N64 graphics still look gorgeous almost 30 years later

Romulus said:
Did you watch the video or is this a troll? That fps looks like the machine is overheating.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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NeverYouMind said:
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?
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emulation doesnt count since you arent using a legit example. you can see native footage on youtube. no need to pull out your console.
 
nkarafo said:
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

w9aqqbfittptap8ivsw6.jpg


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.
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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 models.spriters-resource.com

if you click on the image it opens a 3D viewer with wireframe option.
 
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 said:
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 models.spriters-resource.com
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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.
 
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Badlucktroll said:
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
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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.
 
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.
 
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UltimaKilo said:
In theory, the 64DD and the RAM expansion would have allowed for far better textures, the just dropped the ball.
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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.
 
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NeverYouMind said:
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.
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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)
 
Midway-AGNC- said:
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.
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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.

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

Those screenshots ARE gorgeous.
 
I like how some posters in here shifted the conversation to "but but the N64 didn't have a racing game that looks as good as Porsche Challenge!". Yeah, that automatically makes all of the N64 graphics shit and inferior to the PS1. Totally. You've cracked the code, breh :messenger_tears_of_joy:

If anyone thinks that Spyro 3 looks remotely as impressive as Banjo, sorry, it's you that's wearing the rose-tinted glasses. Go and check any real-hardware footage. Not even the frame rate is clearly in favor of Spyro there, let alone the model complexity or the draw distance.

Also, it's very curious how many people around the internet say early-3D graphics were shit and a step back from 3D, while clearly having had a 5th-gen console back then. I'm sure you all suffered so much playing your 3D PS1 games and contributing to those 100+ million consoles sold. I'm sure you played one round of Tekken 1, puked on your mom's carpet in disgust, put back the PS1 in its box, put it on sale and reconnected your SNES so fast 🤷🏻‍♂️

I mean, that could hold some ground if we're talking 1994-1996, but by 1998 3D had gotten very impressive and 2D had been relegated mostly to fighting games and run-and-gun shooters. Many of those were still a thing only because the NeoGeo and the Saturn were still kicking, btw. 3D looked really good by then, and absolutely nobody who wasn't already a grumpy 40yo who started gaming in the arcades in the early 80s would think otherwise. Don't act like every 2D game looked like Yoshi's Island, because very few did. Unless you had a Neo Geo, but how many people actually owned one?

Anyway, these debates are very fun, but if we all could still see those games run on tube TVs, a lot less people would shit on them, regardless of what console they liked more in their childhood. But I get it, bitching on the internet about the looks of games you haven't seen running in their original state for more than 20 years is a fun way to waste away the weekend :messenger_grinning:
 
Starfox64 on 64= shoot dead accurate at everything you can't see

Starfox64 on everything else= jank controller, see everything

Crayon said:
Nothing from this era "holds up". You have to have a certain appreciation, and if so, you probably like them all.
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Gotta disagree here. I like all the screenshots from OP, and myself have a pile of 64 games, but about 90% of its library is invisible to me and always has been, which is probably the same way people feel about the deluge of spammed PSX games, or even modern games.
 
This is an odd thread. All the early 3D consoles made compromises that were obvious to everyone at the time. We could all see the Saturn struggled with transparencies; We could all see the PlayStation suffered texture warping; And we could all see the N64 had low-res textures.

The idea that the N64's texturing was deliberately blurry to suit CRT is pure copium. It is not just that there was un-compromised arcade hardware to compare with, like Gp1 pointed out, but we'd also had years of increasingly sophisticated software rendering on the PC, targeting CRT displays, that was clearly chasing fidelity. In fact, Quake released the same year as Mario64 -- did Id make PC Quake's software renderer have blurry textures in order to suit CRT monitors? No of course they fucking didn't because that's not a thing; They made it as detailed as humanly possible given the hardware constraints being targeted.

The N64 has blurry textures because the machine had to be affordable and that's the compromise Nintendo went with to get there. It has other strengths, plenty of oomph for the time, and canny developers could mitigate its shortcomings to produce some very visually pleasing 3D. I'm not really sure what there is to argue about, other than exactly how excellent Doom64 is now you mention it.
 
Nah man. I'm a huge Nintendo fanboy and I rank N64 and NES as my least favorite consoles by them for the same reasons. They are necessary steps in the evolution of games but the visuals and controls / game feel just aged incredibly poorly. They were both necessary growing pains for what came after, the SNES/GCN gen.

I feel the same about PS1 btw. Every game that's not a jrpg aged horribly.
 
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Gp1 said:
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.

Click to expand...

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.
 
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Midway-AGNC- said:
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
Click to expand...
Turok doesn't get the credits it deserves.

