Atari Jaguar vs the Nintendo 64

[108 Stars]

But I, for one, would like to pass on my Jaguar and other Atari stuff to my son.

Man, he must have done something really bad. Here mankind had hope upcoming generations could live without the terror of having experienced 64-bit-POWA. But the terror will live on.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I think the real question is whether or not the Jaguar could pull this off:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viCUneosjw4

No, only Conker's Bad Fur Day will do: That's the baddest squirrel game ever made!

[+remowilliams]

But I, for one, would like to pass on my Jaguar

 

Man, he must have done something really bad.

 

Cruel and unusual punishment...

 

 

[Atari forever!]

Alright guys, laught it up, will you

Bottom line: I won't make him PLAY the system(s), but they will be his. I prefer that over selling it on ebay...

[NeoGeo64]

I believe the Jaguar could have handled Bubsy 3D. Right now I'm wondering if the Jaguar could have handled games like Mario Kart 64, Extreme G or perhaps even Banjo Kazooie. Or if we really wanted to push the limits of the Jaguar, perhaps Superman 64 should also be considered.

[kevincal]

I believe the Jaguar could have handled Bubsy 3D. Right now I'm wondering if the Jaguar could have handled games like Mario Kart 64, Extreme G or perhaps even Banjo Kazooie. Or if we really wanted to push the limits of the Jaguar, perhaps Superman 64 should also be considered.

 

If you gave shigeru miyamoto and his team a jaguar and tools they could pull off most stuff done on n64 up until 1998 released games. a bit less polished but could be done.

[JagChris]

Its really hard to try and place Jag potential in the context of a machine thats at least 3 years newer.

 

I believe the Jaguar could have handled Bubsy 3D. Right now I'm wondering if the Jaguar could have handled games like Mario Kart 64, Extreme G or perhaps even Banjo Kazooie. Or if we really wanted to push the limits of the Jaguar, perhaps Superman 64 should also be considered.

[+Gemintronic]

I believe the Jaguar could have handled Bubsy 3D. Right now I'm wondering if the Jaguar could have handled games like Mario Kart 64, Extreme G or perhaps even Banjo Kazooie. Or if we really wanted to push the limits of the Jaguar, perhaps Superman 64 should also be considered.

 

Bubsy? Superman 64? You are talking about the limits of human gag reflex aren't you?

[high voltage]

 

If you gave shigeru miyamoto and his team a jaguar and tools they could pull off most stuff done on n64 up until 1998 released games. a bit less polished but could be done.

Dunno, Miyamoto didn't do much coding (I think he was a bit overrated), he didn't even do Donkey Kong

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/funny-occasionally-dirty-hidden-messages-favorite-games-192013980.html

Edited November 21, 2013 by high voltage

[Bill Loguidice]

 

If you gave shigeru miyamoto and his team a jaguar and tools they could pull off most stuff done on n64 up until 1998 released games. a bit less polished but could be done.

 

I don't see any basis for such a statement. Again, you're asking Jaguar hardware to do things that a 3D-centric console was designed for. I also think you underestimate the performance needed for some of the early Nintendo 64 titles, not the least of which is Super Mario 64.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I believe the Jaguar could have handled Bubsy 3D. Right now I'm wondering if the Jaguar could have handled games like Mario Kart 64, Extreme G or perhaps even Banjo Kazooie. Or if we really wanted to push the limits of the Jaguar, perhaps Superman 64 should also be considered.

I think Rainbow road would have been doable. The other courses possibly but the textures would have looked bad and extremely low poly.

[NeoGeo64]

 

I don't see any basis for such a statement. Again, you're asking Jaguar hardware to do things that a 3D-centric console was designed for. I also think you underestimate the performance needed for some of the early Nintendo 64 titles, not the least of which is Super Mario 64.

I think if the Jaguar had more RAM and SM64 was on the Jaguar CD it wouldn't have looked that much different, maybe like SM64 on the PSX or Nintendo DS.

[kevincal]

miyamoto and his huge dev teams, if given a jaguar and 2 years to make a few awesome games, could have come up with similar quality games on the jag compared to n64. you give the jag to a bunch of super smart japanese nintendo guys back in 1994 and they could have pumped out games to battle against n64. jag always had super small dev teams who were not paid well and were not the best in the business either. jag had a bunch of underpaid developers who were not the cream of the crop, a bad combination. this is in general. there are many good and great games on jag, like 20 or 30, but there are also that many fairly crappy games. pretty much no jag developer was given enough time or money to make super polished nintendo like games. the guys over at nintendo had the opposite, plenty of time and money, sure n64 is obviously more powerful in many ways, but just take a look at iron soldier, very impressive 3d jag game with huge draw distance and great huge 3d polygons reminiscent of n64 polygons. those eclipse software iron soldier guys could have pulled off mario 64 on jaguar

[Warzard]

100% agree with you!

