For the last few years I’ve been reliving my childhood obsession with the Nintendo 64 (and Super Nintendo) but with a small twist. As I sold my Nintendo 64 many years ago, I’ve been playing all my favourite games “on my PC” or emulated on my PC. It’s great fun and seeing as no official hardware is in production any more any illegal aspect to it is relatively small.
Over the years I’ve had a quite a few friends and family ask me how I did it, as I also used an official Nintendo 64 control to play, they were pretty impressed, but I never had time to explain how to get it all up and running. That got me thinking - there are most likely a whole lot more people out there that would be interested in setting something like this up, or don’t even know it’s possible to do so. So I decided I would write up a easy to follow tutorial that even the most technophobe person could understand 
So let’s get into it!
Equipment you’ll need:
A computer: the most important part of this whole guide. Most computers these days can cut it as Nintendo 64 technology is over 10 years old now, but if you’re computer is a bit behind the times and you’re unsure if it’ll make it, here are the official Recommend Specifications:
- Intel Pentium 3 1.5GHz or higher or AMD Athlon 1.5 GHz or higher
- 512MB RAM or more
- nVidia GeForce FX or later or ATI Radeon 9500 or later
- 1GB or more free hard drive space
- Creative Soundblaster Live! or higher
- Microsoft Windows XP with latest updates (although not officially stated, I can vouch that Vista works too)
If you’re not sure what you have, a quick and easy way to find out if you’re running Windows XP or Vista is by going to the Start menu, then clicking Run and typing in dxdiag and hitting enter. This will popup with a box that gives you a lot of information about your computer. What you want to check under the System tab is the Processor line which should look something like this: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz (2 CPUs) The bit in bold is the important part, as long as it is above the 1.5GHz limit (ignoring the 2CPUs part), you’re set! (If it has 2 CPUs, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about, you’re well above the recommended :))
If you past that test, next you have to check if you have sufficient memory, the Memory line is directly below the Processor line, as long as its above or equal too 512MB you’re good to go!
Now to check your video card. Click the Display tab up the top of the screen, first thing to check is what type of video card it is. Does it say NVIDIA or ATI on the Manufacture line? If it does, go down to the next line, does it say GeForce or Radeon?
So if you’ve passed all those steps, congratulations, your computer can handle the awesomeness of the Nintendo 64!
The software: you’ll need to download the program which emulates the Nintendo 64. The best and most supported one out there is Project 64 which I’ll be explaining how to use in this guide. To get it, simply click this link.
Once you’ve finished downloading Project 64, run the file you just finished downloading to start the installation. Follow the prompts until it’s completed, and with some luck, it’ll be working fine when we come to use it later on.
The games: Firstly, a Nintendo 64 game being emulated on a computer is usually called a ROM, I’ll be calling it by that name from now on. Moving on, it’s incredibly hard to find sites that offer Nintendo 64 games for download, but they do exist, luckily I’ve done the hard work and snooped a good one out for you Go to this link: http://romhustler.net/roms/n64 and scroll down about midway until you see the alphabetical listing (A | B | C, etc) hopefully you know what game you want to play already, but if not, I’ll suggest Goldeneye 007 if you’re into shoot’em up’s, Super Mario 64 or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time if you like adventure, or Mario Kart 64 if you’re into racing. Otherwise feel free to pick any random game.
Once you’ve finished downloading the game you want to play, you’ll most likely need a program to extract it from the compressed file it came in when you downloaded it. I recommend using WinRAR which is easy to use. To get it click this link. Once it’s finished downloading, run the file and the installer will come up, simply follow the instructions and you’re all sweet
Now, assuming you remembered where you downloaded the Nintendo 64 game, double click the file which should automatically open up in WinRAR. Now you’ll most likely see a list of anywhere between 2 and 30 files, and you only want one of them. This can be pretty daunting at first, but it’s easy to find which one you want.
