/vr/ - Retro Games

I was going to laugh at how badly it tries to spin the N64's negatives into positives, but I remembered that this was before games like FF7 came out.

Only the Club Nintendo crowd wanted one. The rest bought a Playstation.

>>2673080
>I was going to laugh at how badly it tries to spin the N64's negatives into positives, but I remembered that this was before games like FF7 came out.
Implying FMV & pre-rendered background-riddled games were a "positive".

>>2673085
The dudebro weeb machine.

>>2673102
I'd say helping to propel the PS1 into being the first console to ever sell 100+ million units was a positive, yes.

And I'd certainly take pre-rendered backgrounds and FMV over blurry textures and next to no memory space cartridges. I own and like both systems but if you think the N64 wasn't a massive mistake for Nintendo you're nuts.

>>2673108
>And I'd certainly take pre-rendered backgrounds and FMV over blurry textures and next to no memory space cartridges.
Nintendo had no way of knowing natural disasters would cause cartridge memory prices to skyrocket, resulting in a knock-on effect where 3rd party publishers were unable and/or unwilling to buy larger cartridges.

Also, the N64's texture quality issues were caused by the 4kb texture cache, not cartridges. In the grand scheme of things, the N64 had objectively better textures because they were perspective corrected.

>>2673112
that`s like some schoolyard lore from the 90s

>>2673112
>they were perspective corrected
Then you should praise the Saturn's 3D capabilities over the PS1 as well I guess.
The N64 had a great CPU/GPU but definitely was a crippled mess of a console - mostly because Nintendo likes going cheap (they know their userbase don't care about RGB over Composite, for instance).

>>2673118
>Then you should praise the Saturn's 3D capabilities over the PS1 as well I guess.
From what I've seen, sure.

>>2673118
>The N64 had a great CPU/GPU but definitely was a crippled mess of a console - mostly because Nintendo likes going cheap (they know their userbase don't care about RGB over Composite, for instance).
Well, the N64 *was* the cheapest console on the market at US$199.99. But the hardware design flaws were more oversight than "cheaping out".

>>2673146
>But the hardware design flaws were more oversight than "cheaping out".

No, it was cheaping out.

There's no such thing as oversights in DFM consoles from multi-billion dollar companies. If they can save one cent per unit they save 30 million dollars. They know everything that's in there, why it's there, and what problems it's likely to cause them. If the crunched numbers say they'll make more money shipping a slightly less polished turd then you'd better believe that turd is getting shipped.

I promise you; Nintendo knew what was wrong with the 64 before they built the first one.

>>2673171
They'd been doing it since the SNES, where they released an underpowered console with the hopes that falling chip prices would allow them to add advanced functions to the cartridges.

I imagine the N64 was planned in the same way, but they never bothered because it was too expensive, so they just stuck with the expansion pak scam.

>>2673105
>PlayStation
>weeb machine
What is Sega Saturn?

>>2673175
>I imagine the N64 was planned in the same way, but they never bothered because it was too expensive, so they just stuck with the expansion pak scam.
The Expansion Pack was intended to be a component of the N64DD. When the DD was scrapped, third party developers like Acclaim and Factor 5 begged to be allowed to use the Expansion Pack, IIRC, and Nintendo decided to release it as a standalone. Outside of Majora's Mask, no Nintendo titles used the Expansion Pack, AFAIK.

>There's no such thing as oversights in DFM consoles from multi-billion dollar companies.
The N64 was a highly experimental piece of hardware. Nobody really knew what direction the games industry was going to take. The 4kb texture cache didn't really pose a problem for Nintendo's bright, colourful 1st party titles -- it was only when 3rd parties tried to get fancy with their texture work that the limitations became a headache. It wasn't anywhere near as horrible as Sony ignoring non-Japanese developers warning them that the PS1's memory card was a resource-sucking abomination, but Nintendo really didn't give a shit about the fact their hardware was going to cause problems for 3rd party games -- if anything, they welcomed it.

>>2673059
The comment about superior 64-bit power is comical because 95% of N64 games used entirely 32-bit code.

>>2673146
>But the hardware design flaws were more oversight than "cheaping out".
There were no hardware oversights.

Most people seem to think that the 4KB texture cache was some kind of mistake by the hardware designers, or that the 4KB is ridiculously small and it should have been bigger. Well, that's wrong. The PS1 had a 2KB texture cache, and the resolution of its textures isn't as much as a problem? Why? I'll explain.

When you buy an N64, literally all of the money goes into the fast CPU (pretty much the fastest integrated thing available when the system was designed without going Pentium) and the revolutionary GPU (which has quite possibly the most comprehensive integrated feature-set of any consumer level graphics chip until the Gegorce 256).

Nintendo had to save money somewhere to afford the above. The first thing they chopped off was the CD-drive. Cartridge interfaces cost barely anything compared to that.

The second thing they chopped off was the sound chip. Our two super chips can easily handle the load of sound, right?

And the third thing that got chopped was motherboard data buses (pathways) between the different chips. This is specifically why RDRAM was chosen for the system memory. It makes up for its narrow buses with a high clock speed (but comes with headache inducing latency as a trade-off).

The issue with texturing on the N64 is not the size of the texture cache. It is that the GPU cannot load textures out of anywhere except the texture cache (which means that individual textures cannot exceed the size of the texture cache that holds them). Why can't the GPU access textures sitting inside the RAM? Because Nintendo removed that pathway to save money. They probably figured that good programming practice would be based around making use of the texture cache as much as possible (which is true). But combined with the high latency of RDRAM, the system has now become extremely performance sensitive to unsuitably structured code.

