vh9network buying any electronic from eBay is a waste of money most of the time, a n64 will probably not read cartrages from corrosion or have faulty components
@@dylanhinkel3548 perhaps, you take a chance with anything you buy that might be faulty. But with ebay you are backed with Buyers protection money-back guarantee.
Great video. I was in my teens and was serious into gaming. It was the first system I was interested in learning all the specs. I was also one of the lucky ones that had held of Resident Evil 2 which ran on a 512Mb cart and used the RAM expansion. Was a great port.
You'll love the UltraHDMI. It has a really nice scanline mode that seriously helps to recreate the crt look, and it even has optional alpha-boost to compensate for the darker picture you get while using the mode.
N64 autopsy, I just love having things taken apart breaking things down and looking at them is fascinating to me. I hope that didn't come off as creepy as I realize it sounded. But yup taking things apart is fun.
@@bretwhitten7038 I would say it's the no mind/mouth filter but this is more like no mind/keyboard filter. Which is worse because you have a lot more time to think while you're typing it out to say gee this sounds terrible now that I typed this out.
Cartridges also have an upside of being much more durable. I owned an N64 because my mom was worried about the discs of the PS1. After all discs need to be put back in their casings every time they are used and if scratched become unusable. The cartridges can just be left littered around the room and they would be fine. The N64 itself also was very heavy and durable. We could just dump it alongside bags in the car on vacation and despite many kilo's of weight on it, it would be fine. It's weight also was nice since yanking the controller wouldn't drag it off the shelf.
So excited to see that HDMI video! I've been wanting to do it on mine but I'm nervous around a soldiering iron lol. Great video btw, one of my favorite systems of all time!
I wish I knew the ins and outs of consoles like you do. Being able to take them apart and clean them so they run like new is the best! The N64 is my childhood system, glad to see it’s still out there and still running strong 💪🏻
@@Kylora2112 Eh, maybe not EVERY Nintendo console; the NES front-loader was a terrible idea that caused problems pretty frequently, the Wii U had a whole host of hardware problems, and the original DS's hinges were very... breakable...
@@pilcrow182 idk I have 2 Wii U's and a ds lite And I play them constantly and never had a issue with them. They are quality products but weren't durable and should be kept away from young children and adults who don't take care of things. Raging and throwing controllers... you probably shouldn't own video games.
I remember programmers complaining about the lack of memory, for both audio & texture. I wonder what the console would have been like if those two had their own dedicated memory. Nintendo bought a company promising 500mhz processors, but had to downclock it down to 93 due to them promising a $250 launch price. Seeing how small the motherboard is, it makes more sense for them to put the memory card in the controller instead. Thanks for the teardown & analysis.
Memory was not the issue. It was the cashes which were very small. Cashes are seperate memories that you store things in needed instantly. Nintendo made them quite small since they figured the super fast main memory would be able to do it just fine. The RAM also was very laggy which didn't help. The Audio didn't lack for memory but unlike the Playstation it couldn't play sampled sound and it had a completely unique sound engine. The N64 also had no video decompression hardware which made cutscene's difficult to implement.
@@harrydamour7564 maybe you like to be clickbaited others dont. Btw if you subcribe to my channel u wil get to see the best video's ever! They have all the topics u like.
Also, just FYI, only the big aluminum U-shaped bar is really a heatsink, all the other metal that surrounds the motherboard is actually for static protection and EMI radiation protection (mostly to keep the system from causing interference, but also to keep it from receiving interference).
I was incredibly lucky to get in on one of the very early buys of the Ultra HDMI mod. Took 17 minutes of reloading to get through and place my order back then... Switching to a pre-order style of reservation was a wise decision! Hehe!
DatGameCollector not always... the NES frontloader was an awful idea... I mean it was a good idea from a PR perspective because they wanted it to look like a VCR so it would sell easier after the Atari game crash... but that thing was a nightmare mechanically
Imma Wake the screen on my gamepad went bad, battery last like 15 minutes before dying, wi fi keeps disconnecting, it constantly stops reading the discs no matter how clean they are, mind you this is already my second Wii U, firts one got a red flashing light of death. So yeah, Wii U was kinda crappy.
Imma Wake Well there could be several reason for that u may have.... A. Got a faulty device from the manufacturing line due to what ever incident may have happened with it!? B. You bot it used and its previous owner may not have taken very good care of it! C. did things too it out of your own incompetence ex.(dropped it a lot, spilled a liquid on it, kept it in a spot or covered it in/at a place where it over heated, it just died!
Look these emulators do not have better graphics and sound or Game play than the original system, of a CARTRIDGE MONSTER, this is the only warnings, I have for true classic NINTENDO Lover's !
I turned my N64 console into dock - Standing/charging station for my Nintendo switch. I was able to keep the USB ports, both port connectors are in P1 and P2 for wire controllers. Oh yea, and i painted it Blue/gold.
It's kind of nice to see someone so obviously enthusiastic over this hardware. (I myself was a late adopter-only after buying a GameCube, my first Nintendo). The N64 remains my second favorite console of all time (edged out only by the GameCube). A couple of things: the RCP was the memory controller for the system's main memory, and not actually that much of a bottleneck. The CPU still has DMA to the RAMBUS memory, with peak 562.5 MB/s access. (Which is insane for a games console. Most PeeCees didn't see improvements like this until the late 90s/00s-but of course, contemporary SGI hardware like the O2 and Octane was actually faster than that for the time.) The PlayStation was also notoriously hard to program, but the N64 was probably worse, given the 4K texture memory limitation imposed by the Reality CoProcessor. Later developers seemed to figure out that streaming textures from the cart worked a bit better. So let's talk about that softness in the video. This (like all consoles of the time) was DESIGNED to be used with CRTs. Output ranged from 240p to 480i (depending upon memory), so going from there via composite or s-video to a flat panel display was obviously going to make things seem blurry on modern displays. The Ultra HDMI kit promises to fix a great deal of that, but even so, it's not going to be a panacea-the only way to have an optimal viewing experience with any of these consoles is a high-quality CRT, and nothing can really change that. I don't believe the SNES was faster than the Genesis, which used a 68000 cpu. But of course, all of that is irrelevant when it comes to playing: it's the developer's job to make you feel like whatever you are using is the fastest, most responsive hardware for your game. A tall order at times for the N64, but it really did surpass the PSX in every conceivable way technically. Console gamers should not care about the power of their consoles, only the quality of their games. I often wonder about the alternate timeline where SGI offered the Reality project to SEGA and they accepted it instead of rejected it. What would have happened to Nintendo then?
