Corn (emulator)

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Corn is a software emulator for the Nintendo 64 (N64) games console targeting x86 computers running Microsoft Windows. Corn was developed by a programmer using the alias ContraSF.

[edit] Features and Compatibility

When Corn was released in 1999 it became renowned for being one of the highest performance N64 emulators available. This exceptional performance is reputedly attributed to the use of fully static recompilation of the MIPS instruction code for N64 programs to the native x86 instructions of Corns target platform. High performance was also achieved through the use of High-level emulation (HLE) techniques. A limited overview of the technical features, and goals of Corn can be found in an interview with ContraSF.^[1]

Corn's compatibility with N64 programs was highly limited, and Corn was initially only optimised for Mario 64. While other games would run with Corn, there were often emulation inaccuracies and other major problems. This lack of compatibility is due to a combination of:

• The limitations of HLE techniques; which can require significant new code to be written for each original game title to be supported.
• The challenge of statically recompiling a binary program from one computer architecture to another.
• An apparently limited development life after initial release.^[2]

[edit] Current status

The last official release of Corn was version 0.29. However, a beta version of Corn 0.30 was leaked onto the Internet, allegedly after a fraudulent e-mail claiming to be from ContraSF asked one of the beta testers to release the program.^[3]

After the leaked 0.30 release, development of corn halted and there is little information about any further development progress or the status of ContraSF.

[edit] References