(cont)

N64's architecture was a terribly snarled mess which is why nobody has been able to emulate anything except the really simple games like SM64 that don't use any of its extended features.

>>2673226
(cont)

To get an idea of this cost-saving insanity, Nintendo actually chopped a direct memory pathway between the CPU and the RAM. That's right, the CPU has to go through the GPU to access its memory. This means that programmers have be good at maximizing the use of cache. You know how people complained that the Saturn's "slave" CPU couldn't access RAM at the same time as the "master" CPU? Well that's the case all of the time with N64's GPU.

Now you probably think all of the above sounds like some kind of bad design. But it isn't. The N64 actually isn't bottlenecked in theory. The "cuts" that Nintendo made didn't actually decrease the system's THEORETICAL performance. Assuming your code is perfectly designed and implemented, the system doesn't have any obvious weaknesses.

But Nintendo turned a machine that would have been extremely easy to program into a nightmare simply by trying to cut in so many places while trying not to compromise "theoretical" power.

When you think about it, it puts the quote by Nintendo hardware chief Genyo Takeda into a new context: "When we made Nintendo 64, we thought it was logical that if you want to make advanced games, it becomes technically more difficult. We were wrong. We now understand it's the cruising speed that matters, not the momentary flash of peak power."

>>2673112
>Nintendo had no way of knowing natural disasters would cause cartridge memory prices to skyrocket

Please elaborate.

>>2673226 (You)
(cont)

To get an idea of this cost-saving insanity, Nintendo actually chopped a direct memory pathway between the CPU and the RAM. That's right, the CPU has to go through the GPU to access its own memory. This means that programmers have be good at maximizing the use of cache. You know how people complained that the Saturn's "slave" CPU couldn't access RAM at the same time as the "master" CPU? Well that's the case all of the time with N64's CPU.

Now you probably think all of the above sounds like some kind of bad design. But it isn't. The N64 actually isn't bottlenecked in theory. The "cuts" that Nintendo made didn't actually decrease the system's THEORETICAL performance. Assuming your code is perfectly designed and implemented, the system doesn't have any obvious weaknesses.

But Nintendo turned a machine that would have been extremely easy to program into a nightmare simply by trying to cut in so many places while trying not to compromise "theoretical" power.

When you think about it, it puts the quote by Nintendo hardware chief Genyo Takeda into a new context: "When we made Nintendo 64, we thought it was logical that if you want to make advanced games, it becomes technically more difficult. We were wrong. We now understand it's the cruising speed that matters, not the momentary flash of peak power."

>>2673171
Yeah, sure, they tried to predict and calculate their return, but I think you are overestimating their omniscience.

>>2673239
>When you think about it, it puts the quote by Nintendo hardware chief Genyo Takeda into a new context: "When we made Nintendo 64, we thought it was logical that if you want to make advanced games, it becomes technically more difficult. We were wrong. We now understand it's the cruising speed that matters, not the momentary flash of peak power."

Or better, Hiroshi Yamauchi's wish that they had a console that was "really hard" to develop for in order to curb the output of shovelware.

>>2673239
>But Nintendo turned a machine that would have been extremely easy to program into a nightmare simply by trying to cut in so many places while trying not to compromise "theoretical" power.
Part of it was cost, part of it was also the limitations of 1990s manufacturing technology.

>>2673249
I think, Yamauchi had made a calculation assuming the non-existence of the Playstation. There are tons of great Playstation games that probably would have been developed for N64 instead had the PS1 never been made (a lot of developers seemed to be adverse to Sega, or thought that the Saturn hardware was even more troublesome than the N64 hardware).

A lot of shovelware exists on N64, because Nintendo went into a panic trying to get as many developers working on it as possible, because thanks to the Playstation, pretty much everybody had run away. Unfortunately for Nintendo this included developers of dubious ability like Titus Software.

Bad developers + difficult hardware = total mess

Well, it had more exclusives than the PS4.

This thread was an attempt at console war, right?

>>2673259
>There are tons of great Playstation games that probably would have been developed for N64 instead had the PS1 never been made (a lot of developers seemed to be adverse to Sega)

If you mean Japanese devs yes, however the Genesis dominated among US and Euro devs.

This is an N64 motherboard circa 1999.

This is a PS1 motherboard circa 1999.

I still remember walking past a kiosk in my local target before this thing came out and couldn't believe when I saw the controller had a stick as a control scheme. My dumb kid brain wanted one as soon as I saw that. I got one for my birthday, but felt underwhelmed by it after about a year. Wish I had got a PS instead. Didn't get one til near the end of the console cycle.

>>2673275

One of these on chips was exclusively for the CD-ROM unit, right?

I like how the N64 motherboard looks, it's very compact and clean.

Here's my favorite though.

>>2673279
One of those on the PS1 board will be CD-ROM RAM, yeah.

I actually prefer the original version of the Saturn motherboard, which has so many chips, it actually has a daughterboard connected above the mainboard with even more chips.

>>2673279
so sexy

>>2673316
yeh bbw porn

Sony also had a major pricing advantage in that they could manufacture practically all PS1 components in-house which saved them a ton of money.

>>2673194

>outside majoras mask nothing else used the expansion pack


>what is silent dark

>>2673346
>no reading comprehension
>silent dark

Kek, look at the youngfag here. First of all, he was talking about first-party titles. Second, it's Perfect Dark, you moron. Is that the first game that showed up when you googled expansion pak games? You better get off your phone before the teacher catches you using it in class. Or maybe she'll overlook it because she pities what an idiot you are.

