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[cireza]

the only hardware advantage of the PS1 is it having CDs.

And this is a huge advantage. If the N64 had a CD drive, it would have absolutely destroyed Saturn and PS1. But thanks to the cartridges, it was so compromised it ended up having the kind of visuals we all know.

When you have 10 times the storage space, you can do a ton more things. Any game with a lot of content requires the space, especially when moving to 3D, with textures etc... Nintendo pretty much removed themselves from the RPG scene because of that limitation, and even on other genres, the texture variety and quality is just super bad. You just have to cut content, compress a ton, and constantly reuse the same assets on cartridges.

 

[cireza]

They are faster, period. With or without compression.

What's the point of being able to stream quickly from the cart, if the amount of content you can put inside is extremely low ? You will never even get to stream anything nice because you just can't fit shit in such a small amount of memory.

A well designed hardware doesn't have this kind of insane bottleneck.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

People are missing the point here and focusing on technology.

For me it's about art style and how Nintendo/Rare made use of the tech.

Bowser below may be low-poly with low-res textures, but for me what I love is the use of colour, lighting and blending.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Conker on n64 is leagues above anything ps1 produced.

It is a crowning jewel of the system for some.

 

[Romulus]

It is a crowning jewel of the system for some.

Typical classic cherry pick. Super short video. Could you be any more obvious lol

 

[nkarafo]

It is a crowning jewel of the system for some.

So the game isn't technologically more advanced than whatever the PS1 had because..... He sings about poo?

Oh no, it's not a serious game! How can we live with ourselves if the game isn't as serious and melodramatic as Final Fantasy? I'm a big boy who only plays big boy games, with drama and crying and plot. Not poo singing!

...Also, this has nothing to do with graphics so yeah, another pointless hate bait post.

And this is a huge advantage. If the N64 had a CD drive, it would have absolutely destroyed Saturn and PS1. But thanks to the cartridges, it was so compromised it ended up having the kind of visuals we all know.

When you have 10 times the storage space, you can do a ton more things. Any game with a lot of content requires the space, especially when moving to 3D, with textures etc... Nintendo pretty much removed themselves from the RPG scene because of that limitation, and even on other genres, the texture variety and quality is just super bad. You just have to cut content, compress a ton, and constantly reuse the same assets on cartridges.

The basic idea of what you say is correct and many games suffered from this. But many also didn't. You can't see a game like Goldeneye and Banjo-Kazooie and tell me the textures have no quality or variety.

The small size was a problem but the larger 16-32 MB carts were fine without FMVs and high quality audio. It was the audio that got the biggest cuts, not the textures. There isn's a single game that has 44.000Khz music, for instance, they are all 22.000khz or lower. But the textures in some games were just as good and varied or better than the best looking PS1 games.

And you'll be surprised at how little of the CD space many PS1 games used when we are talking anything besides FMV and audio.

 

[kevboard]

And this is a huge advantage. If the N64 had a CD drive, it would have absolutely destroyed Saturn and PS1. But thanks to the cartridges, it was so compromised it ended up having the kind of visuals we all know.

When you have 10 times the storage space, you can do a ton more things. Any game with a lot of content requires the space, especially when moving to 3D, with textures etc... Nintendo pretty much removed themselves from the RPG scene because of that limitation, and even on other genres, the texture variety and quality is just super bad. You just have to cut content, compress a ton, and constantly reuse the same assets on cartridges.

the only issue graphics wise that the N64 ran into is not being able to do large scale games with prerendered backgrounds.

other than that the storage space was not a limitation.

the visuals the N64 had were almost entirely the way they were because of a stylistic choice by developers.

they saw that they could use a single texture and smooth it out for large surfaces, and did just that. only later in its life cycle did devs really start to stop just slapping a tiny texture on a massive surface, and made use of proper texture blending and layering.

these textures were tiny in size, both on PS1 and on N64. we are talking a few kilobytes... single digit kilobytes.
you'll not run into storage restrictions when your average texture is like 4kb to 6kb in size. not even on a 12MB cartridge. sure if you cheaped out and went with a 4MB cart...

developers simply embraced the texture filtering capabilities and the fact that there's proper perspective correction on textures, and thought it would be good enough on a CRT at 240p.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

It is a crowning jewel of the system for some.

Visually I preferred the look of the E3 1997 build

 

[RetroGamingUK]

And this is a huge advantage. If the N64 had a CD drive, it would have absolutely destroyed Saturn and PS1.

It destroyed the Saturn anyway, Saturn was a disaster and everyone I knew back in the day call it Shiturn.

 

[cireza]

But the textures in some games were just as good and varied or better than the best looking PS1 games.

"Some" ? How many ? Because I don't see this.

they saw that they could use a single texture and smooth it out for large surfaces, and did just that.

Yes, to gain space.

Even in the best games often taken as example, you can clearly see the insane reuse of textures and stretching leading to blur. All of this was done because of the reduced ROM size. I suspect that this improved later because publishers opted for bigger ROM sizes.

