Jaguar's polygon pushing "power"

[Gunstar]

I'm curious about what the Jaguar's and other consoles such as the 3DO, 32X, Saturn, PSX, etc. true, "practical" Poly-pushing power. I'm not talking about frame-rate, at least I don't think I am. I see these numbers on the side of the console box or in magazine tech reviews, but they usally refer to theoretical limits if all the machine is doing is moving polygons around. Other than these numbers, I've seen references in the Jag faq from Rebellion of 10,000 large garuad shaded polys a second and numbers given to Fight for life of 20-40,000 or more. The only other reference is of the 3DO game 'Scramble Cobra' that says it pushes something like 15-18,000 a second. It's a pretty baren lanscape running at about 15fps.

 

So, maybe some of the programmers could answer by example of what their polygon "engines" are pushing, with what features (gfx). I look at games like Hover Strike and Space War 2k which supposedly ae using the same engine and there's a big difference in frame-rate, due to no landscape in SW2K, obviously. Help me further understand...

[eric_ruck]

I don't know what kind of polygon rendering claims the Jaguar ever made (I'm sure plenty of people here do) but it's not really a good measure of anything, least of all not a good measure of how the games will turn out.

 

My favorite case in point is the Dreamcast. I always wondered why, if the PS2 claims about double or so the poly pushing power of the DC, did DC games tend to look better?

 

Turns out that polygon rendering tests only test a machines ability to render polygons, and not a machines ability to render polygons while reading a joystick, playing back a soundtrack, overlaying sound effects and calculating game logic.

 

Hence why many DC games look better than the PS2. When you realize that the PS2's main processor (EE) can communicate with the IO processor (IOP) *or* the graphics processor (GS) *or* a vector processor (V1/V2), and the communications channel is relatively slow, well, that's one problem for starters. There are other system issues as well, like the fact that the vector processors are difficult to use so hardly anyone does.

 

The point being, how the unit works as a system and the ability of the programmers to access the power in an economical way is much more important that any raw numbers.

 

Eric

[CPUWIZ]

I don't know jack about the Jaguar but 166.66 polygons per 60th of a second doesn't sound very good.

 

@Erick:

 

The PS2 will push more than twice the amount of polys than the GC and your assumption about the Vector units is totally off. If people wouldn't use VU1, every game would be slow as hell and look like shit.

 

Your bottleneck theory is also off, the VU1 runs in parallel with the CPU, the only thing they share is the bus. If you set up your rendering engine in a way of double buffering you can kick off VU1 in the beginning of the frame and let it do it's thing, while you have the EE free for the entire frame to do all your camera code, AI, collision blah blah blah. I don't want to go to deep into the DMA/Cache system because it would generate pages and pages of rambling.

 

I happen to know some of the guys who wrote the engine for Soul Calibur and they are kicking the living shit out of the DC with 800000 polys per second, that's roughly 13000 per frame. The engine I wrote for Pac-Man World 2 and Dead To Rights pushes roughly 50000 per frame on the PS2 and I know I could have doubled that figure if I had the time to re-structure some of the rendering code and data layouts.

 

That's my $0.02 for today on polygon figures.

[DracIsBack]

I seem to recall polygons being one of the Jaguar's strengths - by 1993 standards anyway. That was one of the features that was always discussed and debated. IIRC, the Jaguar was significantly stronger than the 3DO in this area, while the 3DO was more adept at texture mapping.

 

I seem to recall someone saying that it could push 100,000 polygons a second, though I'm not a programmer and I do not remember the source. I do remember reading something about the Jaguar version of Phear pushing around over 60K a second.

 

Probably best to let someone like T-Bird answer this one.

[Thunderbird]

I don't know jack about the Jaguar but 166.66 polygons per 60th of a second doesn't sound very good.

 

The PS2 will push more than twice the amount of polys than the GC and your assumption about the Vector units is totally off. If people wouldn't use VU1, every game would be slow as hell and look like shit.

 

Sure, the PS2 can push all those polygons, but the polygons themselves look like $#!+ because to get all those fast polygon figures the PS2 tossed out essential features like multitexturing and bump-mapping.

 

Every comparison from a non Sony-Fanboy author put's the PS2's polygon power at the bottom of the heap, under GC with XBOX on top. As a matter of fact they pretty much rate the PS2 in that position on every comparison they make except for DVD drive speed.

