Still don't understand why the N64 wasn't the #1 console of that gen?

[shams]

Shadow)OS said:

shams said:
Lots of reasons:
- at the time, carts were seriously inferior. They were too small, and too expensive.
- the N64 was underpowered. The PSX/PS1 has significantly better polygon throughput - and even though the N64 has "prettier" polygons, with extra work PS1 games were a lot better.
...

N64 strength>PS1 strength.

There are a lot of points to argue against the N64 'failure' (a lot of which I could debate about if I cared enough), but power is not one of them.

Sorry, I seriously don't agree.

I developed games on *both* platforms - and while the PSX had issues (had to do software poly clipping and tesselation for perspective correction, etc) - in terms of "raw" power the PSX could do around double the number of polygons than the N64 did.

The other real issue with the N64 - the texture cache was a whopping 4k. The PSX had a more 'open' architecture, and you could use the RSX RAM for frame buffer, texture cache (etc) - as needed.

The PSX also had a couple of co-processors (MPEG decoder, IO chip) - whereas the N64 had a really "weak" CPU, and it sucked up cycles for music, sound and more.

...

The *core* reason for the failure was definitely the media - but if you look at some of the excellent late-generation PSX games (Spyro was always amazing IMO) they are technically leaps ahead of the N64.

The PSX also had more RAM (something that isn't commonly known) - the RAM was just segmented into system, video, audio (etc) RAM - whereas the N64 had its main bank.

(disclaimer: all these numbers are from memory, and if I make a mistake... don't shoot me :>)