Issues like those above could easily be chalked up to simple oversights or unfortunate limitations in the emulation tech, but a failure to rework features that require the N64 Controller Pak, as documented by TriThreat98 on Twitter, begins leaning the whole situation in the direction of apathy toward the consumer. The N64 and Sega Genesis games are the only offerings in the Expansion Pack until the Animal Crossing DLC launches on November 5, and it costs more than double the standard NSO subscription. These may be small complaints in the grand scheme of things, but increased latency and missing visual effects in games that are over two decades old make the Expansion Pack emulations objectively inferior to the originals they are adapting. These issues may sound like nitpicks, and relative to game-breaking bugs, they are, but the fact of the matter is Nintendo has charged consumers for a service and failed to deliver what was promised. Stranger still is the fact that Ocarina of Time has been emulated wonderfully by Nintendo in the past for the Wii and Wii U Virtual Consoles, though Linneman says the NSO emulator looks to be based on the one used for Super Mario 3D All-Stars. Nintendo Switch Online's N64 games are presented in their native 4:3 aspect ratio rather than full screen, which helps preserve their dated graphics, but it's all for naught if the emulator can't properly display the games anyway. Related: Nintendo Switch N64 Game Lag Shown By Zelda & Mario Playersĭigital Foundry's John Linneman, who uses the handle dark1x on Twitter, suggests it's the emulation tech itself that is responsible for the rendering issues, meaning it could have an effect on every title available through the Expansion Pack. Missing visual effects have completely changed the room's aesthetic, with the new NSO version of Ocarina lacking all reflections in the water and fog that's used to make the area appear boundless. Twitter user stopskeletons shared a few screenshots comparing the water quality in Ocarina of Time, specifically the shallow pool in the Water Temple's mini-boss room where the player fights Dark Link. According to Dacvak, " this means there is roughly a frame to 1.5 frames of additional latency in the NSO version." One or two frames dropped from a button press to the corresponding action happening on screen isn't a major concern, but it should be emphasized that this is a comparison to another emulated version of the game, not the original Super Mario 64 running on its intended hardware, which would likely have the lowest latency.Īnother issue - one that's perhaps more noticeable than input lag - is an apparent problem with rendering fog and reflections in the Expansion Pack's N64 games. Super Mario 3D All-Stars has an input lag for Super Mario 64 of somewhere between 112 and 137 milliseconds, while the new version of SM64 included in Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack has an input lag clocking in somewhere between 150 and 167 milliseconds. When the discovery was shared to the NintendoSwitch subreddit, user Dacvak did a more comprehensive investigation, comparing the new NSO version of Super Mario 64 to that previously released for the Switch through the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, which also uses emulation for all three games.ĭacvak's methodologically is admittedly rather rudimentary as far as technical tests go, using the slow-motion video capture on an iPhone 13 Pro, but the range of results gets the point across. A follow-up tweet shows a slow-motion comparison between Ocarina of Time on the Switch and the original version on the N64. Not long after the Nintendo 64 games went live alongside the NSO + Expansion pack, Twitter user Toufool posted a video demonstrating the input lag present when playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
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