Last week, a video was released that demonstrated a major performance increase in certain areas of Mario 64, if you recompile the code with optimizations turned on.
Modern Vintage Gamer just did a full analysis of the situation and came to the conclusion that Nintendo didn’t make a “mistake”, they just did the best they could, with what they had access to at the time. Definitely check the video out if you’re interested though, as MVG did a great job walking us through everything and demonstrating the differences.
Also, my point in the original post still stands: The reverse engineering of Mario 64 was an incredible achievement and something the team should be incredibly proud of!
EverDrive 64 X7
$239.00Development cartridge for N64 UltraCIC III with region auto detection. Supports both PAL and NTSC systems. Supports .nes ROM format via built-in emulator. USB port for development.
(as of June 5, 2023 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)