Nintendo 64
Encyclopedia
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo
′s third home video game console
for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil. It is Nintendo′s last home console to use ROM cartridge
s to store games (Nintendo switched to a MiniDVD
-based format for the successor GameCube); handhelds in the Game Boy line, however, continued to use Game Paks. It was discontinued in 2001 in Japan, North America and PAL
regions by the launch of Nintendo′s GameCube.
The N64 was released with two launch games, Super Mario 64
and Pilotwings 64
, and a third in Japan, Saikyō Habu Shōgi. The N64′s suggested retail price
was US$
199 at its launch and it was later marketed with the slogan "Get N, or get Out!". The console was released in at least eight variants with different colors and sizes. An assortment of limited edition controllers were sold or used as contest prizes during the N64′s lifespan. The N64 sold 32.93 million units worldwide, and in 2009 it was named the 9th greatest video game console by IGN
, out of a field of 25. The N64 was a very popular main prize on Double Dare 2000.
Of the consoles in the fifth generation
, the Nintendo 64 was the last contender and the most technologically advanced. However, the console′s storage medium had limitations that harmed the market competitiveness. A significant limitation was the small capacity and high production expense of cartridge-based media instead of the Compact Disc
format used by competitors. The limited capacity forced game designers to struggle with fitting game content into a constrained space, though the faster access time of the cartridge medium offered other advantages over Compact Disc media. Another technical drawback was a limited texture cache
, which could only hold textures of small dimensions and reduced color depth, which had to be stretched to cover larger in-game surfaces.
(SGI) and MIPS Technologies
, who were responsible for the R4300i microprocessor and the 3D graphics hardware used in the N64. SGI had recently acquired MIPS Computer Systems, and the two worked together to create a low-cost real-time 3D graphics system. The SGI project was originally offered to Thomas Kalinske, then CEO
of Sega
of America, by James H. Clark
, founder of Silicon Graphics. Sega of Japan′s evaluation of the early prototype uncovered several unresolved hardware-issues and deficiencies. They were subsequently resolved; but not before Sega had already decided against SGI′s design. In August 1993, Nintendo expressed interest in SGI′s work, and "Project Reality" was born. An official announcement regarding their collaboration was made in October 1993.
Nintendo′s code name for the N64, "Project Reality", stemmed from the bold belief that the hardware′s advanced CGI
capabilities would rival supercomputer
s of the era. The console′s design was revealed to the public for the first time in late Spring 1994. Pictures of the console showed the Nintendo Ultra 64 logo, a ROM cartridge
, but no controller. The final N64 console would retain the shape pictured by the Ultra 64. The system was frequently marketed as the world′s first 64-bit gaming system. Atari had claimed to have made the first 64-bit game console with their Atari Jaguar
, but the Jaguar only used a 64-bit architecture in conjunction with two 32-bit RISC processors and a 16/32-bit Motorola 68000. Around the same time, Rare (UK) and Midway
(USA) released two arcade titles, Killer Instinct
and Cruis'n USA
, which claimed to use the Ultra 64 hardware. Although Killer Instinct did use the same CPU as the N64, a MIPS R4300i, neither title was powered by Ultra 64 hardware. Killer Instinct featured pre-rendered character artwork, and CG movie backgrounds that were streamed off the hard drive and animated as the characters moved horizontally.
The completed N64 was fully unveiled in a playable form to the public on November 24, 1995, at the 7th Annual Shoshinkai Software
Exhibition
in Japan
. Nintendo′s next-generation console was introduced as the "Nintendo 64" (a name given by Shigesato Itoi
, who named the Game Boy
before), contrary to speculation that it would be called "Ultra Famicom". Photos of the event were disseminated on the web by Game Zero
magazine two days later. Official coverage by Nintendo followed later via the Nintendo Power
website and print magazine.
The console was first released in Japan on June 23, 1996. By this time, Nintendo had adopted a new global branding strategy, assigning the console the same name for all markets: Nintendo 64. The North American version of the Nintendo 64 officially launched on September 29, 1996 with 500,000 units sold in the first four months, while the PAL version was released in Europe on March 1, 1997. As of December 31, 2009, the N64 had sold 5.54 million units in Japan
, 20.63 million in the Americas
, and 6.75 million in other regions, for a total of 32.93 million units. Benimaru Itō, a developer for EarthBound 64
and friend of Shigeru Miyamoto, speculated in 1997 that the N64′s lower popularity in Japan was due to the lack of role-playing video game
s. Because of the cost of Nintendo 64 cartridges, and limited third-party support, the Nintendo 64 caused Nintendo to lose its leading position in its market share.
(CPU) is the NEC
VR4300, a cost-reduced derivative of the 64-bit
MIPS Technologies
R4300i. Built by NEC on a 0.35 µm
process
, the VR4300 is a RISC
5-stage scalar
in-order execution processor, with integrated floating point unit
, internal 24 KB
direct-mapped L1 cache
(16KB for instructions, 8KB for data). The 4.6 million transistor
CPU is cooled passively by an aluminum heatspreader that makes contact with a steel
heat sink
above.
Clocked at 93.75 MHz, the N64′s VR4300 was the most powerful console CPU of its generation. Except for its narrower 32-bit system bus, the VR4300 retained the computational abilities of the more powerful 64-bit MIPS R4300i, though software rarely took advantage of 64-bit data precision
operations. N64 game-titles generally used faster (and more compact) 32-bit data-operations, as these were sufficient to generate 3D-scene data for the console′s RSP (Reality Signal Processor; see below) unit. Though powerful, the CPU was hindered by a 250 MB/s bus to the system memory; not only that, but in order to access the RAM
, the CPU had to go through the RCP (Reality Co-Processor), and could not use DMA
to do so (the RCP could). This problem is further compounded by the RDRAM
′s very high access latency.
Emulators
—such as UltraHLE
and Project64
—benefit from the scarcity of 64-bit operations in the game′s executable-code, as the emulator is generally hosted on a 32-bit machine architecture. These emulators performed most calculations at 32-bit precision, and trapped
the few OS subroutines that actually made use of 64-bit instructions.
The RSP was programmable through microcode
. By altering the microcode run on the device, it could perform different operations, create new effects, and be better tuned for speed or quality; however, Nintendo was unwilling to share the microcode tools with developers until the end of the Nintendo 64′s life-cycle. Programming RSP microcode was said to be quite difficult because the Nintendo 64 µcode tools were very basic, with no debugger and poor documentation. As a result, it was very easy to make mistakes that would be hard to track down, mistakes that could cause seemingly random bugs or glitches. Some developers noted that the default SGI microcode ("Fast3D"), which allowed more than ~100,000 high accuracy polygons per second, was poorly profiled for use in games (it was too accurate), and performance suffered as a result. "Turbo3D" microcode allowed 500,000–600,000 normal accuracy polygons per second. However, due to the graphical degradation, Nintendo discouraged its use. Several companies, such as Factor 5
, Boss Game Studios
and Rare, were able to write custom microcode that ran their software better than SGI
′s standard microcode.
The RSP also frequently performs audio functions (although the CPU can be tasked with this as well). It can play back most types of audio (dependent on software codec
s) including uncompressed PCM
, MP3
, MIDI
, and tracker music. The RSP is capable of a maximum of 100 channels of PCM at a time, but this is with 100% system utilization for audio. It has a maximum sampling rate
of 48 kHz with 16-bit audio; however, storage limitations caused by the cartridge format limited audio size (and thus quality).
The RDP is the machine′s rasterizer and performs the bulk of actual image creation before output to the display. The Nintendo 64 has a maximum color depth
of 16.8 million colors and can display resolutions of 256 × 224, 320 × 240 and 640 × 480 pixels. The RCP also provides the CPU′s access to main system memory via a 250 MB/s bus. Unfortunately, this link does not allow direct memory access
for the CPU. The RCP, like the CPU, is passively cooled by an aluminum heatspreader that makes contact with a steel heat sink above.
s of RAMBUS RDRAM
(expandable to 8 MB with the Expansion Pak) with a 9-bit data bus at 500 MHz providing the system with 562.5 MB/s peak bandwidth. RAMBUS was quite new at the time and offered Nintendo a way to provide a large amount of bandwidth for a relatively low cost. The narrow bus makes board design easier and cheaper than the higher width data buses required for high bandwidth out of slower-clocked RAM types (such as VRAM
or EDO DRAM
); however, RDRAM, at the time, came with a very high access latency, and this caused grief for the game developers because of limited hardware performance.
and S-Video
through the "MULTI OUT" connector on the rear of the system; however, the Nintendo 64 removed certain pin connections for providing RGB video, despite the DAC
chip used in early models having the capability built-in. In most countries the system came bundled with a composite cable
(AKA Stereo AV cable) The composite and S-Video cables are the same as those used with the earlier SNES and later GameCube systems.
Available to buy separately was a RF
modulator
and switch set (for connection to older televisions) and an official S-Video cable, although the latter was only sold at retail stores in Japan. In the U.S., the official S-Video cable could only be ordered direct from Nintendo of America, and the cable was not officially sold in Europe. In the United Kingdom
the N64 was shipped with a RF modulator and switch set, but was still fully compatible with the other cables.
