World Driver Championship (Actual N64 Capture) - High Resolution Mode

This is a capture of the high resolution mode in World Driver Championship on the Nintendo 64. This is not an emulator. This footage was captured directly from my Nintendo 64 using an actual World Driver Championship cartridge.

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 using the Expansion Pak. The game was simply programmed that well (it has some of the best graphics on the system).

In order to activate the high resolution mode, you simply have to pause the game during a race and select "HI-RES." Surprisingly, all of the menu screens automatically display at a high resolution, regardless of whether the menu is displaying in full screen or a letterbox format (no scan lines are present in either situation). The 240p mode is only used during the actual races, unless you disable it by switching to high resolution.

Overall, the high resolution mode is playable, but just barely. It drops the frame rate down a little too low for my liking, and considering how difficult this game already is, I prefer to just stick to the full screen mode for the higher frame rate. However, if you can handle the lower frame rate, it'll make the game look stunning.

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 standard Nintendo 64 controller.