Change one thing?

[outdated_gamer]

Whatever it would take to give the N64 decent textures. Goodness, they were absolutely dreadful, and really let some games down imo

N64 textures dreadful? I guess you must be a fan of the horrible wobbly and pixely PlayStation textures then...

While it's true that the PSX had a bit higher res textures, atleast on the N64 they were smoothened out and didn't warp around like crazy.

Notice how after the first proper 3D accelerators (3dfx, Rendition, etc) hit the PC scene those sort of effects became the norm for 3D graphics on PCs and later on the other console systems too, including the Sega Dreamcast and PS2.

PSX and Saturn style 3D visuals were fine for the mid 90s, after that they got a decidedly dated-looking feel to them.

Nowadays, there's a lot of talk about the "pixel art", but I can assure there was no "pixel art" back then - the non filtered 3D graphics were considered worse-looking by gaming enthusiasts, unless we were dealing with games where 3D acceleration was unnecessary like Doom.

I find it a bit ironic when I see people connect these old 3D systems to there modern 4K screens, using hardware mods to get the sharpest picture out of them only to reveal horrible dithering artifacts and similar unwanted things.

The fact is that these systems were designed with component output in mind, for either NTSC (480i@60Hz) or PAL CRT (576i@50Hz) screens that hid a lot of what was poor on the graphics.

With that said, a bigger texture cache on the N64 wouldn't be a bad thing, it certainly helped the DS.

My personal issues with N64 were more about the framerate drops and fogging, both of which could be attributed to a slow Z-buffer performance which had to be disabled for best results.

[outdated_gamer]

Anyways, here's a small list of things I'd like to see changed:

Sega could have made just one add-on for the Mega Drive instead of two (both of which lacking in some ways), kept the Master System sound chip for the American and European versions, made the Saturn less complex and cheaper, kept supporting the Dreamcast in the American and European regions.

Nintendo could have released the 64DD before it was too late and internationally, give better programming tools to 3rd parties, scrap the Virtual Boy, give the GB, GBC and 1st gen GBA a back lit screen, supported online play on the Cube, made the Wii U less confusing and cheaper.

Atari could have kept their original intention with the 5200 being basically a Atari 8-bit in a console form and keeping 2600 compatability (which the ColecoVision had), kept supporting the Falcon and developing further computer hardware, maybe releasing their "super 2D console" (the Panther) and making the Jaguar better suited for 3D gaming.

Commodore could have scrapped the C=64GS and CD32 and focused on making a computer system that could provide "PlayStation quality" 3D performance, palettes and sound and beyond that.

IBM could have made the IBM PC as a more "all rounded" machine, for business and entertainment rather than just strictly business.

NEC could have released the TurboGrafx-16 and TurboExpress in Europe.

FM Towns Marty could have released outside of Japan.

Sony could have made the PS3 less complex to develop for and cheaper and better market the PS Vita.

MS could have put less emphasis on Kinect in the late XB360 and early XBO era and made more reliant PC software (read: Windows).

Apple could have been less overpriced.

[Antiriad2097]

Whatever it would take to give the N64 decent textures. Goodness, they were absolutely dreadful, and really let some games down imo

N64 textures dreadful? I guess you must be a fan of the horrible wobbly and pixely PlayStation textures then...

Yes, yes I am. A huge fan of the wobbly pixelated rendering of the PS1.

I'd take those over the vaseline smear of the N64 every time.

I did then, I do now, and I probably always will.

So many N64 games are unbearably smudgy, they hurt my eyes. Maybe its because I should wear specs, I don't know, but the N64 blur gives me eye strain. It physically hurts. PS1 doesn't induce pain.

N64 would have been far better if there'd been a menu option to turn the awful texture smoothing off and just let it run with jaggies.

[JamesC]

Whatever it would take to give the N64 decent textures. Goodness, they were absolutely dreadful, and really let some games down imo

N64 textures dreadful? I guess you must be a fan of the horrible wobbly and pixely PlayStation textures then...

Yes, yes I am. A huge fan of the wobbly pixelated rendering of the PS1.

I'd take those over the vaseline smear of the N64 every time.

I did then, I do now, and I probably always will.

So many N64 games are unbearably smudgy, they hurt my eyes. Maybe its because I should wear specs, I don't know, but the N64 blur gives me eye strain. It physically hurts. PS1 doesn't induce pain.

N64 would have been far better if there'd been a menu option to turn the awful texture smoothing off and just let it run with jaggies.

I'm in full agreement. the PS1 on a CRT TV still looks pretty good to me. Yeah, it's a bit grainy but it's vibrant. The N64 is just a smeary blur. N64 games have always been ugly, even at the time.

[Sephiroth81]

Yes, yes I am. A huge fan of the wobbly pixelated rendering of the PS1.

I'd take those over the vaseline smear of the N64 every time.

I did then, I do now, and I probably always will.

So many N64 games are unbearably smudgy, they hurt my eyes. Maybe its because I should wear specs, I don't know, but the N64 blur gives me eye strain. It physically hurts. PS1 doesn't induce pain.

N64 would have been far better if there'd been a menu option to turn the awful texture smoothing off and just let it run with jaggies.

