The Nintendo 64: A System Worth Playing Despite Its Flaws

As I sit here editing this video, I'm reminded of just how much I dislike the Nintendo 64. The system was notorious for its poor image quality, unresponsive controls, and a hardware that seemed to have a mind of its own. In fact, the N64's reliability issues were so prevalent that it had become a sort of urban legend among gamers. But, as with all things in life, there's more to this story than meets the eye.

One of the most frustrating aspects of playing on an N64 is trying to get games to output at the correct resolution and aspect ratio. Unlike modern systems, which can be easily configured to display games at their intended pixel count, the N64 was never one for precision. Games would often appear stretched or letterboxed, with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. And, as I showed in my gameplay videos, this wasn't just a minor annoyance – it could make a big difference in the overall viewing experience.

But why does this matter? Why can't we just use modern systems to play N64 games on our TVs? The truth is, most N64 games were never designed to be played at 4:3 aspect ratio or 320x240 pixel resolution. In fact, they often had a different aspect ratio altogether – sometimes as wide as 16:9! And yet, when we try to run these games on modern systems, we're forced to deal with overscan, pillarboxing, and letterboxing, all of which can make the image look dull and unengaging.

So what's a gamer to do? Well, if you want to get your N64 playing on modern TVs or streams without breaking the bank, EON's Super 64 is definitely worth considering. This console is specifically designed to play N64 games at their intended aspect ratio and resolution, using a combination of hardware and software tweaks to bring the system up to date. And, as an added bonus, it comes with a built-in TV tuner and AV outputs, making it easy to hook up your N64 to modern TVs.

But is EON's Super 64 worth the hefty price tag? That's a tough question to answer. While it's clear that this console is designed specifically for the N64, its performance may not be as smooth as some other options on the market. And, let's be honest, if you're looking for a retro gaming experience, there are plenty of other options out there that won't break the bank.

That being said, I do have to recommend EON's Super 64 to anyone who's serious about playing N64 games on modern TVs or streams. While it may not be the cheapest option available, its commitment to accuracy and authenticity make it a must-have for any serious collector. And, as an added bonus, it comes with a range of features that make it easy to use – including automatic video upscaling and support for multiple controllers.

But what about alternative options? Can you play N64 games on other consoles without breaking the bank? Yes, in fact! The RetroTINK 2X is another console that's specifically designed to play N64 games on modern TVs or streams. And, as it turns out, this console may be a better option than EON's Super 64 for some users.

One of the main reasons why the RetroTINK 2X is worth considering is its affordability. While EON's Super 64 comes in at around $200, the RetroTINK 2X can be had for as little as $150. And, while it may not have all the bells and whistles of the Super 64, this console still delivers a great gaming experience – complete with automatic video upscaling and support for multiple controllers.

Of course, one of the main drawbacks to playing N64 games on consoles like these is their limited availability. The RetroTINK 2X may not be as well-known as some other retro gaming options, but it's definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a budget-friendly way to play N64 games on your TV.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the things that really gets under my skin is inverted look controls. But, despite this quirk, many N64 games are still tons of fun to play – especially when it comes to local multiplayer titles like Mario Kart and Pokémon Stadium. And, with the right console, you can experience these games in all their glory – complete with accurate pixel counts and aspect ratios.

But what about the N64 itself? Is this system worth playing despite its flaws? In a word, no. The Nintendo 64 is one of my least favorite consoles, and for good reason. Its reliability issues were legendary, its controls were clunky and unresponsive, and its image quality was poor to say the least. And don't even get me started on the infamous N64 controller – which, as I mentioned earlier, has become a sort of urban legend among gamers.

And yet, despite all these flaws, there's still something special about playing on an N64. Maybe it's the nostalgia factor – after all, this is the console that brought us classics like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Or maybe it's just the fact that, despite its many flaws, this system can still be a lot of fun to play.

As for me, I'll stick with my EON's Super 64 – but I'm always up for trying out new consoles and experiencing what they have to offer. After all, gaming is supposed to be fun, right?

