What if?

[Anonymous No.3521085]

If the N64 had used CD based media instead of cartridges, would it have been able to run upscaled versions of say MGS or FFVII? Or was the N64's chipset designed entirely around the cartridge format?

[Anonymous No.3521098]

I don't see why it wouldn't. Other than FMVs, these games don't present a big challenge in terms of technical aspects outside of Rex on MGS.
MGS started development for the 3DO, I think they would have been able to make it even on the Saturn if they wanted.
FF VII is your standard RPG, the 3D models would probably take advantage of the N64 polycount if it was made for the 64DD. Music is also entirely PCM, so nothing the N64 couldn't handle even without the CD add-on in that regard.

[Anonymous No.3521101]

>>3521085
I guess it would be like Rayman 2 and other multiplats.

[Anonymous No.3521102]

>>3521101
Yeah basically I'm asking if it would have been like PS1 games that were ported to the Dreamcast.

[Anonymous No.3521116]

AFAIK the N64 is really constrained with textures. I think there's something about the rate it can draw polygons as well.

How is say...RE2 on the N64? I've never seen the N64 version, but I'd imagine that could be indicative of how it would handle something like MGS.

[Anonymous No.3521119]

>>3521116
if I remember correctly textures were also a cart issue due to available space, but hardware/cart were designed around eachother so I don't doubt the hardware would have had trouble with higher res textures

[Anonymous No.3521126]

>>3521116

I played it, I can say it's really good but also I think it was handled by developer Factor 5 who were "n64 wizards" and could pull off a lot of tricky stuff on it.
The director of RE2, Hideki Kamiya, approved on this port, he's usually harsh on ports that he considers inferiors to his original work, so this one has like his "blessing".

[Anonymous No.3521135]

>>3521102
Not quite. The PS1 and N64 hardware were surprisingly on par; N64 did some things better than PS1, and PS1 did some other feats better than N64.

The lack of storage space was a big issue on Nintendo´s system, but it also suffered of tiny VRAM bus-size; if I recall correctly, N64 had something like 4kb sized texture memory, which really affected what could be shown on screen at once, thus resulting these tiny, stretched textures, adding to the blurry overall looks. Later on devs learned a few tricks to circle around these limitations.

>>3521116
>How is say...RE2 on the N64? I
It´s a technical marvel in every possible way. FMVs, BGs and audio were heavily compressed, but overall the game looks quite nice.

[Anonymous No.3521140]

>>3521126
I'd be really curious to know if a disc based N64 could pull off Silent Hill.

[Anonymous No.3521142]

>>3521140
it ran the entire RE2 with extra content perfectly fine. SH1 would be notably easier in many ways, using all 3D assets and notably less FMVs.

[Anonymous No.3521143]

>>3521140

What about Silent Hill makes you think would not be possible on a CD-based N64?

[Anonymous No.3521147]

>>3521142
True, I suppose SH's "over world" is smaller than OoT's

[Anonymous No.3521152]

It would be just like regular N64 but with FMVs and loading screens

[Anonymous No.3521156]

>>3521143
I'm wondering if the hypothetical N64 version could have had better draw distance and smooth textures on the buildings and interiors.

[Anonymous No.3521168]

>>3521147
Not really. The vision distance is pretty much on par with Turok games, and the "dungeon" areas (indoors) have merely small rooms that are loaded and unloaded as you move to next space.

>>3521156
Vision distance? Doubt that. It was made like it is on a purpose, and really does help the performance.

Only one game on N64 has even allowed disabling texture filtering, and that was Quake. And to be honest, in many titles the bilinear filtering + the native blur effects + extra blurriness of CRTs only made textures into smudgy mess.

tl;dr: it´d look pretty much the same as on PS1, with AA and texture filtering.

[Anonymous No.3521181]

>>3521156
Along with higher poly character models.

[Anonymous No.3521193]

>>3521085
>Or was the N64's chipset designed entirely around the cartridge format?

No, there's nothing preventing the N64 from using a CD-ROM system. Contrary to popular belief, it's not practical for the N64 to execute code directly from the cartridge like older consoles because the cartridge bus is considerably slower than the N64's system RAM (unlike with older consoles where there wasn't as big of a difference).

The one thing you would need to change is giving the N64 more RAM as a CD-ROM cache. N64 only JUST had sufficient RAM as it stands because the z-buffer takes up space.

>>3521116
>AFAIK the N64 is really constrained with textures

N64 isn't constrained with textures, it's just the texturing system is a programmer's headache due to the size-per-texture limit. You can easily get around it through clustering, and Rare often did.

> I think there's something about the rate it can draw polygons as well.

N64 can do more polygons than PS1. It has almost double the raw fill rate and several times the T&L capabilities. The problem is that when you turn on shitloads of special features like AA, you're going to run straight into memory bandwidth wall before you get anywhere near the polygon limit.

>>3521135
>N64 did some things better than PS1, and PS1 did some other feats better than N64.

N64 was more powerful in every single way than the PS1 (lack of sound chip aside but every N64 component is faster than the PS1 equivalent), but the PS1 was far easier to program, especially its texturing subsystem.

Programmers/artists also had different visual goals on both system, resulting in a large visual discrepancy overall.

>N64 had something like 4kb sized texture memory

It needs to bear mentioning that the PS1 had a 2 KB texture cache, but it could also texture straight from dedicated VRAM unlike N64.

[Anonymous No.3521204]

>>3521168
>Only one game on N64 has even allowed disabling texture filtering, and that was Quake

Quake 64 doesn't allow texture filtering to be disabled, just VI post-processing effects.

For those that don't know, the N64 had a VI (video interface) unit at the tail end of its GPU which handled post-processing effects and scaling before handing the picture to the composite DAC. A lot of people think the VI unit is the same as the DAC, but it's not. VI is part of the GPU.

The VI had flags that could be turned on depending on what post-processing you wanted it to do. One of them was edge anti-aliasing. Another was dither filtering (3dfx Voodoo cards did something similar). I believe it was discovered that most of the N64's "blurring" is caused by both the scaling and the dither filter. Texture filtering isn't really a big part of it.

Quake 64 doesn't turn off texture filtering, it just sets all of the VI postprocessing flags to "off".

Interestingly enough, that doesn't necessarily turn off all anti-aliasing. The main part of the N64's GPU can also do some amount of anti-aliasing. AA on N64 is a two-stage process.

[Anonymous No.3521218]

>>3521140
So a playstation?
Yes

[Anonymous No.3521225]

>>3521218
I should have said an improved version of Silent Hill with better draw distance, texture filtering, AA and higher poly counts.

[Anonymous No.3521293]

>>3521085
Yes easy. N64 was much better hardware wise than the ps1. Its bottleneck was the cartdrige, that and ninty being cunts and many third parties not wanted to work with them.