The fith time is a charm? Videogame consoles from the 5th generation

So yes, I'm finally going to talk about 5th generation consoles. However, I plan this thread to be really encompassing, so be patient and wait for your favorite console to appear. I'll be following chronological order and there is a lot of ground to cover before I mention the PSX or the N64 .

FM Towns Marty (February 1993)



The FM Towns Marty is the console version of the Fujitsu FM Towns , a Japanese 16/32-bit computer that used a PC architecture but with custom sound and graphics chips. It was sold in Japan only from 1989 to 1997. Originally it was designed going to be a closed hardware to play multimedia (God, how I hate that word) titles and a few games, but with each iteration became closer and closer to PC clones.

On the technical side, the FM Towns computers were quite quirky. Originally they had 386DX CPUs, 1-2 Mb. RAM and a CD drive mounted vertically. Harddrives were optional, but not essential. The computer would boot up from CD, and use a flopy drive for savegames and other uses. The graphic hardware allowed for resolutions from 320x240 to 640x480, and colors from 16 to 32.768. The sound hardware was also notable, supporting CD audio and FM synthesis.

The FM Towns saw an opening in the market competing against the PC-98 from NEC. This other PC-like machine got hold of up to the 70% of the Japanese computer market thanks to being better suited than the IBM PC to the Japanese alphabet and keyboard, but had limited graphics and sound. Ultimately, the FM Towns lost much of its uniqueness by adopting DOS/V (a DOS variant with native Japanese support) and Fujitsu eventually moved to producing PC clones.

As for the FM Towns Marty , it's supposed to be compatible with FM Towns games up to 1993 (new titles might have compatibility issues) and also has a small library of exclusive titles. There's even a FM Towns Car Marty variant four use in cars (!).

For western users, the FM Towns is better known for its arcade and enhanced PC ports. Chase HQ and Turbo Out Run are likely the best home versions of those games, and the older crowd must love the enhanced Prince of Persia and Indiana Jones / Monkey Island versions with CD music. The rest of its library is composed of Japanese RPG, strategy titles and some hentai titles.


Prince of Persia

The best ways of emulating the FM Towns (the Towns Marty is too limited to be worth emulating) are emulators UNZ and Tsugaru . I personally prefer UNZ , but new users might find Tsugaru easier to use. In both cases you'll need the computer BIOS, which you can get elsewehere.

If graphic adventures is all you want to try, the program DREAMM (Aaron Giles' emulator for LucasArts and Lucasfilm games) is able to run several of them. And the same can be said for ScummVM .


Genocide Squared


Turbo Out Run

 

A friend suggested to me that I should start collecting for FMT, but last time I've checked prices for games I'm interested in are insane.

Emulation definitely helps, though.

 

Amiga CD32 (September 1993)



The CD32 was the second console by Commodore based on the Amiga hardware. It was marketed as the first 32-bits console ever, although technically speaking the FM Towns Marty came before.

Just like the previous Commodore console, the CDTV , was essentially an A500 with a CD-ROM drive, the CD32 is basically an A1200 with a CD unit and the chip needed to control it, which Commodore called the Akiko .

The CD32 came at a critical moment for Commodore. The release of the Amiga A600 in 1992 was a fiasco, and the sales of PC clones weren't enough to compensate for the losses, and the many users who moved towards PC and Macintosh computers. The attempts to modernize the Amiga line with the AGA models weren't completely sucessful either. The new Amiga models were expensive, and no rival for the PC clones and their new 3D games like Wolfenstein 3D or Doom .

The release of the CD32 was the final chance for Commodore to avoid bankrupcy, but arrived too late. So late in fact that although it made it to many countries it couldn't be officially sold in the USA. There a court order demanding Commodore to pay their debts before releasing their new machine prevented the release. Instead, American stores ordered their units from other countries, and Commodore finally had to file for bankruptcy in April 1994.

The CD32 is not a bad console. It's a true 32-bits system with a powerful 2D hardware. What it lacked was a more interesting game library (most games are enhanced Amiga games with CD Audio and FMV thrown in) and true 3D capabilities, which would become key for this fifth generation of consoles. Apart from that, it was competing against consoles by already established manufacturers like Sega and Nintendo. Before being discontinued in April 1994 it sold around 100,000 units, mostly in Europe.

