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[Subaru]

Yoshi's Story was a beautiful 2D game...

At the time, I hated the pixelated mess that was PS1 games. I always found impressive that Nintendo 64 games weren't pixelated.

Now I'm split, I actually prefer the PS1 ones.

Still, Conker, Banjo and OoT is better than anything full 3d on PS1.

Even Super Mario 64:

You don't have anything on 3D that is detailed and clean like Peach's Castle (I know that screenshot seems to be running on emulator, but I didn't find one running on a real Nintendo 64)

Also, it's unfair to compair Nintendo 64 and PS1 by screenshots. The worst part of PS1 games (polygons and pixelated stuff) are more visible when the game is running, while the worst part of N64 games (blurry textures) are pretty visible on screenshots.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Yeah well you just quoted a bunch of emulator shots, PC shots, and beta versions of games on other platforms and said "that is all that is needed" so

edit: And then you posted a shot of an obviously not N64 version of Duke Nukem. Are you trolling? Stop it.

This is really frustrating. I can't tell what's actual footage anymore. I want to see some real comparisons.

 

[krizzx]

That's a 800x600 resolution shot. And the image URL links to ModDB which is a PC modding website. Hmm....

The 64 version of Duke Nukem was never released on PC to my knowledge. Those Duel SMGs were only in Duke 64.

As for the resolutions of photos, there aren't thousands of sources to pull from on short notice. I got the clearest shots that showed the best comparable areas in each game on each system. There isn't a huge pool of 1:1 footage of old games on old hardware available, so I use what I can find while trying to keep things as even as possible. Personally, I find stuff like that just splitting hairs.

 

[RELIGHT]

Dreamcast

 

[Winterfang]

This is really frustrating. I can't tell what's actual footage anymore. I want to see some real comparisons.

Someone needs to post screens of youtube videos.

 

[jett]

Its the Vaseline filter that is literally in every n64 game. Most peoples rose tinted glasses don't include the filter, but it has always been there. It completely kills the image quality of the system. It was probably put in to alleviate the aliasing, but it ends up just looking bad, especially in 2015.

Not to mention the awful draw distance the system had.

I really enjoy the n64, but both the Saturn and ps1 aged significantly better.

Yeah I know what it is haha...but what is it, technically. It's a literal smear over the screen, hardware forced apparently. It's something that never comes through in any emulated screenshot of N64 games, while PS1 games look reasonably as they do on the actual console if you maintain the native resolution and the unfiltered texturing.

Back then the blur made N64 games appear "higher res" but nowadays is just awful. I much rather prefer the clear chunky pixels of the PS1.

 

[baphomet]

This is really frustrating. I can't tell what's actual footage anymore. I want to see some real comparisons.

Everything I've posted was captured by myself on actual consoles just now.

Yeah I know what it is haha...but what is it, technically. It's a literal smear over the screen, hardware forced apparently. It's something that never comes through in any emulated screenshot of N64 games, while PS1 games look reasonably as they do on the actual console if you maintain the native resolution and the unfiltered texturing.

Back then the blur made N64 games appear "higher res" but nowadays is just awful. I much rather prefer the clear chunky pixels of the PS1.

Honestly I don't know what it is technically. All I know is it looks awful. Back then it made everything looks more smooth to me, but I absolutely agree, that the PS1 looks much better with it's super clear detail these days.

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

Tobal 2, it was only released in Japan.

It ran in high resolution (640x480) and at 60fps. Uses mostly gourad shading rather than much texturing, which makes all the characters have a smooth and rounded look them. It's what has helped the game age so well. The animation being absolutely fantastic obviously helps, too. It's also, I think, one of the first games that used motion capture, along with an approximation of hair and cloth physics.

It was also one of the first 3D fighters with true and functional 360° movement. Tobal 2 was released in April 1997. Ahead of its fucking time.

Such a good game. I imported it instantly when it released. I loved the original (was one of the few who bought the game for it and not the FF7 demo). I almost looked Dreamcast quality on the PSX.

 

[lazygecko]

The 64 version of Duke Nukem was never released on PC to my knowledge. Those Duel SMGs were only in Duke 64.

