Nintendo 64
Manufacturer	Nintendo
Type	Video game console
Generation	Fifth generation (64-bit era)
First available	JP June 23, 1996[1] NA September 29, 1996[1] PAL March 1, 1997[1]
CPU	93. A console manufacturer is a company that manufactures and distributes Video game consoles It is also known as a first-party Video game publisher. is a Multinational corporation headquartered in Kyoto Japan founded on Video games were introduced as a commercial entertainment medium in 1971, becoming the basis for an important entertainment industry in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the United The fifth-generation era (more commonly known as the 32 bit era and occasionally after the release of the Nintendo 64, the 64 bit era and more rarely For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Events 1180 - First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan 1305 - The Flemish Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) Events 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) The PAL region is a Video game publication territory which covers Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and varying European countries Events 86 BC - Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army enters in Athens, removing the Tyrant Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar 75 MHz NEC VR4300
GPU	SGI 62. The hertz (symbol Hz) is a measure of Frequency, informally defined as the number of events occurring per Second. is a Japanese multinational IT company headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan. 5 MHz 64-bit RCP
Media	ROM cartridge
System storage	Cartridge battery, Controller Pak
Controller input	Up to 4 Nintendo 64 controllers
Online service	RANDnetDD (Japan only)
Units sold	Worldwide: 32. A ROM cartridge is a removable cartridge that contains ROM devices and commonly Flash memory devices to allow some read-write capability In electronics a battery is a combination of two or more Electrochemical cells which store chemical Energy which can be converted into electrical energy The Controller Pak was the Nintendo 64 's Memory card, comparable to those seen in the PlayStation and other CD-ROM -based Video game The Nintendo 64DD ("DD" being short for "Disk Drive" is an expansion system for the Nintendo 64. This is a list of Video game consoles and Handheld game consoles that have sold or shipped at least one million units 9 million (as of March 31, 2006)[2][3]
Best-selling game	Super Mario 64, 11 million (as of May 21, 2003)[4]
Predecessor	Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Successor	Nintendo GameCube

The Nintendo 64 (ニンテンドウ六四, Nintendō Rokuyon^?), often abbreviated as N64, was Nintendo's third home video game console for the international market. Events 307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. This is a list of Video games that have sold or shipped at least one million copies including the top ten best-selling franchises. is a Platform game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. Events 878 - Syracuse Italy is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES (also called SNES and Super Nintendo) is a 16-bit Video game console that was The, often abbreviated as GCN, is Nintendo 's fourth home Video game console and is part of the sixth generation console era. is a Multinational corporation headquartered in Kyoto Japan founded on Named for its 64-bit processor, it was released on June 23, 1996 in Japan, September 29, 1996 in North America, March 1, 1997 in Europe and Australia, and September 1, 1997 in France. '64-bit' CPUs have existed in Supercomputers since the 1960s and in RISC -based workstations and servers since the early 1990s. Events 1180 - First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan 1305 - The Flemish Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Events 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) Events 86 BC - Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army enters in Athens, removing the Tyrant Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. Events 462 - Possible start of first Byzantine indiction cycle. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. It is notable for being Nintendo's last home console to use cartridges to store games (with Nintendo switching to a proprietary optical format for the GameCube), and for being the first modern home console to come with a controller featuring an analog stick.

The N64 was released with two launch games, Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, plus an extra one in Japan, Saikyō Habu Shōgi. A launch title is a Video game that has been made available to consumers synchronously with its respective Video game console, meaning they are the only available is a Platform game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. is a Video game for the Nintendo 64, released in 1996 along with the launch of the console For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. is a Japanese virtual board game for the Nintendo 64. It was released exclusively in Japan on June 23, 1996. The N64's suggested retail price was US$199 at its launch and it was later marketed with the slogan: "Get N, or get Out!" As of March 31, 2006, the N64 has sold 32. The ( manufacturer's) suggested retail price ( MSRP or SRP) list price or recommended retail price ( RRP) (originally The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been A slogan is a memorable Motto or Phrase used in a Political, commercial, Religious and other context as a repetitive expression of Events 307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. 9 million units worldwide. ^[2][3]

History

The "Ultra 64" logo from Cruis'n USA. Cruis'n USA is an arcade racing game released in 1994 It was developed by Midway Games and published and distributed by Nintendo.

