Sm64ex-coop is amazing! I never got far in super mario 64, the camera gave me headaches. I did know it was a revolutionary game for it's time though.
With sm64ex-coop, you can enable free look with the camera, and if you set it up right it feels just like the camera in many modern games. There are hi-res texture packs (Render96) available that also look amazing. And finally, they added a bunch of mods and features, one major one being the ability to play multiplayer.
Oh yeah, and it's cross-platform, runs on a whole bunch of different devices. I highly recommend checking it out, it's sooo much better than anything you'll get from an emulator.
I suspect it was my age when I first played it but when I play it now I don't feel the camera pain. I know that's the biggest complaint but what exactly is the pain? is it hard to articulate exactly other than it feels like a lack of control?
I was another person who suffered from motion sickness trying to play the original Super Mario 64.
I wish I could tell you what it was - I have played everything under the sun, including VR (in which I was also motion sick), and the closest thing I could come up with is the low FOV combined with the automatic movement of the camera.
I think it's similar for people who get car sick as a passenger, but not a driver.
Heck yeah, this sounds fantastic. Are you able to give me any pointers in a response or DM on how to move forward with getting it all set up? My wife never had a 64 so she never got to experience the game. Ideally, we'd play it together each of us on our Steam Decks. I've bought All Stars or whatever it's called on the Switch but the prospect of us playing through the game together almost like a couch Co OP experience is extremely enticing. Obviously, you're not responsible for me figuring everything out so if there's a good forum or even video link discussing it, I'd be most appreciative.
It's been a few years since I tried it out but I think following these instructions on an Ubuntu machine worked without any problems. From there you just copy the binary to your Deck and add it as a non-Steam game as normal (making sure to use the Linux runtime rather than Proton).
And then of course there's the oblkgitory Ship of Harkinian for my Ocarina of Time fans, which is probably the most feature-complete PC port of an N64 game ever.