The_Laird Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 And look at Atari Owl's game for even more proof . . . . Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1896415 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 The Playstation would still have wiped out a 'better' jaguar - as even the Jaguar 2 blitter wouldn't have competed ( at the speeds Atari were talking about in 1995 ) The only way for the jag to have survived would have been with more ( and better ) software at launch. Then they could have faced the launch of PS1 and Saturn backed with an install base in millions, instead of a palty 100k. ( I favoured CD as a hardware change at launch, but really the software is all that matters.. ) The Playstation would still have wiped out a 'better' jaguar - as even the Jaguar 2 blitter wouldn't have competed ( at the speeds Atari were talking about in 1995 ) Yes it would have and it would have had better software as ports would be much more realistic on an 020, with better blitter and no penalties on stalls. You just do not have a clue and I am not going to go through the clear and simple reasons as to why it would be able to for the umpteenth time. I agree with crazyace if he meant that Sony would have still wiped the floor with Atari in terms of sales and popularity, they were huge and had deep pockets to doump the prices on the hardware (though Atari might have been able to sue them over that -but the counter argument would be profits from game licences showing that Sony wasn't incuring a deficit to knok out the competition). If he meant the hardware was inherantly inferior, I disagree, there were trade offs (not even considering JagII here), and the PSX would still have the advantage at what it did best: chucking out textured triangles, but was most definitely less flexible. More than just 2D, the Jaguar's greater flexibility provided an advantge for non-polygon 3D rendering as well, liek voxel environments. Still, I thik Atari could have competed a lot better than they did in reality, there was room for them in the market to be 3rd behind Nintendo and Sony in the western markets with Sega screwing themselves over at the time. Don't even bother with a japanese release unless significant promise shifts in that direction (or they could make a partnership with some Japanese company, perhaps NEC given their problems with the PCFX). Definitely push harder in Europe. The aformentioned popularity of Atari Corp computers in addition to Sega: Sega in particular would make this market a big possibility, Europe had been a Sega stronghold (generalizing, several countries like Germany had Nintendo more prominently, the UK was particularly strong for both Sega and Atari) and with Sega falling out of favor particularly sharply in Europe after a long established market, it would have been an almost ideal situation for Atari to take advantage of. (of course the PSX came roaring in shortly after, so there'd be that to contend with, a good head start should have helped though) Sega's falling out didn't start until around mid 1995 though (or at least outwardly), so the first year or so of the Jag's release would still have Sega's prominent presence to contend with. That's one of the things witht he 1993 pre-launch that added insult to injury, they cancelled the London and Paris releases... Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1896471 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 One thing to take into consideration - In 1993 the Playstation hardware was being shown to developers/publishers , so even though the public didn't know the specs of the machine, the industry did. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1897184 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kskunk Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 One thing to take into consideration - In 1993 the Playstation hardware was being shown to developers/publishers , so even though the public didn't know the specs of the machine, the industry did. Sony didn't begin designing the Playstation we know until 1993. I agree that target specs were probably being shown to a few developers in 1993, but actual hardware didn't exist that year. I've read a story about one early developer prototyping on SGIs without real hardware, desperately hoping they would receive a devkit and complete a port, just to make it as a launch title! They ended up making it with something like 8 weeks from first hardware to gold master. Playstation history is a little confusing because the PS existed in various forms for years. Sony even released 200 Playstation consoles to developers way back in late 1991, but that hardware was completely different and not compatible with the 1994 Playstation. I've always wondered how well developers in 1993 could grasp the differences between the consoles. In hindsight, it's easy to see where the wrong turns were in the Jaguar and Saturn, but in 