Thoughts on early 3D graphics? Basically, do you prefer texture

>>3597970
I'm fine with both as long as the game doesn't look bad. I had both systems back in the day, I remember how it was and the two types of graphics never bothered me.

>>3597972
What is the biggest factor that can make a game from that era look good or bad?

>>3597979
Hmmm, never thought about that, but if I had to say, I guess geometry since this is about 3D graphics.

>early 3D
>PS1/N64

>emulator screenshots

>>3597970
I always preferred the smoother, less pixelly texture maps on N64 games.

Shame it couldn't push around half as many triangles as the Playstation, though.

Strongly prefer Playstation, especially now that emulators have perspective correction. As an edgy teen back in the day I associated the Playstation's "gritty" graphics with mature themed games, which was all I seriously played at that time.

>>3597970
No filters on PC.

>>3597970
Depends on the game, especially in an age of emulation with increased internal resolutions. The unfiltered textures of the PS1 generally clean up better but the N64 still had some stand-out titles. N64 also usually put the textures on nicer models, which is why stuff like the Evangelion game looks absolutely mindblowing for the era.

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>>3597997
>Shame it couldn't push around half as many triangles as the Playstation, though.

According to the lead programmer, World Driver Championship pushes double the triangles of Ridge Racer Type 4.

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Just going to put this here.

>>3597970
I prefer unfiltered textures especially on PC. Texture filtering only became acceptable when detail textures started getting popular.

>>3598203
Interesting. Found this comparison of specs via Google:

>PS1: 33.8 Mhz 32-bit CPU, nameless GPU (effects: texture mapping, flat & gouraud shading, ect.), 2 MB main ram, 1 MB VRAM, can do 180K texture mapped and light sourced polygons per second

>N64: 93.7 Mhz 64-bit CPU, 62.5 Mhz RCP (effects: everything the PS1 did + bilinear filtering, mip mapping, anti-aliasing, environment mapping, ect.), 4 MB RDRAM (expendable to 8 MB via Expansion Pak), can do 100K polygons in N64 quality in Fast3D mode and 500 to 600K polygons in PS1 quality in Turbo3D mode

Reading that I imagine if Nintendo had ditched cartridges for optical media on the N64, or if flash storage had been cheaper, it would have utterly wiped the floor with the PSX.

I hate the zigzag polys from PSX software rendering

>>3598301
>or if flash storage had been cheaper, it would have utterly wiped the floor with the PSX.

Yes on the basis of an impossibility at the time, it could've. That is if Nintendo actually had 3rd party support and gave them the support to make whatever they wanted like Sony something that they don't even do today without someone like Sega or Bandai Namco publishing it

>>3598319
>Yes on the basis of an impossibility at the time, it could've.
>what is a hypothetical scenario

>>3598301
It's true. The N64 aka Ultra 64 aka Project Reality had tech from SGI, far ahead of the others. Interesting history: Sega of America talked to SGI about it first, and tried to get it, but Sega of Japan wouldn't let them because of "not invented here" syndrome. They went ahead with the Saturn, Nintendo got the N64.

Also, Top Gear Rally had a load of cheats, including one for "Playstation mode", which turned off anti-aliasing and really does make it look like a PS game haha.

Sony did attempt some anti-aliased games, Captain Quasar, I believe, but since the hardware didn't support it that wasn't a popular trade off...

I have no opinion, since giving a shit either way adds fuel to the console wars.

Imagine an /a/ where half the threads were about media players, or a /tv/ where movies are secondary to whether Blu-Ray was better than HD-DVD.

I remember hating the transition. I didn't like any of the first wave of games for either system. The camera controls were awkward as fuck. Nintendo didn't have two sticks, and Sony hadn't invented the dual shock yet. So I stuck to playing 2D and 2.5D games whenever possible, and that meant favoring Sony. People say they had an anti-2D bias, but you couldn't find anything like Symphony of the Night on N64. Games like Strider 2 and Wild Arms I could live with, because the third dimension didn't fuck with the gameplay, but the 3D elements in those games still looked like garbage.

Reminder Playstation curbstomped N64 not by being more powerful but by being cheaper and easier to develop (and publish) for.

>>3597970
I prefer filtered textures, but the N64 filter blurry the graphics way too much.

