Chewy Chipmunk
Banned
Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark and Conker
All three frames of them
All three frames of them
What was the N64 game with the overall best graphics?
- Thread starter Alex_Mexico
- Start date
I absolutely love that game, one of my favorite arcade racing games ever, but I must agree with you.
These are what the games would look like without them, which is the point because they are direct capture from the console itself, displays with scanlines shouldn't have anything to do with that. I vastly prefer it this way and it makes sense. Scanlines don't appear in direct feed shots on big gaming websites either, they shouldn't have to here because games weren't displayed with them originally, it's the display that does that, not the direct capture which captures the games the way they are supposed to be. I have no idea why you would want scanlines when comparing how games looked without them, and that doesn't make for the best comparison either. Scanlines is only a display thing, not a thing that games were built in from the get go, that's why you don't see them in other types of displays and capture cards, because they were only for those displays due to resolution.
Note that I don't hate scanlines, they are perfect for 240p 2D games, it's just that direct capture(which is what I did and will always do) is the way to go for what the game would look like on anything!
My words exactly!
Member
I wish i had a capture device to show off some N64 gameplay. Would off screen shots of my N64 hooked to 28"CRT do? I only have a composite cable though
Oh damn...composite isn't that good and off screenshots vary on the display and camera. Because of that I don't do them as direct capture is much easier and safer...and more accurate. Also it's technically not the best comparison because what it looks like on your display would look different on others since all displays are made differently.
If you do it it's not going to represent the best an N64 can do due to composite and off screen issues.
Also, these kinds of software scanlines rarely look like the actual ones from a CRT. If you take a photo from a TV set it looks quite different than simply adding black lines between the pixels. Unless you're rendering a physically-based CRT simulation, of course.
With the current update, I've found that XRGB produces surprisingly realistic results. It's not just black lines alternating, they actually use some slight softening techniques to produce something that looks less stark.
Lynd7
Member
The UltraHDMI also has something similar with the hybrid scanline option, you can also tweak them if you want aswell.
To me they look about the same as the lines on my PVM.
Jack The Nipper
Banned
I think Ridge Racer 64 looks pretty decent as well, of course here are screenshots I took.
this is the kind of look that I think is sort of awful on the n64 as well as most racers and where the ps1 really outshined it a lot.
ridge racer 1 just feels so much better in textures.
these flat shade looks just look so bad to me on most n64 racers, there are a few good ones but most are like this one for me.
nkarafo
Member
You just have to pick your poison.
Ridge Racer on PS1 looks sharper but you get the unstable, wobbly graphics and polygon gaps the console is known for. The N64 version looks blurrier and the textures less sharp but at least the environments and 3D graphics are solid as rock.
potatohead
Member
My words exactly!
Member
Heh as soon as i saw the RR64 shots i knew the "3 RRT4 gifs" would follow 
Kidding aside though, yeah RRT4 looks better imho too (its close to WDC). RR64 has more cars and 4 player support in its credit.
As far as car driving games go, World Driver Championship is the king followed by Rush 2049, then Beetle Adventure Racing, then Top Gear Overdrive then RR64.
I also have a guilty pleasure in California Speed
P.S. I know its not much and it's probably not applicable but i uploaded some off screen shots from GoldenEye and Banjo Kazooie
http://imgur.com/a/IduXt
Kidding aside though, yeah RRT4 looks better imho too (its close to WDC). RR64 has more cars and 4 player support in its credit.
As far as car driving games go, World Driver Championship is the king followed by Rush 2049, then Beetle Adventure Racing, then Top Gear Overdrive then RR64.
I also have a guilty pleasure in California Speed
P.S. I know its not much and it's probably not applicable but i uploaded some off screen shots from GoldenEye and Banjo Kazooie
http://imgur.com/a/IduXt
D.Lo
Member
Ridge Racer 4 was one of the smoothest on PS1, and it used lots of tricks (fake lighting) and clever art design to hide the PS1 issues.