There was on Quake 64 an option to switch it off. And with an Everdrive or Gameshark cart, I believe there are codes you can input for EVERY game to switch off the automatically applied anti-aliasing. With AA switched off, and using an RGB mod, the N64 can look reasonably smart....and it looks it even gives a small performance boost with it off as well. Some games probably do still look better with AA on though.

[The Laird]

The Atari 7800 definitely should have shipped with a POKEY chip on board. The reason I heard for the lack of a proper sound chip was that they ran out of room on the circuit board, I think this is a really poor excuse and I am sure they could have found someway of implementing it. They also should have upped the RAM to 16k, which is what the 5200 had, and it really wouldn't have cost much more. Had they done that then it easily would have been the best of the 8-bit consoles at the time.

[outdated_gamer]

N64 textures dreadful? I guess you must be a fan of the horrible wobbly and pixely PlayStation textures then...

Yes, yes I am. A huge fan of the wobbly pixelated rendering of the PS1.

I'd take those over the vaseline smear of the N64 every time.

I did then, I do now, and I probably always will.

So many N64 games are unbearably smudgy, they hurt my eyes. Maybe its because I should wear specs, I don't know, but the N64 blur gives me eye strain. It physically hurts. PS1 doesn't induce pain.

N64 would have been far better if there'd been a menu option to turn the awful texture smoothing off and just let it run with jaggies.

I'm in full agreement. the PS1 on a CRT TV still looks pretty good to me. Yeah, it's a bit grainy but it's vibrant. The N64 is just a smeary blur. N64 games have always been ugly, even at the time.

To each their own, though, I'd personally rather pick the high-resolution (480i back then), memory expansion enhanced Turok 2 and Perfect Dark with there "3dfx quality" visuals over the horrible, jagged and distorted corridors in PSX' Quake II and Medal of Honour, as I would prefer to explore the vast and detailed, fully 3D worlds of Majora's Mask and the likewise huge worlds enriched with amazing coloured lighting and reflection mapping in Donkey Kong 64 over drooling over pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and loading screens in Final Fantasy IX or Resident Evil 3.

Admittedly, a lot of N64 games ran sluggish, but they still boasted huge 3D levels with instant loading times, wheras on the PlayStation the best-looking games were those that either ran fast (racing games, fighting games, etc) so that you couldn't really notice the warping and pixelation, or those that had static 2D backdrops like JRPGs with a lot of pre-rendered stuff.

I would agree the CD-ROM was an advantage at the time though, as it allowed for much more content in games, be it high quality voice acting, full soundtracks or CGI cut-scene stuff. The "64DD" was supposed to be the trade-off but it happened too late and didn't deliver.

[Arnie]

Spectrum 16/48 - Although the removal of colour clash would be good I think less processor intensive sound with better amplification so sound could play without stopping everything else i.e. better in game music. Listening to what has been achieved on the beeper using 1 bit sound the speccy would have been fine if as I said it could have done it without effecting play.

Spectrum 128k - Better graphics in 128k mode, more colours and no clash.

C64 - full colour in hi-res rather than the rectangle pixel multi colour mode.

Commodore Plus 4 - SID chip

C16 - Just don't bother making it, in favour of the above.

BBC B - 64k from outset

I may add more at a later date.

[ZXSabreman]

I would have liked to have seen optimised for pal Megadrive and Snes games, the Sega Saturn to be more powerful in the 3D department. The 3DO and Neo Geo cd to have had more of a market share and support.
The Spectrum to have a cartridge slot, the pal N64 being able to output RGB, to see Sega still competing in the console market.

[merman]

I would have liked Commodore to release the C64GS earlier than 1990.

And I would have changed that terrible CD32 joypad to something more comfortable.

[ncf1]

I would have liked Commodore to release the C64GS earlier than 1990.

yeah, good call that one, that would have been just perfect, the c64 in console fashion. That was the only thing that detracted for me - unreliable tapes. I couldnt afford a disk drive at the time. But cartridge would have been just perfect, instant load.

[oldtimer]

Make more and better original games available for the Sega Megacd.

[shiftytigger]

Make more and better original games available for the Sega Megacd.

I remember seeing the initial wave of Mega CD games at Gamesmaster live and even then thinking how crappy most of them looked. I get the limitations etc but most were just enhanced versions or substandard show games. A few standouts but by the time the potential was realised , we had moved on.
Oddly enough , if these games were all polished up for a collection , id still buy them!

[Nemesis]

For the PS1, it would be the texture/geometry warping, otherwise it was pretty much perfect.

The Speccy could’ve done with a graphics chip for hardware scrolling but it made great coders due to the lack of one, Joffa Smith being a fine example.

[outdated_gamer]

^ The PSX' wobbly textures were a performance trade off, the system had no hardware support for perspective corrected textures (Z-buffer), same with the Saturn. PSX could do fast 3D graphics but at poor picture quality. The standard res for PSX games was 320p, with "nearest neighbour" texture filtering, no perspective correction, no mip mapping, no fogging (you may laugh but that was one way to cover up pop up on the N64 rather than "appears from sky" method most PSX games used), no reflection mapping (only in some games like Crash Bandicoot 3), no anti aliasing, etc.

I suppose developers could have used software-rendered trade offs to create perspective correct texutres, texture dithering and other things (I'm assuming Crash 3 does many things this way) but very few tried and it might have impacted performance too.