I asked John Romero about Jaguar Quake...his reply.....

[Lost Dragon]

It'd be helpful if, in future when people say they'd read said interview, they could attempt to suggest where they saw it, so it can be found and shared with the community.People seemed to like the Edge one i had put up and i'd love to read this more 'mythical' one as very much enjoyed interviews with Carmac i've read so far.

 

His comments regarding the Dreamcast were of note as well, initally raising so doubts over choice of card DC went for, Power VR being cheaper, but would have restrictions in certain key areas, then later sounding delighted with Raster Ents conversion of Quake 3 to the DC, so obviousily Sega's decision ult,paid off in the long run.

 

Also his thoughts on PS2 and PS3 hardware as here you had far newer hardware than that found in Jaguar, but similar approaches in way architecture was set up and again Ram constraints were a big issue to developers like him.

[Lost Dragon]

Few good quotes from Carmack talking about Jaguar here:

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4215&cid=1225529

And Here:

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4215&cid=1225537

'Even if the memory controller hadn't been broken, performance would still have sucked really bad without a cache.

The jaguar was definately significantly hampered by its technical flaws, which kept me from ever being too big of a jaguar booster. I was proud of my work on Wolf and DOOM (more so than just about any of the other console work Id has been involved in until just recently), but in the end, the better consoles won the war.'

Like i say, i've always found his interviews to be great:Open, honest, proud of what he achieved on Jaguar, but honest enough to talk about the hardware flaws he encountered.

[+remowilliams]

When did these Quake for Jaguar rumors start anyways?

 

Two things

 

1) rabid fans with unrealistic expectations in a small community - which over time starts to have its own discussions / wild speculation / wishes from years ago turn into things they wind up believing as fact in a bizarre circular fashion.

 

2) turds like Laird/Hawken who just throw out unrelated screenshots and ramble on claiming they have 'secret knowledge' in an effort to make themselves special. This type of misinformation/outrageous lying then gets rolled into number 1 above at some point.

[Bill Loguidice]

When did these Quake for Jaguar rumors start anyways? Atari never mentioned Quake at the 1995 E3 and then Atari stopped supporting the Jaguar in early 1996. Quake didn't come out till later in 1996 for the PC only and for consoles a year or two after that. The time lines just don't match up. I was an active member of the online Jaguar community back in 1995 and 1996 and I don't ever remember people talking about Quake for the Jaguar.

 

Exactly. The epically poor sales of the Jaguar would have clearly been known by anyone even remotely connected to the industry by 1995, let alone in 1996. Considering the number of consoles sold prior to liquidation, i.e., roughly 125,000, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom each could have sold what, maybe 50,000 copies or so at optimistic best? That's probably why we never saw more Wolf- or Doom-engine games on the platform and, besides the obvious timing and lack of hardware power, why development on a Quake port would have never happened.

[Lost Dragon]

I've seen, how shall i put this :-) 'Eyebrows Raised' elsewhere over Romero's email reply to my emailed question, but, as in cases of my email based interviews, for better or for worse, everything is printed exactly as it came into my 'Inbox' and remains the personal view of person in question.

 

I mean no, i've never spoken to anyone from I.D in person, let alone on Skype etc, but to be brutally honest, going off interviews/comments i've read from Romero/Carmac in past, added to replies from Dave Taylor and John Romero, to myself the I.D and the Jaguar picture is pretty straight forward.

 

Carmac liked the hardware, but there were numerous changes he'd personally of liked to have seen, which could of improved performance-he's far from alone in that viewpoint from a developers standpoint.

 

In hindsight he could of coded Doom on Jaguar differently, if he had more time, greater understanding of hardware and yes, it'd probably of run faster, in higher resolution etc.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

But then on flipside, when i asked Jim Bagley about how he handled Saturn conversion of Doom, i get claim that John Carmac's wishes, might of been a key reason conversion turned out so bad:

 

' I wanted to use the Saturn's hardware to it's max potential, and wrote a render engine to display the PC levels drawing the walls with the GPU, the problem I came across, was apparently John Carmack wasn't happy about this, he wanted it to look exactly the same as the PC version, but it looked a lot nicer, and was running full screen at 60fps, he said it had to be drawn using the CPU, and not the GPU,'

 

http://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/index.php?topic=5211.0

 

So i'd wager in hindsight John might of had Saturn version done the way Jim wanted to do it, so if we go the alt.history path, both Jaguar and saturn could of had better versions of Doom than they ended up with.