But it still has texture seaming issues and jittery textures. Here's some footage, random black/white lines appearing on the track constantly when the polygons don't quite line up, and the textures on every wall, poster, building etc are lightly swarming constantly.
RR64 used the Ridge Racer/RR Revolution era aesthetic so was a bit out of date for the series by the time it was released, but being on N64 had basically no texture seaming issues and stable textures. The console is just more capable of more 'solid' stable textured 3D.
It is actually a very good looking N64 game technically. Just a bit '1995' in the aesthetic.
But it still has texture seaming issues and jittery textures. Here's some footage, random black/white lines appearing on the track constantly when the polygons don't quite line up, and the textures on every wall, poster, building etc are lightly swarming constantly.
RR64 used the Ridge Racer/RR Revolution era aesthetic so was a bit out of date for the series by the time it was released, but being on N64 had basically no texture seaming issues and stable textures. The console is just more capable of more 'solid' stable textured 3D.
It is actually a very good looking N64 game technically. Just a bit '1995' in the aesthetic.
I do believe that RR64 could look much better with stronger art direction. It's not necessarily the N64 that is at fault here.Heh as soon as i saw the RR64 shots i knew the "3 RRT4 gifs" would follow
Kidding aside though, yeah RRT4 looks better imho too (its close to WDC). RR64 has more cars and 4 player support in its credit.
Auto-Reply
Member
I wasn't trying to tell anyone how to do comparison shots, I agree with you that doing them without scanlines is probably the best. (I just wanted to point out that nobody in the past has seen these games without scanlines so they do not represent what we've seen on our crt's back in the day.)
nkarafo
Member
I think i agree with that order.
Ok, fair enough!
Cow Mengde
Banned
I pick riiiidge raaacer (type 4)
Even as tiny gif, the texture wrapping and wobbling polygons are so obvious.
blame space
Banned
these are unreal. is that the same frame rate it ran on PSX?I pick riiiidge raaacer (type 4)
Nice ones man.
Direct 720p Ultrahdmi grabs:
Non blurred:
Retro mode:
I can get some grabs from other games if I have them.
A Black Falcon
Member
I agree on all points. RR64 was the first Ridge Racer game I owned, and when I got a PS1 and RR Type 4 years later, things like the jittery textures and popping polygons, jaggies, and such held it back; I like RR64's graphics more for sure. It's not the best looking N64 game, but it does look good. Yes, Ridge Racer Type 4 pushes the PS1 hard, but those PS1 polygon-display issues are huge, HUGE drawbacks!
Im really ok with PS1's wobbly polygons actually. It was a weird time for console graphics but Id take the crispness of PS1 over N64. Was playing Spyro on PS1 and it really holds up fantastic in a way that most N64 titles dont. Its going to be a really subjective era of graphics anyway, so no clear winners here lol.
The Ultrahdmi mod gives you the crispness of the PS1 when using an N64:
Conker's Bad Fur Day:
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time:
Pokemon Puzzle League:
Super Mario 64
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
I'm not sure what that does, but that still doesn't look very crisp.
On the other hand, the PGXP emulator can eliminate the PS1 texture swimming with some games, producing some pretty insane results:
Crash Team Racing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISBOCiH5lxE
RR4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7sa28_oeSs
You made that sound much worse than the footage shows. Also, keep in mind that these issues stand out more with the crispness of the high res graphics from the emulated footage you posted. On a typical CRT TV, that game really looked great at the time.
A Black Falcon
Member
Calling horribly pixelated textures "crisp" may be common, but it seems like a complete and total misuse of the term.. .what about Playstyation graphics are in any way "crisp"? Giant blocky pixel textures are not "crisp", they are awful. And PS1 graphics can't even stay in one place, much less look good! No console that generation has 3d graphics that are crisp in any way.
