Atari Jaguar vs 3do

[+CyranoJ]

My hypothesis is that rather than having the game play at a fixed resolution and simply scaling the results (2x or 3x however it may be) it actually increases the resolution rendered as it increases the screen size and also it uses more detailed textures.

 

 

Nope, it just skips more pixels on a smaller span to fit the image into the space.

[Otto1980]

By looking at the textures between the various resolutions it seems like as the screen size increases the textures details increase as well [not linearly but somewhat you can tell there's finer details rather than a wholesale scaling].

 

My hypothesis is that rather than having the game play at a fixed resolution and simply scaling the results (2x or 3x however it may be) it actually increases the resolution rendered as it increases the screen size and also it uses more detailed textures.

 

exactly.. i think in case of SC3d this is one of the main resource eaters

the textures are not very colorfull but look relativly high resoluted.. so if you look from one end of the stadium to the other you see them still.. that means they had to calculate the textures from huge images down to a hand of pixels in the far distance

i can imagine that this calculation takes heavily gpu power and results in the poor renderingspeed that ends up in the low fps

some workaround would be cutting the drawdistance OR try to use mipmapping (which also would increase the texture sourcedata a little at around +33% but propably reduces calculation/rendering of "far" textures a lot)

 

btw this would be a little more than a hack.. it would be a massive optimisation of its engine which requires the sourcecode

(and more skill than i got :-P

Edited November 12, 2015 by Otto1980

[+CyranoJ]

[Lost Dragon]

Possibly the 'best' person for someone else to try and contact would be: Mr Chris Brunning.....

 

I've personally never tried to contact him, as there's nothing on his C.V that i was a real fan of.....

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,64951/

 

I never had a ZX Spectrum, so his work on Strider, Last Duel and planned Sam Coupe version of Strider are of no personal interest either.

 

I have spoken to (Atari) Producer, Faran Thomason and also Andrew Holdroyd who did some addt.coding on Supecross 3D and from my point of view, story has been told...Atari wanted everything textured, to hell with the performance hit...end of :-)

 

As for Tiertex themselves-Yes company is still up and yes, i approached them when people were asking about possible feature on them, for ST Gamer Volume 2, but i never had any replies.

 

 

As for myself asking people in industry anything with regards to source code being given to the Atari community........

 

 

Not going to happen.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[Bill Loguidice]

Just for fun.

 

I am aware that Doom for 3DO is not good but a little known detail, if you run it with the rendering windows at its smallest which I believe at that point is smaller than 1/2 screen but bigger than 1/3 of the screen [so maybe native 200 out of 320?], the framerate gets much smoother. In the same full res stuttering areas you can see gains of almost 70% (yep anecdotally almost twice as fast).

 

 

 

It obviously wasn't down to technical limitations of the hardware, it was down to time: https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/doom3do/blob/master/README.md

 

It would be nice to get this same frankness and perspective from the actual developers for other infamously poor games.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Bill Loguidice

[Lost Dragon]

Umm, to be fair Bill, many of them are quite happy to explain what happened.Taking Saturn Doom as just another example,

Jim Bagley on his conversion and why he could'nt use Saturn hardware in manner he wanted:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/index.php%3Ftopic%3D5211.0&sa=U&ved=0CBQQFjAAahUKEwjxgO34oIvJAhXEVRQKHSQ_ANY&usg=AFQjCNG5gktFTaQUy6DSywBDcohxhXkDiQ

And John Carmack responding to this point being raised:

https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/537611422721916928

[Lost Dragon]

Fred Gill has explained Blue Lightning Jaguar CD....

 

Rebellion PSP AVP....

 

 

Harry Holmwood what became of Lunatik on PS1, why Respect Inc was rushed out etc.

Just a few more examples...

 

I always try and ask why games were released in state they were or not at all when i approach people and in vast majority of cases, they are happy to discuss why.

 

The only thing they have to be careful of is not offending people still working in the industry (i have 1 interview being checked over for this very reason as i speak....)...

 

Plus, you have to bear in mind, for some, poor or lost games are often very open wounds still, no matter how many years of passed and it's not a period they want to look back on.

 

Lot of hard work down the drain, falling out's, money not paid etc.

 

Plus, look at some of the reactions when coders say the hardware simply could'nt handle the demands of the game being asked of it........

