YouTube user runs Nintendo 64 emulator on Android Wear

A YouTube user calling himself Hacking Jules has gotten a Nintendo 64 emulator working on the LG G Watch Android wearable. In a video, he demonstrates how Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time run on the smartwatch’s 1.65″ screen.

In the video you can see that the multiple buttons that come with a Nintendo 64 game take up a nice part of the screen. When multiple inputs have to be supplied at the same time, half of the screen is quickly hidden behind Hacking Jules’ fingers. The G Watch has a single-core Snapdragon 400 from Qualcomm that runs at 1.2GHz and 512MB of RAM.

The performance seems to be quite good. The fps looks lower than a real Nintendo 64, but not so low that it looks unplayable. However, the image stutters here and there. In the video, Jules makes it to the field on Bob-Omb Battlefield where Chain Chomp is holed up. Jules perishes because of him. His demonstration of Ocarina of Time also looks quite playable. He manages to move player character Link through the beginning of Kokiri Forest relatively easily and again with a reasonable fps.

In another short video, Jules demonstrates that he also got a PSP emulator working on the same wearable. The PSP is clearly more powerful than the Nintendo 64 and the difference in processing power between the two gaming systems is clearly more than the LG G Watch can handle. The game Jules is playing, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, does not look playable due to the low fps. Hacking Jules provides no further information on how users can try this themselves on their Android Wear smartwatch.