1993 looking at spec sheets and dev manuals, it might not be very obvious. In engineering, a lot of roads aren't clear until you take them. And nobody had much experience making 3D games in 1993. - KS Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1897224 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 I've always wondered how well developers in 1993 could grasp the differences between the consoles. In hindsight, it's easy to see where the wrong turns were in the Jaguar and Saturn, but in 1993 looking at spec sheets and dev manuals, it might not be very obvious. In engineering, a lot of roads aren't clear until you take them. And nobody had much experience making 3D games in 1993. - KS Sega seems to have not really been sure what to put into the aturn, so added a lot, and split the focus considerably... That, and I believe they'd had another project in the works ~1992 for release some time in 1993 (2D emphesized with modest 3D capable of ports of Sega Model 1 arcade titles), but abandoned it after seeing Sony's preliminary Playstation specs in 1993, so they rushed to try to design a more powerful system quickly, and it ended up kind of a mess. (there's also the ting about their oppertunity to use the SGI chipset -ie N64, though in hindsight that might not have been a great option either wit the delays and problems Nintendo had) 2 rather large and complex VDPs, lots of RAM in various busses, a mix of slowe/less expensive (FP)DRAM and fast.expensive SDRAM (2.5 MB SDRAM plus 2 MB FPRAM). The custom sound system having a block of DSP driven DACs plus a 11.3 MHz 68EC000 controlling it. (the DSP set-up was kind of buggy too, might have been fine to just go with using just the 68k to drive it -particularly if the samples could be set by DMA -rather than having bare DACs) There were obviously trade-offs with the jad that could have been different with hindsight (more emphesis on polygon and texture rendering over shading), but still, there are those who would take nicely shaded models over flat textures (depending though, a game like Doom wouldn't work well without textures). And the texture support they added is OK at least. (maybe make better with the shading and texture capabilities more equal) Lack of hardware polygon rasterization is a detriment in some ways, but also opens up possibilities of less conventional rasterization methods (like voxel rendering, or raycasing engines), more 3D oriented would have meant the blitter and OP would probably be less powerful at what they are currently best with. (plus a lot of early 3D games did use a lot of flat scaled sprite/object tiles -using polygons usually, something the Jag OP could do in hardware if no warping/rotation is required). Not to mention if they hadn't gone with triangle rasterization, like 3DO or Saturn using quadrilaterals causing other headaches much of the time. (and with software rasterization, developers who did whish to go that route could) Promoting a RISC (TOM) to host would have been another thing, putting more emphesis on high level freindliness as well, not to mention cache, but with the limited time/funding that may not have been possible (change the funding issue and that may have changed). Other things like a multi-bus design may come up in that respect too, but would have to be balanced by cost concerns. (ten again, perhaps a smaller 64-bit block for TOM -512 MB and 1 MB for Jerry on a 32-bit bus might have been practical -though you'd loose 512 kB and the flexibility to use that with some games PC ports especialy) Still, with the current Jaguar, the bugs and CPU choice are the major issues (outside of marketing and such), and I'm sure Flare hadn't intended for the hadware to be released in such a state, except for Jerry(DSP) perhaps with it being a hacked implementation of the GPU and inherantly buggy. (plus the tools -though with problems fixed, simple tools would be a lot more useful) A 68EC020FG16 would probably have been the most practical and useful alternative to the 68000. (68010 might have helped a little) Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1897309 Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarijagplayer Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 If I was Sam Tramiel, I would have made sure the following happened... * Implement Ted Hoff's (new marketing director circa 1995???) "enhanced Jaguar" logo, which the letters have a white border and the 64-bit bubbles are more sphereical - on all cartons from day one. To see the difference, compare a Doom box to the Fight For Life box. The logo on the FFL box looks more powerful. * Written performace specs/details of system on the back of the system box in laymens terms (It seems too technical to me). Put in-game graphics on the front of the system box (to correlate with game boxes). * Included the Pro Controller with any Jag bundle. * Included a fifteen dollar mail-in rebate with all base system packages for those who purchase a Jag CD, although delayed (to increase sales). I love the Jag, I am on my seventh and hope to keep this one! I think Atari actually pioneered video game marketing by placing in-game graphics on the front of thier packages! The black and red logo are also a great combo!!!! Kudos and thanks for the fun! Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900284 Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpgfaker Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 93 was I think a grey area between 2D and early 3D. If I had to save the Jaguar I'd sign on Japanese 3rd party developer support and port all non exclusive major titles. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900332 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 One thing to take into consideration - In 1993 the Playstation hardware was being shown to developers/publishers , so even though the public didn't know the specs of the machine, the industry did. Sony didn't begin designing the Playstation we know until 1993. I agree that target specs were probably being shown to a few developers in 1993, but actual hardware didn't exist that year. I've read a story about one early developer prototyping on SGIs without real hardware, desperately hoping they would receive a devkit and complete a port, just to make it as a launch title! They ended up making it with something like 8 weeks from first hardware to gold master. Playstation history is a little confusing because the PS existed in various forms for years. Sony even released 200 Playstation consoles to developers way back in late 1991, but that hardware was completely different and not compatible with the 1994 Playstation. I've always wondered how well developers in 1993 could grasp the differences between the consoles. In hindsight, it's easy to see where the wrong turns were in the Jaguar and Saturn, but in 1993 looking at spec sheets and dev manuals, it might not be very obvious. In engineering, a lot of roads aren't clear until you take them. And nobody had much experience making 3D games in 1993. - KS I'm sorry - you're incorrect - The PSX H/W was being designed a lot earlier that people think.. Phil Harrison showed it to European devs in Dec 1993 with the dinosaur demo ( http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of-playstation?page=0%2C2 ) Even though the devkits wouldn't be in developers hands - they had a good idea of the specs. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900364 Share on other sites More sharing options...
marvio Posted December 18, 2009 Share Posted December 18, 2009 Jaguar in late 1994 would have probably kicked butt. For one thing, it would have the spotlight all to itself, rather than having to share that spotlight with 3DO. The Dreamcast kicked ass when it first came out, but its dominance was extremely short-lived. The PS2 almost immediately overshadowed it when it debuted. (Kind of a shame because the Dreamcast was nearly as powerful, but the PS2 was backwards compatible and could play DVDs which was a big deal in those days.) That would have been the optimal fate for the Jaguar. It would have ruled the roost briefly before the PS1 arrived and then got wiped off the stage. The Jaguar architecture (like the Saturn and 3D0) was optimized for 2D at a time when gamers really wanted to move to polygons. There is no way the Jag would have had a viable competitor to Ridge Racer and Toshinden. An insanely optimized Jag equivalent of those games would have either run at a jerky 15fps with limited textures or 30fps without. Well. I don't know man.. The PS2 took over the Dreamcast market share because of the PS1 You gotta remember, what did Sony had before the PS1? Nothing! I don't know a whole lot about the Jag, but I'll make the same sugestion I thought of when I first saw the PS1. Why oh Why, didn't they include some kind of 3D hardware acceleration? By 1993 3DFX had already developed the Voodoo chipset and was eager to push it somewhere... Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900620 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Jaguar in late 1994 would have probably kicked butt. For one thing, it would have the spotlight all to itself, rather than having to share that spotlight with 3DO. The Dreamcast kicked ass when it first came out, but its dominance was extremely short-lived. The PS2 almost immediately overshadowed it when it debuted. (Kind of a shame because the Dreamcast was nearly as powerful, but the PS2 was backwards compatible and could play DVDs which was a big deal in those days.) That would have been the optimal fate for the Jaguar. It would have ruled the roost briefly before the PS1 arrived and then got wiped off the stage. The Jaguar architecture (like the Saturn and 3D0) was optimized for 2D at a time when gamers really wanted to move to polygons. There is no way the Jag would have had a viable competitor to