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How I implemented MegaTextures on real Nintendo 64 hardware

James Lambert · 398.4K views · 2023-09-16 · 8:51

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Overview

James Lambert demos a MegaTexture-style technique running on real Nintendo 64 hardware, built for an N64Brew game jam. It streams high-resolution textures onto stained-glass scenes on the console.

On Hacker News

Pointed to as an impressive technical N64 homebrew demo showing unexpectedly high-res textures.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2023–2026

Topics

Game history & retro gamingComputer graphics & renderingIndie game development
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megatexturesn64texture streamingretro graphicsgame jam

What people said

cubefox · 2026-03 · Recommendation

The same guy, James Lambert, also implemented texture streaming (which would not be invented until two console generations later) in an N64 demo. The textures look uncharacteristically high res: [VIDEO]

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echelon · 2024-03 · Recommendation

This is what James Lambert does as a follow up when Valve shuts down [1] his "Portal in N64" project [2]. James is like Kaze [3] and builds incredible N64 demos [4] and technical videos about them. [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] [4] [VIDEO]

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kmeisthax · 2023-11 · Reference

Prerendered cutscenes ate up the lion's share of the disc. If you sacrificed on those and used lots of compression, you absolutely could build an RPG on the N64 that would stand up to whatever you could do on PlayStation. However, nobody wanted to do that. The only RPGs we got on the N64 were Quest 64 and Paper Mario. The reason why requires diving into the development history of what would have been a third RPG for the system: MOTHER 3. To put it bluntly, they ran out of storage space, and pivoted to the N64 DD to get more. The custom floppy disks the N64 DD took could hold 64MB[0]. Even then, this wasn't enough, so the game was then broken up into two parts: an N64 cartridge plus a DD expansion pack, which would give them 96MB in total to play with. MOTHER 3 would then continue in development hell before being canned and reborn as a Game Boy Advance title[1]. Fire Emblem was also supposed to release on the N64. However, unlike Itoi biting off more than he could chew with the N64, FE64 failed because the head designer, Shouzou Kaga, didn't even want to touch the hardware. He'd stalled for time by working on Satellaview FE games[2] on the SNES, and then left Nintendo entirely right before Thracia 776 came out. He'd then release a totally-not-Fire-Emblem clone on PlayStation and get sued into oblivion for... basically telling all the games press that he was making Fire Emblem on PlayStation. So that's a 50% success rate for RPGs on the N64 - not a good look. Could homebrewers

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Sources

Video by James Lambert, played through YouTube.

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