It destroyed the Saturn anyway, Saturn was a disaster and everyone I knew back in the day call it Shiturn.

Yeah no lol. The N64 dreams it had the library of games the Saturn had. You can be happy with N64, no problem. But it doesn't destroy in any way the Saturn.

 

[Gp1]

Saying the N64 "wasn't graphically impressive in '96" because Model 2/3 arcades and early PS1/Saturn existed is apples-to-oranges. You're cross-grading platforms with totally different constraints and price targets. Arcade boards were purpose-built, wall-powered, and orders of magnitude pricier; PCs with early 3D accelerators were modular, upgradable, and aimed at a different buyer. The N64 was a living-room box meant for a 240p CRT and a $199–$249 budget. By that brief, it was impressive: hardware z-buffering, texture filtering, anti-aliasing, and camera-driven 3D worlds you could actually control smoothly on a TV.

A few specific problems with your logic:

• Anachronism: Using 1998 GLQuake at 640×480/800×600 to judge a 1996 home console is like judging the Switch by a 2025 RTX rig. Tech moves fast; later PC wins don't retroactively erase a 1996 console's achievement.
• Category error (arcades/PC vs consoles): If this comparison stands, then the SNES "wasn't impressive" because SGI workstations existed, and the PS5 "isn't impressive" because high-end PCs outpace it. That's not how market context works.
• Moving goalposts: You cite "first batch" PS1/Saturn titles as if those were the baseline to beat, then jump two years to PC accelerators. Pick one frame of reference: 1996 living-room hardware on a CRT. In that frame, Mario 64, Wave Race 64, and Turok were eye-opening, each for different reasons (camera/control fluidity, water/shading, large spaces with z-buffered depth and purposeful distance fog).
• "Everything was ugly" overgeneralization: The fifth gen was transitional, but "ugly at the time" is revisionism. People were blown away then because the aesthetic matched the display tech. On CRTs, N64's filtering/AA removed the PS1's texture warping and polygon shimmer; that "Vaseline" you dislike in 2025 on a flat panel was the feature that made it look clean in 1996.
• Survivorship bias about what "aged well": Claiming only 2D aged well ignores art direction. Plenty of late-gen N64 output leaned into the hardware's look—chunky geometry, bold color, painterly/hand-tuned textures—and still reads great today when viewed as intended (real CRT or proper CRT shader).

Bottom line: judge hardware by its design goals, era, and target display. Comparing a 1996 console on a 240p CRT to a 1998 GLQuake rig is a market/tech mismatch. If you apply that same yardstick today, you'd have to call half the industry "not impressive" because a different, pricier class of hardware exists—and that's just logical gymnastics.

On a broader note, the level of fanboyism across many of these posts is almost comical. The debate stops being about actual history or market context and ends up reading like a parody of itself.

Saying the N64 "wasn't graphically impressive in '96" because Model 2/3 arcades and early PS1/Saturn existed is apples-to-oranges. You're cross-grading platforms with totally different constraints and price targets. Arcade boards were purpose-built, wall-powered, and orders of magnitude pricier; PCs with early 3D accelerators were modular, upgradable, and aimed at a different buyer. The N64 was a living-room box meant for a 240p CRT and a $199–$249 budget. By that brief, it was impressive: hardware z-buffering, texture filtering, anti-aliasing, and camera-driven 3D worlds you could actually control smoothly on a TV.

A few specific problems with your logic:

• Anachronism: Using 1998 GLQuake at 640×480/800×600 to judge a 1996 home console is like judging the Switch by a 2025 RTX rig. Tech moves fast; later PC wins don't retroactively erase a 1996 console's achievement.
• Category error (arcades/PC vs consoles): If this comparison stands, then the SNES "wasn't impressive" because SGI workstations existed, and the PS5 "isn't impressive" because high-end PCs outpace it. That's not how market context works.
• Moving goalposts: You cite "first batch" PS1/Saturn titles as if those were the baseline to beat, then jump two years to PC accelerators. Pick one frame of reference: 1996 living-room hardware on a CRT. In that frame, Mario 64, Wave Race 64, and Turok were eye-opening, each for different reasons (camera/control fluidity, water/shading, large spaces with z-buffered depth and purposeful distance fog).
• "Everything was ugly" overgeneralization: The fifth gen was transitional, but "ugly at the time" is revisionism. People were blown away then because the aesthetic matched the display tech. On CRTs, N64's filtering/AA removed the PS1's texture warping and polygon shimmer; that "Vaseline" you dislike in 2025 on a flat panel was the feature that made it look clean in 1996.
• Survivorship bias about what "aged well": Claiming only 2D aged well ignores art direction. Plenty of late-gen N64 output leaned into the hardware's look—chunky geometry, bold color, painterly/hand-tuned textures—and still reads great today when viewed as intended (real CRT or proper CRT shader).