[Punisher5.0]

I don't know jack about the Jaguar but 166.66 polygons per 60th of a second doesn't sound very good.

 

@Erick:

 

The PS2 will push more than twice the amount of polys than the GC and your assumption about the Vector units is totally off. If people wouldn't use VU1, every game would be slow as hell and look like shit.

 

What game on PS2 uses 24 million polygons a second? I don't know if PS2 can draw 24 million poly's a second and have a playable frame rate. But if it could then it would be like PlayStation vs. N64. The PlayStation could draw more poly's but the textures on them were low rez.

 

I'd like to know how many polygons Battle Sphere is pushing.

[CPUWIZ]

Hmm, I used multi-texturing, calculate the poly once and submit it as many times as you like with different textures.

 

You're right about the visual quality, I know this, my engine also runs on the GC and XBOX. The GC can't push as many polys but you get free mip-mapping and other neat things. The XBOX is more powerful than anything else because it's NVIDIA's chip.

[Thunderbird]

Hmm, I used multi-texturing, calculate the poly once and submit it as many times as you like with different textures.    

 

You're right about the visual quality, I know this, my engine also runs on the GC and XBOX. The GC can't push as many polys but you get free mip-mapping and other neat things. The XBOX is more powerful than anything else because it's NVIDIA's chip.  

 

It doesn't matter to me who's chip is in what system, it's the end result that I see on my screen I care about. Well, that, AND how easily the system can be made to produce the end result. In the end, the PS2 has less attractive polygons and I'd have to work my butt off to convince the system to produce them at a reasonable rate. That's two big strikes against the system.

[CPUWIZ]

I don't know jack about the Jaguar but 166.66 polygons per 60th of a second doesn't sound very good.

 

@Erick:

 

The PS2 will push more than twice the amount of polys than the GC and your assumption about the Vector units is totally off. If people wouldn't use VU1, every game would be slow as hell and look like shit.

 

What game on PS2 uses 24 million polygons a second? I don't know if PS2 can draw 24 million poly's a second and have a playable frame rate. But if it could then it would be like PlayStation vs. N64. The PlayStation could draw more poly's but the textures on them were low rez.

 

I'd like to know how many polygons Battle Sphere is pushing.

 

Huh ? I didn't mention 400000 polys per frame, that can't be done.

[Punisher5.0]

I don't know jack about the Jaguar but 166.66 polygons per 60th of a second doesn't sound very good.

 

@Erick:

 

The PS2 will push more than twice the amount of polys than the GC and your assumption about the Vector units is totally off. If people wouldn't use VU1, every game would be slow as hell and look like shit.

 

What game on PS2 uses 24 million polygons a second? I don't know if PS2 can draw 24 million poly's a second and have a playable frame rate. But if it could then it would be like PlayStation vs. N64. The PlayStation could draw more poly's but the textures on them were low rez.

 

I'd like to know how many polygons Battle Sphere is pushing.

 

Huh ? I didn't mention 400000 polys per frame, that can't be done.

 

You said that PS2 can draw more than twice the amount of poly's that GC can. So, Nintendo says that GC can draw 12 million poly's a second in game. So... 12 million plus 12 million equals 24 million poly's a second. But anyways, what PS2 game do you think uses the most polygons?

[Thunderbird]

I don't know jack about the Jaguar but 166.66 polygons per 60th of a second doesn't sound very good.

 

@Erick:

 

The PS2 will push more than twice the amount of polys than the GC and your assumption about the Vector units is totally off. If people wouldn't use VU1, every game would be slow as hell and look like shit.

 

What game on PS2 uses 24 million polygons a second? I don't know if PS2 can draw 24 million poly's a second and have a playable frame rate. But if it could then it would be like PlayStation vs. N64. The PlayStation could draw more poly's but the textures on them were low rez.

 

I'd like to know how many polygons Battle Sphere is pushing.

 

Huh ? I didn't mention 400000 polys per frame, that can't be done.

 

You said that PS2 can draw more than twice the amount of poly's that GC can. So, Nintendo says that GC can draw 12 million poly's a second in game. So... 12 million plus 12 million equals 24 million poly's a second. But anyways, what PS2 game do you think uses the most polygons?

 

 

Polygons Suck! We need more games that use Spline graphics! The next wave! Yeehaw!