>>2673059
>tfw i didn't wait and i got the PSONE for greatness.
>tfw i bought a PS4 and i still waiting for greatness.

>>2673364

>getting this mad over a post about outdated technology on a Filipino sand drawing website

Also, if he did look it up on his phone, he probably would've gotten the name right, considering it was right there in front of him.

>>2673368

You actually had to wait if you bought a PS1 at release.
I got PS1 in 1996, and it wasn't until 1998 or so that I finally started giving my PS1 some use, what with MGS, Square RPGs and what not.
Before that I only played Tekken, Ridge Racer, Jumping Flash and not much else.

>>2673085

anyone that cared about video games had both. unless you were a poorfag piece of shit with parents that hated you.

>>2673595

This, but actually a lot of people just couldn't afford more than 1 system.

I remember asking for a N64 first, but my parents convinced me about getting a PS1 because at the store they told them it was cheaper since the games were all pirate bootlegs, piracy helped PS1 get really popular here in south america.
Long story short, I got a PS1 for my birth day in 1996, and exactly a week later my grandma surprised me with a Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64. Best childhood ever.
Later that year I also got a Saturn from my grandma. I love you grandma.

Anyway, the logical thing to do for most people was getting 1 of them, and play the other at a friend's house.
N64 was crucial for multiplayer games back then, when online gaming wasn't a thing (not mainsteam at least and LAN parties, while great, were a pain in the ass to set up, plus you couldn't play emulators on LAN as far as I remember, only PC games).

>>2673108
This was it's biggest flaw.

>>2673603

>le controller bait

Please no

>>2673603
You have clearly never used one.

>>2673550
>Right there in front of him
Technically he would have had to back out of his mobile browser and launch whatever app he's using for 4chan unless he's some dumb ass trying to use the mobile browser for 4chan as well.

>>2673721
Mobile browser is pretty good if you browse from the catalog page.

>>2673603
Everything about that controller was fine except the analog stick. Fuck that analog stick.

>>2673813
Huh. I usually hear the opposite from people. Mostly from those who never owned one, though.

>>2673603

I never knew how to hold this. I don't have three hands.

>>2673861

but what game required to hold all 3 handles at once? Most only required the right position, and only a few allowed the left position.

I think Treasure were one of the few developers that actually brainstormed some cool shit for the N64 controller, in games like sin & punishment or bangai-O you can hold the controller in either position, and on the fly.

>>2673861

How were you able to find the door to leave the house for school then?

>>2673834
I went through about 5 of those controllers, although N64 was my last Nintendo console and I'm mostly a Sonyfag now. The sticks always get squishy after a few months and eventually got to the point where they stop working entirely. I don't know the mechanics, and maybe it was my fault for pushing too hard or something, but it always happened.

>>2673861
D-pad is pretty much useless for 90% of N64 games. Most of them reinforced that fact by making the L-trigger either do nothing or do the same thing as the Z-trigger.

>>2673108
Even if the console hardware wasn't stellar, it spawned some of the greatest titles in video game history. I'd rather have a handful of incredible games than a shit ton of pretty good ones.

I grew up with PS1 and N64 and always gravitated towards the Nintendo simply because it had better games.

I didn't however, think about the long load times on the PS1 or the shitty textures on the N64 because I was a kid and I thought about having fun. I didn't think about minute flaws that had little if any effect on the enjoyment I got out of the games.

>>2673861
le three hands meme xD

Dope games all around that gen.

Play your metal salad slapadong over here play mischievous macaroni over there wut up.

>>2674000
I also had both ps1 and n64 growing up and had the exact same opinion. I loved ps1 games but always felt that the top-tier n64 titles were a cut above. Sure the system may have been difficult to develop for but when you could realistically only afford 4-5 games a year (mowing lawns and washing cars for money back then), you just went for the cream of the crop anyway. It also helped that the games were much better for multiplayer, since those were the glory days of split-screen gaming with your bros.

>>2673785
I can see that.

>>2673603
>le ebic maymay
Your dad had no problem using that controller when he an N84 for his 8th birthday.

>>2673974
I've played the shit out of my N64 and I haven't had any problems with the controllers that I have had since I bought it. The second-hand ones I've bought, on the other hand, are almost always pieces of shit. Does everyone else just take shit care of their stuff?

Master Hand had his own game?

>>2673059
That ad is amusing and silly, but I kinda wish Nintendo would make aggressive ads like that again.

>>2674393
Glover is not a good game. I've played it and it controls like molasses.

I've never played Glover so I don't know if its any good or not, but in my experience whenever someone says something like

>I've played it and it controls like molasses.

What they mean is they played it for 4 minutes on an emulator.

>>2673603
The big flaw was too much 3d.

>>2673603
A mistake they repeated with the hideously stupid Gamecube controller, and then again with the misshapen Wii U gamepad.

>>2673603
Except that Playstation had to release the Dual Analog seeing the N64 controller's success

>>2674595
The original Dual Analog controller came out less than a year after the N64 hit the market.
R&D on something like that takes longer than that.
What's much more likely is that both companies saw it as a natural evolution for controllers, quit trying to credit Nintendo with inventing every wheel.

>>2674595
>>2674606
the Saturn 3D pad hit the market before the N64 too.

>>2673602
>I remember asking for a N64 first, but my parents convinced me about getting a PS1 because at the store they told them it was cheaper since the games were all pirate bootlegs, piracy helped PS1 get really popular here in south america.

Does anyone else miss the days when brown people didn't have Internet access?

>>2674615
Not before the Japan N64 release.