Bottom line: judge hardware by its design goals, era, and target display. Comparing a 1996 console on a 240p CRT to a 1998 GLQuake rig is a market/tech mismatch. If you apply that same yardstick today, you'd have to call half the industry "not impressive" because a different, pricier class of hardware exists—and that's just logical gymnastics.

On a broader note, the level of fanboyism across many of these posts is almost comical. The debate stops being about actual history or market context and ends up reading like a parody of itself.

I love the perfectly formated bullet points answers straight out of your memory.

You guys that need to define the goal post. Or you use the "Ocarinas and Banjos were beautiful at the time" argument or you go with "N64 launch was beautiful and so ahead of anything else."
Anyway none of these holds ground.

Of course the first batch of PS1 and Saturn games were the things to beat when it was launched. That surely what Nintendo wanted.
They were already 1+ year on the market when N64 launched, even Quake and other games were already on the loose.
And it wasn't me that said that 2 years made a hell of a difference in the rapid evolving 90's

You guys are trying to impose something like N64 was a revolution and no one even comes close to it. It was not the case there or now for both arguments.

Not on the graphics front at least.

And, again, yes by early 98/99 (even late 97 if you consider quake 2 even on software mode) they were already surpassed by PC tech by far.

Late gen games?
Artistically coherent? Yes, a bunch and not only on the 64. (Zelda, Banjo, Vagrant Story, RR Type4 aka the most coherent game in that department, Ace combat 3, Wipeout 3, etc) Technically impressive or wonderful by the time of their release? Not that much. More like "wow they are really squeezing that hardware"

Ps. Turok was mid 97 not 96. And it received a PC version less than 6 months after the 64 if my memory serves me well.

I can recognize the importance of Mario 64 and Ocarina because of the revolutionary/evolutionary gameplay and not as graphical showpieces that are still beautiful today.

Claiming that 2d aged better is a fact and not survivorship bias.
2D games were, at the time, most art coherent because the tech was way more evolved than 3D tech.
It was easier for the developer to achieve their artistic vision with the most mature tech. That's why you can easily play CSOTN today and not Castlevania 64.
That's why we receive Dungeons and Dragons Shadow over Mystara rereleases and not the Die Hard Arcade's/Fighting force.

It was an ugly gen akin to the NES gen, PSOne graphics always were a serrated mess that only improved at the end of the generation with that fake buffer effects (if you are old enough you know what I'm talking about and how the media hammered this argument), Saturn had those transparencies problems plus the same z-buffering/res problems of the PS1 and more. N64 had it's fair share of problems with low res textures, blurring, etc.
Trying to argue that these games were made for CRT doesn't hold for me 1. because only half of it it's true, the main problems above still remains with a CRT or not 2. Many received games received PC ports or vice versa and 3. I had access to these 3 consoles, a decent CRT tv + a decent PC at the time.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Yeah no lol. The N64 dreams it had the library of games the Saturn had. You can be happy with N64, no problem. But it doesn't destroy in any way the Saturn.

It outsold it over 3:1, it destroyed it.

In the UK MegaDrive outsold the SNES, so for me the collapse of Sega was even more pronounced.

 

[cireza]

It outsold it over 3:1, it destroyed it.

Oh wow, we are talking sales. In the end I play games, not sales, so I don't care. But more power to you.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Oh wow, we are talking sales. In the end I play games, not sales, so I don't care. But more power to you.

And you've been talking tech, completely missing the point of the thread.

 

[cireza]

And you've been talking tech, completely missing the point of the thread.

As far as I am concerned, visuals always looked awful on N64 and this is because of the technical aspect of the console. The culprit being the use of cartridges. So this is totally on topic.

 

[nkarafo]

"Some" ? How many ? Because I don't see this.

Here's one:

You can't complain about these textures. The game has other areas with even better quality/quantity but i have to remember how to navigate the hub world. I will give more examples of other games because there are plenty.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

As far as I am concerned, visuals always looked awful on N64 and this is because of the technical aspect of the console. The culprit being the use of cartridges. So this is totally on topic.

I thought every polygonal Saturn game looked shit.

Each to their own

 

[kevboard]

Yes, to gain space.

Even in the best games often taken as example, you can clearly see the insane reuse of textures and stretching leading to blur. All of this was done because of the reduced ROM size. I suspect that this improved later because publishers opted for bigger ROM sizes.

it wasn't a space related thing at all, not at the begining and not later.
it was literally just done because they could. and because it's easer to optimise for the limited ram bandwidth.

even with limited storage you could always tile textures. and by using a monochrome texture format, varying the color of each to essentially fake variety, you'd easily be able to have sharper looking surfaces similar to PS1 games.

PS1 games typically had a lot of texture tiling. it's not like the grass in this Spyro screenshot uses a shitload of textures... it's just 1 small texture being tiled.

meanwhile N64 games often just stretched these out like crazy, because they "could" thanks to the texture filter. doing that on PS1 would have resulted in something that would have looked like a chessboard hence they didn't do it.

the opening area in Banjo had probably just as many unique textures, but used differently, which gave it the "blurry" look. they streched them out more, used them on larger surfaces, and of course used texture filtering (which they could have turned off if they wanted, but noone did)

 

[nkarafo]

Some Goldeneye Textures:

 

[Avid Reading Horse]

Doom 64 was the best looking game of that generation IMO.