"Hard" is a relative term. When people say the PS1 was easy to develop for they mean it was easier than the competition; that being the Saturn and the N64. I do also think things have changed and the faster speed of the N64 was a much bigger deal than it would have been now. With today's hardware if the machine isn't fast enough you can just downgrade the graphics. Back then however you couldn't downgrade the graphics as they would no longer be recognizable as the thing they were supposed to represent. An object needs to have enough shape and detail to be recognizable as that thing.
I grew up with this generation. And I would have never guessed that the N64 has more powerful hardware. I was like 9 so I didn't understand the specs. Just shows how important games are to how a console is percived. And I have no memory of seeing much ports of games between the systems either, all games I can think of was exclusive. So I never played a game on both systems, so my comparison between the consoles, were based a lot on the difference between their game libraries. I think both the Spyro and Crash and trilogies made a huge difference in makeing me and my friends perceive the PS1 as more advanced than the N64. Because those games were just groundbreaking. The were both tons of fun to play and cutting edge. I have so many memories of just stopping the game and thinking wow, just stunned by how impressed I was with those games. From small details to big things. They were just filled with things I had never seen in any other game. The only game I was as impressed with on the N64 was ocarina of time. Never really though about just how much the games affected how I received the performance of the hardware
The n64 may have had raw polygon power but it had very poor texturing capabilities. The saturn and ps1 had much more vram for textures to make up for the lower polygon count. Textures are more important in my opinion than shading which the n64 prioritized shading
I still think the cartidrige size was the major issue, because once the 64MB cartridge was released games like Resident Evil 2 and Conker where possible.
@@dfranzner Also, it didn't help that the cartridges themselves were very expensive and very proprietary because Nintendo was the only place that was making them.
When you’re cleaning classic systems, cartridges or computers, nothing beats Windex and a paper towel. Seriously that stuff will make them like new and it doesn’t damage the plastic. The only system I don’t recommend using it on is the Atari Jaguar because Atari used a foil sticker that they didn’t laminate and it takes the ink off. It doesn’t hurt laminated stickers though. On a side note, the Ultra HDMI mod is amazing and well worth the investment. I also recommend Dremeling the corner blocks off the cartridge slot to make the system region free. Then import Sin and Punishment because that game rocks!
N64 was dubbed the "Nebelwerfer 64" in Germany due to its low viewing distance in most games (literal translation would be a "fog/mist thrower"). I never considered it to be a technically advanced machine. What I do like is that we are finally full circle with storage these days. It started with cartridges (can be seen as flash based storage), then went optical-mechanical and magnetic-mechanical and now we are back to flash at the highest end. :D
That's weird because that was the big advantage the N64 had over the Playstation. The higher clocked components could handle more objects being on screen at the time.
The N64 was my second console I got it in the early 2000s after I got kinda bored of my SNES and I absolutely loved my 64 it sits in my closet now but one of these days I think I’m gonna pull it out and play it for old times sake
I play my retro systems on an old tube (CRT) tv 😁. You can get them for pretty cheap online (like ebay or the craigslist/facebook marketplace) and there is nothing better than playing old games on the original screens they were intended for.
My local GoodWill stores here in western S. Carolina, and over the river in GA have them all day long for $5 each, and if you can't lift a 13in - 19in CRT, and you are not old AF, or disabled, then you got some issues, and need to be hitting the treadmill, and lifting some weights, or doing power bands, because I'm my 5ft 4in tall, and 141lbs, and can lift my big ass 27in Panasonic CRT from the early 00's.
Lol, we got 10 hrs on Madden, Golden Eye, and 1080 easily on the weekends in one sitting. Great episode. Thanks! :) Watching while hanging laundry now.
a truly awesome videoI've been watching your videos and it's my new passion I'm going to teach myself to solder, send away for a game bit I'm going to open up my 64 and clean them pins off at the cartridge thank you for what you do Spawn wave
Informative! I always feel saddened that I never purchased a Nintendo 64 🙁 but is the N64 Classic is on the horizon? I need to snag Gamebits screwdriver and clean out my Super Nintendo and cartridges
Awesome man! You gotta snag NES Classic! I’m sure Nintendo will make a transition to sale all out their NES to Nintendo 64. I can’t wait! Just have to stand outside of GameStop from 5AM until they open to get my N64 Classic
Nice! Thanks for the tear down. I LOVE my N64. I use an S-video cable to an HDMI upscaler adapter to pull some great visuals from the system on my HDTV. Hi Rez games like Rogue Squadron look really good. Thanks for the info about cleaning the cartridge slot. I will go ahead and do that on mine.