The Nintendo 64 was the culmination of work by Nintendo, Silicon Graphics (SGI), and MIPS Technologies. Silicon Graphics Inc (commonly initialised to SGI, historically sometimes referred to as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) is a company MIPS Technologies Inc ( formerly MIPS Computer Systems, is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of pioneering RISC The SGI-based system design that ended up in the Nintendo 64 was originally offered to Tom Kalinske, then CEO of Sega of America by James H. Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics. Thomas "Tom" Kalinske is an American businessman best known as the president and CEO of Sega of America from 1990 to 1996 A chief executive officer ( CEO) or chief executive is typically the highest-ranking corporate officer ( executive) or administrator is a multinational Video game Software and Hardware development company and a former Home computer Dr James H Clark (born 1944 is a prolific Entrepreneur and former computer scientist SGI had recently bought out MIPS Technologies and the two companies had worked together to create a low-cost CPU/3D GPU combo that they thought would be ideal for the console market. A hardware team from Sega of Japan was sent to evaluate the chip's capabilities and they found faults which MIPS subsequently solved. However, Sega of Japan ultimately decided against SGI's design. ^[5] In the early stages of development, the Nintendo 64 was referred to by the code name "Project Reality". ^[6] This moniker came from the speculation within Nintendo that the console could produce CGI on par with then-current supercomputers. Computer animation Computer-generated imagery (also known as CGI) is the application of the field of Computer graphics or more specifically 3D computer graphics A supercomputer is a Computer that is at the frontline of processing capacity particularly speed of calculation (at the time of its introduction In 1994, the console was given the name Nintendo Ultra 64 in the West. The console's design was shown for the first time in late Spring 1994. The first picture of the console ever shown featured the Nintendo Ultra 64 logo and showed a game cartridge, but no controller. In various types of electronic equipment a cartridge can refer one method of adding different functionality or content (e The final console was identical to this, but with a different logo. When the system together with the controller was fully unveiled in a playable form to the public on November 24, 1995, the console was introduced as the "Nintendo 64" in Japan, contrary to speculation of it being called "Ultra Famicom",^[7] at the 7th Annual Shoshinkai Software Exhibition in Japan. Events 380 - Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995 A trade fair (or trade show) is an exhibition organised so that companies in a specific Industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products service study For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Photos of the event were disseminated on the web by Game Zero magazine two days later. Game Zero Magazine was a US based video game magazine published from 1992 to 1998 (although primary publication stopped in 1996 ^[8] Official coverage by Nintendo followed later via the Nintendo Power website and print magazine. Nintendo Power magazine is a monthly news and strategy magazine formerly published in-house by Nintendo. In February 1995 Nintendo of America announced a delay of Nintendo Ultra 64 until September 1996 in North America. Simultaneously it was announced that Nintendo had adopted a new global branding strategy, calling the console Nintendo 64 everywhere. Subsequently the PAL introduction was further delayed, finally being released in Europe on March 1, 1997. Events 86 BC - Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army enters in Athens, removing the Tyrant Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar ^[1]

During this stage of development two companies, Rareware (UK) and Midway (USA), created the arcade games Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA which claimed to use the Ultra 64 hardware. Rare Ltd (formerly known as Rareware) is a United Kingdom -based video game development company. Midway Games ( (formerly Midway Manufacturing) is an American Video game publisher. Killer Instinct is a Fighting game developed by Rare and published by Midway and Nintendo. Cruis'n USA is an arcade racing game released in 1994 It was developed by Midway Games and published and distributed by Nintendo. In fact, the hardware had very little in common with what was finally released; the arcade games used hard drives and TMS processors, although they were based on the MIPS R4600 CPU. A hard disk drive ( HDD) commonly referred to as a hard drive, hard disk, or fixed disk drive, is a Non-volatile storage device Texas Instruments ( better known in the electronics industry (and popularly as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, USA Killer Instinct was the most advanced game of its time graphically, featuring pre-rendered movie backgrounds that were streamed off the hard drive and animated as the characters moved horizontally. Nintendo dropped "Ultra" from the name on May 1, 1996, just months before its Japanese debut, because the word "Ultra" was trademarked by another company, Konami, for its Ultra Games division. Events 305 - Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman Emperor. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) () is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys Trading cards, Anime, Tokusatsu, Slot machines Ultra Software Corporation was a spinoff company created in 1988 as a subsidiary of Konami of America, in an effort to get around Nintendo of America 's strict licensing The console was finally released on June 23, 1996. Events 1180 - First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan 1305 - The Flemish Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) ^[1]

Market share

The North American launch on September 29, 1996 ended with 500,000 N64 units sold in the first four months. Events 522 BC - Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) ^[9] Benimaru Itoh, a developer for EarthBound 64 and friend of Shigeru Miyamoto, speculated in 1997 that the N64's lack of popularity in Japan was due to the lack of role-playing video games. Mother 3 is a role-playing video game for the Game Boy Advance Handheld game console, developed by HAL Laboratory and Brownie A console role-playing game is a video game genre that has its origin rooted in Video game consoles and includes game mechanics and frequently settings derived ^[10] As of March 31, 2005, the N64 has sold 5. Events 307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. 54 million units in Japan, 20. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. 63 million in the Americas, and 6. The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the Continents of North America and South America 75 million in other regions. ^[11]

Among fifth generation video game consoles, as of 2007, the PlayStation has shipped 102. The fifth-generation era (more commonly known as the 32 bit era and occasionally after the release of the Nintendo 64, the 64 bit era and more rarely The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console 49 million units worldwide, the most of its generation; production had continued until March 23, 2006. Events 1174 - Jocelin, Abbot of Melrose, is elected Bishop of Glasgow. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ^[12][13] The N64 came in a distant second with 32. 9 million units sold,^[2][3] and the Sega Saturn came in third with 9. The is a 32-bit Video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America 5 million units sold. ^[14]

The system was frequently marketed as the world's first 64-bit gaming system. A few years prior Atari claimed to have made the first 64-bit game console with their Jaguar, but instead ran the system off of dual 32-bit chips.