It's also devoid of any "N64 issues". It has no blur, no fog/pop-up, no lowres textures and runs at a steady 30fps.

This doesn't even look as good as actual 1993 Doom.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

I hated the era of N64 graphics. Texture wrapping on objects was so hard to look at.

 

[Plies]

People are missing the point here and focusing on technology.

This baffles me as well.
The unique aesthetics of N64 is charming, even if they're technically outdated.

 

[nkarafo]

This doesn't even look as good as actual 1993 Doom.

Sure dude.

Same area as the first picture:

Watch longplay videos or play the games yourself if you have no idea how these games look.

 

[nial]

The actual gorgeous games from that era were on other platforms. Popolocrois Monogatari (SCEI, 1996):

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

I love the perfectly formated bullet points answers straight out of your memory.

You guys that need to define the goal post. Or you use the "Ocarinas and Banjos were beautiful at the time" argument or you go with "N64 launch was beautiful and so ahead of anything else."
Anyway none of these holds ground.

Of course the first batch of PS1 and Saturn games were the things to beat when it was launched. That surely what Nintendo wanted.
They were already 1+ year on the market when N64 launched, even Quake and other games were already on the loose.
And it wasn't me that said that 2 years made a hell of a difference in the rapid evolving 90's

You guys are trying to impose something like N64 was a revolution and no one even comes close to it. It was not the case there or now for both arguments.

Not on the graphics front at least.

And, again, yes by early 98/99 (even late 97 if you consider quake 2 even on software mode) they were already surpassed by PC tech by far.

Late gen games?
Artistically coherent? Yes, a bunch and not only on the 64. (Zelda, Banjo, Vagrant Story, RR Type4 aka the most coherent game in that department, Ace combat 3, Wipeout 3, etc) Technically impressive or wonderful by the time of their release? Not that much. More like "wow they are really squeezing that hardware"

Ps. Turok was mid 97 not 96. And it received a PC version less than 6 months after the 64 if my memory serves me well.

I can recognize the importance of Mario 64 and Ocarina because of the revolutionary/evolutionary gameplay and not as graphical showpieces that are still beautiful today.

Claiming that 2d aged better is a fact and not survivorship bias.
2D games were, at the time, most art coherent because the tech was way more evolved than 3D tech.
It was easier for the developer to achieve their artistic vision with the most mature tech. That's why you can easily play CSOTN today and not Castlevania 64.
That's why we receive Dungeons and Dragons Shadow over Mystara rereleases and not the Die Hard Arcade's/Fighting force.

It was an ugly gen akin to the NES gen, PSOne graphics always were a serrated mess that only improved at the end of the generation with that fake buffer effects (if you are old enough you know what I'm talking about and how the media hammered this argument), Saturn had those transparencies problems plus the same z-buffering/res problems of the PS1 and more. N64 had it's fair share of problems with low res textures, blurring, etc.
Trying to argue that these games were made for CRT doesn't hold for me 1. because only half of it it's true, the main problems above still remains with a CRT or not 2. Many received games received PC ports or vice versa and 3. I had access to these 3 consoles, a decent CRT tv + a decent PC at the time.

The funny thing is, nobody here is saying the N64 was some untouchable "revolution where no one even came close." That's just the strawman you built so you can knock it down with the usual "ugly gen, 2D aged better, PS1 catalogue this, Saturn transparencies that" script.

Yes, we all know PC was ahead — Quake II in '97 looked better than anything on consoles. That's not exactly a revelation. Consoles have always lagged behind high-end PCs. The point is what N64 was doing within its space: large-scale real 3D worlds when most competitors stuck to corridors and flat prerendered backdrops. That's not "imposing a revolution," it's just acknowledging the trade-offs Nintendo made — blur filter and fog included.

You brought up fog? Great. Silent Hill gets praised for "atmosphere," but when GoldenEye's Surface looks like a snowstorm or Ocarina's Haunted Wasteland nails a sandstorm effect, suddenly fog is "covering up hardware weakness." That's some selective memory at work.

And yes, Turok was early '97 and hit PC later. Cool. Still doesn't erase the fact that on console it was doing things PS1 games weren't even attempting. You call it "mid," but compared to Quake 1's twitchy polygons, its animation, foliage, and scale were a big deal. Pretending otherwise in hindsight because of modern emulation memes is just rewriting history.

As for the "2D aged better" mantra — sure, sprites were a mature tech by then. Nobody's denying that Symphony of the Night looks better today than Castlevania 64. But if that's the metric, then let's also admit Mario 64 aged better in gameplay than 90% of 2D platformers of that era. Tech maturity doesn't invalidate innovation.