The system supports SDTV
resolutions up to 480i
although few games made use of this "high resolution" mode, many of which required the use of the Expansion Pak RAM upgrade. The majority of games instead used the system's 240p/288p
modes. A number of games also support a video display ratio of up to 16:9
using either Anamorphic widescreen
or Letterbox
ing. However, very few of its games provided options to use this feature, these were: Banjo-Tooie
, Donkey Kong 64
, GoldenEye 007, The World Is Not Enough
, Jet Force Gemini
, Perfect Dark
, Starshot: Space Circus Fever
, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion
, Mission Impossible, South Park
.
bundle. The Funtastic Series used brightly-colored, translucent plastic with six colors: Fire Orange, Grape Purple, Ice Blue, Jungle Green, Smoke Gray and Watermelon Red. Nintendo released a yellow banana-like Nintendo 64 controller for the debut of Donkey Kong 64 in the United States. The Millennium 2000 controller, available exclusively as part of a Nintendo Power promotional contest in the United States, was a silver controller with black buttons. A gold controller was released in a contest by Nintendo Power magazine as part of a raffle
drawing. In late 1997 through 1998, a few gold Nintendo 64 controller packages were released worldwide; in the United Kingdom there was a limited edition GoldenEye 007 console pack which came with a standard gray console and a copy of GoldenEye. Also, a limited edition gold controller with a standard gray console were released in Australia and New Zealand in early 1998, endorsed by an advertising campaign which featured footage of N64 games including Top Gear Rally
and ended with Australian swimmer Michael Klim
wearing the gold controller as a medal around his neck. Nintendo released a gold controller for the debut of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
in Japan. Soon after, bundle packs of the game, controller, and gold Nintendo 64 were released for the US and PAL markets. The Pokémon
Edition Nintendo 64, with a Pokémon sticker on the left side, included the "Pokémon: I Choose You" video. The Pokémon Pikachu Nintendo 64 had a large, yellow Pikachu
model on a blue Nintendo 64. It has a different footprint than the standard Nintendo 64 console, and the Expansion Pak port is covered. It also shipped with a blue Pokémon controller; orange in Japan. A Limited Edition Star Wars bundle, available during the time of the release of the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
came bundled with Star Wars: Episode I Racer
and a standard gray console.
Nintendo released some special edition consoles and controllers that were sold only on specific stores. There were two other Japan only consoles that were exclusive to specific stores. One was the Daiei Hawks which was only sold in Daiei Hawks stores. And the other was the Jusco 30th anniversary, which was only sold in Jusco stores. The Daiei Hawks featured an orange translucent top, and a black translucent bottom, very similar to the Fire Orange and Smoke Black Nintendo 64, although not the same. The Jusco 30th anniversary, featured a very light violet-translucent color on the top, and white translucent on the bottom. These two consoles were released with a controller that matched with their console. The Daiei Hawks also sold separate controllers. Due to the insane rarity of the Jusco 30th anniversary, it is unknown whether a separate controller was sold or not. Nintendo also released a black (top) and grey (bottom) controller that was bundled with Mario Kart 64, only sold in Japan. A similar controller to the Mario Kart 64, was only sold in Hello Mack stores, and the controller featured a Hello Mack picture on the top of the controller. In America, Toys "R" Us released their own series of store exclusive products. The Extreme Green, Extreme Green console bundle, Gold Controller bundle, and a very limited Gold Nintendo 64 which was bundled with two gold controllers.
The majority of Nintendo 64 game cartridges were gray in color; however, some games were released on a colored cartridge. Fourteen games had black cartridges, while other colors (such as green, blue, red, yellow and gold) were each used for six or fewer games. Several games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
were released both in standard gray and in colored, limited edition versions.
of 4 KB
. This made it difficult to load anything but small, low color depth
textures into the rendering engine. This small texture limitation caused blurring due to developers stretching small textures to cover a surface, and then the console′s bilinear filtering
would blur them further. To make matters worse, due to the design of the renderer, if mipmap
ping was used, the texture cache was effectively halved to 2 KB. Toward the end of Nintendo 64′s lifetime, creative developers managed to use tricks, such as multi-layered texturing and heavily-clamped, small texture pieces, to simulate larger textures. Perfect Dark
, Banjo-Tooie
, and Conker's Bad Fur Day
are possibly the best examples of this ingenuity, all of which were developed by Rare. Games often also used plain colored Gouraud shading
instead of texturing on certain surfaces, especially in games with themes not targeting realism (e.g., Super Mario 64
).
There were other challenges for developers to work around. Z-buffering significantly crippled the RDP′s fill rate. Thus, for maximum performance, most Nintendo 64 games were actually fill-rate limited, not geometry limited, which is ironic considering the great concern for the Nintendo 64′s low polygon per second rating of only about 100,000; however, some of the most polygon-intense Nintendo 64 games, such as World Driver Championship
, frequently pushed past the Sony PlayStation′s typical in-game polygon counts.
The unified memory subsystem of Nintendo 64 was another critical weakness for the machine. The RDRAM
had very high access latency, which nearly negated its high bandwidth advantage. In addition, game developers commented that the Nintendo 64′s memory controller setup was poor. The R4300 CPU was severely limited at memory access since it had to go through the RCP to access main memory, and could not use DMA
to do so.
One of the best examples of custom microcode on the Nintendo 64 was Factor 5′s N64 port of the Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
PC game. The Factor 5 team aimed for the high resolution mode (640 × 480) because of the crispness it added to the visuals. The machine was taxed to the limit running at 640 × 480, so they needed performance beyond the standard SGI microcode. The Z-buffer could not be used because it alone consumed the already-constrained texture fill-rate. To work around the 4 KB texture cache, the programmers came up with custom texture formats and tools to let the artists use the best possible textures. Each texture was analyzed and fitted to best texture format for performance and quality. They took advantage of the cartridge as a texture streaming source to squeeze as much detail as possible into each environment and work around RAM limitations. They wrote microcode for real-time lighting, since the SGI code was poor for this task and they wanted to have even more lighting than the PC version had used. Factor 5′s microcode allowed almost unlimited real-time lighting and significantly boosted the polygon count. In the end, the game was more feature-filled than the PC version, and unsurprisingly, was one of the most advanced games for Nintendo 64.
Factor 5 again used custom microcode with games such as Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
and Star Wars: Battle for Naboo
. In Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, the team tweaked the microcode for a landscape engine to create the alien worlds. For Star Wars: Battle for Naboo, they used what they learned from Rogue Squadron and made the game run at 640 × 480, also implementing enhancements for particles and the landscape engine. Battle for Naboo had a long draw distance
and large amounts of snow and rain, despite the high resolution.
based. Cartridge size varied from 4 MB (32 Mbit
) (e.g. Automobili Lamborghini
and Dr. Mario 64
) to 64 MB (512 Mbit) for Resident Evil 2
and Conker's Bad Fur Day
. Some of the cartridges included internal EEPROM
, flash memory
, or battery-backed-up RAM for saved game storage. Otherwise, game saves were put onto a separate memory card, marketed by Nintendo as a Controller Pak.
The selection of the cartridge for the Nintendo 64 was a controversial decision and a key factor in Nintendo′s being unable to retain its dominant position in the gaming market. Most of the cartridge's advantages did not manifest themselves prominently and they were nullified by the cartridge′s shortcomings, which disappointed customers and developers alike. Especially for the latter, it was costly and difficult to develop for ROM cartridges, as their limited storage capacity (64 MB or a mere 10% of a PlayStation CD-ROMs 640 MB capacity) constrained the game′s content.
Most third-party developers switched to the PlayStation, such as Square
and Enix
, whose Final Fantasy VII
and Dragon Quest VII were initially pre-planned for the N64, while some who remained released fewer games to the Nintendo 64. Konami
was the biggest example of this, releasing only thirteen N64 games but over fifty on the PlayStation. New Nintendo 64 game releases were infrequent while new games were coming out rapidly for the PlayStation. Most of the N64′s biggest successes were developed by either Nintendo itself or by second-parties of Nintendo, such as Rare.
Despite the difficulties with third-parties, the N64 still managed to support popular games such as GoldenEye 007, giving it a long shelf-life. Much of this success was credited to Nintendo′s strong first-party franchises, such as Mario
, which had strong name brand appeal, yet appeared exclusively on Nintendo platforms. The N64 also secured its share of the mature audience, due to GoldenEye 007, Nightmare Creatures
, Perfect Dark
, Doom 64
, Resident Evil 2
, Shadow Man
, Conker's Bad Fur Day
, Duke Nukem 64, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour
, Mortal Kombat 4
, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
, and Quake II
.
Nintendo
cited several advantages for making the N64 cartridge-based. Primarily cited was the ROM cartridge
s′ very fast load times in comparison to disc
-based games, as contemporary CD-ROM drives rarely had speeds above 4×. This can be observed from the loading screens that appear in many PlayStation
games but are typically non-existent in N64 versions. ROM carts were much faster than the 2× CD-ROM drives in other consoles that developers could stream data in real-time from them. This was done in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
, for example, to make the most of the limited RAM
in the N64. Also, ROM cartridges are difficult and expensive to duplicate, thus resisting piracy
, albeit at the expense of lowered profit margin
for Nintendo. While unauthorized interface devices for the PC were later developed, these devices are rare when compared to a regular CD drive and popular mod chips used on the PlayStation. Compared to the N64, piracy was rampant on the PlayStation. The cartridges are also far more durable than compact discs, the latter which must be carefully used and stored in protective cases. It also prevents accidental scratches and subsequent read errors. It is possible to add specialized I/O hardware and support chips (such as co-processors) to ROM cartridges, as was done on some SNES
games (including Star Fox, using the Super FX
chip).
