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"Nintendo 64...What could have been."

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Sat 05/05/01 at 18:31
Regular
Posts: 787
FACT. The Nintendo 64 is an absolute gem of a console.
I mean where else would you experience games of such high quality of a sizeable library.

Greats.Classics.Whatever you want to call them exists on the console, but not one or two, but many that either defined the genre or has simply been unbeatable.
Goldeneye...What FPS has really and truly surpassed it 'to this day'. None. Pefect Dark might have been a great sequel, but they where in my opinion games of equal standard.
Others would be Mario 64, where no other platform game has bettered it yet, there's 1080 Snowboarding, Waverace, Zelda, Mario Kart and other classics such as Banjo Kazooie, Conkers Bad Fur Day, ExciteBike. The list goes on as many would know.

But, what if Nintendo had decided back in 1996 to release the Console with a CD Drive?
Just think about that.A 64 bit CD Console.
For a start many who left Nintendo because they opted for carts would still be there.
Square originally had designed Final Fantasy 7 for the system, they even pleaded as I remember with the Big N to go CD with the console.
Imagine what it could have been like, Having such games of such high standards from Square on the console.
Konami too would have almost certainly have released Metal Gear on the system too and that's not mentioning the countless third party developers who would have been enticed with the cheap media and storage.

Consider those, maybe that is why the Playstation was so successful, in fact I think 'it is' why the PS was and is so successful, all because of Nintendo's reason for sticking with cartridges.
Sony wouldnt have had Square developing for them, simply being because Nintendo and Square where strong partners.
What would it have been like if we had those games mingling alongside the classics that the console has today? Plus consider the graphics, 64Bit processsor, larger RAM an all out more powerful system to the PS. A 64bit Metal Gear,Final Fantasy!

It is only now that Nintendo have realised this. Gamecube will be a Mini-DVD Format, it will be cheaper than carts for the developers to purchase, Square and others who backed off with the N64 have no excuse this time, they have the space to play around with.
This time next year, we could possibly see the end of the PS2 with a Dreamcast style demise.
Roll on Spring 2002.

Sat 05/05/01 at 18:31
Regular
"Nasty Fat Hobbit!"
Posts: 1,193
FACT. The Nintendo 64 is an absolute gem of a console.
I mean where else would you experience games of such high quality of a sizeable library.

Greats.Classics.Whatever you want to call them exists on the console, but not one or two, but many that either defined the genre or has simply been unbeatable.
Goldeneye...What FPS has really and truly surpassed it 'to this day'. None. Pefect Dark might have been a great sequel, but they where in my opinion games of equal standard.
Others would be Mario 64, where no other platform game has bettered it yet, there's 1080 Snowboarding, Waverace, Zelda, Mario Kart and other classics such as Banjo Kazooie, Conkers Bad Fur Day, ExciteBike. The list goes on as many would know.

But, what if Nintendo had decided back in 1996 to release the Console with a CD Drive?
Just think about that.A 64 bit CD Console.
For a start many who left Nintendo because they opted for carts would still be there.
Square originally had designed Final Fantasy 7 for the system, they even pleaded as I remember with the Big N to go CD with the console.
Imagine what it could have been like, Having such games of such high standards from Square on the console.
Konami too would have almost certainly have released Metal Gear on the system too and that's not mentioning the countless third party developers who would have been enticed with the cheap media and storage.

Consider those, maybe that is why the Playstation was so successful, in fact I think 'it is' why the PS was and is so successful, all because of Nintendo's reason for sticking with cartridges.
Sony wouldnt have had Square developing for them, simply being because Nintendo and Square where strong partners.
What would it have been like if we had those games mingling alongside the classics that the console has today? Plus consider the graphics, 64Bit processsor, larger RAM an all out more powerful system to the PS. A 64bit Metal Gear,Final Fantasy!

It is only now that Nintendo have realised this. Gamecube will be a Mini-DVD Format, it will be cheaper than carts for the developers to purchase, Square and others who backed off with the N64 have no excuse this time, they have the space to play around with.
This time next year, we could possibly see the end of the PS2 with a Dreamcast style demise.
Roll on Spring 2002.

Sat 05/05/01 at 18:51
Regular
"Fishing For Reddies"
Posts: 4,986
Ah Nintendo...a games company with any other name could not make games so great....It has a lovely ring to it though!

I do think that because of the format of the game Nintendo will manage to lure many developers to the console, but if you remember, there were quite a few 3rd party developers, okay not LOADS but there were more than people think, Midway, Acclaim, Konami. The N64 games, in my opinion were the best games around, it wasn't FMV's that made the games it wasn't CD's the made the games, and it wasn't even a name that made the games so successful, It was the games, they were great, the gameplay was topps and enjoyed by many, and I bet that if we were to have a vote on this site, something which I think should be included (on the left), I stongly think that the majority of gamers would vote Nintendo as their favourite.

And althoughn Sony might have made a big user base because it had more games, with relationships repaired and a disc-based port to boot, I think that gamers worldwide will see the PSX success in the Gamecube. With the 'Classique'N64 gameplay? Mario 128 anyone? I fancy a new Zelda myself!

Game
Sat 05/05/01 at 18:57
Regular
"---SOULJACKER---"
Posts: 5,448
ok... one last time. The PSone is essensially as fast, if not faster than an N64 even though it is only 32bit. I cannot be bothered to explain this.

Oh, and why are all the good posts (this is one of them) never about the Future of Gaming!

