Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (Actual N64 Capture) - High Resolution Mode

This is a capture of the optional high resolution mode in Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness on the Nintendo 64. This is not an emulator. This footage was captured directly from my Nintendo 64 using an actual Legacy of Darkness cartridge.

I decided to upload a separate video showing off the infamous high resolution mode that's available in this game. If you have an Expansion Pak, you can set this game to display at an optional "high resolution" of 640x480 (interlaced) instead of the standard low resolution of 320x240 (progressive). All of my playthroughs were done using the low resolution mode, so this video offers a look at the other setting.

One of the neat things about the Nintendo 64 was that it offered a so-called high resolution of 640x480 for several games. This mode typically required use of the separate Expansion Pak which upgraded the system's RAM to 8mb total. However, one game, World Driver Championship, offered a letterbox high resolution mode without the Expansion Pak.

In Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, the high resolution mode certainly makes the graphics look much nicer, but it comes at a substantial cost: it absolutely devastates the game's frame rate. Most Nintendo 64 games run a frame rate between 20-30 fps, on average. That's already pretty low when compared to the earlier 8-bit and 16-bit standard of 60 fps (for 2D games). But when the high resolution mode is enabled in this game, it drops the frame rate to something like 10 fps, from what I can tell. This mode has rightfully been called "unplayable," and this video shows why.

I decided to use this mode with a graphically intense level. In this case, I picked the Tower of Execution because of the flowing lava and the swinging pendulums. As you can see, the frame rate is pretty bad, but once you get to the section with the dropping boulders, it becomes downright ridiculous and nearly unplayable - in the literal sense.

I haven't played every high resolution game available on the Nintendo 64, but even so, I can safely say that Legacy of Darkness probably holds the record for absolute worst high resolution mode due to its terrible frame rate. When I first picked this game up back around 2001, I enabled the mode to see what it would be like. Within less than a minute of playing the game I realized how terrible the mode was, and I immediately switched back to the low resolution setting. It's just a shame this game didn't run better with the Expansion Pak.

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the official N64 S-video cable. I used a Toshiba model D-R550 DVD Recorder to standardize the N64's native 240p/480i signal so that the Hauppauge could capture the console's audio/video signal.

I'm using a Sharkpad Pro 64 turbo controller.