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[D.Lo]

Italia64 your off TV shots don't really help any more than emulator shots do. You clearly love the N64 and are seeing it all through that lens, and are all over the place in your positions.

The PS1 was an older console but it was a balanced system with less bottlenecks than the N64. The N64 had unified ram, but it had to go through the GPU for the CPU to access, and both can't access the memory at the same time. This led to a lot of waiting time for both processors while the PS1 enjoyed a separate but simple memory system. Another large issue with the N64 is the size of the game limitations. The largest size is about 64MB while the PS1 enjoyed 700MB of storage. The PCB were also super expensive to make and took a huge size of the game cost while CDs were pretty much free for publishers per game.

The PS1 processors ran at 1/3 the speed of the N64 so in that aspect the N64 destroyed the PS1 but it only showed in a few titles because of the bottlenecks.

That's pretty much it. PS1 was clearly weaker and had generally unstable 3D but was better balanced and combined with having CD most devs could do well on it for 'normal' games (ie not pushing tech boundaries) and preferred it. And it got the vast majority of Japanese developers' efforts, so the genres they excelled at like fighting games it dominated with.

I would say more than a few titles showed the power gulf though, there are maybe 50 N64 titles which the PS1 could not handle any version of without massive compromise (eg being completely mangled like Rayman 2 or Shadowman), mostly big 3D world games like first person shooters and free roaming 3D games like platformers. N64 just had a whole other level of 3D game design possible on it. Whereas I think with effort pretty much any PS1 game could be done on the N64. It might be blurry instead of pixely, and depending on cart size would have lower quality audio and FMV (or no FMV or voices), but from my experience no PS1 levels or gameplay items could not be done on N64.

 

[nkarafo]

Considering how much debate there is in this thread about texture quality, I guess so? That's one aspect how how the consoles compete. We're not talking about a pure "power level" here, there's pros and cons for each machine.

Again, emulator shots can be used to back up points being made. The thread isn't about emulator shots, and nobody is claiming it should be. I'm not sure why people have such a difficult time wrapping their heads around points being brought up as supporting evidence, not as a direct debating point.

I agree with this.

Emulators only improve resolution and overall image quality. But they can be used to compare polygons or textures since these don't get improved.

Having said that, Banjo-Kazooie was not a slouch with texturing:

 

[Timu]

When I do pics it's only direct feed from the console itself.

Though I appreciate the discussions about what games are pushing on hardware.

 

[Ataru]

If you compare the best looking games for each system you can tell that

1 - The PS1 has better textures.

2 - The N64 can move more polygons.

That Sony marketing... because I still believe to this day that Sony was the more powerful console and could push more polygons.

 

[nkarafo]

That Sony marketing... because I still believe to this day that Sony was the more powerful console and could push more polygons.

There's one game that easily proves this is false and that's World Driver Championship.

But like i said, most N64 developers were "forced" to use many crippling features that reduced the amount of polygons a game would have.

 

[Electret]

Watch this video I recorded.

Watch it on 1080p
https://youtu.be/ycIyTqoWpsY

It much more near to a PS2 game than s PS1 one. Look how crispy that textures are and how everything is mind-blowing.

Oh man, Carrington Defense. That's a hard mission on perfect agent. Probably took my about twenty times to beat that darn thing. Key is to save your combat boosts once you start heading down to defuse the bomb.

 

[nordique]

It doesn't take an expert to look at a spec sheet and see the N64 was more powerful

But it should have ended up looking more powerful than it did however it was constrained and limited by some pretty stupid design choices, which have been laid out in this thread already

Had those restrictions not been there, I think we would have seen a more pronounced difference between the two system. Much more pronounced.

 

[nkarafo]

Here are some Banjo-Kazooie shots that show how easy it was for the N64 to move large 3D environments with no fog (and the frame rate is stable 30fps during these moments).

You can find many spots in all levels and rotate the camera so you can see the whole areas. Everything looks so busy and detailed. And you can explore every single corner with no loading. There's simply nothing on the PS1 or Saturn that comes close to this particular game.

Sure, Crash games come close when it comes to textures and detail at any given moment but these games are not as big or "free-roaming" as this. Banjo is almost like a sandbox game that allows you to go everywhere you can see with complete control of the camera.

Banjo-Tooie was even more impressive, although the frame rate wasn't as stable as it is with the first game.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I haven't seen one PS1 game that looks as good as Mario 64 and that's a lunch title

Pikmin was much better at being a lunch title.

On-topic: Did any PS1 games have fog as bad as Quest 64? N64 had a serious fog problem. Or maybe what my young mind remembers as "fog" is "really bad draw distance".

 

[nkarafo]

On-topic: Did any PS1 games have fog as bad as Quest 64? N64 had a serious fog problem.

The console can't have this problem. Individual games have this problem. See Banjo-Kazooie above. If it was a "console" problem this game shouldn't exist.

Also look at this comparison in Space Station: Silicon Valley:

N64:

PS1:

Is that bad enough?

And btw, Quest 64 doesn't really suffer from bad draw distance. It's mostly empty, ugly, low poly environments. But it allows you to see far enough.

 

[nkarafo]

Here's a demonstration of Conker's shadow:

Look how it interacts with all surfaces and not just the floor. Also, it's a proper real time shadow of the actual 3D model.

I have never seen something similar on the PS1. This is something that became a standard on the next gen machines.

