Jaguar's polygon pushing "power"

[Chilly Willy]

It was a very interesting thread to read, and something I get asked a lot, albeit on the 32X instead of the Jaguar.

 

As to this observation:

 

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 also depends on the way the pixels are drawn - the blitter in the Jaguar can "copy" or fill pixels at a rate close to the max bandwidth of the ram, but if you are scaling, rotating, shading, or doing any other operation on the pixels, the rate drops tremendously... the blitter works on a pixel at a time instead of several. If you are using 16-bit pixels, you're talking 1/8th the speed (one pixel vs one phrase) on goraud shaded/texture mapped polys vs a flat shaded poly.

[JagChris]

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.

 

Hey and guess what? AO would now be the resident expert of this topic as well.

[Austin]

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.

 

Hey and guess what? AO would now be the resident expert of this topic as well.

 

Or you could look at this game that uses voxels:

 

[JagChris]

Well I meant as far as the Jaguar is concerned. AO can now be considered an expert relating to the Jaguar and its ability to push polygons and/or voxels.

[+CyranoJ]

While AO's project looks impressive, its worth noting that the frame rate in the posted videos appears to be around 15-20 fps, and this is without any sort of game management stuff going on in the background. The posted videos also make it look like transitions from outside scenes into buildings are smooth, whereas in reality it's another binary that gets loaded.

 

As with all computational objects, nothing is 'free' - I would suspect that unless his game consists of more than 'Pick up key from room a, take it to room B' type logic there will be a substantial frame rate drop when any sort of play mechanics are introduced.

 

This is not to knock his project, it's certainly quite impressive and I hope one day he manages to complete it, however if you want to see 'expert' voxels on the Jaguar, look no further than Phase Zero, which, unfortunately, is another unfinished project.

[JagChris]

This is not to knock his project, it's certainly quite impressive and I hope one day he manages to complete it, however if you want to see 'expert' voxels on the Jaguar, look no further than Phase Zero, which, unfortunately, is another unfinished project.

 

Right. But those programmers are not here to discuss their experiences with Voxels on the Jaguar. AO is. That now makes him the resident expert. The main point of me resurrecting the thread was that it was interesting how AO went to asking questions about the Jags ability in 3d to going to what we see in his project video.

[JagChris]

That voxel game you posted Austin, it looks pretty fun. Whats it called?

[+CyranoJ]

Right. But those programmers are not here to discuss their experiences with Voxels on the Jaguar. AO is. That now makes him the resident expert.

 

Or you could look it up on wikipedia. No matter the platform (Spectrum, A8, Saturn, Jaguar, PC, something that doesn't exist yet) the math for calculating it is exactly the same, and plotting pixels in a frame buffer is pretty much the same everywhere, so I'd imagine his experiences would be similar to that of anyone else who has tried on various platforms.

[JagChris]

ok I see it. AMOK.

[Atari_Owl]

While AO's project looks impressive, its worth noting that the frame rate in the posted videos appears to be around 15-20 fps, and this is without any sort of game management stuff going on in the background. The posted videos also make it look like transitions from outside scenes into buildings are smooth, whereas in reality it's another binary that gets loaded.

 

These points are correct

FPS is in that range, which was consistent with games of the period.

The binaries do both fade but are currently separate and were stuck together for the video, the music was playing from one and was overlaid on the second in order to get a seamless transition, though both do have music.

 

 

As with all computational objects, nothing is 'free' - I would suspect that unless his game consists of more than 'Pick up key from room a, take it to room B' type logic there will be a substantial frame rate drop when any sort of play mechanics are introduced.

 

Some of the background stuff is happening, terrain tracking, collision detection, it just hasnt been told what to do with the results atm, but yes a further drop is likely. Especially once combat is included, I'm rather hoping that given how many characters were being drawn in the demos (i.e. the main character several times) that the drop will be mitigated by not drawing so many characters at all times.

 

This is not to knock his project, it's certainly quite impressive and I hope one day he manages to complete it, however if you want to see 'expert' voxels on the Jaguar, look no further than Phase Zero, which, unfortunately, is another unfinished project.

 

Fair point, though i would suggest that Phase Zero although running at higher FPS (at least 25fps), has the advantage of not using Polys in addition to the 'Voxels'. There were quite a few optimisations i could have done had 'Voxels' and sprites been my only concerns, and certainly my voxel only engine ran substantially faster than the current engine.

 

Compromises in rate were made in order to be able to run both 'voxels' and polys, simultaneously.