Edited November 12, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Umm, to be fair Bill, many of them are quite happy to explain what happened.Taking Saturn Doom as just another example,

 

My comment wasn't an absolute, of course. I know there are plenty of them, I just wish there were more. I forget, do you recall if we ever get one for Supercross 3D?

[Lost Dragon]

Andrew H.talking about Tiertex:

'They had some very talented people which I think were underused and

the projects were not managed very well and tended to be made on a

production line with the minimum resources and 'as long as it works

then move on to the next one' basis rather than trying to squeeze the

best out of the hardware which some staff found frustrating.'

Faran T:Regarding Supercross 3D:

'FT: I will need to take another look at it, but my guess we bit off more than we could chew'

[Lost Dragon]

You've also Martin Brownlow's thoughts:

[MB] Blame Atari... "Oh, and texture this, texture that, texture the other."

"But textures are at least 8x slower than flat shaded" says I. "Actually,"

says Atari, "they're at least 22x slower, but we want them anyway". You saw

how the motorcycle game (Supercross 3D --Ed.) game came out - really slow -

that's because they gave in to Atari and textured everything, which the Jag

just can't handle.

Plus ATD's comment's about Atari wanting everything textured in Battlemorph, Imagitec saying Atari had gone utterly mental wanting loads of texture-mapping, light sourcing, high polygon count for Jag CD Freelancer and i think we can work out just why Supercross 3D turned out so poorly...

Atari wanting more than hardware could deliver, Tiertex hardly the coders to really look into using Jaguar hardware to it's full potential.

[phoenixdownita]

 

....

[MB] Blame Atari... "Oh, and texture this, texture that, texture the other."

"But textures are at least 8x slower than flat shaded" says I. "Actually,"

says Atari, "they're at least 22x slower, but we want them anyway".

....

 

 

I don't get what marketing strategy could have backed this kind of thinking. 22x less perf unless we're talking 400 fps unynced to begin with makes no sense no matter what.

I know that textures are usually pretty but having "texture everything" to the point it was acceptable that the game itself can't really be played seems very ill advised.

A smart and measured usage is understandable because no textures at all at that time was seen as a sign of weakness. Going with some textures would have left the doubt that more could be done (use them as eye candy where it matters), but actually going full textures just proved the HW just wasn't there.

Edited November 12, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[Lost Dragon]

Going purely off what i've read quoted from likes of ATD (Battlemorph) M.B (Missile Command 3D), (World Tour Racing Coder) Lee B, Imagitec (Freelancer CD) and SwitchDeath coders...projects would start out designed within the realms of what the Jaguar was more than capable of, but then Atari would apply 'heavy pressure' on them to switch focus into realms the Jaguar simply was not really suited to, in order to be seen to be able to compete on a level playing field with 3DO, Saturn and PS1.

2D and plain Polygons were seen as being dated, so Atari started asking for texture-mapping galore, lots of light sourcing etc etc and then it either depended on how developer responded (if they had a choice and Atari did'nt cutr funding)....

Battlemorph and WTR had limited texture-mapping and worked out ok, where as Supercross 3D went the full monty route and paid the price...

Atari simply appeared desperate, having found themselves facing a far bigger threat than just the CD32/3DO in form of the Saturn and PS1.

[phoenixdownita]

I hear you but if they just attempted to play the "fully textured" games and then confront and compare they would have seen that adding textures to achieve a crappy/messy framerate would still not give them any competitive advantage, actually it would play against them showing how bad it really was.

 

Not sure to praise them for the effort or curse them for the waste. After all the Saturn managed to be kept in the fight thanks to a lot of very good 2D games, the first few 3D games didn't quite impress, it took a while to get something fully believable in that dept, and the Saturn is still not remembered for the 3D games it had but mostly for its 2D quality releases.

 

EDIT:

Heck in the 3D dept it is easier to remember what the Saturn couldn't do [no light effects, no transparencies, low poly count, 2D backgrounds, no procedural textures, lots of popup] than what it could do. Even handling of video material was really not its strengths without the MPEG Card that only 2 games actually used.

Edited November 12, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[Lost Dragon]

:-) That i guess is a question better suited to those with far 'Higher End' contacts than those i've managed to get over the past few months.Mine are mainly Atari UK based and even then 2 of those i put Q's too never replied back, despite assurances.