[Punisher5.0]

What do you guys think of Voxels? I've heard of some PC games that use them but I haven't seen them first hand.

[CPUWIZ]

I don't know jack about the Jaguar but 166.66 polygons per 60th of a second doesn't sound very good.

 

@Erick:

 

The PS2 will push more than twice the amount of polys than the GC and your assumption about the Vector units is totally off. If people wouldn't use VU1, every game would be slow as hell and look like shit.

 

What game on PS2 uses 24 million polygons a second? I don't know if PS2 can draw 24 million poly's a second and have a playable frame rate. But if it could then it would be like PlayStation vs. N64. The PlayStation could draw more poly's but the textures on them were low rez.

 

I'd like to know how many polygons Battle Sphere is pushing.

 

Huh ? I didn't mention 400000 polys per frame, that can't be done.

 

You said that PS2 can draw more than twice the amount of poly's that GC can. So, Nintendo says that GC can draw 12 million poly's a second in game. So... 12 million plus 12 million equals 24 million poly's a second. But anyways, what PS2 game do you think uses the most polygons?

 

Uh, you're right, I meant to type DC not GC - DOH!

 

It's hard to tell, to me it depends on the framerate, I measure everything in 60th. Half the time I don't even play games that run slower than 60FPS unless it's really good. I know Jak & Daxter pushes quite a lot and so does Devil May Cry 2 but I couldn't be sure which one pushes the most. I would have to ask some people over at Sony who run all the games through a PA to test performance.

[+Sauron]

You said that PS2 can draw more than twice the amount of poly's that GC can. So, Nintendo says that GC can draw 12 million poly's a second in game. So... 12 million plus 12 million equals 24 million poly's a second. But anyways, what PS2 game do you think uses the most polygons?

 

Didn't Factor 5 state that Rogue Leader used around 20 million pps? I simply can't see the PS2 pushing more polys than the GC.

[Thunderbird]

You said that PS2 can draw more than twice the amount of poly's that GC can. So, Nintendo says that GC can draw 12 million poly's a second in game. So... 12 million plus 12 million equals 24 million poly's a second. But anyways, what PS2 game do you think uses the most polygons?

 

Didn't Factor 5 state that Rogue Leader used around 20 million pps? I simply can't see the PS2 pushing more polys than the GC.

 

 

Perhaps they can achieve this by not doing any audio processing or skipping some of the other things which need to be done in software. Any PS2 games with surround sound or adaptive music are all done in software, so if they eliminate this they might be able to get a bit more speed out of the processor.

[Stone]

What do you guys think of Voxels? I've heard of some PC games that use them but I haven't seen them first hand.

 

There were a few PC games using them, but they ran into problems for a couple of reasons. Firstly, with the coding techniques then in use, they looked pretty crap when used for anything but landscapes They also went wild when inverted...huge crashes in the math engines and so on

 

I don't know whether these things are fixed in more modern implementations...there was a modern wargame (name escapes me) that used them for the landscape and standard polys for the players, looks pretty slick.

 

As for the coding side of things, i have no clue why or how they work, so don't ask me

 

Stone

[Gunstar]

From what I understand of voxels, from mainly articles about the NUON technology but also from games like Delta Force on the PC and Phase Zero on the Jag, voxels are three-dimensional pixels and if you were to create a solid object (solid like an egg shell), every pixel has virtual "volume" like a sphere. Sides would be made up of these pixels with each pixel having it's position in 3D space. Like the grains of sand in a sand castle, only the objects can be hollow. I presume that this takes much more proccessing power than polygons. But the textures are real textures in voxel objects, not textureMAPS which is basically like painting an elusion of 3D texture on a flat surface (which is where bump-mapping and multi-layering come into play with polygons). But voxels can create real bumps and layers.

[Gunstar]

This thread is great, but I still want to get more specific about the poly-pushing power, plain, shaded and textured, of the 32-bit and 64-bit systems I asked about originally, more specifically the Jaguar (this is a Jaguar forum right?), but I also want comparisons from the other systems. Are the 20,000-40,000 polygon claims fair with titles like Fight for Life? That's a pretty broad claim anyway. Can programmers actually even now exactly how many polygons their polygon "engine" can actually push, or is it all guesstimates anyway? What is Battlesphere's performance polygon-per-second wise? Has anything ever been stated about Battlemorph's or Iron Soldier I&2's polys-per second? How about Cybermorph? Cybermorph was originally supposed to be a demo to show off the Jaguar's capabilities wasn't it? Where there any performance conclusions arrived at? If there are some numbers, even from the early Jag titles, one could arrive at a good estimate for the later titles...Battlemorph probably pushes around twice as many Polys as Cybermorph, and has texture mapping, so if Cybermorph is pushing 10,000 a second, then Battlmorph is probably doing at least 20,000...

