Fancy lighting: Super Mario 64 is modded to support ray tracing

If you want to play Super Mario 64 in this day and age, you have options. You can boot up your Nintendo 64, hunt down a copy of Super Mario 64 DS, or play the emulated version on Super Mario 3D All-Stars. Or, if you’re savvy like modder Darío, you can purchase an RTX 3090 and add ray tracing to the game.

Super Mario 64 with ray tracing is a mix of polygonal textures and modern lighting effects

Have a look at Darío’s modification to Super Mario 64 below, which showcases Wet-Dry World:

I didn’t think I would dig textures from 1996 combining with fancy shadows, lighting, and water effects, but I was wrong! The reflections in the ocean are gorgeous, and fireballs burn quite bright.

You can see more of Darío’s work on their Twitter, like this peek at the basement area:

Things are starting to calm down at last and I'm catching up with some pending work. It's gonna take a while to get back into making more progress. Thank you all for your patience.

In the meantime, this is how the basement area was looking before I had to take a break. pic.twitter.com/NPlcQsW8jY

— Darío (@dariosamo) January 21, 2021

The clash of styles actually works to make beautiful graphics!

Hopefully, Darío will continue to modify the Nintendo 64 classic and add impressive graphical upgrades to more areas. Personally, I’d love to see them take a crack at Cool, Cool Mountain, as that is my favorite level.

Enthusiasts, would you have a go at Super Mario 64 with ray tracing enabled? Let us know in the comment field below.

[Source, /Via]