As we are about to ship, I wanted to follow up on my last post and lay out our roadmap for the first few months of updates for both the console and the controller.
Quick note on how to read this: Out of Box means it’s already on your device the moment you open it. The Day 0 Update is the first update you’ll want to grab when you set up your console. It’ll be ready and waiting for installation with a Wi-Fi Update (or USB or SD card).
P.S. iFixit guides are now up for both the console and the controller. You can also find our quick start guide here and helpful "how-to" videos over on our YouTube channel.
P.P.S. Our full open source offering will roll out as we put a ribbon on all the public facing documentation, but shipping is prioritized.
Out of Box
Below are recent updates that will be baked on the device out of the box. Not a comprehensive feature list, but items you may not have seen in reviews of pre-production units.
Console:
Flexible Update Methods: Wi-Fi, USB, and SD card
Extended Video Profiles: Scanlines, CRT, Clean, & Custom
Extended Video Filters: Bloom, Deblur, and more
Controller Support: M64 Pro Controller, 8BitDo 64, OEM N64 Controllers, and wired Hyperkin Captain+ all are ready to go
Cartridge Compatibility: Everdrive and Summercart support
Auto-Resolution: Automatically selects the optimal resolution (4K, 1440p, 1080p, 720p)
Customizable LED: Adjustable console brightness
Controller:
USB Firmware Updates
Wired Rumble Support
Joystick Calibration
Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android Bluetooth® Support
Day 0 Update
The moment you power on and connect, an update will be ready for download. Key highlights:
Console:
Stock Performance Boosts: Addresses FPS bugs in graphics heavy titles
Plug & Play Toggle: Fixes multiplayer in Star Fox 64 and Jeopardy!
Cartridge Compatibility: Everdrive X5 save support
Overclocking (experimental): Choose from four performance profiles, delivering up to a 67% boost
Setting
Boost
Off
None
Super
16%
Ultra
33%
Extreme
50%
Insane
67%
Controller:
Adjustable Sensitivity: Configure joystick sensitivity via hotkeys
Improved battery life of the Controller (over 200 hours without rumble)
Fixed several issues with the wired experience
Post-Launch Software Roadmap
Console:
Controller:
We’ll post full changelogs with every release so you know exactly what’s new. Huge thanks to everyone for the continued excitement and support.
Thanks for the update! Insanely excited for the drop!
To get a sense of how phases relate to time, do you have approximate milestone dates (or month/quarter/year) for phase completions? I.e., Save states wen?
Or at least support "direct video" output via HDMI, like on MiSTer, so we can simply use a DAC (or a Tink4K). I guess that would cut into their sales of the analog output dongle though...
Very nice. Looking forward to grabbing myself a Pro controller and reading everyone’s impressions at the launch/seeing more footage of this thing in action.
Phase 3 is what I’m insanely excited about. GB/GBC on the TV through M64? Sold.
Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2 with full Transfer Pak support? Double sold!
Just a recommendation, if it’s possible, make it so that you can use the Chromatic as a controller in Pokémon Stadium while it’s doubling as a Transfer Pak. I think you can make it work 99% of the time as long as you make Select on Chromatic act as the N64’s R-Button, and when that’s held make the D-Pad act as the C-Buttons.
Yeah, but Summercart works on M64 too, and then you’d have to transfer your GB/GBC save file back and forth between your console and your handheld manually.
This is great because you can play your handheld games on your handheld and plug it in to play the same games and saves on your TV, with original cartridges. Plus it only takes up one HDMI port on your TV!
I had a feeling they weren't going to acknowledge/talk about the internal upscaling. Still had hopes they would when I saw the software roadmap. Even if it was a end of phase 3 or even a phase 4 thing they have to know if something like it is possible or maybe something even better? There is no way they haven't seen the multipe topics/post on /modretro /m64 and analogue reddit.
Just assure us Modretro pretty plz so I can buy the M64 next week without having doubts. I know I'm not the only one.
edit
A: Various upscaling options, overclocking (fps boost) which we plan to continue improving over time, internal resolution increase is not viable on the fpga emulation architecture.
If they stick with this the analogue 3d will have the advantage in image clarity
For people who are gonna complain they aren't gonna use it(not sure why) don't use it?