>>2674647
Once again- a product doesn't just get shit out to market. It takes time to research, develop, test, re-develop these things, Nintendo didn't invent the wheel here, there was analog control long before the N64. How Nintendo let that atrocity get to market is beyond me. Then again they have single handedly produced the three worst analog sticks on any console I've ever used (the other two aren't retro though)

>>2674649
>t takes time to research, develop, test, re-develop these things
Yes, and Nintendo reached, developed and tested it before Sega.

The N64 controller was already completed for industry shows in 1995. That would have given Sega a whole year to knock it off anyway.

>there was analog control long before the N64
It's not about who does an individual piece of technology first, it's about who has the vision to see where it can be implemented first. And Nintendo were the first to see the analog control's potential for 3D games.

>>2674660
>Yes, and Nintendo reached, developed and tested it before Sega.
Do you have anything to substantiate that? To my knowledge we have no information about when Sega started development- the correct statement is that Nintendo's product made it to market first. For all we know Sega messed with analog in 1989, Nintendo could have too.

>>2674680
Not him but aside from there being no prototypes, documentation or rumors I guess there is nothing to substantiate it. Aside from, you know, common sense.

>>2674735
You say nothing but "common sense" but we've seen stranger things in development much, much earlier, it's not too crazy to think either company dabbled with analog controls as early as the late 80s

>>2674737
I say evidence, but apparently you can't into reading comprehension.
I've seen stranger things, like analog controls before your dad was born. And if I'm giving you to much age credit and that was the lat 80's then let me make it clear that I'm talking about the late 60's. Anyone who "dabbled" after that was just dabbeling.

>>2674735
>you know, common sense
Given Sega's history and experience with 3D (Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter) it'd be strange if they weren't developing an analogue stick before Nintendo who were fairly new at 3D.

>>2674836
Nah. If no one has ever heard of anything, with all the people obsessed with the history of games, it's unlikely that some kids fantasy was based in any reality.

>>2674827
are you retarded? your post doesn't even have the word "evidence" in it and you want to come at me with a jab about reading comprehension? I don't know why I asked if you're retarded, because you evidently are.

>>2674845
>I don't believe anything I'm told at school because every sentence doesn't include the word evidence.
You're right about one thing. There's a retard ITT.

>>2674635

And yet he had more consoles and games than you

>this thread
Goddamnit, /vr/, can't we just discuss games without it devolving into flamewars? I'm a Nintendo guy, but that doesn't mean that they're the holy fucking grail of gaming.

Shame on you, OP. We have no need for console wars here.

>>2675157
Goddamnit, /V Jr/, can't we just discuss games without it devolving into flamewars?
FTFY
Yeah. It sucks.

>>2674660
The Vectrex and Atari 5200 controllers were analog.

>>2676229
Also Odyssey, Pongs, 2600 paddles, etc. But there were all way before his daddies time so they don't count apparently. kek

>>2676229
>>2676474
Apparently, reading is hard

>3D games

>>2673239
I like that Takeda guy. He has a very scientific approach to hardware design, and often learns from them. See; the GameCube being SUBSTANTIALLY easier to develop for while the PS2 was considered to be the awkward one. However, his mathematical, scientific reasoning falls short in one aspect; he cannot comprehend the market dominance of Sony, and often ignores them in his theories. I mean, the GameCube was both more powerful and easier to develop for than the PS2, surely that would've given it the edge.

>>2676486
Apparently it is. Guess you need to consult your great grand pappy on this on sport.

>>2674000
>>2674000
I feel like every good game I ever hear about on the N64 was done better on the Gamecube and later. Apart from Wave Race 64, which I consider possibly my favourite racing game of that generation, Mario Sunshine surpassed 64 in every way, Wind Waker surpassed Ocarina of Time in every way, every FPS ever surpassed Goldeneye, etc.

It makes the N64 feel like it hasn't aged nearly as well, in my eyes, as the competition, because while Mario 64 and Oot were innovative for the time, today they feel dull and lifeless compared to their successors.

On the other hand, my favourite games on the PS1 are games I feel never got surpassed later on (MGS1, FF7, Crash Bandicoot)

>>2676617
>Mario Sunshine surpassed 64 in every way, Wind Waker surpassed Ocarina of Time in every way
Good God.

I actually like the GC far more than the N64 but those are the two massive exceptions.

>>2676627
I don't really have any nostalgia for the N64, because I only had a PS1 that gen. We got a gamecube in the sixth gen though. Having already played Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine, when I got around to playing their N64 predecessors I just didn't find them to be as good. Gameplay wise nothing really changed (well, except for Mario having new moves and FLUDD), but the Gamecube games actually had colour and personality to them.

>>2676551
as far as i understand the hw architecture of the ps2 was pretty similar to the one in the n64.

>>2676646
I don't have any nostalgia for the N64 either, but OoT and Mario 64 at least felt like complete games whereas Wind Waker has clearly been cut in half and Sunshine is massively padded out with blue coins etc. Not bad games, just not as good as their predecessors in my opinion.

>>2676617
>every FPS ever surpassed Goldeneye, etc.

Opinion discarded. Had you said that Timesplitters 2 surpassed Goldeneye that would have been acceptable, but if you think that Goldeneye can be directly compared to games outside of Perfect Dark and the Timesplitters series then you are underage and/or ignorant.

To use your own example, it would be like saying Banjo-Kazooie surpassed Crash Bandicoot because you have free movement in Banjo. Wrong fucking subgenre.

>>2676648
The architecture of the PS2 is really sort of a hybrid of PS1 and N64, specifically picking out the worst bits of both and making a console out of it.