ROM cartridges also have disadvantages associated with them. While game cartridges are more resistant than CDs to physical damage, they are sometimes less resistant to long-term environmental damage, particularly oxidation (although this can be simply cleaned off) or wear of their electrical contacts causing a blank or frozen screen, or static electricity. They also have a more complex manufacturing processes; cartridge-based games were usually more expensive to manufacture than their optical counterparts. The cartridges can have a maximum of 64 MB of data, whereas CDs held over 650 MB. As fifth generation
games became more complex in content, sound and graphics, it pushed cartridges to the limits of their storage capacity. Games ported from other media had to use data compression or reduced content to be released on the N64. Extremely large games could be made to span across multiple discs on CD-based systems, while cartridge games had to be contained within one unit as using an additional cartridge was prohibitively expensive (and was never tried). Due to the cartridge′s space limitations, full motion video
was not usually feasible for use in cut scenes, with the exception of Resident Evil 2. The cut scenes of some games used graphics generated by the CPU in real-time.
as well as both the NES and SNES having 768 and 725 US-released games respectively. However, the Nintendo 64 game library included a high number of critically acclaimed and widely sold games. Super Mario 64
was the console′s best selling game (selling over eleven million copies) and also received praise from critics; GoldenEye 007 was important in the evolution of the first person shooter, and has since been named the greatest in the genre; and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
set the standard for future 3D action-adventure game
s, and is frequently regarded as the greatest game of all time.
, which allowed textures to look very smooth compared to the Saturn
or the PlayStation
. This was due to the latter two using nearest-neighbor interpolation, resulting in textures that were pixelated
.
However, the smaller storage size of ROM cartridges limited the number of available textures, resulting in games that had blurry graphics. This was caused by the liberal use of stretched, low-resolution textures, and was compounded by the N64′s 4096-byte limit on a single texture. Some games, such as Super Mario 64, use a large amount of Gouraud shading
or very simple textures to produce a cartoon-like image. This fit the themes of many games, and allowed this style of imagery a sharp look. Cartridges for some later games, such as Resident Evil 2
and Sin & Punishment and Mission: Impossible, featured more ROM space, allowing for more detailed graphics.
and Sega
(the PlayStation and Saturn, respectively) used CD-ROM discs to store their games. These discs are much cheaper to manufacture and distribute, resulting in lower costs to third-party game publishers. As a result, game developers who had traditionally supported Nintendo game consoles were now developing games for the competition because of the higher profit margins found on CD-based platforms.
Cartridges took longer to manufacture than CDs, with each production run (from order to delivery) taking two weeks or more. By contrast, extra copies of a CD based game could be ordered with a lead time of a few days. This meant that publishers of N64 titles had to attempt to predict demand for a game ahead of its release. They risked being left with a surplus of expensive cartridges for a failed game or a weeks-long shortage of product if they underestimated a game′s popularity.
The cost of producing an N64 cartridge was far higher than producing a CD. Publishers had to pass these higher expenses to the consumer and as a result, N64 games tended to sell for higher prices than PlayStation games. While most PlayStation games rarely exceeded US$50, N64 games could reach US$79.99, such as the first pressing of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Games in Sony′s line of PlayStation Greatest Hits budget line retailed for US$19.95, while Nintendo′s equivalent Player's Choice line retailed for US$29.95. In the United Kingdom, N64 games were priced £54.95 at their time of release, while PlayStation games were priced at £44.95. In the United States games were priced at around roughly $49.99 at the time of their release.
) to prevent manufacturers from creating unauthorized copies of games and discourage production of unlicensed games. Unlike previous versions, the N64 lockout chip contains a seed value which is used to calculate a checksum
of the game′s boot code. To discourage playing of copied games by piggybacking on a real cartridge, Nintendo produced five different versions of the chip. During the boot process
, and occasionally while the game is running, the N64 computes the checksum of the boot code and verifies it with the lockout chip in the game cartridge, failing to boot if the check fails.
′s Virtual Console
service and are playable with either the Classic Controller
or Nintendo GameCube controller
. There are some differences between these versions and the original cartridge versions. For example, the games run in a higher resolution and at a more consistent framerate than their N64 counterparts. However, some features, such as Rumble Pak functionality, are not available in the Wii versions. Some features are also altered for the Virtual Console releases. For example, the VC version of Pokémon Snap
allows players to send photos through the Wii′s message service, while Wave Race 64
′s in-game content was altered due to the expiration of the Kawasaki
license. Several titles from Rare have seen release on Microsoft′s Xbox Live Arcade
service, including Banjo-Kazooie
, Banjo-Tooie
and Perfect Dark
, the reason being that Rareware was purchased by Microsoft in 2002.
While the Virtual Console
featured on the Wii
has been a successful way to relaunch old successful titles, prior to its conception many fans have dedicated time to create emulation systems for their home computers in order to play old favorites that Nintendo
has left to history. Project64
, 1964
, and UltraHLE
are currently the top-ranked emulators at The Emulator Zone.
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
′s third home video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil. It is Nintendo′s last home console to use ROM cartridge
ROM cartridge
A ROM cartridge, sometimes referred to as a cart, is a removable enclosure containing read-only memory devices designed to be connected to a computer or games console....
s to store games (Nintendo switched to a MiniDVD
MiniDVD
MiniDVD is a DVD disc having 8 cm in diameter.The 8 cm optical disc format was originally used for music CD singles, hence the commonly used names CD single and miniCD...
-based format for the successor GameCube); handhelds in the Game Boy line, however, continued to use Game Paks. It was discontinued in 2001 in Japan, North America and PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
regions by the launch of Nintendo′s GameCube.
The N64 was released with two launch games, Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64
is a platform game, published by Nintendo and developed by its EAD division, for the Nintendo 64. Along with Pilotwings 64, it was one of the launch titles for the console. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, and later in North America, Europe, and Australia. Super Mario 64 has sold over...
and Pilotwings 64
Pilotwings 64
is a video game for the Nintendo 64, originally released in 1996 along with the debut of the console. The game was co-developed by Nintendo and the American visual technology group Paradigm Simulation. It was one of three launch titles for the Nintendo 64 in Japan as well as Europe and one of two...
, and a third in Japan, Saikyō Habu Shōgi. The N64′s suggested retail price
Suggested retail price
The manufacturer's suggested retail price , list price or recommended retail price of a product is the price which the manufacturer recommends that the retailer sell the product. The intention was to help to standardise prices among locations...
was US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
199 at its launch and it was later marketed with the slogan "Get N, or get Out!". The console was released in at least eight variants with different colors and sizes. An assortment of limited edition controllers were sold or used as contest prizes during the N64′s lifespan. The N64 sold 32.93 million units worldwide, and in 2009 it was named the 9th greatest video game console by IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
, out of a field of 25. The N64 was a very popular main prize on Double Dare 2000.
Of the consoles in the fifth generation
History of video game consoles (fifth generation)
The fifth-generation era refers to the computer and video games, video game consoles, and video game handhelds available at stores...
, the Nintendo 64 was the last contender and the most technologically advanced. However, the console′s storage medium had limitations that harmed the market competitiveness. A significant limitation was the small capacity and high production expense of cartridge-based media instead of the Compact Disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
format used by competitors. The limited capacity forced game designers to struggle with fitting game content into a constrained space, though the faster access time of the cartridge medium offered other advantages over Compact Disc media. Another technical drawback was a limited texture cache
Cache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
, which could only hold textures of small dimensions and reduced color depth, which had to be stretched to cover larger in-game surfaces.
History
The Nintendo 64 owes its existence to Dominic Rogerson, Dimitri Michalakis, Greg Lamb and Silicon GraphicsSilicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
(SGI) and MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies, Inc. , formerly MIPS Computer Systems, Inc., is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of pioneering RISC chips. MIPS provides processor architectures and cores for digital home, networking and mobile applications.MIPS Computer Systems Inc. was...
, who were responsible for the R4300i microprocessor and the 3D graphics hardware used in the N64. SGI had recently acquired MIPS Computer Systems, and the two worked together to create a low-cost real-time 3D graphics system. The SGI project was originally offered to Thomas Kalinske, then CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
of Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
of America, by James H. Clark
James H. Clark
James H. Clark is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO and Healtheon...
, founder of Silicon Graphics. Sega of Japan′s evaluation of the early prototype uncovered several unresolved hardware-issues and deficiencies. They were subsequently resolved; but not before Sega had already decided against SGI′s design. In August 1993, Nintendo expressed interest in SGI′s work, and "Project Reality" was born. An official announcement regarding their collaboration was made in October 1993.
Nintendo′s code name for the N64, "Project Reality", stemmed from the bold belief that the hardware′s advanced CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
capabilities would rival supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s of the era. The console′s design was revealed to the public for the first time in late Spring 1994. Pictures of the console showed the Nintendo Ultra 64 logo, a ROM cartridge
ROM cartridge
A ROM cartridge, sometimes referred to as a cart, is a removable enclosure containing read-only memory devices designed to be connected to a computer or games console....