Inside the plastic case, the CD32 is mostly identical to an Amiga A1200 computer . It includes:

- A Motorola 68EC020 CPU @ 14 Mhz. It's a cheaper version of the 68020.
- 2 Mb of RAM.
- The same AGA graphic chipset. It's capable of showing graphics from 320×200 to 1280×400 with 256 colors in indexed mode or 262,144 colors in HAM-8 mode.
- Sound: Four 8-bit PCM channels, capable of playing sound in stereo and 28 Khz.

Third party addons were available that would transform the CD32 into a full fledged Amiga A1200 , but Commodore didn't release any of their own. They didn't want the CD32 and the A1200 to compete against each other.

The CD32 is also compatible with most of the CDTV games library.

The CD32 console is best emulated through either WinUAE or FS-UAE . In both cases we'll need the Kickstart ROM and the Extended ROM from a real console, which are easily found in ROM collections.

WinUAE is the better option if you just want to give the system a spin:






Banshee


Akira

FS-UAE on the other hand supports most WHDLoad game packages. WHDLoad is an Amiga utility that allows pretty much every Amiga game to be played from the harddrive. This includes many CDTV and CD32 versions of games.

 

I'd like to have at least a Mega Drive and a SNES, because I feel emulation is not remotely the same as having your own set, but between prices and the problems to connect older consoles to modern TVs I've given up a long time ago.

Suff like the FM Towns ot a X68000 must be harder to get. I just checked to make sure, and there's somebody selling a X68000 near my hometown. 1100E, not counting monitor or keyboard.

 

3DO Interactive Multiplayer (October 1993)



The 3DO was an attempt by three Asian manufacturers (Panasonic, Sanyo and LG Goldstar) to gain traction in the 32-bit videoconsole market. They had a good product, with great system especifications, but elevated prices and a game library without Sega or Nintendo exclusives contributed to its failure. The internet claims it sold between 1,30 and 2 million units until its discontinuation in late 1996.

Internally, the 3DO used a 32-bit RISC ARM60 @ CPU 12.5 MHz and 2 Mb. RAM + 1 Mb. VRAM. The graphics department had two dedicated video co-processors @ 25 MHz clock rate, able to produce graphics at 640×480 with 16 or 24 bit color depths and 9-16 million pixels per second. Finally, it could output sound in Stereo, 16-bit and with 44.1 Khz. It also supported Dolby Surround.

But all of this came at a price. To be exact, $699 at the time of its relase. Which made it three times as costly as a Mega Drive or SNES, which were still around, and twice the price of the still to be released Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation. Prices went as low as $299 by 1995, but by then it was evident the console didn't have as many hits as its competitors, which contributed to its downfall.

As we said before, the consola had zero Nintento or Sega titles. Instead, it depended on exclusives and ports from other systems. Among the exclusives we can mention The Need For Speed, which was a great showcase for the system... but would be released for PC the next year with better graphics, or Crash 'n Burn, which was a launch title and often included with the console.


Crash 'n Burn

The ports from other platforms are plentiful: Alone in the Dark, Dragon's Lair, Doom, Flashback, Samurai Shodown...


Dragon's Lair


Alone in the Dark

But of course, one could play most of those on a PC, which also had other uses.

Regarding emulation, the main emulators for the system are Phoenix (a Russian multi-emulator, but with an English translation available) and 4DO. Both are pretty easy to use and require a system BIOS to work. The correct files will produce this logo when loaded:



After this my first step was to try The Need for Speed:



I have to admit I prefer 4DO, though.


Flashback

 

Oh, God. Do I really have to? I mean, making these mini-guides about 5th generation consoles was my idea, and nobody asked for them. And nobody either said I had to cover *every* system, I only have myself to answer to.

Alright, alright. Let's go with the introduction speech.

There are good consoles, mediocre consoles, awful consoles, and extremely awful consoles. And then there's the...

Atari Jaguar (November 1993)



Many moons ago we left American manufacturer Atari "enjoying" the tepid reception of its theird-generation console, the Atari 7800. That was an 8-bit machine, and it's likely that Atari fans were surprised when Atari didn't release any 4th generation machine.

Actually Atari was all but out of the race. They had spent the early 1990s developing two different consoles together with Flare Technology. One of them was a 32-bit system nicknamed the Panther, and the second one a 64-bit console that would eventually become the Jaguar. Since the Jaguar was the most advanced project, Atari ended up cancelling the Panther.

Technical specs.

GPU: "Tom" CPU @ 26.59 MHz. It's a 32-bit RISC processor with 4 Kb. of internal RAM.

Capable of 64-bit operations, z-buffering and Gouraud shading.