Hardware

The new controller included with Nintendo 64 consisted of 1 analog stick, 2 shoulder buttons, 1 digital cross pad, 6 face buttons, a 'start' button, and one digital trigger (Z). An analog stick, sometimes called a thumbstick, control stick, or occasionally A D-pad (short for directional pad) is a flat usually thumb-operated directional control found on nearly all modern Video game console Gamepads Game It beat the Sega Saturn's analog controller to market by approximately one month. The is a 32-bit Video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America ^[15]

Nintendo 64 chipset: CPU, RCP, and RDRAM.

Central processing unit

The Nintendo 64's central processing unit (CPU) is a MIPS R4300i-based NEC VR4300. MIPS (originally an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) is a RISC microprocessor architecture developed by MIPS Technologies is a Japanese multinational IT company headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan. ^[16] The CPU has been clocked at 93. 75 MHz and connects to the rest of the system through a 32-bit data bus. The range of Integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4294967295 or −2147483648 through 2147483647 using Two's complement encoding In Computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a Computer or between computers VR43045 is a RISC 5-stage scalar in-order execution processor with an integrated floating point unit. Scalar processors represent the simplest class of Computer processors A scalar processor processes one data item at a time (typical data items being integers or In Computer engineering, out-of-order execution, OoOE, is a paradigm used in most high-performance Microprocessors to make use of cycles that A floating point unit (FPU is a part of a Computer system specially designed to carry out operations on Floating point numbers It is a 64-bit processor, in that it has 64-bit registers, a 64-bit instruction set, and 64-bit internal data paths. '64-bit' CPUs have existed in Supercomputers since the 1960s and in RISC -based workstations and servers since the early 1990s. In Computer architecture, a processor register is a small amount of storage available on the CPU whose contents can be accessed more quickly than storage An instruction set is a list of all the instructions and all their variations that a processor can execute However, the cost-reduced NEC VR4300 CPU utilized in the console only has 32-bit buses whereas more powerful MIPS CPUs are equipped with 64-bit buses. ^[16] (In this respect, the N64 CPU is similar to the 32-bit Motorola 68000 which is considered a 16-bit architecture, due to its bus limitation. The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC Microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor ) Many games took advantage of the chip's 32-bit processing mode as the greater data precision available with 64-bit data types is not typically required by 3D games. The precision of a value describes the number of digits that are used to express that value Also 64-bit data uses twice as much RAM, cache, and bandwidth, thereby reducing the overall system performance. ^[17] This was later taken advantage of by emulators such as the UltraHLE and Project64 that had to run on 32-bit PC systems. An emulator duplicates (provides an emulation of the functions of one System using a different system so that the second system behaves like (and appears to UltraHLE is an Emulator allowing games for the Nintendo 64 Game console to be run on a computer Project64 is a Nintendo 64 Emulator for the Windows platform that was first released in 2001 These emulators performed most calculations at 32-bit precision, and trapped the few OS subroutines that actually made use of 64-bit instructions. ^[17]

The CPU has an internal 32 KiB L1 cache but no L2 cache. A kibibyte (a contraction of ki lo bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, established by the International It was built by NEC on a 0. 35 µm process and consists of 4. A micrometre ( American spelling: micrometer; symbol µm) is one millionth of a Metre, or equivalently one thousandth of a Millimetre Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to create chips the Integrated circuits that are present in everyday Electrical and electronic 6 million transistors. In Electronics, a transistor is a Semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals The CPU is cooled passively by an aluminum heatspreader that makes contact with a steel heat sink above. WikipediaNaming Steel is an Alloy consisting mostly of Iron, with a Carbon content between 0 A heat sink (or heatsink) is an environment or object that absorbs and dissipates heat from another object using Thermal contact (either direct or radiant ^[18]

Memory

The final major component in the system is the memory, also known as RAM. The Nintendo 64 was the first console to implement a unified memory subsystem, instead of having separate banks of memory for CPU, audio, and video, for example. The memory itself consists of 4 MiB of RAMBUS RDRAM (expandable to 8 MiB) with a 9-bit data bus at 500 MHz providing the system with 562. A mebibyte (a contraction of me ga bi nary byte) is a unit of Information or Computer storage, abbreviated MiB. Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM (sometimes just called Rambus DRAM or RDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM, designed by the Rambus 5 MB/s peak bandwidth. RAMBUS was quite new at the time and offered Nintendo a way to provide a large amount of bandwidth for a relatively low cost. The narrow bus makes board design easier and cheaper than the higher width data buses required for high bandwidth out of slower-clocked RAM types (such as VRAM or EDO DRAM). However RDRAM, at the time, came with a very high access latency, and this caused grief for the game developers because of limited hardware performance.