It's got a barren 3D feature set like the PS1 (although thankfully improved over the actual PS1), which means that things that consoles like Gamecube can do in a single rendering pass the PS2 needs to do multiple software driven passes, and it's got the ridiculously high bandwidth memory design from the N64 coupled with the atrocious latency problems. Also the PS2's two VU units have their own special instruction set, so for best graphics developers have to do similar kind of shit to the N64's microcode. Hell, the Gamecube's GPU was designed by the same people who did the N64's GPU, and even they abandoned that concept.

>>2676728
Well, while I actually think that my other examples, Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are good in their own right, I honestly do not think Goldeneye is a good game at all.

Well, OK, to be completely honest, I haven't played the single-player campaign before. But I have played the multiplayer plenty, it's boring and the controls are excruciatingly bad. To be fair to it, I don't think there's a single good FPS on a fifth gen console, or at least if there was, I've yet to find it. All the good FPSs of that era were on PC.

>>2676742
> software driven phases
yeah but doesnt the console have enough bandwidth and fillrate to work that way? i read that sonyntold devs not to worry much about overdraw since some techniques to avoid it were slower than letting the gpu just draw (since it had fillrate to spare)
i also read that the gamecube was very well designed and the built in stuff worked really well but if you wanted to do something that requieredmultiple passes (or use many of the built in lights) the console would crawl. The ps2 architecture made it very flexible (if the dev got it right of course).

> the gs is a descendant of the psx gpu
i read (here i think) that the gs was like 16 psx gpus in one chip and that is psx compatibility mode it used one)
how truth is that? afaik the psx gpu did not understand real 3d i find it impossible that the ps2 one doesnt... unless you tell me it just draws and the 3d data lives somewhere else and the mechanisms to represent it on the gpu are much more sophisticated than the ones in the psx. alse, regarding the feature set, what did the gs add over the psx gpu (i suppose texture softening was one since it could do that on psx games)

btw i find the dreamcast architecture to be similar to the psx one (not taking exact component into account but the way stuff is connected and such, and its "straightforwardness"

>>2676771
>yeah but doesnt the console have enough bandwidth and fillrate to work that way?
Yes, the PS2 does have tons of bandwidth and fillrate, but the reason it's got this is because the console relies on a large number of general rendering units working in parallel, as opposed to a smaller number of specialized units working in serial like in Gamecube.

PS2 architecture has a lot of power, but it's generally very wasteful. I suppose if you coded the PS2 perfectly, it probably would be more powerful than Gamecube (but not by much), but that's an idealized scenario. It's the N64 all over.

From memory the console's biggest problem was the limited size of its eDRAM combined with a lack of hardware texture compression. It's a situation that mirrors the texture cache issue on N64. If you want to reload the eDRAM several times per frame to get more texture data you need to pull them from RDRAM. The eDRAM has incredible bandwidth, but RDRAM (like on N64) has really poor random access latency. So it's really performance dependent on how programmers used the memory memory.

Ultimately it's a poor design, since you have to squeeze the system's guts to get performance equivalent (or maybe even a little better) than Gamecube, but on Gamecube getting top performance is not much work at all. The end result is every top PS2 game technically performs worse compared to Gamecube's top games.

>how truth is that?
It is true, but you have to remember they are not exactly 100% the same as the PS1's chips. They are like a 16-array of extended versions (which is why things like bilinear filtering are possible, if it were just straight PS1 chips bilinear filtering would have to be done in software). It adds a few 3D baseline features like z-buffer and mipmaps, but it's missing stuff like a color combiner unit (which both N64 and Voodoo had).

>btw i find the dreamcast architecture to be similar to the psx one
That is not a coincidence. Dreamcast was designed to be "their" PS1.

>>2676810
> ps2 vs gamecube
the gamecube seems to be easier to get nice results with. anyway i read (by a guy claiming to be one of the devs of burnout) that burnout 3 (might have been another but i think it was 3) was not possible on gamecube because the collision system (with cars deforming and chain accidents) relied heavily on vector math. he said it would have been to be simplified from the ps2 or xbox versions if it were to appear on the gc. also read that one of the things that gave the gc the edge on image quality was actually a better color output chip, and thenfact that the ps2 usually rendered at a lower res and that aa was broken in the ps2. the dreamcast was already better than the ps2 at that anyway.
anyway the gamecube hw seems best suited for a game console while the ps2 looks more like a 3d cgi machine.

> 16 array extended version of the psx gpu
so that is more or less like a simplified version of today's gpu's stream processors (i suppose todays stream processors can make a lot more operations tho)? how did it work, did the screen get divided on a 4x4 grid and each cell took care of one region? did the devs control how it was used? or did thengs just receive commands and dispatch them to available units in the array? i read somewhere that the ee prepared display lists for the gs to digest so i am inclined to think it worked like the last thing i said.

This is the worst part of the N64's hardware design, far more than RAM latency, low cache, etc. It's basically a "make the video output look like pure garbage" filter.

>>2676840
>he said it would have been to be simplified from the ps2 or xbox versions if it were to appear on the gc.
That seems a little strange. Collision vector math would have to be done on the CPU for all three consoles. The PS2 is good in this situation since the VU are fully programmable co-processors for the CPU, but Xbox and Gamecube would have to do the vector maths on their main cores. I do know that Gecko was weaker at SIMD than the Pentium 3, (although better than a regular PowerPC due to the inclusion of paired single operations), but not by much. I think the developer might be just making a technical justification for why the game wasn't ported to Gamecube, while the real reason was a business decision (EA started to abandon Gamecube around that time).

