Jaguar vs. 3DO?

[zzip]

6 minutes ago, alucardX said:

Based on what you're saying I think you and I agree on things. Just one thing to point out too, Doom was designed from the ground up with the PC in mind and ID had to change things to get it to run on other systems. Had it been designed from the ground up for the Jaguar different design decisions may have been made. Also, I think the theory on why functioning in-game sound was turned off may have been proven wrong by some members here on the AA forums.

Yeah I agree.   But to bring it full circle to what started this Jag vs PC discussion:   Need for Speed would also be a port from another systems,  and while Doom can run on a 386 PC,  Need For Speed requires a 486 DX2, that's a generation difference in processing power required.    That suggests it would be very challenging for the Jag to handle as is without downgrades.

 

If one was to build a driving game for the jag from the ground up and designed it to the Jaguar's strengths,  I'm sure they could implement many of the tricks seen, but to port it as is and have it perform just as well....  I'm skeptical

 

14 minutes ago, alucardX said:

I was just speaking generally on why people think that the Jaguar has "hidden" power. Overall I think you're right though and we agree on this. As I remember all the talk about the Jaguar back in the day there were all kinds of non-sense rumors that had started about what the Jaguar could do. I seem to remember a game called "Defcon 1" that everyone talked about and there were even mock-up screenshots printed in game magazines. I think those were debunked as false though as the screenshots suggested rendering techniques the Jaguar was not capable of pulling off. Stuff like that doesn't go away easily and it is a fun fantasy for anyone that wants their favorite console to stand toe-to-toe with the PSX, Saturn and N64 as some people back in the day wanted us to believe it could.

I also think it doesn't help that there's few people around who really know the ins and outs of the custom chips.   It's really hard to articulate what they can and can't do and really easy to let your imagination run wild.

 

But I think Moore's law is the best guide here since it will give you an idea of what could be done for a given cost in a particular era.   The PSX and Saturn are at least a year more advanced than the Jag and cost at least as much or more.   So they should be more powerful (unless the Tramiels cost cutting is that good), but on the other hand Sega and especially Sony had more manufacturing efficiencies at that point.

 

The Jaguar was a cool system that was a little bit ahead of it's time when released, but the rest of the industry soon caught up.

[alucardX]

4 minutes ago, zzip said:

Yeah I agree.   But to bring it full circle to what started this Jag vs PC discussion:   Need for Speed would also be a port from another systems,  and while Doom can run on a 386 PC,  Need For Speed requires a 486 DX2, that's a generation difference in processing power required.    That suggests it would be very challenging for the Jag to handle as is without downgrades.

 

If one was to build a driving game for the jag from the ground up and designed it to the Jaguar's strengths,  I'm sure they could implement many of the tricks seen, but to port it as is and have it perform just as well....  I'm skeptical

 

I also think it doesn't help that there's few people around who really know the ins and outs of the custom chips.   It's really hard to articulate what they can and can't do and really easy to let your imagination run wild.

 

But I think Moore's law is the best guide here since it will give you an idea of what could be done for a given cost in a particular era.   The PSX and Saturn are at least a year more advanced than the Jag and cost at least as much or more.   So they should be more powerful (unless the Tramiels cost cutting is that good), but on the other hand Sega and especially Sony had more manufacturing efficiencies at that point.

 

The Jaguar was a cool system that was a little bit ahead of it's time when released, but the rest of the industry soon caught up.

Fully agree.

[+cubanismo]

On 1/16/2023 at 9:15 AM, agradeneu said:

286 CPU, much faster than NES CPU (1-2 Mhz).

I'm well aware of the example you're trying to make. You just made it poorly. An 8088, not a 286. 8088 is like the Celeron version of an 8086. It had an 8-bit databus, with no video acceleration hardware and ran at 5MHz at the low end. It's no surprise it struggled with any NES-style graphics. It struggled with graphics period.

[DEATH]

On 1/17/2023 at 9:56 PM, zzip said:

 I was quoting the Doom wiki and stand corrected.   Still the fact remains the commercial release was cut down and music removed for one reason or another.  

  

What soundchip isn't custom though?   Doom outputs MIDI music and can play through a variety of cards or external synth, that's about as standard as you can get.   The Jaguar DSP appears more advanced than most PC soundcards, but for some reason they couldn't adapt the music portion

The reason Doom doesn't have music on the Jaguar is that like most Jaguar games it was done in a hurry and they didn't have time to do everything they wanted. It's a known fact that John Carmack himself repeated: if he had had the time, Doom would have been much better optimized. The proof years later with Doom Slayer edition which includes music, improved graphics (like transparent demons for example), new weapons, etc.
As Zerosquare said on PC it needed a custom chip, meaning an extra sound card which is not present by default on a PC of that time. And in that sense, no, the Jaguar's DSP is not really more advanced than a sound card of the time. It's just a microprocessor, nothing else. If it's called DSP on Jaguar, it's just because it's supposed to take care of the sound, but it's just a "simple" microprocessor (the same as in TOM), with just 2-3 more specific instructions for signal processing and 1 poor serial stereo DAC (not even DMA) added in a hurry because JERRY's PWM DACs are buggy and unusable. 

 

[agradeneu]

On 1/21/2023 at 6:58 AM, cubanismo said:

I'm well aware of the example you're trying to make. You just made it poorly. An 8088, not a 286. 8088 is like the Celeron version of an 8086. It had an 8-bit databus, with no video acceleration hardware and ran at 5MHz at the low end. It's no surprise it struggled with any NES-style graphics. It struggled with graphics period.

 Min. requirement for Commander Keen is an 286 x86 CPU:  https://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,65/p,2/

 

https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/commander-keen-1-marooned-on-mars/techinfo

 

And that was my point to begin with: you need a 286 CPU to run something comparable to a NES game.

