How did Resident Evil 2 manage to fit on a single Nintendo 64 Cart ? | MVG

Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64 is a port that should have not been possible. The original PlayStation release came on 2 CD's and totaled over 1.2 Gb in size yet somehow the entire game was compressed onto a 64Mb cartridge for the Nintendo 64. In this episode we take a look at how it was achieved.
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Music : Resident Evil 2 OST :
► Raccoon City - Masami Ueda
► The Front Hall - Masami Ueda
► The First Floor - Masami Ueda, Shusaku Uchiyama
► The Second Floor - Masami Ueda, Shusaku Uchiyama
► Secure Place - Masami Ueda
► The Library - Masami Ueda
Sources/Credits/Links:
► CrashOverride (i converted a whole spongebob episode for N64) - / 1236727835450056706
► HQVM Codec - www.retroreversing.com/n64-sdk
► Chroma Subsampling - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_...
► Mission : Compressible - ultra64.ca/files/other/Game-D...
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[@ModernVintageGamer]

Corrections : 10:22 - HQVM when it should be HVQM 10:33 - The SpongeBob episiode I referenced was 11 minutes not 30 minutes.

[@nightmarezer0507]

Where can I find the n64 example of spongebob? I looked couldnt find it

[@nightmarezer0507]

Like a video of it. Not the rom

[@Metaphor9696]

Is that a quarantine beard?

[@nightmarezer0507]

@@Metaphor9696 yes...wait you can see me?

[@sahus]

@@nightmarezer0507 Not sure if you're joking, but I'm pretty sure they are referring to MVGs beard.

[@feepness]

Hi, I worked on this port. I love to see people still talking about it. Comments: It was a passion project absolutely. We were Nintendo fanboys growing up so getting this project on N64 with a great IP was a dream come true. If I recall correctly, HVQM was not going to cut it for RE2. A cartoon has a limited color space and large areas of solid color. The RE2 FMV was... different. The resolution was based on the number of enemies CURRENTLY in the room. Kill them, leave the room, and come back and it will recalculate (higher). The backgrounds were a fixed size, tuning each to remove as many artifacts in the space given. The background resolution obviously can't change (just upscaled into a larger framebuffer but will look pretty much the same), but the 3D elements could be drawn to look better. MusyX. Mu-sicks. Get it? Not Musey-X. I gotta tell the Factor 5 guys about that one. :) You got a heck of a lot right, there were images I hadn't seen in a loooong time. I'm impressed with the detailed FMV info! Did you interview Todd?!

[@ssj8273]

Thank you for your service to make this port possible, a true masterpiece and a technical miracle

[@ModernVintageGamer]

thank you for reaching out and clarifying! I never spoke to Todd but i would love to as i feel like theres more optimizations that were done that Im not aware of.

[@thatoneguyoverthere4236]

​@@ModernVintageGamerit's funny i was reminiscing with a friend about how crazy this game was back in 1998 when it came out and how good of a job they did with the remake. I may have to get an n64 copy to compare it myself, its super interesting how they got this to work. If you get additional information mvg you should consider making a follow-up video, it would be great to see more about the n64 port for sure.

[@NobleNoob356]

Thanks for helping make such a big part of my childhood! RE2 on N64 was amazing.

[@Supernintendomaster]

its my favorite version of the game.

[@D.man140]

Games back then: I'll reduce this 1.5 GB game to 64 MB Games now: please delete more games so I can update and add more gun skins

[@nothinghere615]

Too true lol.

[@jon4715]

So true. Imagine that kind of ingenuity and problem solving in today's world? No limitations has hurt gaming imo

[@30yovegan34]

imagine the much bigger MW playerbase if you didn't have to sacrifice so much space for it.

[@dennismolina9033]

Agreed! Games back then were not that advanced, no GB, no DLC, no expansions, no annoying system updates

[@GawainSSB]

Game industry doesn't pay talent well enough. In the west, a lot of the talented developers have moved on, especially lower level ones.

[@IncredibleMD]

These guys: *compress 4GB of FMV into 24Mb* Modern developers: "What's compression?"

[@firagabird]

XSX/PS5 devs: *furiously takes notes*

[@UltimateAlgorithm]

Compression takes a lot of resources, especially when people complained about 30 seconds loading time. Uncompressed files while it large, it can loads a lot faster.

[@thewewguy8t88]

@@UltimateAlgorithm also these days people are going to notice comperession a lot more then they would in the 1990s its a trick devs cant get away with anymore. not unless they are doing it in a vaccum and its the first port of the game made.

[@IncredibleMD]

@Ellis Dee 24MB is 6% of a 400MB hard drive. In order for a 90GB game (common among AAA releases nowadays) to take 6% of your drive, you'd need a 1.5TB drive. Yes, the cost of disk space has gone down, but the size of games relative to the size of harddrives has also radically increased.

[@IncredibleMD]

@@thewewguy8t88 People, today, are making whole video games that take up less space than a single new map in Call of Duty.

[@felphero]

I feel they should legitimatly teach this in digital programing and software engineering classes. This was a jaw dropping feat from the devs

[@xebatansis]

This seems more like a passion project than a normal job. Someone REALLY wanted RE2 to be playable on the N64.

[@calska140]

I hope they got *PAYED*

[@jcwalker722]

One million split between a 9 person dev team over a two year span, with taxes that’s about $50,000 a year, not bad for game devs in the 90s.

[@etienneditolve1567]

@@jcwalker722 Wasn't the milion the budget for the game port?

[@bcc91]

@@etienneditolve1567 that's exactly what he's talking about...

[@sharingiscaring1952]

It certainly was them proving a point. I remember when they ported doom to n64. At the time it was said that doom could only run of PC. I guess they wanted to push the envelope.

[@blakegriplingph]

Angel Studios would later be acquired by Rockstar as Rockstar San Diego. They also led development of the RAGE engine.

[@astral5228]

San Diego, not San Francisco they're also the people behind Midnight Club, Smuggler's Run and RDR

[@sgcs]

Yeah, San Diego.

[@dario110011]

I don't know much about game developers, but that sounds like a fascinating story!

[@zebular]

Ahh yes, San Diego.... A whale's vagina.

[@TanookiSuit]

@@astral5228 Yup, I remember their studio I was local to them, and a few years later after EA tanked the SD office (which was in Carlsbad, CA) my brother moved over to what was Angel that was then Rockstar to work on Midnight Club so I'm familiar with what you're talking about. He still is in the industry now as producer for another company after bouncing between a few for some years because how unstable that industry is with mergers and shut downs. I was in too briefly, but chose stability and bailed, did the media for years online and stopped cold after that.

[@bartjuhh12]

As a software engineer, sometimes I just wish I could be there at the game studio during projects like these. It must've been an insane experience.

[@IAm-zo1bo]

You would go literally insane

[@jonathans.972]

Right. Software Engineer as well. I think we all have our own innovations that make us proud, but something so basic and standalone feels like a masterpiece in comparison.

[@azmanabdula]

Look at all the old devs They are all a little crazy

[@driverjb09]

I'm also a software engineer, and I find learning about these kind of things fascinating. Of course, we rarely have issues like this now, but the creative problem solving can be applied to all kinds of things.

[@buuuba7022]

@@driverjb09 if you think there are no issues like these nowadays you are not a software engineer at all.

[@a7xtherevrend]

Imagine the kind of games we could get today if they had the same passion as the people who did this port.

[@h8GW]

*E.A.* -wouldn't exist- would still have a good reputation and retro gaming wouldn't have gone mainstream.

[@hajzoom4278]

The indie game scene is absolutely thriving with passionate developers. Sad to see the state of big studios but there really is no shortage of great games these days.

