/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3779719
>Looks like N64 has a GPU and two sub-GPUs
So just like every GPU after 1999 and before 2007?
>>3779727
>the 64 has awful video out
It gives you a perfectly flicker-free and dither-reduced output designed for CRTs. Not using a CRT? Then get HDMI which removes the internal linedoubling. And if you really love horrible dithering and jaggies, you can remove all post-processing with Gameshark codes.
>>3780227
>>3780389
>Does disabling the blur feature of the N64 increase the framerate of games?
It actually does, but only by a very small amount. All the Gameshark codes do is remove postprocessing. The N64 also does an AA pass within the pixel pipeline itself, that's not disabled and there are no hacks to disable it.
>>3780480
>Because N64 terrible hardware design makes it much harder to reverse-engineer
The N64 is well designed hardware though, equally so good to GameCube. It's harder to emulate since it's less fixed-function and because emulator authors are still lazily recycling Glide code written in the 90s.
>>3783517
>messy archecture
Pic related.
>need to emulate decompression process
That's just CPU routine emulation which is easy (with the exception of RE2 where the GPU's vertex shader assists the CPU in decompression). The N64 uses a stock off-the-shelf MIPS CPU. For example, there's not a single component in PS1 that is strictly off-the-shelf (the MIPS CPU in that console had custom co-processors thrown in).
>the N64 was a technical mess.
People need to stop blaming the hardware based on their misconceptions and start blaming the N64 emulator community. It's entirely caused by a failure of community. This poster is absolutely right >>3779780

>>3755210

Just adding to my post here, but look here:

http://www.smd.ru/upload/medialibrary/532/sh7708.pdf

One of these two SH-3 chips might have been included in a 1995 JAP-released Saturn. The SH7702 runs at 45 MHz and the SH7708 runs at 60. Both were released in 1995.

>>3755224

That's beyond me. According to this image it doesn't look like it, but I am illiterate when it comes to tech specs.

>>3589796
>... which is when development of the DC started. Meaning designing new hardware, new ICs, new PCBs, dev boxes, an entirely unique disc drive with its own media (meaning higher costs than standard bulk parts), etc.

You have to remember that Sega themselves emphasized that the Dreamcast was explicitly created using off-the-shelf parts to save on costs, although there are plenty of logistical considerations as you say.

GD-ROM is barely a new technology, it uses the exact same laser as CD-ROM with focal adjustments to account for more condensed pits.

>Megadrive sales already started to weaken in 95

They certainly started to weak a little bit, but Mega Drive survived all the way until 97.

>Arcade sales were still very strong in 1997

I was talking specifically about Sega themselves - they were kings of the arcade in the early 90s but towards the end they started to head up extremely fierce competition from Namco who ate hard into Sega's marketshare.

>If you've opened up a launch date unit and compared it to a 1998 made one, you'd see the huge differences the two have.

I have opened many Saturn models before and compared for my own interest. The differences are extremely minor compared to the drastic changes Sony made between launch PSX and the SCPH-700x models released late '97 early '98.

>Plus they were getting stuff in bulk from Hitachi anyway, so the manufacturing costs weren't THAT extremely high

Dude, Sony made almost all of the PSX components in house. Sega may have had a cosy relationship with Hitachi but it couldn't secure as good deals as an in-house effort.

You have to remember that Saturn has like three Hitachi CPUs, a 68k, two VDPs, a Control Unit with DSP, shitloads of different bits of RAM, some re-writable memory for saves and it goes on and on.

Compare that to PSX which was extremely simple, or N64 which was even more simple than that.

>>3321931
>The N64 is a stupidly complicated system

>>3237841
Make the console architecture less crazy (e.g. hire a company with some actual fucking expertise in 3D systems to design it for you).

Not only would that make developing games easier, it would dramatically lower the manufacturing cost of the system (Saturn cost something like double or triple the N64 to produce - no joke), and it would make graphics better too.

>>3228615
>>3228623
updated