N64 graphics still look gorgeous almost 30 years later

RetroGamingUK

RetroGamingUK

Member
Background, I grew up with MegaDrive and SNES as a child and was hotly anticipating the N64 (mainly for Mario 64).

Once N64 was delayed to March 97 in the UK I gave up waiting and got a Saturn with NiGHTS, Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 for Christmas 96. However Saturn was past its peak by then and never really improved after those 3 games. After some convincing by friends I eventually got a PS1 before moving on to Dreamcast.

Nintendo 64 completely passed me by, I played it in shops and at friend's houses now and again but largely ignored it.

After recently coming into possession of one, wow, this completely blows the Saturn and PS1 out of the water doesn't it.

It's a combination of texture filtering, dramatic shading and anti aliasing that does it for me. It really replicates the look of late 90s arcade games (Model 2 particularly) very well.

What do you guys think?


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I love the N64 but no. The one exception being the extremely strange and unbelievable circumstances that made my copy of Castlevania look like those gtx TV screenshots in GameFan magazine.
 
Maybe DK64 and Conker but that's all, the rest is blurry textures with sprites everywhere at unstable 30 fps at best.

Not that I'm praising PS1 and Saturn either, there were horrible with their unstable polygons and zigzaging textures.
 
N64 had a texture filter, it's the actual reason they are blurred like that, otherwise they'd look like PS1 pixelated textures. There was more to it than just that though apparently people just blame the cart size. While that plays a role, most N64 textures were small enough in size that they didn't take up much space.

Here's a video on the subject


Drell said:
Maybe DK64 and Conker but that's all, the rest is blurry textures with sprites everywhere at unstable 30 fps at best.

Not that I'm praising PS1 and Saturn either, there were horrible with their unstable polygons and zigzaging textures.
Click to expand...

He points it out in the video that the N64 had the ability to have two overlapping textures at once, a smaller texture overlaps a large one to hide it's blurriness. This technique was used in later titles, which is why those games have sharper looking textures.
 
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ThisIsMyDog said:
nostalgia is one hell of a drug
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I wish I could buy an ounce and freebase it to see what the OP is seeing. I grew up with colecovision and Atari 2600 and N64 was cool at the time, but even back then PSX managed to outdo it in many cases by adding in cool FMV, voiced roles, etc. I think all these old games should be remade sp that my kids can play them sober and enjoy them.
 
tkscz said:
N64 had a texture filter, it's the actual reason they are blurred like that, otherwise they'd look like PS1 pixelated textures. There was more to it than just that though apparently people just blame the cart size. While that plays a role, most N64 textures were small enough in size that they didn't take up much space.

Here's a video on the subject
Click to expand...


Indeed

The anti-aliasing and texture filtering fixes a lot of what made PS1 and Saturn 3D games look so rough.

By contrast Saturn's 3D games (barring the 3D fighters with flat backgrounds) look frankly hideous by comparison.

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Semi-OT: Pseudoregalia (2023) is pretty good 3D Metroidvania with N64-style graphics

I wish more modern games went back to simple graphics, they run so smooth and they are less distracting than hyper-detailed environments
 
When I run old games on the emulator and simply increase the resolution, all the games from the PSX, PS2 and N64 eras look extremely dated and not pleasing to look at. The textures look stretched and the low-poly models just hits you in the face because high resolution allows you to see every imperfection clearly. However, if I play the same games in their native resolution (240p / 480p) with Sony Megatron CRT simulation shader (or simply on real CRT), I suddenly find that dated graphics pleasing to look at. The textures no longer look stretched, and even the low-poly models look convincing because imperfections are no longer visible, allowing your mind to interpret the low-resolution picture as much more detailed. These old games were designed to be played on an SD CRT monitor, and if you respect that, they still look pleasing to the eye.

RAW image - 240p upscaled to 4K


sharp.jpg



The CRT simulation: The picture looks dimmer because of the phosphor mask, but my OLED has no problem making it look bright.

Sony megatron shader - 600TVL

480p.jpg



From a normal viewing distance even this simple graphics look amazing to me.

Phone photos showing sony megatron shader on my monitor.

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Lately I played Burnout 2 on PCSX2 (a PS2 emulator) at 480p, and I was amazed at how much better the image looked thanks to CRT simulation. My mind interpreted that low-resolution image as being much more detailed even compared the same game running at 4K native. I know it's just an illusion, but it works amazing with these old games.
 