Co-processor: Motorola 68000 @ 13.295 MHz.

Sound: "Jerry" CPU @ 26.59 MHz. 32-bit RISC processor with 8 Kb. of internal RAM.

Capable of playing 16-bit stereo sound with CD quality.

RAM: 2 Mb. RAM

Storage: Game cartridges with up to 6 Mb. in capacity.

The new console appeared in the USA in late 1993, and the next year in Europe. With its release came a very aggressive advertising campaign. The Jaguar was arguably the first 64-bit console, and Atari emphasized it to attack the Mega Drive and the SNES. But the gaming press soon put it into question, since its Motorola 68000 co-processor and its GPU used 32-bit instructions. Not a good start.

Then the sales didn't materialise, despite the console being sold at a very competitive price of $249.99. And what did materialise were a series of hardware problems, such as important bugs and mediocre development kits, the sets used by game developers to program games for the system. Atari's intervention didn't help. They insisted the 64-bit graphic chips had to be used as real CPUs, and the secondary Motorola 68000 only to receive inputs. In the end, developers preferred to program for the 68000, a CPU they were already familiar with, and ignore most of the Jaguar's powerful hardware.

And finally, Atari didn't manage to obtain relevant third-party support. The console only received a total of 50 games, plus a dozen for its CD-ROM unit, the Jaguar CD, which appeared in 1995.



So, to make things worse, many of these games were developed by Atari themselves. And also many of them are crap. The best-known game for the system is likely the FPS Alien vs. Predator. And, thruth be told, it is an excellent game that makes good use of the system.

But the same can't be said of stuff like Club Drive, Cybermorph or Fight for Life:


Club Drive


Fight for Life

These are mediocre games that look like unfinished demos and have little personality or playability.

To be honest, there are also good games for the system. To the above mentioned Alien vs. Predator we should add Checkered Flag, a 3D racing game that looks a lot like Virtua Racing, or ports from other systems such as Power Drive Rally or Worms. And for the Jaguar CD there are Highlander: The Last of the Macleods and Myst.


Chequered Flag


Highlander: The Last of the Macleods

The Jaguar hardware also made it into the arcades, in the shape of the COJAG arcade system. With some upgrades and harddrive support it runs games like Area 51 and Maximum Force.

By late 1995 Atari reviewed their situation. They had sold 150,000 consoles and still had another 100,000 in stock. The decision was made to abandon the system, and Atari merged with JT Storage the next year. After the acquisition of Atari by Hasbro in 1998 the techical specs of the system were made public, which allowed for a re-evaluation of the system and the release of some homebrew games.

As for emulation, it took some years but after some attempts we finally got a Jaguar emulator capable of running all cartridge and CD-ROM games at full speed. Should you want to. It's called BigPEmu and has been developed by Rich Whitehouse. It makes playing the few good games for the system extremely easy.





It almosts makes me like this cockroach-styled videogame console.

 

Now, how is this for a palate cleanser?

Sega Saturn (November 1994)



The Sega Saturn was Sega's successor to the Mega Drive / Genesis , and also their first 32-bit console. Well, if you don't count the Sega 32X . More on that later. It is widely considered to be a commercial failure, although that is somehow debatable. While it is true that the Saturn didn't sell well in the USA and Europe, it remained the best-selling console in Japan during the first years of its run. Only after the release of Final Fantasy VII in 1997 did the PlayStation become the best selling console, a position that would retain until 1998, when the Saturn was phased out to make room for the upcoming Dreamcast . By then the Saturn had been relegated to a third position in sales, after both the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 . The Saturn sold around 9.2 million units in total, although 6 million of them were in Japan.

There are several reasons for this failure, and some of them overlap.

1) Fallout from the Sega 32X affair. The Sega division in America wanted to extend the shelf life of the Mega Drive before the Saturn arrived. For that reason they pushed for an addon for the console that would become the Sega 32X . But when the Saturn 's arrival was advanced to arrive at the same time as Sony's PlayStation Sega followers were dumbfounded by the double launch and forced to decide between the 32X addon for the Mega Drive or the new console.

2) A premature launch. As we've said, Sega advanced the release date of the Saturn to better compete against the PSX . This resulted in shops and distributors caught off guard and only 6 launch titles, all developed by Sega. The PSX on the other had 17. Also, the Saturn sold initially for $399 and the PSX for just $299.

