I guess i have to chime in here after i had a fantastic night playing super mario 64 last night.
Last year, i bought a moga pro controller so i could play oldskool playstation / nintendo games on my mobile.
However, pretty much all games were completely unplayable.
You see, i have a HTC one mini and i have read on this forum somewhere that some devices with a certain graphic chip just could not run most games smoothly not matter which renderer you would use. I quickly gave up hope and just continued playing snes games and playstation games.
After learning that a new nvidia shield console will be shipping in the USA soon for only 199 dollars, with the option to install emulators from the play store i checked the playstore to see if mupen now have a better optimalisation compared to last year. I was rather dissapointed that it still had a similar version number.
I then checked this forum and i downloaded the alpha. First impression on super mario 64 was good. I mean, before the alpha version there were moments in which the game would run very smooth. but the moment a larger area would be displayed or in which combat would start, the FPS would drop dramaticly. By that i mean, 3 FPS... it would be a challenge alone to stay alive since the controls would lag too.
With the new alpha there are some FPS drops in certain areas in which a large areas and other effects are displayed (ex : first snow level..) but the controles just feel so much better when there are FPS drops that you can continue playing. Also, before the alpha sometimes the FPS could be as low as 3, but i havent even seen that yet.. well, only in ocarina of time and majora's mask. The area's which used to lag now run with about 100% more FPS.
I tried various roms last night on my HTC one mini..
The good :
Mario 64 - Slight FPS drops in large areas and maps with weather effects but controls still feel reponsive. Definately can be completed.
Yoshi's story - 2 plugin's spawn a whole bunch of graphical artifacts that make the game lag like crazy. Rice's quality setting makes the game run very good but lots of audio cracking. I set the audio output to standard instead of ultra low latency to compensate.
Banjo kazooie - Appears to be the same as mario 64.
The bad :
Zelda : Ocarina of time - Huge FPS drops in large areas and in combat. Can be completed but i dont like to play laggy games.
Zelda : Majora's mask - Same as above... my HTC almost exploded on this one when i entered clock town for the first time, had about 2 fps for a few seconds. Town people make the FPS drop like crazy. Cutscenes lag too.
Snowboard kids - FPS issues on certain levels in certain area's. Otherwise appear fine and can be finished since the controls no longer lag.
WCW vs NWO revenge - Game appears to run in between 90-100% depending on the action. However, as soon as someone is entering melee range or combat (grabbing / kicking, whatever) starts, the sound starts to crack.
All in all, i am glad i can play a few games now.