Of course subjective opinions differ, but the objective best graphics should be for the system which is the most powerful, can do the most things graphically, etc. And that is, by a wide margin, the N64. Regardless of PS1 apologists saying that wobbly polygons are fine, that the N64 had to use so much hardware power to get rid of them is proof of how much more powerful the system is; back then, that was a big deal. And it still is, even if other things about N64 graphics (framerates, fuzzy textures) have aged as well.
I'm not understanding. Your response to captures from an actual N64 320x240 frame buffer is "That's not crisp. Check out an emulator running a PS1 game in high resolution."
nkarafo
Member
Graphics isn't only about what's going under the hood. It's also the resulting picture and aesthetics. The problem with the N64 is that it sacrifices a lot to achieve those solid looking polygons. And it's video output is bad.
I also like the solid, steady graphics of the N64. But i also like the crisp picture of the PS1 as well and it's more detailed textures. Sure they are blocky up close but they are also more detailed. On average, PS1 games look better for me but there are a few N64 games (Banjo-Kazooie, Shadowman high resolution mode, World Driver Championship) that rise above anything the PS1 has ever produced. These games definitely prove the N64's superiority of the hardware.
World Driver Championship in particular is perhaps the only game that manages to show of the N64's real power. From what i can gather, the developers bypassed some of the N64's "sacrifices" which resulted to many more polygons on screen. At times, this looks like a low res Dreamcast game. Some of it's areas are far more complex than anything ever seen in any 5th gen console (that huge bridge scene in one of the levels, the whole Vegas stage with all the background detail, etc). The pictures in this thread don't make the game justice because the scenes showed are very modest.
Here are some ugly Youtube shots i found (from a real system) that captures one impressive scene in the game. If anyone can post better looking pictures of this scene it would be great.
Notice the drawing distance and the shadows here... it reminds me a similar scene in Grand Turismo 3 on the PS2!
And here are a couple of emulated shots that show off the details on the vegas stage
The background detail around those areas seems to be very high compared to your average 5th gen racer.
Corronchilejano
Member
Whomever claims the PSX looked "crisp" probably never played on a real machine. PSX was blocky as fuck.
How did you miss my World Driver Championship direct feed screens from the console itself in this thread?=OGraphics isn't only about what's going under the hood. It's also the resulting picture and aesthetics. The problem with the N64 is that it sacrifices a lot to achieve those solid looking polygons. And it's video output is bad.
I also like the solid, steady graphics of the N64. But i also like the crisp picture of the PS1 as well and it's more detailed textures. Sure they are blocky up close but they are also more detailed. On average, PS1 games look better for me but there are a few N64 games (Banjo-Kazooie, Shadowman high resolution mode, World Driver Championship) that rise above anything the PS1 has ever produced. These games definitely prove the N64's superiority of the hardware.
World Driver Championship in particular is perhaps the only game that manages to show of the N64's real power. From what i can gather, the developers bypassed some of the N64's "sacrifices" which resulted to many more polygons on screen. At times, this looks like a low res Dreamcast game. Some of it's areas are far more complex than anything ever seen in any 5th gen console (that huge bridge scene in one of the levels, the whole Vegas stage with all the background detail, etc). The pictures in this thread don't make the game justice because the scenes showed are very modest.
Here are some ugly Youtube shots i found (from a real system) that captures one impressive scene in the game. If anyone can post better looking pictures of this scene it would be great.
Notice the drawing distance and the shadows here... it reminds me a similar scene in Grand Turismo 3 on the PS2!
And here are a couple of emulated shots that show off the details on the vegas stage
The background detail around those areas seems to be very high compared to your average 5th gen racer.
nkarafo
Member
I didn't honestly!
I just thought these pics you posted weren't very good scenes apart from one maybe.
Well, I did the best I could do!
Video output from the system is very crisp. Standard n64 output is awful in comparison but the HDMI mod corrects it.
nkarafo
Member
It wasn't my intention to write off your posts, i just wanted to add some scenes that i, personally, thought were the best looking in the game. This game has a lot of stages and stuff to see anyway.
