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[D.Lo]

Source? The official specs are 360k/s for Playstation and 100k/s for N64. My understanding is that N64 got closer in reality to its spec than PS1 did, but PS1 still had a higher raw count.

N64 was 160k with all hardware features enabled. WDC did over 100k/s according to the devs I believe. For something comparable, Ridge Racer 4 is under 50k based on counts in an emulator. PS1's quoted raw count is a theoretical max with no effects no lighting no textures, it's pure marketing spin, just like the 60/100 million 'Toy Story in real time' lies from 2000/2001 PS2/Xbox claims.

 

[Freshmaker]

N64 also had the best looking 3d fighter. Mace-The dark age is basicly an arcade perfect port running at a lower resolution. I'm still amazed how they could archive that on the N64 hardware.
Bio Freaks ran and looked surprisingly good too

God no.

Tobal 2 blows those both away. Doesn't look like mud, superior character models and animation, better frame rate...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ePJmr-COEQ

 

[jett]

God no.

Tobal 2 blows those both away. Doesn't look like mud, superior character models and animation, better frame rate...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ePJmr-COEQ

And it still plays well. One of the few games from that generation that has aged just fine. The only con that game is the massively overpowered fireballs.

 

[Cmerrill]

I just want to remember that not even one PS1 game pushed many polygons per second as WDC, Battle for Naboo, Perfect Dark, 007 TWINE, Rush 2049, NFL QB Club 2000,F-Zero X, etc.

It's a false myth that N64 can't push more polys than PS.

Not only some N64 game pushed triple polys than the most polys intense PS games, bit them also did it with perspective correction, AA and filterings. N64 pushed more polys and higher quality polys too.

The framerate on Perfect Dark was/is terrible. It may have pushed polygons, but it did so at the expense of playability.

I'm not sure about the rest of those games though.

 

[nkarafo]

Source? The official specs are 360k/s for Playstation and 100k/s for N64. My understanding is that N64 got closer in reality to its spec than PS1 did, but PS1 still had a higher raw count.

Ι don't have a source right now but i was reading a topic about World Driver Championship and that game is supposedly pushing way more polys than any PS1 game. Or any other N64 game for that matter. I have the game and i can tell this is true.

The gist was that BOSS studios didn't use some of the Ν64's "build in" features and that allowed the game to free some power in order to push as many polygons as the console could actually handle. One side effect of this is that at some parts you can see seams between polygons and even some subtle warping/wobbling here and there. N64 games normally don't do that so you can tell how BOSS deactivated some of those obligatory features to distribute the power elsewhere. As far as i know, very few developers did something similar, if any, on the N64. The fact that most emulators had trouble with this game is another indicator that it did unusual things.

Also, here is a topic on Sega 16 where this game is shown of:

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?27087-Micro-64-Feature-Nintendo-64-Vs-Sega-Saturn/page54

There is a lot of info there but it's a bit messy.

God no.

Tobal 2 blows those both away. Doesn't look like mud, superior character models and animation, better frame rate...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ePJmr-COEQ

Tobal also has much more simple and flat arenas.

Mace has detailed 3D arenas with lots going on. In some stages the actual fighting area isn't flat and there are even traps or other objects that the fighters interact with. All this is in 3D.

Sure, it's not as graceful as Tobal. And the frame rate isn't nearly as smooth. But both the arenas and the 3D models are more detailed.

 

[jeremy1456]

The framerate on Perfect Dark was/is terrible. It may have pushed polygons, but it did so at the expense of playability.

I'm not sure about the rest of those games though.

Did you only play Perfect Dark in multiplayer?

The frame rate holds up remarkably well in single player, and even in every two player mode.

It's not perfect but it's very, very playable.

I played the N64 version last week with a friend, and so unless your system is busted you're tripping.

Edit: Four players things get hairy, especially with full bots and explosions (sub 10 fps) but it's disingenuine to suggest the frame rate was all around bad.

 

[rjc571]

Did you only play Perfect Dark in multiplayer?

The frame rate holds up remarkably well in single player, and even in every two player mode.

It's not perfect but it's very, very playable.

