Why doesn't N64 look better than PS1?

[Shannon]

3 discs worth was a lot more than the soundtrack and some cinematics...

Some data was duplicated across discs.

[GameGirl420]

I remember the exact days when both PS1 and N64 came out. PS1 was sometime in late '95 and N64 was around summer of '96.

 

My older brother worked for Sony at the time as a game tester so we had practically every PS1 game ever made at that point. From what I recall though when N64 cameout it felt much better than the PS1...My brother's friend bought N64 the day it came out and he brought it over our house.I remember simply being blown away by Super Mario 64 at the time, while PS1 games looked a little weak in comparison. I mean there's no way Crash Bandicoot is better than Super Mario 64. I guess over time PS1 built a better library and improved on it's own graphics. I remember one of the things I was disappointed in with N64 is that it didn't have alot of games.

 

 

So yea I guess overall PS1 is better than N64, but N64 had it's good games. I think I played more hours of Super Mario Kart-64 than Gran Turismo back in the late 90's. Played alot of GT as well but Super Mario Kart wayy more.

[Shinju]

^ 296 games to be exact I own all 296 too, N64 has some titles that really shine for old school polygon games, Zelda Majora's Mask, Turok 2 (expantion pak enabled) and Donkey Kong 64 as well as Banjo & Kazooie series, there are others but lets name the ones we all know.

 

I worked at NOA at the time of Zelda OOT and Turok 2 and a few other titles that escape me.

 

N64 used rendering tricks like fog, blurr and simple models and textures to get around the loading and rendering jobs, keep the games flowing nice as to keep distance draw at a minium so that the system did not have to keep uncompressing texture/model packets every time. The system had low video ram to start with but that is why they released the expantion pack was for a higher resolution and faster unloading/loading of texture/model packets on games that took advantage of it.

 

 

Nintendo proved that they can do everything that the CD systems can do, take a look at Resident Evil 2 N64 it comes fully loaded with both discs and all the extra's with full voice and fmv's on one cart, sure there was loading in between rooms but that was apart of the games ambiance in both the ps1 and N64 versions, either way it was pretty impressive.

 

PS1 still is a great system and will hold its own but it did not really start to shine till after the Saturn left the market and Sony had full control over 3rd party licensed titles, Metal Gear Solid pushed the PS1 to the limits and still looks good even today.

 

I really wish the Dreamcast would have stuck around a little longer as it was really starting to show what it could do with titles like RE,Code Verionica, Illbleed Sonic 2 ect, Quite a few of the launch titles looked pretty amazing too Blue Stinger for as much hate as it got looked amazing, House of the Dead 2 and of course Sonic Adventure. E.G.G is still one of my favorite games on the system amazing 2D hand drawn art work was amazing.

[roland p]

In general, I'd agree. I'd even take it a step further and say that most of these game's were ugly the day they came out. I at least never considered the bulk of the early 3D releases on the Playstation and Saturn as being anything but insulting to the eye's and an embaressment after being used to beautiful 2D gaming like Link to the Past during the 16 bit generation.

I think flat shaded 3d polygon games are still pleasing to the eye because they are so abstract.

 

I wonder what would have happened if they produced a home console with polygon capabilities like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3PcHBFsjxg Very fast and no texture-mapping artifacts.

[Atariboy]

I think such games are attractive as well.

 

I don't think arcades ever really went through this phase like home consoles did. 3D arcade gaming was usually always attractive. From the earliest days with things like Blaster and 'I, Robot' in the early 1980's, isometric games like Zaxxon, the 2D sprite scaling age exemplified by Sega releases like Outrun, the flat shaded polygon age with games like Hard Drivin' and Virtua Racing, to the early textured 3D games like Daytona USA were all attractive games even if they were visually very simple at times.

 

I honestly can't think of a 3D arcade game of any sort of popularity that I'd consider ugly. Some of the ones that used digitized graphics like Pit-Fighter are probably the ones that come closest to qualifying off the top of my head. But when I do something like fire up the Sega Rally port on the Playstation 2, I'm seeing a genuinely attractive game in my eyes even if it's graphically primitive today.

 

But much of the 3D console output during the 1990's was just unattractive and 15-20 years of progress hasn't done it much favors. Not that I'm suggesting it's some wasteland devoid of quality games. I can think of dozens of 3D polygonal games from throughout the 1990's that I think hold up well even today in the graphics department. Even the Sega Genesis offers several fast and good looking 3D polygonal games just utilizing the standard hardware like Formula One. But it's close to being the exception rather than the rule for that decade.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Atariboy

[Guyra]

Holy jeez, the texture replacement projects look pretty darn good. (link) I'm not much of an emulation fan, but it's nice to see what can be done on the same polygons. If only n64 could have supported textures just half that nice:

Yeah, high quality textures is one of the most important things when it comes to video game graphics. It's incredible what better textures can do all by itself.

 

Still love both systems, though PS1 is my favourite. Not because of the graphics, but mostly nostalgia on my part, I guess.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Guyra

[Andromeda Stardust]

Honestly, I think the smooth textures of the N64 benefit greatly compared to the blocky pixelization of the PS1. That's also where the bulk of the processing power went on the 64: texture smoothing. True the graphics are not stellar compared to later consoles, but the Atari graphics are pretty raw looking compared to later 2D games as well.

 

Graphics department ratings...