Video

The system provides both composite video and s-video through the MULTI-OUT connection on the back. Composite video is the format of an Analog television (picture only signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF Super Video or Separated Video abbreviated S-Video and also known as Y/C is an analog video signal that carries the video data as two separate MultiAV (also labeled "Multi-Out" "AV Multi Out" and "Analog AV Out" is a Nintendo proprietary audio/visual port used in its video game The MULTI-OUT connector was also used on the earlier SNES and later GameCube systems. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES (also called SNES and Super Nintendo) is a 16-bit Video game console that was The, often abbreviated as GCN, is Nintendo 's fourth home Video game console and is part of the sixth generation console era.

Hardware color variations

A Nintendo 64 console and controller in Atomic Orange color.

The standard Nintendo 64 was dark gray, nearly black. A Jungle Green color was first available with the Donkey Kong 64 bundle. (abbreviated as DK 64) is a platformer Video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64. The Funtastic Series used brightly-colored, translucent plastic. There were six different Funtastic Series colors: Fire Orange, Grape Purple, Ice Blue, Jungle Green, Smoke Black, and Watermelon Red. Nintendo released a banana-like Nintendo 64 controller for the debut of Donkey Kong 64 in the United States. The Millennium 2000 controller, available exclusively as part of a Nintendo Power promotional contest, was a special silver controller in the United States. It is the only official Nintendo 64 controller to feature all black buttons. The first ever gold controller was released by a contest from the Nintendo Power magazine as part of a drawing. One was also released with shorter "arms" that for most made it hard to use. In late 1997 through 1998, a few gold Nintendo 64 controller packages were released worldwide; in the United Kingdom there was a limited edition GoldenEye 007 console pack which came with a standard grey console and a copy of Goldeneye. GoldenEye 007 is a 1997 First-person shooter Video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 Video game console, Also, a limited edition gold controller with standard grey console set was released in Australia and New Zealand in early 1998 without a game. This edition was endorsed by an advertising campaign which featured footage of N64 games including Top Gear Rally and ended with Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe wearing the gold controller as a medal around his neck. Nintendo released a gold controller for the debut of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in Japan. is an action-adventure Video game developed by Nintendo 's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 Video game Soon after, bundle packs of the game, controller and gold Nintendo 64 were released for the US and PAL markets. The Pokémon Edition Nintendo 64, with a Pokémon sticker on the left side, included the "Pokémon: I Choose You" video. The Pokémon Pikachu Nintendo 64 had a large, yellow Pikachu model on a blue Nintendo 64. is one of the fictional species of Pokémon creatures from the multi-billion-dollar Pokémon Media franchise &mdasha collection of Video It has a different footprint than the standard Nintendo 64 console, and the expansion port is covered. It also shipped with a unique blue Pokémon controller, and orange in Japan. If you came here to express your personal opinion about Pokémon please go somewhere else The Limited Edition Star Wars bundle, which was available only during time of release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and came bundled with Star Wars: Episode I Racer, is actually the exact same dark gray color as the regular Nintendo 64, and the "Limited Edition" on the box refers to the bundle itself, not the console. Star Wars Episode I Phantom Menace is a 1999 military sci-fi film written and directed by George Lucas. Star Wars Episode I Racer is a racing Video game based on the pod race featured in Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace

Cartridges were usually gray in color, but sometimes occasionally in different colors as well. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Rally Challenge 2000, WWF No Mercy, WWF WrestleMania 2000, Rugrats in Paris, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Madden NFL 2002, Road Rash 64, Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil had black cartridges; Rayman 2, Turok 2, Battletanx: Global Assault, and Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 had green ones (in North America only); Donkey Kong 64, Earthworm Jim 3D, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 had yellow ones; Rocket: Robot on Wheels, Spider-Man (2000 video game), All Star Baseball 2001, and NFL Quarterback Club 2001 had red cartridges; Pokémon Stadium 2 had a gold-and-silver cartridge; The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Collector's Edition) and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask had gold ones; and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Hydro Thunder, Bassmasters 2000, The World Is Not Enough, WCW Backstage Assault, and Madden NFL 2001 had blue ones. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, often called THPS3 or Tony Hawk 3, is a Video game in the ''Tony Hawk's'' series Rally Challenge 2000 is a racing game for the Nintendo 64, it was released in 2000. WWF No Mercy is a Professional wrestling Video game released in 2000 on the Nintendo 64 console and published by WWF WrestleMania 2000 is a Professional wrestling Video game released in 1999 on the Nintendo 64 (N64 console Rugrats in Paris The Movie is a Video game based on the movie of the same name from the Nickelodeon animated series Rugrats Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six is the title of John Clark's position as director of the fictional counter-terrorist unit Rainbow Madden NFL 2002 is an American Football Video game. It features former Minnesota Vikings Quarterback Daunte Culpepper Road rash is a colloquial term used to refer to skin and bone Injury caused by abrasion with road surfaces usually as consequence of cycling Armorines Project SWARM is a futuristic First-person shooter game for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation and Game Boy Color released Turok 2 Seeds of Evil is a First-person shooter Video game for the Nintendo 64, Windows and the Game Boy Color. } Rayman 2 The Great Escape is a platforming Video game. It is considered to have raised standards regarding 3D, level design and Turok 2 Seeds of Evil is a First-person shooter Video game for the Nintendo 64, Windows and the Game Boy Color. BattleTanx Global Assault is a multi-player Video game for the Nintendo 64 (N64 and PlayStation in which players control futuristic Tanks Army Men Sarge's Heroes 2 is the sequel to Army Men Sarge's Heroes. (abbreviated as DK 64) is a platformer Video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64. Earthworm Jim 3D is to date the last console game in the Earthworm Jim series Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, often called THPS2, is the second game in the ''Tony Hawk's'' series. Rocket Robot on Wheels is a Video game for Nintendo 64, developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Ubisoft, released Spider-Man is an Action game based upon the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man, mostly upon his incarnation on the 1994 animated series NFL Quarterback Club 2001 is an American football game for the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast. Pokémon Stadium 2, known as in Japan is a Video game for the Nintendo 64. is an action-adventure Video game developed by Nintendo 's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 Video game is an Action-adventure game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (THPS released as Tony Hawk's Skateboarding in Europe, is a Skateboarding Video game. Hydro Thunder is a powerboat racing game originally an arcade game and later released for the Sega Dreamcast in November 1999 The World Is Not Enough is a First-person shooter Video game based on the James Bond film of the same name. WCW Backstage Assault is a Video game by Electronic Arts. It was the final World Championship Wrestling game to be released before the Madden NFL 2001 is an American football Video game. It is the third in the series to include an NFL player (the first was Madden NFL 99