, but no controller. The final N64 console would retain the shape pictured by the Ultra 64. The system was frequently marketed as the world′s first 64-bit gaming system. Atari had claimed to have made the first 64-bit game console with their Atari Jaguar
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a video game console that was released by Atari Corporation in 1993. It was the last to be marketed under the Atari brand until the release of the Atari Flashback in 2004. It was designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Panasonic...
, but the Jaguar only used a 64-bit architecture in conjunction with two 32-bit RISC processors and a 16/32-bit Motorola 68000. Around the same time, Rare (UK) and Midway
Midway Games
Midway Games, Inc. is an American company that was formerly a major video game publisher. Following a bankruptcy filing in 2009, it is no longer active and is in the process of liquidating all of its assets. Midway's titles included Mortal Kombat, Ms.Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Rampage, the...
(USA) released two arcade titles, Killer Instinct
Killer Instinct
Killer Instinct is a fighting game developed by Rare and published by Midway and Nintendo. Initially released in arcades in 1994, and rumored to use an "Ultra 64" hardware engine, in reality the proprietary arcade hardware was co-developed by Rare and Midway. The game received a high profile launch...
and Cruis'n USA
Cruis'n USA
Cruis'n USA is an arcade racing game originally released in 1994. It was developed by Midway Games and published and distributed by Nintendo...
, which claimed to use the Ultra 64 hardware. Although Killer Instinct did use the same CPU as the N64, a MIPS R4300i, neither title was powered by Ultra 64 hardware. Killer Instinct featured pre-rendered character artwork, and CG movie backgrounds that were streamed off the hard drive and animated as the characters moved horizontally.
The completed N64 was fully unveiled in a playable form to the public on November 24, 1995, at the 7th Annual Shoshinkai Software
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
Exhibition
Trade fair
A trade fair is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products, service, study activities of rivals and examine recent market trends and opportunities...
in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Nintendo′s next-generation console was introduced as the "Nintendo 64" (a name given by Shigesato Itoi
Shigesato Itoi
is one of the most influential cultural figures in Japan, known for his copywriting, essays, lyrics, Nintendo game creation, and as editor-in-chief of his popular website “Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun.” He is best known outside of Japan as a game designer for his work on Nintendo's EarthBound...
, who named the Game Boy
Game Boy line
The line is a line of battery-powered handheld game console sold by Nintendo. It is one of the world's best-selling game system lines with a combined 200+ million units sold worldwide....
before), contrary to speculation that it would be called "Ultra Famicom". Photos of the event were disseminated on the web by Game Zero
Game Zero magazine
Game Zero Magazine was a U.S. based video game magazine published from 1992 to 1998 . Initially starting out as a photo-copy based zine with a print circulation of 500. By the start of 1994 the publication had become a two-color magazine with a print circulation of 1,500, published bi-monthly...
magazine two days later. Official coverage by Nintendo followed later via the Nintendo Power
Nintendo Power
Nintendo Power magazine is a monthly news and strategy magazine formerly published in-house by Nintendo of America, but now run independently. As of issue #222 , Nintendo contracted publishing duties to Future US, the U.S. subsidiary of British publisher Future.The first issue published was...
website and print magazine.
The console was first released in Japan on June 23, 1996. By this time, Nintendo had adopted a new global branding strategy, assigning the console the same name for all markets: Nintendo 64. The North American version of the Nintendo 64 officially launched on September 29, 1996 with 500,000 units sold in the first four months, while the PAL version was released in Europe on March 1, 1997. As of December 31, 2009, the N64 had sold 5.54 million units in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, 20.63 million in the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, and 6.75 million in other regions, for a total of 32.93 million units. Benimaru Itō, a developer for EarthBound 64
EarthBound 64
EarthBound 64, officially known as Mother 3 , is a cancelled role-playing video game that was in development by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory for the Nintendo 64DD. It was later transferred to the Nintendo 64 after the Nintendo 64DD proved to be unsuccessful. The game adopted several subtitles in...
and friend of Shigeru Miyamoto, speculated in 1997 that the N64′s lower popularity in Japan was due to the lack of role-playing video game
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
s. Because of the cost of Nintendo 64 cartridges, and limited third-party support, the Nintendo 64 caused Nintendo to lose its leading position in its market share.
Central processing unit
The Nintendo 64′s central processing unitCentral processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
(CPU) is the NEC
NEC
, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
VR4300, a cost-reduced derivative of the 64-bit
64-bit
64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies, Inc. , formerly MIPS Computer Systems, Inc., is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of pioneering RISC chips. MIPS provides processor architectures and cores for digital home, networking and mobile applications.MIPS Computer Systems Inc. was...
R4300i. Built by NEC on a 0.35 µm
Micrometre
A micrometer , is by definition 1×10-6 of a meter .In plain English, it means one-millionth of a meter . Its unit symbol in the International System of Units is μm...
process
Semiconductor fabrication
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to create the integrated circuits that are present in everyday electrical and electronic devices. It is a multiple-step sequence of photolithographic and chemical processing steps during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer...
, the VR4300 is a RISC
Reduced instruction set computer
Reduced instruction set computing, or RISC , is a CPU design strategy based on the insight that simplified instructions can provide higher performance if this simplicity enables much faster execution of each instruction. A computer based on this strategy is a reduced instruction set computer...
5-stage scalar
Scalar processor
Scalar processors represent the simplest class of computer processors. A scalar processor processes one datum at a time . , a scalar processor is classified as a SISD processor .In a vector processor, by contrast, a single instruction operates simultaneously on multiple data items...
in-order execution processor, with integrated floating point unit
Floating point unit
A floating-point unit is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root...
, internal 24 KB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
direct-mapped L1 cache
CPU cache
A CPU cache is a cache used by the central processing unit of a computer to reduce the average time to access memory. The cache is a smaller, faster memory which stores copies of the data from the most frequently used main memory locations...
(16KB for instructions, 8KB for data). The 4.6 million transistor
Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...
CPU is cooled passively by an aluminum heatspreader that makes contact with a steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
heat sink
Heat sink
A heat sink is a term for a component or assembly that transfers heat generated within a solid material to a fluid medium, such as air or a liquid. Examples of heat sinks are the heat exchangers used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems and the radiator in a car...
above.
Clocked at 93.75 MHz, the N64′s VR4300 was the most powerful console CPU of its generation. Except for its narrower 32-bit system bus, the VR4300 retained the computational abilities of the more powerful 64-bit MIPS R4300i, though software rarely took advantage of 64-bit data precision
Precision (arithmetic)
The precision of a value describes the number of digits that are used to express that value. In a scientific setting this would be the total number of digits or, less commonly, the number of fractional digits or decimal places...
operations. N64 game-titles generally used faster (and more compact) 32-bit data-operations, as these were sufficient to generate 3D-scene data for the console′s RSP (Reality Signal Processor; see below) unit. Though powerful, the CPU was hindered by a 250 MB/s bus to the system memory; not only that, but in order to access the RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, the CPU had to go through the RCP (Reality Co-Processor), and could not use DMA
Direct memory access
Direct memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
to do so (the RCP could). This problem is further compounded by the RDRAM
RDRAM
Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM. RDRAM was developed by Rambus inc., in the mid-1990s as a replacement for then-prevalent DIMM SDRAM memory architecture....
′s very high access latency.
Emulators
Video game console emulator
A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Emulators are most often used to play older video games on personal computers and modern video game consoles, but they are also used to play games translated...
—such as UltraHLE
UltraHLE
UltraHLE was an emulator for the Nintendo 64. It was hailed as a massive step forward in emulation technology at its 1999 release. Emulating the N64 made it the first of the N64 emulators to run commercial titles at a playable frame rate on the hardware of the time.-The HLE technique:Earlier...
and Project64
Project64
Project64 is a proprietary Nintendo 64 emulator for Windows. It employs a plug-in system that allows third-party software developers to create their own implementation of a specified component...
—benefit from the scarcity of 64-bit operations in the game′s executable-code, as the emulator is generally hosted on a 32-bit machine architecture. These emulators performed most calculations at 32-bit precision, and trapped
Trap (computing)
In computing and operating systems, a trap, also known as an exception or a fault, is typicallyThere is a wide variation in the nomenclature...
the few OS subroutines that actually made use of 64-bit instructions.
Reality Co-Processor
Nintendo 64′s graphics and audio duties are performed by the 64-bit SGI co-processor, named the "Reality Co-Processor". The RCP is a 62.5 MHz chip split internally into two major components, the "Reality Drawing Processor" (RDP) and the "Reality Signal Processor" (RSP). Each area communicates with the other by way of a 128-bit internal data bus that provides 1.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RSP is a MIPS R4000-based 8-bit integer vector processor. It is programmable through microcode, allowing the chip′s functions to be significantly altered if necessary, to allow for different types of work, precision, and workloads.[9] The RSP performs transform, clipping and lighting calculations, triangle setup. The "Reality Display Processor" is primarily the Nintendo 64′s Pixel Rasterizer, and also handles the console′s Z-Buffer Compute.The RSP was programmable through microcode
Microcode
Microcode is a layer of hardware-level instructions and/or data structures involved in the implementation of higher level machine code instructions in many computers and other processors; it resides in special high-speed memory and translates machine instructions into sequences of detailed...