In conclusion, the Nintendo 64 may not be the most reliable or well-designed console out there, but it's still a system worth playing despite its flaws. With EON's Super 64 or the RetroTINK 2X, you can experience N64 games in all their glory – complete with accurate pixel counts and aspect ratios. And, who knows? You may just find yourself falling in love with this quirky console once again.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enWhat are you doing, still dragging aroundthose old analog video cables hoping yourTV supports 240p and 480i from your Nintendo64?Do you even want to be able to SEE Mario ashe saves the princess?Don’t you want your actions to happen whenyou press the button on your controller?Your signal no longer needs to suffer.There is now hope….The EON Super64 changes…EVERYTHING.It slots into the back of your Nintendo 64game console and invites it into the moderndigital realm, no power cables or analog shenanigansneeded.Just bring a HDMI cable and your TV, and GETREADY TO GAME.Woahh!HDMI!Progressive Scan!NO WAY!EON SUPER64Available now.“-3 days left in our lowest prices of theyear, because Toys R Us is closing FOR EVER,come down to-”The EON Super 64 is a small device which plugsinto the back of your Nintendo 64 game consoleand converts the best possible, without modifications,video signal on original hardware to HDMI,without even needing its own power cable.This is clearly the simplest solution foranyone, even people who aren’t super retroenthusiasts or techies, to get their Nintendo64 working on their modern television - butdoes it live up to the promise of a beautifulvideo signal and a lag-free gaming experience?And is it worth the BEEFY asking price?In short, yes and no.In this video, I’ll be covering my reviewof the EON Super 64, how it works, how itcompares to competing options, and show youhow to optimize your live streams when usingit, as well as some capture card choices andso on.If you want to pick a Super 64 up for yourself,I recommend ordering from CastleManiaGames,I have an affiliate link in the video descriptionas well as coupon code “EPOSVOX” to save10% on your order!The device comes in a very stylized box whichkinda resembles the Nintendo 64 console itself,and comes with the Super 64 and a tiny manualof sorts.No HDMI cable - you will need your own - andno power cable.This is odd for these kinds of converters,usually they take micro USB power or something- but EON is actually leveraging the accessible5v power over HDMI and powering itself fromthe HDMI cable directly.Pretty neat stuff, though I can imagine thiscausing some headache on cheaper passive HDMIswitches - but I didn’t encounter issueswith that specifically.You’re presented with a big LED to confirmthat it’s working and then a small blueLED that represents the “Slick Mode” togglebutton on the left, which attempts to smoothout some of the hard edges of the console’svideo output.We’ll talk more about this in a bit.The weird bump at the end is actually to helpsupport the device when sitting on a flatsurface to help reduce strain on the connector.Pretty handy.Otherwise, it fits into the standard multi-outjack on the back of your N64 perfectly.With this device, you get a 720x480 59.94hz(although that can vary like 59.83 due toNintendo’s weird signals from their consoles)at rec.601 color space and Limited (or Partial)HDMI range.This is important for streaming stuff later.EON claims this will work with any TV - andI haven’t encountered any within my verylimited testing that it didn’t work with,but some switchers, splitters, or capturedevices may have trouble.I document the capture cards later in thevideo.The signal is fairly nice and clean.It’s coming from a S-Video source - as that’sthe best possible quality built into the nativehardware, no RGB support from Nintendo onthis console like the Super Nintendo sadly- so it only goes so far, but it ends up lookingpretty nice, even blown up on my big 4K TV.The processing chip inside the Super 64 line-doublesthe games that run at 240p up to 480p - whichis a lag-free process - and deinterlaces the480i content, such as menus in games likePokemon Stadium and Tony Hawk Pro Skater,and even Turok 2 seems to run entirely at480i - but there is still a tiny bit of flickeringon the edges of the image as a result.This is fine for most people and probablythe best way to do it without introducinglag, but interlacing is just hell to dealwith.Also for games that do switch between 240pand 480i, there will be a brief