Accessories

Main article: Nintendo 64 accessories

Programming difficulties

The Nintendo 64 had weaknesses that were caused by a combination of oversight on the part of the hardware designers, limitations on 3D technology of the time, and manufacturing capabilities. This is a list of accessories for the Nintendo 64 Video game console. One major flaw was the limited texture cache of 4 KB. In Computer science, a cache (kæʃ like "cash") is a collection of data duplicating original A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix Kilo -, meaning 1000 is a unit of Information or Computer storage equal to either 1024 This made it extremely difficult to load anything but small textures into the rendering engine, especially textures with high color depth, and was the primary cause of blurry graphics. Color depth. or bit depth, is a Computer graphics term describing the number of Bits used to represent the Color of a single Pixel The small texture limitation caused blurring because developers would stretch these small textures to cover a surface and then the console's bilinear filtering would blur them even more. Bilinear filtering is a Texture filtering method used to smooth textures when displayed larger or smaller than they actually are To make matters worse, because of how the renderer was designed, if mipmapping was used, the texture cache was effectively halved to 2 KB. In 3D computer graphics Texture filtering, MIP maps (also mipmaps) are pre-calculated optimized collections of bitmap images that To put this in perspective, this cache could be quickly filled with even small textures (a 64×64 16-color texture is 2 KB and a 128×64 4 bpp texture is 4 KB). Modern video cards and consoles (2006) frequently deal with 1024 x 1024 8 bpp and larger textures, and have a more flexible texture cache (not always larger). Towards the end of Nintendo 64's lifetime, creative developers managed to use tricks, such as multi-layered texturing and heavily-clamped small texture pieces, to simulate larger textures. Conker's Bad Fur Day is possibly the best example of this ingenuity. Conker's Bad Fur Day is a Nintendo 64 Video game developed and published by Rare, and distributed by Nintendo. Games would often also use plain colored Gouraud shading instead of texturing on certain surfaces, especially in games with themes not targeting realism (e. Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is a method used in Computer graphics to simulate the differing effects of light and colour across the surface of g. , Super Mario 64). is a Platform game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64.

There were other challenges for developers to work around. Z-buffering significantly crippled the RDP's fillrate. In Computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D graphics usually done in Hardware, sometimes in Thus, for maximum performance, managing the z-depth of objects, so objects would appear in the right order and not on top of each other, was put on the programmer instead of the hardware. Most Nintendo 64 games were actually fill-rate limited, not geometry limited, which is ironic considering the great concern for Nintendo 64's low ~100,000 polygon per second rating during its time. In fact, World Driver Championship was one of the most polygon-intense Nintendo 64 games and frequently would push past Sony PlayStation's typical in-game polygon counts. World Driver Championship is an automobile racing Video game. This game also used custom microcode to improve the RSP's capabilities.

The unified memory subsystem of Nintendo 64 was another critical weakness for the machine. The RDRAM had very high access latency and this mostly canceled out its high bandwidth advantage. Direct Rambus DRAM or DRDRAM (sometimes just called Rambus DRAM or RDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic RAM, designed by the Rambus A high latency memory subsystem creates delays in how fast the processors can get the data they need, and how fast they can alter this data. Game developers also said that the Nintendo 64's memory controller setup was fairly poor, and this magnified the situation somewhat. The R4300 CPU was the worst off component because it had to go through the RCP to access main memory, and could not use DMA (the RCP could) to do so, so its RAM access performance was quite poor. Direct memory access ( DMA) is a feature of modern Computers and Microprocessors that allows certain hardware subsystems within the computer to access system There was no memory prefetch or read under write functionality either. In Computer architecture, instruction prefetch is a technique used in Microprocessors to speed up the execution of a program by reducing Wait states

