Uploaded August 2021 | Updated September 2026, 9 hours ago
This video showcases a piece of vintage N64 homebrew that I think deserves more recognition.
One of Kaze's recent videos got me thinking about playing MP3s on N64, and I was reminded of Namp64.
Namp64, by Obsidian, is an mp3 player for your N64, from 1999. I had tried to use Namp64 in the past and hadn't been able to get it working. I've been playing around with it again however, and I think I've mostly got the hang of using it now. Although it's quite a basic player, it lets you add MP3 and MP2 files into an N64 rom and play them back on console.
People have been releasing albums intended to be played on old game consoles for some time now: retrorgb.com/?s=remute
However, I'm not aware of anyone having yet released an album on an N64 cart. Every now and again I'll come across a comment from someone expressing interest in the idea (such as in the comments of Kaze's video).
To me, Namp64 seems to be an 'off the shelf' solution to make such a thing possible - easy, even. Of course, this would be a pretty rough and ready way of going about it, and the album would need to be pretty short.
It's tricky getting Namp64 to play MP3s, so I instead converted my audio into MP2 files in Audacity first. Namp64 seems to handle MP2s way more reliably than MP3s. Namp64 gives you about 30MB of space to play with before it starts cutting off the audio at the end, which is quite constraining. I get about 17 minutes of mp2 audio saved at 128kbps before I reach the limit. Also, don't forget to byteswap the rom before you start adding your music, that's where I had been going wrong previously.
So yeah, I think Namp64 is pretty cool. You can get it from here: nesworld.com/article.php?system=n64&data=n64homebrew
If you want to play this particular 'mixtape' I made on your own N64, you can download the rom from here: mega.nz/file/OKwEjJSS#zm-udvlDoLVZQsv3gJup2S3jpFmqcgKyTGT8AiqoLrc
And yes, I know the 64drive has a built-in MP3 player. But playing music from an actual rom (which could be put on a physical cartridge) is just cool, you know?
Edit 27/12/2021:
Well, what do you know? Now there is an album coming out on N64 next year: retrorgb.com/remute-launches-n64-album-interview.html
This video showcases a piece of vintage N64 homebrew that I think deserves more recognition.
One of Kaze's recent videos got me thinking about playing MP3s on N64, and I was reminded of Namp64.
Namp64, by Obsidian, is an mp3 player for your N64, from 1999. I had tried to use Namp64 in the past and hadn't been able to get it working. I've been playing around with it again however, and I think I've mostly got the hang of using it now. Although it's quite a basic player, it lets you add MP3 and MP2 files into an N64 rom and play them back on console.
People have been releasing albums intended to be played on old game consoles for some time now: retrorgb.com/?s=remute
However, I'm not aware of anyone having yet released an album on an N64 cart. Every now and again I'll come across a comment from someone expressing interest in the idea (such as in the comments of Kaze's video).
To me, Namp64 seems to be an 'off the shelf' solution to make such a thing possible - easy, even. Of course, this would be a pretty rough and ready way of going about it, and the album would need to be pretty short.
It's tricky getting Namp64 to play MP3s, so I instead converted my audio into MP2 files in Audacity first. Namp64 seems to handle MP2s way more reliably than MP3s. Namp64 gives you about 30MB of space to play with before it starts cutting off the audio at the end, which is quite constraining. I get about 17 minutes of mp2 audio saved at 128kbps before I reach the limit. Also, don't forget to byteswap the rom before you start adding your music, that's where I had been going wrong previously.
So yeah, I think Namp64 is pretty cool. You can get it from here: nesworld.com/article.php?system=n64&data=n64homebrew
If you want to play this particular 'mixtape' I made on your own N64, you can download the rom from here: mega.nz/file/OKwEjJSS#zm-udvlDoLVZQsv3gJup2S3jpFmqcgKyTGT8AiqoLrc
And yes, I know the 64drive has a built-in MP3 player. But playing music from an actual rom (which could be put on a physical cartridge) is just cool, you know?
Edit 27/12/2021:
Well, what do you know? Now there is an album coming out on N64 next year: retrorgb.com/remute-launches-n64-album-interview.html