>t one of the things that gave the gc the edge on image quality was actually a better color output chip, and thenfact that the ps2 usually rendered at a lower res and that aa was broken in the ps2
No that's not really anything to do with the color output chip (do you mean video encoder? those things haven't really been important since the 16 bit generation). The lower resolution of PS2 games is generally down to the eDRAM not being big enough and the lack of AA is due to the fact that it's not supported in hardware (requires software driven multi-passes so most developers didn't bother).

>i read somewhere that the ee prepared display lists for the gs to digest so i am inclined to think it worked like the last thing i said.
It's like the latter as you said, driven by display lists. You could say it's like modern multiple stream processes, but Xbox and Gamecube had those too (I think something like a 4 to 8 pixel pipeline). PS2 had a whopping 16 pixel pipelines, but they were very general and limited in their operation. Modern systems tend to follow along the lines of the Xbox and Gamecube, just with ramped up number of complex pipelines, rather than bigger numbers of simple pipes like PS2.

>>2674391
Mario Party, m8

Raper of N64 controllers everywhere

>>2676895
No, you've identified the wrong chip. That's the video encoder (and that particular one, the S-RGB A, is also used on 1995-era SNES consoles).

You're probably referring to the N64's VI (video interface). It's actually embedded inside the GPU after the RDP (texturing/rasterizing core). It performed an interesting post-processing based anti-aliasing operation (although one that developers could turn on or off) on the silhouettes of objects. It's a fairly messy algorithm, but one designed for composite based CRT color bleeding. That's one of the reasons the N64 never did officially support RGB.

Thankfully the GPU helpfully provides pins with video output before it reaches the VI chip, which is exactly what you want to tap into if using an RGB / HDMI based mod. You won't avoid anti-aliasing completely, because the first stage is conducted internally in RDP, but it's a more accurate algorithm based on more data, so it's not as messy (it works on the internal edges of objects).

>>2676927
>>2676927
> the dev and the no gc version
pretty sure that dev didn't decide the cancellation on himself, he just commented that they would have to cut it down a little if they wanted it to run on the gc. he claimed to have worked on all four sixth gen consoles (and he seemed legit, it was a long ass thread). regarding the aa on the ps2 apparently it was supposed to be supported by the hardware but there was a hw bug which broke it. he speculated that sony may have found it quite late and close to the release of the console they told the devs not to use it. he though ridge racer 5 was that much of a jagfest maybe because the game was developed with the hw aa in mind (i think tekken tag was quite jaggy as well).
anyway i read all that some time ago, maybe i'm not being totally accurate with my "transcriptions".

>>2677029
I have no doubt that the Gamecube is the weak link in that situation. In fact, the PS2 would be the strongest link if it came to collision model calculation (because PS2's VUs can do more than just graphics), so it would have had to be simplified down to Xbox level anyway, and if a Gamecube version was made it would be simplified even more. But looking at the specifications and what I know, I don't think the Gamecube would have been much worse off than the Xbox here.

I'm just curious how does the Xbox programming work compared the GC and PS2?

>>2677094
It's fairly similar to Gamecube except all memory is unified, vertex shaders are actually programmable, and pixel shaders are more programmable. Out of those three, PS2 is definitely the oddball.

>>2676949
Yes, wrong one.

>designed for composite based CRT color bleeding

This is what I wanted to highlight mostly. I live in SCART/RGB land, and that console was truly received as a spit in the face. Composite was usually only used by shitty console clones, and you could tell you had a low quality console just because it came with RCA leads.

>>2677130
At least s-video was supported without modding (although not officially in PAL-land which is where I'm guessing you are from).

>>2677151
Not for the PAL version indeed. Also, close to no TV sets support S-Video here, so you'd have to get a Y/C on SCART adaptor (but all sets do natively support RGB SCART, which nearly all console used before the N64 happened).

>>2677158
Nintendo deemed anti-aliasing more important than the Euro audience I guess. I'm somewhat surprised they didn't come up with some kind of solution which disables the VI AA when an RGB SCART cable is used though. How hard would that have been for them? I guess no fucks were given.

>>2677029
Regarding burnout GC, I found this on Wikipedia.

>A GameCube version was never developed, as the console couldn't support the addition of network play.

That seems a bit bogus, since 1) the GameCube did support online, though only in two titles and 2) I don't think online play was a huge deal on the PS2 or Xbox in the first place.

>>2677257
Breaking news...Wikipedia was wrong.
In other news, no one over the age of 30 was surprised.

>>2676754
>Well, OK, to be completely honest, I haven't played the single-player campaign before. But I have played the multiplayer plenty, it's boring and the controls are excruciatingly bad.
While Perfect Dark is a vastly superior game to GoldenEye (and every other FPS ever made), it is unwise to base your opinion of Goldeneye on the MP when said MP was designed by one guy in six weeks mostly working in secret because he hadn't been authorised by Rare's higher-ups to spend precious development time on a multiplayer mode.

>>2677257
Why WAS online play dropped on the Gamecube so quickly? I was super stoked about it and then suddenly Nintendo pulled the plug and BBA prices skyrocketed.

Yeah, I know about the piracy thing or whatever, but couldn't they have just forced a patch in order to use the service or something? I don't even think it hit the shelves in my area.

>>2677889
>Perfect Dark is a vastly superior game to GoldenEye (and every other FPS ever made),
Nice opinions there, buddy. I legit prefer the level maps in GoldenEye.

>>2677889
Goldeneye's multiplayer doesn't need to be defended, it is universally loved. Just because there are a few melancholy losers with boring friends who can't enjoy it doesn't make it bad.