. By altering the microcode run on the device, it could perform different operations, create new effects, and be better tuned for speed or quality; however, Nintendo was unwilling to share the microcode tools with developers until the end of the Nintendo 64′s life-cycle. Programming RSP microcode was said to be quite difficult because the Nintendo 64 µcode tools were very basic, with no debugger and poor documentation. As a result, it was very easy to make mistakes that would be hard to track down, mistakes that could cause seemingly random bugs or glitches. Some developers noted that the default SGI microcode ("Fast3D"), which allowed more than ~100,000 high accuracy polygons per second, was poorly profiled for use in games (it was too accurate), and performance suffered as a result. "Turbo3D" microcode allowed 500,000–600,000 normal accuracy polygons per second. However, due to the graphical degradation, Nintendo discouraged its use. Several companies, such as Factor 5
Factor 5
Factor 5 GmbH is an independent software and video game developer. The company was originally co-founded by five former Rainbow Arts employees in 1987 in Cologne, Germany, which served as the inspiration behind the studio's name....
, Boss Game Studios
Boss Game Studios
Boss Game Studio is a defunct video game developer specializing in Nintendo 64 games. The company was formed as an independent offshoot of Boss Film Studios...
and Rare, were able to write custom microcode that ran their software better than SGI
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
′s standard microcode.
The RSP also frequently performs audio functions (although the CPU can be tasked with this as well). It can play back most types of audio (dependent on software codec
Codec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
s) including uncompressed PCM
Pulse-code modulation
Pulse-code modulation is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form for digital audio in computers and various Blu-ray, Compact Disc and DVD formats, as well as other uses such as digital telephone systems...
, MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, MIDI
Musical Instrument Digital Interface
MIDI is an industry-standard protocol, first defined in 1982 by Gordon Hall, that enables electronic musical instruments , computers and other electronic equipment to communicate and synchronize with each other...
, and tracker music. The RSP is capable of a maximum of 100 channels of PCM at a time, but this is with 100% system utilization for audio. It has a maximum sampling rate
Sampling rate
The sampling rate, sample rate, or sampling frequency defines the number of samples per unit of time taken from a continuous signal to make a discrete signal. For time-domain signals, the unit for sampling rate is hertz , sometimes noted as Sa/s...
of 48 kHz with 16-bit audio; however, storage limitations caused by the cartridge format limited audio size (and thus quality).
The RDP is the machine′s rasterizer and performs the bulk of actual image creation before output to the display. The Nintendo 64 has a maximum color depth
Color depth
In computer graphics, color depth or bit depth is the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel in a bitmapped image or video frame buffer. This concept is also known as bits per pixel , particularly when specified along with the number of bits used...
of 16.8 million colors and can display resolutions of 256 × 224, 320 × 240 and 640 × 480 pixels. The RCP also provides the CPU′s access to main system memory via a 250 MB/s bus. Unfortunately, this link does not allow direct memory access
Direct memory access
Direct memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
for the CPU. The RCP, like the CPU, is passively cooled by an aluminum heatspreader that makes contact with a steel heat sink above.
Memory
The final major component in the system is the memory, also known as RAM. The Nintendo 64 was one of the first modern consoles to implement a unified memory subsystem, instead of having separate banks of memory for CPU, audio, and video, for example. The memory itself consists of 4 megabyteMegabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
s of RAMBUS RDRAM
RDRAM
Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM. RDRAM was developed by Rambus inc., in the mid-1990s as a replacement for then-prevalent DIMM SDRAM memory architecture....
(expandable to 8 MB with the Expansion Pak) with a 9-bit data bus at 500 MHz providing the system with 562.5 MB/s peak bandwidth. RAMBUS was quite new at the time and offered Nintendo a way to provide a large amount of bandwidth for a relatively low cost. The narrow bus makes board design easier and cheaper than the higher width data buses required for high bandwidth out of slower-clocked RAM types (such as VRAM
Dynamic random access memory
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
or EDO DRAM
Dynamic random access memory
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
); however, RDRAM, at the time, came with a very high access latency, and this caused grief for the game developers because of limited hardware performance.
Video
The system provides both composite videoComposite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
and S-Video
S-Video
Separate Video, more commonly known as S-Video and Y/C, is often referred to by JVC as both an S-VHS connector and as Super Video. It is an analog video transmission scheme, in which video information is encoded on two channels: luma and chroma...
through the "MULTI OUT" connector on the rear of the system; however, the Nintendo 64 removed certain pin connections for providing RGB video, despite the DAC
Digital-to-analog converter
In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device that converts a digital code to an analog signal . An analog-to-digital converter performs the reverse operation...
chip used in early models having the capability built-in. In most countries the system came bundled with a composite cable
RCA connector
An RCA connector, sometimes called a phono connector or cinch connector, is a type of electrical connector commonly used to carry audio and video signals...
(AKA Stereo AV cable) The composite and S-Video cables are the same as those used with the earlier SNES and later GameCube systems.
Available to buy separately was a RF
RF connector
A coaxial RF connector is an electrical connector designed to work at radio frequencies in the multi-megahertz range.RF connectors are typically used with coaxial cables and are designed to maintain the shielding that the coaxial design offers. Better models also minimize the change in transmission...
modulator
RF modulator
An RF modulator is a device that takes a baseband input signal and outputs a radio frequency-modulated signal....
and switch set (for connection to older televisions) and an official S-Video cable, although the latter was only sold at retail stores in Japan. In the U.S., the official S-Video cable could only be ordered direct from Nintendo of America, and the cable was not officially sold in Europe. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
the N64 was shipped with a RF modulator and switch set, but was still fully compatible with the other cables.
The system supports SDTV
Standard-definition television
Sorete-definition television is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either enhanced-definition television or high-definition television . The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same resolution as...
resolutions up to 480i
480i
480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC...
although few games made use of this "high resolution" mode, many of which required the use of the Expansion Pak RAM upgrade. The majority of games instead used the system's 240p/288p
Low-definition television
Low-definition television or LDTV refers to television systems that have a lower screen resolution than standard-definition television systems. The term is usually used in reference to digital television, in particular when broadcasting at the same resolution as low-definition analog TV systems...
modes. A number of games also support a video display ratio of up to 16:9
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
using either Anamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen, when applied to DVD manufacture, is a video process that horizontally squeezes a widescreen image so that it can be stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. Compatible playback equipment can then re-expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen...
or Letterbox
Letterbox
Letterboxing is the practice of transferring film shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard-width video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. The resulting videographic image has mattes above and below it; these mattes are part of the image...
ing. However, very few of its games provided options to use this feature, these were: Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie is a platform and action-adventure hybrid video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 2000 for the Nintendo 64 as a part of the Banjo-Kazooie series. The game is the successor to Banjo-Kazooie and was one of the most anticipated sequels for the Nintendo 64.The game's story...
, Donkey Kong 64
Donkey Kong 64
Donkey Kong 64 is a platform game, developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in North America on November 24, 1999 and in Europe on December 6, 1999. The game is a follow up to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System...
, GoldenEye 007, The World Is Not Enough
The World Is Not Enough (video game)
The World Is Not Enough is a 2000 first-person shooter video game based on the James Bond film of the same name. The game was published by Electronic Arts and released for the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation console systems in 2000. The Nintendo 64 version was developed by Eurocom and the PlayStation...
, Jet Force Gemini
Jet Force Gemini
Jet Force Gemini is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Rare. It was exclusively released for the Nintendo 64 in late 1999 in North America, Europe and Japan...
, Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, with which it shares many gameplay features...
, Starshot: Space Circus Fever
Starshot: Space Circus Fever
Starshot: Space Circus Fever is a platform game for the Nintendo 64 and for Windows. It was released by Infogrames in 1998 in Europe and 1999 in North America. It is one of the few games on the Nintendo 64 to feature 16:9 widescreen.-Plot:...
, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil is a first-person shooter video game originally released for the Nintendo 64 in late 1998. A port was released for Windows OS shortly afterwards, in 1999. It is the sequel to the successful Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and was followed by the 2000 entry in the series, Turok 3:...
, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion
Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion
Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is a Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color video game released in August 2000. It is a sequel to Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, and is itself followed by the 2002 entry in the Turok video games series, Turok: Evolution.-Gameplay:...
, Mission Impossible, South Park
South Park (video game)
South Park is a first-person shooter video game based on the first few seasons of the popular TV series of the same name. The game is powered by the Turok 2 game engine and was released in 1998 by Acclaim for the PC, Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. A Brazilian version was published by Gradiente for...
.