So yeah — the fifth gen was messy, uneven, and experimental. That's why it was interesting. But painting the whole thing with "ugly gen" and trying to downgrade N64 to some blur-box while giving PS1/Saturn the artistic badge of honor is just fanboy revisionism dressed up as objective analysis.

 

[nkarafo]

More great texturing on N64

 

[Xaeroxcore666]

Highly doubt something on any 6th console can look technologically wise gorgeous nowadays or even back then. We can talk about retro 3D games graphics which still can hold up and look gorgeous from Model 3 arcade, and 6th gen consoles onwards.

On N64, and sometimes PS1, Saturn and i would say NDS, we can talk of some games which hold up today artistically wise.

But purely on graphics and tech side, can´t see nothing on PS1, Saturn and maybe even Nintendo DS (not sure in this one) which can rival Perfect Dark or Conker´s Bad Fur Day...

DOOM 64 has none of the issues N64 is known for. It runs at 30fps and has the most complex level designs a DOOM engine had at the time, including a new lighting engine when the PS1 port of DOOM was still based on the simplified Jaguar version.

DOOM 64 is more advanced than DOOM 2 on PC while every other console port of DOOM struggled on every other console, even the PS!.

The game has also aged better than every other N64 FPS because games like Goldeneye/PD/Turok, etc, don't look as good now but DOOM 64 is still the best looking DOOM engine game out there.

Agree with that! You can appreciate Doom 64 art strenghts and not age like shit, compared most FPS from that gen, specially on the modern HD version for last gen/current consoles and PC and the homebrew DC port with vertex lighting and bump maps....

It is impressive but there are more elements that show their age. I remember watching footage for Deception III and being wowed.

Looks amazing for a PS1 game!

EDIT: Please put more screenshots! I´m lovin this thread just for that!

 

[GermanZepp]

I really liked the defused colorful textures vibe. And the geometry on the levels of the era, plain and simple right to the bone.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

literally didn't matter in 99% of cases.
in extreme cases devs just included the SA1 chip in the cart and essentially double the CPU power.

I know, but you have to agree with me that Nintendo could have made an unquestionably more powerful console from the start. Homebrew programmers proved that the Sega Genesis could challenge or even beat the SNES if Sega hadn't been lazy.

it didn't have inferior textures, just a different way devs used the hardware.
look how modern homebrew devs use the N64, and you'll see what that thing was actually capable of when utilised in ways that adhere to our modern sensibilities.

Homebrew proves that the console had potential for good textures, but in commercial games, you know that 99% of the time the textures were of lower quality than those seen on the PS1 add that to the Vaseline filters and the result is blurry.

the CPU was fine... the only actual issue were the Mini DVDs, as it led to compression artifacts in some ports.

I explained it to you in the other thread, the gamecube cpu is a little-discussed bottleneck, to summarize it has 1.9 gigaflops while the competitors' CPUs have from 2.4 gigaflops. you have to agree with me that Nintendo could have made an unquestionably more powerful console if they want.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

N64 is a more powerful console though, so it's best games looking better than ps1 is no surprise

(Media limitations aside)

You want me to start posting gifs of PS1 games that the N64 can't even match ?

 

[Syphon Filter]

You want me to start posting gifs of PS1 games that the N64 can't even match ?

you cant, ps1 is inferior in graphics.

 

[bighugeguns]

You want me to start posting gifs of PS1 games that the N64 can't even match ?

It's not about matching anything it's about the atmosphere and vibe. N64 on a CRT was an experience all by itself, some of the games were just so far ahead of anything else.

Also, consider the storage constraints the Nintendo devs had to work with, it makes it all the more special.

People still obsess over Mario 64, the closest the PS1 had to that level of pure awesome was MGS1.

 

[kevboard]

I know, but you have to agree with me that Nintendo could have made an unquestionably more powerful console from the start. Homebrew programmers proved that the Sega Genesis could challenge or even beat the SNES if Sega hadn't been lazy.

the only way the MegaDrive could beat the SNES on a consistent basis is if every dev used blast processing... meanwhile not 1 game shipped with it. probably too complicated to actually use.
because that would have been the only way to match the colors of the SNES. and that was the MegaDrive's biggest issue. Devs were essentially forced to use dithering to even try to keep up with the SNES, and essentially fake colors by blurring them into eachother.

sure the SNES could have had a faster CPU, but on the other hand all the games that really needed more CPU grunt just had the SA1 chip and that was that.

the end result was that SNES games generally looked far better, while the performance was rarely and issue.

Homebrew proves that the console had potential for good textures, but in commercial games, you know that 99% of the time the textures were of lower quality than those seen on the PS1 add that to the Vaseline filters and the result is blurry.

the textures weren't lower quality, the Devs just abused the fact that they could strech them across large surfaces without issues, and just enable the texture filtering to make them look smooth.
the reason PS1 textures look sharper is because on PS1 the Devs didn't do that, because they couldn't, as it would have resulted in just massive pixelation. so on PS1 the devs just used tiling to fill surfaces.

games like Banjo Kazooie didn't abuse the texture filtering capabilities and had properly sized textures with relatively high detail. detail a PS1 game would never be able to match. that game used the fact the N64 had texture filtering to create smooth but detailed environments, with great use of texture blending, and layering.