The image leads to this which is a DN3D mod for PC that adds in the N64 art assets. It's also pretty easy to see that shot is natively rendered in 800x600 and not upscaled. That's far from what the N64 could render.

 

[Y2Kev]

Everything I've posted was captured by myself on actual consoles just now.

You have been doing a great job. Thank you.

 

[edornob]

I just took all these from on real hardware via RGB and running them through an XRGB Mini upscaler. This is even giving an added benefit to the N64 as it has to be modded to even output RGB. Otherwise S-Video is as good as it got back in the day.

I tried to get the best looking picture out of each game. Click on them to view them in full detail.

Wipeout

Tony Hawk Pro Skater


Racing games


3D platformers


PS1 games are on the top N64 games are on the bottom.

The blur filter that covers everything on the N64 just makes it look bad, even compared to the PS1 with it's texture warping.

If these really are legit captures, then thank you cause some of these posts on this thread has created a bit of confusion.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Everything I've posted was captured by myself on actual consoles just now.

Awesome. Thanks

I'll keep an eye out for your posts then!

 

[Subaru]

 

[jett]

Such a good game. I imported it instantly when it released. I loved the original (was one of the few who bought the game for it and not the FF7 demo). I almost looked Dreamcast quality on the PSX.

Tobal 2 is my all-time favorite game on the PS1, it was such a ridiculous experience playing it in '97. Nothing came even remotely close. The adventure mode was also pretty neat.

dem chicken legs

 

[MrCunningham]

Well in relation to everybody else from Final Fantasy VIII, maybe he is?

 

[Lionel Richie]

The problem with always quoting Banjo Kazooie is that is just one game on the platform. Sure, it's impressive, as were the other half dozen games Rare made for the N64. But that's only like 5-6 games that you can point to, whereas the PS1 has literally dozens of games in just about every genre that look better (especially fighting games, racing games, survival horror, shooters, and role-playing games).

This tread has a lot of examples of N64 graphics and lot more that weren't mentioned but could have been (1080, Mystical Ninja, every Star Wars game, Indiana Jones, Mischief Makers), so 5-6 games isn't exactly fair.

Overall, I agree that the PS1 has more games with great graphics, but the fewer good looking games on the N64 are better looking.

Spoiler

Which is exactly how I feel about the quality of both libraries.

 

[Y2Kev]

Seifer wasn't there, which makes it true. Zell was there and he was fugly.

 

[Ingueferroque]

Baphomet is killing it.

 

[krizzx]

The image leads to this which is a DN3D mod for PC that adds in the N64 art assets. It's also pretty easy to see that shot is natively rendered in 800x600 and not upscaled. That's far from what the N64 could render.

Like I said above. I didn't go out of my way looking for things like that. I just grabbed the first images I found in search that looked similar enough to do a comparison. I'm working with what is available. I grab most of these from google image search. Just click view image, and bam.

Are these more to your liking? They honestly don't show much of a noticeable difference from the one you singled out for being a PC mod to me as far as overall detail goes.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

Except that when they zoomed in on his face in the actual game, it played one of the best FMV sequences the game industry had seen up to that point. It doesn't ever actually zoom in the way this picture shows, so on an SD tv it looked fine.

 

[prag16]

Comparisons in the OP seem disingenuous as hell. Hopefully not deliberately.

I can't fathom that so many people are saying PS1.

N64 imo and it's not close.

Those CTR shots look like emulator shots. I don't remember that game looking that decent.

N64s blur and fog weren't great. But PS1's janky ass ugly as sin polygons were painful to me, even back then.

 

[eyeball_kid]

Tobal 2, it was only released in Japan.

It ran in high resolution (640x480) and at 60fps. Uses mostly gourad shading rather than much texturing, which makes all the characters have a smooth and rounded look them. It's what has helped the game age so well. The animation being absolutely fantastic obviously helps, too. It's also, I think, one of the first games that used motion capture, along with an approximation of hair and cloth physics.