3) A hardware too complex. The Saturn was originally designed to run 2D games with pseude-3D effects. But the success of Virtua Fighter and the annoucement by Sony that their PSX would have a better 3D hardware changed things. The planned lone Hitachi SH-2 32-bit CPU would be now duplicated, and an extra SH-1 added. The US division if Sega didn't exactly celebrate the decision, because it made the console more expensive and developing games more difficult.



A Sega Saturn motherboard (picture by Rodrigo Copetti)

When game developers put their hands on the console they weren't happy either. The architecture of the Saturn was like nothing they were used to. The two SH-2 processors worked almost in parallel, but not quite, because they couldn't access RAM at the same time. Which meant all tasks had to be divided betweem both CPUs. Sega's development tools were also met with criticism, although they did improve during the lifespan of the console.

4) Mismanagement and in-fighting. We have already seen how some of these factors could have been avoided. But not only that didn't happen, but things went to worse. While the Saturn was doing well in Japan, Sega accidentally ruined the release of the console in the West. And during the liftime of the console things got even worse, because Sega refused to release many Japanese games in the West that could have increased sales.

Some of this could be blamed to cultural differences. Japanese users preferred 2D games and favored genres such shooters, visual novels, RPG and dating sims, while Western gamers preferred 3D polygonal games. Also, many Japanese popular games used licenses of manga and anime characters. Licensing them for Western countries meant more expenses in exchange of a dubious return, because they were not as popular in Western countries.

Sega of America practically stopped launching games in 1998, meaning some of the later, well-received Saturn titles didn't make it to the West or received minimal distribution. Yes, I'm meaning Panzer Dragoon Saga . But also Lunar 2: Eternal Blue - Complete or Shinning Force III .


Panzer Dragoon Saga

So, of the around 1,150 Sega Saturn games, around 700-800 remained Japanese exclusives.

5) No proper Sonic game for the platform. Sega knew a Sonic game for the Saturn would help its sales. And for a while it was working on one called Sonic X-treme . However, it was cancelled, and Sonic fans were left with Sonic R (a racing game), an improved version of Sonic 3D Blast (which was already available for the Mega Drive) and the compilation Sonic Jam , which included all the previous Sonic games for the Mega Drive save Sonic 3D Blast .


Sonic R

Technical specifications:

As we've said, the Saturn was very adavanced -and complex- for its time. Its hardware included up to 8 different processors:

- 2 Hitachi SH-2 CPUs @ 28.6 Mhz. (main CPUs) with 4 Kb. of cache memory each.
- A Motorola 68EC000 @ 11.3 Mhz. (sound controller)
- A System Control Unit (SCU) with a DSP @ 14.3 Mhz. It controlled all buses and acted as a co-processor for the two main CPUs.
- A custom sound chip based on the Yamaha FH1 DSP, with 32 channels capable of both FM synthesis and 16-bit, 44.1 Khz pulse-code modulation.
- 2 Video Display Processors. VDP-1 would handle polygons and sprites and VDP-2 backgrounds. The Saturn could display graphics at a resolution of 320×224 to 704×224 with 16.7 million colors.
- The 2X CD-ROM drive had its own Hitachi SH-1 CPU to reduce load times.

Memory was also divided into:

- 2 Mb. RAM.
- 1.5 MB of VRAM
- 0.5 Mb. of RAM for sound functions.
- 0.5 Mb. RAM as CD-ROM cache.
- 32 Kb. of battery backup RAM.

The cartridge slot could be used for cartridges with extra RAM, and some games that used them are Metal Slug , X-Men vs. Street Fighter or The King of Fighters '95 .

From 1996 onwards, the Saturn also could access the internet by using its NetLink addon. Using a custom web browser called Planet Web its users could access mail, surf the web or play online games.

Much has been written about the Saturn's unusual hardware. Less clarify again that the two SH-2 main CPUs didn't work in parallel, because they could not access RAM at the same time. As for the console's raw power, opinions vary. Some consider it slower to the PSX, while others think the difference is negligible.

What seems true is that using the console's full power was complicated, and during the first years the task was further hindered by poor development tools and graphic libraries. Many early Saturn titles are written in assembly, which could take 2-5 times more than writing code in C.

Other criticisms have to do with how the console handles 3D graphics, using quadrilaterals instead of triangles as the cornerstone to generate 3D, employing 2D sprites to generate polygons or transparencies being difficult to implement.

The Saturn hardware also made it into the arcades, in the shape of the Sega Titan Video or ST-V . Only a handful of games use it, because Sega used it as a cheaper alternative for its Model 2 hardware.