Hardware color variations
The standard Nintendo 64 is dark gray, nearly black, and the controller is light gray (later releases in America included a bonus second controller in Atomic Purple). A Jungle Green colored console was first available with the Donkey Kong 64Donkey Kong 64
Donkey Kong 64 is a platform game, developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in North America on November 24, 1999 and in Europe on December 6, 1999. The game is a follow up to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System...
bundle. The Funtastic Series used brightly-colored, translucent plastic with six colors: Fire Orange, Grape Purple, Ice Blue, Jungle Green, Smoke Gray and Watermelon Red. Nintendo released a yellow banana-like Nintendo 64 controller for the debut of Donkey Kong 64 in the United States. The Millennium 2000 controller, available exclusively as part of a Nintendo Power promotional contest in the United States, was a silver controller with black buttons. A gold controller was released in a contest by Nintendo Power magazine as part of a raffle
Raffle
A raffle is a competition in which people obtain numbered tickets, each ticket having the chance of winning a prize. At a set time, the winners are drawn from a container holding a copy of every number...
drawing. In late 1997 through 1998, a few gold Nintendo 64 controller packages were released worldwide; in the United Kingdom there was a limited edition GoldenEye 007 console pack which came with a standard gray console and a copy of GoldenEye. Also, a limited edition gold controller with a standard gray console were released in Australia and New Zealand in early 1998, endorsed by an advertising campaign which featured footage of N64 games including Top Gear Rally
Top Gear Rally
Top Gear Rally is a rally game for the Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. The Game Boy Color version was released under the name Top Gear Pocket, although the European release uses the original name. It features five tracks. It has a feature that allows the user to give their virtual...
and ended with Australian swimmer Michael Klim
Michael Klim
Michael Klim OAM is a Polish-born Australian swimmer. He was born in Gdynia. He was educated at the University High School, Melbourne and Wesley College, Melbourne where he is currently employed as the College's elite Head Coach of swimming...
wearing the gold controller as a medal around his neck. Nintendo released a gold controller for the debut of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It was released in Japan on November 21, 1998; in North America on November 23, 1998; and in Europe on December 11, 1998...
in Japan. Soon after, bundle packs of the game, controller, and gold Nintendo 64 were released for the US and PAL markets. The Pokémon
Pokémon
is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video...
Edition Nintendo 64, with a Pokémon sticker on the left side, included the "Pokémon: I Choose You" video. The Pokémon Pikachu Nintendo 64 had a large, yellow Pikachu
Pikachu
is one of the species of Pokémon creatures from the Pokémon media franchise—a collection of video games, anime, manga, books, trading cards, and other media created by Satoshi Tajiri. As do all Pokémon, Pikachu fight other Pokémon in battles central to the anime, manga, and games of the series...
model on a blue Nintendo 64. It has a different footprint than the standard Nintendo 64 console, and the Expansion Pak port is covered. It also shipped with a blue Pokémon controller; orange in Japan. A Limited Edition Star Wars bundle, available during the time of the release of the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the fourth film to be released in the Star Wars saga, as the first of a three-part prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as the first film in the saga in terms...
came bundled with Star Wars: Episode I Racer
Star Wars: Episode I Racer
Star Wars Episode I: Racer is a racing video game based on the pod race featured in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The game features a variety of tracks spanning several different planets and includes all and more of the racers featured in the movie, including Teemto Pagalies, Dud Bolt,...
and a standard gray console.
Nintendo released some special edition consoles and controllers that were sold only on specific stores. There were two other Japan only consoles that were exclusive to specific stores. One was the Daiei Hawks which was only sold in Daiei Hawks stores. And the other was the Jusco 30th anniversary, which was only sold in Jusco stores. The Daiei Hawks featured an orange translucent top, and a black translucent bottom, very similar to the Fire Orange and Smoke Black Nintendo 64, although not the same. The Jusco 30th anniversary, featured a very light violet-translucent color on the top, and white translucent on the bottom. These two consoles were released with a controller that matched with their console. The Daiei Hawks also sold separate controllers. Due to the insane rarity of the Jusco 30th anniversary, it is unknown whether a separate controller was sold or not. Nintendo also released a black (top) and grey (bottom) controller that was bundled with Mario Kart 64, only sold in Japan. A similar controller to the Mario Kart 64, was only sold in Hello Mack stores, and the controller featured a Hello Mack picture on the top of the controller. In America, Toys "R" Us released their own series of store exclusive products. The Extreme Green, Extreme Green console bundle, Gold Controller bundle, and a very limited Gold Nintendo 64 which was bundled with two gold controllers.
The majority of Nintendo 64 game cartridges were gray in color; however, some games were released on a colored cartridge. Fourteen games had black cartridges, while other colors (such as green, blue, red, yellow and gold) were each used for six or fewer games. Several games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It was released in Japan on November 21, 1998; in North America on November 23, 1998; and in Europe on December 11, 1998...
were released both in standard gray and in colored, limited edition versions.
Programming difficulties
The Nintendo 64 had weaknesses that were caused by a combination of oversight on the part of the hardware designers, limitations on 3D technology of the time, and manufacturing capabilities. One major flaw was the limited texture cacheCache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
of 4 KB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
. This made it difficult to load anything but small, low color depth
Color depth
In computer graphics, color depth or bit depth is the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel in a bitmapped image or video frame buffer. This concept is also known as bits per pixel , particularly when specified along with the number of bits used...
textures into the rendering engine. This small texture limitation caused blurring due to developers stretching small textures to cover a surface, and then the console′s bilinear filtering
Bilinear filtering
Bilinear filtering is a texture filtering method used to smooth textures when displayed larger or smaller than they actually are.Most of the time, when drawing a textured shape on the screen, the texture is not displayed exactly as it is stored, without any distortion...
would blur them further. To make matters worse, due to the design of the renderer, if mipmap
Mipmap
In 3D computer graphics texture filtering, MIP maps are pre-calculated, optimized collections of images that accompany a main texture, intended to increase rendering speed and reduce aliasing artifacts. They are widely used in 3D computer games, flight simulators and other 3D imaging systems. The...
ping was used, the texture cache was effectively halved to 2 KB. Toward the end of Nintendo 64′s lifetime, creative developers managed to use tricks, such as multi-layered texturing and heavily-clamped, small texture pieces, to simulate larger textures. Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, with which it shares many gameplay features...
, Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie is a platform and action-adventure hybrid video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 2000 for the Nintendo 64 as a part of the Banjo-Kazooie series. The game is the successor to Banjo-Kazooie and was one of the most anticipated sequels for the Nintendo 64.The game's story...
, and Conker's Bad Fur Day
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Conker's Bad Fur Day is an action-platform video game developed and published by Rare. It was released for the Nintendo 64 in 2001 and was Rare's last game published for the console. The game was in development for four years; it was originally intended for a young audience, but was redesigned and...
are possibly the best examples of this ingenuity, all of which were developed by Rare. Games often also used plain colored Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes...
instead of texturing on certain surfaces, especially in games with themes not targeting realism (e.g., Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64
is a platform game, published by Nintendo and developed by its EAD division, for the Nintendo 64. Along with Pilotwings 64, it was one of the launch titles for the console. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, and later in North America, Europe, and Australia. Super Mario 64 has sold over...
).
There were other challenges for developers to work around. Z-buffering significantly crippled the RDP′s fill rate. Thus, for maximum performance, most Nintendo 64 games were actually fill-rate limited, not geometry limited, which is ironic considering the great concern for the Nintendo 64′s low polygon per second rating of only about 100,000; however, some of the most polygon-intense Nintendo 64 games, such as World Driver Championship
World Driver Championship
World Driver Championship is an automobile racing video game. It was developed by Boss Game Studios and published for the Nintendo 64 by Midway Games....
, frequently pushed past the Sony PlayStation′s typical in-game polygon counts.
The unified memory subsystem of Nintendo 64 was another critical weakness for the machine. The RDRAM
RDRAM
Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM. RDRAM was developed by Rambus inc., in the mid-1990s as a replacement for then-prevalent DIMM SDRAM memory architecture....
had very high access latency, which nearly negated its high bandwidth advantage. In addition, game developers commented that the Nintendo 64′s memory controller setup was poor. The R4300 CPU was severely limited at memory access since it had to go through the RCP to access main memory, and could not use DMA
Direct memory access
Direct memory access is a feature of modern computers that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system memory independently of the central processing unit ....
to do so.
One of the best examples of custom microcode on the Nintendo 64 was Factor 5′s N64 port of the Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is a multi-platform action-adventure video game by LucasArts released in late 1999. The first 3D installment in the series, its gameplay focuses on solving puzzles, fighting enemies, and various platforming sections...
PC game. The Factor 5 team aimed for the high resolution mode (640 × 480) because of the crispness it added to the visuals. The machine was taxed to the limit running at 640 × 480, so they needed performance beyond the standard SGI microcode. The Z-buffer could not be used because it alone consumed the already-constrained texture fill-rate. To work around the 4 KB texture cache, the programmers came up with custom texture formats and tools to let the artists use the best possible textures. Each texture was analyzed and fitted to best texture format for performance and quality. They took advantage of the cartridge as a texture streaming source to squeeze as much detail as possible into each environment and work around RAM limitations. They wrote microcode for real-time lighting, since the SGI code was poor for this task and they wanted to have even more lighting than the PC version had used. Factor 5′s microcode allowed almost unlimited real-time lighting and significantly boosted the polygon count. In the end, the game was more feature-filled than the PC version, and unsurprisingly, was one of the most advanced games for Nintendo 64.
Factor 5 again used custom microcode with games such as Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is an arcade-style action game co-developed by Factor 5 and LucasArts. The first of three games in the Rogue Squadron series, it was published by LucasArts and Nintendo and released for Windows and the Nintendo 64 in December 1998...
and Star Wars: Battle for Naboo
Star Wars: Battle for Naboo
Star Wars: Episode I: Battle for Naboo is an arcade-style action game co-developed by Factor 5 and LucasArts; LucasArts supplied most of the art and level-design, while Factor 5 provided the programming, tools, sound, and most of the cut-scene and art post-production work...
