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[Kazza]

A really interesting deep dive into the N64 hardware from Modern Vintage Gamer:

The Nintendo 64 was an impressive console. Silicon Graphics and Nintendo pulled off the unthinkable - the precision of accurate 3D hardware on a $199 consumer home console. Yet developers complained that the system was too complex and overly difficult to develop games on. In this episode we take a closer look at some of the complexities developers faced when making games for the N64.

A few points. - I didn't talk about DMA in this video as i the main focus was on the graphics side. However if you want to understand how DMA worked on the N64, check out Rodrigo Copetti's blog (link in description). tl;dr - the implementation is NOT good - at 1:54 i meant to say 16 and 8 kilobyte instead of bit - stay safe!

One of the biggest issues apparently is the limited amount of texture cache (TMEM) on the RDP (Reality Display Processor). Even for 1996, 4kb sounds small. This explains the blurry textures in many N64 games. Interesting that the main RAM was shared between code, graphics and audio, leaving it up to the developer to decide how to utilise it. With the Jaguar and Saturn both being notoriously complex too, it sounds like the Playstation was the only easy to devlop for console that gen (maybe the 3DO too?)

There's much more in the video, well worth a watch.

 

[Stefan.North]

Typical Nintendo severelly bottlenecking a hardware,

 

[Team Andromeda]

Typical Nintendo severelly bottlenecking a hardware,

There are bottlenecks in any hardware. Funny how the PS2 is never brought up mind

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I never had an N64, but did my share of reading up on it, reading people's forum impression and playing it at a friend's house back in the day.

No doubt, the console with overall the worst frame rates ever. Even getting a game running at 30 fps seemed like a miracle.

 

[Kazza]

I never had an N64, but did my share of reading up on it, reading people's forum impression and playing it at a friend's house back in the day.

No doubt, the console with overall the worst frame rates ever. Even getting a game running at 30 fps seemed like a miracle.

iirc, the Zelda games ran at 20 fps, although people were more forgiving of that at the time. The N64 did have some 60 fps games though. F-Zero runs really fast and smooth. While it admittedly has a simple graphical style, it holds up quite well aesthetically:

 

[D.Final]

A really interesting deep dive into the N64 hardware from Modern Vintage Gamer:






One of the biggest issues apparently is the limited amount of texture cache (TMEM) on the RDP (Reality Display Processor). Even for 1996, 4kb sounds small. This explains the blurry textures in many N64 games. Interesting that the main RAM was shared between code, graphics and audio, leaving it up to the developer to decide how to utilise it. With the Jaguar and Saturn both being notoriously complex too, it sounds like the Playstation was the only easy to devlop for console that gen (maybe the 3DO too?)

There's much more in the video, well worth a watch.

Truly interesting

 

[polybius80]

good video, N64 had a lot of problems with its texture cache with only 4kb(2kb if using mip maps) and the fillrate cost of zubuffer, was a very interesitng system despite its troubles, actually every system that generation had serious problem with textured polygons,if not lack of space it was warped textures,lack of perspective correct, z-buffer, using distorted sprites... lot of problems but was part of its charm too

 

[Max_Po]

There are bottlenecks in any hardware. Funny how the PS2 is never brought up mind

PS2 and PS3 always comes up... .Triggered fanboy...

 

[Alphagear]

Where we would be IF Nintendo chose CD over Cartridge.

 

[disap.ed]

How (much) could the fillrate be increased keeping in mind the available technology back in these days?

 

[Team Andromeda]

PS2 and PS3 always comes up... .Triggered fanboy...

PS3 tends too. PS2? hardly ever. Still, some say the Super Famicom wasn't a great or easy system to develop on. Don't see that one come up a lot either.

I always felt it was a cop-out and excuses used, for poor sales or market share, When you see people bring up a system didn't do well due to poor development tools or being hard to programme for.

 

[Max_Po]

PS3 tends too. PS2? hardly ever. Still, some say the Super Famicom wasn't a great or easy system to develop on. Don't see that one come up a lot either.

I always felt it was a cop-out and excuses used, for poor sales or market share, When you see people bring up a system didn't do well due to poor development tools or being hard to programme for.

Hard to believe, PS2 is 20 years old....

 

[LemmingWithaParachute]

Why was the Nintendo 64 so hard to develop games for ?

MVG is one of those channels YT was made for.

