MrCunningham
Member
N64 version:
Quake 2 never looked this good on real N64 hardware. The image quality makes it look better than some Dreamcast games.
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Looking back I think PS1's graphics aged better than N64's (used to think opposite)
- Thread starter enigmatic_alex44
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Quake 2 never looked this good on real N64 hardware. The image quality makes it look better than some Dreamcast games.
nkarafo
Member
FF is a multy disc game that uses pre-rendered backgrounds. These need a LOT of storage. The 3D graphics, however were bad in those games. Yes, PS1 had it better with 2D, textures and pre-rendered backgrounds. But when it comes to fully 3D, especially big, open ended worlds, N64 has the edge.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Show me a PSX game that look like this
So, what do we see here? A fully open ended 3D world that you have freedom to explore (its fully loaded with no loading spots), with sharp graphics, unlimited draw distance, nice geometry detail, rich textures, solid polygons with no warping, beautiful animation, solid frame rate etc.
N64 wins.
Terracon.
Which is actually open-world, or at least way more open world than that.
Because that's from the PC version.
I'd imagine because the PS1 used up most of its polygon budget on the environment
nkarafo
Member
That particular image is the PC version actually.
Looks pretty empty and barren to me though. Did you see the cool 3D maze in the Banjo Kazooie shots? How about that church? Banjo himself is on top of a huge mansion. Everything fully loaded and displayed at once.
Ingueferroque
Banned
STOP posting emulator shots. LOL at that Quake 2 'N64' shot.
MrCunningham
Member
That's what I thought.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Terracon levels are way more bigger than a couple of locations and latter levels have more detail.
Thanks for this, I actually never l knew that and I'm very happy I now do.
The Artisan
Member
wasn't n64 more powerful than ps1?
nkarafo
Member
Well, N64 has similar looking games, with big worlds like that, like Battle for Naboo. Or some areas in Jet Force Gemini (huge planetary surfaces).
But i haven't seen anything on PSX that has the level of detail Banjo has in its levels. Heck, Tooie is even better, although its not as smooth as the first game at times.
Banjo-Kazooie is the best example of what the N64 can do IMO. And also Conker. Conker's shadow alone is the kind of effect that doesn't exist on any other game of that gen. Only on Dreamcast or above you could see complex effects like that.
dreampeppers99
Member
It really depends on the games compared but in general I think N64 wins... however, I have more fun with TONS of psx games. (I miss that time)
Relaxed Muscle
Member
I remember those games having the white wall effect. Terracon actually had impressive scale, detail, lightning and incredible draw distance.
I feel when people say open world on that era, they refer to big levels, which is not the same. Soul Reaver was another game which felt actually open world, which also had no loadings at all.
sublimit
Banned
I love the PS1 graphics (i don't care if they were better or worse than N64's especially since i never had one to compare).I believe that the limitations and the nature of the system in combination with the efforts and talents of the developers gave fruits to some really artistic games of a somewhat abstract nature.And by that i don't mean deliberately "artistic" like the the 2D games with the pre-rendered backgrounds.I mean it more in a "modern art/abstract" kind of way something which was apparent in the limited polygons of character models and environments in combination with the (low res) textures.
It's kinda hard to explain it but i always find some artistic "computer" beauty in the minimal 3D worlds of PS1 games with their limited polygon assets and low res textures.It's the reason why i still have no problem going back and play PS1 games (which i never played before therefore it has nothing to do with nostalgia) and actually enjoy their graphics for what they were/are.
It's kinda hard to explain it but i always find some artistic "computer" beauty in the minimal 3D worlds of PS1 games with their limited polygon assets and low res textures.It's the reason why i still have no problem going back and play PS1 games (which i never played before therefore it has nothing to do with nostalgia) and actually enjoy their graphics for what they were/are.
Rising_Hei
Member
N64 relied too much on 3D games, they were cute back then, but they also age much worse than the usual 2D background of many PSX games... N64 also used to have more washed out textures and worse frame rate for reasons
When displayed at their native resolution without any emulation bells and whistles, I also prefer the PS1 "look". N64 games are just a blurry mess, and often ran at a horrible framerate. And I think disregarding the technical side of things, the PS1 just ended up having the best looking games of the generation.
On some level, primarily when it came to overall image quality and image integrity. The PS1 pushed more polygons and had better texture quality.
On some level, primarily when it came to overall image quality and image integrity. The PS1 pushed more polygons and had better texture quality.
LiveFromKyoto
Member
I have FF VIII on my Vita. I can't even look at it, it's aged so badly. Sometimes I'm not even sure what I'm looking at or what's happening in a given scene.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I feel like I can't tell whose shots to believe anymore. So many of these look like upped emulator shots.
It hasn't aged amazingly, but I'm pretty sure 95% of the time the screen is intelligible.
Trevelyan9999
Banned
I'm sorry about that, it said "N64 version" from the google images. The other pic was from the N64 version though, had to be.
nkarafo
Member
What i feel impressive about my games like Banjo-Kazooie, is that the worlds are big enough while at the same time they are packed with details. Little things here and there, passageways, walls, structures and many others. They look complex and never flat, urging you to explore every single corner. The catch is that you can get a flying power-up, fly somewhere and look at all these details from a distance without losing their detail. Sure, items and enemies fade away, but the geometry of the levels themselves never does. It just looks beyond anything i have seen on PSX/Saturn.
