Installation Guide for the Simple64 (Nintendo 64 Emulator)
If you are a lover of classic games, then you are no stranger to the Nintendo 64 emulator – Simple 64. Thanks to outstanding features such as upscale and good integration, it is not too difficult to understand why N64 is still the choice of many gamers. If you have “put” a Nintendo 64 in your application store but still don’t know how to set it up, then this article on how to install the N64 – Simple 64 emulator on the Windows operating system is for you.
Download the Simple 64 emulator
First, visit Simple 64’s GitHub page. You can search on Google or click this link to be forwarded to the page
Click the “Download Emulator” button to download”
After clicking download, you will be redirected to the project’s official GitHub. The latest version is currently 2024.1.12.1. Depending on your device, you can choose the appropriate version, but the advice is still to use the latest version to avoid having to update or encounter too many errors.
Scroll down to the “Assets” section and click the download to get started.
Note: If you don’t have 7 zip installed on your computer, please download and install software, as we will use it to extract the emulator as well as the Nintendo 64 ROM files.
Extract the Emulators and ROMs files
Once downloaded, save your Simple 64 file to an easy-to-find drive and save it with a folder containing Nintendo 64 ROMs there.
As in the example in the photo, it is saved directly on the desktop.
Next, what you need to do is extract the emulator. If you have already installed 7-zip, then you just need to do these simple steps:
Step 1: Right-click on the file to extract it. Here is the Simple 64 file. Select “Show more options”
Step 2: Click on “Extract to Simple 64” to create the extracted folder
Note: You can delete the original compressed file at will to save space on your device, because that compressed file is no longer needed.
For ROMs files
Actually, you can decompress ROMs files or not because Simple 64 allows running zip files without decompression. So you might as well not do it. If you still want to decompress everything to synchronize the .z64 format, you can do the following:
Step 1: Right click on the ROMs file, select “Show more options”
Step 2: Select “7zip” and select “Extract here” to complete the extraction.
Operations to install and config the emulator
Instructions for installing the emulator
Step 1: Open the Simple 64 folder and create a new folder called “Saves” or whatever name you find easy to remember. This will be where your save game files are stored.
Step 2: Right-click on the newly created folder, select “Properties” and copy the path of that file
Step 3: Open the Simple 64 emulator by scrolling to the bottom of the folder, double-clicking the program’s main file
Step 4: Click “Settings”
Step 5: Select “Core and Video Settings”
Step 6: In the “Save State Path” and “Save RAM Path” sections, paste the path of the initially created folder
Step 7: Add the extension “/saves” to the end of the path and you’re done.
How to tweak Video settings for games
Step 1: Open the “Video” tab
Step 2: Select “Full Screen” to display the game always in full screen mode
Note: If you like to play games with more intense graphics, you can increase the resolution, open the “Upscaling” section, enter “8” (maximum value supported by the emulator).
- However, to avoid lag, you should still keep the default configuration settings if your device has an average or low configuration, do not try to raise it too high to both “make it difficult” for the device and make the gaming experience not smooth. Also, don’t forget to turn on “Vsync” to reduce screen tearing.
- For gamers who like wide screen mode, you can set 1920 for “Screen Width”, and Height is 1080, click “Widescreen Stretch”. But this means the image display will be stretched and looks a bit uncomfortable, so if you don’t want it, you should still leave it as the default.
Instructions for installing the handle
The Simple 64 emulator is compatible with a wide variety of controllers. For popular models like Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5 all work fine, you can check the compatibility yourself if your controller is a different type.
Step 1: Also in the “Settings” section, select “Controller Configuration”
Step 2: Click the arrow in the “Gamepad” section to check the list of controllers connected to the server
Step 3: Select the handle you want to use.
Step 4: Go to “Manage Profiles”, select “New Profile”
Step 5: Name the new configuration, for example “P1”
Step 6: Assign each button by clicking on the corresponding box and then pressing the desired button on the handle.
Note: If you have multiple controllers connected to your PC, repeat the above process for “Controller 2”, “Controller 3” or “Controller 4”. Don’t forget to go back to “Controller 1” and select the configuration you just created.
Set up keyboard shortcuts
To check or change settings for keyboard shortcuts, you can do the following:
Step 1: In the “Settings” section, select “Hotkey Configuration”
Step 2: You can view the list of available shortcuts and change their options as desired
Run the game and experience
After completing all the initial settings, you can now run the game as desired by following these steps:
Step 1: Open “File”
Step 2: Select “Open ROM” and find the folder containing the ROMs you need, click Game
Step 3: Click “Open” to launch the game in Full Screen mode.
If you want to save the game, just use the emulator’s save state feature. Once saved, you can find that save file in the “Saves” folder we created at the beginning.
Conclusion
So you have completed the steps to install the N64 emulator – Simple 64 on your computer, now it’s time to enjoy your favorite games and don’t forget to follow upcoming articles for more interesting information!