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Finding the BEST sine function for Nintendo 64

Kaze Emanuar · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Software performance & optimizationGame programming & enginesGame history & retro gaming

What it is

Kaze Emanuar searches for the best sine approximation for the Nintendo 64, comparing the lookup tables in Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time with polynomial alternatives. It walks through numerics and 3rd, 4th and 5th order approximations.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Cited in discussions of sine implementations and whether lookup tables beat computation on memory-bound hardware.

  • 2 people recommended it
  • 2 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2023, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “You might also find this video interesting”

    N64 sine optimization

    eska, 2024-03 · Recommendation · in “How do computers calculate sine?”

  2. “This guy puts a lot of work into figuring out if there is a faster way to do trig calcs on the N64”

    Faster N64 trig than SM64 used

    qingcharles, 2024-08 · Recommendation · in “SNES Coprocessors: DSP-1 and Friends”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: nintendo 64, mario 64, trigonometry, optimization, lookup tables

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