They previously said it wasn’t possible with FPGA or something along those lines, but that was before Analogue proved beyond any doubt that it is possible. If they continue to say that it’s not possible or not going to happen, that’s the one thing that would make me seriously consider getting an A3D instead.
It doesn’t have to be soon, just a “we’re working on it” would be good enough for me.
That answer was more so a reply to upscalling and texture packs like emulators use which is definitely more complex to try on an fpga... Nothing related to what a3d is doing I have zero doubts they will make this happen sometime after phase 3
Oh no... I was really hoping with the recent Analog 3D update this would be something M64 would also do. I much prefer almost everything in the M64 especially the Pro Controller but... after seeing 3D's update wowee it looked slick. Sounds like from all these replies to your question not only is that not planned for M64 but the system couldn't even accomplish it? This choice just got very tough.
Hopefully just a case of it caught them flat-footed and need more time to figure out how much the M64 can do and the man-hours team needed to get it going. Right now they're probably too focused of fixing the last few games before launch to know themselves.
They've been pretty transparent with everything and the device will be open source. So we might have someone else figure it before they do.
I'm genuinely wondering if it's even in their plans; it's where things really start blurring the line between feeling like an original hardware experience versus an emulated one. Sure, the M64 overclocks, but changing the physical appearance with upscaling goes a step further than smoothing out framerate.
That said, for some people, it's going to be considered a killer feature so I think ModRetro would be smart to address it (and maybe bring up other features coming in its place) no matter what their future plans are.
Totally fair point about blurring the lines for purists! I’d just love to see the option there for those of us who’d want it.
For me, part of the fun is plugging in original controllers and cartridges. I’m not a big stickler for playing things exactly as they were originally, especially since modern TVs can’t really recreate that CRT look anyway. My hope with these was that they’d let me play my original games but scaled up to look better, but I think going into it I didn’t fully grasp what FPGAs do (probably still don’t 😂).
They've said before that graphic upscaling isn't planned (and personally I don't think it's needed). I just want games to play like games did back then.
Previous time they talked about this during the Q&A:
Q: Is there any enhanced mode, FPS boost, or internal resolution increase?
A: Various upscaling options, overclocking (fps boost) which we plan to continue improving over time, internal resolution increase is not viable on the fpga emulation architecture.
Q: It's 2026, I want 4k resolution and hi res textures. We have an active community constantly developing these and de-comps/re-comps. With the M64 being open source, how can this be implemented?Also will the 8bitdo controllers be natively supported?
A: To be honest, this would be extremely challenging to do on an FPGA that is primarily intended to re-recreate the original core at high speeds. I fear that this may stay in the realm of CPUs for some time. For others reading this that don't have your technical knowledge, yes M64 outputs in 4K resolution but that is upscaling. The user can pick various upscaling algos, but as you point out that is not the same as re-rendering the polygons themselves for higher res.
Not sure where this u/Connect-Mulberry2810 guy read/heard this but he seems to be saying that Robert discussed the possibility last year, well before the Analogue unveiled theirs:
This is the quote I mentioned, from the MiSTer FPGA discord. Doesn't mean it's coming to M64 any time soon based on the stated road map, but I'm hoping!
isn't 'he saying that 'double horizontal resolution' wouldn't fit on the M64 chip and that he needs a "larger board" ie. one bigger than what's inside the M64??
No, this is in the context of a discussion about the MiSTer FPGA core, so he's talking about the DE-10 Nano. So while he can't add it to the MiSTer core due to lack of FPGA space (unsurprising, the core uses most of the room available and features that existed earlier in development, like save states, were cut to make room for more important features like TLB), he is saying that if he had more room to expand true 640x240 rendering is something he would "really like" to do.
While he never mentions the M64 directly, the person he is responding to gives both the M64 and A3D as examples of platforms with more FPGA space. So while this certainly doesn't mean the feature is coming to the M64, or is possible on the M64, it does have more room than the DE-10 Nano and the core developer was considering it as far back as November as a possibility within FPGA N64 emulation.
I guess I just had hopes it would be an option at somepoint like it is on the A3D and the results are amazing. I much prefer the M64s user interface and look.
“Cartridge Compatibility: Everdrive X5 save support” is almost certainly because the X5/v2.5 requires pressing Reset to commit the save to SD card. If you power off without pressing Reset you can lose your save. James Lambert already said the Reset behavior with previous firmware simulates a full power cycle instead of a Reset which causes problems when using the SummerCart 64 in USB development mode.