The best known arcade title running on the ST-V is probably Die Hard Arcade / Dynamite Deka :



Others include Golden Ax: The Duel , Final Fight Revenge and Virtua Fighter Kids .

Emulation.

Saturn emulation seemed nearly impossible to achieve until GiriGiri by Shinya "MegaDeath" Miyamoto appeared in 2001. Since then emulators such as SSF and Kronos have made significant advances and rendered most games playable.

Kronos even throws in a nice extra, the option to increase the internal resolution of the console, which translates in smoother graphics, especially in 3D games:



However, it seems that the best, more accurate Saturn emulator around is Mednafen , which is best used with a frontend such as Mednaffe .

Just remember to enable de-interlacing.




Virtua Fighter Remix


Sega Rally Championship

As you can see, I prefer conversions from Sega arcades over Saturn exclusives. But you have also plenty of those to choose from, such as the Panzer Dragoon series, Burning Rangers or Shinobi Legions .

And fans from other platforms should also check out the Doom and Quake conversions, or the compilation series Sega Ages and Capcom Generations .

 

I should note that apart from my usual sources (like Wikipedia), the article Sega Saturn Architecture - A practical analysis by Rodrigo Copetti has been of enormous help in order to understand the Sega Saturn hardware. To the extent that a person whose greatest achievement was writing a program that filled the screen with insults in BASIC can understand it, that is.

Feel free to check it out if you want to learn more about the Saturn or you're one of those hardware freaks.

 

Sony PlayStation / PSX / PSone (December 1994)



Developed by Sony, the PlayStation is the most successful 5th generation console. From 1994 to 2006 it sold an estimated total of 102 million units and game sales almost reached the billion figure. It clearly outsold the Sega Saturn (around 9 million units) and the Nintendo 64 (33 million units) around the world.

The reasons behind such a success are multiple.

Compared to the Sega Saturn , the PSX sold for a lower price ($299 against $399), and also offered a much larger number and variety of games. Sega made developing and distributing games harder for game companies, and programming for its system was also more complex than doing it for the PSX.

Compared to the Nintendo 64 , the PSX used CD-ROMs, a larger, cheaper, and more flexible storage medium than the N64 's cartridges. Nintendo also wanted to keep game developers under strict conditions to ensure a sufficient number of exclusive titles, a tactic they had carried out before with the NES and SNES . This resulted in a smaller game library for their system. Given these drawbacks, its low price of $199 was not effective enough.

Sony also took great care when creating alliances with third party developers. Their conditions were cheaper and much less restrictive than the ones Nintedo and Sega. And they also made sure their hardware was easy to program for, and provided excellent developing tools from the early on.

The origins of the PSX project go back as far as 1986. At that time, Nintendo was interested in adding a CD-ROM drive to the SNES , just as it had previously added a floppy disk drive to the NES , the Famicom Disk System .

With this idea in mind, Nintendo contacted Sony, which was already producing the SPC700 sound chip for the SNES , and the project started. At that time, it was known as the PlayStation or SNES-CD .

Simultaneously, Sony was also planning to build its own console, capable of using both SNES cartridges and CD-based games. And they intended to maintain complete control over it.

The situation came to a clash just before the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) , when the Nintendo staff realized the implications of their deal with Sony. At the last minute, Nintendo announced the end of its collaboration with Sony, its new alliance with Philips, and the end of the project.

This new alliance between Nintendo and Philips would eventually yield such "memorable" results as the games Hotel Mario and Link: The Faces of Evil / Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon for the Philips CD-i , but that's another story.

Following this split, Sony considered transferring the project to Sega, which rejected it, thinking Sony had no experience whatsoever in the videogame console market. Nintendo, in turn, took Sony to court to prevent them from continuing to work.

In 1992 these lawsuits were settled with a series of agreements. Nintendo would allow Sony to continue with the PlayStation , which at that time still had a slot for SNES cartridges, in exchange for continuing to manufacture chips for the SNES .

It wasn't until 1993 that the project completely severed ties from Nintendo. That year the idea of SNES compatibility was abandoned, and the name of the console changed first to PlayStation and then to PSX . The new console was redesigned from scratch, with an emphasis on support for 3D video games, and with the collaboration of Konami, Namco, and Williams. Around this time, Sony also acquired Psygnosis and renamed it Sony Interactive Entertainment .

All these companies would play an important role in programming the first PSX games, such as Ridge Racer , Mortal Kombat 3 and Destruction Derby .