Star Wars: Battle for Naboo's draw distance. Star Wars Battle for Naboo is a Video game from the fictional Star Wars universe

One of the best examples of the benefits of custom microcode on the Nintendo 64 was Factor 5's N64 port of the Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine PC game. Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is a Video game for the Nintendo 64, Microsoft Windows and Game Boy Color based on the character The Factor 5 team wanted the game to run in high resolution mode (640×480) because of the crispness it added to the visuals. The machine was taxed to the limit running at 640×480 so they absolutely needed the best hardware performance possible. Firstly, the Z-buffer could not be used because it alone consumed a huge amount of the console's texture fillrate. To work around the 4 KB texture cache the programmers came up with custom texture formats and tools to help the artists make the best possible textures. The tool would analyze each texture and try to choose the best texture format to work with the machine and look as good as possible. They took advantage of the cartridge as a texture streaming source to squeeze as much detail as possible into each environment, and work around RAM limitations. They wrote microcode for real-time lighting, because the SGI code was poor for this task, and they wanted to have even more lighting than the PC version had used. Factor 5's microcode allowed almost unlimited real-time lighting, and significantly boosted the polygon count. In the end, the game was more feature-filled than the PC version, and unsurprisingly, was one of the most advanced games for Nintendo 64. ^[19]

Factor 5 also showed ingenuity with their Star Wars games such as Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Star Wars: Battle for Naboo, where their team again used custom microcode. Star Wars is an epic Space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas during the 1970s and significantly expanded Star Wars Rogue Squadron is a video game based on the popular movie series Star Wars by George Lucas. Star Wars Battle for Naboo is a Video game from the fictional Star Wars universe In Star Wars: Rogue Squadron the team tweaked the microcode for a landscape engine to create the alien worlds. For Star Wars: Battle for Naboo they took what they learned from Rogue Squadron and pushed the machine even farther to make the game run at 640×480, also implementing enhancements for both particles and the landscape engine. Battle for Naboo enjoyed an impressive draw distance and large amounts of snow and rain, even with the high resolution. ^[20]

Cartridges

Nintendo 64 games were ROM cartridge based. A ROM cartridge is a removable cartridge that contains ROM devices and commonly Flash memory devices to allow some read-write capability Cartridge size varied from 4 MiB (32 Mbit) (i. A megabit is a unit of Information or computer storage abbreviated Mbit (or Mb) e. , Automobili Lamborghini) to 64 MiB (512 Mbit) for Resident Evil 2. For the motor company see Lamborghini. Automobili Lamborghini is a racing Video game by Titus Software Resident Evil 2, known in Japan as, is a Survival horror game by Capcom originally released for the PlayStation in 1998 Some of the cartridges included internal EEPROM or battery-backed-up RAM for saved game storage. EEPROM (also written E2PROM and pronounced e-e-prom or simply e-squared which stands for E lectrically E rasable P rogrammable Otherwise game saves were put onto separate memory cards.

The selection of the cartridge for the Nintendo 64 was a key factor in Nintendo's being unable to retain its dominant position in the gaming market. Most of the cartridge's advantages did not manifest themselves prominently and they were ending up nullified by the cartridge's shortcomings, which turned off customers and developers alike. Especially for the latter, it was costly and difficult to develop for ROM cartridges, as their limited storage capacity constrained the game's content.

Most third-party developers switched to the PlayStation (such as Square and Enix, whose Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest VII were initially pre-planned for the N64), while some who remained released fewer games to the Nintendo 64 (Capcom, with only 3 games; Konami, with 13 N64 games and over 50 to the PlayStation), and new game releases were few and far between while new games were coming out rapidly for the PlayStation. was a Japanese Video game company founded in September 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto. The was a company that produced Japanese Video games and Manga. is a Console role-playing game developed by Square (now Square Enix) and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as the seventh installment in the Dragon Warrior VII, known in Japan as is a Japanese Console role-playing game developed by Heartbeat and published by Enix for the For the original NASA meaning see capsule communicator. is a leading Japanese International developer () is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys Trading cards, Anime, Tokusatsu, Slot machines Most of the N64's biggest successes were developed by Nintendo itself or by second-parties of Nintendo, such as Rareware.

Despite the controversies, the N64 still managed to support popular games such as GoldenEye 007 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, giving it a long life run. GoldenEye 007 is a 1997 First-person shooter Video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 Video game console, is an action-adventure Video game developed by Nintendo 's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 Video game Much of this success was credited to Nintendo's strong first-party franchises, such as Mario and Zelda, which had strong name brand appeal yet appeared exclusively on Nintendo platforms. A media franchise is an Intellectual property involving the characters, setting, and Trademarks of an original work of media (usually is a Fictional character created by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. is a High fantasy action-adventure Video game series created by Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and developed and published The N64 also secured its share of the mature audience thanks to GoldenEye 007, Nightmare Creatures, Perfect Dark, Doom 64, Resident Evil 2, Shadow Man, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Duke Nukem 64, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, Mortal Kombat 4, and Quake II. GoldenEye 007 is a 1997 First-person shooter Video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 Video game console, Nightmare Creatures is a 3D action/adventure Video game released for the Sony PlayStation and PC in 1997 and Perfect Dark is a 2000 First-person shooter Video game for the Nintendo 64 Game console. Doom 64 is a Video game for the Nintendo 64 released by Midway Games in 1997. Resident Evil 2, known in Japan as, is a Survival horror game by Capcom originally released for the PlayStation in 1998 Shadow Man is a Video game developed by Acclaim Studios Teesside and published by Acclaim Entertainment. Conker's Bad Fur Day is a Nintendo 64 Video game developed and published by Rare, and distributed by Nintendo. Duke Nukem 64 is a Nintendo 64 port of the First-person shooter PC ( MS-DOS) Video game Duke Nukem Duke Nukem Zero Hour is a Third-person shooter Video game in the Duke Nukem series developed by Eurocom for the Nintendo 64 Quake II, released on December 9 1997, is a First person shooter computer game developed by Id Software and distributed

