History of the Nintendo 64: Was it a SUPER COMPUTER?!

being a pretty avid gamer both retro and modern I do own most of Nintendo's consoles in my collection from the original NES to the Super Nintendo and GameCube and the switch could even be my favorite console of all time but there is one line that Nintendo fans have been using for the last decade or so and that is that Nintendo don't compete on specs usually used in defense of their consoles against rabid Xbox and PlayStation fanboys but this wasn't always the case in fact there was a time when Nintendo's new system was the hottest tech in the game and promised to bring a super computer into your bedroom the story of the console that ended up being named the Nintendo 64 is possibly the most interesting of all of Nintendo systems and arguably the most hyped and ambitious of the fifth console generation now I first heard about Nintendo's upcoming wonder system by watching UK gaming TV shows in the early 90s like games master and that influenced after the 16-bit consoles started to look a bit long in the tooth and early fifth gen systems like the 3do and Jaguar had started to appear a big hype began for the upcoming super consoles details emerged about the very impressive Sony Playstation and Sega's new console the Saturn but Nintendo's new system seemed to be quite mysterious but what about the other Japanese games giant Nintendo well there's still no official word about their super console the odds are 64 although we have managed to track down which rather tachi photograph of it the ultra 64 coin up game killer instinct was sheduled to beat the first game released with the whole machine but because of the delay that's been canceled and replaced by you'll never guess yes killer instinct to all news about this in November when the old 64 is finally unveiled to a waiting world at the Japanese computer trade show the console was codenamed project reality and initially the only thing we knew about Nintendo's new console was that they were working with the mighty Silicon Graphics and the power was going to be out of this world Silicon Graphics were the hottest name in computer-generated imagery in the early 90s with their high-end systems famously being used for graphics and effects on movies like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park their reality engine 3d graphics architecture was made for their high-end crimson and onyx supercomputers originally designed to be used in digital studios or universities for running simulations this system could do some for the time very impressive effects in real time for a big price seeing the rapidly growing market for 3d video games SGI wanted to work with the console manufacturer to partner on high-end new home games console originally speaking to Sega the deal fell through when according to former Sega of America president tom kalinske it was rejected by Sega of Japan SGI then went to Nintendo and were met with a much warmer reception and Project Reality was born the original hype suggested that Nintendo and SGI we're going to perform some kind of miracle and bring the power of the reality engine to a home console called the ultra 64 that would retail for about 250 dollars the demos they showed look jaw-dropping for the time but as the console hardware wasn't actually made yet they were running on silicon graphics high-end 3d onyx multiprocessor workstations this demo was called performer Atlantis and was actually uploaded to the internet as a CD image and a guy called bands Icahn made this video in 2012 showing these videos running on a real indigo to impact machine I'll put a link to his full video and the ISO file in the video description just in case you've got a spare SGI workstation lurking in your attic the ultra 64 hardware wasn't finished at this stage but that didn't stop Nintendo demoing it publicly and showing off graphics running on very expensive SGI machines often running at 1024 by 768 resolution I actually remember hearing stories of journalists at trade shows checking out these demos being very impressed and then looking behind a curtain or under a desk and seeing a 250 thousand dollar SGI workstation running the demo the height machine was going into overdrive I remember reading articles about how the ultra 64 would essentially be able to render a Toy Story movie in real time now despite the demos running on expensive SGI systems the real ultra 64 console would run a CPU based on the mips r4000 family of high-end workstation CPUs only needing much less resources just 0.5 watts of power and costing only 40 dollars to make the original plan was to have an arcade system based on the technology ready for 1994 with the home console following a year later one of the first companies who were developing for the ultra 64 was British game studio rare now of course rare were already familiar with silicon graphics hardware having used them for the stunning pre-rendered graphics in Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo in fact are one of our recent panels for our podcast the retro hour we heard some amusing stories of race time running SGI hardware I mean this was one of the incredible things that Chris and Tim they made a real leap of faith and they invested heavily not only in the new the latest software also the latest Hardware all the Indies and things that the the SGI machines silico graphics that these machines were hugely expensive and they were quite rare and literally the only a place that had more of these machines was Pixar which were doing a little thing called Toy Story at the time so whilst they were developing Toy