This is nothing like a flat surface with some bumps and mountains. Sure, something like this can be even bigger but it also looks randomly generated. BK's levels feel hand crafted and very very nicely designed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-PNa3mGZQ0
Risk Breaker
Member
When displayed at their native resolution without any emulation bells and whistles, I also prefer the PS1 "look". N64 games are just a blurry mess, and often ran at a horrible framerate. And I think disregarding the technical side of things, the PS1 just ended up having the best looking games of the generation.
Word. Vagrant Story and RRT4 are simply THE best looking games of that generation imo.
R4 has much better art design than that game, especially the use of color and lighting.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
I can't stand how the PS1 does textures. LCDs make it look 100x worse too. CRTs would at least smooth out the aliasing a bit.
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
PS1 games suffered weird warping polygon issues that bothered me a lot back in the day, that's why the best PS1 games use fixed camera. This combined with the atrocious loading times made my N64 preference a no brainer.
Full 3D PS1 games look like crap.
Thankfully, emulators help us with those crapy issues and now we can enjoy that great library.
Fog and framerate weren't such an issue in the N64 as some posters led you to believe, but games have a shiny look to them.
Compare any free roaming game on both consoles and N64 will always come on top, it had a weaker but much more modern hardware. Rayman 2 is another game for the list of shame on PS1.
Full 3D PS1 games look like crap.
Thankfully, emulators help us with those crapy issues and now we can enjoy that great library.
Fog and framerate weren't such an issue in the N64 as some posters led you to believe, but games have a shiny look to them.
Compare any free roaming game on both consoles and N64 will always come on top, it had a weaker but much more modern hardware. Rayman 2 is another game for the list of shame on PS1.
nkarafo
Member
I don't have an opinion about art design or colors. But i can see that technically, WDC does more. Especially in the second level of that video.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Then Spyro the dragon games are like that, the levels are big, have excellent view distance and are pretty detailed, with very well designed and animtaed foes.
I just don't think detailed, big levels is just a exclusive of N64 games, and there are plenty of efforts on PSX in that front. After all PSX pushed a lot of polygons...
Lighting is they key difference here. The garoud shading on RR4 is one of the best in the gen.
protomouse
Member
I'll take the N64's smooth visuals over the PlayStation's jaggies, jittery motion and grainy textures any day of the week.
I completely agree with the sentiment that the look of the PS1 has aged better than the N64. The muddy look of N64 games have made all but the very cartoony games on that platform look really bad, I think even something like OoT suffers that fate. The console also never got good at rendering 2D games. 3D games from that era has aged poorly in general, but PS1 games look better than N64 games for sure.
old manatee
Banned
N64 games were always fugly.
MrCunningham
Member
I all fairness it is hard to find real direct feed images of N64 games. But yeah, the lightmap resolution in that Quake II screenshot is well beyond anything that the N64 could ever do. That and the 800x600 resolution
.While I agree that the PS1 version of Rayman 2 is the worst console version, the N64 version can be pretty shameful in the framerate department! A more consistent framerate is one thing the PS1 version had over the N64 version, at least.
For me, it doesn't make up for all the cut content, but for others... maybe?
(Honestly, both versions are hard to go back to after playing the Dreamcast version, but I digress! :'D)
Winterfang
Banned
Both look awful in their own regard, I wouldn't say they aged bad as they never looked good to being with. Just where a necessary step from 2D to 3D. Kind of how last Gen had wonky implementation of new controllers (sixaxis, touch screen+stylus, Kinect, Wii controller) which are limited and unresponsive but should become much much better in time.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Games with simple art styles aged like fine wine. Team Buddies on an emulator can pass for a PS2 game.
Billy Zero
Member
I never liked the N64's blurry textures. Show me the pixels!
RazorbackDB
Member
To be fair the PS1 was kicking N64 ass and there were a lot more games coming out for the PS1 by the end of the generation, if not maybe more developers would had pushed the hardware like Rare and Factor5. I also think the pixelated 3D look of the PS1 is kinda charming but I still think N64 games aged better.
Dion Blaster
Member
I will take the N64's lower frame rate over the PS1's weird warping any day. I think the comparison really comes down to which of those you can tolerate more.
It's all about knowing how to work with what you got.
MML2 still looks charming as hell thanks to a seriously forward thinking art style.
LithiumSpade
Member
I can assure you that for me personally, going from the SNES to the N64 + PS1, at the time, I never looked back. Mario 64 was like the future you never thought you'd see.
Then again, Stunt Race FX was probably my favourite SNES game so maybe I wasn't best suited to appreciate 2D graphics - or anything above 15fps...
Tomasoares
Member
Spyro on PS1 has some really good graphics, and I think the game aged really well:
![37595-Spyro_the_Dragon_3_-_Year_of_the_Dragon_[NTSC-U]-3.jpg](http://199.101.98.242/media/shots/37595-Spyro_the_Dragon_3_-_Year_of_the_Dragon_[NTSC-U]-3.jpg)
lol
Stunt Race FX is a fantastic arcade racing game totally ruined by the framerate.
I wish Nintendo would remake it :-\
nkarafo
Member
This is not the most flattering video
Spyro looks better than Mario 64 but not as good as B-K.
Secret Character
Member
San Francisco Rush comparison:
PSX:
N64:
This isn't the most fair comparison.
The base game was built on the Ultra 64 hardware for arcades which was derived from the N64 base hardware. The N64 version of the game is a port of the arcade version and the PS1 version is an almost entirely different game.
It should be from real hardware which for me is important.
If you have a better video from real hardware feel free to share
Even if the video quality is poor, it should be enough to judge the lightning used by the engine.