The N64 was a rough system to own if it was your only console that generation. As a kid, I loved Nintendo, so I refused to get a PS1. But even as I sat online reading over what would EVENTUALLY come out months/years away, I felt pretty screwed over months of long stretches with no game releases while my friends had new stuff to play weekly. Even when a great release hit, it was hard knowing that was my (and every N64 owner's) ONLY option for the next few months. There were no real "options" to choose from. You had to get whatever Nintendo/Rare made, or else you knew that was it for the foreseeable future. If you didn't want another Mario Party, too bad. You're getting Mario Party. If you didn't want a Mario Sports game, too bad, Mario Golf is all there is. If you wanted a good fighting game, well...you're out of luck until Mario gets one...what's that you say? In a year he will, in a game called Smash Bros? Sweet! You like RPG's? Ok, for real, you get 4 total...with the only 2 good ones (Ogre Battle & Paper Mario) coming out the month PS2 released or later... Seriously, it took the N64 until October 2000, the same month the PS2 came out, to get its first good RPG in Ogre Battle. Coming from the SNES era as a kid, can you believe that?! If it weren't for Mario 64 on day 1, followed by a scattered handful of all timers like Ocarina & Goldeneye for us N64 kids to thump our chest about, that generation really made me reevaluate being a 1-system gamer and a fanboy from that point on. Still love Nintendo, but I will never be the biased homer blindly defending a gaming company again. /rant
Yeah, for gamers the PS1 was the better one. The N64 was more a toy than anything. A really fun and impressive toy but a toy nonetheless. I was 9 when I got it so it wasn't mine but my parents'. The reason they chose the N64 was mainly due to it's 4 player option since I have 3 siblings. Also it's far, far more durable. Cartridges are far more durable than CD's and the console itself, due to all those heatsinks was extremely sturdy and heavy enough that yanking the controller doesn't pull it off the shelf. This made it a big advantage since we could take it with us on vacation and the like.d other multiplayer games. After all our mom insisted on sharing and it's hard to get into a big involved story if every other hour you have to stop because your little sister wants to play Mario Kart with you. We didn't even own many exclusively single player games. We didn't have Zelda or Banjo. I didn't even play any RPG's until I bought my own first system which was the GBA. I also came from the SNES and after the constant hassle and fighting as to who get's to play the 4 controllers were great. It also just had many more games for us to play together. The SNES had mainly single player titles, the only one that we had that was multiplayer was super mario kart. So most of the time only 1 person could play. My little brother was becoming old enough to play and now it was not only me and my two sisters fighting for the SNES but my little brother as well. For me the N64 cemented me as a Nintendo loyalist.
Hello, I was wondering if you feel that an N64 would see an improvements if its memory was increased. I saw a breakdown of an N64 and it shows two 2MB RDRAM chips. Then the memory expansion pack has a 4MB RDRAM chip. For a total of 8MB for the special games that require the Memory expansion pack. So if one was to buy 2 extra Memory expansion packs, take out the memory chips and put them in place of the 2MB chips in the console there be a total of 8MB in the console and 4MB more in the expansion pack to make 12MB. Would that make the games play or graphics better?
The sound processor ("RSP") is part of the GPU ("RCP"), not the CPU, and the issue wasn't its access to memory bandwidth, but that it was actually just another weaker CPU which ran the low-level graphics operations on the GPU proper ("RDP") as well as sound. That's why for instance in Mario Kart 64, once you go above a 2-player race, most of the power of the RSP is being used for graphics to draw the 3 or 4 players' views, so they shut off the music to reduce the load on that unit.
The NEC RISC CPU was actually powerful at that time. The real problem is the high latency Rambus RAM that gives the CPU a harder time to access/process data.
Sure, but he was addressing why the sound processor was weak, and he said it was because it was within the CPU and suffers from the same memory access problems as the CPU does. It isn't, and the RAM latency is not a primary factor in the RSP's performance.
The sound processor(midi synthesizer) actually sucked so some of the developers(notably factor 5) compress audio in software which is an additional burden on the CPU.
The "midi synthesizer" was just a program running on the RSP, the extent to which it sounded good or bad had much more to do with the cartridge size (and therefore sample size) than any issues of hardware power. Plus, I'm not confident that the audio decompression was always done on the CPU rather than the RSP.
Spawnwave, would it be worth buying a 64 from the gamestop website. I pretty much watched all of your videos on refurbished systems and was just wondering your opinion on this particular system. Thanks for your time.
Question on the ram. I notice it looked like the Ram is one 4mb chip, where some of the N64 have two 2mb chips. So could a 4mb chip out of the expansion card be put net to the one that is in the picture you are showing here? If so, will it help the system?
Very compelling point! When Nintendo 64 came out I was 11 years old. I can recall N64 being in Walmart game demo area and I would play until parents said, "it was time to go." I could never get acclimated with their analog stick. It always felt unnatural to me. As time when along, my friend owned a N64 and we would play Star Fox 64, Mario 64, NFL Blitz, NBA Hangtime. I've always like playing arcade style games on N64 because it was no load time and felt like a true arcade game. Bottom line, I'm a purest! I tried doing emulations with the SNES. It didn't feel authentic to me, so I bought SNES and games whatnot. But I am open to delve into emulations. This might be a dumb question, but are there any emulations I can get without the feeling my computer with get viruses or in "trouble"?
I think this mod gets more praise than it deserves, it's really hard to get, not all people know how to install it, the distribution and availability is a huge problem, this product is not consumer friendly at all, because it's the work of some clever guy in the U.S. No matter if it's a great mod, availability is also important, its not enough for a product to just exist and be good.
Earlier carts basically became part of the addressable memory space (if you've ever opened an N64 cart, there's a large RF shield surrounding the game program ROMs-that's because the cartridge bus-while slower than the RAMBUS memory-was still really fast-264 MB/s). Modern carts are more like external chip media like SD cards or USB sticks, so the game program and data must first be copied into memory. I think the last system to make use of the old style of cart handling was probably the Game Boy Advance.
I don't remember my N64 ever freezing after 10hrs because there were many times I left it on with Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, 007 Golden, Star Fox 64, & Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask. Just because I ended up likeing the music.
Another thing you forgot to mention, is that because the RDRAM ran through the GPU, there was only a 32-bit between to interface between memory and CPU. So while the CPU was a 64-bit processor, it could only execute 32-bit code from RAM.
Forget 1994. If the N64 had had a disc drive - even if carts were also an option - that changes everything. If you actually look at PS1 vs N64, the 64 came on very, very strong at first. It was the loss of 3rd parties, signalled by FFVII, that caused sales to nosedive. The PS1 was just a step above a paper tiger before all that happened. If Nintendo had just been smarter about the CD jump, they most likely would have won.
Sweet Brew - Which one? There were many, major hardware revisions on both fat & slim models. V2 & V3 fat PS2's were built completely different from V4's. V9 had progressive scan DVD & built-in ir sensor for the remote control. I never owned or worked on a slim. They didn't support hdd, so no deal.