 

Plus, we pretty much know profit margins on cart games were low, Jaguar versions of I.D games did'nt sell anywhere near as much as they'd of hoped.

[Lost Dragon]

And finally, going off John Carmacs comments about whilst it would be possible to get something resembling Rage and Quake arena running on DS and Mobile Phone platforms (and why he would'nt be happy porting a DS Game, Orcs and Elves to the more powerful PSP, it'd have to be a re-write), he'd not be happy to do it, as the quality just would'nt be there (this from an interview back in Nov 2007), plus his concerns over how Saturn Quake was coded......i'm left thinking at best he might of done a hardware apprasial of wether Quake could be done on Jaguar, looked at sales of previous games, along with: comprimises needed, PS1/Saturn hardware sales etc and basically seen the situation for what it was, as did ATD, Core etc etc

 

From a commercial point of view alone, Jaguar Quake just does'nt seem sensible, let alone personal feelings regarding quality of final result.

 

Just my personal view, but based on whats out there in reality.

[Lost Dragon]

@Major Havoc 2049:A scan of that very article i mentioned earlier:

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CuKJlSGomJs/UlCya9-jgoI/AAAAAAAACYs/7ke8ME6QTJU/s1600/jagmag.png

 

 

So, just to bring this into context, as text itself makes clear PC Quake was still very much at early stages on PC (talks of early PC screens anything to go by)...

 

Now factor in facts like:

 

Quake took 18 months to code on PC and ' On Quake there was really only two of us that wrote code, me and Michael Abrash. Michael was doing mostly assembly optimizations on things'

 

http://floodyberry.com/carmack/johnc_interview_1997_John_Carmack_of_id_Software_interview.html

 

We are supposed to 'buy' the magazines claim that somehow Carmac was basically coding Jaguar Quake on the side :-) and it'd reached 30% completion etc etc.

 

 

Of all the magazines i'd bought, Ult.Future games was the 1st to be thrown out and so few pages from it kept back in my 'scrap book'.

[Lost Dragon]

What made it worse, from my own viewpoint is that examples like this claim and Edge's Jaguar Supplement with fake Tomb Raider screens etc were used as 'proof' games were headed to Jaguar, yet honest replies from likes of Imagitec over status of planned Jaguar (CD) games like Freelancer-canned, Atari wanted texture mapping, lighting effects etc galore, Jaguar was'nt upto it, project moved to much more capable Playstation...were ignored and game later cropped up as being reported as being a finished project, yet we'd never seen anything more than the inital press shots and reports of it's death on Jaguar had been covered in both Ultimate Future Games and Gamesmaster Magazine here in UK.

 

I was utterly baffled when i read that claim as i knew it was complete nonsense.

 

Still, at least you can now view for yourself where a lot of the madness started, in terms of UK coverage.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[Rick Dangerous]

I've been playing some Quake lately. If the SNES could handle Doom, the Jag could handle Quake.

[Lost Dragon]

A stock SNES could'nt handle Doom.It took the SFX 2 chip to allow a comprimised version to appear.

Plus it took custom engine (programmed by Randy Linden), the floors and ceilings lacked texture mapping, the enemies only display from the front, Monster infighting was not implemented, sound propagation is unused, rendering all enemies deaf, and it ran in a window surrounded by a black frame.

So yes, it's Doom (Jim), but not (quite) as we knew it.

So whilst i'm sure given enough time and technical know how someone could knock up a conversion of sorts of Quake on the Jaguar, i personally feel it'd be heavily comprimised to the point where it'd actually do the Jaguar no favours in the long run as people who don't understand what's being asked of the hardware would compare it to other home versions on newer, more powerful hardware.

Hell Saturn Quake alone takes enough flak these days and that was some achievement by Lobotomy, comprimises made along the way to maintain frame rate.

[Lost Dragon]

Perhaps Jaguar Doom should be refered to as the 'difficult' port? :-)

 

 

'The most vocal criticism of the Jaguar architecture I have heard is

from John Carmack, who wrote Doom. A lot of his points are well made;

but he brought his game from an architecture with lots of central

processing power, and dreadful graphics rendering speed (the PC). Doom

was therefore a difficult port; as Jaguar presents both a very

different programming model and a much more balanced system. I don't

think many good games writers let compilers do the hard part - they

increasingly let them do the easy bits, but I believe most developers

still hand code the important stuff.'