Firstly, the region or country (and usually language) the game was released in is in brackets, eg. (U), (E), or (J) being the most common. U stands for USA, and if is probably the one you want if you’re an English speaker, E is European, and usually has a few European languages, like French, German and Italian. The J is for Japanese, and is almost always in Japanese.
Secondly, the quality of the game as in if it has any errors or problems with it. A [!] indicates that it is 100% perfect with no problems. This what you want to look out for.
So now, say you want to get the perfect US version of your game. Look down the list for the (U), now once you’ve found that look for the [!]. Now right click on that file and click “Extract to the specified folder”. A box should come up asking you where do you want to put it. Choose somewhere easy to remember, My Documents is a good start. Then simply click OK and the program will extract the game to the folder you told it to. Now close WinRAR and open up Project 64, which should be in your Start Menu or Desktop.
Configuring Project 64: now before you start playing, there’s one last thing you need to do, that is mainly setting up the controls to play. Go to the Options menu then click Configure Controller Plugin. Here you can set what keys you want to use in place of the buttons on a real Nintendo 64 controller. You can use a real Nintendo 64 controller with this emulator, I’ll go into details on that later, but for now we’ll use the keyboard or if you already have another Gamepad you can use, use that.
Next to each key is a box with what is assigned by default, if you want to use those keys, just remember what they are and you can skip this part. Otherwise, you can set them to what you want. Next to the box which tells you what key is assigned is another box, click this to set the key. Once you click the button, the first key you press will be what’s assigned to that button. Continue doing that for all the keys and click OK.
Now you’re good to go, let’s start playing some Nintendo 64! Remember that ROM you extracted before? Now you have to open it. Go to File, then Open Rom and search for it and click Open. Once you click open the game will load up, and you can start playing! Enjoy
Extras:
Now once you’ve set it all up, and you’ve started playing, there is probably one or more things you know you’re missing, it’s just not the same using the keyboard and mouse instead of a real Nintendo 64 controller, right? Well luckily there’s a way around that too
eBay usually has Nintendo 64 to PC adapters for sale for around $10 each, so head over to eBay.com and search for “Nintendo 64 usb” or if that gets no hits, try “Nintendo 64 adapter”. Be warned though, some Nintendo 64 controllers don’t work with the adapters. The controllers that I own that I know do work are the White and Yellow ones, and the one that doesn’t is Atomic Purple. I can’t say for sure about any other colours, so make sure to ask if your controller will work before buying! That being said, if you need to buy a new controller, eBay also has plenty of them as well
Once your hardware has arrived via snail mail, simply plug in the adapter to a USB slot and then the controller into the adapter and everything should work fine from then without you having to install anything if you’re using Windows XP or Vista.
Now you have to set up Project 64 to work with the controllers. The same way as you set up the emulator using a keyboard, go to Options then Configure Controller Plugins. Then click the box to set a key and press the button on the controller which coresponds with the button on the screen. Do that for all the buttons and let’s move on.
Once that’s done, it’ll be a good idea to calibrate the controller, especially if it isn’t brand new. To do this, go to Start then Control Panel, then find Game Controllers and click into that. The controller should come up as something like “4 axis 16 button joystick”, make sure that it’s highlighted and click Properties. Here you can test how well your joystick responds, move the stick around in circles, if the cross hair doesn’t touch all 4 sides, you definitely need to calibrate it. If that’s the case click on the Settings tab up the top, once there click Calibrate.
The calibration guide should come up, simply click Next then keeping the joystick in the centre (without physically holding it), click Next (or press a button on the controller). Now on the next screen, simply move the joystick in complete circles 5 or 6 times then return it to the centre and click Next. After this point, without touching the controller, simple click Next through all the rest of screens, ignoring what it tells you to do (it will cause problems). After that’s finished, click OK on all the windows to get out of the Game Controller options and it’s time to play some Nintendo 64! 
Now just load up the ROM you want to play and start playing!
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