Final Fantasy 64 : do somebody knows more about this ???

[Dj AXS]

I knew the existence of that game but I never manage to get much information on it, except from some game magazines such as Famitsu or others... I know there's a video of it which is on the web but I don't know much about the details of Square's development of the game. Can you give me some informations about that ? I'm really lost ^^

[babu]

Well from what I gathered it wasn't much of a game.. more of a tech demo kind of thing. It didn't even run on N64 hardware but some SGI hardware.. (all from what I've heard/read). Also biggest evidence that this wasn't going to be a game is the fact that they use characters from FF6 in the demo..

edit: you can find a movie of it here (there's some other cool N64 movies there too :) )
http://thebackbuffer.blogspot.com/2007/03/nintendo-64-tech-demos.html

edit2: crap, youtube have removed it >_< but the other movies are still there

[Borman]

Tech Demo, thats all. I have pictures and a video on my site :)

[karsten]

there were some videos of it at RPGAMER.com time ago... but yes, nothing more than a tech demo with the song ATMAWEAPON playing in the background :D

[kammedo]

There was another discussion on that some time ago on some other thread...if i recall it correctly, the game was then ported to psx and that was it.

[Borman]

There was never a game that was running on a console, and it was never ported. It used mouse movements I believe to do spells and such. It did run as a mini demo, but it was a Tech Demo, nothing more, nothing less.

[GigaDrive]

http://www.lostlevels.org/200510/ff64-6.gif

Final Fantasy 64 was a realtime interactive demo unveiled at SIGGRAPH 95 that ran on a extremely highend SGI ONYX / RealityEngine supercomputer/visualization system. these machines, starting at around $100k, were above the $10k ~ $50k workstation class of computers.

the demo was never even close to being a even a prototype Nintendo 64 game.

good article here http://lostlevels.org/200510/

[Carnivol]

Here's the video of it;
Filthy Youtube link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-FnmYwg-FU)

[Dr_Slump]

SGi... that explains a lot.

[Dj AXS]

Thanks for the links, I didn't noticed the lost levels page... It really looks like Final Fantasy 7 for characters render. In fact this was just a tech demo or even a movie that was shown to prove the N64 impressive 3D graphics. Did all the games were "previewed" like that as a movie or it's only because it was a Final Fantasy game ? I now personally think that Square wanted to do some hi-res version of Final Fantasy 6, because there's the same characters...

[Barc0de]

the tech demo was based on FF6 indeed.

[Borman]

Thanks for the links, I didn't noticed the lost levels page... It really looks like Final Fantasy 7 for characters render. In fact this was just a tech demo or even a movie that was shown to prove the N64 impressive 3D graphics. Did all the games were "previewed" like that as a movie or it's only because it was a Final Fantasy game ? I now personally think that Square wanted to do some hi-res version of Final Fantasy 6, because there's the same characters...

Playstation would probably never render graphics like that, ever.

It was a tech demo, but it was playable on the SGI workstations.

Nothing was EVER done for N64, well not this anyway.

Square never was planning on a FF6 thing, its just easier to use preexisting characters then new ones.

[Dj AXS]

So it was only named Final Fantasy 64 because it was playable on SGI workstations...

[Borman]

It wasnt named Final Fantasy 64 :) That was something the press added. It is "Final Fantasy VI: The Interactive CG Game"

[TransatlanticFoe]

I was going to post up the lostlevels link, but it looks like somebody beat me to it. It really has everything you need to know about the game, and pretty much has all the possible information you can find on it, on the web.

It was really comical to see the industry blow up over it. I vaugely remember gaming publications of the time going as far as to say "Final Fantasy 64 is on track, and could be out as early as Q1 97"

Right.:rolleyes:

It's really a shame though. If it weren't for the cartridge format, we could have had ourselves a really beautiful game (not that the final PSX product wasn't). Alas, the poor ol' N64 never got anything FF related..

[Barc0de]

well it got Ogre Battle, which is sort of like FF:Tactics!:p

[Gamemaster14XIV]

Does anyone know what the specs of this SGI system would have been. I would imagine it would be quite advanced for back then but obsolete today.

[GigaDrive]

Does anyone know what the specs of this SGI system would have been. I would imagine it would be quite advanced for back then but obsolete today.


the Onyx host computer / supercomputer and Reality Engine / Reality Engine 2 graphics subsystem were both configurable. number of CPUs could be increased, number of Reality Engine graphics boards could be increased as could the amount of graphics processors in each RE/RE2 board.

some basic specifications

Onyx Specifications

Processor Data

Microprocessor MIPS R4400SC 64-bit RISC CPU
Processors 2 to 24
Clock frequency 100MHz / 150MHz
Primary caches 16K / 16K on-chip I/D cache,
Secondary cache 1MB combined L2 cache per CPU

Graphics

RealityEngine2:

2M t-mesh triangles/second
930K textured t-mesh triangles/second
80/160/320M textured, anti-aliased pixels/second
Hardware texture mapping
Real-time anti-aliasing
VGA up to 1600x1200 and HDTV display
Advanced stereo modes
Hardware image processing acceleration
48-bit RGBA color, quad-buffered (192 bits total)
256 to 1024 bits per pixel
40 to 160MB frame buffer
NTSC/PAL/S-Video output

http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/onyxgs.html

I'm just guessing that the Final Fantasy demo used a basic configuration. not a maxxed out configuration that would cost $$ millions but still a basic Onyx Reality Engine / RE2 was in the 100k range.


btw, an Onyx RealityEngine system powered a Namco arcade game, a simple flight sim
(not Air Combat) called Magic Edge Hornet where you'd fly an F/A-18 Hornet

http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=832


Hardware System : Silicon Graphics Onyx Reality Engine II.
Sound : 3D surround sound and radio intercom. 4-channel system plus sub channel.
Memory : 64 MB ECC Memory.
Storage : 2 GB SCSI-II system disk.
Video Output : Video Projector - 30x40 Inch screens.
Controls : Realistic aircraft controls including flight yoke and throttle.
Networking : Two CPUs for UNIX networking and overhead, which pass control information between the 6 units and the central Onyx system over 10Meg Ethernet.
Players / Units : 6
Individual Unit Movement : Fully Hydraulic, 2 DOF in angle, 1 DOF in vertical motion.
(32 inches vertical motion, Roll: +/- 60 degrees, Nose up pitch: 45 degrees, Nose down pitch: 25 degrees)
Individual Unit Dimensions : 2.3 meters Wide, 4.7metres Long x 2.2metres High.
Individual Unit Weight : 4,000 lbs.
Price : $750,000 for the 6 Units and Onyx.
Software : There were 3 Mission packs available, Hornet 1, F18 and X21 Hornet.