[@booboo4963]

Very true. Absolutely no one working in video games is passionate at all. Literally zero people with any passion. It’s weird how there is no passion in today’s game developers. They’re always saying how they have no passion and how they actually hate videogames and think gamers are stupid idiots with too much passion. Weird right?

[@echosmoon5605]

Now it’s all cosmetics or worse pay to win

[@LuccianoNova]

@@hajzoom4278unless these Indie guys are making there own game engines most games are shit these days

[@nibby_]

2020 COD Developers: We managed to squeeze the game into 200GB.

[@Dr.WhetFarts]

212GB*

[@MelenheadGaming]

And counting

[@wiceorc5105]

its propably largest video game i have ever seen. but ya know kids wanted battle royal so we needed to take the dump on our hdd.

[@meiinuyasha]

@@coldtea7 FPS and COD games are cancer

[@mlabs6005]

you know, i thought you were joking and i had a good laugh. now that i've googled it, i'm frightened.

[@ryantrenhaile8189]

I remember working on the N64 only outfits. This was a lot of work to convert. We got a lot of data / assets from Japan. Not one of us could read the file names.. lol...

[@shanekimberlin]

Please tell more! Very interesting!

[@Gunnerth]

I had Alexander Ehrath as a teacher many years ago, and he told us all about the hurdles the team had to go through to get this working. He never said why he was credited as 'The man' though.

[@leodf1]

How about answering his question about why you wrote your own codec instead of using the HQVM that was already included in the SDK.

[@funposting8912]

leodf1 simple guess, but I’d imagine it simply wasn’t enough. I only have experience with newer, much newer Nintendo SDK’s, and while they have plenty of libraries and tools to get the job done, they’re good all-rounders, and aren’t really that specialised. Using video as an example, they’ll give you something that does a good job of compressing video with a reasonable quality output, but if you want to absolutely maximise on space saving, or have a video that looks damn near perfect, you’ll either want a custom or third party library. And that’s fifteen or so years later.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

@Ryan Trenhaile: Yeah, i've heard this was a common problem with porting Japanese games by western companies. You either got no documentation or everything you got was all in Japanese. The dudes who converted R-Type to the C64 back then tried it and all they got was badly readable FAX copies of the documentation and of course all in Japanese. So they just got an actual arcade machine, played it to no end and reverse engineered all the enemy behaviors and completely re-wrote the whole game instead of porting it.

[@desmondbrown5508]

I first played RE2 on N64 when I was much younger. And I played a friends copy on PS1 a year later and seriously didn't notice a difference. But you have to understand that back then most people had standard CRT televisions (not the much clearer BVM's and PVM's). So as far as most of us were concerned, N64 looked almost completely identical (even side-by-side) to the PS1 version. In fact, because of N64's more advanced blending techniques, there are parts on an old CRT that actually look superior to the original PS1 port. It was magic. Magic that most people didn't realize was actually inferior until much later when LCD TVs became normal, proper analog conversion setups were affordable and proper emulators came along.

[@tonyt3955555]

plus load times....ps1 was a brutal system then and now because of that

[@The_Blue_Otaku]

Same the first time I played RE2 was on my older sister's N64 around 6 or 7 years ago but around a year and a bit ago i managed to buy RE2 digitaly for my PS3 and yeah the music is the same amazing as allways but it plays smoother on the Playstaion then it did on the N64 probably due to how it was coded and scaled down to fit on a N64 cartridge

[@serebbi]

@@The_Blue_Otaku 6-7 years ago, 2016?? How does your sister have a N64 + RE2.. Respect.

[@The_Blue_Otaku]

@@serebbi It was her ex-boyfriend's he also had an NES also it was around 2015/2016

[@burrybondz225]

​@@The_Blue_OtakuSuch a man should have never become an ex loool. You shoulda stopped your sister

[@superterrificthuggyhour6008]

It was crazy to attempt it...and even more bonkers that they succeeded. The reduction in file size is mind-blowing.

[@BeeBumper]

About 80 percent of the original file was removed through compression. Amazing

[@Jerhevon]

One detail that I feel should have been mentioned was how expensive the larger N64 cartridges were to make, thus making games that used 64MB carts rare. This is much like the development budget given to Angel Studios. Someone at Capcom was super determined to make this port happen.

[@cacomeat7385]

Capcom didn't release a lot of games on the N64, I guess they wanted the few that did make it to be excellent

[@loicgascoin5623]

If I recall correctly, at that time, Capcom wanted to release Resident Evil 0 on the N64 before moving it to the Gamecube. So maybe the N64 port of RE2 was a way for Capcom to test the technologies available and to see the reception of the port.

[@unstoppableExodia]

@@cacomeat7385 That is so true that Capcom had all but abandoned the N64 until very late in its life letting a couple of PlayStation ports on it. I'm glad they were well made ports tho. My guess is that Capcom felt a need to hedge their bets. They hit pay dirt with PlayStation but didn't necessarily want to burn bridges with Nintendo as the big N has always been a force in the portable console market so Capcom probably threw the N64 a bone late in the generation to keep Nintendo on side.

[@kokomoman]

I'm guessing it was actually Nintendo that wanted to show that games didn't have to give anything up to be able to be playable on N64. Just the level of collaboration mentioned at the end of the video point to Nintendo actually being the ones who really wanted this port to happen.

[@gamerxt333]

Nintendo wasnt exactly leading the console war and had fewer 3rd party games, yet still never wanted most studios to know how to optimize games for their machine ? Yeah thats sounds like Nintendo all right.

[@anononomous]

"It's just a port, shouldn't be too much work." 2 years later: *Has invented MP4 video compression*

[@abark]

Mpeg 4 was released before this port.

[@Rainmotorsports]

@@abark I'm pretty sure it was being used as a metaphor.

[@manformerlypigbukkit]

abark Woosh

[@abark]

@@manformerlypigbukkit Yes, I admit zoomer humor meme comments go right over my head

[@MercurialIris]

Pig Bukkit don’t say that.

[@chrisj617]

I only had an N64, so I was grateful that they were able to release such a high-profile third-party game on the system. What really struck me, though, was how physically heavy the RE2 cartridge was compared to other N64 games. They crammed all that content in there, and I could feel it.

[@thememelordbobbeh3107]

The N64 had a lot of programming wizards working on its' games.

[@Sypaka]

Check the KZbin channel "GameHut", it's by Jon Burton of Traveller's Tales/Tt Games. They made a lot of things back then to get games working, and he even explains the techniques they used on that channel.

[@aTaryum]

I can only imagine how many sleepless nights the devs had to endure to port two CDs worth of content into a 64mb cartridge

[@benscalp]

Now that's what I call a port!

[@irunasoft]

sickening skills

[@Bewefau]

Um its like 500 Mb's not 64

[@Bewefau]

iTheGeek Take your own advice I said Mb

[@true_neutral3378]

@@Bewefau dude...

[@borstenpinsel]

"Dialog audio took a quality hit"... me growing up with N64 games that had voice tracks like "hu, hahah, ououou" and "hey, listen": still pretty impressive

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

It wasn't that bad, almost warmer than the PS1 version.

[@JonDaye07]

@@HappyBeezerStudios That's what I thought. You can hear the compression on the tail end of the words, but overall it sounds warmer.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The compression must've hit the highs more.

[@steinmaniac7920]

The N64 audio sounded more natural to me in this regard, it feels like a weird dissonance seeing the less than perfect graphics and hearing waaaaay too crisp audio.

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

banjo: ooo eh ooo eh ay!