 

You see trees, I see the forest.

 

Maybe we leave it that way.

Edited January 23, 2023 by agradeneu

[agradeneu]

On 1/17/2023 at 10:34 PM, zzip said:

   Need for Speed would also be a port from another systems,  and while Doom can run on a 386 PC,  Need For Speed requires a 486 DX2, that's a generation difference in processing power required.    That suggests it would be very challenging for the Jag to handle as is without downgrades.

 

 

Doom needs an 486 40 MHZ to match the Jaguar version, and the Jaguar still has the advantage of 16 bit high color graphics.

 

Doom performance on 386 DX 40 MHZ:

 

 

 

This is one thing.

 

The other thing is that Doom runs very poor on 3DO which is suprising since it can run a game like NFS which you believe required so much more processing power than Doom.

 

Hm, can we agree we are fishing in murky waters then?

 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by agradeneu

[sirlynxalot]

By the way, there were NFS ports on ps1 and Saturn, but there were several gameplay changes from the 3do version utilizing the more powerful hardware, such as being able to race a pack of 7 opponent cars instead of just a 1 on 1 race. The framerate and speed of the car was increased as well.  I get the idea that 3do NFS was closely designed for what the 3do could achieve, but when ported to the newer systems, there was computing power to spare to "improve" the game (I know not all people liked these changes, imo all versions are fun but the 3do felt more like a sim while ps1 and Saturn felt more arcadey).

[alucardX]

8 hours ago, agradeneu said:

Doom needs an 486 40 MHZ to match the Jaguar version, and the Jaguar still has the advantage of 16 bit high color graphics.

 

Doom performance on 386 DX 40 MHZ:

 

 

 

This is one thing.

 

The other thing is that Doom runs very poor on 3DO which is suprising since it can run a game like NFS which you believe required so much more processing power than Doom.

 

Hm, can we agree we are fishing in murky waters then?

 

 

The doom port to 3DO has been documented as being a nightmare scenario where it was fortunate it even ran at all. That was probably due in part to having a very talented person involved at the zero hour. Had she been properly involved from the beginning the end result would likely have been much better.

[+cubanismo]

On 1/23/2023 at 12:15 AM, agradeneu said:

 Min. requirement for Commander Keen is an 286 x86 CPU:  https://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,65/p,2/

I got my info here:

 

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Commander_Keen_in_The_Armageddon_Machine

 

Min required is 8088, 286 is recommended.

[Zerosquare]

I can confirm that this game runs (choppily) on a 8086.

[+CyranoJ]

Doom is also drawing 320 wide on a PC. Even when the window is shrunk, there's still more columns than the Jaguar.

[+Stephen]

12 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

Doom is also drawing 320 wide on a PC. Even when the window is shrunk, there's still more columns than the Jaguar.

Also playing music and networking without crashing.  I guess there's no interference in hell or the PCs had adequate shielding for that!

[+cubanismo]

As far as I'm concerned, everything Id did up through Quake was black magic. Also, the palette magic used to make Quake 2 work with SW rendering are in the same league. The point @agradeneuwas making stands. It's virtually impossible to compare two systems (PC or otherwise) based on spec listings. I just wanted to point out that it wasn't quite as skewed as his post implied. The NES and the 8088 were contemporary tech. One needed crazy tricks taking advantage of how most VGA cards were designed, and one needed dedicated HW to accomplish smooth scrolling.

 

 Regardless, throwing up MHz this and memory size that can't be used as valid input into comparisons of machines. Early consoles we're entirely dependent on custom accelerator HW. There was an era in PC history where everything depended on CPU speed and memory, but we have effectively come full circle to the point that the performance of a given console or PC depends more on the sum of its parts (CPU, storage tech, memory speed and size, GPU, etc.) than a spec table would imply. Comparing the theoretical performance of two machines is impossible without an intimate understanding of how computers work, regardless of what some marketing departments would have you believe.

[+Stephen]

51 minutes ago, cubanismo said:

regardless of what some marketing departments would have you believe.

Can we compare the Jag and 3DO using BogoMips?

[+CyranoJ]

Thats Numberwang!

[JagChris]

1 hour ago, cubanismo said:

As far as I'm concerned, everything Id did up through Quake was black magic. Also, the palette magic used to make Quake 2 work with SW rendering are in the same league. 

 

Wasn't the techniques he developed the standard for a while until 3D hardware acceleration took over everything?

[Chilly Willy]

19 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

Doom is also drawing 320 wide on a PC. Even when the window is shrunk, there's still more columns than the Jaguar.

It depends on what you mean by "window is shrunk". DOS Doom runs full screen at 320x200 or 320x240 in Mode X. It pretty much drove Mode X as a feature for VGA cards. When you shrink the draw window so that it shows the textured border around the display, it's drawing less than 320 columns. DOS Doom also had "Detail" modes: high detail was up to 320 columns, while low detail was pixel doubled just like the Jaguar and 32X ports. Low detail was often used on 386 systems to help keep the speed up. If DOS Doom is running in low detail, it's no different in how much it draws at full screen - 160 columns. If it's running in high detail, then yes, it will always be more columns than the Jaguar is drawing. I'd like to see how the Jaguar version ran at 320 wide. Doom 32X Resurrection is pretty good in 320 wide mode - at least as fast as the original was in 160 wide mode.

[+CyranoJ]

Good God, it was obvious what I meant, didn't need a W.O.T.

 

[Jag_Mag]

For you 3DO guys

 

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by Jag_Mag

[SwanSong]

I have both, I would say eyes open 3do is pretty good but like the jaguar stay in your line of what you like and want and you won't be disappointed. Gex should have been pushed harder for exclusive like sonic and Mario, it was a fun platform game and when it hit psx big fail for 3do.