When Onyxs were being used to develop
the first games, what aspects of the
graphics were disabled/changed/not-
used in order to match what the RCP
could do, and how did the setup
ensure the game authors didn’t create
code that exceeded what the RCP was
able to sustain? (ditto for the CPU
power available) I also imagine
the RCP has certain functions that
RE2 does not have, so how were
those emulated? Indeed, were the
Onyxs using RE1 gfx or RE2? How many
RM4s?

Could you say a little more about
the history of the Indy-based N64
dev platform? How did that come
about? Several SGI people told me
one plan had been to use the RCP as
the basis for a new texture-capable
gfx board for Indy, using 1, 2, 4,
etc. RCPs to give better than MXI
performance, but that the release
delays meant the idea slid too far
into the O2 release schedule so
it didn’t happen.

Cheers!

Ian.

PS. I had the first ever web site on
the N64 (or Ultra64 as it was at
the time), which led to this rather
fun adventure:

http://www.gamers.org/dhs/usavisit/

Thanks for writing. The N64 was and is a great machine!

You can send your questions via the contact link at the top of the page (or ask them here in the comments). I should say up front, though, that I won’t be able to provide any technical information about the platform; that is Nintendo’s privilege, not mine.

-Steve

Sorry if this seems rude, it isnt meant to be!
Thanks in advance!!

Cool! Its really cool….

Thanks. I have to say, we at SGI were pretty impressed with what the developers did with the system after it left our labs. The day we saw the first pre-release Mario builds… I still get shivers. But there was definitely room to grow. If the console had more time on the market, the later games would definitely have knocked our socks off.

As for releasing the hardware and software as open source: interesting idea. What better way for the up-and-coming talent to hone their skills. At some point (maybe not yet) it’ll be far enough out of date that the trade secrets don’t matter.

-Steve