Why no music on Jag Doom?

[CaptainBreakout]

Yeah, that's where I'm at as far as quoting. Mostly I do a 'quick reply' with my phone so I have a stripped down control console which makes quoting cumbersom. This is all typed with thumbs. And yes, generally I mean to respond in sequence to the last person.

 

So yeah, anyway Jag Doom and Music. I wonder if any of the ace programmers in this community may find the idea of MIDI output from the Jag intriguing, especially in this particular case.

 

In my wildest, I could see a MIDI cord coming out of controller port 2... Or even the cartridge itself.

[Keatah]

Well the protocol is light-weight and the interface not demanding. Even on like an Apple II, you have the 1MHz 6502 go through a couple of 74LS buffers and then right out to a MIDI port. In comparison, the jag is like 100x more powerful.

 

In fact, if Jag Doom was to go MIDI, there would be more resources freed up to make other improvements in the game.

Edited June 15, 2017 by Keatah

[Flojomojo]

The Roland sound module is lovely and it's easily emulated even on very modest modern computers. I run VirtualMidiSynth everywhere, often with a sound font that simulates a full orchestra. Sounds terrific with the old Star Wars games. Here's the method, which can be applied to most other DOS games.

 

https://www.spacegamejunkie.com/miscellaneous/music-dos-versions-x-wing-tie-fighter-virtualmidisynth/

[82-T/A]

The Roland sound module is lovely and it's easily emulated even on very modest modern computers. I run VirtualMidiSynth everywhere, often with a sound font that simulates a full orchestra. Sounds terrific with the old Star Wars games. Here's the method, which can be applied to most other DOS games.

 

https://www.spacegamejunkie.com/miscellaneous/music-dos-versions-x-wing-tie-fighter-virtualmidisynth/

 

Oh man, what a flashback!!!

 

By the way, in the video I posted on the second page, the guy (Phil?) used a USB to MIDI converter, which allowed him to use the MT-32 (of which there are dozens online). It worked seamlessly in DOSBOX, which I didn't even know you could do.

 

Here's the video of Tie Fighter with the Sound Canvas and the SB16 for speech and action sound:

 

 

 

I LOVED this game back in the day.

[CaptainBreakout]

My crazy pipedream is to have a MIDI out from the Jaguar plus a modified rom of Doom, and send the signal out to one of these MT-32s, or something that's GM compatible (the MT32 technically isn't, but it would still work).

 

Even crazier would be something like this. Build/design a GM synth on a microcontroller and design it to share space with a game on a Jaguar cart pcb, allow it to share memory and read the MIDI signal, then output the audio to another area of sharred memory back into the Jag, or even just dump it out of an audio jack on the cartridge.

 

These are things I would ask from a genie who specialized in programming and hardware design.

[82-T/A]

My crazy pipedream is to have a MIDI out from the Jaguar plus a modified rom of Doom, and send the signal out to one of these MT-32s, or something that's GM compatible (the MT32 technically isn't, but it would still work).

 

Even crazier would be something like this. Build/design a GM synth on a microcontroller and design it to share space with a game on a Jaguar cart pcb, allow it to share memory and read the MIDI signal, then output the audio to another area of sharred memory back into the Jag, or even just dump it out of an audio jack on the cartridge.

 

These are things I would ask from a genie who specialized in programming and hardware design.

 

 

Hahah... or you could just install it on a PC for 1/10th the price.

[ZylonBane]

Ha ha, you quoted the entire post immediately above yours.

[CaptainBreakout]

HAHAHA... But holding up a Jaguar Doom Cartridge and saying "THIS one has music!" ... Priceless!

[SoulBlazer]

Heck, most of my time spent playing Doom as a kid was on a PC with a AdLib! We didn't get a SB until a couple years later, so even today hearing any music on the game that was done with 'better' music quality doesn't sound 'right' to me due to nostalgia.

 

BTW, how does one use the block function again? Someone in this thread reminded me he never has anything good to say in his posts and acts like an asshole, and has earned the honor of my first block ever on the AA boards.

[Atari Nut]

The Jag version is also missing enemies facing the direction they're moving. Instead they always face toward the player, like the monsters in 32X Doom.

 

I wish you can sneak up behind them like the port in that video clip.

