Machine learning is rescuing old game textures in Zelda and Final Fantasy

The first generation of 3D video games are ugly. I think they are ugly in a charming way, but many people disagree with even that. The truth is that the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, and Saturn were like the Atari and Intellivision for 3D graphics. While modern technology has easily surpasses those hardware limitations, new processes may have a way to make those old games look slightly better. And it all comes down to neural networks and machine learning.

One of the big reasons a game like Final Fantasy VII looks so ugly today is because of its textures. These are the JPG images that developers paint on polygons so that a box looks like a wall of bricks instead. But when SquareSoft was trying to fit Final Fantasy VII on a handful of CDs, it squashed down the resolution of these assets and threw away the originals. And that posed a big problem for the prerendered background images in Final Fantasy VII.