dropout insignal when it changes - this is basicallyunavoidable when converting analog to digital,but is annoying regardless.My Magewell capture card ended up handlingthis transition far quicker than my monitors,but you may still see a brief “no signal”screen regardless.A big issue when it comes to digitizing signalsfrom older game consoles is input lag or inputlatency.The amount of time it takes for your actionto be shown on-screen after hitting a button.Back in the CRT days, this wasn’t a hugeissue, but scaling and converting on LCDsand using bad hardware to do so, frequentlyintroduces input latency, which can be a dealbreakerfor some older games.This is why many speedrunning tournamentsand Smash Bro.s Melee games all involve CRTs.(I have two awesome video essays on CRTs linkedin the description, if you want to learn moreabout them, by the way.)I don’t easily have the hardware availableto test this kind of thing, but Bob from RetroRGBdoes and let’s see how his tests pannedout.Does the Super 64 add any input latency?Whenever I test devices like this, my numberone concern is how it affects the overallgameplay experience.And the number one killer of a classic gamingexperience is lag added to the output signal.Here's a good way to visualize this: The amountof time it takes from when you push a buttonon the controller to when that action leavesthe console's original video output is howthese games were designed to be played.If anything between the console and the TVadds significant lag, that will ruin mostpeople's playing experience.In most cases, people don't even realize theextra lag is there, but the games feel differentand most of the time the harder levels arenow harder to play as a result.In order to test the EON Super 64's lag, Iinstalled a composite video cable directlyto the N64's output port to allow for dualoutput.I ran that signal to a large CRT and ran theoutput of the EON Super 64 to a separate CRT.And took slow-motion video of them playingside by simultaneously.Here's 60 frames per second footage sloweddown showing both menus switching on the exactsame frame, which takes 16.5 ms to draw.That's a good way to get approximate measurement.But I don't like approximates, I like exact.So here's a 960 fps camera showing Mario jumping.If you break this video down, each frame willrepresent just about 1 millisecond or 1/16thof a frame.You can see the frame of the CRT screen beingdrawn in this video.That's the beam of light showing.And if I slow it down frame by frame, you'llsee that both screens match both before andafter the light draws the image.Overall, that proves that the EON Super 64doesn't add any input latency to the gamingexperience.Alright cool.Your TV itself will add some latency of varyingdegrees, but the upscaling process from the480p signal should be relatively smooth sinceit doesn’t have to deinterlace it or convertit from analog.So…What about that “Slick Mode” button?This seems to apply a filter on the imagethat helps smooth out some of the extra obviousjagged edges in the gameplay feed and attemptto bring it up to what you might expect 3Dgames to look like based on memory or emulators.This looks pretty great in screenshots, butdoesn’t necessarily hold up in motion.Especially for many of the lower resolutiongames - sometimes entire characters or detailsare only a couple pixels and smoothing themout doesn’t end well.Here’s a list of some games I have testedthat I think the smoothing either looks goodor looks “alright” on.And here’s a list of games that I recommendkeeping the filter off for.The problem is that this will be a per-gamechoice and you have to have access to theback of the console to change it - so I generallyrecommend keeping it off.There’s a whole rabbit hole of issues withthe blurry anti-aliasing process done to virtuallyevery game on the Nintendo 64 and I’ll pointyou to a video over on the My Life in Gamingchannel to learn more about it.It sucks and most games are blurry as a resultwhen a lot of us enthusiasts want those CRISPSHARP PIXELS.BUT there is a workaround.Using the GameShark for the Nintendo 64 - whichis fairly easy to obtain at the moment - thereare codes for some games which actually disablethat anti-aliasing filter in the game itself,allowing you to enjoy games closer to howthey should look.Combining this with the EON Super 64 helpsget a cleaner overall picture on your stream.I’ll have a link in the description to apost over on RetroRGB.com that contains abig list of codes for “deblur.”That’s