Rusty Shackleford the first gen of slim did have a hard derive add on but was removed from later iterations to save money on production. It wasn't a well known add on as most didn't see a need for it
I'm happy with my ultra hdmi mod, got my watermelon pink system modded with a pink everdrive to match, its basically a 64 classic it's just it's original size lol
Sometimes I have to fiddle or “mace” with the ac power cable when plugged in to the system to display the picture and audio ... what would be the fix for that because I will attempt my first full cleaning of the system
The REAL reason the PSX beat the N64 was the game format. Companies preferred CD’s vs Carts for obvious cost and storage. Best example, Final Fantasy 7 was originally an N64 game but ended up being too big and expensive for carts so the project moved over to the PS. (Funny thing is later on the N64 got a port of Resident Evil 2 with all the content and little compromise on a cart!)
@@NYCJoeBlack Probably would have happened if the N64DD came to market, which is probably what it was designed for. As it stands, the largest N64 cart is 512 megabits (64 megabytes), while the PS1 could do 650 MB CDs.
GGigabiteM - I still feel like with some compromise and the compression techniques from those skillful folks at Capcom/Angel Studios, FFVII could have been done. When I first heard the news, my heart was broken. Nintendo systems were my go to for games and seeing games like Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear, and Resident Evil on the SONY PlayStation, that bothered me at the time.
The 5th generation marked a major shift in gaming consoles. The N64 playstation and small army of others was the first of many generations of consoles to have plenty fewer members than the previous gen, and every year after that had less and less up until the most recent gen has 4 main contenders, and only 2 notable flops. The first few generations had 20+ flops each, and 5-10 notable successes. Such a sad but important shift. Long gone are the days of plentiful cheap crap, here are the days of sparse expensive crap.
WOW - those heatsink metal plates were no joke !!! After making the most powerful system for that generation, seems like Nintendo decided to go under power with the following systems (Gamecube, DS, Wii, Switch) and they are back making a profit. Just wish they would get their online services in order.
Do you think they'll make an N64 Classic? How would they even do it? There would be some third party problems, but I think the biggest obstacle would be the controllers. For the Super Nintendo Classic, you get 2 controllers. The N64 supported 4 controllers respectively, and the controllers were pretty big, with a lot of the games requiring accessories to go with the controller. Would they include all 4 controllers with the N64 Classic? Of course not. I just really can't see it happening... but I'd buy it if it did.
There was only ONE reason some friends of mine had a Playstation: You could copy the games! At this time you could buy one game every few months, so copying them was much „better“.
Correct; in North America the PS1 was released in September 1995 and the N64 was released in September 1996. It's very basic knowledge, which is why I'm surprised Spawn Wave made such a glaring mistake. :P
Ready for the N64 Classic! :D
I need to get a gamebit driver because my n64 stopped working I know it is because it is really dirty.
You can buy these old things for $25 on ebay last I checked a few years ago.
@Universe Tech Hate to break it to you, but the OG n64 was a "toy" as well.
vh9network buying any electronic from eBay is a waste of money most of the time, a n64 will probably not read cartrages from corrosion or have faulty components
@@dylanhinkel3548 perhaps, you take a chance with anything you buy that might be faulty. But with ebay you are backed with Buyers protection money-back guarantee.
I remember unwrapping my N64 on Christmas morning back in ‘96. I still have it, still play it, and still love it
The real question is do you still smell it?
@@jcherrax occasionally. Still tastes the same too
@@mindofmyown333 your the real one! 🙌🙏
Taken apart while wearing a Super Nintendo shirt. Fitting.
Great video. I was in my teens and was serious into gaming.
It was the first system I was interested in learning all the specs.
I was also one of the lucky ones that had held of Resident Evil 2 which ran on a 512Mb cart and used the RAM expansion. Was a great port.
Actually its 64MB
And by 512MB they mean 512 megaBITS, not megaBYTES! (Yea its kinda confusing ik.)
@@LennyQUMFIF Correct.
I wrote 512Mb and not 512MB
You'll love the UltraHDMI. It has a really nice scanline mode that seriously helps to recreate the crt look, and it even has optional alpha-boost to compensate for the darker picture you get while using the mode.
N64 autopsy, I just love having things taken apart breaking things down and looking at them is fascinating to me.
I hope that didn't come off as creepy as I realize it sounded. But yup taking things apart is fun.
I have the transparent grape color, I can see it's insides.
SpaceTurtle 0167 why did you say this
@@bretwhitten7038
I would say it's the no mind/mouth filter but this is more like no mind/keyboard filter.
Which is worse because you have a lot more time to think while you're typing it out to say gee this sounds terrible now that I typed this out.
Its amazing how we went from cartridges in the 80s/90s to CD/DVD/BluRay and we're getting back to cartridges again with the Switch, Ah nostalgia.
Cartridges also have an upside of being much more durable. I owned an N64 because my mom was worried about the discs of the PS1. After all discs need to be put back in their casings every time they are used and if scratched become unusable. The cartridges can just be left littered around the room and they would be fine.
The N64 itself also was very heavy and durable. We could just dump it alongside bags in the car on vacation and despite many kilo's of weight on it, it would be fine. It's weight also was nice since yanking the controller wouldn't drag it off the shelf.
So excited to see that HDMI video! I've been wanting to do it on mine but I'm nervous around a soldiering iron lol. Great video btw, one of my favorite systems of all time!
Talk about a throw back. I remember when they were calling it Ultra 64. I remember others were calling it Ultra Nintendo. LOL
ultra nintendo entertainment system < was 1st thing i heard it called pre-launch everyone was calling it unes then it released as Nintendo64 lol
I wish I knew the ins and outs of consoles like you do. Being able to take them apart and clean them so they run like new is the best! The N64 is my childhood system, glad to see it’s still out there and still running strong 💪🏻
The console of my childhood :D
Silver Runes ps2 childhood :D
Hahaha always gonna be the N64 for me
Same, n64 is my first video game console I played Along with the Sega genesis
Man I love my 64. Got one the first year it came out and still works great.
Even if you don't like N64: the Console was build with quality
Basically every Nintendo console. The SNES is a friggin' tank, and so is the GameCube.
@@Kylora2112 Eh, maybe not EVERY Nintendo console; the NES front-loader was a terrible idea that caused problems pretty frequently, the Wii U had a whole host of hardware problems, and the original DS's hinges were very... breakable...