Ridge Racer

The PSX 's long commercial lifespan led to the release of several different models, such as the smaller, more rounded PSOne in 2000...



...or the more recent PSX Classic Mini (2018), with 20 build-in games.

Hardware specs:

Main CPU: 32-bit RISC MIPS R3000A@ 32.86 Mhz.

MDEC Chip: Used to decode the system's video codec.

RAM: 2 Mb. RAM, plus 1 Mb. of video RAM.

Video: GTE (GPU and Geometry Transformation Engine), capable of resolutions of 256×224 and 640×480 with 16.7 million colors. It can generate up to 4,000 sprites, 180,000 textured polygons or 360,000 plain polygons.

Sound: 16-bit ADPCM with 24 channels.

While these are good especifications for the time, the PSX hardware is far from perfect. It has many limitations and quirks, which game programmers had to learn to live with, as well as an important number of visual artifacts. Polygons often wobbled, and textures showed distortions. This was mostly due to the lack of a floating-point unit (FPU) and perspective-correct texturing.


Texture warping (or just sloppy construction) on a Spyro game

Despite this, the PSX hardware was powerful for its time, and was especially well suited for 3D games and playing Full Motion video FMV. It was also much more cheap and streamlined by its main competitor's, the Sega Saturn .

The PSX also made Memory Cards widely popular. They were cards where games can store their game data and savegames. The same idea had also been used previously by the Neo-Geo and the Sega Saturn , but those consoles were much less widespread.



The PSX hardware also ended up as the basis for several arcade systems:

- Capcom Sony ZN-1 and ZN-2 (used by Street Fighter EX and EX2 among others)

- Namco System11 and System12 (used by the Tekken series and others)


Tekken

- Taito FX-1 ( Fighters Impact )

- Konami SYSTEM 573 ( Fisherman's Bait and Gun Mania series)

- Konami BEMANI Systems ( Beatmania and Dance Dance Revolution series)

These systems can be emulated through Zinc or MAME and its variants.

The game library:

The PSX is certainly a machine worth emulating. Not only it has an extensive library of aorund 8,000 games, but also was on the market for nearly 8 years. This means most important games from this period had a PSX release. And sometimes those are easier to run on modern systems than the rest.

The PSX also had a great list of exclusive titles: Gran Turismo , Medal of Honor , Resident Evil , Silent Hill , Spyro the Dragon , Final Fantasy VII to IX ...


Final Fantasy IX was one of the best-selling games for the PSX

The system also suffered from software piracy from early on. While PSX discs had protections such as being opaque or having a signature track CD that CD writers couldn't replicate, these were circumvented by modchips , sometimes attached to the PSX ports and others welded into the console's motherboard.

Ironically, this piracy might have contributed to the consoles' widespread success. Sony could afford to sell their consoles at a loss, and the availability of cheap games (and even commercial emulators like Bleem! and Virtual Game Station from Connectix) were yet other incentives for potential users.

Emulation:

While Bleem! and Virtual Game Station were available as early as 1999, I'd say the first free PSX emulator that could play most games was ePSXe . It is still active and recommended if you don't have a modern PC.


ePSXe running Time Crisis

It requires a PSX BIOS and careful configuration of the GPU plugin, which can seem a bit daunting at first:



But that is why the global settings Fast and Nice are there.

Users with newer computers should consider using DuckStation instead:


Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed using higher internal resolution

Not only its compability should be on par with ePSXe , but it also allows for increasing the PSX internal resolution, a trick that does wonders with 3D titles and driving games.

 

How did we end up here? I though the videogame consoles I was talking about were getting better. I mean, the Saturn and the PSX are great, and have plenty of interesting games to rediscover. Yet here we are, stuck with a another console that it is a piece of junk, and with only a bunch of games available, and most of them in Japanese.

What have I done to deserve this? I follow chronological order for weeks, and this is my reward? Have I offended the retrogaming gods somehow? Would burning CDs or cartridges in a pyre spare me from this? No? Maybe it is something my ancestors did? That has to be it. Or maybe something I did before I had use of reason. It must be that.

Anyway.

NEC PC-FX (December 1994)



The PC-FX was intended as the second replacement for the aging PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 , after the SuperGrafx , released in 1989, failed to gain any traction. It was also a result of the continuing association between NEC and Hudson Soft . Work on the PC-FX started as early as 1990, with a planned release date of 1992. It was a true 32-bit system with a CD-ROM unit and capable of playing video in full screen. A preview of Star Soldier was created showing pre-rendered backdrops and 3D objects, and enough game developers seemed interested in the system for it to proceed.

