This is aimed at people who are new to Project64 or emulators in general.

If you just accept the following advice as coming from a friend who knows a lot more about the emulator than you (that's me :p), you'll have an easier time of things :) You may think some of these options are obvious but they all have side effects that you cannot possibly guess! (and which i'll go into in depth elsewhere in this manual). All the default settings of Project64 are very carefully chosen to be (already) correct for the majority of people. Change them at your peril...

• Don't change plugins! If you change plugins, you change the emulator, and if you change the emulator, I can't help you.
• Don't uncheck "Hide Advanced Settings" in the application or the video plugin. This simple step will keep you away from most of the things you could mess up!
• Don't start using cheat codes straight away - they can cause crashes.

...until you have some experience with the emulator!

All you need to configure to start with are your current input plugin (where you set up your controls), the main tab of your current  video plugin (where you set resolutions), and the Options tab if you wish.