not the only way to improve the videoquality out of this console, though - andthat’s where the conversation gets a littlemessy.EON’s previous HDMI adapter - for the NintendoGamecube - utilized the available digitalout port to get incredibly clean video signalsnot possible if you weren’t willing to dropa couple hundred bucks on rare first-partyComponent cables.I did.I regret it.Unfortunately with the Nintendo 64, they can’tjust work magic and you’re stuck with S-Videoand 480p.I said before that S-Video is the best possiblevideo signal you can natively get out of originalhardware.That is true - unless you’re willing tomod (or have someone else mod) your system,or buy a modded system.With that in the equation, you can mod yourNintendo 64 to support RGB and SCART connectionsfor a MUCH cleaner signal to then pass toa line doubler or upscaler like the Open SourceScan Converter or XRGB-Mini Framemeister - Ihave a RGB-modded N64 and usually use thismethod, but this is already a far more expensiveroute.You have the cost of the mod kit and moddingthe system, and then the OSSC itself is about$10 US more expensive than the EON device,and the Framemeister is twice as expensiveand no longer being manufactured.So while quality-focused enthusiasts and nerdslike myself might prefer this kind of solution,it’s already far less accessible than theEON Super 64.There’s also the notorious “UltraHDMI”mod.This is also more expensive than the EON devicebut also very rare to actually find the kitfor, and pre-modded consoles easily go for400 dollars on the market.While it offers a ton of functionality thatprobably fulfills every dream wishlist ofa big N64 fan, it's far more prohibitive formost of us.Notably this mod has its own de-blur featurethat makes footage look even better and upscalesto 1080p and so on.Thanks to DDRBoxman from the OBS team forthis footage.This isn't all to say the Super 64 is thecheapest option, there's actually a cheaperand functionally identical product to EON'soffering.This is the RetroTINK 2x.A small device made by Mike Chi, which takesany older game console that outputs via YPbPrComponent, Yellow Composite, or S-Video connectionsand line-doubles 240p to 480p and deinterlaces480i to 480p and outputs via HDMI.And it has a “smooth” button which appliesa filter to smooth out jagged edges, justlike the EON Super 64.For all intents and purposes these two devicesare functionally identical when used withthe Nintendo 64.In fact, their behavior and characteristicsare so identical that I’m convinced theyuse the exact same processing chip, or verysimilar ones.The RetroTINK 2X uses a chip in the ADV7280family from Analog Devices, and it’s verylikely the EON device uses a chip in the samefamily, as well.Thedifference being that the RetroTINK 2X is$50 cheaper than the Super 64 and is compatiblewith virtually every system, not just theN64.Well, ok TECHNICALLY the Super 64 could workwith the SNES or Gamecube if you can get itto fit, since they use the same connector,but there are far better options for bothconsoles.Now thinking in terms of accessibility, there’scertainly still a market that would preferto buy and use the Super 64 because it doesn’trequire them to think.I say that with some snark, but we all knowpeople who would MUCH prefer something thatlooks like a consumer product and is deadsimple than something like the RetroTINK whichhas a visible PCB and a whole second button.But the RetroTINK 2X and the Super 64 produceidentical results with identical N64-specificfeature sets, while the RetroTINK can workwith GameCube, SNES, PS1, PS2, Genesis, Saturn,MegaDrive, VCRs if you want… virtually anything.The RetroTINK also offers a “passthrough”mode which will directly pass through the240p or 480i signal via HDMI instead of line-doublingor deinterlacing it - but these modes aren’treally in the HDMI spec and require fillerdata, and may or may not work with your TVor device, but it’s there!For the cost of the Super 64 you can get aRetroTINK 2X and some nice shielded S-Videoand component cables for your various systemsand connect more than one.However, RetroTINK setups involve a LOT morecabling and points of failure, and it requiresUSB power, as Bob added a note about.So overall I just don't think the Super 64is right for your average person, but I dosee a use for it.If you're someone that runs N64 tournaments,the games on flat-screens, there's a lot tohandle in those days.Especially if you're tournaments are traveled,they're not at the same place over and over.So that means if you have 20 N64s plus sparesto deal with, you also have to have 20 RetroTINKs,20 s-video cables, 20 power supplies, plusextras, and make sure that they're all working.Whereas the opposite, you can just grab oneEON Super 64 and be done with it.So I think in scenarios like that, the extracost would pay for itself, just because there'sless to worry about, I just can't see myselfrecommending this to your average gamer.Because you just don't get nearly as muchout of it as you would out of a solution thatjust really adds one more cable into the mix.