GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[Kode-Z]

Having only recently hooked up my N64 to my LCD TV, I noticed that the image is really blurry, which I guess is primarily to do with the screen resolution and how the N64 processes the graphics.

I'm using a scart cable, by the way. Is there a way of improving the visuals (other than running the games on an emulator?)

[Dragonsbrethren]

I'm afraid not, unfortunately. This was really disappointing to me, too, since all of my other consoles look pretty nice on my TV.

[Kode-Z]

Dragonsbrethren wrote:

I'm afraid not, unfortunately. This was really disappointing to me, too, since all of my other consoles look pretty nice on my TV.

Ah, oh well!

Such a shame, too! The N64 is the only retro console that I really bother getting out!

[Dragonsbrethren]

PD is a bit more presentable, especially if you turn on the hi-res option. Just be ready for 10FPS in Defection... (that's what the Glide plugin tells me it's running at there, anyway)

[SubDrag]

If I play with some of the "Pro" settings on my TV the N64 can look a lot better, but there is stretching. Also, the S-Video cable changes things, though I always thought for the worse.

[radorn]

Kode-Z. SCART is a connector that can carry many different signals. Composite, S-Video, RGB and even component video in some modified versions of the standard. Telling us "SCART" doesn't say that much.

The N64 can natively output composite video and S-Video. RGB can be added with modifications.
S-Video is a great improvement over composite since it separates "color" signal from luminance. It removes dotcrawl in the edges and improves color bleeding a bit too. PAL color is also better than NTSC because it uses a wider band for the color subcarrier.

The problem you won't solve with using a better signal is that the N64 will only output so much resolution, it's antialiasing adds somewhat to the general muddy feel and there's also the fact that most (all?) games run in 16bit color with dithering, generating some dithering patterns.

It's really up to your display how well it deals with all this.
If you have a PC with a capture card, you should try this http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/ and if your card is compatible with it compare DScaler's results with your TV's picture.
It's known that many/most modern dot matrix TVs (LCD, plasma, LED...) dont' really have good scaler and deinterlacer for "legacy" SDTV pictures, which, maybe, don't play along well with N64's graphical peculiarities.

[kevin1gamer]

Well it is a 64 bit console.

[radorn]

Dreamcast, GameCube, Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox360 all have 64bit CPUs... Next generations will probably have 64bit CPUs too.
Xbox 1, being based on PC architecture of the time, has a 32bit CPU.
Moreover, even though N64's CPU can work in 64bit mode, it can also run in 32bit mode, and the truth is most games run in that mode, if not all of them.
Plus, graphics on the N64 are not rendered on the CPU, but on the RCP...

Think about this: It's only been a handful years that domestic PCs, like the one you are sitting in front of, started using 64bit CPUs, and they are not all that widespread yet. I don't know the figures, but there are still millions of 32bit PC's arround the world...

EDIT: I goofed. The SH4 CPU that the Dreamcast uses is actually 32bit too.

[fantsu]

RGB gives you the best output.
Scart is ok, AV is terrible.

If you have RGB, just insert it to the right slot in your TV, most TV:s have many slots, but not all of 'em support RGB.

[radorn]

fantsu wrote:

RGB gives you the best output. Scart is ok, AV is terrible. If you have RGB, just insert it to the right slot in your TV, most TV:s have many slots, but not all of 'em support RGB.

SCART is no signal, but a connector, and it can carry RGB, S-Video and composite video (probably what you call AV) along with stereo audio and some control signals. There is equipment that can carry component video (YPbPr) over the RGB lines instead, although that's out of the specs.
Hence, comparing "scart vs av" is nonsense. no offense meant

RGB is the best analog video signal and all other video signals are "derived" from it, so, yes, RGB is the best. Unfortunatelly the N64 won't output RGB without modification, and not all of them can be modified with just some cables. Some need to be added a custom RGB DAC, which is no trivial mod.

[kevin1gamer]

radorn wrote:

Dreamcast, GameCube, Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox360 all have 64bit CPUs... Next generations will probably have 64bit CPUs too. Xbox 1, being based on PC architecture of the time, has a 32bit CPU. Moreover, even though N64's CPU can work in 64bit mode, it can also run in 32bit mode, and the truth is most games run in that mode, if not all of them. Plus, graphics on the N64 are not rendered on the CPU, but on the RCP... Think about this: It's only been a handful years that domestic PCs, like the one you are sitting in front of, started using 64bit CPUs, and they are not all that widespread yet. I don't know the figures, but there are still millions of 32bit PC's arround the world... EDIT: I goofed. The SH4 CPU that the Dreamcast uses is actually 32bit too.

