Graphics quality

[nicknfs]

I was thinking does the game boy advance or Nintendo 64 have better graphics. I looked on the Internet and couldn't find an answer. Plz help.

[kelvinhall05]

Why and what do you mean by "better"?

[Crunchy Dragon]

I would guess Game Boy Advance just going by the fact that it's newer

[minibois]

The GBA is basically an SNES with a better GPU, so it will really depend on what kind of games you're looking at.

Sheer power, the N64 would likely win, but that is mostly because of it's 3D power.

 

The Nintendo DS is however more powerful than the N64 and the 3DS is more powerful than the GameCube and maybe even Wii.

 

EDIT: something to consider: the GBA has a 240x160 pixel screen, while the N64 displays between 320 × 240 up to 640 × 480 pixels.

[nicknfs]

 

2 minutes ago, Minibois said:

The GBA is basically an SNES with a better GPU, so it will really depend on what kind of games you're looking at.

Sheer power, the N64 would likely win, but that is mostly because of it's 3D power.

 

The Nintendo DS is however more powerful than the N64 and the 3DS is more powerful than the GameCube and maybe even Wii.

 

EDIT: something to consider: the GBA has a 240x160 pixel screen, while the N64 displays between 320 × 240 up to 640 × 480 pixels.

So it depends on game? I'm just installing  emulators on the psp and trying to figure out which Nintendo system to use. Plz don't hate on me for that guys.

[minibois]

Just now, nicknfs said:

 

So it depends on game? I'm just installing  emulators on the psp and trying to figure out which Nintendo system to use. Plz don't hate on me for that guys.

It will depend on what games you want to play, there are awesome games on either console  

GBA has some awesome RPG's and 2D platformers, while the N64 has some cool 3D adventure games.. Racing games are awesome, yet different on both systems..

[nicknfs]

3 minutes ago, Minibois said:

It will depend on what games you want to play, there are awesome games on either console  

GBA has some awesome RPG's and 2D platformers, while the N64 has some cool 3D adventure games.. Racing games are awesome, yet different on both systems..

ok thanks!

[Mira Yurizaki]

The GBA is capable of just below PS1 level graphics, if that (note this is Driv3r, not GTA like the video claims)

But the N64 I would argue had the most advanced GPU of that generation.

[minervx]

I never really thought about this until now but it is true that portability was holding back the hardware more than the hardware itself.  Portable devices incur more costs for their smaller form factor, processors need to be undervolted to save battery and resolution needs to be reduced to reach that $100-200 price point.

 

I've always seen the Nintendo DS, for example, as a weaker version of the N64.  However, if it had 720p displays instead of 240p (?) displays, the visuals may have looked better.  The NDS never had 3D games, so it appeared to be incapable of running them, but in hindsight, it was probably the lack of an analog stick which made a proper camera difficult to implement.

[Mira Yurizaki]

12 hours ago, minervx said:

I never really thought about this until now but it is true that portability was holding back the hardware more than the hardware itself.  Portable devices incur more costs for their smaller form factor, processors need to be undervolted to save battery and resolution needs to be reduced to reach that $100-200 price point.

Most of the time portable consoles leveraged on an already existing product that has matured to the point of being suited for the embedded systems market. The original GameBoy was using a CPU that was already 10 years old. The GBA used a CPU that already had established itself in the embedded systems market (and it was already 7 years old). I don't think they were undervolted because they were already designed for low power applications anyway. But sometimes not-really-used features were cut to save on power.

12 hours ago, minervx said:

I've always seen the Nintendo DS, for example, as a weaker version of the N64.  However, if it had 720p displays instead of 240p (?) displays, the visuals may have looked better.  The NDS never had 3D games, so it appeared to be incapable of running them, but in hindsight, it was probably the lack of an analog stick which made a proper camera difficult to implement.

That could be said about any system.

 

However the NDS had 3D games. Super Mario 64 was on it.

[LanceAvion]

19 hours ago, minervx said:

I never really thought about this until now but it is true that portability was holding back the hardware more than the hardware itself.  Portable devices incur more costs for their smaller form factor, processors need to be undervolted to save battery and resolution needs to be reduced to reach that $100-200 price point.

 

I've always seen the Nintendo DS, for example, as a weaker version of the N64.  However, if it had 720p displays instead of 240p (?) displays, the visuals may have looked better.  The NDS never had 3D games, so it appeared to be incapable of running them, but in hindsight, it was probably the lack of an analog stick which made a proper camera difficult to implement.

 

Lol wut? I'm not sure if you're aware but there are, at the very least, dozens of 3D DS games. 

 

Some standouts include Metroid Prime Hunters, Dementium the Ward, Eragon, Super Mario 64 DS, Kingdom Hearts 358/2, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, and Resident Evil DS. 

[minervx]

it had no great 3d games

[LanceAvion]

48 minutes ago, minervx said:

it had no great 3d games

That's incredibly subjective, but most of the games I've listed are rather well acclaimed. 

[Zodiark1593]

On 10/5/2017 at 2:03 PM, nicknfs said:

I was thinking does the game boy advance or Nintendo 64 have better graphics. I looked on the Internet and couldn't find an answer. Plz help.

The GBA used an ARM7 chip alongside a relatively advanced 2d engine. There is no mention of a 3d engine anywhere for the GBA, so I would presume that task is handled by the cpu, probably running ARM32 instead of THUMB for increased speed, though you lose the ability to execute these instructions directly from cartridge (as the cartridge was on a 16 bit bus), meaning 32 bit instructions need to be loaded first. The rendering resolution can also be decreased well below (the already low) display resolution, further increasing performance and reducing VRAM requirements.

 

The PS1 should be much faster as it utilizes a specially made instruction set for 3D rendering and more RAM, though it's feature set is similarly rudimentary, and lack of sub pixel precision degrades visuals some. The NDS has a simple 3d engine itself, and two 2d engines similar to the GBA to handle each display. The poly count was hard capped at about 2k/frame due to the scanline rendering methods used. Volume shadows are also possible on NDS hardware. The N64 has a more advanced rendering engine than the PS1 or NDS, and can utilize proper texture filtering.

 

Lots of information here. 

http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#gbatechnicaldata