In 2001, the Nintendo 64 was replaced by the disc-based Nintendo GameCube. The, often abbreviated as GCN, is Nintendo 's fourth home Video game console and is part of the sixth generation console era.

Nintendo cited several advantages for making the N64 cartridge-based. is a Multinational corporation headquartered in Kyoto Japan founded on ^[21] For example, ROM cartridges have very fast load times in comparison to disc-based games, as contemporary CD-ROM drives rarely had speeds above 4x. A ROM cartridge is a removable cartridge that contains ROM devices and commonly Flash memory devices to allow some read-write capability A Compact Disc (also known as a CD) is an Optical disc used to store digital data, originally developed for storing digital audio CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable This can be observed from the loading screens that appear in many Sony PlayStation games but are typically non-existent in N64 versions. is a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest Media conglomerates with The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console ROM carts were so much faster than the 2x CD-ROM drives in other consoles that developers could stream data in real-time off them. This was done in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, for example, to make the most of the limited RAM in the N64. Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is a Video game for the Nintendo 64, Microsoft Windows and Game Boy Color based on the character ^[19] Also, ROM cartridges are difficult and expensive to duplicate, thus resisting piracy, albeit at the expense of lowered profit margin for Nintendo. The Copyright infringement of Software (also known as software piracy) refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer Profit margin, Net Margin, Net profit margin or Net Profit Ratio all refer to a measure of Profitability. While unauthorized interface devices for the PC were later developed, these devices are rare when compared to a regular CD drive and popular mod chips as used on the PlayStation. A modchip (short for modification chip) is a small electronic device used to modify or disable built-in restrictions and limitations of many popular Videogame consoles Compared to the N64, piracy was rampant on the PlayStation. The cartridges are also far more durable than compact discs, the latter which must be carefully used and stored in protective cases. This makes the cartridges better suited for young children who do not know how to take care of CD-ROMs. It also prevents accidental scratches and subsequent read errors. ^[21] It is possible to add specialized I/O hardware and support chips (such as co-processors) to ROM cartridges, as was done on some SNES games (notably Star Fox, using the Super FX chip). The Super Nintendo Entertainment System or Super NES (also called SNES and Super Nintendo) is a 16-bit Video game console that was Star Fox may refer to one of two Video games Star Fox, a video game published by Mythicon for the Atari 2600 The Super FX is a Coprocessor chip used in select Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES Video game cartridges. ^[21]

ROM cartridges also have disadvantages associated with them. While game cartridges are more resistant than CDs to physical damage, they are sometimes less resistant to long-term environmental damage, particularly oxidation or wear of their electrical contacts causing a blank or frozen screen, or static electricity. Console cartridges are usually larger and heavier than optical discs and hence take up more room to store. They also have a more complex manufacturing processes, which meant that games were usually more expensive than their optical counterparts. The cartridges held a maximum of 64 MB of data, whereas CDs held over 650 MB. As fifth generation games became more complex in content, sound, and graphics, it pushed cartridges to the limits of their storage capacity. The fifth-generation era (more commonly known as the 32 bit era and occasionally after the release of the Nintendo 64, the 64 bit era and more rarely Games ported from other media had to use data compression or reduced content in order to be released on the N64. Extremely large games could be made to span across multiple discs on CD-based systems, while cartridge games had to be contained within one unit since using an additional cartridge was prohibitively expensive (and was never tried). Because of a cartridge's space limitations, full motion video was not usually feasible for use in cut-scenes. Full motion video based games, usually abbreviated as FMV-based games, are Video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV -quality movie or The cut-scenes of some other games used graphics generated by the CPU in real-time. ^[22]

Graphics

Screenshot of Super Mario 64, showing limited texture detail and Gouraud shading (Mario himself). is a Platform game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. Texture mapping is a method for adding detail surface texture or colour to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is a method used in Computer graphics to simulate the differing effects of light and colour across the surface of The trees are two dimensional and always facing the camera.