[@ScrambledAndBenedict]

I would go so far as to say this is the most impressive port of a game of all time. The fact that it's shot-for-shot identical, with no missing content, with extra content added in, and the only sacrifice is graphical downgrades that are only noticable in side-by-side comparisons to the original? My god that's impressive.

[@hughjazz44]

I remember getting this game when it was new, and had done zero research on it. It was an impulse buy (and a very expensive one, at that). I thought for sure they would've removed the FMVs and replaced them with stills or something. Totally blew my mind when the ENTIRE game was present!

[@pibe88iTa]

"Sorry but it looks like your high audio quality dialogue party has been... cancelled"

[@BenWillock]

I kind of like the compressed sound, makes it sound more retro

[@Draggobuttboi]

"what happuund?"

[@Draggobuttboi]

@Balakeh "there was this....*incident*...involving cartridges...for a console"

[@jasonblalock4429]

@@BenWillock I agree, the PSX audio is so dry it's distracting. The muffled N64 voices feel like they fit the space better.

[@Clay3613]

@@jasonblalock4429 Don't try to justify that.

[@joser.4494]

Both PS1 discs have a combined total size of 1,291MB. The N64 port has a total size of 64 MB. To put that into perspective, the N64 version is about 5% the size of the original, while being fairly close to the PS1 original.

[@packlesswolf1]

FKn insane when you think about it.

[@gokushkameha-ha-ha9344]

So what content was cut?

[@Larroseba]

@@gokushkameha-ha-ha9344 Nothing. But also the N64 has some features added compared to the PS1 version. The bulk of most ps1 games were their Audio and Video Files, more than the actual games themselves.

[@perfectgaming788]

@@gokushkameha-ha-ha9344 none

[@vjspectron]

@@gokushkameha-ha-ha9344 There's an exhaustive list here at about the 20-minute mark: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioKqnXVnga6HfaM It's not much, in fact there's even a newly-added randomizer mode, and features some unique cheat codes.

[@adambartlett7955]

"Looks like your party, been canceled" "What happened????" Leon, you miss all those zombies you ran by earlier???

[@homejonny9326]

Lol

[@abnnizzy]

But thats exactly why he's asking what happened...

[@UltimateAlgorithm]

That kind of voice acting won't get a pass on AAA games today. It will be mocked to oblivion by players and critics. Surely if that released today, it would become a meme.

[@Oceanandskylinevidss]

The dialog was full of cheesy charm in re games. Now everything is Soo serious.

[@midnighttornado22]

@@UltimateAlgorithm The Final Fantasy games still do. They have shit localization voice direction, at least for the English versions. FFVII Remake wasn't too bad in some spots, but that's not saying much, with all that excessive Japanese grunting bullshit undermining the acting.

[@CDBlackmage]

Me: "Hmm, where is Angel Studios now?" Wikipedia: *Angel Studios redirects here, Rockstar San Diego* Me: "...huh."

[@jerome6383]

uuuhhuh

[@lyraspartan]

The same studio who brought you the Red Dead games and RAGE, the engine used in all rockstar games since 2006

[@slikdude12592]

Yeah, and they also made the original Midnight Club for PS2

[@joeyparkhill8751]

FACT:Angel Studios also made a N64 baseball game entitled Ken Griffey Jr. Slugfest & mere weeks after that game was released Angel Studios announced that they would no longer make sports games in order for them to focus on making RE264.

[@carl8790]

To put this accomplishment into perspective on how impressive it was, imagine a studio was given the task to port RDR2 into a PS2 storage size disc, and still be playable from start to finish.

[@thegamingchef3304]

Lol that is not the same. Bro RDR2 is several gaming systems ahead of the ps2. N64 was actually more powerful than the PS1, the cartridge was the only issue. RDR2 would be so dumbed down and would need several PlayStation discs to work.

[@carl8790]

@@thegamingchef3304 did you even read what I commented? I didn't say to port it on the PS2 lol. I said, 'a PS2 storage size disc' which is a either a single layer or dual layer DVD storage sizes. Basically compressing the shit of RDR2 to around 4 - 8GBs.

[@thegamingchef3304]

@@carl8790If you ported RDR2 to a ps2 storage disc you are essentially porting it to the ps2. This is a dumb comment and the fact it has so many likes without someone calling you out on your stupidity amazes me lol.

[@mattia1026]

Porting MGS4 to Xbox 360 in a single DVD disc. It could ne possible to do it in 2-3 discs compressing audio, bit the game still wouldn't fit in just one disc.

[@h0shidont35]

@@thegamingchef3304 get wrecked

[@daskampffredchen9242]

Building up the beard for a DollarShaveClub sponsor?

[@nomisastro2000]

It the free one wipe charlies that he really wants.

[@Shlonzs]

Looking good

[@tyler6644]

dollar rip off club. Safety razor ftw

[@Exigentable]

@@tyler6644 dollar shave club ain't a ripoff rofl. Good razors for a good price.

[@aubreyh1930]

Exigentable how much were you payed to say that

[@kenshinflyer]

I still remember playing this game on the PC, with headset on, full volume, in the dark. I could swear I can hear zombies moaning behind me.

[@austin4700]

Remake it in ue5

[@kenshinflyer]

@@Tornado_Flame : Well, those headsets were not as chunky as the new ones, though. But that immersive experience...

[@BeeBumper]

Yep headphones is the best way to play. You hear things more clearly

[@j.a.weishaupt1748]

No it’s just me

[@Sypaka]

If you as a developer use binaural microphones during sound recording, you can do that with just Stereo. No fancy 5.1 setup needed. If you want to know how those microphones look like, just go Twitch, Category: ASMR and see random girls licking those super expensive things for cringe.

[@handlessuck589]

I really wish modern game devs did this more. There are so many < 10 GB games that still look great by virtue of having a memorable art style and incredible replay value. Yet playing a generic military shooter hogs everything in the HDD.

[@John_Doe27]

what, you don't enjoy day one 200 GB patch on top of the original 120 GB download for the game?

[@peoplez129]

The reason is data throughput has increased tremendously, so games can afford to be uncompressed. If you waste processing resources on decoding, that's less resources for the game to use to do the heavy lifting. So you'd have smaller games, but less frame rate. One of the biggest problems of games in the mid 2000's was memory rather than processing power. Once you reached that memory limit, you'd see things like skipping, because the memory was swapping in order to display everything on the screen. This also effected resolution greatly. You could have had the processing power for 1080p, but because of memory being like 1-2GB, you'd only really be able to run 720p comfortably.

[@SambaJones97]

The reality is that games DO do this. Thats why the updates for modern games are generally huge. The assets are compressed together into one file, usually split up into groups so weapons go into a weapons file or models into a models file, textures into a texures file etc... But that means when one asset is changed, you have to re-compress them all together and update them as one. Resulting in bigger patches. Also as mentioned above somewhere, there are now so many audio sources in games that usually you have to leave the audio uncompressed to give the CPU time to get through it all, if it also had to uncompress it, it would take up so much resources

[@Smart-Towel-RG-400]

Every single NES SNES N64 game every made is less then 10 GB(offical releases) and we'd be happy to see one game be around that 🤣

[@natesilvers2166]

Vampire bloodlines being a perfect example

[@ChannelSho]

I was wondering who Angel Studios was. They became Rockstar San Diego. That explains a lot.

[@SebastienLang72]

Makes a lot of sense! And I thought they became Pied Piper!

[@chikipichi5280]

But I thought Rockstar was bad at compression?

[@user-wp4uv1lt9x]

@@chikipichi5280 why do you think so?

[@recklesflam1ngo968]

@@chikipichi5280 Since when?