 

[Moses85]

I love his videos

 

[Chittagong]

It’s incredible how N64 was just a hair away from greatness. A larger texture cache and a bit more polygons would have made it completely next gen compared to PS1. Instead the blurry textures and low poly look betrayed the true power of fast load speeds. antialising, perspective correction and trilinear mipmap interpolation

 

[Panajev2001a]

It’s incredible how N64 was just a hair away from greatness. A larger texture cache and a bit more polygons would have made it completely next gen compared to PS1. Instead the blurry textures and low poly look betrayed the true power of fast load speeds. antialising, perspective correction and trilinear mipmap interpolation

If there was a system that would have slayed it at $249-299 it would have been the N64 and with the launch games it already had it would have still done well at launch (SM64 + OoT are hard to beat), but tons of third party games would have looked a lot better. Fillrate had issues once you turned z-buffering on, the initial RSP microcode was way to defensive, RAM bandwidth was quite limited, and the texture cache was indeed small (but bandwidth not making streaming data in and out of it made it worse).

 

[Starlight Lotice]

The N64 had the cleanest 3D Polygons but the ugliest Environmental Tile Mapping as mentioned it was the 4kb limit.

To alleviate this, Nintendo should have done what they did with the NES and get the Cartridges with additional RAM to assist early on if they couldn't expand it in the console.

That being said, it is very impressive how advanced it was at the time in spite of using Cartridges.

 

[SScorpio]

If there was a system that would have slayed it at $249-299 it would have been the N64 and with the launch games it already had it would have still done well at launch (SM64 + OoT are hard to beat), but tons of third party games would have looked a lot better. Fillrate had issues once you turned z-buffering on, the initial RSP microcode was way to defensive, RAM bandwidth was quite limited, and the texture cache was indeed small (but bandwidth not making streaming data in and out of it made it worse).

Launch games? Well I guess SM64 and Starfox 64 are technically more than one. OoT was out much later and the N64 was the start of the droughts that the GameCube and WiiU also had. Sure higher rez textures could look better but you were still limited to available space on cartridges.

Also just having more powerful hardware doesn't win you 3rd party games. Nintendo burnt many bridges and Sony was very developer friendly. Still it would have been nice for the N64 to not have such muddy picture quality.

 

[nkarafo]

No doubt, the console with overall the worst frame rates ever. Even getting a game running at 30 fps seemed like a miracle.

This is false and only shows one's lack of knowledge about the system.

The reason is a few big titles having frame rate issues (particularly from RARE and also Turok 2). Thus, the system got that reputation even though the, say, Saturn is worse overall. For instance, Wipeout on N64 runs at 30fps but on Saturn it runs at 20.

This is the same shit N64 got because of Turok's fog. For some reason this game made the N64 famous for "foggy graphics" even thought ALL fully 3D fps games with outdoor areas had some sort of pop-up masking on every system at the time. Turok 1 at least had everyone beat with superior graphics and animations.

Anyway, plenty of N64 games run smooth and have no frame rate issues. Plenty of N64 games have no view distance issues.

 

[mickaus]

I just played OOT on my Nintendo 64 last week, from my experience the graphics were a bit dated and lacking in colour but they were still decent enough that it didn’t impact the experience too much. The thing I loved was the almost instant load times, first came the logo and then the opening credits and then the menu and then the game. No loading screens was so good.
Funny enough though I was having trouble starting the console and after some online searching found that by taking the expansion card out and then putting it back in fixed the problem. Weird.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

The bad framerate and textures of games from this era (little did I know about the Saturn back then...) kept me a firm PC + Game Boy player.

Plenty of friends had an N64 and it was a lot of fun, but I never really wanted to buy one. Loved playing through Shadows of the Empire, Mario 64, Vigilante 8, Mario Kart 64, Banjo, Goldeneye 007, Mario Party, and many others. Seems like the system must've been especially hard to code for because it is one of Nintendo's smallest game libraries.

 

[EverydayBeast]

N64 mini anyone?

 

[polybius80]

The N64 had the cleanest 3D Polygons but the ugliest Environmental Tile Mapping as mentioned it was the 4kb limit.

To alleviate this, Nintendo should have done what they did with the NES and get the Cartridges with additional RAM to assist early on if they couldn't expand it in the console.

That being said, it is very impressive how advanced it was at the time in spite of using Cartridges.

there is a debate about it, there is this idea that the cartridge allowed fast access to game assets like other rom based systems and as mentioned in the video, this is supported by an interview with factor 5 for the indiana jones game where they mention they did it in that game but offer no furter details of the process or if was something special in the cartridge, but a dev in beyond3d forums(he was a developer for n64 games at the time) mentioned that is a bad idea, he mentioned something about very limited bandwidht like 8 bit interface or something like that(I remember he clarified he dont remember everything about it but that it was bad idea ) makes sense as most dev didnt used that and the general consensus is the BW problems, maybe is bad idea but can be used along other things to alleviate the problem and maybe it depends more how the game works so what F5 did cannot be applied to every game, I suspect that what you say is correct but just like nes that extra hardware was very costly and most publishers didn't want to pay so as a result devs had a hard time with the console, in the nes era the extra features in the game required a particular mapper chip that can trigger interrupts for special functions that was expensive

 

[kingbean]

4KB cache was a mistake.