It was also one of the first 3D fighters with true and functional 360° movement. Tobal 2 was released in April 1997. Ahead of its fucking time.

Created by the PlayStation magicians at DreamFactory (they also did Ehrgeiz). Game design and direction by Seiichi Ishii (game designer for Virtua Fighter, designer and director for Tekken 1), character design by Toriyama. How this series wasn't a mega-hit is beyond me. Gorgeous game, fantastic fighting system, tons of characters. Really sad.

 

[baphomet]

Here's some actual shots of Duke 64 and Quake II for N64.

 

[Subaru]

Except that when they zoomed in on his face in the actual game, it played one of the best FMV sequences the game industry had seen up to that point. It doesn't ever actually zoom in the way this picture shows, so on an SD tv it looked fine.

This is a joke, but the FFVIII models wasn't actually beautiful. I remember at the time that I didn't like at all.

Well, if flickering was a thing in FFX, imagine on PS1...

 

[AcceptableGhost]

I just took all these from on real hardware via RGB and running them through an XRGB Mini upscaler. This is even giving an added benefit to the N64 as it has to be modded to even output RGB. Otherwise S-Video is as good as it got back in the day.

I tried to get the best looking picture out of each game. Click on them to view them in full detail.

Wipeout

Tony Hawk Pro Skater


Racing games


3D platformers


PS1 games are on the top N64 games are on the bottom.

The blur filter that covers everything on the N64 just makes it look bad, even compared to the PS1 with it's texture warping.

the vaseline filter really makes the image pop

 

[SnowTeeth]

Spyro on PS1 has some really good graphics, and I think the game aged really well:

My friend with a N64 refused to believe that Spyro was running on a PSX. Suffice to say he became a Playstaion owner a few months later..

 

[lazygecko]

Are these more to your liking? They honestly don't show much of a noticeable difference to me as far as overall detail goes.

That looks better. I do consider it important to get hardware shots or at least provide disclosure when it isn't, because we're trying to derive opinions from what should be objective information.

One of the differences I do notice immediately is something very typical of N64 games and that's the very sharp and jarring edges on the 2D weapon sprites which clashes with their otherwise smooth and blurry look. This is not as pronounced in the PC shot.

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

This is a joke, but the FFVIII models wasn't actually beautiful. I remember at the time that I didn't like at all.

Well, if flickering was a thing in FFX, imagine on PS1...

FFIX looked far better than FFVIII.

 

[ReyVGM]

Agreed, seeing games run in their console resolutions makes a world of a difference in this discussion. Although I'm not sure if any N64 emulator is currently accurate enough to replicate how games look on a real N64. Does any emulator properly emulate that trademark Vaseline-smear? (Full scene anti-aliasing doesn't count, the N64 didn't do that IIRC)

The emulator doesn't matter, the plugin does. There is a plugin that lets you play N64 games with the trademark filters and as visually faithful as possible.
It still doesn't look as "blurry" as you remember because the CRT added an extra layer of blurryness to everything.

Go here to download the pixel accurate plugin by HatCat: http://forum.pj64-emu.com/showthread.php?t=4422

 

[Ingueferroque]

Only Baphomet's screen caps are allowed from this point on. :0

 

[enigmatic_alex44]

Seifer wasn't there, which makes it true. Zell was there and he was fugly.

!!!

I'll give you Seifer he's hot but don't come @ Zell like that
He was my FFVIII crush back in the day. Dude loved his hot dogs ;_;

 

[Subaru]

FFIX looked far better than FFVIII.

Yes, that's true and I love FFIX visuals. ;-)
But I see some crazy love about FFVIII graphics and I never liked at all.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

FFIX looked far better than FFVIII.

That's a damn lie and you know it. The chibi models looked horrible.

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

Yes, that's true and I love FFIX visuals. ;-)
But I see some crazy love about FFVIII graphics and I never liked at all.

Yeah it was an ugly game. The over world design and look was just bad

That's a damn lie and you know it. The chibi models looked horrible.

Sorry but I loved the style. Reminded me of the old SNES ones.