But then 1992 arrived and the release had to be postponed because of the lack of finished games. The release date was moved to 1993, and then to 1994. Meanwhile, the press especulated if NEC was really interested in releasing a new console while the PC Engine and variants kept selling well. What's worse, while the PC-FX hardware saw little improvement over time, the competition was releasing more and more advanced consoles, such as the Atari Jaguar and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer .

When the PC-FX was finally released in December 1994, it entered intermediate competition with the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation . Compared to them, the PC-FX had a very small library of games and not a trace of hardware capable of generating polyons. NEC's reasoning was that those could always be pre-rendered. On the other hand, it could handle FMV games well.

The PC-FX did poorly in its native country, and soon an international release was ruled out. It was discontinued in 1998 after having sold around 300,000 units.


Technical specifications.

CPU: NEC V810 @ 21.475 MHz

RAM: 2 Mb.

Graphics: Powered by custom HuC6270 and HuC6270 chips, capable of showing graphics from 256x240 to 341x240 resolutions with 16.77 million colors.

Sound: 2 ADPCM Channels, 6 5-bit sample Channels, all in 16-bit stereo.

As we said earlier, the PC-FX had no hardware intended for polygons or 3D gaming. Instead, it had better FMV capabilities than to the competition.

With this hardware, is of little surprise that the few PC-FX games (a total of 62 according to MobyGames ) are usually 2D and make heavy use of video clips.


Battle Heat!


Der Langrisser

Not that there aren't games worth checking out. Like the action game Choshin Heiki Zeroigar , or the many RPG / strategy titles. Unfortunately, only a few of the later have been translated to English, like Farland Story FX or the dating sim Pia Carrot e Youkosou!!


Emulation:

This remains a pretty obscure system. I remember that the author of Magic Engine did release a PC-FX emulator back in the day. But apart from probably being outdated, you need to pay for the full version. So it was very surprising that out of the blue the author of multi-emulator Mednafen announced PC-FX support around the 2020s.

As I always say, Mednafen is best used with a third-party frontend like Mednaffe . Other than renaming a v1.00 BIOS to pcfx.rom file and placing it inside the FIRMWARE folder, everything is pretty straighforward:









Oh, yes, and press ALT+Shift+1 to configure controls.

This is the above mentioned Choshin Heiki Zeroigar , one of the few arcades for the system. And I have to admit it is a damn good game. A pity there are not more like this one.

 

Nintendo 64 (June 1996)



Just like the Sony PlayStation , the Nintendo 64 ( N64 from here on) stemmed from Nintendo's idea of adding a CD-ROM drive to the Super Nintendo . Initially Sony was supposed to manufacture the drive, but Sony and Nintendo abruptly ended their collaboration around 1991/1992.

Around 1993, Nintendo announced a series of partnerships for its new console. These included Silicon Graphics for the hardware and Rare and Williams for the games. The media referred to this future console as Project Reality . Later, the name changed to Ultra 64 and finally Nintendo 64 .

By 1995 some of the manufacturers that had announced releases for the N64 threw in the towel, citing the high cost of developing games for the N64 and the delays in the console's launch. A prime example is Square, which ended a collaboration with Nintendo that dated back to the NES era. From then on, their Final Fantasy games would be released for the PlayStation .

The console was finally released in 1996 (in Japan and the US) and 1997 (in Europe) for $199. It generally received positive reviews and sold very well (an estimated 33 million units in total), but it also received criticism for its limited game library and using of cartridges as storage system.

Regarding the use of cartridges, Nintendo justified their choice mentioning reduced access time, the read/write nature of the medium, and piracy as their reasons.

On the other hand, this limited the maximum game size to 64 Mb. (or 512 Mbit), compared to the 700 Mb. of the CD-ROM used by the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation . Compared to these, N64 games suffered from poorer sound and lower-quality video.

The console was sold until 2002, although by then almost all games released for the system were either from Rare or Nintendo itself. The final games released for the console were T ony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (in America) and Mario Party 3 (in Europe). By then, Nintendo had just launched the GameCube , the console that would replace the N64 .


Technical specifications.

- Main CPU: NEC VR4300 64-bit at 93.75 MHz. According to the "Popular Electronics" magazine, its performance is comparable to first-generation Pentium CPUs.