 

[c0de]

This is almost as misleading as the fight for the best system with PS3 and 360 - comparing exclusives leads to nothing.
Who knows how a 360 Uncharted would've looked? Or a Halo on PS3? Where would they look worse? Nobody knows.
The best you can do is compare multiplatform games and even that is misleading as you never know how much effort went into one system.
Both systems have games that the other system was not able to do and I think that is basically it.

 

[HeelPower]

Yeah DewPrism is an exceptionally good looking PS1 game, one of the best.

Threads of fate is so underrated.

It has some rock solid ARPG gameplay.The performance and visuals of this game are solid and clean.

Its one of the most timeless PS1 fully 3D games.

 

[nkarafo]

A couple of WDC images i took via emulation (PJ64 and GlideN64 are finally good enough to emulate this game)

 

[DarkoMaledictus]

I haven't seen one PS1 game that looks as good as Mario 64 and that's a lunch title

The problem is Mario 64 was the pinnacle of the N64 and also a launch title. Still holds up to this day, but can't say I have any other game I would care to replay today from the N64

 

[D.Lo]

This is almost as misleading as the fight for the best system with PS3 and 360 - comparing exclusives leads to nothing.
Who knows how a 360 Uncharted would've looked? Or a Halo on PS3? Where would they look worse? Nobody knows.
The best you can do is compare multiplatform games and even that is misleading as you never know how much effort went into one system.
Both systems have games that the other system was not able to do and I think that is basically it.

Some of that is true, but these two systems are much more different. One is vastly more powerful on a core level, and (with expansion) had almost triple the RAM, though it had a badly bottlenecked design. They had wildly different libraries because they were so different.

The primary advantage of the Playstation was CD which has nothing to do with its graphical capabilities - some games were better on PS1 because of CD, but that's not about power, just storage.

And also there's what I mentioned in my last post - I believe no PS1 games could not have been done on N64 technically, but many N64 games could not have been done on PS1. Heck even games that heavily relied on the CD format could be done with a larger cart and compression (see Resident Evil 2). Whereas realistically every PS3 game could have been done on 360 with little change, and vice versa.

A couple of WDC images i took via emulation (PJ64 and GlideN64 are finally good enough to emulate this game)

Kind of crazy. They look very Dreamcast-y.

Actually one of the reasons I enjoyed the Dreamcast was it felt a lot like a beefed up N64 with CD. Because it straddled the generations (and only had one analogue stick) it had the 32/64 bit gen game design paradigms hanging around.

I played Rayman 2 through on Dreamcast, it's basically a straight port but is a fantastic looking Dreamcast game just by having double the resolution and cleaner textures.

 

[nkarafo]

And also there's what I mentioned in my last post - I believe no PS1 games could not have been done on N64 technically, but many N64 games could not have been done on PS1. Heck even games that heavily relied on the CD format could be done with a larger cart and compression (see Resident Evil 2).

Imagine there was a project where all the best looking games from one console would be ported to the other.

I believe that sacrifices would have to be made on both consoles. But i also believe that N64 games on the PS1 would have to suffer the biggest hit.

Most PS1 games to N64 would have to suffer downgrades due to compression. Compressed audio, compressed FMVs and compressed textures. That's mostly because of the smaller carts (lets say 64MB max) and the small texture cache. But other than that, everything else would be the same (or better).

But N64 games ported on the PS1 would have to downgrade their core design, cut down the size of the levels, etc. For instance, Banjo-Kazooie levels would have to be smaller with less objects and shorter draw distance. Not only for the console to handle the game and make it fit in the smaller RAM but also to reduce loading times. The dynamic music would also have to be replaced with something else as well, probably. The bigger 3D objects like the pyramid or the Rusty bucket bay ship would have to be smaller because the PS1 can't handle big surfaces as easily as the N64. It would have to use tons of extra polygons just to keep them from warping like crazy.

So you would end up with a Banjo port with cut down levels, smaller structures, shorter draw distance, loading times but cleaner textures and audio.

 

[D.Lo]

Imagine there was a project where all the best looking games from one console would be ported to the other.

I believe that sacrifices would have to be made on both consoles. But i also believe that N64 games on the PS1 would have to suffer the biggest hit.

Most PS1 to N64 games would suffer downgrades due to compression. Compressed audio, compressed FMVs and compressed textures. That's mostly because of the smaller carts (lets say 64MB max) and the small texture cache. But other than that, everything else would be the same (or better).

But games ported on the PS1 would have to downgrade their core design, cut down the size of the levels, etc. For instance, Banjo-Kazooie levels would have to be smaller with less objects and shorter draw distance. Not only for the console to handle the game and make it fit in the tiny RAM but also to reduce loading times. The dynamic music would also had to be replaced with something else as well, probably. The bigger 3D objects like the pyramid or the Rusty bucket bay ship would have to be smaller because the PS1 can't handle big surfaces as easily as the N64. It would have to use tons of extra polygons just to keep them from warping like crazy.

So you would end up with a Banjo port with cut down levels, smaller structures, shorter draw distance, loading times but better textures and cleaner audio.

Yeah exactly my point. The primary difference between the consoles was not just polygon counts and textures, but how their abilities combined to render 3D environments, and as a result of that, what kind of games were possible.