 

[bobbytkc]

I preferred ps1 as well. Sure, it was jagged and glitch looking, but the N64 was just blurry as hell. Having owned both systems, I never played on the N64 except for the big releases.

 

[Flappy]

My friend with a N64 refused to believe that Spyro was running on a PSX. Suffice to say he became a Playstaion owner a few months later..

I don't get what is so impressive about Spyro. All the areas are tiny compared to games like Mario 64. It had really clunky controls too.

Also, both look like ass at native res, captured through analogue cables. But N64 games clean up a lot better on emus because the better assets were there to begin with.

 

[Timu]

If these really are legit captures, then thank you cause some of these posts on this thread has created a bit of confusion.

They are legit from him!!! I would do these comparisons if I had those games as I have a capture card for those old consoles.

 

[Reg]

Yup, ps1 looks better.

 

[lupinko]

I think a lot of Psone games aged well due to great art direction.

Games like Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, MGS1, Gran Turismos, RE2 & 3.

And there are stunners like R4 and Tobal 2.

 

[MrCunningham]

Here's some actual shots of Duke 64 and Quake II for N64.

Duke Nukem 64 was a pretty good remix of the original game. But the textures were scaled down in size pretty heavily to fit them all on an 8MB cartridge. The original Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition GRP file which contained all game and sound data was something like 45MB's in size or so. Even with heavy compression they couldn't fit it all into an N64 cart.

The Playstation game did look much closer to the original PC game, but it still ran at a horrible framerate.

 

[Herne]

Except that when they zoomed in on his face in the actual game, it played one of the best FMV sequences the game industry had seen up to that point. It doesn't ever actually zoom in the way this picture shows, so on an SD tv it looked fine.

FMV sequence. All that was required of the PlayStation was that it played the movie sequences from the cd. Sure they were awesome, but they weren't anything the console was responsible for. By your logic the Sega MegaCD had better looking games because Eternal Champion's FMV sequences looked better than anything on the SNES.

 

[Filben]

Has anyone Rayman 2 or Mission Impossible for the N64? Have the PS1 counterparts. We need some real shots from the console, not those emulated things.

 

[Y2Kev]

Here's some actual shots of Duke 64 and Quake II for N64.

That's more of what I remembered. Haha.

 

[Y2Kev]

!!!

I'll give you Seifer he's hot but don't come @ Zell like that
He was my FFVIII crush back in the day. Dude loved his hot dogs ;_;

He is White Mike Tyson and has toothpick legs.

 

[soxinthebox]

Disappointed the OP didn't compare Tekken 3 to Dual Heroes.

 

[Uncle Rupee]

FMV sequence. All that was required of the PlayStation was that it played the movie sequences from the cd. Sure they were awesome, but they weren't anything the console was responsible for. By your logic the Sega MegaCD had better looking games because Eternal Champion's FMV sequences looked better than anything on the SNES.

I wasn't saying because it had FMV capabilities it had better graphics. I was talking specifically about that image, which gets passed around online.

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

I'm surprised Fear Effect 1/2 hasn't been brought up. Those games looked great.

lifeforce Tenka also was a great looking psx fps game.

 

[lazygecko]

I vaguely remember a PS1 RPG which had no faces at all. Their heads were just blank.

 

[krizzx]

Tobal 2, it was only released in Japan.

It ran in high resolution (640x480) and at 60fps. Uses mostly gourad shading rather than much texturing, which makes all the characters have a smooth and rounded look them. It's what has helped the game age so well. The animation being absolutely fantastic obviously helps, too. It's also, I think, one of the first games that used motion capture, along with an approximation of hair and cloth physics.

It was also one of the first 3D fighters with true and functional 360° movement. Tobal 2 was released in April 1997. Ahead of its fucking time.

Can't really compare with this as no one really invested anything into making a good vs fighter on the N64. Definitely nothing with as much time, money and effort as was put into that game. That gif looks motion captured.

Its a good looking game, but I can't say the N64 couldn't have done way better. There is nothing like it to compare it to.

 

[baphomet]

I vaguely remember a PS1 RPG which had no faces at all. Their heads were just blank.

At least it had more than 1.