Story we're doing the this the same rendering technique and turning into video games and one quite funny story is that at one point the Ministry of Defense had to contact rare to say why do you have all these beasts basically supercomputers or seal building and you know basically like a a bunker a secret lair in the middle of the countryside are you playing to try and take over a third world country right making video games reproduced the 1994 arcade classic killer instinct which proudly boasted it would be available in the home the next year unfortunately due to the consoles delay the game actually was reworked for the Super Nintendo rather than the ultra 64 and we had to wait until Killer Instinct 2 renamed Killer Instinct gold on the home system there were lots of rumors that the arcade was actually running on the ultra 64 Hardware probably helped by the fact that the logo appeared on the title screen unfortunately the system missed its 1995 release due to technical and catalog issues it turned out that Nintendo wanted the problems ironed out and also needed to have a decent range of games available when the system finally went on sale I remember being a kid in 1995 and that then when you're at school a year felt like a hell of a long time not helped by the fact that 1995 was a huge year for video games the PlayStation and the Sega Saturn both flooded the market and lots of gamers who had been patiently waiting for the ultra 64 instead decided to buy one of the available systems but the hype machine didn't die down and eventually a year later on June 23rd 1996 the ultra 64 now renamed to just Nintendo 64 was launched in Japan and it was a very impressive system but it turned out maybe not quite as impressive as we've been led to believe with all of those pre-rendered ultra smooth and nations and those logos on those really expensive arcade machines another arcade title that claimed to run on the ultra 64 hardware was cruisin USA by Williams which when it did eventually arrive on the home system did look somewhat lower resolution and more limited in lots of places and was actually pulled from the launch lineup by Nintendo for not meeting their strict quality standards the reason for this it turned out is because the arcade wasn't actually running the same hardware as we eventually got at home the arcade ultra 64 system ran on an R 4,600 CPU developed by quantum effect design that was also used in the SGI indie workstation whereas the n64 had a custom variant of the R 4200 CPU that was aimed at the embedded market called the VR 4300 clocked at a very fast for the time 93 point 75 megahertz plus the killer instinct arcade Ranna for hard disk had a different CPU didn't have the reality coprocessor that was present in the home console and the graphics were actually mostly pre-rendered now admittedly the n64 console was a very impressive home system and was more capable of 3d than any other console out there at the time including the playstation twinned with the VR 4300 cpu was a custom chip codenamed our CP n us standing for reality coprocessor nintendo ultra 64 there are actually two processors in the package which take care of the n64 graphics and audio including another our 4000 based processor which is where the real power of the console lies the reality coprocessor was developed by SGI and manufactured by NEC using state of the art 350 nanometer CMOS technology which they just introduced in 1994 it's clocked at sixty two point five megahertz and contains a whopping 2.6 million transistors and if you are interested in the full specs and operations of the reality coprocessor there is a great document on dragon minded comm that I'll link to in the video description despite the fact that it was a very capable home console there were some limitations on the system including a tiny texture cache of just four kilobytes this made life very difficult for developers who wanted to load large high color textures into the rendering engine and it's partly thanks to this that we get the blurry vision effect on textures on the n64 but this really was a home console that retailed for just 199 dollars when it's released in America and 250 pounds here in the UK and while admittedly it wasn't as powerful as those demos they initially showed that ran on expensive SGI workstations or even the arcade boards it still was a technical marvel for the price and it really was a Silicon Graphics developed machine that you could sit under your TV and that in itself makes it one of the coolest consoles ever in my opinion and if you've enjoyed this video just a quick heads-up that I do a podcast about retro gaming every Friday available from the retro our comm or wherever you normally get your podcast from recently we've done some really interesting episodes including baleen the emulator that brought PlayStation games to the PC and the Dreamcast we got the inside story with developer Randy Linden and this week the full story of the company who saw the future too soon general magic and while you on YouTube if you've liked this vid you'll probably enjoy these ones as well thank you for watching I'll see you next time

Channel: Dan Wood

Views: 560,169

Keywords: nintendo 64, nintendo 64 history, silicon graphics, sgi, Launch of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo Silicon Graphics, Super Mario 64 Launch, Nintendo 64 in 1996, Classic Gaming Quarterly, lgr, dan wood, n64 games, history of nintendo 64, nintendo, retro games, retro gaming, ultra 64, nintendo ultra 64, project reality nintendo

Id: a4SxPDQcG_k

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 30 2019