Graphical glitchs in Mario 64 (Parallel Core and Mupen64Plusnext)

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

I’m using the Parallel Core rather than the Mupen64Plus core as there’s weird black artifacting near the black borders at the top and bottom of the screen in that.

Parallel seems to be fine, except that when looking through a cannon, there’s a vertical line on the right side that shows you outside of the cannon, when it’s supposed to all be just the circular view in the middle. Does anyone know if this is fixable with some settings tweaks? I’m just using the defaults for the core.

If anyone knows about the Mupen64 problem too, here are examples of what’s happening with that core. (A small amount on the bottom of the first picture, and up where the castle is hitting the black bar in the second) This is present throughout the entire game while playing.

#2

Most likely it’s artifacting that is normally hidden with overscan.

Are you using Parallel RDP in both cores?

#3

Yup, Parallel in both RDP and RSP, and that’s exactly what it is, I put in overscan 8 and it seems to be behaving now. Thank you.

I don’t suppose you now about tex_rect? I was playing Ocarina of Time and had it upscaled x2, but to make the text in the text boxes upscale I had to toggle tex_rect. Only problem is, 2 or so cutscenes look terrible with tex_rect off. (Most notably the end screen and the first-person view of Zelda fleeing the castle as a child.

#4

Well, normally you shouldn’t upscale the 2D assets and text, these need to stay native even when you upscale the 3D visuals and Parallel RDP does a great job keeping them together (without seams and other artifacts like in GlideN64) when this option is ON.

Although i agree that in both Zelda games, the text doesn’t look that great on a HD monitor unless you play the games with a good CRT shader and even then they don’t look as smooth as on a real CRT TV. So i also use tex_rect OFF with these. But i haven’t played them too much on the emulator and haven’t reached those two cutscenes you are talking about.

#5

Ah so it’s more of a game specific problem in this case. Fair enough. (Also it’s easy enough to just quickly toggle it back if a cutscene looks weird)

Thanks for the info.

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#6

Yeah, though it’s not a problem with the game itself, it was designed for old CRTs after all. It’s more like a modern monitor/TV problem that affects this particular game more noticeably.

I don’t pay attention to how the text looks in old games, i just want to avoid artifacts and seams. But in Zelda, i always loved the way the text looks on a CRT. But i can’t replicate that 100% with a CRT shader, more like 90%. And i found out tex-rect OFF helps getting to 99%.

There’s probably a way to make the text look perfect with a certain CRT shader, without having to disable the tex_rect option.

Btw, the hearts in the UI also look better with tex_rect OFF.