[@DDT-lr3zz]

​@@chikipichi5280 Well GTA V in PS3 is 17GBs

[@RockRedGenesis]

What Angel Studios (now Rockstar San Diego) did with this game to port it to the N64 is nothing short of witchcraft! A very impressive port!

[@thetrashmann8140]

Same with the guy who ported Doom to the SNES he also did witchcraft and the person who ported Doom to the 3DO given their time constraints and resources and it goes to show if given enough time (and money) it can be done albeit with some compromises except for the 3DO I feel bad for that person they were given 10 weeks and had to do it alone

[@gamerxt333]

Doom isnt exaclty that amazing considering it uses the super fx chip made for 3d, he did downgrade it a lot also. Is it really amazing if it runs in a window at like 10fps ?

[@Beetlejuice_Sam]

They were the Panic Button for the 90s!

[@bradyrhino8030]

@@Beetlejuice_Sam Red Dead Revolver

[@pgr3290]

Nintendo: How long has it been since Sega launched Model 2 arcade boards with full texture mapping? 3 years boss. How long has it been since Sony launched a machine with about 700kb of RAM you can use for textures? Nearly 2 years boss. Alright lads, let's give our brand new machine 4kb of texture memory. Good idea boss.

[@t0biascze644]

It had 4KB of Texture *CACHE* not texture *MEMORY* PSX had only 2KB of texture cache, even less than N64

[@pgr3290]

@@t0biascze644 People that call it cache in the N64 are seemingly unaware that it is indeed correctly referred to as texture memory. 'TMEM' in technical documents. It was a manually managed tiny piece of memory. You're welcome.

[@HanDaimond]

I still have my copy, it's impressive how they've managed to put the whole game inside a N64 cartridge; a work of art. What I liked the most on this version was the 3D analog option, no more tank controls.

[@MelancoliaI]

That's why I loved that version the best. so much smoother than tank controls

[@ChristmasEve777]

I'd like to see them put it on an Atari 2600 cartridge now.... :)

[@51OAKLANDER510]

@ken parvu some a hole has a unopened greatest hits version of res 2 on ps1 for $1,900. If there's an unopened res 2 game original out there for ps1 I bet Paul Logan would buy it for a million. Like he did with a unlimited charizard card

[@Mr78Stiffler]

The time when developers have to be creative. Today: There is nothing we can do, our 50GB updates are necessary to update some clothes and guns in the game.

[@Terkzorr]

Creative and extremely skilled. Back then most devs also had to develop their own game engines, which was a massive undertaking, instead of copy-pasting a few elements around in Unreal or Unity. I have the biggest respect for these legends.

[@Walamonga1313]

@@MrZoolook 50GB update to break* one reticle

[@pixelbucket8884]

Destiny 2 effectively uninstalled two of the game's expansions to add a new one without expanding the game's file size.

[@TheBlazingak]

That’s only because D2 devs are greedy fucks that will sell you a steak, shove their fingers down your throat and then try to sell the vomit back to you at an increased price

[@TheMeanArena]

That's because we aren't dealing with the limitations of the past so it isn't necessary and most are trying to achieve the best visuals possible.

[@russelljackson2818]

I didn't own a PS back in the 90s, so this game epitomized Resident Evil for me. I have no idea how many times I completed it. I used to get up in the middle of the night when I knew everyone else would be asleep to sneak downstairs and play through it. Trying to find the right volume where I could hear all the dialogue but the licker crashing through the two-way mirror wouldn't wake up my parents was a delicate balancing act. I played through it for the first time in probably 15 years during shutdown, still remembering how to get through every puzzle and where to go for every item. Everything about the game took me back to being thirteen again, down in my old basement and nervous as hell about both the monsters I was confronting, and the idea of being caught up playing games at 2 a.m. on a school night.

[@mehdi_azmoudeh]

Kinda same memories for me. I've missed those moments more than being able to express

[@joetroutt7425]

Damn you parents had some good hearing if you were in the basement playing the game and they were upstairs asleep.

[@jbird7782]

That's fun, thanks for sharing

[@tristanm4644]

Did you ever get caught? Lol

[@joetroutt7425]

@overclockeador but yet I bet they were secretly playing them in their closets themselves.

[@just_jimmy]

Maybe it's only me, but I think developers back then deserve so much credit. Not that the game devs know deserver less, but still they had tremendous challenges.

[@horseradish4046]

8:16 the N64 compressed version honestly looks a lot more aesthetic. Would rather have blurriness than pixelation.

[@akhtarjaviero3627]

power wise, the n64 is actually more powerful than the ps1

[@Mari_Izu]

@@akhtarjaviero3627 It's not that simple, PS1 can do a lot of things that N64 can't do and vice-versa. So it's hard to compare.

[@TritnewNG]

​@@Mari_Izu They still believe the whole bit thing matters.

[@ravelnavarro4358]

the colors are too washed out for my liking

[@oldenvye6432]

Played the hell out of this port back in the day - Just one bit of trivia: The FMV size limitations were were almost too much even with compression that they resourcefully removed one that is almost unnoticeable in the middle of the game, (SPOILERS)... ...where you meet Annette in the Sewers. "Are you saying he injected the G virus into his own body?" The playstation version has two separate FMVs with that line said by the Claire or Ada voice actor depending on the scenario. The N64 port only features Claire's voice no matter the scenario.

[@BlottaMcTablets]

I picked this out back in the day, but shout out to the immortal Lotus Prince for reminding me in his RE2 version comparison video.

[@oldenvye6432]

@@BlottaMcTablets Yep, I've seen it. Good video. I got my copy from Blockbuster video, I think they had some exclusivity deal and while it wasn't cheap it was worth it.

[@CDages]

Yep. I noticed this myself when I first played this version. For the longest, I thought I was imagining it.

[@abstractdaddy1384]

Oh that's funny. I always noticed that too but never gave it much thought.

[@chikipichi5280]

The game wasn't that long. How many times did you replay it?

[@surajladdagiri]

This is basically compressing a game to 1/20 of it's size(about 1 gb compressed to 64 mb). To put this into context, imagine if modern warfare and warzone together were just 10 gb. 60 GB games would be 3 GB. This compression level is unheard of today

[@RolandoMarreroPR]

Pretty sure RE2 would fit on a single CD with no loss in quality and resolution. Both CDs were exactly the same except for Claire & Leon. Still shrinking 650MB to 64MB is quite impressive! My favorite port and I didn’t have a N64!

[@30yovegan34]

they skipped compression work on games this generation when they found out they can pass on those savings to, you, the customer.

[@maxchenmusterhausen5311]

Thing is, its not unheard off - its just that most shitty devs today dont give a single fukk. Same with the C&C remaster. The games remastered only took up 2gb of space, IF you took the most bloated versions at your disposal. Red Alert 1 on PSX vs PC is night and day. So take the most bloated ones and up them to nearly 40gb, which is insane and stupid. The reason given was 4k, but 4k is simply not a one-way street. HD-Resolution, aka half that of 4k, had many different methods at hand. a picture in HD could either be 50MB or 100KB. Not compressing anything today is the simple expectation that the customer has space. Yes i do, but i dont want to bloat my 2TB of SSD-space with shitty uncompressed data. Its wasteful, idiotic and unrespectful. Devs should compress their games. It should be one of the last steps to take. But no, "SSDs are cheap so who cares". Fukk such devs, really.