I did try and find out more on just what Atari wanted Imagitec to do with Freelancer on Jag CD, and to get some idea of the kind of pressure they were putting them under, as well as to confirm the images shown to the press were mock-up's on PC, but despite inital contact, i never got a reply back from 2 Imagitec artists, nor Andrew Seed.

Poor health on 1, total lack of replies after inital contact/questions sent on the other 2.

Had same from Susan Mcbride as well (well Frank Gasking of GTW, who asked on my behalf).

Looks like no-one wants to explain what really went on behind the scenes anymore, if at all :-(.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[phoenixdownita]

Comes to think of it (back to 3DO), what were the good 3DO 2D games?

The Jag does have nice 2D games here and there and compared to the small library it is actually a favorable situation.

 

I recognize that for the 3DO the likes of Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Samurai Shodown, Gex, Return Fire, Casper, Fifa Soccer and John Madden were good showcase games but what else?

 

I do not want to count FMVs here as the JagCD showed to some extent it could run them mostly fine (although I personally don't like the quality of its codec it's also not too bad for the likes of Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, BrainDead13 not sure about actual actor based movie content but if VidGrid is any indication it seems on par).

 

It seems that the 3DO library does not have many 2D games to begin with.

Edited November 13, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[Spacey Invader]

 

2D and plain Polygons were seen as being dated, so Atari started asking for texture-mapping galore, lots of light sourcing etc etc and then it either depended on how developer responded (if they had a choice and Atari did'nt cutr funding)....

 

Battlemorph and WTR had limited texture-mapping and worked out ok, where as Supercross 3D went the full monty route and paid the price...

 

Atari simply appeared desperate, having found themselves facing a far bigger threat than just the CD32/3DO in form of the Saturn and PS1.

At be time, what you saw in a screenshot in a magazine might convince you to lay down cold hard cash. Before youtube, it was hard to get any idea of framerate, you'd just think "oh they looks pretty good. ". Perhaps they just wanted screenshots to look, however falsely, as if they competed with the current gen of machines.

 

Incidentally perspectives have changed. I bought my jag post mortis from kay bee on a lark and had a friend, who owned an n64, ask about it as the 64-bit "equal". Showed him the games and he said he didn't see the "bits". Except for the heavily textured hover strike. He said he could see the "bits" there. Funny how perspectives change.

[Lost Dragon]

Never been a 3DO owner but it has likes of:

 

Another World (hand drawn backdrops?), Flashback, Soccer Kid, Johny Bazookatone, Syndicate and Cannon Fodder.

 

No idea what they are like or how in cases of Flashback, Syndicate and Cannon Fodder they compare to the Jaguar versions.

 

Mentioned it before but:

 

Mark Johnston (Argonaut's 3DO coder) reckoned the SNES pretty much wiped the floor with the 3DO in regard to 2D and there are 2D sections in Creature Shock to look out for.

 

Bill Heineman (interplay) said 'The machine (3DO) is fast enough (almost) to handle just about every effect of SNES Mode 7, but you could still do it a lot faster on the SNES'

 

So those comments might point to how it handled (not too great by sounds of it) 2D wise....

[Lost Dragon]

@Spacey Invader:That's a bloody good point.

 

 

Atari's advertising here in UK seemed very magazine based, so still shots were all Atari needed for that approach, but even then we had better looking versions of games shown in magazine adverts (Redline Racing/C.Flag II) or preview screens..compare preview screens of Blue Lightning CD to retail version.Plus by sounds of it, mock-up shots passed off as actual jaguar ones (Imagitec's BRender based Freelancer screens in GamesMaster Mag and Edge taking screens they knew were mock-ups and passing them off as Jag CD ones, in the Jaguar supplement for Edge, cough..Tomb Raider).

 

The whole 'Let The Games Begin' fiasco as well which had just artwork where there were screen shots avaiable has just sprung to mind....

 

But then this is Atari who put out those high res 'lynx' screens of Cabal, Rolling Thunder etc, so why am i not surprised?.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Lost Dragon

[ChrisWR]

The 3DO is slower than the Jaguar, but the Jaguar hardware is bugged without end!.