The N64 had whole other gameplay types available due to its superior ability to render large 3D worlds. The PS1 really had no graphical advantages that opened up new gameplay possibilities, but what it did have was access to lots of storage on CDs, so it was superior at FMV, streaming audio, big jpegs for all the pre-rendered background games etc.

 

[c0de]

Some of that is true, but these two systems are much more different. One is vastly more powerful on a core level, and (with expansion) had almost triple the RAM, though it had a badly bottlenecked design. They had wildly different libraries because they were so different.

Of course you have to leave out any expansions. The fact that Factor 5 had to reverse engineer "fixed function" units to apply their own code is really something that to this day sounds completely crazy about the architecture of the N64.

The primary advantage of the Playstation was CD which has nothing to do with its graphical capabilities - some games were better on PS1 because of CD, but that's not about power, just storage.

Don't forget 2d games - they look leagues better than N64 games, due to the fact that the sprites are not filtered. But yes, that doesn't have anything to do with power.

And also there's what I mentioned in my last post - I believe no PS1 games could not have been done on N64 technically, but many N64 games could not have been done on PS1. Heck even games that heavily relied on the CD format could be done with a larger cart and compression (see Resident Evil 2). Whereas realistically every PS3 game could have been done on 360 with little change, and vice versa.

I think, and that really is a strange comparison, but Tomb Raider is doing a *lot* of stuff on screen and even more than Indiana Jones which was done by the N64-whistlers Factor 5. This would've been an interesting case to study but sadly Sony invested in an exclusivity deal so N64 never saw a port.
The other thing is that generally, games looked worse on the N64 - not only because of fog but perhaps because it was harder for devs to squeeze out polys out of the system whereas it seemed to be easier with PSX. N64 had many games looking very blocky, in my opinion.
In the end, N64 would have an easier time running PSX games while a Mario 64 would never be possible on a PSX, that is quite clear.

 

[Kysuke]

Well I never said one was better than the other, rather there were games on the PSone that held up, and many of those games were helped by FMVs and prerendered backgrounds. You sound a bit insecure, don't worry I am not dogging the N64.

Dude don't mind him. He's using a screenshot of a PC emulated version versus a scan from gamespot

 

[nkarafo]

I think, and that really is a strange comparison, but Tomb Raider is doing a *lot* of stuff on screen and even more than Indiana Jones which was done by the N64-whistlers Factor 5. This would've been an interesting case to study but sadly Sony invested in an exclusivity deal so N64 never saw a port.

IMO, Shadowman is doing more than both games. And both consoles have ports to compare.

Spoiler

N64 one is better.

Also, don't forget that Tomb Raider had a shorter draw distance than both Indiana Jones and Shadowman, especially on the more open areas. And both Indy and Shadowman dealt with larger outdoor areas as well as indoor "tomb" areas.

 

[Italia64]

Oh man, Carrington Defense. That's a hard mission on perfect agent. Probably took my about twenty times to beat that darn thing. Key is to save your combat boosts once you start heading down to defuse the bomb.

That mission was a pain in the ass the first times. I used the best for the hostages and the invisibility for the last part. It works pretty good

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This video is perfect for understand Conker's Bad Fur Day dynamic shadows and lighting. Stare at the Conker's shadow in the disco. Amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUQ1kIzNd5w

Both consoles had their strong points. Back in days was very expensive to do some things with the N64 so nobody made them. Today N64 can do everything PS can do, but it's too late, so who cares?

Look at this FMV running on N64 hardware:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmEMmZ6FUSg

With nowdays costs and know-how you can port the whole PS1 library on N64 without compromises, while you can't do the contrary. But what matters is what is happened back in days, and PS1 was much better in sounds (only few N64 games didn't show compromises in sound department), FMVs, prerendered backgrounds games, average textures quality, etc.

N64 was considerably better in 3D graphics department, when the games were pushed. Rare, Factor 5, Boss Studios, Iguana and very few others made some things that are simply too much for the PS1 capabilities.


I'm not a fanboy, I can recognise the PS1 strong points, and I can also recognise a lot of other things where PS1 was better in the library departement.


It's just that this is impossible for PS1:

I quote myself

Conker's Bad Fur Day graphical analysis
- flawless draw distance
- some textures are unmatched
- amazing dynamic shadows who follows different lights, surfaces, stairs, walls, etc.
- dynamic lighting in every single centimeter of game, sometimes tons of different dynamic lighting at the same time
- multilayered transparencies
- mirrored surfaces which reflex everything
- ears animation
- fantastic elaborated tail animation which follows movement and sensations of the character
- facial animation, Conker's perfectly textured blended eyes moves and look everywhere, Conker has tons of different facial expressions in-game and during cut-scenes
- lip synch unmatched in that generation
- clothes animations
- motion blur
- NPC characters with tons of animations and lip synched
- environment animations
- water physics (in War stage)
-smooth frame rate (only occasional drops but every reviewer agrees that are never annoying)
- free cameras

And much more.

Add the game doesn't show not ever one cartridge limit (more than two hours of speeches, tons of sounds effects, amazing variety of musics, Dolby Surround, etc.) and you don't have loading times.
Conker is not only the best graphics game of the gen, it's also technically the best game of the gen.

And I didn't even describe every detail. Conker graphical features literally deserve a dedicated description for each level. I never manage to play it without noticing some new amazing features.

Only people very ignorant in matter of graphics can think that N64 doesn't have the best graphics of the entire generation.