[@VexAcer]

These days stuff is usually straight up uncompressed/very little compressed because it means less unpacking by the CPU which = better performance. The size for MW/Warzone is still straight up wtf though

[@Dark0Clone]

@@maxchenmusterhausen5311 I agree with DarkNinja, but just wanted to add some stuff. I also thinks, that sometimes devs can be lazy and file sizes dont have to be this big, but I also see some arguments for it. Just to keep some stuff more to reality. Firstly 4K is 4 times the resolution of Full HD not 2 times. Secondly an uncompressed full HD texture with 10 bit color and 4 colors (RGBA) has a maximum of 10 MB (1920 * 1080 * 10 * 4 / 8 (8bit = 1 byte) / 1000 / 1000 = 10.368 MB), so if you have 50MB you might have 50 bit color which I am not aware, that any monitor could display :). Still, some games are just ridiculously big. However I think a lot of it has to do with the computational effort, that goes into decompressing stuff and picture quality. If you ever worked on badly lossy compressed images (e.g. small jpegs) you know even tho it looks okay from afar if you zoom in it is horrible and having these artifacts in a game asset would be obnoxious. Additionally most video hardware just needs color values for each pixel and most compressed files dont save these values in place like e.g. a bmp, where every pixel color is simply saved as a number. We already complain about long loading times and decompressing all textures in a given level would put a lot more stress on your CPU/GPU. It is also not just loading times, but many textures might be loaded later because Video RAM is limited too and this would cause stutters if you have do decompress it. And to be fair HDDs are just so much cheaper than CPUs. But I don´t think they are not compressed at all, but the more sophisticated your compression the more compute power is needed to decompress. I just bought a 1TB HDD for my parents for 40€ and I could put a lot of games on that much space. But I also dont play CoD so yeah ^^. Also, some textures cannot be lossy compressed at all as they dont contain pictures, but raw data (I think there was a good GDC talk about the environment creation in Horizon Zero Dawn, which uses textures to populate environments with trees and the like. The textures were like top down maps where everything was and compressing that lossy would go horribly wrong ^^). This might not be the majority, but it is still something to think about. So in the end you have to make a trade off between speed and space, and as space is super cheap right now I think the decision is pretty easy.

[@Lunchbox6954]

This is my favorite version of RE2, It just blew my mind soooo much when this had the cutscenes on N64

[@danieldevito6380]

The score for the main hall in RE 2 is my favorite video game music of all time. It's absolutely INCREDIBLE.

[@inventorwithadd]

Nice video, few corrections: So the screen resolution was changed every character cut based on the POSSIBLE number of characters to appear. Only 3D model textures were reduced in size. All other textures other than background compression were same resolution or upscaled for backgrounds. MusyX is pronounce "Musix" not "Musee-X" Fun fact... N64 does not clamp colors when using additive mode (making it useless), so I doubled the brightness for additive textures and used modulate blend :) Also, N64 had a proper Z-Buffer but was a bit sheit on pixel fill, so instead of the PS overdraw, I would analyze all the sprites Z-Values and spit out a Z-Buffer image I could preload into the Z-Buffer on N64 that 3D models would draw against. Thanks for the video!

[@Edexote]

Awesome work on that port, thank you very much.

[@houssamassila6274]

Factor 5 or Angel Studios ?

[@inventorwithadd]

@@houssamassila6274 Angel Studios did the port, but we borrowed Chris Huelsbeck from Factor 5 to do half of the music conversions to MusyX

[@houssamassila6274]

@@inventorwithadd Awesome! You are a hero sir. I hope you realise that.

[@pig1800]

HERE COMES THE VERY PORTER HIMSELF!

[@archicube]

You forgot to cover that this N64 port has the option to utilize the Expansion Pack and utilizes an additional 4mb of RAM upscaling the resolution game to 480p making this port even sharper than the PS1 version.

[@Ashitaka0815]

The image resolution - yes, but FMV and texture resolution - definetly not. In practice you had a high res picture with blurry ingredients 😂

[@dianaloayzat4975]

@@Ashitaka0815 so you were playing a video in 140p.

[@Ashitaka0815]

@@dianaloayzat4975 no I was just pointing at the fact that the higher output resolution doesn't affect the texture resolution stored on the cartridge. Of course it doesn't - even with more video ram, you can't magically cast texture data out of nowhere. So sharper corners and picture quality - yes, sharper textures in the distance - also possible because with more memory you can mipmap further away. But up close - nope, otherwise they would have to store two versions of the same textures on the cartridge, where storage place was on a premium at the beginning.

[@maytizevb]

Download and burn resident evil 2 and play in a real ps1

[@StreetFighterIIFeb]

ALL N64 games are BLURRY. that is the only reason i hated this sytem BUT i love cartridge based systems! and there was not a single capcom game on here from fighting like x-men vs. street fighter or street fighter alpha series

[@tharagz08]

I find these type of videos fascinating, thank you for putting it together!

[@newphilmz3605]

If they re-released this exact game today, it would be a 10 gb download

[@marcowulliampopirers2216]

100*

[@Euduchaus]

@@marcowulliampopirers2216 1000*

[@IngwiePhoenix]

Excluding the day 1 patch...

[@vicchopin]

Angel studios pushed the n64 to the limit. The n64 Evangelion game was also noteworthy in this regard. Angel and Factor 5 did amazing stuff for the console. Things were more... daring in those days. True revolutionary devs.

[@sgcs]

They still exist btw, just under a different name

[@DrumEagle]

Can you tell more about that Evangelion game? Why is it so impressive?

[@vicchopin]

@@DrumEagle well at the time (99) it was pretty rare to hear audio both voiceovers and music on the n64 so crisp; this game has lots of it. Its has good quality fullscreen fmv too but not as much as the puzzle pokémon game. There are constant mini fmv on the hud when characters talk and show emotions which resembles the cartoon a whole bunch. They managed to capture it precisely and sometimes there are several appearing onscreen at the same time. Not that impressive when compared to its fmv counterparts on the pokémon game which are as MVG said fullscreen but great nonetheless. Given more time (or tools?), Bandai could surely put some action sequences from the tv series on the cart for sure. Good and weird game, go check it.

[@Ketorulz]

This still happens, it’s known as Nintendo Switch compared to the other Hd consoles

[@growlanser5600]

Seeing what the developers managed to achieved with such limitations is simply incredible.

Developers back then did so much to compensate the lack of hardware. They did so many ingenious trick and figured out so many crazy ways to improve quality while not sacrificing performance. Nowadays many games waste resources. I know, games being this complexes as they are don't help, but some devs just release the games as they are and don't give a crap about optimization, compression.

[@jrr7031]

With 'nary a loot box in sight...

[@0Synergy]

@@jrr7031 Yep you payed your dues for the game and got a complete game.

[@jasonanderson4915]

It's like throwing a Master Mechanic in a junkyard & asking him to build you a running car. Just give him a little time.

[@cracknigga]

meanwhile, whatsapp on my phone is a 500mb app. a goddamn messenger app. lazy ass devs stopped caring about optimization

[@azee2222]

Great video, would be keen to see more videos focusing on this level of dedication to optimisation.

[@justinransburg5560]

Everything about this impressive. I’ve done digital illustrations larger than the entire Resident Evil 2 game file! Thank you for sharing this video!

[@Sentarry]

"Leon... sorry... but, it looks like your party has been cancelled."

[@robbieburns3564]

Dying, holding in his own guts and he feels he has to apologize to the rookie that they can't throw him a party.. he must be Canadian.

[@steve_ire321]

"What happened..?" Says Leon. Having just survived a near death experience with a runaway tanker, the city around him burning down, and, oh, dead people running around trying to chomp his ass cheeks off. Gotta love those 90's computer game scripts and acting. No ballsing about.

[@peterle5419]

what a boss... torn up, bitten, and transforming... he can still maintain being the station's Captn. Obvious... i wanna see that this man get a promotion.

