[ajxs]

I've spent a lot of time reverse-engineering vintage synthesizer firmware (which is a bit simpler than modern games). I did complete end-to-end annotations of these two vintage synth ROMs:

- https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx7_rom_disassembly

- https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx9_rom_disassembly

It started because I was just curious about how these devices actually worked. In the end I learned a lot of really invaluable skills that really broadened my horizons as an engineer. I got a chance to talk to a handful of incredibly smart people too. The actual work can be a lot of fun. It's like piecing together a really large and technical jigsaw puzzle. In my case, it also led to me being able to release a fun firmware mod: https://github.com/ajxs/yamaha_dx97

In case anyone is curious about how I worked, I wrote a bit of a tutorial article: https://ajxs.me/blog/Introduction_to_Reverse-Engineering_Vin...

It can be a bit analogous to archaeology too. Even though in my case the DX7 is only 42 years old, that was an aeon ago in computing terms. You gain a bit of insight into how different engineers used to design and build things. Even though development for the N64 is fairly recent, from memory the console had some interesting constraints that made development tricky.

[alexjplant]

> the console had some interesting constraints that made development tricky

The ones that come to mind are the tiny 4KB texture cache, high memory latency (thanks Rambus), and inefficient RCP microcode. The N64 could have been so much more with a few architectural tweaks but developers liked the Playstation much better on account of its simplicity despite it being technically inferior in most respects.

[torben-friis]

>developers liked the Playstation much better on account of its simplicity despite it being technically inferior in most respects.

That statement is surprising, as being a kid I remember the PlayStation as obviously graphically superior. I’m not doubting you but what explains the difference between technical and user perception?

[alexjplant]

The N64's processor had triple the clock speed of the Playstation's on top of having more RAM (up to 8MB versus the 3MB of the Playstation). Its graphics subsystem could also do perspective-correct texture mapping and push more polygons per second. It also had a hardware FPU which the Playstation notably lacked. It's pretty widely acknowledged that the N64's Achilles heel was its small texture cache which caused developers to use lower-resolution textures with heavy anti-aliasing than they otherwise would. This results in the characteristic smeary look of N64 games versus the Playstation's wobbly, pixelated aesthetic. You probably thought the PS1 looked better because of the more detailed textures.

I've no doubt (as a thoroughly amateur video game historian) that with a few small tweaks Nintendo would have ate Sony's lunch that generation. In that alternate universe Sega would have had better developer support for the Saturn and done crazy stuff with their super-wacky architecture too but I digress...

[torben-friis]

That’s interesting! I thought the answer was going to be related with CD vs cartridge capacity.

It also sounds crazy that games like tekken 3 could run on 3mb RAM total, when just the current music track feels like it could take that much space.

[bluedino]

Many PSX games had the music on the CD as standard audio, so they didn't require much of any effort from the console to play.

[Narishma]

It's technically 2MB of RAM + 1MB of VRAM.