Look this video after 5m30s and you will see all the effects on screen at the same time:
https://youtu.be/J-2UuMSzPro

 

[nkarafo]

FMVs isn't something special, they just take a lot of space. The N64 can do them fine but where the hell are you going to store them? It's much more preferable to ditch them completely and fill the carts with actual content.

I never cared about FMVs, in fact i was glad the N64 didn't have them. RE2 having them was a gimmick for me, i could care less.

 

[Italia64]

FMVs isn't something special, they just take a lot of space. The N64 can do them fine but where the hell are you going to store them? It's much more preferable to ditch them completely and fill the carts with actual content.

I never cared about FMVs, in fact i was glad the N64 didn't have them. RE2 having them was a gimmick for me, i could care less.

I never cared about them too. I always prefered the more refined game engine cut-scenes (luckily even a lot of PS games doesn't use FMV cutscenes).
But for istance, in my ED64 V3 cart I have 32GB of stuff. I mean, you can add all the FMVs you want in a single cart nowdays, and put it in your N64. While back in days it would been exaggeratedly expensive a thing like that.

This is why PS1 was better in several aspects.

 

[Spladam]

Well it's been like a decade since I've read one of these threads, nostalgia....

I can say this, it was a very strange console generation, both machines had some amazing games.
I owned both, the N64 at launch and the PS1 a little later, MGS, FFVII and Gran Turismo 1 and 2 will always be some of my favorites, but I find myself going back to the N64 titles when I want some nostalgia, when I want to play the games of my youth.

Neo Geo, SNES, and N64 still get some use out of me these days, not so much with all the other guys. Well, now that I have Metal Slug on Steam, it's just the SNES and N64 that I go back too.

 

[Randomizer]

FMVs isn't something special, they just take a lot of space. The N64 can do them fine but where the hell are you going to store them? It's much more preferable to ditch them completely and fill the carts with actual content.

I never cared about FMVs, in fact i was glad the N64 didn't have them. RE2 having them was a gimmick for me, i could care less.

Pretty much every developer ditched them in the following gen anyway. They add nothing to most games and are completely shallow and pointless. Kojima didn't need them for MGS. In game models were used and it just feels more cohesive. Although I do have a soft spot for their use in the Final Fantasys as well as Soul Blade's and Tekken 3's openings.

 

[nkarafo]

Check this video of Blast Corps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngSSwxgXQhM

This particular vehicle (Backlash) has a neat looking bump mapping effect going on as it rotates. I don't recall seeing something like this in any game after this, on any 5th gen console.

 

[encephalon]

The thing about RE2 is that it's a small game with a handful of FMV.

Pretty much every developer ditched them in the following gen anyway. They add nothing to most games and are completely shallow and pointless. Kojima didn't need them for MGS. In game models were used and it just feels more cohesive. Although I do have a soft spot for their use in the Final Fantasys as well as Soul Blade's and Tekken 3's openings.

20/21 PS2 games on my shelf use FMV. I'm pretty sure 21/21 do, but I haven't played one of them yet.

 

[D.Lo]

Don't forget 2d games - they look leagues better than N64 games, due to the fact that the sprites are not filtered. But yes, that doesn't have anything to do with power.

IMO nothing on PS1 looks 'leagues better' than Raguka Kids or Yoshi's Story. The filtering is an issue in some games if running in RGB (over composite to a CRT like most people did back then it's mostly moot), it kind of ruins mischief makers. PS1 definitely got more higher quality 2D games in general, but once again that was often storage, since lots of animation frames and background layers take up lots of space (eg Street Fighter 3 and most Metal slug games are bigger than the biggest N64 cart). It was also developer will, PS1 simply had the Japanese support and they were the only ones still doing much 2D.

The other thing is that generally, games looked worse on the N64 - not only because of fog but perhaps because it was harder for devs to squeeze out polys out of the system whereas it seemed to be easier with PSX. N64 had many games looking very blocky, in my opinion.
In the end, N64 would have an easier time running PSX games while a Mario 64 would never be possible on a PSX, that is quite clear.

You can't just say 'games looked worse'. Certainly multi-platform games designed with the PS1 in mind and ported to N64 often did in some ways (Tony Hawk, Mega Man Legends), but if it went the other way (Rayman 2, Shadowman) the PS1 version was usually vastly reduced in scope or looked much worse.

I know what you mean, a lot of N64 games looked kind of bad, burry textures, framerate issues. But I think that's actually because the hardware encouraged developers to be too ambitious, even when they had neither the skill or budget to attempt that. I mean even the South Park game was a fully 3D FPS, probably because the publisher though that was what the N64 market wanted. On PS1 I feel like they didn't try for stuff as ambitious, smaller scale, and so they would often do better with lower ambition. Stuff like 2.5D games, ones with pre-rendered backgrounds, or 'limited' fixed camera 3D stuff. Ironically South Park got a PS1 port that looked and ran even worse...

Pretty much every developer ditched them in the following gen anyway. They add nothing to most games and are completely shallow and pointless. Kojima didn't need them for MGS. In game models were used and it just feels more cohesive. Although I do have a soft spot for their use in the Final Fantasys as well as Soul Blade's and Tekken 3's openings.

Yeah I quite liked getting a FMV 'reward' for completing a section sometimes. But looking back they're often kind of embarrassing.

The thing about RE2 is that it's a small game with a handful of FMV.

it came on two discs dude...