[Transition back to Epos w/ RetroRGB introparody]If you want to go super cheap, there are plentyof adapters on the internet to convert composite,s-video, and component to HDMI - but thesewill mostly result in poor image quality,poor TV support, or bad input latency.AVerMedia sells $40 composite and componentto HDMI adapters, but they don’t scale thesignal so it outputs a 480i signal and whilemy capture cards do okay with it, though thequality is bad, my TV won’t even acceptthe signal.Weirdly enough a lot of newer analog conversionsare dropping s-video support, as well - myTV has 3.5mm breakout adapters for analogvideo and there’s no S-Video option, onlycomposite and component.Disappointing.I did want to note that if you have a RGB-moddedNintendo 64, the Super 64 will still workwith it, but it will still only pull the s-videosignal from your console.EON has expressed interest in a revision thatworks with RGB mods, I do wish they wouldhave included it here.Also, if you have the first revision of theRetroTINK 2X, it actually has an issue withaudio from the Nintendo 64 being too hot ofa signal and distorting at times.The second revision has fixed this, but theEON adapter doesn’t have any issue withit.Audio is just as it is out of the console.Admittedly the Nintendo 64 has some reallyhorrible audio, but it’s there.Lastly before we get to streaming stuff, Iwanted to mention that this kind of adapteris seemingly the perfect situation to usethe mCable Gaming Edition.Linus and others have full videos detailingthese, but they’re essentially HDMI cableswith built-in processing chips to cleanlyand sharply upscale lower resolution signalsto 1080p and 4K.You have to work with the native resolutionoutput of your games - or in this case, anexact line-doubled resolution - so it doesn’twork for a lot of emulators or modern systems,but would work great here.Castlemania Games actually sells a bundleof these two.I’ve not tested this personally - thoughI’ve reached out for a sample - but I’lllink to some reviews in the description.Alright, Streamers!Here’s what you need to know.Again, the signal output by the Super 64 is720x480 at 59.94hz, although it strays fromthat a bit.This isn’t exactly 4:3 and you want a capturecard that can handle this directly, withoutdoing some funky aspect ratio changes to thesignal.I’ve validated compatibility working tosome usable degree on all of these capturecards.And validated that this is not working orworking correctly with all of these capturecards.Special note: While the Live Gamer Portable2 works with this in all modes, the Portable2 PLUS only works with it in the PC-connectedmode via RECentral.Don’t know why.Also for the Elgato cards, you will want touse OBS instead of OBS’s capture softwareand manually manage your HDMI ranges, as I’veseen reports of it looking fine in software,but washing out in the recording.The signal from the Super 64 is in Rec.601color space - as is all s-video and compositesignals - and a max of 4:2:2 chroma subsampling,since that’s all S-Video can support.Ideally a capture card that supports YUY2would be used here, but NV12 is fine, too.You ABSOLUTELY want to make sure that bothOBS and your capture device settings are setto PARTIAL RGB/YUV ranges.If you mis-match these, you’ll either endup with super dark punchy video that isn’tusable, or super washed out noisy video thateveryone will hate.The signal from this device looks good, youjust have to make sure everything matches.All of this talk applies to the RetroTINK2x, too, just FYI.If you wish to capture directly in OBS forjust gameplay, I recommend setting OBS to720x480 59.94 and do the same with your capturecard so everything stays even.Then you can use Virtualdub to cleanly scaleusing Nearest Neighbor scaling, and crop offthe extra black - or crop that with Handbrake.I’ll link a tutorial from Bob at RetroRGBin the description, as he beat me to the punchon covering those details.If you’re