>>3599103
Yea but people were way more impressed with n64s games
>mountain of shit vs stack of system sellers

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>>3598203

>you remember the frame rate of MRC and GT64

>>3597970

I really dislike the jittering vertices, the affine texturing and the Z fighting of the PS1

>>3599175
who had the mountain of shit? if you mean Sony having double the number of games Nintendo had, then it makes sense you would get some crap. but, between all the major japanese publishers putting their best on the PS1, while sending Nintendo gimped -64 versions, there was no contest.

would you rather play 4 Ridge Racers, or just Ridge Racer 64? remember, this was also the period when Square was firing on all cylinders.

>>3597970
I preferred the PS1's graphics

Honestly I wish games were still made in that style today so developers could focus on the gameplay.

>>3599224
Ridge Racer 64 is better than every RR on PS1 except for R4 you know.

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>>3599775
>Ridge Racer 64 is better than every RR on PS1 except for R4 you know.

Wow

I dont even know what to say.

Maybe one day I'll understand what made you say such a thing by emulating RR64 but for the time being I remain totally flabbergasted.

>>3599769
>Honestly I wish games were still made in that style today so developers could focus on the gameplay.
PS1 games had bad gameplay compared to N64 games, though.

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>>3597970
You tell me.

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>>3600252

Emulated playstation with texture filtering is the best.
Fight me.

>>3597970
no texture filtering, no polygon warping

basically PSX games w/ pgxp

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>texture filtering is bad meme

>>3597979
Instead of looking good it looks bad.

>>3601210
The most helpful post in all of /vr/ ladies and gentlemen.

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While I quite like both, and did end up getting both N64 and PS1 already back in the days, I can't deny that N64 felt like MUCH bigger "next gen" jump when it came out:

>those "round" 3D models, no more "triangles"!
>textures don't turn into pixels up close!
>no jaggy edges!
>MOTHERFUCKING ANALOG STICK!

Shame about that super tiny VRAM bus size and cartridge space restrictions tho'.
Then again, RARE and some other devs did manage to get around those restrictions later on.

>>3597970
OP pic makes MGS look real good and PD look like ass

>>3597979
Nostalgia, brand loyalty.

>>3600252
>>3600254
N64 looks better in both.

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>>3600252

>>3597970
When I was a kid I definitely preferred the texture filtering on the 64, I remember thinking ps1 games always looked really jaggy and ugly in comparison.

In retrospect I kind of prefer the ps1's unfiltered look, 64 games look really blurry, if you aren't playing on a crt the 64 looks gross while the ps1 scales a bit better.

>>3601252
the n64 shot looks on par with ps2

>>3599782
>he doesn't have an n64
so that's why you're hatin

>>3600252
>>3600254
>>3601252

These are all emulator screenshots, neither the PS1 nor the N64 can output graphics this clean, especially the later.

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>>3601820
You'd be surprised, this video is real console capture

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Yeah I like prerendered 3d stuff. makes it feel like the game is part of a big diorama.

>>3601243
That's because MGS textures are really detailed, and pretty much on par with the ones on MGS2, which mainly improved geometry, animations, effects and environment interactivity. They went all out with VRAM management on PS1.

>>3601846
It's more to do with the fact that they chose the best looking place in MGS and the ugliest place in PD.

PD looks good here though >>3601829

>>3601854
All places in MGS1 look fucking amazing, especially the dock at the beginning. Even the huge canyon looks stunning no matter how barren it is. That PD webm is sure to showcase some cool dynamic lighting effects and framebuffer tricks (lighting was like half the reason of why MGS1 looked so good) but all in all textures and geometry details still look more impressive, detailed, and diverse on MGS1.

Does N64 even support RGB?

>>3597970
PS1 had better graphics.

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>>3601226

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>>3601865
>All places in MGS1 look fucking amazing

>>3601949
Congrats, you found the only area in the game with actual fog, you win.

>>3601949
>snowfield

>>3601960
Not really surprising considering it is by far the physically longest area

>>3601965
Canyon was longer iirc but it didn't have trees. That whole snowfield is no special resource hog either (compared to some other areas in the game), but since there's a sniper fight going on fps was essential if you're going to constantly switch to first person.

>>3601865
>all in all textures and geometry details still look more impressive, detailed, and diverse on MGS1.

I don't think so. In terms of texture variety they look pretty similar (both use texture mirroring/scaling/rotation to make surfaces look more unique). Except that in Perfect Dark virtually every surface is also multi-textured. For example, several walls in the Chicago street have an additional reflection map, which really gives the lighting more vibrancy.