 

[encephalon]

IMO nothing on PS1 looks 'leagues better' than Raguka Kids or Yoshi's Story. The filtering is an issue in some games if running in RGB (over composite to a CRT like most people did back then it's mostly moot), it kind of ruins mischief makers. PS1 definitely got more higher quality 2D games in general, but once again that was often storage, since lots of animation frames and background layers take up lots of space (eg Street Fighter 3 and most Metal slug games are bigger than the biggest N64 cart). It was also developer will, PS1 simply had the Japanese support and they were the only ones still doing much 2D.

You can't just say 'games looked worse'. Certainly multi-platform games designed with the PS1 in mind and ported to N64 often did in some ways (Tony Hawk, Mega Man Legends), but if it went the other way (Rayman 2, Shadowman) the PS1 version was usually vastly reduced in scope or looked much worse.

I know what you mean, a lot of N64 games looked kind of bad, burry textures, framerate issues. But I think that's actually because the hardware encouraged developers to be too ambitious, even when they had neither the skill or budget to attempt that. I mean even the South Park game was a fully 3D FPS, probably because the publisher though that was what the N64 market wanted. On PS1 I feel like they didn't try for stuff as ambitious, smaller scale, and so they would often do better with lower ambition. Stuff like 2.5D games, ones with pre-rendered backgrounds, or 'limited' fixed camera 3D stuff. Ironically South Park got a PS1 port that looked and ran even worse...

Yeah I quite liked getting a FMV 'reward' for completing a section sometimes. But looking back they're often kind of embarrassing.

it came on two discs dude...

I probably am underestimating it solely based on the fact that there's only about 4 hours of content, but there's still a hell of a lot of voice work for the era and you're right - it still ultimately did require Capcom to use 2 discs.

 

[Sayad]

N64 is obviously more powerful, it's just worth pointing out that the same developers who make some of the most impressive technical feats now were doing so 20 years ago too(Rare and Naughty Dogs).

Almost every thing considered impossible on PS1 by Italia64, ND somehow managed to implement or cheat their way through with it on PS1 in Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped 3 years before Concker Bad Fur Day did!

It's just that this is impossible for PS1:

I quote myself

Conker's Bad Fur Day graphical analysis
- flawless draw distance
Not flawless, just impressive use of LOD, something Crash 3 used too, one of very few games that used LOD on PS1

- some textures are unmatched
Crash 3 textures were certainly not any less impressive

- amazing dynamic shadows who follows different lights, surfaces, stairs, walls, etc.
They cheated their way here with animated sprites as shadows but the results were more accurate and cleaner shadows for both crash and NPCs

- dynamic lighting in every single centimeter of game, sometimes tons of different dynamic lighting at the same time
Crash 3 had similar looking dynamic lighting in a lot of places too, nothing short of impressive for its time

- multilayered transparencies
Had this too

- mirrored surfaces which reflex everything
I doubt they reflect everything, still, Crash had reflective surfaces too, think they left out sprites though(like the apples or whatever the fruit you collect in Crash was)

- ears animation
Had this too, lol

- fantastic elaborated tail animation which follows movement and sensations of the character
Technically had this too

- facial animation, Conker's perfectly textured blended eyes moves and look everywhere, Conker has tons of different facial expressions in-game and during cut-scenes
- lip synch unmatched in that generation
Putting both points together, this is funny because Crash 3 had better facial expression and lip synce 3 years before Concker!

- clothes animations
Would need an example, don't remember any cloth animation in Concker!

- motion blur
Crash had cheap poor man's motion blur effect on a static screen during level transitions

- NPC characters with tons of animations and lip synched
Already mentioned

- environment animations
Lots of levels had this in Crash 3 too

- water physics (in War stage)
From what I remember Crash 3 might have had more impressive water surfaces sporting actual deformation with relatively accurate interactions with waves(Wave Racer 64 like waves)

-smooth frame rate (only occasional drops but every reviewer agrees that are never annoying)
Had smoother frame rate!

- free cameras
Didn't have this(lack of second analogue stick and due to how most of the levels are) but you could move the camera around 360 degrees in some open levels by facing any direction

And much more.

All this keeping in mind that Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped came out in 1998 three years before Concker on inferior hardware, and that by the time Concker came out a lot of this stuff were standard tech on superior hardware.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

All this keeping in mind that Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped came out in 1998 three years before Concker on inferior hardware, and that by the time Concker came out a lot of this stuff were standard tech on superior hardware.

That's all pretty cool, but the camera is fixed in Crash 3, therefore ND were able to optimise everything that appears on screen at any one time. Which makes it feel much less impressive than having everything in a third person game with huge levels to explore in any direction or viewpoint.

I think the point is that Conker is doing all those things in tandem - for instance the lip sync is actually using the in-gameplay character models, whereas the video you linked to for Crash isn't. It would be like pointing out that 1996's Super Mario 64 opening screen as offering similar levels of detail. Except the N64 is literally just rendering a face.

But yeah, PS1 is capable of doing cool things with lighting and character models, but you'd never be able to stick them in a game as ambitious as Conker. You have to be careful as to how you implement them - in the case of Crash it's not in actual gameplay or in-game cutscenes taking place right in the game world you're exploring, and the game's always rendering what the developers have chosen to show on-screen due to the linear nature of the gameplay and camera angles. There's two ways of looking at it, basically.