Graphically, results of the Nintendo cartridge system were mixed. The N64's graphics chip was capable of trilinear filtering, which allowed textures to look very smooth compared to the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation; neither could provide better than nearest neighbor interpolation, resulting in textures that were highly pixelated compared to the N64. Trilinear filtering is an extension of the bilinear Texture filtering method which also performs Linear interpolation between Mipmaps Bilinear The is a 32-bit Video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or informally as PSX) is a 32-bit fifth generation Video game console Nearest-neighbor interpolation (also known as proximal interpolation or point sampling in some contexts is a simple method of Multivariate interpolation In Computer graphics, pixellation (or pixelation in American English is an effect caused by displaying a bitmap or a section of a Bitmap at such a large

However, the smaller storage size of ROM cartridges limited the number of available textures, resulting in games which had blurry graphics because of the liberal use of stretched, low-resolution textures, which was compounded by the N64's 4096-byte limit on a single texture. Some games, such as Super Mario 64, use a large amount of Gouraud shading or very simple textures to produce a cartoon-like look. Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is a method used in Computer graphics to simulate the differing effects of light and colour across the surface of This fit the themes of many games, and allowed this style of imagery a sharp look while hiding the texturing limitations of the cartridge.

Later cartridges, such as Resident Evil 2, featured more ROM space, which demonstrated that N64 was capable of detailed in-game graphics when the media permitted, though this came at an expense. Resident Evil 2, known in Japan as, is a Survival horror game by Capcom originally released for the PlayStation in 1998

Production

This era's competing systems from Sony and Sega (the PlayStation and Saturn, respectively) used CD-ROM discs to store their games. ( SCEI) is a Japanese Video game company specializing in a variety of areas in the video game industry mostly in Video game consoles and is a full is a multinational Video game Software and Hardware development company and a former Home computer These discs are much cheaper to manufacture and distribute, resulting in lower costs to third party game publishers. As a result, game developers who had traditionally supported Nintendo game consoles were now developing games for the competition because of the higher profit margins found on CD based platforms.

Cartridges took much longer to manufacture than CDs, with each production run (from order to delivery) taking 2 to 3 weeks (or more). ^[23] By contrast, extra copies of a CD based game could be ordered with a lead time of a few days. This meant that publishers of N64 titles had to attempt to predict demand for a game ahead of its release. They risked being left with a surplus of expensive cartridges for a failed game or a weeks-long shortage of product if they underestimated a game's popularity.

The cost of producing an N64 cartridge was far higher than producing a CD: one gaming magazine at the time cited average costs of twenty-five dollars per cartridge, versus 10 cents per CD. Publishers had to pass these higher expenses to the consumer and as a result, N64 games tended to sell for higher prices than PlayStation games did. While most PlayStation games rarely exceeded $50, N64 titles could reach $79. 99. ^[24] Sony's line of PlayStation Greatest Hits retailed for $19. 99 each, while Nintendo's Player's Choice value line had an MSRP of $39. 99. In the United Kingdom, prices around the time of introduction for N64 cartridges were £54. 99, and PlayStation games at £44. 99 for new titles.

Cartridge-copy counter-measures

Each Nintendo 64 cartridge contains a so-called lockout chip (similar in spirit to the 10NES) to prevent manufacturers from creating unauthorized copies of games, and to discourage production of unlicensed games. Unlike previous versions, the N64 lockout chip contains a seed value which is used to calculate a checksum of the game's boot code. A checksum is a form of Redundancy check, a simple way to protect the integrity of data by detecting errors in data that are sent through space ( Telecommunications To discourage playing of copied games by piggybacking a real cartridge, Nintendo produced five different versions of the chip. During the boot process the N64 would compute the checksum of the boot code and verify it with the lockout chip in the game cartridge, failing to boot if the check failed. In Computing, booting ( booting up) is a bootstrapping process that starts Operating systems when the user turns on a Computer system Some games, such as Banjo Tooie, perform additional checks while running. Banjo-Tooie is a platform and action-adventure hybrid Video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo in 2000

Games

See also: List of Nintendo 64 games and Player's Choice

The Nintendo 64 game library included a number of critically acclaimed and widely sold games. Wikipedia_talkFeatured_lists#Proposed_change_to_all_featured_lists for an explanation of this and other inclusion tags below -->This is a complete list of all This article is about the series of video games for the retail chain see Player's Choice Video Games. ^[25] The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was critically acclaimed on release and has come top of many polls for best game ever. is an action-adventure Video game developed by Nintendo 's Entertainment Analysis and Development division for the Nintendo 64 Video game Super Mario 64 was the system's best selling title (selling over eleven million copies) and also received praise from critics. is a Platform game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. 1997's GoldenEye 007, was nominated by Marc Russo as one of the greatest games of all time, and, in his words, remains "to this day . GoldenEye 007 is a 1997 First-person shooter Video game developed by Rare for the Nintendo 64 Video game console, . . the finest game I've ever played across any platform or genre. "^[26] Its release was exclusive to the Nintendo 64 system.

References

External links

• Nintendo 64 at Nintendo. com (archived versions at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
• Coverage of the official unveiling of the Nintendo Ultra 64 at the 7th Annual Shoshinkai Software Exhibition, in Japan
• Nintendo 64 at WikiKnowledge
• Nintendo 64 Promotion Video from 1997
• Nintendo 64 at the Open Directory Project