Talk:Nintendo 64

AAA

please explain what AAA games are Hotlorp

Maybe it would be a good thing to say which year it was released. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.224.126.219 (talk • contribs)

By AAA he means million sellers. Any N64 game with the million seller seal. Renegade Viking

Um, AAA means top shelf Highly regarded games. Mostly as determined by ratings from Publications and sell-through numbers. Super Mario 64 is a good example. User:Gameduck

Nintendo64

the name should be Nintendo64 (without space) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wasabie (talk • contribs)

Lack of RAM instead of ROM

"Its main graphic drawback was due to the lack of ROM to store texture maps, and so the designers overrelied on very low resolution texture maps that were heavily blurred by mipmapping."

Shouldn't this be "due to the lack of RAM," not ROM? Aside from the fact ROM isn't used for storing active texture maps, the 4MB RAM Pack for the N64 certainly improves the graphics for enabled carts.

MSTCrow 02:58, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Well, its sort of both. RAM does help display more textures per scene, especially because the textures for a level are compressed and have to be uncompressed from the ROM before the level begins. But having more storage space would also allow for more textures too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.61.179 (talk • contribs)

"Its main graphic drawback was due to the lack of ROM to store texture maps, and so the designers overrelied on very low resolution texture maps that were heavily blurred by mipmapping."

Isn't the actual cause of the blurriness "filtering" as opposed to "mipmapping"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.16.73.135 (talk • contribs)

That intro is so bogus. Rareware and Midway created the arcade games themselves based on loose specs for the N64. They weren't looking to port or approximate existing arcade software. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.178.228 (talk • contribs)

"Isn't the actual cause of the blurriness "filtering" as opposed to "mipmapping"?" Because of the association between the filtering and mipmapping in its earliest implimentations, the term "mipmapping" also is used many times as a blanket term which includes filtering. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.227.2***** (talk • contribs)

N64 emulators?

I think that there should be some note on N64 emulators; they were important in the emulation scene, the N64 hardware was (and still is) a great chalenge. The N64 emulators were the first to really use dynrecs, HLE and plugins. DanielKO 28 June 2005 05:58 (UTC)

Polycounts

N64 had lower polycounts in titles and had a lower geometry capabilities than PlayStation. The article is misleading, and full of inaccuracies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Onadesertedisland (talk • contribs)

Well then perhaps you could undertake the task of correcting these inaccuracies. --cheese-cube 09:14, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone ever counted. The N64 is actually faster which means it can draw more polygons. Likely not every game used it to full potential. The limits (compared to the PS) came from the smaller cartridges that didn't allow larger textures, videos or sound effects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.189.28.204 (talk • contribs)

Sales Figures

Why aren't there any sales figures available for the Nintendo 64? It's great to know that it finished second place in its generation war against the Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn, but I want to know exact or even estimated figures of units sold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dionyseus (talk • contribs)

Polygon Pioneer? Umm... No

"It was also the first 3D game console to use real polygons, not sprites skewed in 3D space as the Saturn and Playstation did."

Virtua Fighter (Saturn) and Tekken (PSX) both used "real polygons" well before the N64 launch. I'm removing the sentence.--RicardoC 02:19, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Resolution

I want to dispute the resolution of N64. No I can not believe, without emulation that N64 is 640x480. I have emulated the actual color in its games and if someone could give me a comprehensive look at the resolution, I would greatly appreciate it. I have emulated resolutions of n64 on a pc and its games are 256 at the most. N64 isn't a pc emulator, that enhances visuals is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.124.231.38 (talk • contribs)

You're mixing up max colors with resolution... You might want to do a little more in-depth research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doom127 (talk • contribs)

Original SNESCD Contract Date

Contrary to what was posted by a previous user, Sony did indeed contract with Nintendo for the SNES CD attachment in 1988. It's even stated on their website as such:

http://www.scee.com/about/sonyHistory.jhtml

"In 1988 Sony had entered into a arrangement with Nintendo to develop a CD-ROM drive for the 16bit Super Famicom, a console that was due on the market in 18 months time. "

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Doom127 (talk • contribs)

Oh shit. Is this the dawn of when Nintendo fans hated Sony and Playstation? This thing started all of it! This has to be on the top 5 Nintendo Bloopers of all time! Renegadeviking

Please stop changing price Info

Please stop altering the pricing information regarding Nintendo 64 cartridges. Misinformation doesn't benefit wikipedia; numerous titles for the Nintendo 64 retailed at the $70 to $75 mark, including Mario Kart 64, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Doom 64, Super Smash Brothers, Kirby 64, and Paper Mario. Not to mention Super Mario 64, which was just shy of the $70 mark.