 

[Italia64]

Pretty funny think that a game with on rail camera can be compared to Conker which has completely adjustable camera in much wider environments, and not in linear levels.

Even more funny say that lip sync (??) and animations are better in Crash. But I think that even provide you a graphical comparison you will say that on C3 aren't worse.

Dynamic lighting, shadows and transparencies are simply on another planet. Just look at this video:

https://youtu.be/IUQ1kIzNd5w

Or look here the clothes animations:
https://youtu.be/J-2UuMSzPro

Crash 3 doesn't allow you to do close-ups, if not you would easily notice that textures aren't so good as you think.

I think that only persons ignorant in matter of graphics can think that Crash 3, a game with precalculated visuals, can be at the same level of her majestic CBFD.

Come on guys, stop joking.

 

[Italia64]

The most near thing to Conker Bad Fur Day seen on PSX is Terracon.
But of course everything is yes done, but one step down in every compartment (probably better frame rate on Terracon).

By the way, absurd considerations aside.
Here some very interesting GIFs:

https://media.giphy.com/media/26gsuaV8vUe13J2Ew/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0Exl9ZU0egakkWA0/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/26gsmA5niN0vWe78A/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/26gsqo1sJglof3AXe/giphy.gif

 

[Toadthemushroom]

The fixed camera in Crash 3 certainly makes the "smoother framerate than Conker" point moot. It would be like using the 3DS Kirby games as a benchmark for all other 3DS Kirby games. They run at 60fps while throwing around a lot of effects, but every single screen on that game is optimised for that target, which limits the number of objects rendered, how much of the world you can see at one time, number of on-screen enemies etc etc.

 

[Sayad]

I think the point is that Conker is doing all those things in tandem - for instance the lip sync is actually using the in-gameplay character models, whereas the video you linked to for Crash isn't. It would be like pointing out that 1996's Super Mario 64 opening screen as offering similar levels of detail. Except the N64 is literally just rendering a face.

Spyro did use lips sync with actual character models in a more open game, but being on inferior hardware, this was just way too much more work to do on PS1. Either way I mentioned that they cheated their way through with a lot of this, Crash cheated with facial animation, but lip sync is matching animation with voices, regardless of which had better models, lip sync was more accurate in Crash.

 

[Italia64]

Are we comparing Spyro lip sync with Conker one? Seriously?

On Conker a deaf can understand what he's saying, in Spyro is pretty much basic mouth animation. Come on guys.

 

[Italia64]

Why people want desperately find on PS1 something that can stand in front of Conker. These persons remind me this dude:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda

 

[jett]

Are we comparing Spyro lip sync with Conker one? Seriously?

On Conker a deaf can understand what he's saying, in Spyro is pretty much basic mouth animation. Come on guys.

You really need to tone down your hyperbole.

 

[Sayad]

Pretty funny think that a game with on rail camera can be compared to Conker which has completely adjustable camera in much wider environments, and not in linear levels.

Even more funny say that lip sync and animations are better in Crash. But I think that even provide you a graphical comparison you will say that on C3 aren't worse.

Because C3 lip sync isn't worse, it's better, just simply more accurate.

And remember I was responding to your list of things that are "impossible for PS1", no one arguing the PS1 is more capable, but I guess "is impossible for PS1" became "impossible for PS1 unless it's using on rail camera" now.

And again this a 1998 game on vastly inferior hardware compared to a 2001 game, the same year ND released Jak and Daxter!

 

[Italia64]

You really need to tone down your hyperbole.

Instead of using stupid GIFs I advise people not to trust less informed persons and watch this videos, especially in the middle when Conker speaks a lot with the Scarecrow.

https://youtu.be/QfAlzAfYieA

Look how he closes his mouth and the perfect lip animation. Unmatched.

 

[Sayad]

Are we comparing Spyro lip sync with Conker one? Seriously?

On Conker a deaf can understand what he's saying, in Spyro is pretty much basic mouth animation. Come on guys.

Lmao, guess I should have known what I'm going against here sooner. (￣▽￣&#12301

Instead of using stupid GIFs I advise people not to trust less informed persons and watch this videos, especially in the middle when Conker speaks a lot with the Scarecrow.

https://youtu.be/QfAlzAfYieA

Look how he closes his mouth and the perfect lip animation. Unmatched.

Yep, C3's lip sync is just better: https://youtu.be/sHH9TgawtME?t=2m15s

The smoother framerate make it really stand out too, you're not doing any lip reading at < 20fps, believe me. ;p

 

[c0de]

Instead of using stupid GIFs I advise people not to trust less informed persons and watch this videos, especially in the middle when Conker speaks a lot with the Scarecrow.

https://youtu.be/QfAlzAfYieA

Look how he closes his mouth and the perfect lip animation. Unmatched.

But what does that have to do with power of the system?

 

[Italia64]

Because C3 lip sync isn't worse, it's better, just simply more accurate.

And remember I was responding to your list of things that are "impossible for PS1", no one arguing the PS1 is more capable, but I guess "is impossible for PS1" became "impossible for PS1 unless it's using on rail camera" now.

And again this a 1998 game on vastly inferior hardware compared to a 2001 game, the same year ND released Jak and Daxter!

No man on PS1 is impossible even with on-rail cameras. In fact Crash 3 doesn't reach not even one CBFD feature.