 

[01011001]

There are bottlenecks in any hardware. Funny how the PS2 is never brought up mind

true but the way they set up the ram really fucking gimped the system. imaging how much better games would run if the GPU and the CPU both could independently access the RAM pool.

the PS2 was bottlenecked hard too but for different reasons... it had a crazy high polygon pushing power but not enough hardware to shade all those polygons in any realistic scenario, defeating the whole point of having all these polygons. and similar weird things... but this in the N64 is just really dumb tbh.

 

[JimboJones]

Where we would be IF Nintendo chose CD over Cartridge.

If they had of used CD and kept this architecture it sounds like the system could have been even worse as mentioned some developers where able to get around the limitations by using the fast access to the cartridge.

 

[Jubenhimer]

From what I've heard, Hiroshi Yamauchi mandated that the N64 be as difficult as possible to develop for. The thinking was that complex architecture will keep away any untalented developers, and reward only the finest and best ones in the industry... Yeah, that'll work :/

 

[polybius80]

true but the way they set up the ram really fucking gimped the system. imaging how much better games would run if the GPU and the CPU both could independently access the RAM pool.

the PS2 was bottlenecked hard too but for different reasons... it had a crazy high polygon pushing power but not enough hardware to shade all those polygons in any realistic scenario, defeating the whole point of having all these polygons. and similar weird things... but this in the N64 is just really dumb tbh.

PS2 was just hard to use, all shading effects were done using redrawing(the console was designed that way) that made it hard to use specially at first but as the generation progressed devs used all kind of shading effects on it






there is no point comparing it to N64 as the only thing they are similar is that they were hard to develop for

 

[Stefan.North]

There are bottlenecks in any hardware. Funny how the PS2 is never brought up mind

Never said otherwise. But you missed an important adjective, I said 'severelly'.
SNES had slow ass CPU and sample sound that had very low memory.
N64 had low texture cache and outdated media storage.
GC was great actually, only problem is mini-DVDs, which I love but made GC have less multiplatform games.
Wii and WiiU (still hate the names) weren't full generational leaps.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

I remember believing the "ULTRA64" was the hardware powering Killer Instinct in the arcades.
Damn, were we in for a nasty surprise...

Thet low poly, low framerate, blurry texture, headache inducing shitbox has been the low point of NIntendos history, imo. And that's after the glorious SNES, maybe the best console ever.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Never said otherwise. But you missed an important adjective, I said 'severelly'.
SNES had slow ass CPU and sample sound that had very low memory.
N64 had low texture cache and outdated media storage.
GC was great actually, only problem is mini-DVDs, which I love but made GC have less multiplatform games.
Wii and WiiU (still hate the names) weren't full generational leaps.

So like I said, all system have issues

 

[cireza]

Texture cache is your typical Nintendo being greedy. Also the RAM looks like it does not answer immediately, but rather decides to answer whenever it wants

Console could have avoided many of these problems by being more like the Neo-Geo, with more buses to address directly the ROM, which is basically seen as RAM extension on Neo Geo. What's the point of keeping the cartridge format if you can't easily access instantly all the data inside the ROM ?

 

[Team Andromeda]

true but the way they set up the ram really fucking gimped the system. imaging how much better games would run if the GPU and the CPU both could independently access the RAM pool.

the PS2 was bottlenecked hard too but for different reasons... it had a crazy high polygon pushing power but not enough hardware to shade all those polygons in any realistic scenario, defeating the whole point of having all these polygons. and similar weird things... but this in the N64 is just really dumb tbh.

True, but I think the biggest issues of the N64 was the utterly bonkers move, not to use CD-ROM. Sure it might have helped with the RRP price of the system, but after getting a handful of N64 games, you were far worse off, than getting a handful of PS/Saturn games, due to the price. Something lost on NCL and also the morons at SEGA America with the 32X

 

[Alphagear]

If they had of used CD and kept this architecture it sounds like the system could have been even worse as mentioned some developers where able to get around the limitations by using the fast access to the cartridge.

That is probably true but the biggest bottleneck has got to be Cartridge.

Still remember it pushing away the likes of Squaresoft cause they couldn't fit their games into it.

Games like FF were always Nintendo. Even FF7 was for the next gen Nintendo console until Nintendo announced N64 will be cartridge based.