 

 

http://www.atariarchives.org/cfn/08/09/03/0453.php

 

(A Weekend with the Jaguar's Dad Interview by: Travis Guy).

Edited May 24, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[Major Havoc 2049]

@Major Havoc 2049:A scan of that very article i mentioned earlier:

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CuKJlSGomJs/UlCya9-jgoI/AAAAAAAACYs/7ke8ME6QTJU/s1600/jagmag.png

 

 

Yep, pretty much rubbish.

 

 

 

A stock SNES could'nt handle Doom.It took the SFX 2 chip to allow a comprimised version to appear.

Plus it took custom engine (programmed by Randy Linden), the floors and ceilings lacked texture mapping, the enemies only display from the front, Monster infighting was not implemented, sound propagation is unused, rendering all enemies deaf, and it ran in a window surrounded by a black frame.

So yes, it's Doom (Jim), but not (quite) as we knew it.

So whilst i'm sure given enough time and technical know how someone could knock up a conversion of sorts of Quake on the Jaguar, i personally feel it'd be heavily comprimised to the point where it'd actually do the Jaguar no favours in the long run as people who don't understand what's being asked of the hardware would compare it to other home versions on newer, more powerful hardware.

Hell Saturn Quake alone takes enough flak these days and that was some achievement by Lobotomy, comprimises made along the way to maintain frame rate.

 

 

The Saturn couldn't even handle Quake. The Saturn version of Quake didn't even use the Quake engine, but instead used a custom engine designed by Labotomy.

[toiletunes]

I've been playing some Quake lately. If the SNES could handle Doom, the Jag could handle Quake.

That's like saying the 2600 could handle Double Dragon.

[Zerosquare]

That's nothing. The 2600 can handle Halo!

[Lynxpro]

As for what people make of the findings themselves? that's 100% upto them, if they want to believe Quake, Tomb Raider etc were feasable projects on Jag, it's not for me to say other wise, ditto the 'status' of MK3, Creature shock, Conan etc.I simply searched for the people, asked the questions, shared the answers.If that's me talking bile or people want to claim likes of Alexander Holland, Darryl Still etc 'never said that', great, ask'em.If the Core design PR guys interview proved nothing other than Edge told lies? knock yourself out, it proved people were hanging onto a false belief as 'proof' they used was in fact mock up screens.

 

 

Lifes far too short, work far too busy to chat further (oh and it's £'s here in UK, not $'s :-) ) for me to explain myself any further.

 

Glad the info itself has gone down well.

 

Now, i'd best get ready for work.

 

 

You are helping to clean up all of the misconceptions out there spread by morons for their own personal profit. Kinda like that bogus Lynx Star Raiders port by Jeff Minter rumor that got shot down simply by asking him about it on Twitter. A rumor spread around by the same guy responsible for most of the false Jaguar rumors.

[Lynxpro]

While only the most devout Jaguar die-hards would ever think pulling off a recognizable Quake on Jaguar would be possible, it is unfortunate that the Jaguar never got more Doom-, and in particular, more Wolfenstein-engine games in its arsenal. Its main competitor at the time, 3DO, certainly got more than its fair share of FPS games. Perhaps if the Jaguar and then Jaguar CD weren't total flops, that might have been a strategy on the CD unit assuming either engine would fit within any technical restrictions presented by the add-on.

 

Agreed but Atari Corp would've been pushing the Jaguar 2 at that point.

[Lynxpro]

That's like saying the 2600 could handle Double Dragon.

 

At least 2600 Double Dragon was 2-player. What was the NES' excuse? Frikkin' Single Dragon BS.

[Lost Dragon]

To myself, a gamer for more years than i care to count, there's often been that point when people are trying to convert games hardware really is'nt suited to and just because they can, does'nt mean they should...

 

Any C16 owners on here? Ghost's N Goblins anyone?

 

Fellow C64 owners might recal things like Armourote and Carrier Command turning up, but in 2D and then you've the bloody WTF were they thinking? type attempts at converting Stun Runner and Hard Driving to the C64.

 

As a Jaguar owner, what was i hoping for in Jag's twlight (commercial) months:

 

Clunky, butchured to point of holding my head in my hands conversions of Quake/Daytona USA/NFS etc etc? or games like Freelancer/Black Ice/White Noise/Dactyl Joust etc, you know, exclusives which showed real protential, to be left alone by Atari, other than to be given resources needed to get them finished, not canned or rushed to market.