- Co-processor: RCP: Integrated SP (sound and graphics processor) and DP (pixel processor). Developed by Silicon Graphics, it operates at 62.5 MHz. It's capable of showing graphics in 256×224 to 640×480 resolutions with 16.8 million colors. It canalso generates up to 500,000 polygons with texture mapping per second.

Some of this information has led to doubts about whether the N64 was truly a 32-bit or 64-bit console. It was actually a true 64-bit system, but most of the code it ran was 32-bit, as it could be processed faster and took up less storage space on the cartridges.

Player data and game saves were stored on the same cartridge, although memory cards, called Controller Paks , were also available.

- Audio Co-processor: Reality Co-processor, capable of playing sounds at 48 kHz.

- Memory: 4 Mb. of Rambus RDRAM, expandable to 8 Mb.



Expansion Pak with extra RAM.

Quite a few games require/use this Expansion Pak.

Donkey Kong 64, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Perfect Dark and every 64DD game require it.

And Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, Command & Conquer, Daikatana, Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, Excitebike 64, F-1 World Grand Prix II, FIFA 99, Gauntlet Legends, Hydro Thunder, International Superstar Soccer 2000, Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Slugfest, NBA Jam 2000 (PAL solamente), Pokémon Stadium 2, Quake 2, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, Re-Volt, Resident Evil 2, Road Rash 64, San Francisco Rush 2049, Shadow Man, South Park, StarCraft 64, Star Wars: Episode I: Battle for Naboo, Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, The World Is Not Enough, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Top Gear Overdrive, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, Turok: Rage Wars will use it if detected.

The perks of using the Expansion Pak are usually higher resolutions or enhanced multiplayer modes.

Apart from the Expansion Pak , these other two expansions are also notable:

The Rumble Pak was a controller with vibration available from 1997.



It was battery operated and not entirely compatible with the saving options in some games. Therefore, some N64 games will tell you when to switch between the regular Controller Pak and the Rumble Pak .

And the 64DD was an optical drive unit for the console. It was sold only in Japan from 1999, and in small numbers.



It was sold along with an Expansion Pak , because the extra memory was needed to operate the unit. The discs had a 64 Mb. capacity, and the idea was to use them to improve the console's sound quality or offer extra content for cartridge games.

A newer version included a modem, which gave access to the RANDnet service, similar to the earlier Satellaview for the SNES .

Many games were announced for the 64DD , but most were canceled or ended up being released as cartridges, like Ocarina of Time . Some exclusive titles include SimCity 64 , the F-Zero X Expansion Kit and the two Mario Artist games.


The games.

The N64 took the "leap to 3D" to the extreme, even more so than the rest of the consoles from this generation. Not only some of its most iconic games are 3D games (like GoldenEye or Super Mario 64 ), but almost every one of Nintendo's most popular franchises moved from 2D to 3D, with mixed results. This were the case with Donkey Kong , The Legend of Zelda and Castlevania , to name a few.





Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Castlevania

I can't remember if this was a controversial move at the time, but I could have done with another 2D Castlevania or Mega Man .

Another thing worth mentioning is that by this time Nintendo and close allies like Rare developed most of the game library. Nintendo had been very strict in the past in their deals with third-party developers, something we mentioned in our NES and SNES guides. Now that Nintendo arrived late to the party, many of them preferred to develop for the Sega Saturn or the Sony PlayStation , which offered better deals and CD-ROMs with higher capacity than the N64 cartridges. This didn't discourage Nintendo , who instead released many high quality exclusive games for the platform.


Emulation.

Before discussing current alternatives, I feel I must mention the first of all N64 emulators, UltraHLE . This program appeared in 1999, while the N64 was still on the market, and it ran a handful of games for this system on PCs with a Pentium II CPU and a 3Dfx graphics card. Among them were some of the console's most popular titles, such as GoldenEye , Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda .



The trick was that the emulator's creators, Epsilon and RealityMan , found out that N64 games were written in C. Instead of emulating the console's hardware at a low level, it was possible to intercept calls to the C libraries and redirect them to those they themselves had created, also using C and the API Glide.

The emulator was so popular that it is credited with creating the first Glide Wrappers , programs that translate Glide API calls to either DirectX or OpenGL. Without them, users of cards other than 3Dfx would have been unable to access UltraHLE , which was unthinkable at the time.

Nintendo ended up suing the creators of UltraHLE , who abandoned the project and went into hiding, but emulation websites continued to upload different versions of the emulator until it became obsolete.

Right now the best options to emulate the N64 are likely the ares multi-emulator and stand-alone programs like gopher64 .


gopher64 running Banjo-Kazooie