What the N64 can really do

Started by Spaceman McConaughey, October 31, 2012, 01:17:01 pm

Previous topic - Next topic

Spaceman McConaughey


Blizzard

October 31, 2012, 04:18:38 pm #1 Last Edit: October 31, 2012, 04:20:41 pm by Blizzard
That's some pretty clever use of existing low-demand rendering technologies in order to achieve better visuals. There are only 2 small problems. At no point too many polygons are displayed which may diminish how impressive this actually is. The only moment where there are quite many polygons, that's during the display of the terrain map. You can see how fog and drawing distance are used to save performance. The other problem is that some of the effects are very limited. e.g. the skybox display is pretty cool (when the stuff rotates in a psychedelic way), but in reality that's just rendering texture on the back and using polar coordinates.
One thing I am genuinely impressed with, though, is the fact that lots of these textures look like high res. I know that the Expansion Pak adds another 4 MB of RAM and this is a pretty impressive display as one can do a lot with 8 MB of RAM/VRAM and compressed texture formats. And the reflections are pretty impressive, too, as there are some new techniques (at least new compared to when the N64 was actual) which make reflection rendering much faster.

So altogether I think it's a clever use of technology, but a bit hard to apply for practical uses as only a limited subset of these things can be used when they are used all together. Basically if you tried all these things at one, you might experience lag. I think that some of the games utilizing the Expansion Pak came pretty close to this stuff though.

Also, that song in the background is what Dubstep should sounds like. <3
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

Memor-X

alot of the stuff like the landscape, the weird lense effect, that cube of bubbles, all of that i distributively remember seeing in Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, ofcause my guess is that the landscaping is slightly smoother but in Zelda you never bother to stop and enjoy the landscape cause your too busy getting to the castle or your next location before night fall

i'm assuming that anything new in that video is done by another expansion pack cause that's really the only way you could improve anything with the Nintendo 64, another hack around using a new game pack.......still, this video in comparison to some wii games is a hell lot better

Apidcloud

November 15, 2012, 03:30:10 pm #3 Last Edit: November 15, 2012, 03:32:05 pm by Apidcloud
Wow, it's really amusing. I wonder if nowadays' games are able to have such a good display/performance with lower memory usage  :???:

I always thought that memory would be a synonym of better graphics, but it doesn't seem that way - not quite

:)

Quote from: BlizzardAlso, that song in the background is what Dubstep should sounds like. <3

Indeed  8)
Instead of wanting to be somebody else, rather become somebody else



"I will treasure the knowledge like a squirrel treasures acorns."


Gibbo Glast 2D Engine - The sky is no longer a limit

Subsonic_Noise

Quote from: Apidcloud on November 15, 2012, 03:30:10 pm
Quote from: BlizzardAlso, that song in the background is what Dubstep should sounds like. <3

Indeed  8)

Dubstep should sound like Drum and Bass?

Also, that video is pretty cool. The biggest flaw of the N64 imo was the layout, that only allowed very low resolution textures most of the time. It's really a shame because without that, it could have looked alot better.

Blizzard

November 16, 2012, 05:58:50 am #5 Last Edit: November 16, 2012, 06:03:26 am by Blizzard
Quote from: Subsonic_Noise on November 16, 2012, 05:49:23 am
Quote from: Apidcloud on November 15, 2012, 03:30:10 pm
Quote from: BlizzardAlso, that song in the background is what Dubstep should sounds like. <3

Indeed  8)

Dubstep should sound like Drum and Bass?


Well... I wouldn't say that this is Drum and Bass. I mean, it does sound a lot like it, but... well... shit. If this is Drum and Bass, then Dubstep can go fuck itself.

Quote from: Subsonic_Noise on November 16, 2012, 05:49:23 am
Also, that video is pretty cool. The biggest flaw of the N64 imo was the layout, that only allowed very low resolution textures most of the time. It's really a shame because without that, it could have looked alot better.


Those were the hardware limitations back then, not much one could do about it. They did their best to load compressed textures formats to minimize the memory load. After all, it had only 4 MB of RAM (with 4 MB when using the Expansion Pak) which was used as general purpose memory for everything. One has to admit that they did an incredible job at memory management in most games (e.g. Ocarina of Time which used self-modifying code in order to save memory for CPU instructions).
Check out Daygames and our games:

King of Booze 2      King of Booze: Never Ever
Drinking Game for Android      Never have I ever for Android
Drinking Game for iOS      Never have I ever for iOS


Quote from: winkioI do not speak to bricks, either as individuals or in wall form.

Quote from: Barney StinsonWhen I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story.

G_G

Some could also argue that it'd be called Drumstep. DotEXE seems to do that really well. *cough*sample*cough*[/offtopic]

I miss my physical N64. I always thought it was one of the greatest consoles in existence. It was durable as shit. Seriously, not even running it over destroyed it initially. It was probably on steroids. I also love how you're not supposed to blow in the cartridges to get them to work, but that was the only way to get them to work. xD

Subsonic_Noise

Quote from: gameus on November 16, 2012, 06:03:43 am
Some could also argue that it'd be called Drumstep. DotEXE seems to do that really well. *cough*sample*cough*[/offtopic]

Nah. It has little to no characteristics of Dubstep, and all characteristics of drum and bass. Dubstep (when it's not Brostep) is still pretty close to its origin, Dub, which came from Raggae. Most original Dubstep actually still has the characteristic triplet shuffle going on that Raggae had.