This is new stuff, not stuff done during the reign of the N64.

Limitations demand and produce extraordinary creativity. That's the secret behind pico8 and Animal Well and so many amazing games.

I wish I didn't think of a significantly better architecture for my 2d-pixel-art-game-maker-maker this weekend. Now it'll be another month before I can release it :(

I'm sure they were but, as noted, this specifically is 2025 stuff, and demoscene, not gamedev.

Shadow of the Colossus... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMKtYM8AzC8

Note that the N64 was designed by SGI, And seeing as how influential SGI was for 3d graphics, I sort of assume the reverse, that the n64 probably has the most standard hardware of it's generation. I would be vaguely surprised if there was not an opengl library for it.

However there is a large caveat, 1. you have to think of the system as a graphics card with a cpu bolted on. and 2. the graphics system is directly exposed.

Graphics chip architecture ends up being a ugly hateful incompatible mess, and as such the vendors of said accelerators generally tend to avoid publishing reference documents for them, preferring to publish intermediate API's instead. things like OpenGL, DirectX, CUDA, Vulcan, mainly so that under the hood they can keep them an incompatible mess(if you never publish a reference, you never have to have hardware backwards compatibility, the up side is they can create novel designs, the down side is no one can use them directly) so when you do get direct access to them, as in that generation of game console, you sort of instinctively recoil in horror.

footnote on graphics influence: OpenGL came out of SGI and nvidia was founded by ex SGI engineers.

The amount of indie N64 development happening right now is wild. The platform is flourishing.

The system has seen a dozen of its most popular games decompiled [1] into readable source files, which enables easy porting to PC without an emulator. It also enables a ton of mods to be written, many of which will run on the original hardware.

There are numerous Zelda fan remakes [2]. Complete games with new dungeons and storylines.

The Mario 64 scene is on fire. Kaze has deeply optimized the game [3], and is building his own engine and sequels. If you like technical deep dives into retro tech, his channel is literally golden.

Folks are making crazy demos for the platform, such as Portal [4], which unfortunately brought Valve's lawyers' attention.

Lost games, such as Rare's Dinosaur Planet [5], have leaked, been brought up to near production ready status, been decompiled, and have seen their own indie resurgence.

[1] https://wiki.deco.mp/index.php/N64

[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bZl8xKDUryI

[3] https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCuvSqzfO_LV_QzHdmEj84SQ

The whole channel is gold. He has dozens of deep dives like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DdXLpoNLywg

And his game and engine are beautiful: https://youtu.be/Drame-4ufso

[4] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yXzoZ2AfWwg

[5] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0QSiPRmWaI

With the PS2 you are right. With the PSX... so-so. Yes, it could match maybe a Pentium 90 almost 100, but a MMX pentium with 3DFX would stomp it and be on par of the N64 if not better.

MIPS CPU's are amazing, they can do wonders at low cicles. Just look at the PSP, or the SGI Irix.

Also, the PS2 "GPU" is not the same as the R4k CPU. BTW, on the PS2... the Deus Ex port sucked balls against the PC port, it couldn't fully handle the Unreal engine.

Yes, the PS2 did crazy FX, but with really small levels for the mentioned port; bear in mind DX was almost 'open word' for a huge chunk of the game.