@@pilcrow182 idk I have 2 Wii U's and a ds lite And I play them constantly and never had a issue with them. They are quality products but weren't durable and should be kept away from young children and adults who don't take care of things. Raging and throwing controllers... you probably shouldn't own video games.
There's lots of games I haven't played
It's cheap plastic. I don't know what you're talking about.
My Sunday just got better I loved the N64 can't wait for the classic lol
LOL!
I remember programmers complaining about the lack of memory, for both audio & texture. I wonder what the console would have been like if those two had their own dedicated memory. Nintendo bought a company promising 500mhz processors, but had to downclock it down to 93 due to them promising a $250 launch price. Seeing how small the motherboard is, it makes more sense for them to put the memory card in the controller instead. Thanks for the teardown & analysis.
Memory was not the issue. It was the cashes which were very small. Cashes are seperate memories that you store things in needed instantly. Nintendo made them quite small since they figured the super fast main memory would be able to do it just fine. The RAM also was very laggy which didn't help.
The Audio didn't lack for memory but unlike the Playstation it couldn't play sampled sound and it had a completely unique sound engine. The N64 also had no video decompression hardware which made cutscene's difficult to implement.
Cashes or Caches?
A little bit misleading. People might think you are actually using a prototype version of the n64 by the title.
@ me too :/
Stop complaining bitches
@@harrydamour7564 maybe you like to be clickbaited others dont.
Btw if you subcribe to my channel u wil get to see the best video's ever!
They have all the topics u like.
What brand of Autism would make someone think that?
@@lordkrythic6246 Brand? You'll have to eleborate on that, what do you mean by "brand" ?
Looks around “what just happened” freaking amazing l love your sense of humor😂
Ocarina of Time
007 Goldeneye
Two of the best games ever made imo
Also, just FYI, only the big aluminum U-shaped bar is really a heatsink, all the other metal that surrounds the motherboard is actually for static protection and EMI radiation protection (mostly to keep the system from causing interference, but also to keep it from receiving interference).
I love you're video's you are a amazing person btw I subed
I was incredibly lucky to get in on one of the very early buys of the Ultra HDMI mod. Took 17 minutes of reloading to get through and place my order back then... Switching to a pre-order style of reservation was a wise decision! Hehe!
richfiles you’re so lucky, I want one badly i love my N64. Playing it on my hd tv instead of breakin out the crt would be a dream.
Nintendo always builds quality hardware.
DatGameCollector not always... the NES frontloader was an awful idea... I mean it was a good idea from a PR perspective because they wanted it to look like a VCR so it would sell easier after the Atari game crash... but that thing was a nightmare mechanically
Except the Wii u
the system may have sucked but it was still pretty well manufactured!
Imma Wake the screen on my gamepad went bad, battery last like 15 minutes before dying, wi fi keeps disconnecting, it constantly stops reading the discs no matter how clean they are, mind you this is already my second Wii U, firts one got a red flashing light of death. So yeah, Wii U was kinda crappy.
Imma Wake Well there could be several reason for that u may have....
A. Got a faulty device from the manufacturing line due to what ever incident may have happened with it!?
B. You bot it used and its previous owner may not have taken very good care of it!
C. did things too it out of your own incompetence ex.(dropped it a lot, spilled a liquid on it, kept it in a spot or covered it in/at a place where it over heated, it just died!
Awesome video man, I just finally snagged a SNES mini finally from my local Walmart , I hope too get 64 mini someday soon whenever it launches.
Talk to your local manager about updates on when this product will be in stores, be the first to snatch it up. 🎮
^this post needs elaboration immediately
Look these emulators do not have better graphics and sound or Game play than the original system, of a CARTRIDGE MONSTER, this is the only warnings, I have for true classic NINTENDO Lover's !
@@demonology2629 u wot m8? Try fixing that sentence.
I turned my N64 console into dock - Standing/charging station for my Nintendo switch.
I was able to keep the USB ports, both port connectors are in P1 and P2 for wire controllers.
Oh yea, and i painted it Blue/gold.
wow thats awesome
nowonmetube maybe in the future, but you can check it out on FB just search "Zelda Universe"
I had the expansion pack i had to get it for perfect dark.
When one of these can take a shotgun and still work, you know it’s built like a tank
It's kind of nice to see someone so obviously enthusiastic over this hardware. (I myself was a late adopter-only after buying a GameCube, my first Nintendo). The N64 remains my second favorite console of all time (edged out only by the GameCube).
A couple of things: the RCP was the memory controller for the system's main memory, and not actually that much of a bottleneck. The CPU still has DMA to the RAMBUS memory, with peak 562.5 MB/s access. (Which is insane for a games console. Most PeeCees didn't see improvements like this until the late 90s/00s-but of course, contemporary SGI hardware like the O2 and Octane was actually faster than that for the time.)
The PlayStation was also notoriously hard to program, but the N64 was probably worse, given the 4K texture memory limitation imposed by the Reality CoProcessor. Later developers seemed to figure out that streaming textures from the cart worked a bit better.
So let's talk about that softness in the video. This (like all consoles of the time) was DESIGNED to be used with CRTs. Output ranged from 240p to 480i (depending upon memory), so going from there via composite or s-video to a flat panel display was obviously going to make things seem blurry on modern displays. The Ultra HDMI kit promises to fix a great deal of that, but even so, it's not going to be a panacea-the only way to have an optimal viewing experience with any of these consoles is a high-quality CRT, and nothing can really change that.
I don't believe the SNES was faster than the Genesis, which used a 68000 cpu. But of course, all of that is irrelevant when it comes to playing: it's the developer's job to make you feel like whatever you are using is the fastest, most responsive hardware for your game. A tall order at times for the N64, but it really did surpass the PSX in every conceivable way technically. Console gamers should not care about the power of their consoles, only the quality of their games.
I often wonder about the alternate timeline where SGI offered the Reality project to SEGA and they accepted it instead of rejected it. What would have happened to Nintendo then?
"Hard" is a relative term. When people say the PS1 was easy to develop for they mean it was easier than the competition; that being the Saturn and the N64.