I played the N64 version last week with a friend, and so unless your system is busted you're tripping.

Edit: Four players things get hairy, especially with full bots and explosions (sub 10 fps) but it's disingenuine to suggest the frame rate was all around bad.

This is blatantly false, it routinely runs at 20 fps or lower in single player

 

[jeremy1456]

This is blatantly false, it routinely runs at 20 fps or lower in single player

I played it and only noticed occasional dips.

I guess I have a supercharged N64?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I played it and only noticed occasional dips.

I guess I have a supercharged N64?

No, you're just not particularly sensitive to low framerates. Games being in the 20-25fps range was not rare on 64. And in single player, without using high res mode, you can be dealing with 15fps or lower in normal gameplay scenes.

Skip to about 17 minutes in.

 

[Freshmaker]

Tobal also has much more simple and flat arenas.

Mace has detailed 3D arenas with lots going on. In some stages the actual fighting area isn't flat and there are even traps or other objects that the fighters interact with. All this is in 3D.

Except Tobal 2 has a quest mode and you're idly dismissing the 3d elements in the background.

There is no way Mace wins in the graphics department.

Sure, it's not as graceful as Tobal. And the frame rate isn't nearly as smooth. But both the arenas and the 3D models are more detailed.

The models aren't more detailed at all. You're confusing texture maps for actual detail like say character model poly count.

 

[nkarafo]

Except Tobal 2 has a quest mode and you're idly dismissing the 3d elements in the background.

There is no way Mace wins in the graphics department.

The models aren't more detailed at all. You're confusing texture maps for actual detail like say character model poly count.

Mace looks busier visually to me. Sure, it comes with some of Midway's 90's jank but it is more detailed in my eyes.

The very first fight in the video below shows the detail of the models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMxD62sLfuo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrX3ekMS_ZI

 

[MrCunningham]

This thread is 4 years old btw

So weird seeing four year old posts from me surface. But this is still an interesting topic anyway.

I posted this in another tread a few days ago, but I might as well repost it here since it seems appropriate...

LGR reviews an SGI Indigo2 Impact 10000 with 1GB of RAM. It is an interesting video, because these SGI machines were pretty much exclusively used as N64 development kits. While this Indigo 2 is upgraded well beyond it's original 1995 spec, some of these machines were used to develop games like Shadow of the Empire. Though I guess INDY's and Onyx's were the most used for N64 development.

At 7:58 the above video showcases the IRIX OS. The 3D menu system is almost identical to Mario 64's menu screen. Interesting influence.

The framerate on Perfect Dark was/is terrible. It may have pushed polygons, but it did so at the expense of playability.

I'm not sure about the rest of those games though.

Perfect Dark was really stretching the system hard in two player co-op and counter-ops mode. Two player split screen on single player maps. Those frame rates were in the single digits.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

Source? The official specs are 360k/s for Playstation and 100k/s for N64. My understanding is that N64 got closer in reality to its spec than PS1 did, but PS1 still had a higher raw count.

N64 was 160k with all hardware features enabled. WDC did over 100k/s according to the devs I believe. For something comparable, Ridge Racer 4 is under 50k based on counts in an emulator...

...The gist was that BOSS studios didn't use some of the Ν64's "build in" features and that allowed the game to free some power in order to push as many polygons as the console could actually handle. One side effect of this is that at some parts you can see seems between polygons and even some subtle warping/wobbling here and there. N64 games normally don't do that so you can tell how BOSS deactivated some of those obligatory features to distribute the power elsewhere. As far as i know, very few developers did something similar...

On the last page, I quoted some of the interesting, early posts in this thread that may be relevant: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=228047980&postcount=1750

In particular:

...Another problem with the N64 was the whole microcode thing. The graphics unit was somewhat programmable (in a very primitive way) and the SDK shipped with SGI's provided microcode that implemented all the basic stuff like vertex transformation and lighting. However, SGI's microcode was designed for accuracy (not performance), was badly documented and Nintendo didn't allow developers to write custom microcode until very late in the system's life, which is when we got actual system-pushers from the likes of Factor 5 and Rare...