Ridge Racer and Toshinden. An insanely optimized Jag equivalent of those games would have either run at a jerky 15fps with limited textures or 30fps without. Well. I don't know man.. The PS2 took over the Dreamcast market share because of the PS1 You gotta remember, what did Sony had before the PS1? Nothing! I don't know a whole lot about the Jag, but I'll make the same sugestion I thought of when I first saw the PS1. Why oh Why, didn't they include some kind of 3D hardware acceleration? By 1993 3DFX had already developed the Voodoo chipset and was eager to push it somewhere... The Voodoo was about 500 dollars too. For it's time, nothing matched the Jaguar in terms of power and it had assisted 3D hardware. It was the first to use a blitter and a matrix multiply single instruction in hardware for a game console. To add that kind of 3D hardware at that time would have made the Jaguar cost about $500 as well. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900813 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 I love the Jag, I am on my seventh and hope to keep this one! I think Atari actually pioneered video game marketing by placing in-game graphics on the front of thier packages! The black and red logo are also a great combo!!!! Kudos and thanks for the fun! I'm almost certain you're confusing Atari boxes with Activision. Activision had the little window on the front of boxes (and cartridges) sisplaying an in-game screenshot. Atari boxes had artwark usually (sometimes artwork that was superimposed over graphics I think), and either plain text on the carts (early on) or a similar immage to the box art on the cartridge label. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900833 Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 One thing to take into consideration - In 1993 the Playstation hardware was being shown to developers/publishers , so even though the public didn't know the specs of the machine, the industry did. Sony didn't begin designing the Playstation we know until 1993. I agree that target specs were probably being shown to a few developers in 1993, but actual hardware didn't exist that year. I've read a story about one early developer prototyping on SGIs without real hardware, desperately hoping they would receive a devkit and complete a port, just to make it as a launch title! They ended up making it with something like 8 weeks from first hardware to gold master. Playstation history is a little confusing because the PS existed in various forms for years. Sony even released 200 Playstation consoles to developers way back in late 1991, but that hardware was completely different and not compatible with the 1994 Playstation. I've always wondered how well developers in 1993 could grasp the differences between the consoles. In hindsight, it's easy to see where the wrong turns were in the Jaguar and Saturn, but in 1993 looking at spec sheets and dev manuals, it might not be very obvious. In engineering, a lot of roads aren't clear until you take them. And nobody had much experience making 3D games in 1993. - KS I'm sorry - you're incorrect - The PSX H/W was being designed a lot earlier that people think.. Phil Harrison showed it to European devs in Dec 1993 with the dinosaur demo ( http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of-playstation?page=0%2C2 ) Even though the devkits wouldn't be in developers hands - they had a good idea of the specs. lol those game magazines can be pretty blatant liars. posting one as gospel truth is not a good idea. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900834 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kskunk Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 (edited) I'm sorry - you're incorrect - The PSX H/W was being designed a lot earlier that people think.. Phil Harrison showed it to European devs in Dec 1993 with the dinosaur demo ( http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of-playstation?page=0%2C2 ) Even though the devkits wouldn't be in developers hands - they had a good idea of the specs. Thanks for the correction! I misunderstood your original statement -- I thought you were saying developers had their hands on dev hardware, and the accounts I've read say that developers got the first hardware well into 1994, when it was very late to finish up in time for launch. I've also read that the Playstation effort was "rebooted" in 1993, so I assumed chip design didn't start before then. It's still possible all of the above is true, and Sony either used their massive resources to get first silicon only 6 months into the design process (for that December demo), or they were using FPGAs or other prototyping techniques, to get developers excited. The article you linked states that the "new" Playstation wasn't greenlit until summer 1993, which is probably why I've always heard that development started at that time. But it also states that in mid-1992 a staff