Nintendo 64 Specs

[Khaled Al-Faris]

Infos: HTTX 1.0

Title: Hardware Store: Specifications

Latest Specs
Last Update: November 27, 1996
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Nintendo 64 Console Specs

Physical Dimensions:

o 10.25" x 7.5" x 2.57"
o 2.42 lbs

Power Supply (U.S.):

o Input: AC - 120V, 26W, 60Hz
o Output: DC - 3.3V, 2.7A

Custom CPU:

o Custom 64-bit MIPS R4300i-class RISC CPU (93.75 MHz)
o 64-bit data path, registers, buffer
o 5-stage pipeline
o CPU Benchmarks
o 125 Dhrystone MIPS (93 million operations/sec)
o 60 SPECint92
o 45 SPECfp92

Co-Processor:

o Custom 64-bit MIPS RISC "Reality Immersion" RCP (62.5 MHz)
o Built-in Audio/Video Vector Processor (RSP)
o RCP Benchmarks
o Over half a billion (500,000,000) vector operations/sec
o 10 times more than some Pentium engines
o Built-in Pixel Drawing Processor (RDP) takes care of:
o Advanced Texture-Mapping
o Detail Texturing
o Tri-linear Mip Map Interpolation
o Perspective Correction
o Environment Mapping
o Depth Buffering
o Color Combiner
o Anti-Aliasing and Blending
o Rasterizing
o Z-Buffering
o Automatic LOD Management
o Vertex positioning and transformations
o Depth, color and texture clipping
o Transparency (256 levels max)
o Gouraud Shading

Processor/Co-Processor Engine:

o Contains Over 4 Million Transistors Total
o Manufactured by NEC
o Based on .35 Micron Process

Memory:

o 4 Megabytes (36 megabits) total RAM
o Rambus DRAM subsystem
o Transfers up to 562.5 MBytes/sec
o Custom 9-bit Rambus Bus (to the DRAM)
o Runs at 500 MHz max
o Internal data bus to the RCP is 128-bit

Audio:

o Stereo 16-bit
o ADPCM Compression
o 100 PCM channels possible
o Each PCM channel takes 1% of the CPU time
o Average 16-24 channels

o Wavetable Synthesis
o Sampled at 48 KHz max

o Internal Special Effects
o Voice (w/ Pitch Shifting)
o Gain and Pan
o Reverb and Chorus

o External (software) Effects Supported

Video:

o Video Output
o RF
o Stereo A/V
o S-Video
o HDTV
o Video and Resolution:
o 256 x 224 to 640 x 480
o Limited by TV Standards
o Flicker Free Interlace Mode
o 21-bit color output
o 32-bit RGBA Pixel Color Frame Buffer

Controller Ports:

o Four Controller Ports
o Three-prong Feed

Controllers:

o Digital joypad at left
o Analog stick in middle
o Six buttons on the right
o 'B' and 'A' buttons
o Four "C Group" buttons
o 'L' and 'R' buttons on top
o One "Z Trigger" button on the bottom
o Memory card port on back
o Initial controller paks start out at 256k
o Paks (up to 2 MB) will be available
o Supports other 'paks' such as a "Jolt Pak"

Expansion Options:

o Cartridge Slot
o Controller Ports
o Extension Port (bottom)
o Memory Expansion option (top front)

N64 Console Games:

o Games begin at 32-128 Megabits
o Uses JPEG image format for pre-rendered images
o Produces polygon graphics on the fly
o On-board hardware decompression; software optional
o 256 Megabit carts max; (four 64 meg ROMs)
o Downward Compatible

64DD Specs

Physical Dimensions/Weight:

o 10.2" x 7.5" x 3.1"
o 3.53 lbs

System:

o Magnetic Storage Disk Medium
o Supports Error Correction
o Utilizes Nintendo 64 console for processing
o Supports same compression algorithm
o 4" front loading disk feed
o 2-4 megabyte RAM expansion

Benchmarks:

o 75 ms seek time
o .79 MB/sec data transfer rate

Disk Physical Dimensions:

o 3.98" x 4.06" x .4"

Games/Disks:

o High Density, Double-Sided disks
o 64 MB total capacity
o Read/Write capable
o Dynamic writable space
o Up to 32 MB

*NOTE* The Reality Immersion Graphics Processor and Audio Processing Unit are
combined into a single co-processor.

Just in case you don't know, the N64 uses Rambus DRAM. Rambus DRAM is 9-bit
(8 bits of data and 1 parity bit) instead of the usual 8-bit RAM. So, if you
multiply 9 (the number of bits of the RAM) x 4 (the number of megabytes of
RAM in the N64), then you get 36 megabits. Which, when converted to
megabytes, is 4.5 megabytes. But, the N64 actually only has 4 megabytes of
RAM. So, in conclusion, Nintendo is technically correct when they say 36
megabits because that's how many megabits of RAM they have.

Check the Glossary of Terms to find out explanations for what some of the
above technical terms and abbreviations mean.

If you have any technical related questions, comments, etc. please send them
to Mike.

--
Kurt Marti sagt: "Wo kaemen wir hin,wenn alle sagten: Wo kaemen wir hin ?
und niemand ginge,um einmal zu schauen,wohin man kaeme,wenn man ginge."
www... http://www.snafu.de/~stone [Amiga12oo] [Sony PlayStation] -PGP-ask!