Conker's wins in:

- polygonal models
- dynamic lighting (not even comparable)
- animations (extremely more natural and smooth)
- particular animations like the Conker's tail one
- textures (go near to a Crash 3 crate)
- dynamic shadows
- multilayered transparencies
- lip synch
- enormous enviroments completely explorable
- not precalculated graphics

and much more. And you're saying that Conker is possible for PS1? Come on please.

You won't find that coefficient of graphical features in not even a PS1 game. Crash 3 is two step behind CBFD in every single department, and it's on-rail too.

 

[D.Lo]

Instead of using stupid GIFs I advise people not to trust less informed persons and watch this videos, especially in the middle when Conker speaks a lot with the Scarecrow.

https://youtu.be/QfAlzAfYieA

Look how he closes his mouth and the perfect lip animation. Unmatched.

Dude, you have to stop attacking people. You're working from a clear bias toward N64, they're arguing individual points about certain games' technical achievements, and you think they're saying it proves PS1 was better overall. Relax, we're just having a discussion.

 

[Italia64]

But what does that have to do with power of the system?

Of course it has. Without the N64 power you can't have that level of animations combined with completely explorable 3D worlds and that tons of graphical real-time features. Simple not?

 

[Italia64]

Dude, you have to stop attacking people. they're arguing individual points about certain games' technical achievements, and you think they're saying it proves PS1 was better overall. Relax, we're just having a discussion.

I'm relaxed. I love to talk about CBFD graphics I'm just correcting a bad use of GIF.

GIF unluckily are often used in this kind of threads. I like them and I think are useful...but people mix them with what you actually see on CRT. PS1 games like RRT4 looks absolutely amazing on small GIFs, but when you play them on real TVs you notice how much them lost with wider images the show the trembling, jaggy or pixelated aspects.

I like GIFs but I also know how to interpretate them.

 

[c0de]

Of course it has. Without the N64 power you can't have that level of animations combined with completely explorable 3D worlds and that tons of graphical real-time features. Simple not?

The animation alone has nothing to do with power. That was your argument. Synchronization of lips and speech is just dedication from the devs.

 

[nkarafo]

IMO nothing on PS1 looks 'leagues better' than Raguka Kids or Yoshi's Story. The filtering is an issue in some games if running in RGB (over composite to a CRT like most people did back then it's mostly moot), it kind of ruins mischief makers. PS1 definitely got more higher quality 2D games in general, but once again that was often storage, since lots of animation frames and background layers take up lots of space (eg Street Fighter 3 and most Metal slug games are bigger than the biggest N64 cart). It was also developer will, PS1 simply had the Japanese support and they were the only ones still doing much 2D.

If we are talking about 32 and 64 mb carts then Metal Slug would easily fit. At least the first 2 games. MS3 was 80 something MB iirc.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

...The thread title is not "which system's games look better on an emulator?". Maybe we should have that thread, though, because that would be a question that does not have an objective, factually correct answer...

That would be an interesting thread! Stuff that might be interesting to consider, from a post from earlier in this thread: Link

Nintendo was afraid to allow the custom microcode use, because they was afraid to have PSX looking games. Here's the words of the WDC lead programmer: "...there was always a concern during development that Nintendo would bounce the title if they saw PlayStation like visual artifacts"

Some other posters in this thread had mentioned this issue (see here), but I hadn't seen that statement before, it's very interesting. Thanks for posting it.

After a web search, I read through the B3D thread where Rob Povey (the WDC lead programmer) made that statement. It's very much worth reading, for folks interested in this topic:

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...datory-functions-of-the-hardware-right.53745/
...The main memory [of the N64] had hideous latency, it was organized in 2 banks the idea being that Z would go in one bank and color in the other, in practice that didn't buy you very much, and with Z on fill was very limited. The CPU's small direct mapped cache couple with the poor memory latency was an absolute performance killer. Which is probably why Nintendo went the way they did with [the GameCube]... Yes depth buffering was a big penalty, as I said above the RDRAM was split into two banks, and you were supposed to put the Frame Buffer in one and the ZBuffer in the other, in practice the difference was only about 5 or 10%. We didn't use the ZBuffer for World Driver Championship or Stunt Racer 2K, that coupled with faster uCode [microcode] let us do a lot more visually, there was always a concern during development that Nintendo would bounce the title if they saw playstation like visual artifacts...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_programming_characteristics
...It may be that most Nintendo 64 games are actually fill-rate limited, not geometry limited; thus, there is a variety of possible techniques by which to maximize the fill rate. The RDP's (Reality Drawing Processor) fill rate is significantly affected by the optimizations taken in the microcode used by the developer &#8212; often specifically with Z-buffering. Thus, for maximum performance, the microcode supplied by Nintendo may be replaced by each developer...

We shouldn't forget what Nintendo's own Genyo Takeda said about this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_programming_characteristics
As the Nintendo 64 reached the end of its lifecycle, hardware development chief Genyo Takeda referred to the programming challenges using the word hansei (Japanese: &#21453;&#30465; "reflective regret"). Looking back, Takeda said "When we made Nintendo 64, we thought it was logical that if you want to make advanced games, it becomes technically more difficult. We were wrong. We now understand it's the cruising speed that matters, not the momentary flash of peak power."