I do also think things have changed and the faster speed of the N64 was a much bigger deal than it would have been now. With today's hardware if the machine isn't fast enough you can just downgrade the graphics. Back then however you couldn't downgrade the graphics as they would no longer be recognizable as the thing they were supposed to represent. An object needs to have enough shape and detail to be recognizable as that thing.
haha, LOVE these 'taking apart' videos, they're awesome, wearing the 'Super Nintendo' shirt while doing this one in particular was hilarious!
Was that a pine needle at 16:07 ?! Hahah with that grime and dirt I wouldn’t be surprised lol
I grew up with this generation.
And I would have never guessed that the N64 has more powerful hardware. I was like 9 so I didn't understand the specs.
Just shows how important games are to how a console is percived.
And I have no memory of seeing much ports of games between the systems either, all games I can think of was exclusive. So I never played a game on both systems, so my comparison between the consoles, were based a lot on the difference between their game libraries.
I think both the Spyro and Crash and trilogies made a huge difference in makeing me and my friends perceive the PS1 as more advanced than the N64.
Because those games were just groundbreaking. The were both tons of fun to play and cutting edge. I have so many memories of just stopping the game and thinking wow, just stunned by how impressed I was with those games.
From small details to big things. They were just filled with things I had never seen in any other game.
The only game I was as impressed with on the N64 was ocarina of time.
Never really though about just how much the games affected how I received the performance of the hardware
The n64 may have had raw polygon power but it had very poor texturing capabilities. The saturn and ps1 had much more vram for textures to make up for the lower polygon count. Textures are more important in my opinion than shading which the n64 prioritized shading
I still think the cartidrige size was the major issue, because once the 64MB cartridge was released games like Resident Evil 2 and Conker where possible.
@@dfranzner Also, it didn't help that the cartridges themselves were very expensive and very proprietary because Nintendo was the only place that was making them.
When you’re cleaning classic systems, cartridges or computers, nothing beats Windex and a paper towel. Seriously that stuff will make them like new and it doesn’t damage the plastic. The only system I don’t recommend using it on is the Atari Jaguar because Atari used a foil sticker that they didn’t laminate and it takes the ink off. It doesn’t hurt laminated stickers though.
On a side note, the Ultra HDMI mod is amazing and well worth the investment. I also recommend Dremeling the corner blocks off the cartridge slot to make the system region free. Then import Sin and Punishment because that game rocks!
N64 was dubbed the "Nebelwerfer 64" in Germany due to its low viewing distance in most games (literal translation would be a "fog/mist thrower"). I never considered it to be a technically advanced machine. What I do like is that we are finally full circle with storage these days. It started with cartridges (can be seen as flash based storage), then went optical-mechanical and magnetic-mechanical and now we are back to flash at the highest end. :D
That's weird because that was the big advantage the N64 had over the Playstation. The higher clocked components could handle more objects being on screen at the time.
I need to clean my cartridge slot on my N64. Appreciate the video. The one thing I know is N64 can last a long time. Thanks for the small tips.
The N64 was my second console I got it in the early 2000s after I got kinda bored of my SNES and I absolutely loved my 64 it sits in my closet now but one of these days I think I’m gonna pull it out and play it for old times sake
I play my retro systems on an old tube (CRT) tv 😁. You can get them for pretty cheap online (like ebay or the craigslist/facebook marketplace) and there is nothing better than playing old games on the original screens they were intended for.
Tony12097 Lol But them CRT TVs are heavy asf tho
Soul Glo Moving them could be seen as a good workout
get good!
My local GoodWill stores here in western S. Carolina, and over the river in GA have them all day long for $5 each, and if you can't lift a 13in - 19in CRT, and you are not old AF, or disabled, then you got some issues, and need to be hitting the treadmill, and lifting some weights, or doing power bands, because I'm my 5ft 4in tall, and 141lbs, and can lift my big ass 27in Panasonic CRT from the early 00's.
How much can u lift bra!?
Loved this console and great video as always
Lol, we got 10 hrs on Madden, Golden Eye, and 1080 easily on the weekends in one sitting. Great episode. Thanks! :) Watching while hanging laundry now.
I have a 2003 made Panasonic CRT planning to keep it for another 20 years
Sir, I really enjoy all your channels. You are looking big, by that I mean your arms brother.
I miss those days playing n64 with my cousins and some of my friends
I hate that when i try to skip ahead youtube skips me backwards over and over
Love Tech Wave. Keep it up!
5th gen was crazy. 3DO/Jaguar/PS1/Saturn/N64/PC-FX/FM Towns Marty etc.
a truly awesome videoI've been watching your videos and it's my new passion I'm going to teach myself to solder, send away for a game bit I'm going to open up my 64 and clean them pins off at the cartridge thank you for what you do Spawn wave
Ayyyy get home from toomanygames and i already got a new spawnwave video to watch lets gooooo
Informative! I always feel saddened that I never purchased a Nintendo 64 🙁 but is the N64 Classic is on the horizon? I need to snag Gamebits screwdriver and clean out my Super Nintendo and cartridges
Many are pretty sure it is. I just got myself an SNES classic edition and plan to get an NES one when they come back out in a week.
I hope for an N64 classic.
Awesome man! You gotta snag NES Classic! I’m sure Nintendo will make a transition to sale all out their NES to Nintendo 64. I can’t wait! Just have to stand outside of GameStop from 5AM until they open to get my N64 Classic
R. James Taylor II Buy a cheap CRT & N64.
Mattias Forelli I intend to
Nice! Thanks for the tear down. I LOVE my N64. I use an S-video cable to an HDMI upscaler adapter to pull some great visuals from the system on my HDTV. Hi Rez games like Rogue Squadron look really good. Thanks for the info about cleaning the cartridge slot. I will go ahead and do that on mine.
The N64 was a rough system to own if it was your only console that generation. As a kid, I loved Nintendo, so I refused to get a PS1. But even as I sat online reading over what would EVENTUALLY come out months/years away, I felt pretty screwed over months of long stretches with no game releases while my friends had new stuff to play weekly.
Even when a great release hit, it was hard knowing that was my (and every N64 owner's) ONLY option for the next few months. There were no real "options" to choose from. You had to get whatever Nintendo/Rare made, or else you knew that was it for the foreseeable future.