[Andromeda Stardust]

miyamoto and his huge dev teams, if given a jaguar and 2 years to make a few awesome games, could have come up with similar quality games on the jag compared to n64. you give the jag to a bunch of super smart japanese nintendo guys back in 1994 and they could have pumped out games to battle against n64. jag always had super small dev teams who were not paid well and were not the best in the business either. jag had a bunch of underpaid developers who were not the cream of the crop, a bad combination. this is in general. there are many good and great games on jag, like 20 or 30, but there are also that many fairly crappy games. pretty much no jag developer was given enough time or money to make super polished nintendo like games. the guys over at nintendo had the opposite, plenty of time and money, sure n64 is obviously more powerful in many ways, but just take a look at iron soldier, very impressive 3d jag game with huge draw distance and great huge 3d polygons reminiscent of n64 polygons. those eclipse software iron soldier guys could have pulled off mario 64 on jaguar

Miyamoto does not develop games for non-Nintendo systems.

[Rhomaios]

I can't see it. Iron Soldier looks like early PS1 3D, not N64 3D. The polygons are "reminiscent" of N64 polygons like Tom Clancy is reminiscent of Robert Heinlein.

[kevincal]

Early PS1 3d? KICKS ASS. Toshinden, ridge racer, tekken, air combat, resident evil, destruction derby, warhawk.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Dunno why but N64 graphics always seemed more smoothe and less jagged than PS1.

[Gunstar]

N64 hardware texture blur. So choose: blocky or blurry with no more definition either way.

[AtariLynx Lover]

We'll never know the true capabilities of the Jag + Jag CD over N64 + N64DD because neither, I think, were ever pushed to the maximum, top, to their absolute limits. When that happens, and only when that happens, can the capabilities of the Jag and N64 be determined.

 

Speaking of Jag: that's a very cool-looking console.

[Andromeda Stardust]

N64 hardware texture blur. So choose: blocky or blurry with no more definition either way.

N64 and PS1 were pretty much on the same level. N64 had an advantage in poly count, and being cartridge format had virtually no loading times, but PS1 had a huge storage/cost advantage using CD media. Game Cube was similar to the N64 with smoother graphics than PS2. Game Cube seemed to have better anti-alias but that didn't stop people from slamming the Game Cube as being weak even though it was just as powerful as PS2 and Xbox. PS3 and Xbox 360 were just a pissing contest as is PS4 and Xbone, and Nintendo has gone the route of using innovation rather a spec race. PS Move and Xbox Kinect were their response to the Wiimote, perfect evidence that MS and Sony don't know how to innovate and just copy good ideas that worked. Although I'm gonna take off my rose-tinted glasses and suggest maybe the Wii-U game pad is a copy of the iPad. Oh, wait nevermind, Apple copied Nintendo, seeing how touchscreen gaming existed first on DS long before the iPhone/iPad even existed.

[high voltage]

touchscreen:

 

Apple Newton? There must have been some games on that machine.

 

or Tiger game.com

 

 

Isn't the Wiimote just like the Atari Remote Control Joysticks?

Edited November 24, 2013 by high voltage

[+Stephen]

While the N64 was terribly blurry, it least it had perspective corrected t-maps, vs. the affine t-mapping on the PS1. That being said, Crash Bandicoot looked awesome most of the time, and Tobal #1 absolutely floored me - flat shaded 640*480@60fps. I never saw anything on the N64 even close to that.

[+wood_jl]

One thing I'm sure Jag fans (and everybody else) has had enough of is "Is the Jag really 64 bits?" I know "bitness" is of little relevance. But in all this "bitness" harping, one hardly sees the N64's "64-bits" called into question. I'm not questioning anything, as I'm no technical guru and I leave that for those who are. However, I find... In the Wikipedia N64 Tech Specs article... a couple of interesting lines:

 

 

Except for its narrower 32-bit system bus, the VR4300 retained the computational abilities of the more powerful 64-bit MIPS R4300i, though software rarely took advantage of 64-bit data precision operations. N64 game-titles generally used faster (and more compact) 32-bit data-operations, as these were sufficient to generate 3D-scene data for the console's RSP (Reality Signal Processor; see below) unit. In addition, 32-bit code executed faster and required less storage space (which was at a premium on the N64's cartridges) Though powerful, the CPU was hindered by a 250 MB/s bus to the system memory

Tools that emulate the Nintendo 64 benefit from the scarcity of 64-bit operations in the game's executable-code, especially when running with a 32-bit machine architecture as a host. These emulators perform most calculations at 32-bit precision and trap the few subroutines that actually made use of 64-bit instructions.

So there was hardly anything "64-bit" on the Nintendo 64, if I understand this correctly? Who knew?

[Andromeda Stardust]

What about N64 emulators compiled for x64 excecutables?