[@BatataKarambas]

To be honest, the sound in the n64 version seemed more fitting with the environment in my opinion

[@diego-3939]

F

[@dustin6225]

Developers back then: "Gotta fit a gig of data on 64MB, and has to work beginning to end at retail, with a million budget? Pfft, lol k" Devs now: "We're finally releasing after two years of delays and going over budget by almost double. There's a 30GB install with a 70GB day one patch. Its really a beta version 0.96 but our publisher threatened to sell our kids if we delayed again so here's an 80% functional game that we'll incrementally patch out major crashes once a month until the playerbase disappears entirely in six months."

[@whatamalike]

@Harry Beaver did they? Other than indie devs, big devs/publishers seem to be run on hard line neoliberal lines; firmly a center right construct.

[@IrionMonk0]

TLoU2

[@samsoulee]

Holy shit that's so true 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@SeppelSquirrel]

Developers used to get paid reasonably and been given time and care to produce a quality product. It's right-wing policies that have forced developers to do more with less, and this is the result. If you earn less than you would on unemployment, that's a problem with corporations paying slave-wages for back-breaking work. Skilled labor vs. unskilled labor is its own cruel thesis.

[@danielfaulkner9403]

@@SeppelSquirrel spot on.

[@HavokCloud]

That is freaking amazing.. Damn that was informative and fun to listen to!

[@Kennephone]

I've literally watched this video about 5 times the the past 6 months. I'm sorta obsessed with video compression, so this is really fascinating. I also have this random hobby of taking videos I record and recompressing them into different codecs, resolutions, bitrates...

[@jonasdatlas4668]

Cartridges with magic (and possibly custom hardware) inside are fascinating to me.

[@Bloowashere]

To confirm, yes it had custom hardware, I forget actual details but it contained double the storage but even with double the storage on the cartridge, it was still under half the storage used for the original game on playstation so still alot of magic happening here.

[@MrSapps]

@@Bloowashere well loads of data is duplicated across the PSX version (each CD has 99% the same roomcut.bin etc)

[@nich6089]

I’m impressed by this port. I think this is the most impressive port you’ve shown so far.

[@djhenyo]

It's less impressive when you realize that each disc only held 370MB of data, and a huge portion of that was completely redundant. All of it could have fit on a single disc easily, but selling it as a 2-CD game was a brilliant marketing move. Pressing an additional disc made the customer think they were getting double the bang for their buck when they actually were not, and it cost barely any extra to manufacture. Capcom is by far not the only company who used this cheap trick back in those days.

[@shellshock24classicgames61]

@@djhenyo lol this doesn't diminish the accomplishment in any way it just proves capcoms always been lazy and a money grub company

[@djhenyo]

@@shellshock24classicgames61 There's a significant difference between 1.2GB and ~500MB. That was my only point. Now that you mention laziness, it was pretty lazy of MVG to not take 2 minutes and check out the size of the data on each disc and account for the vast majority being redundant. That stood out as a glaring mistake in an otherwise great video.

[@joemann7971]

@@djhenyo Its still a 10x reduction in size even if they fit the entire thing on one CD. It's still quite impressive.

[@shellshock24classicgames61]

@@djhenyo its k bro your opinion is still valid no need to trash MVG relax we all have opinions have a drink of water and breath we're all valid here 👍

[@cyrollan]

vintage gaming hardware is one of the most fascinating topics for me. instant subscription, MVG! \m/ can't wait to catch up on all this content to get up to date

[@donaldredding964]

Another fantastic video! I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again; I love and appreciate the tone of your videos. Always entertaining and full of great information.

[@celderian]

I feel like a lot of those optimizations were only possible because of the way CRT TVs would hide the graphical imperfections. Today's high-resolution TVs are not anywhere as forgiving, unfortunately.

[@eduuklee9453]

the good thing about CRT was that the pixels blur into each other and create a pleasant picture. But flatscreens have super sharp pixels so artifacts would be seen emediately. Now we start to achive better looking images throught the new super sampling DLSS technology that eliminates artifacts, but 20 years later lol D;

[@thewewguy8t88]

that is exactly what i am saying.

[@BrownianMotionPicture]

gotta love that "hardware" anti aliasing.

[@slickfingarz]

CRT's are the way to play the 5th generation by far. I keep a CRT in my garage just to play N64 and PSX on.

[@dr.decker3623]

I'm playing it in HD using Hyperkin active HDMI connectors... looks good. plays good. you are very wrong.

[@aaron-n]

This was the only way I experienced Resident Evil 2 and I loved it.

[@deezy81]

Same here!!!!

[@RippahRooJizah]

Awww, it's okay. *Pats your head* We still love you all the same.

[@spidersofdoom4703]

@@RippahRooJizah i grew up with the n64 My friend had a PlayStation and I would come to his house to play re1 but when I seen re2 is coming out on n64 I was so hype Re2 became my favorite resident evil game in the series

[@ncshuriken]

Kinda like the Residential Evil equivalent of "how I experienced & loved MK3" then :p I only had it on SNES and it was great (looked much better than SSF2 Turbo!)... Years later I saw the arcade (original) version. OMFG!!! The difference was unbelievable. Literally everything about the arcade version was atleast 2x better (the sounds, the music, the graphics, the animation, the violence etc). It just showed me how much a game "needs to be squashed down" to fit on an "of the times" cartridge based console.

[@ncshuriken]

@Kalina Ann Yeah MK3 (Ultimate MK3). As much as I like the series as a classic fighter thats especially fun with friends EG on a "retro session", I myself have always thought (and so, I agree with your criticism) that the controls and 'gameplay mechanics ' (of the entire series IMO, including the HD era sequels, and Injustice) feel extremely stiff, clunky and awkward. I used to say "MK series feels like you're controlling wooden puppets with arthritis". From an audio-visual standpoint though, on arcade hardware, MK3 looked & sounded better than most (or all?) of its 2D arcade peers from EG Capcom & SNK. The appeal of MK to me (since 90's young childhood) is how insane, brutal and OTT it is. The gameplay IS the series worst enemy, by far. But that wonky "unplayability" can also make it hilarious to play (again, chill retro sesh with friends. Not alone; then its just frustrating lol). I have exactly the same problem with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo as I do MK. But thankfully Capcom fixed the horrible gameplay with the Alphas and SF3's, but then ruined it again with SF4 and beyond (WTF!?)... Bottom line: SNK, Capcom, Namco, Tecmo (whoever makes DOA, I forgot), they're like "German/Japanese car engineering" (excellence) while Midway (MK) is like "American car engineering" (IE, fun, but not good engineering at all!).

[@mascaraverde3506]

They gave $1,000,000 to 9 people. That's $111k each. What's even more impressive is that they didn't just grabbed the money and flee

[@SilverSpoon_]

at 111K, I'm sure compiling a game and writing a custom codec for it is pretty worth it. still, making this fits into 64Mb is closer to demoscene stuff by today's standards. still should've released DD64 so more videos, more music and better textures would have been a hit. ROM always been more expensive than optical.

[@LordUdedenkz]

Developers tend to like coding and like challenges

[@therandomdickhead5744]

Just stumbled upon your channel and damn. What an amazing port. Wish developers had the time and resources to put this amount of care into games nowadays.

[@LuisGarcia-os7ne]

Another impressive port: Alone in the Dark on Gameboy Color.

[@Think1401]

Alone in the dark ( new nightmare)ps1 ♥️

[@Keullo-eFIN]

RE1 on GBC was also kinda of an achievement though it was never released. The builds found on internet looks still impressive.