>>2678070
Was online something relevant on the gamecube to begin with?wasn't it only used in pso? Online in the gamecube seemed only to mark a checkbox, and pso was the proper game to do so since it makes no sense without internet connection and itwuld have been lost without the dreamcast. I see the gc modem more like a pso accessory (pretty much like the guitar hero guitars) than a serious peripherial of the cosole. The ps2 felt a bit similar regarding online but i suppose that having the huge install base granted a bit more online enabled games and finally the ethernet port on the slim console. Still short of the digital future sony was announcing before the release of the ps2 (all that would come with the ps3).

>>2678194
How does disliking a game make somebody a "Melancholy loser"? I just don't think it's a very good game. I enjoy tons of /vr/ multiplayer games with friends, there's nothing more fun than a few games of Bomberman or Worms.

I just don't think split-screen multiplayer console FPS on a 5th gen console works at all due to the low resolution and horrible single-stick controls.

>>2678439
There were a few games, actually. My understanding is that PSO is what introduced the exploit that fucked online play for the Gamecube.

>>2677889
>Perfect Dark is a vastly superior game to GoldenEye (and every other FPS ever made)

>>2676930
Only ever had Mario Party 2, buddy, so I never had that problem. :^)

>>2678726
>I just don't think split-screen multiplayer console FPS on a 5th gen console works at all due to the low resolution and horrible single-stick controls.
1.2 Solitaire 4 lyfe.

>>2673080
Wasn't it Sony who said load times were good because you could get up and grab a drink?

>>2679607
Great. Now all we need is dedicated screens, a mini map that doesn't show the other players' locations, a draw distance longer than my dick, and no slowdowns during explosions or screen effects and BAM! We might have ourselves an actually competent FPS.

>>2679634
>Great. Now all we need is dedicated screens
We can't have everything we want.

>a mini map that doesn't show the other players' locations
Perfect Dark let you disable it, but the minimap in GoldenEye is a "feature".
>a draw distance longer than my dick
What are you talking about? GE and PD have no draw distance problems unless we're talking about Rare's oddball attempts to create "atmosphere" using fog.

>>2679648
That is what I'm talking about, yes.

>>2679632
That's actually usually what I do. Some load times are long enough to nuke a burrito or something even.

>>2679648
jungle and bunker levels had fog out the ass, nigger. it's like you fags played a different version than me

>>2679721
>jungle and bunker levels had fog out the ass, nigger. it's like you fags played a different version than me
Jungle is literally a corridor. It uses fog for "jungle atmosphere". IIRC, the actual draw distance is pretty decent behind the murk.

Also, don't you mean Surface instead of Bunker? There are two versions of Surface. The night-time version has a way shorter draw distance to mimick darkness.

>>2679721
>jungle and siberian plateau
Also the statue park level. it's not as bad as turok, though

>>2679726
>Also, don't you mean Surface instead of Bunker? There are two versions of Surface. The night-time version has a way shorter draw distance to mimick darkness.
Yeah, that's what I mean. Open area maps are conveniently taking place at night to excuse the thicker fog. Statue, Streets and Depot are all doing this.

>>2679727
>>jungle and siberian plateau
>Also the statue park level. it's not as bad as turok, though
Statue takes place at night. Rareware thought it was a great idea to use fog whenever they needed atmosphere. Just look at Facility. If you blow up the gas tanks, the level turns into a foggy green pea soup.

Ironically, while Perfect Dark actually has smaller individual map "zones" linked by portals, (Dam's "dam" area won't fit into Perfect Dark's engine.) Perfect Dark abandoned the fog=atmosphere mentality.

>>2679734
>Yeah, that's what I mean. Open area maps are conveniently taking place at night to excuse the thicker fog.
Except Dam. Except daytime version of Surface. Granted, GoldenEye's draw distance is way shorter than Perfect Dark's in most cases, but the game isn't shrouded in a Turok 1-style wall of fog.

>>2679734
Also, if you don't mind me asking, which MP maps in GE are foggy?

>>2679735
they made you wait at that huge truck gate instead while the system loads the dam part of the level

>>2679746
i never played multiplayer

>>2679747
>they made you wait at that huge truck gate instead while the system loads the dam part of the level
Prove it. It's not implausible, sure, but I wanna see photographic evidence.

>>2679752
Do you know the gate I'm talking about? Why else would they put that thing there. I think there must be a way to bypass it by speedrunning, lemme see.

>>2679752
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_jF9PzGOxI
At the 0:40 and again at 0:50. I think they have put those huge doors and corner in there to slow you down a bit but it's really seamless.

>>2679757
>Do you know the gate I'm talking about?
Indeed I do.

>Why else would they put that thing there?

Because Rareware was full of weirdos.

Watch this video at about 30 secs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inLD7wwlbqk

>>2679774
I'm still convinced it's an unloading zone. you could turn on wireframe mode on an emulator and check for yourself.

>>2679778
>I'm still convinced it's an unloading zone. you could turn on wireframe mode on an emulator and check for yourself.
Speedrunners can run straight through the open doors. It doesn't really get more obvious than that. Besides, GoldenEye uses a portal visibility system -- unless you moon jump over the gate, it's very likely that the area behind the gate isn't rendered when it is closed.

>>2679782
>unless you moon jump over the gate, it's very likely that the area behind the gate isn't rendered when it is closed.
yep, yep, that's exactly what I meant.

>>2673259
Doesn't PS1 games end up at 30-100MB once you remove the FMV's, in 95% of the cases?

