Last time I tried it booted fine,but it was ages ago. I will extract the WAD from my Wii to test with current revisions...
EDIT: yes, tested in 4.0.2 and in 4.0-595 and Paper Mario 64 indeed works. However, the problem is creating the save file: with some games (right now I remember of Super Smash Bros Brawl and now Paper Mario 64), Dolphin seems to freeze while the game is creating the save file, which isn't the case.
Something with Dolphin and these games seems to make the save file creation much more slower than on a real Wii. To boot Paper Mario 64, first delete your save folder (for the USA version of Paper Mario it's the folder User\Wii\title\00010001\4e414545\data) and then boot the game. It'll show the "You need a classic controller" message and then freeze with FPS 0 and VPS 0 but it didn't freeze, don't stop the emulation or close Dolphin, just wait around 5 minutes (the save file is being created) and after that time the game will continue just fine. If you stop the emulation or close Dolphin in the meantime, then on the next boot you'll get the "Save data is corrupt message"...
So, to get Paper Mario 64 working, delete its save folder (if it already exist), boot the WAD, after the "You need a classic controller" message Dolphin will freeze, don't do anything, after around 5 minutes the game will continue just fine... The same occur with Super Smash Bros Brawl for me, Dolphin freezes for around 5-10 minutes during save file creation but after that everything works well
EDIT: yes, tested in 4.0.2 and in 4.0-595 and Paper Mario 64 indeed works. However, the problem is creating the save file: with some games (right now I remember of Super Smash Bros Brawl and now Paper Mario 64), Dolphin seems to freeze while the game is creating the save file, which isn't the case.
Something with Dolphin and these games seems to make the save file creation much more slower than on a real Wii. To boot Paper Mario 64, first delete your save folder (for the USA version of Paper Mario it's the folder User\Wii\title\00010001\4e414545\data) and then boot the game. It'll show the "You need a classic controller" message and then freeze with FPS 0 and VPS 0 but it didn't freeze, don't stop the emulation or close Dolphin, just wait around 5 minutes (the save file is being created) and after that time the game will continue just fine. If you stop the emulation or close Dolphin in the meantime, then on the next boot you'll get the "Save data is corrupt message"...
So, to get Paper Mario 64 working, delete its save folder (if it already exist), boot the WAD, after the "You need a classic controller" message Dolphin will freeze, don't do anything, after around 5 minutes the game will continue just fine... The same occur with Super Smash Bros Brawl for me, Dolphin freezes for around 5-10 minutes during save file creation but after that everything works well
Avell A70 MOB: Core i7-11800H, GeForce RTX 3060, 16 GB DDR4-3200, Windows 11 (Insider Preview)
ASRock Z97M OC Formula: Pentium G3258, GeForce GT 440, 16 GB DDR3-1600, Windows 10 (22H2)
ASRock Z97M OC Formula: Pentium G3258, GeForce GT 440, 16 GB DDR3-1600, Windows 10 (22H2)