...Because what you're missing is that the N64 uses a LOT of hardware power to keep polygons where they should be, while the PS1 uses none because it can't do that. If Fast3d -- that is, the N64 microcode with none of those features -- had been allowed, N64 games would look as inaccurate as PS1 games, with texture warping and polygon popping... Nintendo chose to require better-quality [more stable/solid/accurate] graphics instead... While it is true that a few developers were given the ability to do their own microcode, Nintendo had to really be pushed to allow it, and very, very few third-party studios were ever given the information necessary to do their own microcode. Looking at Boss Games and Factor 5's games shows what you can do with your own microcode, but not many others managed to convince Nintendo to let them try...

See also:

http://n64devkit.square7.ch/qa/graphics/ucode.htm
...The purpose of this manual is to provide an overall understanding of N64 development concept. Using the N64 Programming Manual and Functions Reference Manual (Man Pages) together with this manual, difficult areas may be overcome... The step 1, (What is N64?) describes the overall hardware configuration. Step 2, (A Guide to the N64 Programming) describes basic programming concepts and directions for using tools to create the actual programs. Step 3, (N64 3D Graphics) describes the theory and practice of displaying 3D graphics as the most important factor of creating N64 applications... Sample programs are included as appendices so that developers can approach practice smoothly... This manual is edited as an introduction to make the introduction to N64 development relatively easy. We hope that it will assist the N64 Developer to create high quality N64 applications in an efficient manner.

Q5 Which microcodes are currently officially supported?

A5 As of February 1, 1999 [Quite late in the N64's life]

(Officially supported microcodes): F3DEX(2),L3DEX(2) microcodes, S2DEX(2) microcode, aspMain, n_aspMain microcodes, The Fast3D & Line3D microcodes (These are within the scope of support in as much as we will "fix bugs," but it is recommended that you use "F3DEX, L3DEX microcodes and S2DEX2.")

(Not supported): Turbo3D microcode, Sprite2D microcode, The Fast3D & Line3D microcodes (These are within the scope of support in as much as we will "fix bugs," but it is recommended that you use "F3DEX, L3DEX microcodes and S2DEX2.")

From a Google search, you'll see that it is often claimed that the Turbo3D microcode (which was not given official support even in 1999, as noted above) allows for 500-600k 'lower-accuracy' polygons/sec, but I can't seem to find a 'primary source' for this number.

Interesting to note that folks from Sega of Japan weren't impressed with the N64 protoype, when they met with Silicon Graphics (prior to Nintendo/Yamauchi):

http://www.sega-16.com/2006/07/interview-tom-kalinske/
Sega-16: That sounds a lot like what happened with the Sony/Nintendo CD-ROM. Sony was willing to enter into a joint hardware platform but was ultimately rejected by Nintendo in favor of Phillips.

Tom Kalinske: Yeah, but I think ours preceded that though. [Kalinske is referring to a proposal for a Sega/Sony system that he claims was greenlit by Sony but rejected by Sega of Japan]

Sega-16: So Sony essentially brought their ideas to the two big guns in the industry, only to be turned down and forced out on their own...

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)...

And in the recent 'Final Fantasy 7: An oral history' piece in Polygon, Kitase, Kawai, Kajitani, Yoshinari all describe their difficulties in getting performance out of the N64 dev kits that they had. It's not clear if custom microcode was available to him at the time, but Kawai recounts:

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, 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...

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: 反省 "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."

Also, from earlier in the thread:

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.

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...

 

[jett]

Mace is ugly as fuck. Abominably so. Tobal 2 is a better looking game in every respect, and it's conceivably the best animated game of its time.

Cloth and hair physics on PS1. T2 runs at 60fps and in one of the PS1's high resolution modes. And I'd wager there are more polys in the high-detail versions of the character models than at any point in Mace.

 

[nkarafo]

Like i said. Tobal looks better in motion. It's smoother and more graceful. Has better animation. Everything that has to do with movement is better. But it looks empty.

Mace is uglier. It's junkier. But it's also more detailed and the arenas are busier.

 

[orient]

The CD format meant the PSX could provide all the types of experiences I wanted at the time: mainly RPGs and survival horror games, but also games like Tony Hawk (that, despite no Z buffer, were better on PlayStation thanks to the music and FMV) and 2D games, as well. There were pretty much zero 2D games on N64.