Polygonally, they are pretty similar too. The OP picture shows a blocky tank, a literal bunch of boxes, and block building structures. There's not really anything here that indicates more polygons than Perfect Dark. Except here's the thing - MGS is designed so the camera rarely faces too much detail (usually taking a birds eye position). The reason is that the framerate becomes ridiculously low any time you do so. Sure those environments are *there* but you don't actually play with much of them in sight. It's different for Perfect Dark where as a first-person shooter there are no camera tricks to hide detail possible.

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>>3601971
Canyon is not even remotely as deep

>>3597979
as with all graphics, it comes down to clarity and color. so long as the game is pleasant to look at and you can clearly see whats happening, the graphics are good. in my opinion graphics got worse with the ps2 because they were so undersaturated and blurry.

>>3602002
This. What I hate in modern games is the insane amount of random useless detailing and all the visual effects, it's all very distracting.

>>3602005
It helps with some games. Mankind Divided for instance, uses the visual clutter to communicate the tone of the setting. It's less needed for stuff like the new Call of Duty, where it's all just MORE POLYGONS because they can, so they must.

>>3601901

Yeah, but you have to mod it. About $15 and 5 minutes of soldering if you get a premade circuit board.

You can jury-rig some shit for like $5, pay some fag $80 to do it if you're a cuck, or make your own boards for like $8 ish if you're doing a bulk order and don't value your time.

Fucking nintendo had pins on the chip to output RGB but didn't bother to add a $2 amplifier and connect the pins to the multi-out.

>>3602034
Doesn't take a genius to realize the whole N64 console was done on the cheap. The only reason it was so hard to program is because Nintendo couldn't spare giving the CPU its own RAM channel to prevent bus contention.

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>>3597970
>Early 3D
>PS/N64
>Emulator screenshots
>Filters

>>3602048
>let's design console
>64-bit processor for 640x480 resolution. Nobody needs 64-bit mathematical precision for that, nobody
>limited to max 64MB cart. 99% of code is 32-bit to save space
>Unified RAM so GPU and CPU can't do anything without going through each other. This is a big bottleneck -- we had better put a decently sized bus on this to compensate...
>*9-bit* bus

The N64 hardware is terrible. In 1994 it would have been incredible. When it finally came out with the insane architecture bottlenecks, then no.

>>3602081
N64's architecture isn't really bottlenecked, I don't think that's a good word because that implies that there is a part of the console where the peak speed isn't fast enough and that holds up data. It IS bottlenecked in practice but thats only because most coders aren't geniuses who can create perfectly threaded code that doesn't get held up by bus contention.

Also the 64 bitness of the N64's CPU is just incidental. The most cost efficient CPUs available at that time were MIPS processors. PS1 uses the older MIPS 3000A but by the time N64 was out the latest version was the MIPS 4300i which just happened to support 64 bit processing. Nintendo focused the marketing on that one feature for some reason even though it was useless for a console.

The narrow 9 bit bus on N64 isnt particularly unusual either, thats actually characteristic of RDRAM, the whole point of which is to achieve good bandwidth through high clock speeds on a narrow bus. It was kind of a gimmick back in the day but Nintendo thought it was clever because it would save money. Of course the drawback is that RDRAM has really high random access latency so thats yet another thing that makes programming hard. Nintendo once again traded cost for ease of use.

>>3602081
Let's fuck off.
You know nothing about computers so stop pretending you do.

The N64 was way ahead of its time, it blew away the other 5th gen consoles and even the average $1,200 PC.

I had a playstation, got it somewhat late into its cycle in 1999 somewhere, not even sure how since my parents were religious and very strict on what we were allowed to do or watch(didnt have cable either!).

N64 had slightly better graphics but sometimes they looked a bit more blocky, to me it was mroe about the games than anything. I was fine with the playstation, the games were good. Had some friends who had the n64, enjoyed playing some games on it but personally im not much of a zelda/metroid type gamer. Prefer fps/action adventure/platform/fighting games/racing.

The only times I really wanted an n64 was just to complete mario 64, goldeneye, yoshi story, dk64. I was satisfied with the games I had crash bandicoot 3, syphone filter 1 & 2, mgs, nfs:hs, gran tursimo 1 &2 silent hill, mgs, smackdown 2, bunch of demo disks.

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>>3598271

Too kind to the N64. I fixed it.

>>3602140
The N64 image was already exaggerated by using an aggressive Gaussian filter instead of actual bilinear.

>>3598271
I have to zoom out plenty before it starts to look like either console. But that's actually pretty reflective of both consoles, nice.