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I grew up as a Master System and later SNES kid and I can confirm that, while texture filtering was something out of this world (I remember those M2 3DO demos as sci-fi), in 1996 N64 graphics sucked ass. Less definition than PSX textures and way les polygons, which was quite a feat giving how low the bar was. I had one and it almost made me quit gaming. Luckily for you I bough a PSX + FFVII the next year.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
Background, I grew up with MegaDrive and SNES as a child and was hotly anticipating the N64 (mainly for Mario 64).

Once N64 was delayed to March 97 in the UK I gave up waiting and got a Saturn with NiGHTS, Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 for Christmas 96. However Saturn was past its peak by then and never really improved after those 3 games. After some convincing by friends I eventually got a PS1 before moving on to Dreamcast.

Nintendo 64 completely passed me by, I played it in shops and at friend's houses now and again but largely ignored it.

After recently coming into possession of one, wow, this completely blows the Saturn and PS1 out of the water doesn't it.

It's a combination of texture filtering, dramatic shading and anti aliasing that does it for me. It really replicates the look of late 90s arcade games (Model 2 particularly) very well.

What do you guys think?


hlPMSzbviwoQ5f3U.jpeg


AH3B3zhEFwjPnFOM.jpeg


CB3CGmrE8h2QKqzl.jpeg


E0qm2aW1lyMxeuY0.jpeg
Click to expand...
No they don't lol...
 
RetroGamingUK said:
Background, I grew up with MegaDrive and SNES as a child and was hotly anticipating the N64 (mainly for Mario 64).

Once N64 was delayed to March 97 in the UK I gave up waiting and got a Saturn with NiGHTS, Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 for Christmas 96. However Saturn was past its peak by then and never really improved after those 3 games. After some convincing by friends I eventually got a PS1 before moving on to Dreamcast.

Nintendo 64 completely passed me by, I played it in shops and at friend's houses now and again but largely ignored it.

After recently coming into possession of one, wow, this completely blows the Saturn and PS1 out of the water doesn't it.

It's a combination of texture filtering, dramatic shading and anti aliasing that does it for me. It really replicates the look of late 90s arcade games (Model 2 particularly) very well.

What do you guys think?


hlPMSzbviwoQ5f3U.jpeg


AH3B3zhEFwjPnFOM.jpeg


CB3CGmrE8h2QKqzl.jpeg


E0qm2aW1lyMxeuY0.jpeg
Click to expand...
On a crt you can get away with ~320×240 and have them look "good", but on a fixed panel no favors done.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
Indeed

The anti-aliasing and texture filtering fixes a lot of what made PS1 and Saturn 3D games look so rough.

By contrast Saturn's 3D games (barring the 3D fighters with flat backgrounds) look frankly hideous by comparison.

E3mwk4jhgkdWKpBs.jpeg


fhi8xfoDQ0VhDT1s.jpeg
Click to expand...
Watching Kaze Emanuar and other N64 modder videos, you learn quickly the N64 was a powerful system with horrible documentation.

While the RAM was slow, it's slowness was not the issue for it's bad frame rates, but the programming for most N64 games was packed with repetitious code and notes that took up memory space and CPU cycles. In one of his videos, all he did was change the repetitive language to a single code that worked and gained 5 to 10FPS.
 
One thing is for sure though graphics capabilities wise at the time it wiped the floor with the PS-One, and Saturn, GoldenEye and WaveRace wouldn't have looked as good on there....much less Starfox 64 (for the time..)
 
conker can stand up to some 6th gen games visually, Majora's Mask as well. Rare really knew how to wring the best out of the system at the time, then again them and Nintendo were the only ones really making games for it lmao
 
Agree. It does basic 3D graphics well and you can tell because any mobile game or modern game with the details turned way down looks closer to an N64 game than a PS1 game.
 
S-video leads and a Sony crt make a huge difference. I wouldn't say gorgeous but cleaner than its competition at the time. The best games looked great. The bad ones were dog ugly.

It certainly looks awful on modern displays or even worse using the bundled rf modulator. This was normally expected to be in use in kids bedrooms on 14" crt.
 
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ReBurn said:
I was there for the fog and Vaseline smeared screens. Only console I ever sold because I thought it sucked.
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The fog argument is unfair though. All consoles then had either fog or pop-up or just darkness, to hide the draw in. And many N64 games even completely got rid of it while the PS1 and, especially, the Saturn had more trouble with this.
 
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