 

[nkarafo]

There were pretty much zero 2D games on N64.

Yoshi's Story
Mischief Makers
Bangai-O
Wonder Project J2
Killer Instict Gold (just the fighters though)
Worms Armageddon
Rakuga Kids
Starcraft 64
A bunch of puzzle games
A crappy MK Trilogy port

A few others i am forgetting.

They are few but not "zero". Some of them are even great looking. Rakuga Kids and Yoshi's Story are among the best looking 2D games of that era. Although Rakuga is more like "flat 3D" maybe, i'm not sure (like parappa).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5H6acl5ry8

 

[orient]

They are few but not "zero". Some of them are even great looking.

There were pretty much zero 2D games on N64.

Compared to PSX. Listing less than 10 games, most of which look bad, doesn't change the fact that N64 was not a 2D machine.

 

[nkarafo]

Compared to PSX. Listing less than 10 games, most of which look bad, doesn't change the fact that N64 was not a 2D machine.

Only two look bad.

Also, the N64 had less 3D games than the PS1 as well.

But yeah, they weren't pushing 2D games with the N64, that's true.

 

[Hello? This is Hailun!]

Did Tobal 2 have the RPG mode from the first game?

 

[Freshmaker]

Mace looks busier visually to me. Sure, it comes with some of Midway's 90's jank but it is more detailed in my eyes.

The very first fight in the video below shows the detail of the models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMxD62sLfuo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrX3ekMS_ZI

The models really don't look that good. They're low poly, and the backgrounds fudge a lot of 3d with sprites.

I have the game for my N64 and I mainly remember it as a muddy mess visually.

I'd take Tobal 2, Bushido Blade 1 and 2 over Mace in terms of graphics any day.

Did Tobal 2 have the RPG mode from the first game?

They expanded it significantly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtU4p4wqd8s

 

[OpinionatedCyborg]

I was under the impression that the N64 could've been a great 2D machine, better than the playstation, since it had much more RAM. I remember those PSX fighting games having major frame rate issues. Saturn + RAM cart could handle them beautifully.

Was the N64 crippled 2D-wise, or was it capable but simply lacked ports?

 

[nkarafo]

I was under the impression that the N64 could've been a great 2D machine, better than the playstation, since it had much more RAM. I remember those PSX fighting games having major frame rate issues. Saturn + RAM cart could handle them beautifully.

Was the N64 crippled 2D-wise, or was it capable but simply lacked ports?

N64 was just as good (if not better) for 2D games. The fast cartridge would also help with loading animation frames as well.

But the console was marketed as the new, shiny 3D machine. The hardware was specifically designed to move solid polygons. And very few cared to make 2D games for it since 3rd party Japanese support was abysmal. Also, 2D was kind of a niche in 1996+ anyway and it was not profitable enough to make 2D games on expensive carts.

 

[Freshmaker]

I was under the impression that the N64 could've been a great 2D machine, better than the playstation, since it had much more RAM. I remember those PSX fighting games having major frame rate issues. Saturn + RAM cart could handle them beautifully.

Was the N64 crippled 2D-wise, or was it capable but simply lacked ports?

It wasn't so much frame rate issues on the PS. They had to remove animation frames from the characters to make the characters fit into the ram.

N64, the evidence of its capabilities are MK Trilogy and KI Gold. While it did have more system ram, it also had less storage space.

 

[nkarafo]

Storage space was not an issue after a while though. A 32 MB cart (which was common for most big games in 1998 and later) could easily fit games like a Metal Slug or a Street Fighter Alpha arcade game with very few cuts, if any.

For the record, Metal Slug 1 and SF Alpha 2 arcade are less than 28 MBs uncompressed. Compressed they are less than 15MB. N64 carts did use a compress method btw.

 

[Hello? This is Hailun!]

Wasn't most of the 2D games on the N64 just flat 3D textures?

 

[D.Lo]

I was under the impression that the N64 could've been a great 2D machine, better than the playstation, since it had much more RAM. I remember those PSX fighting games having major frame rate issues. Saturn + RAM cart could handle them beautifully.