I explained it to you in the other thread, the gamecube cpu is a little-discussed bottleneck, to summarize it has 1.9 gigaflops while the competitors' CPUs have from 2.4 gigaflops. you have to agree with me that Nintendo could have made an unquestionably more powerful console if they want.

but just like with the SNES, that never really was a huge issue. I mean, they kept the same hardware for the Wii, and there were some pretty impressive games on that system... hidden between the onslaught of shovelware bullshit.

could it have been more powerful? sure, but I think the Mini DVDs were a bigger issue, as was the weird controller, with missing buttons and a face button layout that made little to no sense.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

But purely on graphics and tech side, can´t see nothing on PS1, Saturn and maybe even Nintendo DS (not sure in this one) which can rival Perfect Dark or Conker´s Bad Fur Day...

Perfect Dark 9-12fps
Conker 292 x 214 blurry
ps1 runs games at 30fps, 60fps, 512x240

Nintendo fans' tactics are simple.

- Deny that the N64 has blurry graphics.
- Say that some 10fps games destroy the PS1.
- When someone shows a game that looks better, like Crash 3, they play "I don't accept this game because I don't want to."
- After much discussion, they return with the same argument "there is no game on the PS1 that rivals Conker"

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

Perfect Dark 9-12fps
Conker 292 x 214 blurry
ps1 runs games at 30fps, 60fps, 512x240

Nintendo fans' tactics are simple.

- Deny that the N64 has blurry graphics.
- Say that some 10fps games destroy the PS1.
- When someone shows a game that looks better, like Crash 3, they play "I don't accept this game because I don't want to."
- After much discussion, they return with the same argument "there is no game on the PS1 that rivals Conker"

Ah yes, the classic fairytale: every PS1 game was 30–60fps at 512×240, while every N64 game was just a blurry slideshow. Let's get real. Plenty of PS1 titles ran well below 30fps, sometimes dipping into the teens — Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy IX, Gran Turismo with a full grid. The system had its own bottlenecks: warped textures, jittery polygons, seams, and pop-in. On the other hand, the N64 wasn't just "Perfect Dark at 9fps." It also had some of the smoothest games of the era:

• F-Zero X locked at 60fps with 30 ships on track.
• Wave Race 64 at a stable 30fps with water physics that still impress today.
• Mario Kart 64 (single player) locked at 30fps.
• Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64, 1080° Snowboarding, Ridge Racer 64, Excitebike 64 — all running consistently, far from slideshow territory.

Resolution? Yes, PS1 could output 512×240, but most games were 320×240 or lower, putting it in the same ballpark as N64. And while Crash 3 looked sharp, it was built around narrow corridors and fixed cameras, far less demanding than fully explorable 3D worlds like Banjo, Conker, or Ocarina of Time. Different design choices, different compromises. On the "blurry graphics" point — no one denies the N64's AA filter softened the image. But acting like that was uniquely awful while ignoring PS1's texture warping and polygon jitter is cherry-picking. Both machines had visual flaws.

Even Conker's Bad Fur Day, often mocked for its low resolution, still delivered fully voiced cutscenes, expansive levels, and technical effects PS1 couldn't replicate in real-time. Meanwhile, your "better looking" PS1 examples usually rely on prerendered backdrops or tightly controlled linearity — apples to oranges. So when you accuse N64 fans of "denial" or "moving goalposts," you're really just flipping the script: dismissing the system's strengths, exaggerating its flaws, and inflating PS1's specs into some mythical golden standard. That's not objectivity — it's fanboy catechism dressed up as fact.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

wave race is 20fps and uses reduced screen aka low res
and actually ps1 has many 512x448 games at 60fps, N64 has none.

''And while Crash 3 looked sharp, it was built around narrow corridors and fixed cameras, far less demanding than fully explorable 3D worlds like Banjo''

N64 can't handle Crash, not even the simple Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers could run at a stable 20fps (this using the expansion)

Edit: you're trolling with these fake 60fps please avoid me

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

wave race is 20fps and uses reduced screen aka low res
and actually ps1 has many 512x448 games at 60fps, N64 has none.

If you're not trolling (which I strongly suspect you are), I'd suggest you actually play Wave Race 64 — you might be surprised at how smooth it runs for its time. And beyond F-Zero X, the N64 had several other titles that hit 60fps, such as:

• Ridge Racer 64 → 60fps in single-player.
• WWF No Mercy / Wrestlemania 2000 / WCW/nWo Revenge → 60fps during matches.
• Mace: The Dark Age → consistent 60fps in combat.
• Killer Instinct Gold → 60fps, though at a lower resolution than the arcade version.
• Fighter's Destiny → steady 60fps.