Some have speculated that the lack of sufficient &#8216;cruising speed' is the reason Sega of Japan rejected the N64 protoype, after reviewing it:

http://www.sega-16.com/2006/07/interview-tom-kalinske/
Tom Kalinske: ...we all knew that there would come a day when the Genesis would no longer have a life, and we'd have to move on to the next technology... When we started the CD-ROM efforts, clearly those were the early days of using optical discs for video games... we had been contacted by Jim Clark, the founder of SGI (Silicon Graphics Inc.)... We were quite impressed, and we called up Japan and told them to send over the hardware team because these guys really had something cool. So the [Sega of Japan] team arrived, and the senior VP of hardware design arrived, and when they reviewed what SGI had developed, they gave no reaction whatsoever. At the end of the meeting, they basically said that it was kind of interesting, but the chip was too big (in manufacturing terms), the throw-off rate would be too high, and they had lots of little technical things that they didn't like: the audio wasn't good enough; the frame rate wasn't quite good enough, as well as some other issues. So, the SGI guys went away and worked on these issues and then called us back up... This time, Nakayama went with them. They reviewed the work, and there was sort of the same reaction: still not good enough...They had spent all that time and effort on what they thought was the perfect video game chipset, so what were they supposed to do with it? I told them that there were other companies that they should be calling... Needless to say, he did [Clark and Yamauchi apparently met in 'early 1993'], and that chipset became part of the next generation of Nintendo products (N64)...

This was the speculation of one of the posters at the B3D forum, in the same thread where Rob Povey made the above-mentioned statements (about how he coded World Driver Championship):
[QUOTE='swaaye' at the B3D Forum]
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...datory-functions-of-the-hardware-right.53745/
I suppose they [SGI] were breaking new low-cost ground, but it is [still] something that SGI engineered those serious design flaws. Also, considering Sega turned the hardware down... you have to wonder how long it had been stewing...[/QUOTE]

Square's Hiroshi Kawai had significant difficulties when testing the N64's capabilities against the PlayStation, at a time when Square had not yet made the final decision to go with Sony for FF7.

There was communication between Square and Nintendo about these difficulties, and Nintendo took the step of organizing a trip for Square's programmers, to try to address their concerns:

http://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7
...one of my responsibilities ...was to write performance applications that compared how well the 64 fared against the prototype [PlayStation]. And we'd be running parallel comparisons between the [PlayStation] where you'd have a bunch of 2D sprites bouncing off the screen and see how many polygons you could get within a 60th of a second. And even without any kind of texturing or any kind of lighting, it was less than 50% of what you would be able to get out of the [PlayStation]. Of course, the drawback of the [PlayStation] is it didn't really have a z-buffer, so you'd have these overlapping polygons that you'd have to work around so that you wouldn't get the shimmering [look]. But on the other hand, there was no way you'd be able to get anything close to what FF7 was doing [on PlayStation] on the 64 at that time...

There was actually this one trip that [Nintendo] organized for me, [main programmer Ken] Narita-san, a few other lead devs who were working on the battle portion for the Final Fantasy 6 [Siggraph] demo at that point... I think Nintendo had been getting signals from Square saying, you know, ”Your hardware isn't up to snuff. Not only in terms of raw 3D performance, but in terms of storage." And they said, ”We're gonna fabricate this brand new chip," which was supposed to have a bunch of hardware improvements to get a little bit more performance. Which, my suspicion is they probably just repeated that verbatim from SGI [Silicon Graphics, Inc], and I think there was, in general, a disconnect between SGI and Nintendo in terms of what they were expecting the hardware to do... But Nintendo had certain specific performance metrics that had to be met, but I don't think those were communicated well to SGI... We spent a few days, I remember, optimizing my code, to try to get a few more polygons out, but it didn't really make much of a difference...

It would certainly be interesting to discuss what was responsible for the difficulties that Kawai/Square were having: perhaps it was the insufficient information/documentation on how to implement custom microcode, perhaps it was the hardware bottlenecks that were never properly addressed by Silicon Graphics, or perhaps (as was suggested by Kawai himself) it was the lack of clear communication between Nintendo's hardware team and Silicon Graphics.

But I do think it's fair to say that there were some shortcomings in the design/implementation of both the N64 hardware and its larger development &#8216;environment', especially in the early days, which eventually resulted in problems for Nintendo (some of them quite serious). As you and jett discussed (here and here), some competent devs like Psygnosis seem to have had difficulties/limitations similar to the ones discussed by Kawai, even as late as 1998 (when Wipeout 64 was released).

The N64 had a weird architecture full of bottlenecks that made it a pain to get good performance from. The near complete lack of sound hardware, for example, required developers to use precious CPU time and RAM to perform software sound synth and mixing. Nintendo [itself] was really soured with the experience, which made them work hard on making the GC architecture as friendly as possible.

https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/...datory-functions-of-the-hardware-right.53745/
...The main memory [of the N64] had hideous latency, it was organized in 2 banks the idea being that Z would go in one bank and color in the other, in practice that didn't buy you very much, and with Z on fill was very limited. The CPU's small direct mapped cache couple with the poor memory latency was an absolute performance killer. Which is probably why Nintendo went the way they did with [the GameCube]...

I often wonder what the N64 would have been capable of if they addressed the bottlenecks before release and it had CD...

...Nintendo's brand awareness was through the roof at the time, what you're describing would have been an ludicrously powerful system without the costs/size limitations of the N64 we got. Worth noting FFVII probably would have remained an N64 title too. That would have been huge...