 

 

It was'nt the 1st option....

[Lost Dragon]

@LynxPro:It seems every time i've shared my 'findings' be it Creature Shock/Tomb Raider/ Conan/Ultra Star Raiders/Magic Carpet/what ever there's been a reaction/ripple effect....

 

At the end of the day, it has'nt stopped me, as sites like GTW/Unseen64 and publications like ST Gamer/Classic Console Magazine want the interviews/findings and there's been plenty who are 'happy' to get some degree of clarity over what happened to...after all these years.

 

Like/loathe me, what ever, i can post, hand on heart that all findings have been shared as they came to me, no answers altered, emails forwarded as they were, others had job of tiding them up for publication be it online or in publication and i'm going to say this:

[Lost Dragon]

The more time that passed, the harder it was always going to be to get the info.

 

I initally put my faith in mainstream press putting questions to coders etc when they interviewed them for various articles, but to be blunt, the likes of the ST/A8/Jaguar etc are'nt high profile machines for them or market they are after it seems, so questions were'nt asked.

 

It took a degree of 'leg work' to get proof, direct from sources regarding Tomb Raider screens being fakes, what exactly happened to Conan, how far along coding seemed to get on Creature Shock, the fact there was at least an attempt made to convert Magic Carpet and why it was abandoned etc etc.

 

And i'm not going to say i'm sorry that Dave Taylor and John Romero's comments to myself were'nt Pro-Jaguar or so many have explained why they abandoned the Lynx or Jaguar, as they all gave honest answers to honest questions.

[Lost Dragon]

Actually, that's enough said on certain subjects by myself.

 

I'll close by just trying to get across the fact it's been a case of simply trying to get information from sources whilst it's still, to a degree 'clear' in their minds...

 

Too much has been lost already on clearouts, HDD's failing, stuff put in storage and then just gone and in a lot of cases it's been 20+ years for gods sake, people cannot recal much if anything and the harshest reality of all...as each year passes, we loose more and more people from the industry to the natural order of things, people pass away, info taken with them.

 

That's been the hardest part of the 'research', realising person you'd love to chat to about...sadly passed away or was cruelly taken from us and now you'll never get a chance to chat, let alone say thank you for making my gaming life something special...and at times, that cuts deep.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[JagChris]

 

Yep, pretty much rubbish.

 

 

 

The Saturn couldn't even handle Quake. The Saturn version of Quake didn't even use the Quake engine, but instead used a custom engine designed by Labotomy.

 

This to me is Semantics. It handled Quake just fine. I have it on the Saturn. Yes its an engine that uses Quads instead of triangles. But it is clearly recognizable as Quake with some graphics improvements. Animated textures etc.

 

My gripe is that the enemy AI is weird and doesn't behave like the oriiginal version.

[sd32]

Well, someone is doing Quake 2 on the Falcon, so if someone put the same level effort on a port of Quake for the Jag... it might just be posible. There are crazy talented coders who do seamingly imposible thing on their favorite consoles.

Would probably need a RAM expansion like the N64s, though, since Quake 2 for the Falcon is using 14 MB of RAM, i think. That level of effort and the RAM thing would not have made that project feasable back in the day, i guess.

[sd32]

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturn couldn't even handle Quake. The Saturn version of Quake didn't even use the Quake engine, but instead used a custom engine designed by Labotomy.

 

Of course they wouldnt use the exact same engine used on the PCs Quake, a PC had a very diferent architecture compared with the Sega Saturn.

 

Its not a bad port coming from a small team, who had to do both Duke 3D and Quake ports for the Saturn at about the same time. Also had to use their own Slave Driver engine for Quake, and that engine seemed to have been designed for games that used sprite based enemies, like Powerslave, and unlike Quake, that featured polygonal ones. I think Saturn Quake might have needed a little extra development time, with that in mind, for a performance boost, or come up with a diferent engine altogether?

 

Maybe neither Quake or Duke played exactly like their PC counterparts, but they were still great Sega Saturn games and 2 of the more impressive showcases for the system. My only complain about Saturn Quake, is is about the dithering mesh used for the water surfaces. I always wondered if some VDP2 effect couldnt have been used instead, like the awesome water seen on Sonic R. Even Saturn Tomb Raider used a better effect for the water.

Edited May 25, 2015 by sd32