[Thunderbird]

From what I understand of voxels, from mainly articles about the NUON technology but also from games like Delta Force on the PC and Phase Zero on the Jag, voxels are three-dimensional pixels and if you were to create a solid object (solid like an egg shell), every pixel has virtual "volume" like a sphere. Sides would be made up of these pixels with each pixel having it's position in 3D space. Like the grains of sand in a sand castle, only the objects can be hollow. I presume that this takes much more proccessing power than polygons. But the textures are real textures in voxel objects, not textureMAPS which is basically like painting an elusion of 3D texture on a flat surface (which is where bump-mapping and multi-layering come into play with polygons). But voxels can create real bumps and layers.

 

 

I imagine that someone could use a technique similar to the one used in Phase Zero only on a new graphics chip and use rectangles (2 triangles) to represent the height maps. I be that using multipass filtering and texturing could come up with some really sweet effects. I'm sure it's just that nobody has tried it yet.

[Atari_Owl]

This thread is great, but I still want to get more specific about the poly-pushing power, plain, shaded and textured, of the 32-bit and 64-bit systems

 

I think that would be extremely interesting too, and i would very much like to find out the answer as well, but i think its a pretty safe bet you're not going to get a clear answer.

 

People seem to be studiously ignoring the question, either because as you suggest they don't know for sure or because they simply don't want to tell.

 

Anyway, i don't think either of us should hold our breath.

 

Cheers

[ctsnlc]

Is it "voxels polygons" your are talking about ?

 

there is a lot of tutorials about it on the net...(flipcode.com ?)

[Thunderbird]

This thread is great, but I still want to get more specific about the poly-pushing power, plain, shaded and textured, of the 32-bit and 64-bit systems

 

I think that would be extremely interesting too, and i would very much like to find out the answer as well, but i think its a pretty safe bet you're not going to get a clear answer.

 

People seem to be studiously ignoring the question, either because as you suggest they don't know for sure or because they simply don't want to tell.

 

Anyway, i don't think either of us should hold our breath.

 

Cheers

 

 

You're never going to get the definitive answer you're looking for because every program yields different results based on what it's doing at the time with AI, sound, input/Output, and how the polygons are being created and stored and manipulated.

 

If you want "theoretical maximum" you can take the Jaguar's max fill rate and divide it by 32 pixels (the current standard for an average sized polygon) and you have your maximum.

[Atari_Owl]

You're never going to get the definitive answer you're looking for because every program yields different results based on what it's doing at the time with AI, sound, input/Output, and how the polygons are being created and stored and manipulated.  

 

I don't think we're looking for a single definitive answer, just some indication of what people HAVE achieved.

 

For sure what is going on with the AI, sound, etc is very important, and also the Polygon size (incidentally, thank you for the comment about the 32 pixels as the standard size, that is helpful to know).

 

I can't speak for gunstar on this, but for myself, i'm just trying to see what are sensible expectations, for a variety of polygon types under game conditions.

 

It gives people at least something to aim for.

 

If you want "theoretical maximum" you can take the Jaguar's max fill rate and divide it by 32 pixels (the current standard for an average sized polygon) and you have your maximum.  

 

That is of course where I've started to try to figure out what is conceivably possible (of course other considerations reduce what can be achieved) but it would be extremely useful to have some idea where others stand.

 

Cheers

[Tyrant]

What's the big deal with polygons?

 

Im sorry but back long ago (and still currently on devices like mobile phones) where technology is limited, people are creative and actually think about how to draw the game, not just how to draw 20 billion little triangles. Look at the 16 bit systems, the Atari ST for example, or the 16bit consoles. There are more different ways to draw games than I can count. Including many 3D technologies that didnt just draw triangles.

 

Now days there is no creativity that I can see. Even games that use cartoon style graphics tend to draw the world as triangles and then make it look like it was drawn.

 

I guess its the result of having the gaming industry driven by big buisness.

[justice_is_blind]