[Keatah]

Heck, most of my time spent playing Doom as a kid was on a PC with a AdLib! We didn't get a SB until a couple years later, so even today hearing any music on the game that was done with 'better' music quality doesn't sound 'right' to me due to nostalgia.

 

Yes. I actually prefer Adlib/SoundBlaster/OPL3 for the first version of Doom. And for Doom II I like General Midi. Not because one sounds better than the other or anything; but because it is how I first played the games.

 

Sure Roland SC or General Midi sounds great and fine and stuff. But it all has to match the experience ya'll had in the 1990's.

[CaptainBreakout]

Yeah, I like the different variation all these sound cards provide to the PC gaming experience back then. It was really something. Over at the VOGONS forums, there are people that are all about getting as many variations of sound setups as possible (and impossible, at the time) to play these games. It's truly amusing looking at just how many sound hardware setups these individual games frequently supported... and all with different IRQ and DMA and just massively variable individual setups.

 

One of the boons or banes of not having a standard sound solution for a platform... depending on how you look at it.

 

Personally I love monkeying with the sound setup on these games and getting a new configuration to work. It's like a new flavor for the game every time ya do.

 

But anyway... in my pie-in-the-sky research for how to theoretically get the music into the Jaguar version of Doom, I was happy to discover a new possible solution.

 

At first I looked into microcontroller from Teensy. There are a few MIDI controllers and even some synths out there that can use this, but they aren't exactly musically robust (just four tones and pretty low specs).

 

However, I found this link to a guy who made what I had in mind out of a old sound blaster daughterboard...

http://electro-music.com/forum/post-149503.html

 

And a little further research and I found out you can buy this guy's project basically pre-assembled on Ebay for about 60 bucks. Also new daughterboards in the $80 range if you can't find an old one (and the new ones have some monster wavetable rom in terms of MB size that wasn't possible then).

 

Anyway, if one were to utilize the above hardware, that leaves two hurdles to get the music into Jag Doom... hack the rom to include the MIDI signal info from the PC version, then add a MIDI-Out interface to the Jag somehow.

[+madman]

Anyway, if one were to utilize the above hardware, that leaves two hurdles to get the music into Jag Doom... hack the rom to include the MIDI signal info from the PC version, then add a MIDI-Out interface to the Jag somehow.

This all seems very feasible and will certainly happen. The question is, will it happen before or after the Jaguar Bomberman with 10P support is released?

[VladR]

If you're talking about the video I linked to, that's PC Wolf 3D. Probably running on a 386. The source resolution of the textures in Jag Wolf are 4x that of the PC iirc. I think the Jag game itself runs at 320 x 200 or 240. If it weren't for the slightly ropey music (it's fine, but not CD quality by a long shot) and the fact it's missing the *many* extra levels from 3rd Encounter (which were included on the 3DO port, although graphically this was based on the SNES version!) the Jaguar version could be considered the definitive version of the original Wolf 3D...oh yeah, some people were bummed that you couldn't select the knife when you had guns...I never minded either way, but it was a silly omission.

More reading: http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/Jaguar_port_of_Wolfenstein_3D

I've got Wolf on jag, and played it quite a bit. While the framedrops from 30 fps (down below) were the first thing I noticed, higher-resolution textures were the second.

 

Within 10 minutes of playing, however, it was very obvious it does not run in 320x240, but lower than that. From many of my resolution experiments, I know already, that if you reduce 320x240 to 300x240, you can't really tell the difference. The difference becomes obvious, once it goes below 280x240, and somewhere there, the actual resolution of wolf on jag is.

 

I don't know the exact number, (I believe there was a source code for jag version out there ? I could take a look) but the vertical stripes of the walls are quite thick (the higher resolution of textures is of zero impact/help here), which leads me to believe it's somewhere around 256x240 (give or take 16-24 pixels).

 

It's also entirely possible, that like Doom, the bottom HUD is higher resolution, than the 3D (well, raycasted) world.

[ZylonBane]

Within 10 minutes of playing, however, it was very obvious it does not run in 320x240, but lower than that.

 

If it's so obvious, maybe you should fire it up in an emulator, take a screenshot of it running in 1:1 mode, and prove it.

[Mattfrie1]

Here's some more of John Carmack's thoughts on the Jaguar, circa 2000:

 

http://fd.fabiensanglard.net/doom3/pdfs/johnc-slashdot.pdf#section.1.13

[JagChris]

The reason is most likely that it was largely a rush job and Dave Taylor who did the DSP work wasn't very good.