 

 

 

TBH though i'd rather not be considered the 'resident expert' on anything - in the Jag community such a thing can't lead to anything but trouble.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Atari_Owl

[+CyranoJ]

These points are correct

FPS is in that range, which was consistent with games of the period.

 

Of course! Your only going to get so much out of hardware of this age. Also, I'd like to point out that for the genre your aiming at (RPG) high frame rates are not really required. It's the story that will draw people in.

 

Some of the background stuff is happening, terrain tracking, collision detection, it just hasnt been told what to do with the results atm, but yes a further drop is likely. Especially once combat is included, I'm rather hoping that given how many characters were being drawn in the demos (i.e. the main character several times) that the drop will be mitigated by not drawing so many characters at all times.

 

I wasn't aware of that, but it's good to know. As I said above, the story will be the main draw to this, so a slight frame drop shouldn't present a problem.

 

Fair point, though i would suggest that Phase Zero although running at higher FPS (at least 25fps), has the advantage of not using Polys in addition to the 'Voxels'. There were quite a few optimisations i could have done had 'Voxels' and sprites been my only concerns, and certainly my voxel only engine ran substantially faster than the current engine.

 

Compromises in rate were made in order to be able to run both 'voxels' and polys, simultaneously.

 

There should be a whole chapter in the Jaguar tech ref called 'COMPROMISES'

 

 

 

TBH though i'd rather not be considered the 'resident expert' on anything - in the Jag community such a thing can't lead to anything but trouble.

 

Ain't that the truth

[LinkoVitch]

 

There should be a whole chapter in the Jaguar tech ref called 'COMPROMISES'

 

Ah, so you're missing the second page of the Tech Ref then

[Austin]

That voxel game you posted Austin, it looks pretty fun.

 

It's a little on the short side, but still, it's fairly impressive looking IMO and has some decent gameplay.

[Jag_Slave]

Didnt Phase Zero compromise AI for game speed?

[Karyyk]

You bumped a 8 year old topic that was bascialy a flame war between a banned member and someone else here just to say THAT?

 

Hey, at least it's an entertaining read!

 

I'll second that. Revisiting the good old days, so to speak...

[Atari_Owl]

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.

 

Hey and guess what? AO would now be the resident expert of this topic as well.

 

Or you could look at this game that uses voxels:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGGpEnV_0SM

 

AMOK looks kind of interesting

 

But like Phase Zero it seems to be voxels and sprites rather than polys

It also has a VERY short draw distance

 

Not sure of the size of play area it may be that this size together with larger memory allows a more detailed 'texture' for the voxels

 

 

Now Outcast on the other hand...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaHTNj_hSl0

 

Wow

Edited May 2, 2012 by Atari_Owl

[+CyranoJ]

Or Comanche

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViKnFBNPqOg&feature=relmfu

[Atari_Owl]

Meh

 

Comanche -- good draw distance, disappointingly little happening.. Outcast is still the king

[swapd0]

I'm waiting for a version of virtual jaguar that includes a GPU debugger (better if it works loading just the GPU in binary without a startup code) to finish and test my 3d routines.

 

A few months ago I had a look at Cybermorph and CF source codes (the only ones that I have) and the 3D engine is far (very far) from being fast, it can be optimized in many parts (3d rotation, polygon setup, polygon drawing...)

[sh3-rg]

I'm waiting for a version of virtual jaguar that includes a GPU debugger (better if it works loading just the GPU in binary without a startup code) to finish and test my 3d routines.

 

You should always contact Shamus and ask for these things and do it constantly He might just add or bump your requests up the TO DO list if you ask nicely enough :-) Then again, he might have enough to deal with already, but pestering him can be quite fun!

[madmax2069]

Meh

 

Comanche -- good draw distance, disappointingly little happening.. Outcast is still the king

ahh good ole Outcast, i loved playing that game. I remember my first impression when i seen the trailer for it for the first time.

 

For the life of me i can't remember what happened to mine, seeing that video makes me want to track down another copy.

 

Sorry for going off topic.

[Austin]

Meh

 

Comanche -- good draw distance, disappointingly little happening.. Outcast is still the king

 

Well, yeah.. I mean, Outcast only came out a whole seven years later, haha. That's not a long time. Not at all.

[Atari_Owl]

I'm sorry i thought we were just pointing out the most impressive voxel games - irrespective of machine, or release date and of course oucast is rather nearer in release date to Amok

 

 

Comanche i suppose is an interesting prelude, and has a much better draw distance than AMOK at any rate

[+CyranoJ]

This is a LOT of fun:

 

http://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q-xqI8Cm5A

[+Sauron]

Comanche was quite an impressive game, especially considering when it came out. Don't remember any other 3D games even touching it back then.