Reason why the N64 DD was developed but it was too late.

 

[Kazza]

Reading through these replies, it sounds like Nintendo were lucky not to have a Saturn-like situation on their hands. Although it clearly didn't sell as much as they hoped, things could have been a lot worse. At least they got the launch price right and had game from their major mascot ready at launch - those two things (and Sega's stumbles) probably saved them.

 

[JimboJones]

That is probably true but the biggest bottleneck has got to be Cartridge.

Still remember it pushing away the likes of Squaresoft cause they couldn't fit their games into it.

Games like FF were always Nintendo. Even FF7 was for the next gen Nintendo console until Nintendo announced N64 will be cartridge based.

Reason why the N64 DD was developed but it was too late.

Yeah carts where Def a mistake all around and if they had of designed it for disks from the get go maybe they could have come up with something more balanced

 

[UnNamed]

N64 had texture cache issue because engineers intended to use it with fast ram, that's why N64 use expensive rambus memory.

In terms of polygons, N64 initially moved the same amount of polygons of PSX and Saturn, was designed to have polished polygons instead of a brute force approach . Someone said this approach was SGI fault who misinterpreted the focus on real-time graphics in video games.
Once they unlocked the microcode and use the real power, N64 began to move lots of polygons.
I remember an old thread on GAF about polycount, some games like WDC or Wargods moved the double of Polygon PSX do, something about 6500/7000 per scene versus the usual 3000/3500 in PSX games, and with a better frame rate too.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Why was the Nintendo 64 so hard to develop games for ?

MVG is one of those channels YT was made for.

I laughed, but I think the storage thing was vastly overrated. At least, at the beginning of that gen.

For a time, the CD was a solution looking for a problem. No traditional game really needed that much storage space. When you realize how small a game like Super Mario 64 is in terms of storage, you can better appreciate how little of a CD’s storage space was actually required at that time.

It is known that devs didn’t really know what the hell to do with that much storage, apart from the Full Motion Video games that were all the rage on PC for a while and were actually pivotal in expanding the userbase for CD-ROM drives on PCs. Most of the time games on CD-ROM were filled with high-quality music or, more often, with low-res video that nobody really asked for. The awful videos in Capcom’s Megaman games for the PS, with bad video quality and abysmal VA, were utterly unnecessary - yet apparently Capcom and Sony deemed them absolutely necessary to pretend that those games couldn’t be made without CD.

I remember reading that the entirety of FFVII’s game data was present on each of the game’s 3 CDs, and the only difference between the discs was the CG videos. Apparently, if you switched discs on the fly while a video was playing, all of the game’s data would load on every disc. This isn’t to say that FFVII in its entirety could fit on a N64 cartridge without the CG videos, but puts into perspective just how much CG videos - as primitive as they were - would inflate a game’s storage requirement. Yeah, I’m not going to discuss how important those videos were to the success of a game like FFVII. But actual game data required so much less space, it’s clear that CDs weren’t that necessary in the mid-90s. After all, if this wasn’t the case, N64 would have been completely annihilated, but apparently Nintendo’s 8MB games were enough to turn some heads for one more generation.

Of course CD would eventually become necessary to store all of a game’s data, and of course Nintendo’s decision to once again go with cartridges was anachronistic. Still, instant load times were nice compared to having to play Galaga while Ridge Racer loaded, and “muh CD storage space!” was largely an excuse for years. Devs had other reasons for not wanting to develop for N64, it’s that simple. I don’t know how much space Resident Evil and Tomb Raider’s videos took, but both games could have been made for N64, I have no doubt about that.

 

[BlackTron]

N64 mini anyone?

IDK.

The 4kb might still be too expensive for them.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I laughed, but I think the storage thing was vastly overrated. At least, at the beginning of that gen.

For a time, the CD was a solution looking for a problem. No traditional game really needed that much storage space. When you realize how small a game like Super Mario 64 is in terms of storage, you can better appreciate how little of a CD’s storage space was actually required at that time.

It is known that devs didn’t really know what the hell to do with that much storage, apart from the Full Motion Video games that were all the rage on PC for a while and were actually pivotal in expanding the userbase for CD-ROM drives on PCs. Most of the time games on CD-ROM were filled with high-quality music or, more often, with low-res video that nobody really asked for. The awful videos in Capcom’s Megaman games for the PS, with bad video quality and abysmal VA, were utterly unnecessary - yet apparently Capcom and Sony deemed them absolutely necessary to pretend that those games couldn’t be made without CD.