Was the N64 crippled 2D-wise, or was it capable but simply lacked ports?

Saturn was clearly superior or Playstation for 2D, even without the RAM cart but add that in and it easily dominated. And Rakuga Kids IMO looks beyond the Saturn's capabilities, while not an exact match compare it to vaguely similar games like Rabbit or Waku 7 (as in, wacky 2D characters with zooming). Surely the N64 could have done arcade perfect Capcom games, and it didn't get them mainly because it was a Japanese genre, and Japanese developers abandoned the platform at the start.

Storage space was not an issue after a while though. A 32 MB cart (which was common for most big games in 1998 and later) could easily fit games like a Metal Slug or a Street Fighter Alpha arcade game with very few cuts, if any.

For the record, Metal Slug 1 and SF Alpha 2 arcade are less than 28 MBs uncompressed. Compressed they are less than 15MB. N64 carts did use a compress method btw.

See above, it was developer will more than anything technical. 1998 was way too late, as Japan had already settled on PSX, Saturn, N64 as their order of preference.

Also 2D games were selling less, fighters in particular were left in a niche, and so to order an expensive larger cartridge print run for a niche genre probably wasn't going to happen.

Wasn't most of the 2D games on the N64 just flat 3D textures?

Same with PSX, neither were a 2D system.

 

[Jon Carter]

I liked the N64 graphics. Its weaknesses were obvious but its 3D was really solid. The PS1 graphics were okay too but some games looked like their visuals were held together with scotch tape and could collapse at any moment. The N64 seemed more powerful to me overall because of this.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Soul Reaver is still one of my all-time favorites. =)




I remember those days. This thread is kinda like a trip down the memory lane. =D

As far as I know, it was the first and only game at the time, that had real-time environment morphing as well.

I am still at a loss on how they were able to make it work at all and so well to boot.

 

[Coda]

Sin & Punishment on the N64 has some really cool effects that I just don't see happening on the PS1.

 

[Talladega Knight]

That's an interesting question. Could the Nintendo 64 compete with the Saturn/PS1 as far as 2D games are concerned? Would an amazing port of Symphony of the Night have been possible on the 64?

 

[caffeware]

Can someone explain why pixel art/2d looks so bad on the 64?

 

[iamaustrian]

Mace is ugly as fuck. Abominably so. Tobal 2 is a better looking game in every respect, and it's conceivably the best animated game of its time.

Cloth and hair physics on PS1. T2 runs at 60fps and in one of the PS1's high resolution modes. And I'd wager there are more polys in the high-detail versions of the character models than at any point in Mace.

you can't be serious, right?

I know that Tobal runs much smoother and looks cleaner but there is just no way that it's as detailed as Mace which also features animated interactice 3D backgrounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6UeaAMkIM0

the hidden characters are even more detailed:

 

[Ruud_Luiten]

Can someone explain why pixel art/2d looks so bad on the 64?

Not enough memory. N64 is just not made for 2d.

 

[Coda]

That's an interesting question. Could the Nintendo 64 compete with the Saturn/PS1 as far as 2D games are concerned? Would an amazing port of Symphony of the Night have been possible on the 64?

Mischief Makers was a pretty impressive 2D title to me IMO.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Source? The official specs are 360k/s for Playstation and 100k/s for N64. My understanding is that N64 got closer in reality to its spec than PS1 did, but PS1 still had a higher raw count.

I wouldn't read too much into those numbers - with GameCube Nintendo only have realworld numbers (6-12m polys per second) and I remember seeing the figure on tables comparing it to PS2 and Xbox's higher counts. But GC was capable of pushing more polys, Resi 4 and Star Wars Rogue Leader were pushing far more than PS2 could manage, and the former had its polycount reduced in the port.