When it was released, it's most advanced competitor was Quake 1. And while that game had amazingly complex indoor maps, Turok beat it in many areas.

- It was the first fully 3D FPS game that was based on large, non-linear outdoor maps. Back then every FPS game was mostly indoor with some exteriors. But Turok focused on outdoors, which was far more difficult to render, hence the fog.
- It had the best looking and best animated 3D models for both weapons and enemies in any FPS. Just compare Quake's jerky, low poly enemies with Turok's smoothy animated dinos and motion captured human enemies.
- Speaking of motion capture, pretty sure it was the first 3D FPS game with motion capture. But someone could correct me on that. It was certainly among the first.
- The most impressive looking bitmap explosions and weapon effects at the time.
- The first fully 3D FPS game with proper 3D foliage. There was no other game anywhere that had better looking 3D trees and plants at the time, except maybe the palm trees in Virtua Fighter 3 Model 3 arcade? Some are even destructible, which was a very Crysis-like moment, though the animation is scripted and there are no real time physics involved.

aULF4YlNghWAiPxe.png
5C1akmmX7lLtnd2c.png


There wasn't really anything close to that game in 1997. IMO, the first Turok on the N64 gets the most unfair treatment from modern gamers, almost nobody is aware of it's numerous achievements and the only thing they care about is the fog, as if no other fully 3D game had pop-up, especially featuring games with outdoor areas.
 
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Midway-AGNC- said:
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.
Click to expand...

I don't believe that these people were actually there. Anyone who was present knows that N64 was a graphical showstopper in 96
 
nkarafo said:
Turok doesn't get the credits it deserves.

When it was released, it's most advanced competitor was Quake 1. And while that game had amazingly complex indoor maps, Turok beat it in many areas.

- It was the first fully 3D FPS game that was based on large, non-linear outdoor maps. Back then every FPS game was mostly indoor with some exteriors. But Turok focused on outdoors, which was far more difficult to render, hence the fog.
- It had the best looking and best animated 3D models for both weapons and enemies in any FPS. Just compare Quake's jerky, low poly enemies with Turok's smoothy animated dinos and motion captured human enemies.
- Speaking of motion capture, pretty sure it was the first 3D FPS game with motion capture. But someone could correct me on that. It was certainly among the first.
- The most impressive looking bitmap explosions and weapon effects at the time.
- The first fully 3D FPS game with proper 3D foliage. There was no other game anywhere that had better looking 3D trees and plants at the time, except maybe the palm trees in Virtua Fighter 3 Model 3 arcade? Some are even destructible, which was a very Crysis-like moment, though the animation is scripted and there are no real time physics involved.

aULF4YlNghWAiPxe.png
5C1akmmX7lLtnd2c.png


There wasn't really anything close to that game in 1997. IMO, the first Turok on the N64 gets the most unfair treatment by modern gamers, almost nobody is aware of it's numerous achievements and the only thing they rememeb is the fog, as if no other fully 3D game had pop-up, especially featuring games with outdoor areas.
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Be careful, you might be marked as heretic — because apparently everything from the N64 is "garbage" now.
 
Someone here will know, but I remember N64 games being unique in that assets in the distance like Palm trees here don't start out a mess of pixels and get clearer as you approach, they maintain a level of clarity from that distance.
You'll notice track objects in the water such as smiling buoys hold up even under higher resolutions. The balloons, bananas everything looks like its centered in the world and almost plastic. I remember being blown away at that clarity in the 90s. I think Doom 64 used it too. Not to mention the characters onscreen had it as well, and the water effects, basically everything looked next level for the time.



This looked incredibly good and had way more depth to its campaign than I thought it would.
 
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Midway-AGNC- said:
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.
Click to expand...
Bruv, most TVs were 256 interlaced. N64 looked blurry as fuck on those and the draw distance for its 3D worlds was pitiful. People are misremembering the system's graphics due to emulation and more capable ports. N64 also could not do the detailed prerendered backgrounds and FMVs that made PS1 games look a generation ahead on those CRTs. Even the digital magic done to port RE2 to the system could not fully cross that barrier as all the backgrounds ended up blurry and FMVs choppy and blurry. Not their fault as the cheapskates at Nintendo had absurd storage limits on their cartridges.
 
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NeverYouMind said:
Bruv, most TVs were 256 interlaced. N64 looked blurry as fuck on those and the draw distance for its 3D worlds was pitiful.
Click to expand...

Compared to what alternative at that time? Everything had blurry draw distance, Ps1 was one of the worst with entire worlds popping up in front of us generally. I remember playing Driver and entire cities were appearing 100 yards away + blurry.
 
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