Nintendo's Switch Online N64 games are a buggy mess

Nintendo'due south Switch Online N64 games are a buggy mess

For instance, Ocarina of Time suffers from several weird graphical glitches

Switch OLED

Nintendo Switch Online'due south Nintendo 64 games suffer from input lag, sound delays, frame rate problems and wonky controller layouts.

A quick glance at the pop gaming forum ResetEra reveals several posts focused on the issues. At that place are besides reports beyond Twitter surrounding input lag issues, specially with The Fable of Zelda: Ocarina of Fourth dimension.

Holy shit OoT on Switch is so bad it might actually be worse than WiiU VC

— CLG ZFG (@zfg111) October 26, 2021

[Expansion Pack – Nintendo 64]

The emulator used in Super Mario 3D All-Stars for Super Mario 64 makes its render.

– Perhaps codenamed "Hovercraft"?
– Uses JIT dynarec to emulate the N64 CPU.
– Uses Vulkan as its graphics API.
– ROM files are zlib-compressed .n64 files.

— SpookmealDome 🎃 (@OatmealDome) Oct 26, 2021

Ocarina of Time

N64 vs Wii VC vs Switch

(h/t @zfg111) pic.twitter.com/HM9renorc3

— Terminate Skeletons From Fighting | ➕🔥🔥 (@stopskeletons) Oct 26, 2021

HAHAHAHA pic.twitter.com/S2h4C7ahtF

— MutantAura (@MutantAura) October 26, 2021

There are even graphical glitches in several games tied to fog, draw distances and water textures, as well as other weird quirks, including Mario Kart 64 thinking a Controller Pak is required to save time trial data.

If these issues were tied to a free emulator and ROM files, they'd be far easier to consume. Nevertheless, Switch Online Expansion Pack games are official emulations offered by Nintendo and at a pretty expensive cost, as well. Nintendo'southward new 'Expansion Pack' online tier costs $63.99 for a 12-month individual membership (one account) or $99.99 for a 12-month Family Membership (up to viii accounts).

Notable launch N64 titles include Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Yoshi'due south Story, Mario Tennis 64, Super Mario 64 and more. Along with N64 titles, the subscription likewise includes admission to Sega Genesis games similar Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe, Contra: Hard Crops, Shining Force and more. Information technology's unclear if Sega Genesis titles also endure from emulation issues.

It's unclear what the source of the poor N64 game performance is, just it seems to be tied to shoddy, lazy emulation and the fact that these are likely ports of the Wii U Virtual Console versions of games. Hopefully, these are problems Nintendo tin can fix considering right now, the additional Switch Online cost to access N64 titles isn't worth information technology.

I've yet to exam out N64 Expansion pack titles, but with these issues in listen, I think I'll likely expect to see if Nintendo irons out the issues. That said, I do have a Switch N64 controller on order, so I'll probably end up checking them out anyways.