 

[iamaustrian]

I wouldn't read too much into those numbers - with GameCube Nintendo only have realworld numbers (6-12m polys per second) and I remember seeing the figure on tables comparing it to PS2 and Xbox's higher counts. But GC was capable of pushing more polys, Resi 4 and Star Wars Rogue Leader were pushing far more than PS2 could manage, and the former had its polycount reduced in the port.

afair star wars rogue squadron 3 is the game with the most polygons(plus crazy stuff like bump mapping) pushed around of the entire xbox/ps2/gc generation.
would make sense when you consider that in rebel strike's 2 player mode the gamecube renders Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II twice at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWL7C7bl3Co
which is an amazing accomplishment by factor 5

 

[Skux]

The issue wasn't power, it was memory. PS1 was delivering FMV cutscenes and CD quality audio while Tony Hawk N64 had to cut the soundtrack short.

 

[nkarafo]

Can someone explain why pixel art/2d looks so bad on the 64?

It looks fine.

It's just that there aren't many games.

Games shown: Yoshi's Story, Mischief Makers, Bangaioh, Ogre Battle 64, Rakuga Kids.

That's an interesting question. Could the Nintendo 64 compete with the Saturn/PS1 as far as 2D games are concerned? Would an amazing port of Symphony of the Night have been possible on the 64?

Graphically yes. If the cart was big enough.

But it wouldn't be big enough to fit the soundtrack. It would have to be scaled down to midi.

 

[TriAceJP]

The N64 was pretty powerful at not getting good games.

 

[Jack The Nipper]

I just want to remember that not even one PS1 game pushed many polygons per second as WDC, Battle for Naboo, Perfect Dark, 007 TWINE, Rush 2049, NFL QB Club 2000,F-Zero X, etc.

It's a false myth that N64 can't push more polys than PS.

Not only some N64 game pushed triple polys than the most polys intense PS games, bit them also did it with perspective correction, AA and filterings. N64 pushed more polys and higher quality polys too.

Yet, when you compare visual style to games like Wipeout, destruction derby and ridge racer. Playstation easily wins for me.

Most games are designed poorly on n64 except Nintendo and a few select third party. The lack of texture variety and detail sort of kill it.

If course games like perfect dark looked great but they did stretch the system with extra ram. Which was really cool at the time

 

[nkarafo]

Yet, when you compare visual style to games like Wipeout, destruction derby and ridge racer. Playstation easily wins for me.

Wipeout 64 and Ridge Racer 64 were just as good looking as the PS1 games, at least the ones that were already released.

Wipeout 3 and RR4 look better but these were released later.

World Driver championship beats all of them.

Most games are designed poorly on n64 except Nintendo and a few select third party. The lack of texture variety and detail sort of kill it.

Such ignorant ramble.

 

[Jack The Nipper]

Wipeout 64 and Ridge Racer 64 were just as good looking as the PS1 games, at least the ones that were already released.

Wipeout 3 and RR4 look better but these were released later.

World Driver championship beats all of them.



Such ignorant ramble.

Not at all, the soul of the games were killed with muted textures.

 

[Jack The Nipper]

Wipeout 64 and Ridge Racer 64 were just as good looking as the PS1 games, at least the ones that were already released.

Wipeout 3 and RR4 look better but these were released later.

World Driver championship beats all of them.



Such ignorant ramble.

How is that ignorant ramble? It's unjustified and how can it be any other way? Many n64 games were designed poorly. Even the ones I like such as too gear rally. I have played most of the n64 library too.

Not sure what your getting at unless you feel Lamborghini, top gear really compare to 1080, destruction derby 2 and the good racers of Saturn.

As I said, n64 had good games from Nintendo and select third party. Iguana, midway etc


If that's ignorant to you. That's fine. Even as subjective matter I still think it's easy to pull out the games play and show where this happens. But it's an obvious situation when you have the majority and best third party devs making playstation games. The good development on n64 was filling a market void. Worked out great for some such as midway.

And I prefer rr over r4 in visuals. While r4 did a lot more it also felt low ren and less crisp. The 60 frames rr was the peak for me.

 

[nkarafo]

How is that ignorant ramble? It's unjustified and how can it be any other way? Many n64 games were designed poorly. Even the ones I like such as too gear rally. I have played most of the n64 library too.

What was poor about Top Gear Rally?

Not sure what your getting at unless you feel Lamborghini, top gear really compare to 1080, destruction derby 2 and the good racers of Saturn.

