What could have saved the Jag?

[alucardX]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

It totally mattered.   I got into WAD editing and was frustrated that I couldn't design the levels the way I wanted to because they were essentially 2D maps with height tricks.

 

That's fine, but they should have kept 3D away from traditionally 2D/isometric franchises until it was ready.  That's my issue, so many games rushed to become "3D" and didn't benefit from it.

What is a video game anyhow? An illusion. It is a cleverly designed box of parlor tricks for the eyes and ears and just happens to be interactive. Doom was an incredible achievement for the time and the most important part, the game play, was intact. Nobody at the time played the game and complained that it wasn't true 3d. That came later as hardware became capable enough to do the math for a fully polygonal 3D experience that could keep the same fast paced game play. The illusion of 3d is just that and the method for achieving it can be done any way you want.

[Mittens0407]

53 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Which consoles before and right after the Jaguar had an operating system? 

 

 

To my knowledge the 3do is the first console to have a full featured multitasking operating system. The reason was to ensure compatibility with newer 3do models that never surfaced. I'm not sure about any systems afterwards.

44 minutes ago, alucardX said:

What is a video game anyhow? An illusion. It is a cleverly designed box of parlor tricks for the eyes and ears and just happens to be interactive. Doom was an incredible achievement for the time and the most important part, the game play, was intact. Nobody at the time played the game and complained that it wasn't true 3d. That came later as hardware became capable enough to do the math for a fully polygonal 3D experience that could keep the same fast paced game play. The illusion of 3d is just that and the method for achieving it can be done any way you want.

Honestly the 2D nature of Doom mapping is one of its strengths in my eyes. Much simpler than editing fully fledged 3D maps, and maintaining the illusion is one of the fun parts for me at least.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Mittens0407

[Bill Loguidice]

1 hour ago, Lostdragon said:

It's debatable if the 3DO was far more forward-thinking in terms of it's hardware design. 

 

I was referring more to the modern system approach of having a unified platform that could handle media and did other things, as well as the obvious 2D and 3D prowess. Again, like everything in that era and earlier, it was more prototype than finished vision, but a 3DO is much more comparable to a modern console in both vision and implementation than something like the Jaguar, which was more of a straight-up, traditional console. The 3DO also came out first, sold much more, and had more companies involved and more overall influence, particularly since it had at least a modest presence in Japan.  

[Bill Loguidice]

42 minutes ago, Flyindrew said:

What I often wonder, if during this time period, the Jaguar CD could have handled a port of Resident Evil? 

A recognizable port? Probably not. It could barely handle an Alone in the Dark-style game with Highlander on CD. Again, a talented, well-funded developer would have made a big difference, but it's hard to envision that much of a difference in any scenario. Even the 3DO struggled a bit with Alone in the Dark 1 and 2, and it was far better suited to that style of game than the Jaguar.

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

You did WAD editing 1993/94?

 

For a player, it is more about the expierience than the tech working behind the curtain - ask special effect artists of movies!

 

Doom was a breakthrough for FPS - for no reason then??

Doom was the game that made me finally make the jump from Atari ST and get a PC.    And yes I was doing WAD editing soon after.   I like to see how things work and make things.   I never said Doom wasn't amazing, I just said it wasn't true 3D.  The Doom/Heretic/Hexen level designers did a great job at hiding the limitations of the game engine.   For instance, it's impossible to create a building with multiple floors in the engine,  but there are many levels that give the illusion that they have buildings with multiple floors,  but not if look closely.

 

Well I wanted to build multiple-story buildings,  bridges you could go under, castles/fortresses and so forth,  but quickly hit the limits of the engine.  so instead I made levels with lots and lots of explosions...

 

Anyway the fact that it could take shortcuts and create 3D-illusions on low spec hardware  with no dedicated 3D hardware was still amazing.   My system ran Doom well, but when it came to Quake, which was a real 3D engine, it struggled because it requires a hell of a lot of horsepower to do 3D right.

 

28 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

So you thought this was a tragedy and we should have sticked to cute 2D platfomers then? Ok, history proves otherwise......

Where did I say that?  Are you saying 2D should have stopped existing altogether?   History proves otherwise

[zzip]

38 minutes ago, alucardX said:

What is a video game anyhow? An illusion. It is a cleverly designed box of parlor tricks for the eyes and ears and just happens to be interactive. Doom was an incredible achievement for the time and the most important part, the game play, was intact. Nobody at the time played the game and complained that it wasn't true 3d. That came later as hardware became capable enough to do the math for a fully polygonal 3D experience that could keep the same fast paced game play. The illusion of 3d is just that and the method for achieving it can be done any way you want.

We were all more than thrilled with Doom at the time,   but after awhile the illusion breaks down.   It didn't take long to notice that all the enemies were flat bitmaps for one thing.

[+Stephen]

2 hours ago, Mittens0407 said:

Big gouraud polys aren't going to cut it in 1995.

Not true at all.  PSX had a 3D fighting game called Tobal #1 which released in 1996.  Flat shaded polygons, BUT 640*480@60fps so it looked fantastic.

[agradeneu]

 

Clever level design uses limitations to its advantage.

