Super Mario 64 PC port modders are improving the game’s graphics

The PC modding community has added improved visual elements to the recently-released unofficial Super Mario 64 PC port.

Released last month, the unofficial Super Mario 64 PC port was made possible by a 2019 recompilation project which saw fans reverse engineer the game’s source code.

The DirectX 12-powered port allows players to run Mario 64 natively on PC, and enables fans to mod individual elements like those seen in recent videos by YouTube user Unreal.

Since Mario 64 PC was released in May, fans have implemented a new modern Mario model, improved the game’s textures via AI upscaling and added an alternative set of textures created by hand.

As reported in May, it’s also possible to implement ray-tracing in Mario 64 via the third-party Reshade app.

Shortly after its release, Nintendo acted against sites hosting the fan-made Super Mario 64 PC port.

Publication Torrent Freak reported that links to download the executable had begun disappearing from file-hosting sites.

The action was reportedly taken by US-based law firm Wildwood Law Group LLC, a company known to work with Nintendo in its efforts to suppress the availability of modding tools.

Despite the action, the Mario 64 PC executable is still being actively shared on some social media sites, despite a commitment to suppressing it by some platforms such as Reddit.