If you didn't want another Mario Party, too bad. You're getting Mario Party. If you didn't want a Mario Sports game, too bad, Mario Golf is all there is. If you wanted a good fighting game, well...you're out of luck until Mario gets one...what's that you say? In a year he will, in a game called Smash Bros? Sweet! You like RPG's? Ok, for real, you get 4 total...with the only 2 good ones (Ogre Battle & Paper Mario) coming out the month PS2 released or later...
Seriously, it took the N64 until October 2000, the same month the PS2 came out, to get its first good RPG in Ogre Battle. Coming from the SNES era as a kid, can you believe that?! If it weren't for Mario 64 on day 1, followed by a scattered handful of all timers like Ocarina & Goldeneye for us N64 kids to thump our chest about, that generation really made me reevaluate being a 1-system gamer and a fanboy from that point on. Still love Nintendo, but I will never be the biased homer blindly defending a gaming company again.
/rant
Yeah, for gamers the PS1 was the better one. The N64 was more a toy than anything. A really fun and impressive toy but a toy nonetheless.
I was 9 when I got it so it wasn't mine but my parents'. The reason they chose the N64 was mainly due to it's 4 player option since I have 3 siblings. Also it's far, far more durable. Cartridges are far more durable than CD's and the console itself, due to all those heatsinks was extremely sturdy and heavy enough that yanking the controller doesn't pull it off the shelf. This made it a big advantage since we could take it with us on vacation and the like.d other multiplayer games. After all our mom insisted on sharing and it's hard to get into a big involved story if every other hour you have to stop because your little sister wants to play Mario Kart with you. We didn't even own many exclusively single player games. We didn't have Zelda or Banjo.
I didn't even play any RPG's until I bought my own first system which was the GBA.
I also came from the SNES and after the constant hassle and fighting as to who get's to play the 4 controllers were great. It also just had many more games for us to play together. The SNES had mainly single player titles, the only one that we had that was multiplayer was super mario kart. So most of the time only 1 person could play. My little brother was becoming old enough to play and now it was not only me and my two sisters fighting for the SNES but my little brother as well.
For me the N64 cemented me as a Nintendo loyalist.
Love my Ultra hdmi kit. You are gonna have a great time installing it. Flux is your friend.
“Ultra Nintendo 64”
Wut?
It’s either the Nintendo Ultra, the codename, or Nintendo 64, the name of the product
Hello, I was wondering if you feel that an N64 would see an improvements if its memory was increased. I saw a breakdown of an N64 and it shows two 2MB RDRAM chips. Then the memory expansion pack has a 4MB RDRAM chip. For a total of 8MB for the special games that require the Memory expansion pack. So if one was to buy 2 extra Memory expansion packs, take out the memory chips and put them in place of the 2MB chips in the console there be a total of 8MB in the console and 4MB more in the expansion pack to make 12MB. Would that make the games play or graphics better?
The sound processor ("RSP") is part of the GPU ("RCP"), not the CPU, and the issue wasn't its access to memory bandwidth, but that it was actually just another weaker CPU which ran the low-level graphics operations on the GPU proper ("RDP") as well as sound. That's why for instance in Mario Kart 64, once you go above a 2-player race, most of the power of the RSP is being used for graphics to draw the 3 or 4 players' views, so they shut off the music to reduce the load on that unit.
The NEC RISC CPU was actually powerful at that time. The real problem is the high latency Rambus RAM that gives the CPU a harder time to access/process data.
Sure, but he was addressing why the sound processor was weak, and he said it was because it was within the CPU and suffers from the same memory access problems as the CPU does. It isn't, and the RAM latency is not a primary factor in the RSP's performance.
The sound processor(midi synthesizer) actually sucked so some of the developers(notably factor 5) compress audio in software which is an additional burden on the CPU.
The "midi synthesizer" was just a program running on the RSP, the extent to which it sounded good or bad had much more to do with the cartridge size (and therefore sample size) than any issues of hardware power. Plus, I'm not confident that the audio decompression was always done on the CPU rather than the RSP.
Sauraen - Do you work in the video game industry?
I love this type of videos ,it's so entertaining to watch, amazing job.
That 2 kilobytes of texture cache was amazingly low
I got in on the Ultra HDMI pre-order a couple weeks ago. Now I just need to find a decent installer.
How about you swap out the aluminum plates with copper ones and replace the thermal paste with liquid metal?
Awesome video! FYI, You need anti-static tools. Toothbrushes can kill sensitive components.
Spawnwave, would it be worth buying a 64 from the gamestop website. I pretty much watched all of your videos on refurbished systems and was just wondering your opinion on this particular system. Thanks for your time.
Get on eBay, give your money to another gamer rather than gamestop
Question on the ram. I notice it looked like the Ram is one 4mb chip, where some of the N64 have two 2mb chips. So could a 4mb chip out of the expansion card be put net to the one that is in the picture you are showing here? If so, will it help the system?
Putting the springs back in are super hard. Wish you would have showed that part more in depth. Besides that great video.
Yeah it was a 93.75MHz console, PS One with 33 MHz and the Saturn running at 28MHz.
Very compelling point! When Nintendo 64 came out I was 11 years old. I can recall N64 being in Walmart game demo area and I would play until parents said, "it was time to go." I could never get acclimated with their analog stick. It always felt unnatural to me. As time when along, my friend owned a N64 and we would play Star Fox 64, Mario 64, NFL Blitz, NBA Hangtime. I've always like playing arcade style games on N64 because it was no load time and felt like a true arcade game. Bottom line, I'm a purest! I tried doing emulations with the SNES. It didn't feel authentic to me, so I bought SNES and games whatnot. But I am open to delve into emulations. This might be a dumb question, but are there any emulations I can get without the feeling my computer with get viruses or in "trouble"?
I always loved the N64 design looks awesome.
I think this mod gets more praise than it deserves, it's really hard to get, not all people know how to install it, the distribution and availability is a huge problem, this product is not consumer friendly at all, because it's the work of some clever guy in the U.S. No matter if it's a great mod, availability is also important, its not enough for a product to just exist and be good.
I’ve had my N64 for 21 years still works great (Knock on wood)
You should shave the cart slot when you take it apart again so you can play ntsc-j cartz
Awesome video! Thanks!
