I’m playing Tomb Raider I, II, and III remastered, and you can toggle the graphics between original and remastered, the pixelation in the original is outrageous.
The Nintendo one just looks like I’m not wearing my glasses
The 64 has Anti-aliasing. That is the short explanation.
Also, this explains why PlayStation graphics look like PlayStation graphics.
I honestly think the PlayStation has the better graphics, especially considering it’s older and weaker than the N64. At glorious 240p, I think anti-aliasing is honestly a downside–the CRT mostly does that work already. While the N64 might have better polygons, the PlayStation, in my opinion, renders a better image, with better textures. That’s not even to mention game sizes being several times larger on PlayStation, thanks to CDs.
There is no game on the N64 that looks as good as Final Fantasy IX. Not a single one. IX might not be fully 3D, but the game does respect the hardware it’s on. After all, nobody ever said the SNES had bad graphics for lacking proper 3D. The 2D style could just go so much further on PlayStation. Combine that with FMVs, and I’d struggle to find a game that looks as consistently good as some of the PlayStation’s biggest hits.
The N64 still pushes great graphics, though. I enjoyed my time in Zelda. The games look and play quite well. The impressively 60FPS F-ZERO X has physics that still work great. I still can’t help but feel like it’s just a worse version of modern graphics, while the PlayStation feels like its own aesthetic, and own world. I grew up with modern consoles, and I still enjoy the charm of pre-rendered backgrounds and FMVs compared to what’s being put out now.
“You’re the best looking guy here!”
The N64 is got objectively better graphics - being able to do perspective correction, having actual awareness of the fact that 3D objects have depth (z-buffer) and floating point precision. It’s just extremely harmed by the low storage of the cartridges.
The PS1 can barely do 3D, being forced to calculate polygons but having no idea what to do with them, with warping geometry and textures deeply distorted.
Can you add the Saturn to your comparison?
I think the Saturn has pretty good graphics. Being just a little earlier than the PlayStation, it holds up quite well.
It’s clear in Wipeout gameplay that the PlayStation pulls ahead significantly. Much smoother FMVs, better framerates, better textures, cleaner image. Perhaps slightly slower load times, but with that many wins, it’s hard to complain. On top of that, the PlayStation simply sold far better, and saw higher budget titles which fully took advantage of the hardware.
The PlayStation doesn’t have Daytona USA, though.
PS1 graphics dance though.
Yeah but Coco had round booba whereas Lara and Tawna had triangles so…… check mate liberal. Don’t look at Aya from Parasite 1 and 2 those are exceptions.
I played around with upscaling PS1 games in retroarch last night and I was pleasantly surprised. There are some YouTube videos that talk through the process https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6yDWYeuQ2pI
It can breathe new life into some dated looking games. Highly recommend giving it a try
IMO, that’s the wrong direction. The right direction is to apply some good CRT shaders. Those games were designed for CRT and low resolutions and they can never look great when rendered at higher res. Upscaling works much better for PS2 generation and up.
I didn’t think to experiment with the shaders much, so I’ll give that a shot. I briefly tried the cell shading shader, but that looked way too unnatural for me – but it is neat.
(As an aside, I have my original PlayStation 1 and I really want to snag a real CRT at some point for some true nostalgia.)
I have two real CRTs (a 4" JVC radio TV and a 27" Sylvania), and while none of the existing shaders perfectly capture it, a guy who calls himself “Retro Crisis” on YouTube and Github has some modified CRT shaders that come really, really close.
My only gripe is that he has different shaders per system, rather than a single “this is your CRT so all games will correctly render through this one” shader.