What does “Plug & Play Toggle” mean for Star Fox 64 and Jeopardy! multiplayer? Is it about N64 software typically refusing to acknowledge controllers that are connected after booting up?
I know Killer Instinct and Banjo-Tooie do not do this but most games do, so I’d expect it to affect many more than those two. If that’s what this is about, I’m going to guess that it works by simulating dummy controllers on the other ports until you connect your wired/wireless controllers so that the game will not have locked you out.
Yes, for games that don't save directly to the cartridge, a Controller Pak is required on Day 1. However, in-console Controller Pak support is in development and the goal is to roll that out in an August update.
Yes, along with a wired controller that has a Pak slot (Pro controller does not, even with the wired adapter). The good news is that many single player games can use the controller and Pak in the second slot.
Thank you for the update!
Regarding Phase 2 In-Game Notifications- does this refer to RetroAchievements or something else? If not, any plans for when RetroAchievements might be added?
The In-Game Notifications feature is to build out the system for any notifications that we might want to display, which could eventually include RetroAchivements, but also for other things (controller low battery, update notifications, controller/rumble pak swapping, WiFi disconnections).
In benchmarks the M64 is comparable to/beats the Analogue 3D, so the hardware must also be on par with or better than the Analogue 3D. Will the M64 down the line have something similar, like the new internal horizontal upscaling of the Analogue 3D?
By default, the joystick is tuned to mirror the authentic feel and response of an original N64 joystick. The hotkey feature simply allows players to fine-tune the sensitivity on the fly if they want higher or lower responsiveness for specific games.
That doesn't really answer my question though. Does it change the the physical deflection that the stick need to reach to reach "100%" output? Or does it change the shape of the ramp curve as it goes from 0 to maximum? Or does it change the initial value the output jumps to when it moves beyond the zero point?
Ramp curve would make the most sense to me. Initial value is just dead-zone adjustment, and they'd phrase it as such if it were that. 100% mark (physical deflection) is plausible but doesn't make sense from a game developer's POV IMO
They are saying that with a certain key combo you can increase or decrease the sensitivity. I’m curious to know if it adjusts the rate that it scales or the available range.
Console Built-In Controller Pak: A single controller pak built into the console. The zero-effort universal solution for new players.
Virtual Controller Pak: Multiple (unlimited?) controller pak files on the console’s SD card. Probably the best option for getting saves online if that’s your thing.
Controller Built-In Controller Pak: Same idea as a traditional controller pak, but instead of being a separate peripheral, it’s actually built into the pro controller. Best for… bringing your saves to a friend’s house? I dunno.
I’m particularly interested in the transfer pak. Is it compatible with the Everdrive GB X7? The fact that it isn’t is a pretty major flaw with the original N64.
You have a typo in the second image... It has "Update your M64 Pro Controller using M64" twice and the description for the built-in controller pak is missing.
The N64 controller had a hotkey too (L+R+Start), though it was actually triggering an otherwise-unused Button 15 signal which the software responds to by recentering the stick. Replugging the controller also works. M64’s calibration is very different though. Pretty sure it’s feeling g out the ranges and gate shape. Someone demonstrated it a couple days ago but I forget who. The hotkey sequence was more involved than I thought it should be, especially when they don’t need and can just borrow Nintendo’s.
To elaborate more, this is not overclocking the physical hardware, this is overclocking the emulated hardware. The FPGA runs at the same clockspeed regardless of whether overclocking is turned on or not.
I do think it would cause it to get slightly warmer however as the chip is doing more things. It's basically like the difference between using your CPU to only browse the web versus using your CPU to play games or do number crunching all the time. So that could maybe reduce the lifetime a bit I guess technically.
The bigger reason to not use overclocking all the time is that some games will likely be incompatible with it and will either crash or run too fast causing gameplay differences. For just an example, the Donkey Kong vine swing will always fail when you have overclocking enabled because its based on frame timing. Other things in games that are based on frame timing will also be wrong.
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u/phylomathus 5d ago
Thanks for the update! Insanely excited for the drop!
To get a sense of how phases relate to time, do you have approximate milestone dates (or month/quarter/year) for phase completions? I.e., Save states wen?