of 9 people were spun off to develop the concept. One note that gives the article a ring of truth is that Sony expected memory prices to continue falling. We all know from history that didn't happen. Memory prices didn't come down until 1996, so Sony lost a lot of money on that gamble. Customers got way more value for their money than Sony intended. Shows why it's nice being a big company with deep pockets... - KS Edited December 19, 2009 by kskunk Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900860 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 lol those game magazines can be pretty blatant liars. posting one as gospel truth is not a good idea. Yeah well he thinks an 020 would not help the Jag at all, so consider the source. Having an Idea of the specs means nothing. Jag with an 020 and the proper tools, Sony would not have had it as easy. But of course the ineptness of the Tramiel Atari never ceased to fail anyone. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900891 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 lol those game magazines can be pretty blatant liars. posting one as gospel truth is not a good idea. Yeah well he thinks an 020 would not help the Jag at all, so consider the source. Having an Idea of the specs means nothing. Jag with an 020 and the proper tools, Sony would not have had it as easy. But of course the ineptness of the Tramiel Atari never ceased to fail anyone. I just point you to an article that reflects the gospel truth Regarding your comment Gorf, I half agree with you - when I first thought about this a better cpu seemed like a good idea ( although I prefered something like the IBM 486SL25 - as it had cache and fpu, and was pretty cheap... ) But then I thought about the gpu/dsp main memory execution and how trivial the bug stopping them working was - and I leant towards a good GPU C compiler/toolchain and debugger as being much important. Having a CD at launch is just my feeling ( in hindsight ) that Atari couldn't succeed with a split machine - the Sega CD add-on had a massive install base of machines when it was launched, but the Jaguar CD was too little too late. Atari needed developers to work on games without being paid/published by Atari, and they didn't have the market penetration to get that. ( A 68020 is rated at 0.2MIPS/MHz , a 68000 0.125MIPS/MHz - the Jag GPU / DSP are (in my opinion) more like 0.5MIPS/MHz - so they are better for running code, and also have the advantage of being able to run completely off the bus in internal memory, unlike the 68020 which lacks a data cache ) So for me, in 1993 I'd have: Fixed GPU compiler ( and debugger ) Fixed main memory instruction bug - so GPU and DSP can run freely from main memory. No 68k at all ( GPU tweak to start code from rom ) - so DSP connection is 32 bits rather than 16 bit. Single speed CD as standard ( build Butch functionality into Jerry, even if it means removing the waveform rom to save memory ) Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1900935 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+poobah Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 lol those game magazines can be pretty blatant liars. posting one as gospel truth is not a good idea. Yeah well he thinks an 020 would not help the Jag at all, so consider the source. Having an Idea of the specs means nothing. Jag with an 020 and the proper tools, Sony would not have had it as easy. But of course the ineptness of the Tramiel Atari never ceased to fail anyone. /me wonders out loud how hard it would be to retrofit a jag with a '020.... Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901064 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 (edited) ( A 68020 is rated at 0.2MIPS/MHz , a 68000 0.125MIPS/MHz - the Jag GPU / DSP are (in my opinion) more like 0.5MIPS/MHz - so they are better for running code, and also have the advantage of being able to run completely off the bus in internal memory, unlike the 68020 which lacks a data cache ) First of all though a data cache would be an added extra, the instruction cache is REALLY what matters here and that alone would allow the 020 to run off the bus quite efficiently. You also miss(again) the obvious point and fail to mention the fact that we are not talking about a 13 mhz but a 26.59 mhz clock rate. Fail. Then you completely and constantly ignore the double bit width. Even The 68k with a 64 bit prefect would have made a more efficient effort. The obvious is that now the Blitter and the OPL have the Bus almost 85% of the time with two riscs and the host running instead of as is with two risc(one at half the bit width) and a 68k that ate up 85% of the bus could not run in parallel AT ALL. The two risc did not have caches at all. They had local RAM. So your point is moot and it's also very mis-informed. Properly coded your opinion of the risc's are wishful PS1 fanboy at best. The Jag Riscs with properly interleave