[@YoYo-uh3xj]

Lmao facts

[@T-MAX_X-H]

I don’t know if anyone had mentioned this yet, but Angel Studios is also responsible for the CGI effects in the VR-inspired 90s movie, “The Lawnmower Man.”

[@inventorwithadd]

... And Sega Mr bones and the Peter Gabriel frog video which won them an MTV award. We had it in our conference room.

[@T-MAX_X-H]

Alexander Ehrath Were you a part of Angel Studios?

[@inventorwithadd]

@@T-MAX_X-H for a long time, yes.

[@T-MAX_X-H]

Alexander Ehrath Awesome! Loved the RE2 port and Lawnmower Man CGI the most from your studio!

[@requintorecords713]

Alexander Ehrath Dude Thanks For being part of that team, Do you Have a Favorite Project That You got to work On during your time there? Huge Fan of The Midnight Club series And Smuglers Run

[@xxxDaMIeNxxx666]

I've always wanted to know this info myself, great vid, instant sub!!!!

[@martindominka]

Awesome video man,the amount of work your put in it🤯

[@XtremGaia]

I remember my friends telling me often N64 couldn't run FMV when comparing PS and N64. Then RE2 came out. Good old friendly console war days.

[@xmaverickhunterkx]

Even the Genesis and SNES can do FMV lol. It's all about storage.

[@xmaverickhunterkx]

@Andrew Mitchell Of course. What I mean is that a lot of people think it might be a hardware limitation or something (and it is, but not of the console but the storage format). Today you can play via SD card games on SNES with CD quality soundtracks and FMV. Of course, some consoles do make it easier with built in hardware specifically for video and stuff (like the PS1).

[@xmaverickhunterkx]

Andrew Mitchell The market wasn't as big as it is today, and Nintendo was already deeply rooted. Also many parents were against video games. Basically, it was too soon.

[@KillRei]

@Andrew Mitchell Optical discs as a storage media would've made little difference success-wise in console. The key to success would be aggressive marketing as well as developer & publisher support. Sony nailed it on that front.

[@troywright359]

@@xmaverickhunterkx GBA also

[@thndrpnts]

That cartridge was HEAVY. Easily outweighed other carts I had. I remember Donkey Kong 64 was heavier than others, too, but not as much.

[@johnberryconwayiii7071]

Loved this deep dive, SUBSCRIBED!!!!

[@brianlaudrupchannel]

I really do admire pre rendered backgrounds

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

The interesting thing is the loading screens with the opening doors were actually NOT even necessary but they kept them in the game for cosmetic reasons because it's quite a iconic thing for Resident Evil. So it was decided to keep it, even thou the N64 would have been perfectly able to do such transitions without any loading times & loading screens, unlike the CD-ROM based PS1 and Saturn.

[@SpearM3064]

Not just cosmetic reasons. Originally the door sequence was left out of the game. Playtesters said they *missed* the old animation, so they were added back in, even though it wasn't necessary.

[@AlexCole272]

@@SpearM3064 that's a Cosmetic reason

[@Paraboiia]

@@SpearM3064 bruh that's a cosmetic reason

[@snetmotnosrorb3946]

In the PC version you could click away the door opening sequence, possibly also on the Dreamcast version. These are the best versions ever released, unfortunately also the rarest.

[@TheSocialGamer]

This is a perfect overview for me. I've always tried telling my friends that the PS1 game was squeezed into a cart... Now there is a technical reference that I can recommend to my buddies!

[@sibzay811]

Very interesting and intriguing. I really appreciate this kind of detail n genius. Seems some ppl always be innovating in their fields showing great passion

[@MrEcted]

That audio port is super impressive! I was watching this video on my home recording studio listening through some pretty nice monitors and I don't think I would be able to tell the difference in a blind test (though admittedly, even though I'm a recording enthusiast, I don't have the best ears). I find audio technology to be super interesting, I thought for sure with that amount of compression I would hear a clear difference through monitors.

[@optimusghost]

It was amazing when it was released. When i played the game on the store a psx owner was there. He said that a mini cd must be in the cartrige, that was really funny to hear.

[@zakazany1945]

I miss these days when they cared about compression

[@guillermogutierrez-santana4446]

Rockstar: *”What’s that you say, you want a 30GB update to our 150GB base game?”*

[@evandov]

And optimization.

[@benjamincrew1949]

Gotta love uncompressed audio. I wonder how long before they'll stop compressing video too. It's only storage space, right? It's so cheap. Who cares if one game takes up half a hard disk?

[@wynard]

@@benjamincrew1949 Hasn't the use of video gone down in the last years because a lot is done in engine? Video is still an option for low end specs that can not handle that smoothly but I feel like it will go down even more in the future.

[@benjamincrew1949]

@@wynard A lot can be done in engine now then before, but video is still used fairly often. Uncompressed audio isn't going to sound any different except maybe to extreme audiophiles and even then is probably more a placebo effect. Uncompressed textures can take a good amount of space too but at least that may be slightly more justifiable as resolutions increase.

[@vinicius_nunes]

Amazing video. Thank you for the work on it.

[@bariatricfood]

This is incredible- Great video

[@ultimateman55]

I recently acquired this port simply because it is so technically impressive. I hadn't played RE2 since way back in 1998 on PS1. For my recent play through, I decided to play it on N64 on a CRT with the 4MB ram expansion. The higher resolution player models look fantastic on a CRT and I loved playing this version of the game. Truly an amazing port.

[@ThePainlessGamer]

This was the version I played as a lad and it was the only RE2 I knew until I was later able to play the other versions, the sound quality is only a small compromise, don't remember it being a problem back then, but I wish he would of said something about the RAM expansion.

[@IWasAllLikeG93]

The N64 port was the way I played this game as a kid. When you look at them side by side it's a huge difference in video quality, but on a CRT that difference was barely noticeable. I did notice the particularly bad voice clips back then, but most games on N64 had no voice acting at all so the fact it was a little subpar was completely overshadowed by the fact it was there at all.

[@daveanderson9895]

With the 64, the one upside is that there was way less jaggies on the character models.

[@daskampffredchen9242]

Always wanted to know how this game was ported. It just felt impossible

[@CecilTheDarkKnight234]

Same in all honesty but there leaves the other impossible port and that's mega man 64 "legends"

[@daskampffredchen9242]

@@CecilTheDarkKnight234 Maybe they get a video too

[@dundy7845]

I’ve never beaten this version but it’s always interested me. I like that you can change the blood color to Blue or Green, that’s something that has always been funny to me And the inclusion of the EX files that add a little bit more backstory to the game and foreshadow the at the time upcoming RE0 which was going to be an N64 game. The exclusive costumes were also a welcome change and in my opinion are better than the costumes in the other versions.

[@ncshuriken]

Like Turok on N64. Playing it as a 12 YO kid with a younger sibling and when your mums in the room she's like "PUT THE BLOOD ON GREEN MODE! NOW! "

[@mullimeister904]

New here. Title caught my here. RE2 was the first title my dad bought when I was a kid. This is definitely my favorite of all time. Great vid!

[@wajinshu]

Nostalgic music. Remembering playing this as a kid up to midnight. Good times. Thanks for the video btw didn't know this port.

[@kylosun]

Did you play the remake?

[@4c1d]

I got goosebumps ....

[@Juan_Solo84]

My cousins and i had to turn the music off or play something happy instead. Scariest game that ive ever played. I'd pause at every corner, dreading to move forward. The music set the tone and atmosphere. Excellent game.

[@OrtadragoonX]

It’s the version I had. I owned an N64 and a Playstation. To this day I have no clue why I got the N64 version.