PSX games actually look incorrect if they are too crisp. You can output a crisp image from the console, but the games themselves were made with NTSC colorbleed in mind. This is because, often, for speed, games would downsample from 18/16 bpp to an 8bpp framebuffer that would introduce really nasty fullscreen dither.
When you view many PSX games with crisp output, like you get if you use the SVideo cable, you get stuff like this:
Now, that would all look ok if there was a 1 pixel blur applied to the screen, or if there were scanlines, or if there is NTSC/PAL colorbleed going on to mask the dither, but straight, crisp output winds up looking wrong otherwise.
Ok that's good, fair enough.
Im well aware what these machines look like. Ive got an UltraHDMI modded N64, PS3 for playing PS1 discs on, XRGB Mini for everything else. (Genesis RGB, SNES Mini RGB, etc)
Anyway people are misinterpreting what I mean by crisp I guess. Of course it was blocky!
Yep, I agree. Since I typically use an XRGB, I increase h_scaler to 16 or 17 for PSX games or particularly dithered Genesis games. It blurs the image but still produces reasonably sharp pixels. You get the softness of composite without the artefacts. Stipple alpha looks like real alpha with this technique. Good for Saturn games too.PSX games actually look incorrect if they are too crisp. You can output a crisp image from the console, but the games themselves were made with NTSC colorbleed in mind. This is because, often, for speed, games would downsample from 18/16 bpp to an 8bpp framebuffer that would introduce really nasty fullscreen dither.
When you view many PSX games with crisp output, like you get if you use the SVideo cable, you get stuff like this:
Now, that would all look ok if there was a 1 pixel blur applied to the screen, or if there were scanlines, or if there is NTSC/PAL colorbleed going on to mask the dither, but straight, crisp output winds up looking wrong otherwise.
It's been mentioned in this thread before, but Kirby 64 still looks great and plays perfectly fine today. Has not aged a bit.
One thing I have seen in this thread are inaccurate screenshot representations. N64 games never looked as blocky as the direct frame captures in this thread due to interlaced video signals sent to CRT TVs.
Lots of the scanline filters also don't look very authentic. Here's a real pic of mario 64: (credit to speedlolita)
One thing I have seen in this thread are inaccurate screenshot representations. N64 games never looked as blocky as the direct frame captures in this thread due to interlaced video signals sent to CRT TVs.
Lots of the scanline filters also don't look very authentic. Here's a real pic of mario 64: (credit to speedlolita)
Except this isn't about CRT TVs, this is about capturing them directly from the console itself without worrying about what they look like on a TV since displays differ their looks. And it's not interlaced, my shots are scan doubled from 240p, also an N64 game can't be interlaced either unless the game runs in 480i through an expansion pak, and there's no interlacing in any of the direct feed shots either. So yes, these direct feed shots are representative of what they look like when they aren't displayed on a CRT TV. Try capturing them through an XRGB mini or any other upscaler or even just direct capture with a capture card and you get the same results. Also bringing up CRT TVs which is nothing like actually capturing what the game looks like when take from the console is not the way to go, off screenshots are not the same as a real capture from the console which is only possible through direct capture so I'm not sure why it gets brought up unless you only view games on a CRT TV even though the point is to show what they look like without displays in the 1st place.
I don't want to be on this thread anymore.gifOP said:
funking giblet
Member
It's been mentioned in this thread before, but Kirby 64 still looks great and plays perfectly fine today. Has not aged a bit.
One thing I have seen in this thread are inaccurate screenshot representations. N64 games never looked as blocky as the direct frame captures in this thread due to interlaced video signals sent to CRT TVs.
Lots of the scanline filters also don't look very authentic. Here's a real pic of mario 64: (credit to speedlolita)
Also, my PAL Trinitron had barely visible scanlines, most PAL users wouldn't have scanlines at all due to the smaller size in PAL regions and colour bleed.