Edit: you're trolling with these fake 60fps please avoid me

Don't worry, I will, and I hope everyone else does the same.

 

[Romulus]

wave race is 20fps and uses reduced screen aka low res
and actually ps1 has many 512x448 games at 60fps, N64 has none.

And how do you really know any of this? Tons of games before the XB360 had claimed fps metrics but digital foundry and others proved them to be wrong. 60fps in many cases really meant 30-60fps.

 

[Gp1]

The funny thing is, nobody here is saying the N64 was some untouchable "revolution where no one even came close." That's just the strawman you built so you can knock it down with the usual "ugly gen, 2D aged better, PS1 catalogue this, Saturn transparencies that" script.

I ain't going through posts that quoted me or i had quoted.
That's not a script, it was what happened. The vast majority of Saturn 3d games are borderline unplayable because of these problems + the low 15-20 fps without resorting to emulation. PSone and N64 you can still find some playable games today.

Yes, we all know PC was ahead — Quake II in '97 looked better than anything on consoles. That's not exactly a revelation. Consoles have always lagged behind high-end PCs. The point is what N64 was doing within its space: large-scale real 3D worlds when most competitors stuck to corridors and flat prerendered backdrops. That's not "imposing a revolution," it's just acknowledging the trade-offs Nintendo made — blur filter and fog included.

True, ill give you that. But, again, that's not calling it "gorgeous" even "almost 30 years later" either.

You brought up fog? Great. Silent Hill gets praised for "atmosphere," but when GoldenEye's Surface looks like a snowstorm or Ocarina's Haunted Wasteland nails a sandstorm effect, suddenly fog is "covering up hardware weakness." That's some selective memory at work.

And yes, Turok was early '97 and hit PC later. Cool. Still doesn't erase the fact that on console it was doing things PS1 games weren't even attempting. You call it "mid," but compared to Quake 1's twitchy polygons, its animation, foliage, and scale were a big deal. Pretending otherwise in hindsight because of modern emulation memes is just rewriting history.

I was saying that Turok was launched in mid 1997.
I find funny when we call it "atmospheric" in Goldeneye when in the movie the entire sequence is bright clear. But ok...
99% limitation 1% artistic. Turok with the 5 meters LOD included. The only game that really made good use of it was Silent Hill because the entire game (ART INCLUDED) was developed around it, and it came out in 99. But that's beyond the point.

As for the "2D aged better" mantra — sure, sprites were a mature tech by then. Nobody's denying that Symphony of the Night looks better today than Castlevania 64. But if that's the metric, then let's also admit Mario 64 aged better in gameplay than 90% of 2D platformers of that era. Tech maturity doesn't invalidate innovation.

Because of the gameplay, not the graphics.

So yeah — the fifth gen was messy, uneven, and experimental. That's why it was interesting. But painting the whole thing with "ugly gen" and trying to downgrade N64 to some blur-box while giving PS1/Saturn the artistic badge of honor is just fanboy revisionism dressed up as objective analysis.

I've been hammering for the entire topic that the entire generation graphically sucks, all 3 consoles. The situation only improved a little at the end of the gen and that's was when the Dreamcast and some heavy hitters accelerators + Unreal Engine + Q2 and even Q3 engine were already around in the PC market. We never had the sensation, at that time, that these games were "gorgeous" in 1996 unless with some heavy nostalgia glasses or in the cases i said before.

It was what we had available at these consoles. The good enough given the compromise but never ever "gorgeous-almost-30-years-later" unless artistically consistent, by the lack of a better term.

Read what i wrote. I know that my English is somewhat poor, but it isn't that hard to understand.

ps. I'll dare to say that more than half of the graphical WOW of that generation were CGI and pre-rendered graphics, but you are not prepared for that yet.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

And how do you really know any of this? Tons of games before the XB360 had claimed fps metrics but digital foundry and others proved them to be wrong. 60fps in many cases really meant 30-60fps.

Conker's intro cutscene until he vomits is 10fps, whenever there is a common cutscene it's 20fps, whenever you look far away 20fps, whenever there is a 3D character in the stage in Conker's direction 20fps, the game only reaches 30fps when the camera in 3/4 films Conker alone in the scene.

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

I ain't going through posts that quoted me or i had quoted.
That's not a script, it was what happened. The vast majority of Saturn 3d games are borderline unplayable because of these problems + the low 15-20 fps without resorting to emulation. PSone and N64 you can still find some playable games today.



True, ill give you that. But, again, that's not calling it "gorgeous" even "almost 30 years later" either.



I was saying that Turok was launched in mid 1997.
I find funny when we call it "atmospheric" in Goldeneye when in the movie the entire sequence is bright clear. But ok...
99% limitation 1% artistic. Turok with the 5 meters LOD included. The only game that really made good use of it was Silent Hill because the entire game (ART INCLUDED) was developed around it, and it came out in 99. But that's beyond the point.



Because of the gameplay, not the graphics.