>>2673259
>Unfortunately for Nintendo this included developers of dubious ability like Titus Software.
Titus weren't actually that bad a developer. They get a very bad rap for Superman 64, which was arguably a middling game crippled by DC's executive meddling which resulting in dramatic changes late in development. (The FLY THROUGH RINGS bullshit wasn't present in the game's beta.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc9jk1-FWTU
Automobili Lamborghini:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQkv14p8aR4

Virtual Chess 64:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQkv14p8aR4

Roadsters Trophy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR7ldX0xPHo

>>2679889
Yeah, roughly the size of the largest N64 cart available. Cost was a bigger problem than storage capacity.

>>2679634
>a draw distance longer than my dick
Goldeneye had the longest (unmodded) draw distance of any FPS until the release of Unreal, dude.

>>2679894
I did rent automobili lamborghini back at the time and these games are NOT good.
They also made the Xena Talisman of Fate and Hercules Legendary Journeys, they also sucked giant nigger dongs with or without executive meddling.

>>2677171
Nintendo underestimated how adaption of video standards would go.
Had they known what the future would bring, it would most likely have shipped with S video in the states, and plain SCART in Europa, with a more direct output.

Its sorta like that nobody got the bright idea to use USB for controller ports until we had the PS3 and Xbox 360.

>>2679907
>They also made the Xena Talisman of Fate and Hercules Legendary Journeys
No. They only published those games. Hercules was by Player 1 (Robotron 64, Blues Brothers 2000.) Xenia was by Sapphire. (Top Gear Rally 2, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes for Dreamcast, Van Helsing, Rainbow 6 N64, plus some other respectable titles.)


>I did rent automobili lamborghini back at the time and these games are NOT good.
Roadsters is pretty good. Nice graphics, enjoyable arcade racing.

>>2679916
Ok, to be fair Roadsters is pretty great.

>>2679906
Delta Force trumped pretty much everything else in 1998 thanks to being voxel-based. (Genius -- use a helicopter game engine to create an FPS with a world that just keeps going and going and going and going. Plus you can chop trees in half with bullets. Dear God, give us back Novalogic, please.)

>>2679923
I remember playing the game back in 1999-2000. Its fucking amazing for its time, just for sneaking around hills and sniping dudes.
I remember it being sorta fast for being in such a large world.

>>2679927
>I remember playing the game back in 1999-2000. Its fucking amazing for its time, just for sneaking around hills and sniping dudes.
I still have my Delta Force series CDs in a box. Apparently all the games still work fine on modern PCs, but the older ones are limited to 1024x768 or something due to how the engine renders. But regardless, I think Delta Force 1 - Delta Force: Black Hawk Down were quality titles. Early games had huge open worlds where you could approach situations however you wanted. Towards BHD, things started getting more linear and scripted, but still with huge amounts of freedom. Then come XTREME and the series went to shit, sadly. Call of Duty stole a bunch of ideas from Delta Force, added dramatic PULL KNIFE FROM CHEST sections, and made squillions of dollars.

>>2673259
Yamauchi, and Nintendo as a whole, were expecting the Playstation to fail. And they had every reason to think so, other non-gaming companies tried, and failed, in the market, such as NEC or Epoch. CD based consoles, while mildly popular in Japan, didn't see huge success worldwide. So, Nintendo had every reason to believe that the PlayStation would fall flat.

However, Sony was a bit more aggressive and ambitious with their strategies. Sony was the only console manufacturer to buy out entire studios so that they had some IPs under their belts. The only other console manufacturer to do this was Microsoft with Rare. Sony also spent obscene amounts of money on marketing, and marketed the Playstation anywhere an ad could be placed. Microsoft copied this with the Xbox, and MS bragged about how much their marketing cost.

>>2679923
delta force was released over a year after goldeneye

>>2679912
The OG Xbox used USB also, breh.

>>2673059
That sounds awfully a lot like PS4's "greatness awaits".

>>2679912
Unsurprising, given that Nintendo treated Europe very poorly back then. We obviously weren't their key concern, and that was the case since the mid 80s because we had our thriving home PC market (Bong here) that they obviously didn't see the point in trying to compete with.

The RGB thing wasn't the last time Nintendo misjudged shifts in consumer attitudes either, although in fairness with the Wii it was a conscious decision to reject HD (in the interest of cost saving) rather than an oversight. They even went on record in 2006 saying that too few people had or would get HD in the near future, which looks laughable now. The explosion of HDTVs over the next year or two after the Wii's launch really didn't flatter its games, which did look excellent on a decent CRT/480p set.

N64's lack of RGB is a real shame now, particularly as decent CRT sets are cheap and RGB really does make a difference to the visuals.

>>2680263
I love Nintendo and their games but they were arrogant as hell back then. You'd have thought Sega coming close to touching them would have taught them some humility but in the end I guess it only made it worse. Sony had revenge on their mind and the money to back it all up. Sony should have remembered that too since MS did exactly the same thing to them with the 360 for 7 years.

>>2681394
>>N64's lack of RGB is a real shame now,
Except the mod is one of the easiest around. It's what, 3 wires soldered to a 20 dollar board? The only issue is finding a compatible mobo.

>>2680263
>The only other console manufacturer to do this was Microsoft with Rare.
I think Bungie would be a better example. Microsoft only got Rare after Nintendo dropped them as a quasi-second party dev.

>>2673278
Holy shit are you me? My first taste of an n64 was also at a target kiosk that was playing mario 64. I only got to play it a good 10 minutes or so before I had to leave.

I remember the drive home, fantasizing about the wondrous possibilities of this crazy 3d mario game and becoming obsessed with getting an N64.

I get one for Christmas. Ultimately only own 3 games and the rest were all rentals.

I became bored with the thing and wished I had gone with a Playstation. Eventually got a PC and dropped consoles.