If the switch uses cartridges then why the loading?
Earlier carts basically became part of the addressable memory space (if you've ever opened an N64 cart, there's a large RF shield surrounding the game program ROMs-that's because the cartridge bus-while slower than the RAMBUS memory-was still really fast-264 MB/s). Modern carts are more like external chip media like SD cards or USB sticks, so the game program and data must first be copied into memory.
I think the last system to make use of the old style of cart handling was probably the Game Boy Advance.
I don't remember my N64 ever freezing after 10hrs because there were many times I left it on with
Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, 007 Golden, Star Fox 64, & Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask.
Just because I ended up likeing the music.
Does the revision only work with HDMI? If you can still get a cleaner picture even using composite cables, it would be neat to see a comparison.
That was awesome. Still got mine plugged in on my tv. Now i've noted that besides the blur, the screen seems to be darker. Any thoughts on that?
Another thing you forgot to mention, is that because the RDRAM ran through the GPU, there was only a 32-bit between to interface between memory and CPU. So while the CPU was a 64-bit processor, it could only execute 32-bit code from RAM.
i remember a magazine where the wii was called the gamecube revolution
My beginning , my first gaming console
Forget 1994. If the N64 had had a disc drive - even if carts were also an option - that changes everything. If you actually look at PS1 vs N64, the 64 came on very, very strong at first. It was the loss of 3rd parties, signalled by FFVII, that caused sales to nosedive. The PS1 was just a step above a paper tiger before all that happened. If Nintendo had just been smarter about the CD jump, they most likely would have won.
Do you think you could do a teardown of the PS2?
I'd love to see what's inside that!
Sweet Brew - Which one? There were many, major hardware revisions on both fat & slim models. V2 & V3 fat PS2's were built completely different from V4's. V9 had progressive scan DVD & built-in ir sensor for the remote control. I never owned or worked on a slim. They didn't support hdd, so no deal.
Rusty Shackleford the first gen of slim did have a hard derive add on but was removed from later iterations to save money on production. It wasn't a well known add on as most didn't see a need for it
2:49 literally any thrift store ever
Great video as always man! LOVE THESE! DID YOU EVER TAKE APART A SATURN? Also, who the hell dislikes these videos?! You heathens.
I'm happy with my ultra hdmi mod, got my watermelon pink system modded with a pink everdrive to match, its basically a 64 classic it's just it's original size lol
The heatsink looks completely in mine that odd
Sometimes I have to fiddle or “mace” with the ac power cable when plugged in to the system to display the picture and audio ... what would be the fix for that because I will attempt my first full cleaning of the system
You should do a teardown of the Wii with Wiimote and Wii U with Gamepad
The REAL reason the PSX beat the N64 was the game format. Companies preferred CD’s vs Carts for obvious cost and storage. Best example, Final Fantasy 7 was originally an N64 game but ended up being too big and expensive for carts so the project moved over to the PS. (Funny thing is later on the N64 got a port of Resident Evil 2 with all the content and little compromise on a cart!)
Ryuujin1078 - I always imagined what FFVII would have looked like completed on the Nintendo 64.
@@NYCJoeBlack Probably would have happened if the N64DD came to market, which is probably what it was designed for.
As it stands, the largest N64 cart is 512 megabits (64 megabytes), while the PS1 could do 650 MB CDs.
GGigabiteM - I still feel like with some compromise and the compression techniques from those skillful folks at Capcom/Angel Studios, FFVII could have been done. When I first heard the news, my heart was broken. Nintendo systems were my go to for games and seeing games like Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear, and Resident Evil on the SONY PlayStation, that bothered me at the time.
he already mentions this in the video, even mentions FF7 too.. What is your point?
Resident evil 2 is a short ass game tho.
I actually did the Scart RGB mod on one of these bad boys (yes, had to find one of specific revision)
So, how about that HDMI video? :)
Really hoping the N64 Classic has a working cartridge slot.
6:02 then why is spawn wave purple !?
Are you going to record the N64 HDMI mod install when you get it?
The 5th generation marked a major shift in gaming consoles. The N64 playstation and small army of others was the first of many generations of consoles to have plenty fewer members than the previous gen, and every year after that had less and less up until the most recent gen has 4 main contenders, and only 2 notable flops. The first few generations had 20+ flops each, and 5-10 notable successes. Such a sad but important shift. Long gone are the days of plentiful cheap crap, here are the days of sparse expensive crap.
I have a generic expansion pack that has the same exact design as the original except the motherboard is bigger and has two ram chips
WOW - those heatsink metal plates were no joke !!! After making the most powerful system for that generation, seems like Nintendo decided to go under power with the following systems (Gamecube, DS, Wii, Switch) and they are back making a profit. Just wish they would get their online services in order.
Do you think they'll make an N64 Classic? How would they even do it? There would be some third party problems, but I think the biggest obstacle would be the controllers. For the Super Nintendo Classic, you get 2 controllers. The N64 supported 4 controllers respectively, and the controllers were pretty big, with a lot of the games requiring accessories to go with the controller. Would they include all 4 controllers with the N64 Classic? Of course not. I just really can't see it happening... but I'd buy it if it did.
Are you from New Mexico??? Cuz I think you used to work at GameStop?
There was only ONE reason some friends of mine had a Playstation: You could copy the games!
At this time you could buy one game every few months, so copying them was much „better“.
You are the best kind of nerd. I love you.
I love how much you love this.
Ps1 had only a one year head start.. at least in the US and Europe.
Correct; in North America the PS1 was released in September 1995 and the N64 was released in September 1996. It's very basic knowledge, which is why I'm surprised Spawn Wave made such a glaring mistake. :P
You can have a N64 or a PS1 which would you choose right now?
Nintendo Player N64 all day, I still play mine from time to time.
Hunter Magill I only have to home consoles hooked up my Switch with botw and my n64 with oot and MM all I need
N64
Nintendo Player Hell yeah I love my switch, botw is one of my favorite games of all time. I have 250 hours played haha.
N64. Both systems are awesome but N64 was better.
Seems like Spawn has a thing for big heatsinks...
Sauraen big heat sinks means high power