Mupen64plus is really slow. What am I doing wrong?
 

Project64 runs Nintendo 64 games perfectly on windows. (If you don't limit the FPS it will run into the 400 to 500 FPS).

My PC has more than enough hardware to run a Nintendo 64 emulator.

Its got:

3 GHZ single core CPU.
1 GB DDR3 RAM.
512 MB Nvidia video card.

Yet with Mupen64plus I only get 5 to 10 frames per second.

I am using puppy linux with the correct drivers. All my other video hungry programs run just fine.

I managed to get Project64 running using wine but the frames per second were not much better.

It is using...

The OpenGL video plugin.
320x240 gameplay resolution.
Dynamic recompiler

What version of mupen ? I would try the older 1.5, because the newer one is unusual.

I was using the latest but I just tested the 1.5 version of Mupen64plus.

It runs faster but its still unplayable.

glxinfo shows that directrendering is being used.

I had to use the Rice Video plugin because for some strange reason the TR64 OpenGL plugin just shows a white blank screen and the program hangs.

I have SDL and Mesa installed and operational.

I even tried running it threw a terminal and it didn't show any errors.

Perhaps if the TR64 OpenGL plugin worked than it would be playable. :-/

I use the Rice video plugin (it does use opengl), and it works fine. Try to go into the settings and choose all the fast settings, like:
color buffer depth 16
enable SSE
disable fog
Texture filter = nearest
no texture enhancement

I have noticed that it gets laggy in some games in some areas (usually with heavy rendering).

You can also mess with the rest of the settings.

Yeah I already had all those settings.

It still runs at around 15 to 20 frames per second. :-(

I am trying to run Zelda Ocarina of Time.

I'd hate to have to boot back into windows just to play my old N64 games. :-(

Interesting, because that game runs perfectly for me. It's actually the only game that runs without issues. It is odd that this is the case for you.

You don't mention exactly which nvidia card you have ... which one ? Did you install the latest drivers ? Be careful when installing mesa, because it will override libs that the nvidia driver installs.

I fixed the problem.

I updated the drivers from the Nvidia website instead of using the drivers puppy linux recommended. O.o

It still lags a little bit with some games but most run just fine.