I remember reading that the entirety of FFVII’s game data was present on each of the game’s 3 CDs, and the only difference between the discs was the CG videos. Apparently, if you switched discs on the fly while a video was playing, all of the game’s data would load on every disc. This isn’t to say that FFVII in its entirety could fit on a N64 cartridge without the CG videos, but puts into perspective just how much CG videos - as primitive as they were - would inflate a game’s storage requirement. Yeah, I’m not going to discuss how important those videos were to the success of a game like FFVII. But actual game data required so much less space, it’s clear that CDs weren’t that necessary in the mid-90s. After all, if this wasn’t the case, N64 would have been completely annihilated, but apparently Nintendo’s 8MB games were enough to turn some heads for one more generation.

Of course CD would eventually become necessary to store all of a game’s data, and of course Nintendo’s decision to once again go with cartridges was anachronistic. Still, instant load times were nice compared to having to play Galaga while Ridge Racer loaded, and “muh CD storage space!” was largely an excuse for years. Devs had other reasons for not wanting to develop for N64, it’s that simple. I don’t know how much space Resident Evil and Tomb Raider’s videos took, but both games could have been made for N64, I have no doubt about that.

Read Revolutionaries at Sony for the bigger pro CD argument of all (Nintendo’s cartridges cost to devs, minimum order volumes, turnaround time for additional orders/reprints, etc... massive massive headache for publishers and much bigger costs).

Also, I would not use SM64 as the ultimate judge of storage requirements and pre-rendered cutscenes and backgrounds (see RE games) were essential when consoles could not hear real-time 3D of a comparable level to the story telling they wanted to create. Audio tracks, high quality ones, were also important too.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yeah carts where Def a mistake all around and if they had of designed it for disks from the get go maybe they could have come up with something more balanced

It would have been a bit early for Nintendo and their 0 loading times focus back then.

 

[Gp1]

There are bottlenecks in any hardware. Funny how the PS2 is never brought up mind

Not entirely true, I remember at the time the PS2 was compared to a Ferrari with no tires for being not too friendly to develop for.

Other thing the some may forget, in the 90's we didn't have the image and audio compression that came in the 2000's and later.

 

[deriks]

I remember believing the "ULTRA64" was the hardware powering Killer Instinct in the arcades.
Damn, were we in for a nasty surprise...

Thet low poly, low framerate, blurry texture, headache inducing shitbox has been the low point of NIntendos history, imo. And that's after the glorious SNES, maybe the best console ever.

Nintendo wanted something like this hardware, but it was too expensive and there's the cartridge thing that is also expensive for publishers. You can't go expensive all the way.

But they admited the poor choice, which leads to the Game Cube that is more friendly... except the mini DVD. Why, Nintendo?!

 

[Team Andromeda]

Not entirely true, I remember at the time the PS2 was compared to a Ferrari with no tires for being not too friendly to develop for.

Other thing the some may forget, in the 90's we didn't have the image and audio compression that came in the 2000's and later.

I harldy ever see the PS 2 brought up. Also we did start to see audio compression in the 90s...ADX came out for the Saturn in 97

 

[McCheese]

It's pretty incredible what Rare managed to do with that 4kb of fast texture cache.

 

[synchronicity]

The 64 has a handful of great games for sure, but it is definitely the hardest console to go back to for me. I still love PS1 visuals. There is still a lot of charm and character there imo, but the N64 - es rough mang. (The Gamecube, on the other hand, is still one of the best consoles ever imo.)

 

[nkarafo]

Texture wise, i think DOOM 64 and Banjo Kazooie are the best looking N64 games. Especially Banjo:

 

[Gp1]

I harldy ever see the PS 2 brought up. Also we did start to see audio compression in the 90s...ADX came out for the Saturn in 97

And because the ps2 sold 5x what the n64 sold. But there are some complaints about it...

Yeah but it wasn't nowhere near as easy to do as in the 2000's

 

[Team Andromeda]

And because the ps2 sold 5x what the n64 sold. But there are some complaints about it...

Yeah but it wasn't nowhere near as easy to do as in the 2000's

Hence my original point about Market Share. I also think you underplay the likes of ADX a little.

 

[diffusionx]

I harldy ever see the PS 2 brought up. Also we did start to see audio compression in the 90s...ADX came out for the Saturn in 97

PS2 definitely got a lot of heat for being difficult to develop for, especially early on, and you saw it with ports like DOA2 and Crazy Taxi that were a step down from the Dreamcast versions.

The problem with the PS2 was that it was like a blank slate, all bandwidth, and took time to figure out. But it was figured out. I'm no expert on coding for 90s systems but the issue with the N64 is more like no matter what its bottlenecks always got in the way and it was easily noticed on the screen. It's more analogous to the Genesis color palette, where no matter what, that limitation was there.