to shoot someone. I was so used to modern controls that I felt disoriented playing the old controls.

    I wish there was a mod that tried to mimic modern controls.

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    • [–] 9 points 2 months ago

    Funny that this happens right around the time Agent64 comes out.

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    [–] 25 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Odd Job looking similar to this?

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    • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Should've done Perfect Dark instead. Hopefully it can be next!

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  • [–] 44 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    Not only was it already done, it then got ported to PC in 2160p 4K UHD https://github.com/perfect-dark-pc-port/perfect_dark

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    • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Great, now do the much better N64 Bond that no one talks about: The World is Not Enough. It improved upon Goldeneye in every conceivable way, yet no one cares about it because no one played it... :(

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    • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    We're about to see the pokemon brown of 007.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (5 children)

    I'm somewhat scared to ask,

    What is pokemon brown?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

    An ancient romhack, that got updated 2yra.
    Basically Zephyr@transphobe_instance implies decomp007 might get a drastric remix project. Unlike PerfectDark “brown” already in the works.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Sidebar, what's up with the transphobia thing?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    OT
    One of your admins is on a anti-trans campaign.
    Many of us are moving communities from SJW because of it.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Good to know. I don't like that being attached to my username though. I would appreciate it if you changed that at least for now or added it not in direct context to my username. Don't want the people who are unaware assuming that's meant for me.

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    • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    I'm ready to hide a remote mine in a toilet. Let's go.

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    [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Put in mortal kombat characters and horror movie villains.

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    [–] 0 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I wonder if there ever be LLM capable of assisting with this.

    Since it's all patterns between words, it should be theoretically possible to train model specialized in decompiling assembly into source code...

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