Actually they are 128 bits nowadays:

Quote:

The sixth-generation era (sometimes referred to as the 128-bit era; see "Number of bits" below) refers to the computer and video games, video game consoles, and video game handhelds available at the turn of the 21st century. Platforms of the sixth generation include Sega's Dreamcast, Sony's PlayStation 2, the Nintendo GameCube, and Microsoft's Xbox. This era began on November 27, 1998 with the release of the Dreamcast, and it was joined by the PlayStation 2 in March 2000. The Dreamcast was discontinued in November 2001 and that same year saw the launch of the Nintendo GameCube in September and Xbox in November.

[fantsu]

It doesn't matter what they refer to.
New consoles, like PS3 and XBOX360 both have 64-bit CPUs, just like most of the modern PCs.
XBOX360 has this 64-bit Xenon CPU that has 3 cores. XBOX360 has also 512MB of RAM clocked in 700mhz.
PS3 have little bit more powerful Cell processor, but it has only 256MB of system memory.

N64 was the first console with 64-bit processor also, these processors can't be compared in anyway, but at the time N64 was actually more advanced than the modern day consoles now, processor wise.

I'm not an Dreamcast expert, but I recall that it had actually real 128-bit processor init. I might be wrong here...

Still, the "bits" doesn't make the console, it is the overall performance between all the parts.

[radorn]

I'll make it clear for you, kevin1gamer:
There are absolutelly NO 128BIT CPUs IN THE CONSUMER MARKET AT ALL. This includes consoles, PCs, and any other device in the consumer market, which have, at most, 64bit CPUs. period.
The "128 bit" era, as they called it, came from the perceived "bit doubling" tendency previous generations of consoles seemed to set.
NES and Master System: 8bit CPU
SNES and Mega Drive: 16bit CPU
PSX and Saturn: 32bit CPU
N64: 64bit CPU (although it runs in 32bit mode most of the time, believe it or not)
So when the next generations of consoles arrived the press and ignorant users kept blindly doubling the bit ammount. BUT THIS IS WRONG.
To solve this, a more flexible and non-error inducing clasification was born:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_game_consoles_by_generation

If you are so "smart" to correct me with a single lapidary sentence and, I believe, a wikipedia quote, I suggest you check some other articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(sixth_generation)#Number_of_bits_and_system_power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast#Technical_specifications
[The system's processor is a 200 MHz SH-4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperH
[SuperH (or SH) is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Hitachi.]
[For the Dreamcast, Hitachi developed the SH-4 architecture.]
[A bit later, Hitachi and ST Microelectronics formed the IP company SuperH, Inc., which was going to license the SH-4 core to other companies and was developing the SH-5 architecture, the first move of SuperH into the 64-bit area.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64#Central_processing_unit
[... software rarely took advantage of 64-bit data precision operations. N64 game-titles generally used faster (and more compact) 32-bit data-operations,[25] as these were sufficient to generate 3D-scene data for the console's RSP (Reality Signal Processor; see below) unit.]

Last edited by radorn on Mon Mar 29, 2010 3:54 am; edited 1 time in total

[kevin1gamer]

fantsu wrote:

It doesn't matter what they refer to. New consoles, like PS3 and XBOX360 both have 64-bit CPUs, just like most of the modern PCs. XBOX360 has this 64-bit Xenon CPU that has 3 cores. XBOX360 has also 512MB of RAM clocked in 700mhz. PS3 have little bit more powerful Cell processor, but it has only 256MB of system memory. N64 was the first console with 64-bit processor also, these processors can't be compared in anyway, but at the time N64 was actually more advanced than the modern day consoles now, processor wise. I'm not an Dreamcast expert, but I recall that it had actually real 128-bit processor init. I might be wrong here... Still, the "bits" doesn't make the console, it is the overall performance between all the parts.

I agree with you on overall performance being better than bits. I also think that a game's quality is better than a game's graphics.

[Trevor]

there probably isn't any way of doing this but would there be any benifit from being able to make GoldenEye and Perfect Dark run in full 64bit?

64bit allows 8 bytes of data to be processed in one instance as uposed to only 4bytes - yet your quote states "faster more compact 32bit"

Trev
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