Super Mario 64 now runs on Microsoft's Zune HD, built from your own cartridge dump

A port of sm64ex brings Mario 64 to Microsoft's touchscreen media player with touch controls, sound and saves. The build checks your own ROM and installs over USB from a Linux PC; no game data is i...

AI-drafted from 3 sources. This story was written with AI from the outside reporting listed under Sources, and checked by automated tools before it went up. The originals have the full detail.

Super Mario 64 has been ported to Microsoft's Zune HD, the touchscreen media player whose processor Hackaday describes as 2009-era. A developer going by rsheldiii has published sm64-zune, a port of the sm64ex PC port, and the README says it "plays (mostly) at full speed with sound, touch controls and saves." Hackaday covered it on 9 October; the first commits went up on 6 and 7 October.

How it gets onto the player

The repository contains no game data. You need a Super Mario 64 (USA) ROM dumped from your own cartridge, and the build checks it against a fixed SHA-1 checksum before going any further. The rest happens in containers on an x86-64 Linux computer with Docker and git: the README asks for 6GB of free disk space and says the first build takes five to ten minutes. One command builds the game from the ROM, and a second deploys it to a Zune HD plugged in over USB. Only firmware 4.5 has been tested.

The Zune HD's own development kit is handled for you. The build downloads the OpenZDK headers and libraries and packages its small launcher. Hackaday notes that the port uses Nvidia's Tegra tools to precompile shaders, which helps the old processor keep up.

Playing it

Controls are drawn on the touchscreen over the game: a virtual stick on the left and the buttons on the right. Their style and opacity can be set at build time. Holding three fingers on the screen for two seconds exits the game.

There are no frame-rate figures, only "mostly" full speed. A build option decides what happens when the Zune falls behind: it can slow down the way the N64 did, or skip drawing some frames, which is the default.

The README is open about rough edges. A deploy can report the game as not installed, which it suggests fixing by replugging the player. An interrupted copy makes the game close as soon as it starts until you deploy again. Crashes during startup cannot upload their log, and logs are sent over Wi-Fi only when you quit with the three-finger gesture, because the Zune's Wi-Fi is off while it is connected by USB.

The project's own code is MIT licensed. It credits the Super Mario 64 decompilation and the sm64-port and sm64ex contributors, Emill and MaikelChan for the Fast3D renderer, itsnotabigtruck and the OpenZDK team, ZuneRedux for keeping the kit available, and gigalasr for zune-deploy. The README asks people not to request ROMs or built copies of the game.

Sources

Image: rsheldiii via Hackaday

More news from Gaming World