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[nkarafo]

Have you heard of 650mb CD ROM ?

I heard of it. I also heard they are slow as shit. And their latency is at funny levels.

Not the best medium to use for games that can benefit from real time fast streaming but they are great for listening to music at least.

 

[NeverYouMind]

Did you watch the video or is this a troll? That fps looks like the machine is overheating.

It is clearly emulation... I am just providing a reference. You expect me to pull out my PS1, hook it up to my CRT, adjust lighting, buy a high quality camera, record, edit, and upload footage just to give an example?

P.S. PS1 had a better library of games than N64 could ever dream of. Many in genres that N64 did not have represented. To have an N64 instead of a PS1 at the time was a sad state of affairs. Dreams of Driver, Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, and Tekken that could never be fulfilled. Reduced to collecting stars in Super Mario 64, heart pieces in Ocarina, Pokemon in Pokemon Stadium, and hoping for the next big game to not skip the system.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

 

[Jesb]

Its not april 1st today....

 

[Icymanipulator]

I hated how they looked back then, everything was a blurry foggy mess. Much preferred the look of PSone games

 

[Syphon Filter]

It is clearly emulation... I am just providing a reference. You expect me to pull out my PS1, hook it up to my CRT, adjust lighting, buy a high quality camera, record, edit, and upload footage just to give an example?

emulation doesnt count since you arent using a legit example. you can see native footage on youtube. no need to pull out your console.

 

[Syphon Filter]

I hated how they looked back then, everything was a blurry foggy mess. Much preferred the look of PSone games

ps1 was worse since the graphics warped, that is why the textures look weird and like they are moving on their own.

 

[kevboard]

Have you heard of 650mb CD ROM ?

that's not a hardware power related element.
and it mostly came to play when it comes go FMVs... and basically never in terms of graphics.

however it was stupid of Nintendo not to ise CDs for sure.

 

[NeverYouMind]

emulation doesnt count since you arent using a legit example. you can see native footage on youtube. no need to pull out your console.

If it bothers you that much you find it. I am not that invested.

 

[kevboard]

N64 used more polygons for characters in it's games by average. Not only in big games like Conker but also in lesser games like EWJ3D

Though the game itself isn't at the same level visually as the better N64 3D platformers, Jim's model is one of the highest detailed 3D models of that era. He even has individual 3D fingers. From a fast google and AI search the number i find is 3.000 when the average number for models during that gen was 1/3 of that. Most 6th gen games use models with 10.000 polys on average btw.

By comparison, an early game such as Mario 64 uses 700ish polygons.

you can look at it here btw.

Earthworm Jim - Earthworm Jim 3D - Nintendo 64

Earthworm Jim - Earthworm Jim 3D - Nintendo 64 - Archiving and preserving video game media since 2003!

models.spriters-resource.com

if you click on the image it opens a 3D viewer with wireframe option.

 

[Minsc]

I disliked the N64 graphics back at release, and dislike them just the same now. The push away from the beautiful, pre-rendered 2D/3D to ugly full 3D worlds was not for me.

 

[nkarafo]

you can look at it here btw.

Earthworm Jim - Earthworm Jim 3D - Nintendo 64

Earthworm Jim - Earthworm Jim 3D - Nintendo 64 - Archiving and preserving video game media since 2003!

models.spriters-resource.com

if you click on the image it opens a 3D viewer with wireframe option.

Awesome resource.

Is there a way to see the count numbers?

 

[Icymanipulator]

ps1 was worse since the graphics warped, that is why the textures look weird and like they are moving on their own.

Ya the shaky polygons was bad but I would rather deal with that then the blurry foggy mess of 64

 

[kevboard]

Awesome resource.

Is there a way to see the count numbers?

not without downloading it and opening it in blender or maya sadly.

 

[nkarafo]

not without downloading it and opening it in blender sadly.

Well, doesn't need to count numbers to see how smooth and detailed this model is

Conker - Conker's Bad Fur Day - Nintendo 64

Conker - Conker's Bad Fur Day - Nintendo 64 - Archiving and preserving video game media since 2003!

models.spriters-resource.com

 

[kevboard]

Well, doesn't need to count numbers to see how smooth and detailed this model is

Conker - Conker's Bad Fur Day - Nintendo 64

Conker - Conker's Bad Fur Day - Nintendo 64 - Archiving and preserving video game media since 2003!

models.spriters-resource.com

yeah, like I said, some late N64 games were close to early PS2 titles in some instances. (although that says more about said early PS2 games than anything)

Conker is one of those games.


and in hindsight, with some recent fan games, we also know that the N64 was never fully pushed to its limits either.

Return to Yoshi's Island being the main showcase for the hardware of course.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I bet yamauchi didn't want to deal with a company like panasonic or matsushitas bullshit to make the cd drive and infrastructure when they could just do the hardware and cartridges themselves

The 64DD was originally supposed to launch soon after the N64, but was delayed several times. They thought this would help extend the console life cycle and provide developers with an alternative. In theory, the 64DD and the RAM expansion would have allowed for far better textures, the just dropped the ball.

 

[Ozzie666]

The 64DD was originally supposed to launch soon after the N64, but was delayed several times. They thought this would help extend the console life cycle and provide developers with an alternative. In theory, the 64DD and the RAM expansion would have allowed for far better textures, the just dropped the ball.