Primitive -> Good -> Excellent

2D: Atari VCS -> 7800, SMS, NES -> Turbo-16, Genesis/MD, SNES, Neo-Geo

3D: Jag, Saturn, PS1, N64 -> Dreamcast, PS2, GC, Xbox, Wii -> Xbox 360, PS3, Wii-U

 

Basically, the evolution of 2D graphics during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th video game generations parallels the evolution of 3D graphics during the 5th, 6th, and 7th generations. Individual consoles in each generation are arranged subjectively from worst to best. This is judging by graphics alone, not how much I like or dislike a particular console. That said, I bundled the Wii with 6th gen simply because it's lack of HD makes it stand out from the others. It's really more or less generation 6.5, and I feel that the Wii-U will likely be 7.5 rather than 8, especially when comparing it to upcoming MS and Sony consoles. Another misfortune with the Wii was that many of it's 3rd party games used engines that were designed around PS2, with tacked on motion controls that made the games worse instead of better. And now we have an issue where 3D graphics are just about as good as they can get for 360, PS3, and Wii-U. So what will Sony and MS do to make their new consoles more enticing? A CPU/GPU arms race resulting in a $700 launch price-tag for both parties would be corporate suicide in this weakened economy.

 

Back to topic, I don't believe there's anything inherently wrong with 5th generation 3D graphics, just like I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with 2nd generation 2D graphics. The real losers in the 3D race were the 4th generation consoles with tacked on 3D by way of expansion chips. 3D graphics on 2D consoles, ie Super FX SNES games and the 32X Genesis games with their unshaded blocky polygons rendered in 240p with no antialiasing of any kind, are the real losers in the 3D graphics department. Yes, that includes SNES Starfox and Genesis Virtua Racing. Good games with craptastic experimental 3D graphics, which made all the 5th generation 3D consoles look gorgeous!

Edited February 3, 2013 by stardust4ever

[Atariboy]

Star Fox was always an attractive game in my eyes. If nothing else, there's a lot of eye candy in the beautiful backgrounds of each level. And the wonderful soundtrack that I think just might be my favorite in videogaming conpensates for any primitiveness the graphics might have.

 

In my mind, the Wii is solidly in the last generation where performance is concerned. I don't see how it's stepping over any beyond video streaming and the motion aspect of it that the PS3 and Xbox 360 eventually countered well into the 8th generation in response to it. Graphically it's not really doing anything the Xbox couldn't of done and its online integration is only about on par with the Xbox (Poor online play compared to the Xbox but that's countered by things like the Wii's home button that allows an easy return to the dashboard, not requiring a boot disc to play DLC games unlike the original XBLA, etc).

 

The hallmark of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 was HD graphics and a high degree of online integration. Both are aspects that just aren't there on the Wii. The only thing that places it in the same generation in my eyes is the fact that their commercial lifes coincided with one another which overrides things like processing power, online capabilities, etc.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Atariboy

[+selgus]

I've done a few games on the N64 back in the day, and while Nintendo had some unique features in their platform, it also had a bunch of limitations. Texturing was obviously one of the limitations as the active texture had to fit within the 4K texture cache. Which meant you need to load the texture cache and then draw all the polygons that used that texture, switch the texture in the cache, draw those polygons, etc. etc.

 

Also, since it was cartridge based, you needed to load the textures from the cart into RAM first, and then load it to the texture cache. The cartridge was not like previous consoles, with you being able to use things directly from cartridge.

 

It also had a programmable processor for doing graphics (RSP), though Nintendo didn't open up access to programming it to 3rd parties until very late in the life of the console. I always felt this was a mistake on their part, as developers could have optimized their renderers for their specific situations and make better use of the RSP memory and cycles.

[xDragonWarrior]

I think you can't compare the two.They have different graphic styles that look totally different.It's like comparing a Nes to a Genesis.They both are great consoles and each have there advantages graphic and spec wise but i think they should not be compared.

[NinjaWarrior]

I remember the exact days when both PS1 and N64 came out. PS1 was sometime in late '95 and N64 was around summer of '96.

 

My older brother worked for Sony at the time as a game tester so we had practically every PS1 game ever made at that point. From what I recall though when N64 cameout it felt much better than the PS1...My brother's friend bought N64 the day it came out and he brought it over our house.I remember simply being blown away by Super Mario 64 at the time, while PS1 games looked a little weak in comparison. I mean there's no way Crash Bandicoot is better than Super Mario 64. I guess over time PS1 built a better library and improved on it's own graphics. I remember one of the things I was disappointed in with N64 is that it didn't have alot of games.

 

 

So yea I guess overall PS1 is better than N64, but N64 had it's good games. I think I played more hours of Super Mario Kart-64 than Gran Turismo back in the late 90's. Played alot of GT as well but Super Mario Kart wayy more.

 

My brother also worked at Sony ..He used to get alot of 1st party games

 

I was in to the Saturn at the time

Edited February 5, 2013 by NinjaWarrior

[R.O.T.S]

This is a question i am familiar with as i was a video games trader here in the UK from 1997-99 and at my stall customers used to watch both systems switched on while on display and ask me why the PS graphics looked better.Of course two completely different graphics engines at work here and the N64 seemed to use an anti aliased method which removed most detail from anything it was drawing,i found this to make most games look uninteresting and made everything on screen look like it was made from icing,marzipan or chocolate but even this graphic style did suit certain things such as the fast moving scenery in Pod Racer,the giant eel in Mario 64 and the snow planets in rogue squadron.So i do prefer the rough cut PS graphic engine as it did at least gave a better impression of detail,texture and that things were actually solid.

Edited February 5, 2013 by R.O.T.S