[Feature Request] A video plugin to support some ROM hacks

[Play-InTheWay]

As said in the past, there is no desire to add unmaintained and legacy plugin. Unfortunately, there are some old ROM hacks that were made with less-accurate video plugins in mind, and trying to run them on modern plugins (anything in RMG) doesn't load or gives a black screen gonetz/GLideN64#535

Though, another alternative is to follow the path of Parallel Launcher, where there is a graphics plugin called “OGRE” that runs old ROM hacks and seems more accurate/modern than things like Glide64. The problem is that I don't know much more about this plugin, and it seems exclusive to the Parallel Launcher. A possibility is that it is a fork of GlideN64 and, parching it, maybe here gives some ideas on how they have done it gonetz/GLideN64#1745 though it is also probable that it is a different thing altogether.

Related issue: #320

[Rosalie241]

parallel launcher has a lot of hacks in their old mupen64plus fork aswell to make old hacks run, it's very ugly and not something I want for RMG, OGRE itself is also an ugly hack which I also do not want for RMG.

so my answer is the same as before, no, I will not add support for old hacky rom hacks that are made for old emulators but instead I'll be slowly improving upstream mupen64plus-core to be more accurate to the hardware.

[Play-InTheWay]

My mention of OGRE wasn't the request itself, but mainly an example of a possibility to do a “new” plugin that supported those old ROM hacks. If something like that isn't feasible, worth it, or goes against the philosophy of RMG, it's respectable.

Though unfortunately, it would mean that some people (maybe a minority) will be forced to use 2 emulators, because, at least when I try to manually install Glide64, it just doesn't work. (RMG on Flatpak).

Anyway, I wanted to use this space/opportunity to thank you for such a cool emulator; it's by far the best Mupen GUI, being even better than Project64 in some aspects. Good luck and congratulations!

[Rosalie241]

My mention of OGRE wasn't the request itself, but mainly an example of a possibility to do a “new” plugin that supported those old ROM hacks. If something like that isn't feasible, worth it, or goes against the philosophy of RMG, it's respectable.

The problem is that those old rom hacks aren't only relying on an older/hacky video plugin, but also require support from the core emulator itself (mupen64plus-core), which kinda conflicts with the goal of an n64 emulator, which is trying to emulate the n64, it's sadly not really a goal of upstream mupen64plus-core to support those broken rom hacks.

Though unfortunately, it would mean that some people (maybe a minority) will be forced to use 2 emulators, because, at least when I try to manually install Glide64, it just doesn't work. (RMG on Flatpak).

Yes, that's a sad side effect of rom hacks which are made for specific emulators, and adding plugins to the flatpak is sadly difficult, though Glide64 does work on RMG if you copy the plugin and the ini to the correct location, but it's a pain to do.

Anyway, I wanted to use this space/opportunity to thank you for such a cool emulator; it's by far the best Mupen GUI, being even better than Project64 in some aspects. Good luck and congratulations!

Thank you, I really appreciate that ❤️