I've been hammering for the entire topic that the entire generation graphically sucks, all 3 consoles. The situation only improved a little at the end of the gen and that's was when the Dreamcast and some heavy hitters accelerators + Unreal Engine + Q2 and even Q3 engine were already around in the PC market. We never had the sensation, at that time, that these games were "gorgeous" in 1996 unless with some heavy nostalgia glasses or in the cases i said before.

It was what we had available at these consoles. The good enough given the compromise but never ever "gorgeous-almost-30-years-later" unless artistically consistent, by the lack of a better term.

Read what i wrote. I know that my English is somewhat poor, but it isn't that hard to understand.

ps. I'll dare to say that more than half of the graphical WOW of that generation were CGI and pre-rendered graphics, but you are not prepared for that yet.

Please, stop, my friend, the more you talk, the more you make yourself look ridiculous.

 

[Romulus]

Conker's intro cutscene until he vomits is 10fps, whenever there is a common cutscene it's 20fps, whenever you look far away 20fps, whenever there is a 3D character in the stage in Conker's direction 20fps, the game only reaches 30fps when the camera in 3/4 films Conker alone in the scene.

I know but you're just saying words. Is there a source? Could be true.

 

[kevboard]

''And while Crash 3 looked sharp, it was built around narrow corridors and fixed cameras, far less demanding than fully explorable 3D worlds like Banjo''

N64 can't handle Crash

the N64 can't handle crash?
have you seen what people got out of the N64 hardware recently? some insane shit.

I think you're both fucking out of your mind frankly.
2 extremes arguing with eachother.

 

[Syphon Filter]

the N64 can't handle crash?
have you seen what people got out of the N64 hardware recently? some insane shit.

I think you're both fucking out of your mind frankly.
2 extremes arguing with eachother.

crusher is a troll.

 

[Romulus]

the N64 can't handle crash?
have you seen what people got out of the N64 hardware recently? some insane shit.

I think you're both fucking out of your mind frankly.
2 extremes arguing with eachother.

What have they done with the n64?

 

[nkarafo]

N64 can't handle Crash

But can the PS1 handle Banjo?

Can you honestly say that?

Maybe each game plays with each system's strengths? Though evidently Crash doesn't really have anything the N64 can't handle.

 

[Ozzie666]

This thread has just re-confirmed and thread summary.

2D sprites > 3D (always and forever)
CRT > everything (always and forever)
N64 and PS1 console war is as real as SNES vs Genesis and Atari ST vs Amiga. (Amiga rules of course)
A select portion of N64 games have aged wonderfully.
A select portion of PS1 games have wobbled wonderfully.
N64 games play to the consoles strength as does PS1. They both have great games.
The transition to 3D gaming was overall terrible.
Both machines can do things the other can't.
Both consoles have some massive stinkers.
Both consoles have banger after banger.
Comparing either to late 90's PC tech is just stupid.

What people like and don't like is personal preference.
But I'm one of those people who think N64 games have aged far better for the most part.

Counting titles like Resident Evil doesn't count. Pre render backgrounds usually survive the test of time.

 

[cireza]

More great texturing on N64

Your examples look good. Probably the larger games (32 MB and more).

There is a lot of reuse but that's to be expected anyway.

Why is it only a handful of games that really pushed it ? You have to wonder if the console was so well designed/documented if developers almost never achieved these results.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I don't think the 64DD would have improved texture quality... the 64DD Disks had the same storage size as the carts.

the 64DD disks can also only hold 64MB, just like the biggest N64 carts.
but 64MB carts where of course very expensive, so only a few games like Resident Evil 2 used them.

so unless a dev would ship games on a Cart + 64DD Disk, to combine a 64MB cart with a 64MB Disk, it wouldn't really help much to increase storage space.
and 64DD titles would of course have short load times.

it was mainly a way to have cheaper games, not necessarily bigger games.

The 64DD disks were supposed to be much cheaper than the cartridges, so a developer could have theoretically shipped on 2-3 disks like PlayStation. The concept of Radnet back then was also awesome and it's rewritable nature also enabled patches or expansions.

Had they released the 64DD in place of the N64, that generation could have been different!

 

[nkarafo]

Your examples look good. Probably the larger games (32 MB and more).

There is a lot of reuse but that's to be expected anyway.

Why is it only a handful of games that really pushed it ? You have to wonder if the console was so well designed/documented if developers almost never achieved these results.

Banjo-Kazooie is a 16MB cart.

But yes, the design of the console makes it harder for devs to achieve such good texturing. That's why only few did it. But it is possible.

It's the same thing with geometry. Needs some extra work (and microcodes) for the N64 to push more polygons than the PS1. That's how RARE and BOSS did it.

Personally, i never said the N64 was well documented. It basically suffered from the same issues as the Saturn in that regard and i'm sure you are familiar with that.

The PS1 is a weaker console but it's also the most balanced and well designed. More devs managed to make most of it. But the fact is that it's weaker than the N64.