Current state of N64 Emulators

I have been using Mupen64plus for years to emulate the N64.  It is the best emulator for Linux.  The user interface left much to be desired and I found parts of the experience frustrating.  It also didn't emulate all games properly.  The project is still active and trying to improve itself.

After making a Windows VM with VGA Passthrough, I decided to give the Windows emulators a try.  I had purchased USB-to-N64 adapters to let me use my original N64 controllers.  These devices worked better in Windows.  Mupen64plus worked better but still had issues in Windows.  I decided to give Project64 a try.

Project64 is a free Windows-only N64 emulator.  The interface is much more user friendly and supports far more games.  As a whole, the product is better than Mupen64plus.  In 2005, the development team decided to rewrite the core emulation engine.  The 1.7 release has been in development since then.  You cannot download the 1.7 version however.  You must donate money to download it.  If it were 2006, I might consider donating money to promote the development of the next version.  Its not though.  It is almost 2013. The main website gives no indication that 1.7 will be delivered faster and better if I donated.  The last update is a year old.  The website still states that as of 2008, they hope to deliver the 1.7 release by 2010.

Although classified as an open source project, the recent source isn't available.  If it were, there is an opportunity to fork the project, if anyone was interested.  Mupen64plus is actually a fork of Mupen64 to add 64bit recompilation support.  I couldn't find the source for a version later than 1.4 of Project64.  You have to dig into the forums to learn that the community is actually still active.  In August of this year, a Google Code site was set up that posted actual source code with issues lists.

At this point, 1.7 is still listed as a beta.  There is no information on the website that tells me what the current advantages are of 1.7 over 1.6.  Is it faster?  Does it support more games?  Is it more accurate?  Does it support network play?  These are the indicators that would tell me to donate money so that I can try out 1.7, and contribute to the community.  From my point of view, Project64 1.6 is still the best N64 emulator available.  I am looking forward to the 1.7 release, but I am not very optimistic.