including it in your existingstreaming layout, I definitely recommend designingaround even scaling of the size of the feed.Also when scaling the 480p source in OBS,play around with the “Point” or “Area”scale filtering overrides, as at least Areais similar to Nearest Neighbor and is supposedto work better for this kind of gameplay.You might be asking what’s up with the blackbars or borders.Well, this is another rabbit hole entirely,BUT games on older consoles rarely ran atan exact measured pixel resolution of 320x240or 720x480, etc.There’s different sizes and ratios and pixelcounts, and room left for overscan.You’ll see some of the gameplay I showedis much wider than others.They also didn’t run at a 1:1 pixel aspectratio, the games weren’t actually 4:3.But our old CRT TVs handled all this for usand we never noticed - but converting andlocking to digital standards means some degreeof pillarboxing, letterboxing, or both, andthat’s unavoidable.Again, I’ll point you to My Life in Gamingand RetroRGB for more deep diving on thistopic.It’s nerdy and involves maths.All that to say that there’s no way to avoidthis, and no that doesn’t mean it’s notworking right.If you have your HDMI ranges set to limitedor partial, then the black border will beexactly black and blend in with black backgrounds.I’d recommend some way to integrate or dealwith this natively in your stream layout - ascropping the frame would require changes everytime you switched games.Or you could force stretch it within a frameof some sort.Up to you - but it is a normal thing.LAST NOTE: I had a HORRIBLE time getting gamesto output on 3 different systems, and it turnedout that my UPS battery backup system wascausing the power frequency to be in a mannerthat the system didn’t like.So maybe don’t hook yours up to one.As a cool quality of life thing for the Nintendo64, the past year has seen a couple differentalternative Nintendo 64 controllers to playon the system due to how unreliable the originalone can be, and how weird of a layout it is- and so specifically, I had pre-ordered theBrawler64 controllers in the Atomic Purpleand Jungle Green colors, from CastleManiaGamesand they got here literally as I'm in themiddle of editing this video, which is already4 hours late and will likely suffer for it...So I can't really review them here, I willsay it feels great in the hands, the layoutmakes a lot more sense for my hands and forcontrols in the kinds of games where my gameplaysuffers in, and they look great.But I will have to do a formal separate reviewon the gaming channel later on.Alright, conclusion time.Honestly, the Nintendo 64 is one of my leastfavorite consoles.I had a nice bright translucent green (I thinkWatermelon) colored one when I was a kid,made it further in Super Mario 64 than I hadin most any game at the time, and my neighborsstole and trashed my copy of the game, soI wound up only playing Mario Kart and PokemonStadium.Though getting to play Pokemon Red and Blueon the TV was a joy.Then back in ‘09 I lost that console ina flood and am now stuck with these boringgrey ones.The image quality is meh, the performanceof most games is pretty poor, the hardwarewas unreliable, and the controls were awful.Though there’s quite a few new N64 controllerscoming out that I have on the way.I was hoping they’d get here for this video- but maybe I’ll review them on the gamingchannel over at YouTube.com/eposvoxgaming..I still find inverted look controls unplayable,though.BUT all that being said, many of the gameshave a lot of charm, and it’s a precioussystem to many.EON’s Super 64 helps bring that system,all of its memories and gameplay to modernTVs with minimal effort, but a hefty pricetag.Given that we’re not likely to see a FPGA-basedclone console akin to the Analogue Super NTmini and Mega Sg systems anytime soon, thismay be one of the best options for peoplereally wanting to get their N64 playing onmodern TVs or streams…BUT I still have no real choice but to recommendthey go with the cheaper, but otherwise identicaland more functional RetroTINK 2X instead,as there’s no real argument of it not beinga better choice overall.(Again, big event crowds and etc. aside.)What’s your favorite game for the Ultra64?Comment below.While you’re down there, hit the like button,get subscribed for more tech education andcheck out my affiliate link to CastleManiaGames where you can save 10% with coupon code“EPOSVOX” at checkout.I’m EposVox here to make tech easier andmore fun and I’ll see you next time.\n"