A few months ago, a GitHub project called the “Super Mario 64 decomp project” made it possible to play Nintendo 64’s iconic game on the web. Now, a developer was able to port it to the Apple TV running at up to 60fps.
As posted on Reddit, the user ckosmic was able to port Super Mario 64 to the Apple TV using the sm64 decompilation project and sm64ex. They say the project was originally built for iOS devices, and ever since then, the Reddit user has been making improvements to the game’s usability. They write:
This past week I got it up and running on the Apple TV which, as shown here, runs it perfectly with the 60fps patch and full screen. Note that this is running natively on the Apple TV and uses no emulation whatsoever thanks to the sm64 decompilation project and sm64ex.
For users who want to try Super Mario 64 on the Apple TV, they need to set up their set-top box into development mode with Xcode and build the project’s source code on the Mac here. It’s important to follow the Xcode build instructions in the Wiki, and then switch the build target to the Apple TV rather than iOS.
While Nintendo has a record of suing or making some web projects disappear as it’s very protective of its own property, ckosmic notes that “this project/repo contains no pirated content and requires the user to provide their own copy of Super Mario 64 to extract assets from.”
The user also explains how the project went from iOS to tvOS:
The original decompilation/pc port (not made by me), I would assume took years just by looking at the amount of work put into it. The initial iOS port I made took probably a week to get up and running on iOS and a couple more weeks to get things like touch controls and the main menu working. Then since then I’ve been making small improvements like external display support, a touch controls rewrite, etc. And finally this tvOS port took about 2 days thanks to the similarities between tvOS and iOS and about a week to get the UI/tvOS-specific features working
With that, if you’re not one of those people who got the special Mario edition for the Nintendo Switch or are not paying a high amount of money for the new pack of the Nintendo Switch Online service, here’s your chance to play or replay one of the most iconic games for the Nintendo 64, Super Mario 64.
Below, you can watch how the game runs on an Apple TV:
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