. In Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, the team tweaked the microcode for a landscape engine to create the alien worlds. For Star Wars: Battle for Naboo, they used what they learned from Rogue Squadron and made the game run at 640 × 480, also implementing enhancements for particles and the landscape engine. Battle for Naboo had a long draw distance
Draw distance
Draw distance is a computer graphics term, defined as the maximum distance of objects in a three dimensional scene that are drawn by the rendering engine. Polygons that lie behind the draw distance won't be drawn to the screen....
and large amounts of snow and rain, despite the high resolution.
Game Paks
Nintendo 64 games were ROM cartridgeROM cartridge
A ROM cartridge, sometimes referred to as a cart, is a removable enclosure containing read-only memory devices designed to be connected to a computer or games console....
based. Cartridge size varied from 4 MB (32 Mbit
Megabit
The megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix mega is defined in the International System of Units as a multiplier of 106 , and therefore...
) (e.g. Automobili Lamborghini
Automobili Lamborghini
Automobili Lamborghini is a racing video game by Titus Software, and a successor to Lamborghini American Challenge. The Japanese version was distributed by Taito and has actual pictures of various models of Lamborghini with their names displayed before the demo screen. These photos and descriptions...
and Dr. Mario 64
Dr. Mario 64
Dr. Mario 64 is a puzzle game based on the original Dr. Mario. It was developed and published by Nintendo, released for the Nintendo 64 in 2001, and is an enhanced remake of the original Dr. Mario, which was released for the NES and Game Boy in 1990.Originally, it was released only in North America...
) to 64 MB (512 Mbit) for Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2, known as in Japan, is a survival horror video game originally released for the PlayStation in 1998. Developed by Capcom as the second installment in the Resident Evil series, its story takes place two months after the events of the first game, Resident Evil...
and Conker's Bad Fur Day
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Conker's Bad Fur Day is an action-platform video game developed and published by Rare. It was released for the Nintendo 64 in 2001 and was Rare's last game published for the console. The game was in development for four years; it was originally intended for a young audience, but was redesigned and...
. Some of the cartridges included internal EEPROM
EEPROM
EEPROM stands for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory and is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices to store small amounts of data that must be saved when power is removed, e.g., calibration...
, flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
, or battery-backed-up RAM for saved game storage. Otherwise, game saves were put onto a separate memory card, marketed by Nintendo as a Controller Pak.
The selection of the cartridge for the Nintendo 64 was a controversial decision and a key factor in Nintendo′s being unable to retain its dominant position in the gaming market. Most of the cartridge's advantages did not manifest themselves prominently and they were nullified by the cartridge′s shortcomings, which disappointed customers and developers alike. Especially for the latter, it was costly and difficult to develop for ROM cartridges, as their limited storage capacity (64 MB or a mere 10% of a PlayStation CD-ROMs 640 MB capacity) constrained the game′s content.
Most third-party developers switched to the PlayStation, such as Square
Square Co.
was a Japanese video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. It merged with Enix in 2003 and became part of Square Enix...
and Enix
Enix
The was a Japanese company that produced video games, anime and manga. The company was founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima on September 22, 1975 as and renamed Enix in 1982...
, whose Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII
is a role-playing video game developed by Square and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series. It was originally released in 1997 for the Sony PlayStation and was re-released in 1998 for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers and in 2009...
and Dragon Quest VII were initially pre-planned for the N64, while some who remained released fewer games to the Nintendo 64. Konami
Konami
is a Japanese leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines, arcade cabinets and video games...
was the biggest example of this, releasing only thirteen N64 games but over fifty on the PlayStation. New Nintendo 64 game releases were infrequent while new games were coming out rapidly for the PlayStation. Most of the N64′s biggest successes were developed by either Nintendo itself or by second-parties of Nintendo, such as Rare.
Despite the difficulties with third-parties, the N64 still managed to support popular games such as GoldenEye 007, giving it a long shelf-life. Much of this success was credited to Nintendo′s strong first-party franchises, such as Mario
Mario (series)
The video game series, alternatively called the series or simply the series, is a series of highly popular and critically acclaimed video games by Nintendo, featuring Nintendo's mascot Mario and, in many games, his brother Luigi. Gameplay in the series often centers around jumping on and...
, which had strong name brand appeal, yet appeared exclusively on Nintendo platforms. The N64 also secured its share of the mature audience, due to GoldenEye 007, Nightmare Creatures
Nightmare Creatures
Nightmare Creatures is a survival horror video game released for the PlayStation and PC in 1997, and Nintendo 64 in 1998 as a North America exclusive. It was developed by Kalisto Entertainment and published by Activision.-Plot:...
, Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, with which it shares many gameplay features...
, Doom 64
Doom 64
Doom 64 is a video game for the Nintendo 64 released by Midway Games in April 4, 1997. It is part of the Doom first-person shooter video game series.-Features:Key differences from the computer games in the series include:*32 exclusive new levels....
, Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2, known as in Japan, is a survival horror video game originally released for the PlayStation in 1998. Developed by Capcom as the second installment in the Resident Evil series, its story takes place two months after the events of the first game, Resident Evil...
, Shadow Man
Shadow Man (video game)
Shadow Man is a video game developed by Acclaim Studios Teesside and published by Acclaim Entertainment. It was designed by Guy Miller and Simon Phipps and is loosely based on the Shadowman comic book series published by Valiant Comics. The game was released in 1999 for the Nintendo 64,...
, Conker's Bad Fur Day
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Conker's Bad Fur Day is an action-platform video game developed and published by Rare. It was released for the Nintendo 64 in 2001 and was Rare's last game published for the console. The game was in development for four years; it was originally intended for a young audience, but was redesigned and...
, Duke Nukem 64, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is a third-person shooter video game in the Duke Nukem series, developed by Eurocom for the Nintendo 64. The game uses a relatively large 32 megabyte cartridge and could also utilize the Expansion Pak to allow for better graphics but slowing down the frame rate...
, Mortal Kombat 4
Mortal Kombat 4
Mortal Kombat 4 is the fourth main game in the Mortal Kombat series of fighting video games developed by Midway Games. Released to arcades in 1997, Mortal Kombat 4 is the first title from the series to use 3D computer graphics as well as one of the first games that Midway made in 3D. Eurocom later...
, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter is a first-person shooter video game developed by Iguana Entertainment and published by Acclaim for the Nintendo 64 console and personal computer platforms. It was released in 1997 in North America and Europe. Turok is an adaptation of the Acclaim Comics comic book series of...
, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil is a first-person shooter video game originally released for the Nintendo 64 in late 1998. A port was released for Windows OS shortly afterwards, in 1999. It is the sequel to the successful Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and was followed by the 2000 entry in the series, Turok 3:...
, and Quake II
Quake II
Quake II, released on December 9, 1997, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Id Software and distributed by Activision. It is not a sequel to Quake; it merely uses the name of the former game due to Id's difficulties in coming up with alternative names.The soundtrack for Quake II...
.
Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
cited several advantages for making the N64 cartridge-based. Primarily cited was the ROM cartridge
ROM cartridge
A ROM cartridge, sometimes referred to as a cart, is a removable enclosure containing read-only memory devices designed to be connected to a computer or games console....
s′ very fast load times in comparison to disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
-based games, as contemporary CD-ROM drives rarely had speeds above 4×. This can be observed from the loading screens that appear in many PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
games but are typically non-existent in N64 versions. ROM carts were much faster than the 2× CD-ROM drives in other consoles that developers could stream data in real-time from them. This was done in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is a multi-platform action-adventure video game by LucasArts released in late 1999. The first 3D installment in the series, its gameplay focuses on solving puzzles, fighting enemies, and various platforming sections...
, for example, to make the most of the limited RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
in the N64. Also, ROM cartridges are difficult and expensive to duplicate, thus resisting piracy
Copyright infringement of software
Copyright infringement of software=The copyright infringement of software refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind varies globally...
, albeit at the expense of lowered profit margin
Profit margin
Profit margin, net margin, net profit margin or net profit ratio all refer to a measure of profitability. It is calculated by finding the net profit as a percentage of the revenue.Net profit Margin = x100...
for Nintendo. While unauthorized interface devices for the PC were later developed, these devices are rare when compared to a regular CD drive and popular mod chips used on the PlayStation. Compared to the N64, piracy was rampant on the PlayStation. The cartridges are also far more durable than compact discs, the latter which must be carefully used and stored in protective cases. It also prevents accidental scratches and subsequent read errors. It is possible to add specialized I/O hardware and support chips (such as co-processors) to ROM cartridges, as was done on some SNES
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
games (including Star Fox, using the Super FX
Super FX
The Super FX is a coprocessor chip used in select Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game cartridges. This custom-made RISC processor was typically programmed to act like a graphics accelerator chip that would draw polygons to a frame buffer in the RAM that sat adjacent to it...
chip).