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>>3597997

>Shame it couldn't push around half as many triangles as the Playstation, though.

Didn't matter much when the PS1 had to spend most of its polygon budget helping out the texture mapper.

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>>3602147

I thought the Gaussian blur looked too nice compared to actual N64 textures.

>>3602160
This is pretty much why people saying "N64 has worse draw distance" is completely nonsensical considering that drawing terrain is extremely expensive on PS1. Only way Spyro was able to do it was by dropping textures completely at long distances.

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>>3602169
Play Conker some time. It has better textures than anything on PS1.

>>3599084
The only reason /tv/ doesn't debate formats is because Blu Ray won it's war right as the board was born. There's tons of VLC vs MPC threads however.

>>3602114
Epic

>>3601949
and then there's that girly run

>>3601949
plz dont hurt mai waifu

>>3599798
Nice meme

>>3597970
I prefer the crisp look of no filters. But, I can live with smears on 3D graphics.
2D Sprites are where smear filters are hitler to me.

>>3602178
I've seen bits of Conker's Bad Fur Day and the humour, writing and style seems absolutely atrocious and makes me cringe. No thanks.

>>3597970
n64 was complete trash, i'm sorry.

>>3605132
valuable post

>>3605132

rude

>>3599063

It wasn't due to NIH, it was because the first time they evaluated the prototype, it had shit framerate and sound.. When a revised prototype came in, it still had shit frame rate and sound.

So they went to look for someone else.

>>3605132
wtf i hate n64 now???

See that Perfect Dark image? You can shoot out the lights in that room. You can't do that in Metal Gear Solid.

>>3605476
mind=blown

Ben Heck's teardown of both consoles on youtube showed that architecturally the n64 was a pile of crap. The ps1 had separate memory for the cpu, gpu and sound processor while on the n64 there was one path to the memory and everything had to go through the gpu to access it.

The best looking ps1 games beat the best looking n64 games hands down and that's because the ps1 was easier to work with.

>>3605440

Wrong. It was because the chip used too much silicon area, and they were concerned about cost and yield.

Mid 90's fabs sucked dicks

>>3605517
>Ben Heck's teardown of both consoles on youtube showed that architecturally the n64 was a pile of crap. The ps1 had separate memory for the cpu, gpu and sound processor while on the n64 there was one path to the memory and everything had to go through the gpu to access it.
Unified memory architecture is the foundation of all modern videogame console design. The only issue is the console had no CPU DMA. This required some workarounds. The console required the devs to think about how to effectively make use of the RSP and stuff like that.

>>3605549
The CPU does have 'DMA'. It's directly connected to the memory controller. DMA isn't a great term when referring to a CPU - it's specifically used to describe memory access to components that aren't CPUs.

The issue with N64 is that it has a single channel unified memory system (and a memory controller that gives access priority to the GPU over the CPU, which isn't that unreasonable since the CPU has more cache). When you only have a single channel, only one device can use the channel at any one time.

Though the N64 is harder to use, it is indisputably a lot faster than PS1, even the memory. If you add up the memory bandwidth of all of the memory channels on PS1 together, it's still a much smaller number than the memory bandwidth of N64's single channel.

>>3605517
>a literal who shills his worthless opinion on jewtube

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>>3605440
>>3605520
N64's GPU (Reality Co-Processor) was fabbed on 350nm, which was relatively new at the time and I think that in 1995, only Intel could do it. So for 1996 it was still pretty damn cutting edge.

Sega would have been shown 600nm or even 800nm prototypes of RCP by Silicon Graphics. That would have been an absolutely enormous chip. RCP has a shitload of stuff crammed into it, it's pretty incredible what they even managed. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, the N64's engineering was incredibly good - RCP is probably the first GPU ever produced to have T&L and rasterization on the single die.

Just look at this die photo. RCP has a memory controller, vector and scalar units for T&L, four sets of cache, a long rasterization/texturing pipeline crammed with features, and a video post-processing unit all on the one fucking die that isn't larger than a budget MIPS CPU. I'm honestly surprised this doesn't get more praise.

By the way, if RCP wasn't attached to a highly constrained memory system, its rasterization/texture pipeline would probably outperform the original 3dfx Voodoo by a small margin albeit with slightly lower quality bilinear filtering. SGI actually got the pixel pipeline running faster than 3dfx even though they needed to conform to low-cost console yields.

If you want to point the finger at why the N64 isn't kicking the Voodoo's ass, point it at Nintendo and their cheap as fuck memory subsystem.