Sonic
Sat 05/05/01 at 19:40
Regular
"Nasty Fat Hobbit!"
Posts: 1,193
I think the PS has a processor around 32 mhz.
The N64 is around the 90 mark.
I think what the PS Has over the N64 is the rate that it produces Polygons p/s. But it isn't by a large margin.

Sat 05/05/01 at 19:45
Regular
"---SOULJACKER---"
Posts: 5,448
TheMorrigan wrote:
> I think the PS has a processor around 32 mhz.
The N64 is around the
> 90 mark.
I think what the PS Has over the N64 is the rate that it
> produces Polygons p/s. But it isn't by a large margin.

Not quite! Basically, in the N64 the processor does EVERYRHING. It makes the polygons, it generates sounds, it does texture mapping.

In the PSone, there are specific processors for sounds, textures and other stuff..

Both (in fact all modern) consoles generate polygons. The difference between the PSone and N64 os that the N64 uses special Anti Aliasing that blurs the edges of the polygons together making a "soft" look. The PSone (and PS2 for that matter :) doesn't do this... or at least not as efficiently

Sonic
Sat 05/05/01 at 19:58
Regular
"Nasty Fat Hobbit!"
Posts: 1,193
Iam afraid you got it wrong there Sonic.
The N64's CPU (as Ive found out) Runs at 93.75 MHZ.
It has a second. 'the Reality Engine' Co-Processor runs at 62.5 MHZ, its divided into two parts:The 'Signal processor'(Which calculates Geometry and other boring stuff) and the 'Reality Display' processor which get this-'Draws everything on screen'.
Then for Sound it has 4 MB of DRAM which is a memory system that shares out the sounds, game logics and other Graphical thingeys.

Sun 06/05/01 at 14:15
Regular
"Nasty Fat Hobbit!"
Posts: 1,193
And...The PS hasn't much going for it now.
I mean what games is there really to look forward to?
FF9 Was the last game that made full use of the PS dated innards.
Sun 06/05/01 at 16:43
Regular
Posts: 9,848
One really nice thing I liked about cartriges was that there were no loading times. And that's not because cartriges are more accessable.

Games were forced to be compacted so much to fit on a 16 MB cartrige that there was barely anything to load compared to the 760 MB the PS had to cope with.

With the PS2 and Gamecube both having faster drives, there's no harm in having disks no and it allows Rare and Nintendo to cram more into their games than ever before but for the N64, I enjoyed it for being the nice loading time free console it was.
Sun 06/05/01 at 16:45
Regular
"---SOULJACKER---"
Posts: 5,448
TheMorrigan wrote:
> Iam afraid you got it wrong there Sonic.
The N64's CPU (as Ive
> found out) Runs at 93.75 MHZ.
It has a second. 'the Reality Engine'
> Co-Processor runs at 62.5 MHZ, its divided into two parts:The
> 'Signal processor'(Which calculates Geometry and other boring stuff)
> and the 'Reality Display' processor which get this-'Draws everything
> on screen'.
Then for Sound it has 4 MB of DRAM which is a memory
> system that shares out the sounds, game logics and other Graphical
> thingeys.

You've done your homework! What you must undersrtand was that when I said the N64 processor did "everything" this was an exageration. After all, why would the console be the size it is! Obviously there are other chips in there.

Now, there is specific RAM for sound on the N64... however, for every stream of sound u have, another 1% net processor power is used. Not alot, but to have stereo sound...

The "reality Display processor" is present in every console. What happens is that it takes the generated image from the processor etc, and essentially runs the image down the cable into the TV... it's only actual image generating job is to convert the signals into TV signals!

Now you are left with the two main processors- the CPU bit, and the geometry bit. Remember that the CPU bit controls all I/O devices, as well as processing signals from the geometry bit and making the images, and sending these images into the "reality display control". Hence it pretty much does everything.

On the PSX, there is one main difference. The sound is generated by an individual sound processor, which then, via a buffer, sends the signal into the sound RAM. Hence the processor does not lose any performance (well, a very, very small amount). You then have all the usual parts to the N64 archetecture, however, many are not routed directly through the processor. Finally, the PSX has far less anti-aliasing that uses processor power. This allows it to go that extra bit faster to keep up with the N64.

It would be interesting to see what N64 games looked like if the Anti-aliasing was removed. My fealing is that they would be mostly the same as PSX games.


Hope that cleared some of it up... and good job in finding those figures! (I can see Morigan becoming a regular soon!)

Sonic


Sun 06/05/01 at 16:49
Regular
"---SOULJACKER---"
Posts: 5,448
Dan_uk wrote:
> One really nice thing I liked about cartriges was that there were no
> loading times. And that's not because cartriges are more
> accessable.

Games were forced to be compacted so much to fit on a
> 16 MB cartrige that there was barely anything to load compared to
> the 760 MB the PS had to cope with.

With the PS2 and Gamecube
> both having faster drives, there's no harm in having disks no and it
> allows Rare and Nintendo to cram more into their games than ever
> before but for the N64, I enjoyed it for being the nice loading time
> free console it was.


Although you're probably right, I was always under the impression that carts could be accessed at any point instantly, unlike CDs that have to be "loaded". Reason is that every part of the cart is connected to the console by those metal strip things....

Anyway, with the GC having v. quick transfer, it may be possible to have almost no loading times (like Dead or Alive, and Sould Reaver)... I remember Nintendo saying that this was one of their aims.

Sonic

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