In addition there were very few "good" programmer for the Jaguar.

What the Jaguar everything can and can not do, we will never know.

But you have to indulge in any illusions, the Saturn and PS1, N64 are much much faster.

Whether at the end of the Jaguar 20% faster, or the 3DO is faster. If you never learn.

I think for the 3DO there are many more better games!. (Yeah Super Wing Commander, Wing Commander 3, The Need for Speed, Road Rash, Gex, and so much more )

[VladR]

The 3DO is slower than the Jaguar, but the Jaguar hardware is bugged without end!.

In addition there were very few "good" programmer for the Jaguar.

What the Jaguar everything can and can not do, we will never know.

 

But you have to indulge in any illusions, the Saturn and PS1, N64 are much much faster.

Whether at the end of the Jaguar 20% faster, or the 3DO is faster. If you never learn.

I think for the 3DO there are many more better games!. (Yeah Super Wing Commander, Wing Commander 3, The Need for Speed, Road Rash, Gex, and so much more )

I would not make jag's bugs such a big deal. They are very well documented in the docs, so one knows exactly what to look out for.

 

In the grand scheme of things, when one codes for jag, HW bugs are roughly 5% annoying.

 

Every time you get back to coding after long pause, just spend 5 minutes with the docs refreshing what to avoid. Hardly an issue. Do it couple times, and you'll remember it for next time.

[Gunstar]

The 3DO, and most, if not all other systems have their own set of bugs, from what I am told.

[Gunstar]

I would be astonished if there is a system that exists without them, since man is not perfect and they are all created by man. Does anyone know of a system without bugs? Or maybe one that only has one or two?

[DracIsBack]

 

It obviously wasn't down to technical limitations of the hardware, it was down to time: https://github.com/Olde-Skuul/doom3do/blob/master/README.md

 

It would be nice to get this same frankness and perspective from the actual developers for other infamously poor games.

 

I like this. In younger days, I too often assumed that bad ports were the result of "lazy Developers". Now that I've worked in software, I know it's usually not the case. More often than not, requirements changes, compressed schedules, poor planning, limited resources assigned to the project have a terrible effect.

 

I have certainly met some lazy developers who blamed their terrible end result on things which were absolutely their fault. But usually when a software project has issues, it's because of how the project was resourced, staffed, managed and developed within a timeline that was not conducive.

[phoenixdownita]

 

I like this. In younger days, I too often assumed that bad ports were the result of "lazy Developers". Now that I've worked in software, I know it's usually not the case. More often than not, requirements changes, compressed schedules, poor planning, limited resources assigned to the project have a terrible effect.

 

I have certainly met some lazy developers who blamed their terrible end result on things which were absolutely their fault. But usually when a software project has issues, it's because of how the project was resourced, staffed, managed and developed within a timeline that was not conducive.

 

The same statement can be made around most projects on all sorts of professional fields, it is rare that all the parties involved simply lazied out although it happens, most likely mismanagement, miscommunication and wrong expectations contribute the lion share of each and every fuxx-up.

Edited November 13, 2015 by phoenixdownita

[NeoGeoNinja]

Mark Johnston (Argonaut's 3DO coder) reckoned the SNES pretty much wiped the floor with the 3DO in regard to 2D and there are 2D sections in Creature Shock to look out for.

 

Well, I implore you to directly compare Super Street Fighter 2 on SNES against Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo on 3DO.

 

Although the parallax is lost on 3DO, the rest of the game is, I'd say, Arcade Perfect. At the time, it was a MASSIVE leap in the quality of SF2 at home.

 

Having said that, the PCE port of SF2 CE was superior to the SNES/MD counterparts, but even so, SSF2T/X on 3DO was immense at the time. The animation and gameplay just destroyed the other versions. And I mean 'destroyed'.

 

It's not until you actually sit down and play the 16-bit ports that you realise how cut down they were. Of course, at the time, the ports were so amazing, you didn't really notice at that age (i.e. pre-high school age, personally).

 

Similarly, SShodown on 3DO killed the SNES port too. Even the MD port was better than the SNES, which was unusual.

 

Although not as good as Capcom's Street Fighter port, CD's port of SS1 for 3DO was still really good. Just not as good as the Neo Geo or CD versions overall, but the best available thereafter.