code can do 0.75 to 1.00 MIPS per mhz. So real life and fact go much further than a tainted opinon. Also 020 at 26.59 x 0.2 = 5.32? funny since the 68k is doing about 1 MIPS at 8 mhz. So where you got these obviously false/flawed numbers from further shows your desperation to be right whenyou are wrong. Therefore the 13.29 hmz 68k was doing about 1.5 mips. So with that said, an 020 with a cache and twice the clock and twice the bit width should be doing a lot better than what you wish it to be...probably near 6 to 7 mips wich for game AI and logic is more than enough....many times more than useful and proven chips like the 68k/6502 and Z80 which were fine for their game logic. Edited December 19, 2009 by Gorf Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901074 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 /me wonders out loud how hard it would be to retrofit a jag with a '020.... It would be better to just take a T&J and redesign the system around it. But if you were going to bother just get an 030/040 or even better an 060 instead and then kick the clock of the T&J to 32 mhz. PS1 would get a serious ass whooping. It's would still do more polies but the Jag would then kick its tail in special effects...which the Jag already does .Sure the poly counts are lower but the quality is much more able due to the flexibility of the Bliter and not being hardwired to do a few things well...like the PS1's GPU....it is what it is and to escape that it then needs to use the MIPS to cover for the lack of the abilities of the GPU. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901076 Share on other sites More sharing options...
marvio Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 (edited) The Voodoo was about 500 dollars too. For it's time, nothing matched the Jaguar in terms of power and it had assisted 3D hardware. It was the first to use a blitter and a matrix multiply single instruction in hardware for a game console. To add that kind of 3D hardware at that time would have made the Jaguar cost about $500 as well. Wouldn't you have bought it tough? I'm not sure about the cost though, it's very different to just use the chipset and produce a card, there's a lot more R&D which has to happen to actually make a physical card; I'm pretty shure if they just used the chip (or chips in the case of 3DFX) it would've cost a lot less, and besides, like I said, 3DFX was just starting, and to partner with a giant like Atari, I'm pretty sure they would've cut them a deal. Can you imagine how it would have been? The jag would've been so far beyong its time that people would freak out!! edit: also.. Like I said, I'm very new to the Jag, so newbee question here.. What exactly was 64 bits on the Jag? They were touting that so much! Not that it matters anyway, as we all know it's all about what you do with those bits, but as far as I can see it was a 32/16 bit machine? What am I missing? Never mind, found out myself.. Man, were they pushing the envelope (in a bad way) saying this was a 64 bit system Edited December 19, 2009 by marvio Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901077 Share on other sites More sharing options...
minux Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 I think the free SDKs would have benefited Atari tremendously. The other thing Atari should have done is given, beyond that, developers some type of incentive to code for the Jaguar, instead of tossing money after the development of the Jaguar CD. Even by that time, it was pretty apparent that add ons didn't pan out well for any company. So, it's amazing, to me, that the management of a shrinking share company would have thought a CD resurrection was possible, especially considering the ill fated attempts made by Saga, who, too, destroyed their company, while having a much larger market share. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901085 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 (edited) Never mind, found out myself.. Man, were they pushing the envelope (in a bad way) saying this was a 64 bit system No, the real workhorses of the system(which is what matters), the OPL and the Blitter are true 64 bit processors. The GPU/DSP are 32 bits, which is more than you need for the game logic/AI/sound). The problem is the stupid idea to use a 16 bit host like the 68k. Lay off the host and the system will perfrom worthy of 64 bits. The other problem with this is the lack of tools to use the real workhorses. There was no stretch at all. The N64 had an INTERNAL 64 bit bus...the rest of it was 32 bits external, which to me is a real stretch of the truth. Edited December 19, 2009 by Gorf Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901092 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 I think the free SDKs would have benefited Atari tremendously. The other thing Atari should have done is given, beyond that, developers some type of incentive to code for the Jaguar, instead of tossing money after the development of the Jaguar CD. Even by that time, it was pretty apparent that add ons didn't pan out well for any company. So, it's amazing, to me, that the management of a shrinking share company would have thought a CD resurrection was possible, especially considering the ill fated attempts made by Saga, who, too, destroyed their company, while having a much larger market share. If the free SDK was the same tools, it would not make much of a difference at all. Now if they included all the sources for the tools that others could improve upon them, then yes. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901093 Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Minux...are you the son of linux/unix As for saga...don't they do Insurance and package holidays for senior citizens (pensioners) as well as other things....I think you mean SEGA As for retro fitting an '020 to the little jaggie...i'm of to the ST to borrow some GLUE to use for the retro fitting Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901095 Share on other sites More sharing options...
minux Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 Minux...are you the son of linux/unix As for saga...don't they do Insurance and package holidays for senior citizens (pensioners) as well as other things....I think you mean SEGA As for retro fitting an '020 to the little jaggie...i'm of to the ST to borrow some GLUE to use for the retro fitting No, Saga was a value priced Sega, offering the semi popular mascot, Bonic, the warthog. Saga went on to make a few cartoons for the local UHF station, following up Gore De Vol. Though, due to their target demographics and the fact that the cartoon was on at 2AM, it was never hugely successful. Talks have been ensuing for some time about a potential DVD release, but no official word yet. Back in its hey day, every Ollies, in the Baltimore area, carried the Saga console. Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901110 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazyace Posted December 19, 2009 Share Posted December 19, 2009 ( A 68020 is rated at 0.2MIPS/MHz , a 68000 0.125MIPS/MHz - the Jag GPU / DSP are (in my opinion) more like 0.5MIPS/MHz - so they are better for running code, and also have the advantage of being able to run completely off the bus in internal memory, unlike the 68020 which lacks a data cache ) First of all though a data cache would be an added extra, the instruction cache is REALLY what matters here and that alone would allow the 020 to run off the bus quite efficiently. You also miss(again) the obvious point and fail to mention the fact that we are not talking about a 13 mhz but a 26.59 mhz clock rate. Fail. Then you completely and constantly ignore the double bit width. Even The 68k with a 64 bit prefect would have made a more efficient effort. The obvious is that now the Blitter and the OPL have the Bus almost 85% of the time with two riscs and the host running instead of as is with two risc(one at half the bit width) and a 68k that ate up 85% of the bus could not run in parallel AT ALL. The two risc did not have caches at all. They had local RAM. So your point is moot and it's also very mis-informed. Properly coded your opinion of the risc's are wishful PS1 fanboy at best. The Jag Riscs with properly interleave code can do 0.75 to 1.00 MIPS per mhz. So real life and fact go much further than a tainted opinon. Also 020 at 26.59 x 0.2 = 5.32? funny since the 68k is doing about 1 MIPS at 8 mhz. So where you got these obviously false/flawed numbers from further shows your desperation to be right whenyou are wrong. Therefore the 13.29 hmz 68k was doing about 1.5 mips. So with that said, an 020 with a cache and twice the clock and twice the bit width should be doing a lot better than what you wish it to be...probably near 6 to 7 mips wich for game AI and logic is more than enough....many times more than useful and proven chips like the 68k/6502 and Z80 which were fine for their game logic. I took the MIPs figures from wikipedia , and extrapolated the gpu figures , 0.5Mips/Mhz is kind of what I'd expect, with the stalls and redundant move instructions that are often needed. I definitely picked a lower figure though, you're right that a tight hand tuned loop could be better - but that's not likely to occur with C compiled code. How much would a 27MHz 68020 have cost in 1983? Even a 13MHz 68ec020 would be a lot more than the 68000? The reason why I dont favour a 68020 is that fixing gpu/dsp would give 32 bit risc code running from main memory for no cost ( as in a perfect world the bug would not have occurred in the first place ) Quote Link to comment https://forums.atariage.com/topic/119048-its-1993-youre-in-charge-of-the-jag-what-do-you-do/page/29/#findComment-1901142 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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