[VladR]

The reason is most likely that it was largely a rush job and Dave Taylor who did the DSP work wasn't very good.

Chris, do you have Wolf's source codes somewhere ? I haven't found them in my jag directory and a brief google search surprisingly didn't yield it either (only jag doom's source codes). AA hosts doom's source code for jag, but not wolf either, so it almost looks like it's not freely publicly available, which must be nonsense...

 

I'd love to peek into the config of the game...

[Lost Dragon]

http://3do.cdinteractive.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3564

 

The only real fan of the Jaguar hardware at I.D appears to be Carmack.. Romero and Taylor were not.

 

Considering Taylor did sound engine work on Jaguar Wolf.and Doom and went onto work on various versions of Quake..it's daft to claim he wasn't very good.

 

He's been honest enough to admit he didn't like the hardware, cannot recall exact reasons Jaguar version lacked music, just puts forward suggestions.

 

Plus,he joins ATD in finding the DSP in the Jaguar wasn't all he had hoped for.

 

You can hardly blame people for not wanting to talk about Jaguar games they were involved in, when each time they express honest expressions about the hardware shortcomings..they are jumped on.

 

Mike Diskett and Jonathan Court discovered this, Probe labelled as lazy for the Primal Rage conversion,yet no one has spoken to coders to get real story.

Edited June 22, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[Zerosquare]

Don't cloud the issue with facts. JagChris read it in a magazine, so it must be true.

[neo_rg]

Even streaming the music from an Atari jaguar CD would have not been straight forward due to the lack of memory, not looked at the source but I'm guessing it might be possible.

[Lost Dragon]

Putting it simply..

 

jaguar received a cracking version of Doom..

 

 

3DO,Saturn and 32X versions by comparison..bloody awful.

 

I will happily take quality at expense of in game music any day..

 

 

A ground up built version would of seen Jaguar Doom running faster, in higher resolution, better lighting etc, but required more time..time was something Jaguar didn't have on it's side..it was dying at retail.

 

The DSP limitations have been expressed by ATD when developing Cybermorph and whenever issue of no sound on Jag CD Native..

 

It simply wasn't as powerful as developers had hoped.

 

Every piece of hardware has shortcomings,games compromised to a degree as a result.

 

Trying to blame individual coders or developers rather than admit the hardware was lacking, does not help anyone understand the hardware or it's commercial downfall..

Edited June 22, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[JagChris]

1. Didn't Carl and Welsh Warrior fix his bugs tinkering around in an afternoon or two

 

2. Didn't stormwerkz interactive take the engine and get sound to work while playing the game?

 

 

But you know opinions vary.

[Zerosquare]

So? How does that prove Dave Taylor is a bad programmer?

 

Do you know how much time he was given to work on this project?

Do you know if adding the music caused no problems like, say, an hard-to-debug random crash?

Do you know for sure no manager told him "we're not giving you an extra afternoon to polish that thing, we're shipping NOW"?

 

That's like claiming a singer sucks because his performance was bad at one concert, while ignoring the rest of his career.

[Lost Dragon]

Given that it was Carmack who wouldn't let Jim Bagley use the Saturn hardware in manner he wanted and thus Saturn Doom

Was dire..something Carmack has been honest enough to admit, was a mistake..

 

I think Dave Taylor shouldn't be singled out.

 

There's a vast gulf between tinkering with others code in your spare time for a pet project and that of commercial coding on a system who's retail market was disappearing like snow before the sun.

 

Jaguar Doom had to be delivered, manufactured and in hands of retail whilst there was still a viable market out there.

 

Taylor made clear sales of Wolfenstien on Jaguar were dire..i honestly don't think anyone at I.D thought Doom would be any different or reverse the fortunes of the Jaguar any more than it would for the 32X.

 

We have no idea what Dave Taylor's brief was..what resources or timescale he was given.

 

At the end of the day..his work must of been high enough standard for I.D as he continued to work for them after Jaguar Doom..

 

The Jaguar was his only console work, coding wise..and given the hardware flaws and everything that went hand in hand with commercial Jaguar development, surprised Doom turned out as well as it did.

Edited June 22, 2017 by Lost Dragon