Why the Nintendo 64's Graphics Were So Blurry 

So good to see one of these videos and the person is not just emulating the games at 4k.

that wojak argument bit did not need to go on so long man

Very informative video. If I could offer some critique, the console wars skit could have been trimmed down. Otherwise, it was quite enjoyable. Subscribed!

I found 3 major mistakes in this video. 1. Not enough views, 2. Not enough likes, and 3 the creator doesn't have enough subs.

I think I can provide an extra explanation for the additional horizontal blur filter. The N64's horizontal blur is a natural part of the Video Interface that doesn't seem to be able to be turned off normally; this is an always-active feature that uses bilinear filtering to resize to 640 pixels wide for the sake of games that internally render in resolutions that are not exactly 640 or 320, but it appears to catch 320 wide games as a byproduct. It's responsible for making sure games look correct if they use an internal resolution that is not a clean division of 640 wide. This can be seen in Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 when using the Game Boy Tower, which displays in 256x240 + some overscan area (black borders), but is expanded to 640, and in certain other games such as Mario Tennis which change the horizontal resolution depending on the part of the game you're in. "VI Deblur" mods for the N64 can detect when the horizontal bilinear scaling is actually needed (e.g. when not outputting 320 or 640 pixels wide) and leave it be when a game needs it, while when it is not necessary (for 320 pixels wide content) it will use some sort of algorithm to detect when every second horizontal pixel is just a blurred version of the previous one, and instead simply doubles the horizontal size of every truly unique pixel to effectively turn it into being nearest-neighbor scaled.

only 91 views? :( you need more!

Great video. Love to see content that's both informative and comedic, because I don't see enough of that type of content. Definitely looking forward to future videos from you.

I always thought the texture on PlayStation were weird. If the game wasn’t stable enough, you’d be able to peak through the cracks of the texture, exposing the unprogramed void below your feet. The N64 didn’t have that issue, and it’s why I always preferred it. They felt solid and didn’t wobble around as you moved.

Why do PS1 games look so 'alive'? The images just pop. Most N64 games seem to have dimmer images.

This almost reminds me of that old satire youtuber who uploaded sarcastic videogame retrospectives with an ironic voice. If anyone knows who I am talking about, the channel is deleted and not vastly known so if you know them please reply to me.

Soul Calibur wasn’t on PS1, Soul Edge was. Otherwise great video!

For edge antialiasing you would have to smear over the edge, only for RGB, not for Z . So when you draw the game objects, a lot of overdraw will happen. Also the second polygon sense the close z values of the first polygon and not smear. Edge antialiasing hence does not work for flat shaded game objects. You gotta UV map and our Gouraud shade. Also I don’t like this heuristic with the delta z. So when I move close to a wall, edge antialiasing stops? When I look at a steep angle on a game object surface, smearing starts?

Very nice video for such a small channel, very properly produced and it was a good watch. I liked the imagination of teenagers arguing about their consoles, as a teenager, I also was an absolutely hopeless Nintendo fanboy. So much so, that I said and wrote things of highest cringe levels. Today, 25 years later, we truely have other priorities. As feedback for the video: The music didn't fit. I know and love every single one of those tracks, but the fewest of them make good background music for a narration. Reducing the volume a little further could help too.

I remember this coming up, but I had a fairly decent tv and enjoyed the way the game looked. Considering I seen quake and doom and tomb raider on pc with funny looking software rendered graphics, I didn't think much of the criticism with playstations bad looking pixelated textures and jumping textures. They all had their unique quirks. However given that I couldn't play most of my dad's computer games because I got motion sickness from the field of view those games operated at, and this was my first 3d console(I don't count my genesis with sonic 3d or super nintendo with starfox, that game was boring to me after 5 minutes) and it was new and exciting. Seeing mario 64 was breath taking for kids.

Not gonna lie, the Mario without filters looks WAY better than the blurry mess we ended up with. As a kid I also thought that the blurriness was the result of technical limitations of the cartridges (just like the low quality audio samples) but when I got the Expansion Pak and switched some of my games to high resolution with no blur I was blown away, didn't know that cartridge 3D games could look so clean. Of course now I know better but at the time it was the only logical justification for the blur. In blur's defense I guess it does complement the poor quality audio compression that came with the cartridge format. When you have bad audio like that of N64 it kind of goes well with muddier images that really make for a completely distinct feel from the games found on PS1 or Saturn, if the picture was clear and crisp but the audio wasn't it would create a weird dissonance, like when you're watching an old movie that was remastered in 4K but the audio remained the same quality, thus the picture looks almost modern and top notch but the audio doesn't match that standard and it feels super weird, personally I like the whole experience to be consistent so even if one element is low quality then everything else should be brought down to match it.

I love the original aesthetic of the N64. Not "in spite of" but "thanks to" its limitations. The blur is one of the many distinctive features that make the console's graphic and artistic style unique. There is a certain charm in those low-poly models with softened low-res textures that transmit warmth and make you feel at home.

you should have play ff7 when it came out, now it's not very good better play ff6 that's the best final fantasy ever

Nvidia living the N64 dream with their shitty 8 GB GPUs in 2024.

Here's your 64th like for a quality n64 video essay

turned off, it actually looks like the DS, neat!

Paper mario 64 is an rpg game

So I have found out that super Mario 64 is actually a 32 bit game on a 64 bit console.

Loved the video. Please keep up the great work.

I only just discovered ur channel, my friend. Happy to be a new subscriber! 🎉

fuck yeah im your 69th subscriber😎

Oh, how amusing, I was under the assumption I was watching a video of a channel with at least a million subscribers. You're awesome!

Hidden gem alert!

video actually starts at 3:00

was it the hardware FXAA?

8:30 okay, TMEM is like the smallest part on that chip. Edge antialiasing is probably bigger. Is this really needed for speed? Pipeline and more banks! What is even 2 cycle mode for mipmap? Is it a limit of the blender? Would 2 cycle RAM be fast enough.. so more Rows?

Your videos are very great and interesting! 😉 Thanks to you for providing to us such a quality content!

The first three PlayStation consoles are really good. PS4 underwhelmed me but the PS2 and PS3 especially have amazing libraries, definitely something you should check out. That said, as someone not into RPGs at all, I prefer N64 to PS1, especially visually. Those Nearest Neighbor textures that wobbled around as you moved always looked gross to me, even as a kid.

As someone that had a PS1 back when the N64 was at its peak I never thought that was a problem.

Kino

Is it just me or is the mario 64 footage zoomed in a bit? I thought there was more space between the hud and the edge of the screen.

11:40 that's gotta hurt

Nice video bro!

I did not just hear this man slander CRTs being part of the reason the N64 was considered blurry.

wait... are playstation regards UNIRONICALLY saying that not having texture filtering is a GOOD THING????????? the cope is real.

I love Nintendo 64.

Back then you either had extremely blurry graphics or you either had pixelated graphics. Which way western man?

cool video

'Blurry' as the illiterate started to call it is not the correct word to explain the N64 graphics. Nothing looks blurry, here, except for walls and ground textures. The correct word to explain the N64 graphics is 'craggy'. Look it up then come back and watch vid again.

Nope 😂