It's plainly obvious that Nintendo 64's video clips fall short of the original PlayStation version. Further tricks were also deployed, with Angel using the equivalent to variable frame-rate in today's video encoding: still scenes relied on frame holding (why encode multiple frames with the same content?) and audio was carefully synced to frames.Įvery possible nip and tuck were made to find the right balance and deliver acceptable results - and 'acceptable' perfectly sums up the final quality. The resolution of the clips was reduced, and the N64 RCP was used to scale the image to full-screen - this also saved on storage space. The frame-rate of the videos was halved from 30fps to 15fps - interpolation then is used to make up the difference which improves fluidity. Bitrate was varied per clip - sequences with lots of motion were encoded with a higher bitrate while low motion scenes could make do with a reduced bitrate. Video data was first converted from RGB to YCbCr using chroma subsampling to reduce chroma to a fraction of its size while only halving the luminance. With its lack of cartridge space and bespoke hardware decompression technology, the developers developed their own tools and methods for compressing the data into an acceptable form. Replicating PlayStation's full-motion video was perhaps the most challenging daunting challenge. Look out for a very special, Platinum-level cameo! Here's the DF Retro breakdown of Resident Evil 2, covering off its history and how it runs on every single platform you can play it on. Some might even say that it's one of the most impressive conversions in the history of console gaming. Indeed, in some respects it delivers technically improved solutions that utilise the strengths of the N64 hardware, and it even offers support for the extra memory delivered by Nintendo's Expansion Pack. Piece by piece, Angel Studios tackled the challenges in bringing Resident Evil 2 to the N64, and the end result - though quite different in some regards - still holds up nicely when compared to the PlayStation original. Additionally, even if the storage situation could be resolved, N64 doesn't have any hardware-accelerated video decompression - something Capcom utilised extensively in the PlayStation game.
The N64 version has to somehow contain all of this data within one 64MB cartridge - less than 10 per cent of the storage available on one of Resident Evil 2's CDs.
RESIDENT EVIL NINTENDO 64 INTRO PLUS
That's plenty for the game's 2D backgrounds, its 15 minutes of full-motion video plus its 200 minutes of sample-driven soundtrack - on top of other in-game audio, including character voices. It's true that there's commonality is some of the data between the two discs, but the bottom line is that just one CD offers Capcom the luxury of 700MB of storage. Resident Evil 2 for PlayStation shipped on two CDs. An invisible mesh creates the boundaries of the 3D space, ensuring that the characters sit correctly within the environments, while moving through the levels is achieved simply by flipping from one screen to the next once you hit the boundary - there's no scrolling here.īut what sounds simple in theory becomes massively more complex when you look at the implementation.
RESIDENT EVIL NINTENDO 64 INTRO SERIES
After all, at the nuts and bolts level, the action consists of fairly simple 3D characters and objects overlaid on a series of pre-rendered 2D backdrops. On the face of it, an N64 conversion of Resident Evil 2 shouldn't be a problem. It aimed to overcome the N64's most profound limitations, delivering an uncannily accurate port of the original PlayStation release.
But when it came to the N64 port of Resident Evil 2, Angel Studios - now Rockstar San Diego - went for a different approach. Direct ports to other systems rarely worked owing to massive hardware differences, with some developers opting to create entirely new games instead.
Titles used to launch on bespoke arcade platforms before being ported to home consoles, and when hardware like the original PlayStation arrived, titles were specifically built around its strengths. With game-makers and publishers building almost all of their games with multiple console platforms in mind, it's worth remembering that things used to be very, very different.
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