ROM cartridges also have disadvantages associated with them. While game cartridges are more resistant than CDs to physical damage, they are sometimes less resistant to long-term environmental damage, particularly oxidation (although this can be simply cleaned off) or wear of their electrical contacts causing a blank or frozen screen, or static electricity. They also have a more complex manufacturing processes; cartridge-based games were usually more expensive to manufacture than their optical counterparts. The cartridges can have a maximum of 64 MB of data, whereas CDs held over 650 MB. As fifth generation
History of video game consoles (fifth generation)
The fifth-generation era refers to the computer and video games, video game consoles, and video game handhelds available at stores...
games became more complex in content, sound and graphics, it pushed cartridges to the limits of their storage capacity. Games ported from other media had to use data compression or reduced content to be released on the N64. Extremely large games could be made to span across multiple discs on CD-based systems, while cartridge games had to be contained within one unit as using an additional cartridge was prohibitively expensive (and was never tried). Due to the cartridge′s space limitations, full motion video
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
was not usually feasible for use in cut scenes, with the exception of Resident Evil 2. The cut scenes of some games used graphics generated by the CPU in real-time.
Games
A total of 387 games were released for the console though few were exclusively sold in Japan, in competition with around 1,100 games released for the rival PlayStationPlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
as well as both the NES and SNES having 768 and 725 US-released games respectively. However, the Nintendo 64 game library included a high number of critically acclaimed and widely sold games. Super Mario 64
Super Mario 64
is a platform game, published by Nintendo and developed by its EAD division, for the Nintendo 64. Along with Pilotwings 64, it was one of the launch titles for the console. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, and later in North America, Europe, and Australia. Super Mario 64 has sold over...
was the console′s best selling game (selling over eleven million copies) and also received praise from critics; GoldenEye 007 was important in the evolution of the first person shooter, and has since been named the greatest in the genre; and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
is an action-adventure video game developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It was released in Japan on November 21, 1998; in North America on November 23, 1998; and in Europe on December 11, 1998...
set the standard for future 3D action-adventure game
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
s, and is frequently regarded as the greatest game of all time.
Graphics
Graphically, results of the Nintendo cartridge system were mixed. The N64′s graphics chip was capable of trilinear filteringTrilinear filtering
Trilinear filtering is an extension of the bilinear texture filtering method, which also performs linear interpolation between mipmaps.Bilinear filtering has several weaknesses that make it an unattractive choice in many cases: using it on a full-detail texture when scaling to a very small size...
, which allowed textures to look very smooth compared to the Saturn
Sega Saturn
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console that was first released by Sega on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe...
or the PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
. This was due to the latter two using nearest-neighbor interpolation, resulting in textures that were pixelated
Pixelation
In computer graphics, pixelation is an effect caused by displaying a bitmap or a section of a bitmap at such a large size that individual pixels, small single-colored square display elements that comprise the bitmap, are visible to the eye...
.
However, the smaller storage size of ROM cartridges limited the number of available textures, resulting in games that had blurry graphics. This was caused by the liberal use of stretched, low-resolution textures, and was compounded by the N64′s 4096-byte limit on a single texture. Some games, such as Super Mario 64, use a large amount of Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes...
or very simple textures to produce a cartoon-like image. This fit the themes of many games, and allowed this style of imagery a sharp look. Cartridges for some later games, such as Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 2, known as in Japan, is a survival horror video game originally released for the PlayStation in 1998. Developed by Capcom as the second installment in the Resident Evil series, its story takes place two months after the events of the first game, Resident Evil...
and Sin & Punishment and Mission: Impossible, featured more ROM space, allowing for more detailed graphics.
Production
The era′s competing systems from SonySony Computer Entertainment
Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. is a major video game company specializing in a variety of areas in the video game industry, and is a wholly owned subsidiary and part of the Consumer Products & Services Group of Sony...
and Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
(the PlayStation and Saturn, respectively) used CD-ROM discs to store their games. These discs are much cheaper to manufacture and distribute, resulting in lower costs to third-party game publishers. As a result, game developers who had traditionally supported Nintendo game consoles were now developing games for the competition because of the higher profit margins found on CD-based platforms.
Cartridges took longer to manufacture than CDs, with each production run (from order to delivery) taking two weeks or more. By contrast, extra copies of a CD based game could be ordered with a lead time of a few days. This meant that publishers of N64 titles had to attempt to predict demand for a game ahead of its release. They risked being left with a surplus of expensive cartridges for a failed game or a weeks-long shortage of product if they underestimated a game′s popularity.
The cost of producing an N64 cartridge was far higher than producing a CD. Publishers had to pass these higher expenses to the consumer and as a result, N64 games tended to sell for higher prices than PlayStation games. While most PlayStation games rarely exceeded US$50, N64 games could reach US$79.99, such as the first pressing of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Games in Sony′s line of PlayStation Greatest Hits budget line retailed for US$19.95, while Nintendo′s equivalent Player's Choice line retailed for US$29.95. In the United Kingdom, N64 games were priced £54.95 at their time of release, while PlayStation games were priced at £44.95. In the United States games were priced at around roughly $49.99 at the time of their release.
Cartridge-copy counter-measures
Each Nintendo 64 cartridge contains a lockout chip (similar to the 10NES10NES
The 10NES system is a lock-out system designed for the American version of the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. Various companies found ways to bypass the authorization chip.-Design:...
) to prevent manufacturers from creating unauthorized copies of games and discourage production of unlicensed games. Unlike previous versions, the N64 lockout chip contains a seed value which is used to calculate a checksum
Checksum
A checksum or hash sum is a fixed-size datum computed from an arbitrary block of digital data for the purpose of detecting accidental errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. The integrity of the data can be checked at any later time by recomputing the checksum and...
of the game′s boot code. To discourage playing of copied games by piggybacking on a real cartridge, Nintendo produced five different versions of the chip. During the boot process
Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
, and occasionally while the game is running, the N64 computes the checksum of the boot code and verifies it with the lockout chip in the game cartridge, failing to boot if the check fails.
Emulation
Some of Nintendo′s N64 titles have been released for the WiiWii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
′s Virtual Console
Virtual console
A virtual console – also known as a virtual terminal – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some operating systems such as UnixWare, Linux, and BSD, in which the system console of the computer can be used to switch between...
service and are playable with either the Classic Controller
Classic Controller
The is a video game controller produced by Nintendo. It is used to play games on the Nintendo Wii video game console.-Classic Controller:The Classic Controller is plugged into the Wii Remote in order to be used. It features two analog sticks, a D-pad, face buttons labeled "a", "b", "x" and "y",...
or Nintendo GameCube controller
Nintendo GameCube controller
The Nintendo GameCube controller is the standard controller for the Nintendo GameCube video game console.-Overview:Released alongside the Nintendo GameCube console, the standard GameCube controller has a wing grip design. This controller was bundled with all new GameCube systems throughout the...
. There are some differences between these versions and the original cartridge versions. For example, the games run in a higher resolution and at a more consistent framerate than their N64 counterparts. However, some features, such as Rumble Pak functionality, are not available in the Wii versions. Some features are also altered for the Virtual Console releases. For example, the VC version of Pokémon Snap
Pokémon Snap
is a first-person rail shooter and simulation video game developed by HAL Laboratory with Pax Softnica and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It is part of the Pokémon series, and one of the first console games based on the Pokémon series...
allows players to send photos through the Wii′s message service, while Wave Race 64
Wave Race 64
is a racing game for the Nintendo 64 that was released on September 27, 1996 in Japan and on November 5, 1996 in North America. In Wave Race 64 the player races on jet skis in many different weather conditions, on a variety of different courses. The game was sponsored by the Kawasaki Heavy...
′s in-game content was altered due to the expiration of the Kawasaki
Kawasaki Heavy Industries
is an international corporation based in Japan. It has headquarters in both Chūō-ku, Kobe and Minato, Tokyo.The company is named after its founder Shōzō Kawasaki and has no connection with the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa....
license. Several titles from Rare have seen release on Microsoft′s Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
service, including Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Kazooie is a platform and action-adventure video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998...
, Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie
Banjo-Tooie is a platform and action-adventure hybrid video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 2000 for the Nintendo 64 as a part of the Banjo-Kazooie series. The game is the successor to Banjo-Kazooie and was one of the most anticipated sequels for the Nintendo 64.The game's story...
and Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark is a first-person shooter video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It is considered the spiritual successor to Rare's earlier first-person shooter GoldenEye 007, with which it shares many gameplay features...
, the reason being that Rareware was purchased by Microsoft in 2002.
While the Virtual Console
Virtual console
A virtual console – also known as a virtual terminal – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some operating systems such as UnixWare, Linux, and BSD, in which the system console of the computer can be used to switch between...
featured on the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
has been a successful way to relaunch old successful titles, prior to its conception many fans have dedicated time to create emulation systems for their home computers in order to play old favorites that Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
has left to history. Project64
Project64
Project64 is a proprietary Nintendo 64 emulator for Windows. It employs a plug-in system that allows third-party software developers to create their own implementation of a specified component...
, 1964
1964 (emulator)
1964 is a Nintendo 64 emulator for Microsoft Windows, written in C and released as free software. It is one of the oldest and most popular N64 emulators, supporting many commercial N64 games...
, and UltraHLE
UltraHLE
UltraHLE was an emulator for the Nintendo 64. It was hailed as a massive step forward in emulation technology at its 1999 release. Emulating the N64 made it the first of the N64 emulators to run commercial titles at a playable frame rate on the hardware of the time.-The HLE technique:Earlier...
are currently the top-ranked emulators at The Emulator Zone.