References to original cart pricing: http://tinyurl.com/bmjfz (Turok and Mario 64) http://tinyurl.com/8c5m6 (Mario Kart 64) http://tinyurl.com/d332x (Doom 64 and others)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Doom127 (talk • contribs)

What?!

Did the Nintendo 64 really cost 199$ the first time it was launched into North America? I highly doubt it. Triforce of Power 22:06, 15 January 2006 (UTC)Triforce of Power

It's true. Nintendo gave the N64 a massive price drop (from about $240 down to $199) before it's US debut in order to cut the rug out from under Sony's Playstation. Daniel Davis 13:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)

Someone inserted an incorrect comment regarding the N64 price. I believe the statement was "NOT TRUE. The cost was $249"

This is wrong. The US launch price of the N64 was $199. The $249 price was in Japan and the UK, and after consumers were angered at the low US launch price, UK buyers were offered refunds. It would be appreciated, if you have a dispute, that you address it on these talk pages, where it can be discussed rather than reverted.

Here is a link to a 1997 informational thread that describes the UK refund program. -> [[1]]

Daniel Davis 01:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)

It was definitely $200. I remember the drop from $250. In fact, I picked up a bunch of old Next Generation mags from '96 and in one Nintendo said the drop was to act as if the machine had a pack-in game (don't quote me on that but I'm almost positive.) Would be a bit tough to find that article in all those mags. Actually I believe this was around the time when Sony introduced a value lineup of cheaply priced games. --Swaaye 02:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

No content other than technobable!?!?

Why is there no section on games now? The bulk of the article focuses on very technical aspects of the N64. Let's try to remember that this is a toy! This article is almost useless to anyone who isn't a programming expert. The whole point is to inform people; this article no longer does that. I'll do my best to undo some of the damage.Vegasjon 23:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Reverted vandalism, left the Architecture and Development section intact but it needs to be leaner, IMO.Vegasjon 23:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Technobabble? Well almost all of it is from a developer chat I once had. So, I'd say it's rather relevant information about the machine. Personally I find the experiences of developers using each console to be quite fascinating, and definitely very worthwhile content.

If you want to find games, search for them. Just like all of the other console content on Wiki, the games are generally separate from the hardware pages. By the way, there's a link right down in the See Also section to a games pages collation. List_of_Nintendo_64_games

--Swaaye 00:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I wrote the first comment before I discovered that the content was wiped out by a vandal. Sorry. As far as the technical section, as I said before, it's too large IMO. Also, while fascinating to a game developer (and me BTW), it may be too technical for an average reader. Also, I didn't mean to demean your contribution by referring to it as technobable.Vegasjon 23:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Interpolation

The filtering the N64 did on textures wasn't normal Bilinear/Trilinear filtering, it seems to be a bizarre method that looks similar to a lot of tesselated gouraud shaded polygons. This is evident when looking at sharp textures up close, a diagonal 'smearing' effect can be seen.

Yes I've read that before myself, and noticed it in-game. The machine definitely does not do trilinear filtering as we know it on 3D cards and consoles today. And, a developer I chatted with said the trilinear mechanism was a bit odd. It is a bit cheatful...a speed tweak I'm sure. Probably sampling fewer mip maps than "standard". I can't quickly find any solid info for you about it though. Actually I've read in two separate places that trilinear halves the machine's fillrate so most games do not use it anyway.... Info1 Info2 (note ERP posts, he's a dev) --Swaaye 22:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Well either way the textures were blurry as hell ~_~ Dan 07:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

PlayStation - shipped versus sold

Someone reverted the market data on the original Playstation blurb here, changing "sold" to "shipped". Unlike the PSP, where we don't have a definitive answer from Sony as to shipped vs. sold, Sony actually used the word "sold" when it comes to the Playstation. I've changed the wording back to reflect this. Daniel Davis 23:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC) (Doom127)