Since not all games were released on the virtual console, games that weren't need to be packaged as games that were, so Dolphin will run them with the emulator that was meant to run that particular game. This apparently works very well, though I haven't tried it. You can also download Dolphin, the Wii emulator, and package ROMs into WAD wiles to be run on the Wii virtual console. This, or one of the other emulators with the Angrylion plugin are the only ways I know of to play Pokemon Snap on an emulator. No fancy graphical enhancements or anything, just pure N64 goodness. But if you want full accuracy, this is it. You need a beast of a machine, though it's seen quite a bit of speed improvement. I believe m64py has a portable build for windows, otherwise mupen will default to using settings in appdata, and will be shared between instances.Ĭen64 is a cycle accurate emulator.

You can also use RetroArch but I find it's very unintuitive and configuration can be a nightmare. You can still compile the bundle yourself if you have the know-how, but it's still a pain. m64p is also really good, though the developer who hosts this started charging for it. It can be a bit more of a pain to just get a nicely packaged, compiled, bundle that you can just download and use since the core program doesn't come with a GUI. It's seen quite a bit of recent development. Some Rom hacks only work with Project64 because they were developed on Project64, so be aware of that. Since N64 emulator configuration can be very, very game specific, it can be nice to just package all the files for an entire instance of an emulator, configuration and all, with a ROM, and treat it like a standalone game.

That said, this emulator, and maybe Cen64, are the only emulators I know of that are 'portable' by default. After using it for a while the program starts to display a popup every time you start it, asking that you pay for the program, and it can't be closed for 30 seconds. There were rumours some versions came bundled with viruses. Unfortunately, Project64 itself hasn't followed suit. So you don't have to go digging through old dead forum posts to find the latest versions. Project64 is pretty good as long as you're using windows, and because of the plugin based architecture we're finally seeing plugins on places like github.

Best n64 emulator