1080? Wasn't that the best snowboard game during that generation?

Spoiler

Also N64 exclusive?

Also, the N64 has tons of good racing games. WDC, Stunt Racer 64, Beetle Adventure Racing, Rush 2048, Waverace, Episode 1 Racer, etc. The ones i mentioned also look great graphically.

As I said, n64 had good games from Nintendo and select third party. Iguana, midway etc

You forgot BOSS, Factor 5, RARE, Acclaim, Eurocom, Treasure, DMA, and whatever, i'm not going to list every developer who released good games.

You are simply not very familiar with N64's library.

 

[Jack The Nipper]

What was poor about Top Gear Rally?



1080? Wasn't that the best snowboard game during that generation?

Spoiler

Also N64 exclusive?

You forgot BOSS, Factor 5, RARE, Acclaim, Eurocom, Treasure, DMA, and whatever, i'm not going to list every developer who released good games.

I'm not trying to name them all. No point, I said etc

The level design, plus visual style matter to me. Games like 1080 did it well.

I think.games like top gear got too much credit as when looking at them today they are so far behind 1080 or rush in visuals and style for me. Not to mention the nfs games and tons of others in playstation.

I played it a lot upon release but I now see that as a mistake. I even painted my own cars with character logs. These games just aren't that well playing either.

It's impressive how much better looking and playing fzero is actually. Even with more blurry textures to stretch the track out, it still has a great look to it.

Nintendo knew what they were doing very well imo

 

[nkarafo]

I'm not trying to name them all. No point, I said etc

The level design, plus visual style matter to me. Games like 1080 did it well.

I think.games like top gear got too much credit as when looking at them today they are so far behind 1080 or rush in visuals and style for me. Not to mention the nfs games and tons of others in playstation.

I played it a lot upon release but I now see that as a mistake. I even painted my own cars with character logs. These games just aren't that well playing either.

It's impressive how much better looking and playing fzero is actually. Even with more blurry textures to stretch the track out, it still has a great look to it.

Nintendo knew what they were doing very well imo

Top Gear Rally looked good for BOSS studios first effort, although it was a bit empty. What i liked about it was the way the suspensions on the cars reacted. It felt good to me. The desert stage was also very well designed. And the soundtrack was awesome. It was a solid 8/10 game for me.

I agree about F-Zero X though. Even though many say it looks like crap, i disagree. In motion it looks amazing, especially when all opponents are on the screen at once and battle each other while the game runs at such high speeds. And you have explosions and a craft or two bouncing at the walls left and right as they get destroyed. It's a visual feast.

 

[Italia64]

Of course games like perfect dark looked great but they did stretch the system with extra ram. Which was really cool at the time

False. Some of the best graphics on the console didn't use Expansion Pak:Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo-Kazooie, WDC, Banjo-Kazooie, etc.
Perfect Dark is better than any PS game even without the Expansion Pak.

About Ridge Racer. I prefer the more serious Ridge Racer Type 4 style than Ridge Racer 64. RRT4 looks more realistic, but RR64 is graphically better. It runs in higher resolution, filterings and perspective corrected, not trembling, a bit better draw distance, smoother images, etc.
And it required much less work, try to imagine if they worked on it like Namco did for RRT4.

Visually: RRT4 is better
Graphically: RR64 wins

 

[Team Andromeda]

Oh wow. You have to be lying to yourself if you think PS1 games were as clean and presentable as this.

Instead, you got the definition of low res.

Conkers runs in super low res of less than 300x220.

 

[petran79]

Like i said. Tobal looks better in motion. It's smoother and more graceful. Has better animation. Everything that has to do with movement is better. But it looks empty.

Mace is uglier. It's junkier. But it's also more detailed and the arenas are busier.

I remember the arcade version of Mace having impressive graphics for the time. Perhaps not as impressive as Sega Model3, but the final boss and sub-boss scenes were very well designed and animated. Any issue arises from lack of expertise in 3d fighters. Even Virtua Fighter and Tekken 1 played better. Even Toshinden.

But Mace was certainly better than MK4.

Gauntlet Legends was a fine game too, which was ported to N64, PS1 and Dreamcast