The long-awaited Nintendo 64 hit the hot neon city streets of Japan back in June 1996. Powered by a 64-bit NEC VR4300 CPU clocked at 93.75 MHz, the fifth generation console was one of the first to implement a unified memory subsystem and packed 4 megabytes of Rambus RDRAM (subsequently expandable to 8MB).
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According to Rambus Chief Scientist Craig Hampel, the N64 was also the first console to bring workstation-class graphics to the consumer. In addition, the N64 motherboard comprised just 2 layers – using co-planar waveguides – with the memory interface operating at 500MHz, which was 10x faster than any other DRAM at the time.
“For Rambus engineers, our primary challenge was to provide a significant amount of bandwidth with a relatively small amount of memory,” Hampel explained.
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“We managed to do so and helped change gaming forever. The N64 implemented the first high volume application of RDRAM, which was designed, architected and developed by a tiny startup in Mountain View, California.”
As Hampel notes, he experienced an intense ‘aha moment’ about the significance of the N64 when playing Wave Race.
“It was the very first time a game actually felt real to me. It was spectacular, with amazing lighting models, physics and realistic 3D,” he said.
“Initially, at least, I don’t think many of us realized how the N64 was going to redefine gaming forever. However, the Nintendo 64 ultimately became one of the highest revenue consumer electronics products in prior history. In fact, mine still works, and every 6 months or so I fire it up with Wave Race or Super Mario and quietly say to myself ‘Wow!’”
Indeed, as Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch recently opined, the N64 was a “rock-solid” gaming console.
“[It] not only made a lot of us very happy for years and years, but also did important work in the history of gaming. It brought us classic titles that pushed the boundaries of what was expected of games, and made 3D worlds fundamental and integral with gameplay ideas rather than set dressing,” he reminisced.
“If Mario 64 proved that 3D games could be great, the rest of the N64’s lineup showed that 3D could be used in surprising and powerful ways. Wave Race 64 brought phenomenal water physics that wouldn’t be surpassed for years. Mario Kart 64 brought depth and verticality to madcap racing (though I still prefer the original). Ocarina of Time had you exploring a world almost too huge and complex to comprehend.”
Of course, the N64 was not the only console to use Rambus memory, as the Sony Playstation® 2 (PS2) and Playstation® 3 (PS3) also helped to define a new generation of gaming – while significantly raising the performance bar for future systems. Indeed, memory solutions and related innovations developed by Rambus engineers helped advance 3D realism across a number of gaming platforms.
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“In short, RDRAM played a critical role in defining what was possible in a video game – and I’m not just talking about photo quality realism for the sake of graphics alone,” Hampel concluded. “Rather, it helped push the limit in terms of rendering more accurate, physics-based effects, such as interacting with running water and depicting realistic vehicle impacts, complete with explosions and scattering debris.”
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