If memory serves the 64DD was Nintendo being Nintendo (different) and trying to find some common ground with the ability to read/write. I could be wrong but the increase in size wasn't that dramatic with that media.

On one hand, I prefer cartridges and admire Nintendo for just keeping it simple and durable. Quick load times and games like Conker, 512 size was enough.

On the other hand. A proper CD-ROM or MINI-CD ROM add-on like the Gamecube might have been better. It didn't work for the Jaguar but the way Saturn used it was great.

Cartridge/cd-rom allowed for RAM carts (Saturn Capcom games) or cartridges with some data and the CD-ROM (Think Saturn early Neo-Geo games) for additional data.

Splitting your user base is never great, but they may have got more third party games. The expansion pack was the most useful thing from the 64DD.

 

[kevboard]

In theory, the 64DD and the RAM expansion would have allowed for far better textures, the just dropped the ball.

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.

 

[Romulus]

It is clearly emulation... I am just providing a reference. You expect me to pull out my PS1, hook it up to my CRT, adjust lighting, buy a high quality camera, record, edit, and upload footage just to give an example?

P.S. PS1 had a better library of games than N64 could ever dream of. Many in genres that N64 did not have represented. To have an N64 instead of a PS1 at the time was a sad state of affairs. Dreams of Driver, Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, and Tekken that could never be fulfilled. Reduced to collecting stars in Super Mario 64, heart pieces in Ocarina, Pokemon in Pokemon Stadium, and hoping for the next big game to not skip the system.

There are tons of videos online of different games on real hardware. The fact that you posted something that looks that awful destroys any case. It's basically a slide show at that point, screenshots make more sense.

Your 2nd paragraph is subjective and irrelevant to graphics(the thread subject)

 

[Gp1]

A lot of the criticism thrown at the N64's graphics in this thread is honestly shallow and taken out of context. Comments like "blurry textures," "looked like garbage then and even worse today," or "fog and Vaseline screens" might sound witty, but they completely miss the historical and technical reality of the time. These games were never meant to be seen on today's flat 4K panels. They were designed for CRTs running at low resolution with scanlines, bloom, and natural blur that masked imperfections and made textures and polygons blend in. On the intended hardware, the so-called flaws weren't even noticeable — and, as some have pointed out, CRT shaders and real hardware today prove exactly that. Judging N64 visuals on modern displays without filters is like watching a VHS on an OLED and pretending that's what it originally looked like.

The claim that N64 was always "ugly" completely ignores how groundbreaking Super Mario 64 was in 1996. It wasn't just a graphical leap, it was a gameplay revolution that Saturn and PS1 couldn't match in the same way. Saying "it looked bad even back then" is hindsight bias — no one in 1996 stood in front of Mario 64 and thought it was some visual embarrassment. Another weak argument is comparing it unfavorably to PS1 "definition." The PS1 lacked hardware anti-aliasing, texture filtering, and z-buffering, which led to constant texture warping, jittery polygons, and perspective glitches. N64's filtering was a deliberate choice: it smoothed out visuals and made them look closer to the Model 2 arcade style. Complaining that the filter made things "blurry" is missing the point — that was a tradeoff to avoid the ugly warping the PS1 constantly showed. Later games even layered textures to create sharper results.

And please, holding up Superman 64 as if that represents the whole console is laughable. That's cherry-picking the absolute worst title and pretending it defines the library. By that logic, every PS1 game should be judged by Bubsy 3D. The truth is, the N64 produced some stunning results for the era: Wave Race 64, Star Fox 64, Majora's Mask, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo-Tooie. These games squeezed the machine in ways no other 5th gen console matched. More importantly, the "aesthetic" of the N64 has aged into its own unique charm. That's why indie developers deliberately emulate its look today — because it's a recognizable, stylish era of 3D graphics with a character all its own. The chunky polygons, the filtered textures, the bold colors — they're part of an identity, not just technical compromises.

The biggest fallacy is treating these games as if they were released today and judging them against modern technical standards. It's absurd. Nobody calls black-and-white silent films "bad movies" because they don't look like 4K HDR blockbusters. They are judged within their own time and artistic framework. The same respect should be applied to the N64.

It wasn't graphically impressive because in 96, pre N64, we already had Model 2, 3 games on the arcades and the first batch of PS1/Saturn games. You guys are talking like if the market went straight from Starfox to Starfox 64

No one can deny that the entire generation (the 3 consoles) was a transitional generation. Everyone was testing grounds and hardware limits and, yes, the games were ugly at the time, especially when you consider that not even 2 years later PCs already had 3D accelerators. The only games that aged well (graphically speaking) without enhancements were the 2D ones or some gameplay masterpieces that remains modern until today (Quake 1, FFT e.g.)

ps. In 98 we had this running at full frame 640x480 or even 800x600 in a mainstream accelerator... GLQuake, etc.

 

[Dacvak]

I'll ride and die with you on a wave of nostalgia, OP.

Those screenshots ARE gorgeous.

 

[veterangamerUK]

Yes it was. We came from SNES graphics… What are you talking about?

Polished 2D graphics to rough as shit 3D graphics. What are YOU talking about?