[@JonathanSanchez-hw8uy]

Dammm i used to play Re2 back on the days but neverrrr at nigth😂😅, and to be honest im afraid to play the remake😂😂😂 i cant deal with the remake its to scary😂😂😂😂

[@TimmyJoePCTech]

I always thought it was impressive that Tony Hawk got ported to the N64 but hated the looping music and missing tracks. Seems like they could have fit the whole sound track if they had used more of these tricks.

[@RetrOrigin]

Compressing music/audio is very different than compressing video. The hit in quality would have been quite a lot more noticeable.

[@r033cx]

Tony Hawk uses licensed music, which is much harder to play as midi

[@TimmyJoePCTech]

@@r033cx hahhaha

[@Zedek]

@@RetrOrigin Mono and 32 khZ samplerate save over 50% and are, for N64 players, not really noticable. I mean, when you bought a console, just like today (console vs real gaming rig), you knew you have always a low(er)-fi device. PC in 1999: 2.500$. Console: 399$?

[@MrStronglime]

@@Zedek Back when consoles had a reason to exist. Excluding portable consoles like the Switch and such.

[@azone123465]

Capcom to Angel Studios, "Make multiple gigabytes of date fit into 64 megabytes please." Angel Studios, " I'll do it, at a high price, hehehehe."

[@azone123465]

@DJ TRIX "What'a you buyin'?"

[@MalikRockie00]

Me: aaaaah I'll buy it at a high price. *buys game* Hehehehe Thank you

[@G4M3RGU1D3]

one of the most interresting KZbin video I,ve watched in years!

[@whuzzzup]

Developers today: Well, guess you have to download an additional 50 GB. Meh.

[@paulmueller100x]

@starshipeleven öhm they have 32gb cardridges... It's not because of the memory, it's because of the shitty Tegra chip😂

[@DionSquire]

@North American KZbinr thing is that programmers cut corners when ceos and executives cut corners, and it shows when you have an unoptimize peice of garbage requiring 200+ gigabytes for some games... it obviously shows that the programmers also cut corners. I do find death stranding to be the best optimized game in the past 10 years... aside from starfox 2 which was suppose to be for the snes -- made in assembly by the way.

[@renatoramos8834]

@@paulmueller100x troll

[@paulmueller100x]

@@renatoramos8834?

[@jebpvpw.dgaster.3662]

@@paulmueller100x the switch cardridges can fit 64 gigabyte worth of space now, for a while actually

[@ezg8448]

You forgot to mention that a lot of data was duplicated on both CDs such as backgrounds, scenario data, extras, etc.. the final number would be closer to 900 MBs. That still doesn't take away from the amazing work and compression that was used to fit this into 64 MBs.

[@wilfredomercado7959]

Resident Evil 2 on N64 was my favorite game on that system next to No Mercy WWF and Winback. Great video in explaining how they did all of that on that little cartridge 👍

[@murhafsousli7191]

I like your channel so much! keep it up bro

[@redalchemy]

MVG: "How Did X Happen?" Me: I don't know, and I never wondered, but I'm damn sure watching to find out.

[@grongy6122]

The answer: "MISTAKES WERE MADE"

[@CrimzonAE]

"Thanks to some clever tricks!"

[@tralphstreet]

Oh I always wondered this. Code itself is easy to get into anything, it's just a text file at the end of the day, but the aasets? I always wondered how the hell they managed to get the FMVs in there, how the hell does the music sound so perfect, how did they manage to get both scenarios in a 64mb cartridge when PS1 required to discs? It's nuts.

[@Draknfyre]

@@tralphstreet Music is easy. MP3 compression crunches music down nicely. That's why it's become so ubiquitous. It's been used in several N64 titles, including Conker's BFD to squeeze all of the voice lines in.

[@lemmingscanfly5]

This one in particular has been a mechanical mystery all my life.

[@tomwhelan8586]

I really enjoy your content. Keep this up.

[@woofwoofdoggo]

This video is extremely well done. Thank you

[@kbzonmarko]

NINTENDO: Compressing and Reducing resolutions from unmemorable times.

[@DualPerformance]

haha

[@ArceusDX]

And still to this day, Nintendo continues to get these "impossible ports" on their systems thanks to really damn reliable third parties, like Panic Button, Feral Interactive, and Saber.

[@ralphtaylor7448]

HanimeYT thank god for PlayStation moving gaming forward

[@mathjesticgaming1188]

Witcher 3 the wild hunt

[@mathjesticgaming1188]

@@ralphtaylor7448 just depends on how you look at it. Nintendo has its own niche in the industry.

[@OSTemli]

@@ralphtaylor7448 only PC and nintendo moves forward

[@ralphtaylor7448]

OS. Temli naa the switch is just an afterthought dedicated to children

[@diligaf1000]

This is a great channel, subscribed. You must do a lot of research for this stuff

[@MoltenSnowball]

Great video. Really informative

[@jvaldez5]

Nintendo using carts in 1996: falling behind the curve. Nintendo using switch game cards in 2020: on track to become the best selling Nintendo console of all time. Anyhow it was a tech marvel to see RE2 on the n64 back then. Thanks for the video

[@wonderfulfable]

Just to add on, Nintendo Switch got a port of Doom 2016 on to that game card and it runs smooth! Panic Button surely did magic on that port.

[@cattysplat]

Flash memory has become incredibly cheap as of recent years due to mass manufacturing of micro sd cards for everyone's smart phones. It is now optical disks and traditional hard drives which are the biggest slowdowns to gaming and computing, however they are still dirt cheap to manufacture so not going away until flash memory is literally cheaper.

[@roberte2945]

@referral madness Best-selling Nintendo console, he said.

[@GraveUypo]

because the switch carts have storage equivalency to a 4mb cartridge for n64. 16gb of flash is dirt cheap and plenty for most games.

[@777Eliyahu]

Totally different tech, the ones used on the N64 were actual rom carts, much more expensive to produce, and much smaller storage capacity.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Because of talented developers! Devs these days have way more freedom and way fewer hardware constraints.

[@CommodoreFan64]

And because of that we end up with lazy developers who can't optimize code very well(WWE games on Switch), or we end up with tons of bugs, and they have to rush out day one, and/or week one patches.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

@@CommodoreFan64 Yeah, back then you had to get it right cause you couldn't simply patch hundreds of thousands of cartridges on shelves across stores nationwide.

[@TanookiSuit]

You mean talented corner cutters who can use all that added space and the added hard drives annoyingly MS started putting in their systems to release unfinished buggy stuff to willing guinea pigs paying full price for day one patches and other problems to patch later. Back in the day, and hell more or less still on Nintendo since they're cheap on internal storage forces it, you basically have to get it right or your project is fouled up. Truly talented developers can make a game that works out of the box and hit a street date, lazy talented ones take the fix it later mentality.

[@TheCheat_1337]

@@CommodoreFan64 Don't blame the devs 100%, blame the publishers for extremely demanding schedules, poor working conditions and most of all being more interested in making as much money as possible and not the best product. Devs do cut corners but there's enormous pressure and competition, plus at the end of the day, people keep buying AND pre-ordering buggy, poorly optimized and non-quality assured games even though there are so many examples of botched releases over the years. I personally have a ton of games but I haven't pre-ordered or bought a game on Day 1 in about 10 years or more simply because you don't know what you're gonna get. Like this new Horizon Zero Dawn PC port which is full of issues.

[@MrEdrftgyuji]

Much less freedom these days, thanks to management.

[@sr20veplus350z]

This was my favourite game of all time. I begged for it for xmas all those years ago and will never forget how happy I was when I was surprised with it in a hidden decoy present 😭

[@lilmike2710]

I can't believe it's been nearly 25 years since I was playing this for the first time. 😲 I would totally give it a replay.