Renaissance feels like it’s on the home stretch. This one was really hard to keep quiet. I’m really glad to finally share it. Can’t wait for you all to try them on the 11th!

How to get them: Included with the core kit at no extra charge in the September 11 drop, noon CDT. Already have a kit, or only need gears? $16 per set.

These have been in the hands of speedrunners and other community testers for a while. I’ll let them share their own thoughts, but I want to thank them as I would not have gotten here without their time, testing, and feedback. Also big thank you to @gamrjerome for the amazing photos here.

For this run I measured 10% of production. That’s a lot of sampling, but I wanted the data. Critical dimensions are on the called ranges, with standard deviations of 0.015 mm or less.

These will not turn a random pile of parts into a perfect module by themselves. Tightness, smoothness, and consistency still work against one another. I designed these to feel smooth and tight. Getting consistency still takes tuning, same as today. Gold plastic is not a golden ticket.

Why the gold color? That’s the polymer, PEEK. It’s a high-performance plastic with the self-lubricating feel people like from OEM, plus much better creep and wear resistance in these thin sections. My calculations put life at about 4× OEM in a stock module and about 10× in a full Renaissance module.

First, performance. Same module, three benches. 1st image is brand-new OEM gears. Those barely exist anymore, and when they do you’re usually buying a whole mint controller for hundreds. 2nd is a random Renaissance set pulled from the pile, dropped in, no cherry picking. Already near OEM. 3rd is that same set after some tuning. On par with OEM. Small differences exist. That is the point: new-OEM-like performance for a fraction of the price.

After 3 years of work, I’m excited to introduce Renaissance Gears for the N64. What they are and how they perform, a 🧵.

Renaissance feels like it’s on the home stretch. This one was really hard to keep quiet. I’m really glad to finally share it. Can’t wait for you all to try them on the 11th!