 

For its time, Doom engine achieved rather complex designs compared to the tech before. 

 

The next big leap to 3D was Quake 1 engine, but that was a whole new generation of engines. There is no point to criticize Doom for not being Quake, unless you don't understand or just ignore the concept of chronology and evolution. 

 

But even Quake had its limits. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mittens0407]

45 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Not true at all.  PSX had a 3D fighting game called Tobal #1 which released in 1996.  Flat shaded polygons, BUT 640*480@60fps so it looked fantastic.

3 hours ago, Mittens0407 said:

Big gouraud polys aren't going to cut it in 1995.

Of course things change when you have PS1 level polycounts 

[agradeneu]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

 

 

Where did I say that?  Are you saying 2D should have stopped existing altogether?   History proves otherwise

You make no sense?!

 

Plot twist: Modern GPUs render everything as polygons, also 2D games.  

Edited November 14, 2023 by agradeneu

[+Zeptari]

1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Not true at all.  PSX had a 3D fighting game called Tobal #1 which released in 1996.  Flat shaded polygons, BUT 640*480@60fps so it looked fantastic.

I love it when someone brings up my absolute favorite PS1 fighter game. It also had a very cool fighting dungeon-maze type mode. And yes it did look fantastic. 

[alucardX]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

We were all more than thrilled with Doom at the time,   but after awhile the illusion breaks down.   It didn't take long to notice that all the enemies were flat bitmaps for one thing.

You have a good point, but this never stopped the game being fun. And again, at the time doom was released no other home console could run it well.

 

I think there is a place for the Jag's 3D capabilities even among it's later contemporaries. It can do things in hardware that the others can't, even though 3D texture mapped polygons wasn't really one of them. With all that said there is a lot of room for 3D illusion and when used correctly it really doesn't matter that it isn't what is called, "true 3D".

[+Stephen]

4 hours ago, Mittens0407 said:

Of course things change when you have PS1 level polycounts 

Sorry - I took your statement to mean overall, just shaded polys would look bad.  Not trying to start another X is better than Y system thing - just showing that even in 96, when done properly, flat shaded polys can look awesome.

[alucardX]

5 hours ago, Stephen said:

Not true at all.  PSX had a 3D fighting game called Tobal #1 which released in 1996.  Flat shaded polygons, BUT 640*480@60fps so it looked fantastic.

That game runs really nice! I think we could have had a decent frame rate on Fight for Life if we got rid of all the texture mapping. Art-wise, change the colors. Gameplay-wise...Well, maybe we just settle for a nice looking game.

[zzip]

17 hours ago, alucardX said:

You have a good point, but this never stopped the game being fun. And again, at the time doom was released no other home console could run it well.

 

I think there is a place for the Jag's 3D capabilities even among it's later contemporaries. It can do things in hardware that the others can't, even though 3D texture mapped polygons wasn't really one of them. With all that said there is a lot of room for 3D illusion and when used correctly it really doesn't matter that it isn't what is called, "true 3D".

Yeah I remember being surprised that any console could run it

 

Also remember that Doom and other games of it's ilk ran on PCs before 3D cards were even a thing,  it depends on raw computing power.   The Jaguar was able to summon enough computing power to run it decently, the 3DO port couldn't

 

There was definitely a place for the texture-mapped pseudo-3D games in the 90s,  the gaming world had been building up to that for quite a while.   I also think some of the shortcomings of the Doom engine could be fixed without jumping to a full 3D environment.   I remember seeing the game "Rise of the Triad" do things that Doom couldn't do, for instance.  

 

 

[alucardX]

37 minutes ago, zzip said:

Yeah I remember being surprised that any console could run it

 

Also remember that Doom and other games of it's ilk ran on PCs before 3D cards were even a thing,  it depends on raw computing power.   The Jaguar was able to summon enough computing power to run it decently, the 3DO port couldn't

 

There was definitely a place for the texture-mapped pseudo-3D games in the 90s,  the gaming world had been building up to that for quite a while.   I also think some of the shortcomings of the Doom engine could be fixed without jumping to a full 3D environment.   I remember seeing the game "Rise of the Triad" do things that Doom couldn't do, for instance.  

 

 

It was the lack of computing that full 3D environment that made doom possible on that hardware. The Jag may not have run it quite so well if Carmack weren't directly involved at that juncture. Also, have you heard the story behind the 3DO port? That's a good one.

 

[Bill Loguidice]

37 minutes ago, zzip said:

Also remember that Doom and other games of it's ilk ran on PCs before 3D cards were even a thing,  it depends on raw computing power.   The Jaguar was able to summon enough computing power to run it decently, the 3DO port couldn't

 

 

I don't want to overdefend the 3DO in this thread, but the 3DO port could have been considerably better, obviously, and matched or exceeded what the Jaguar version could do (and the Jaguar version itself should have had the music, so it's not like there weren't certain corners cut on that one either). Rebecca Heineman detailed what she was up against. It should have never been developed or released under those circumstances. It's a similar thing with Doom on the Saturn, which was both rushed and also not allowed to use a better engine. We've also seen what can be done with a properly optimized Doom on the 32X with Doom 32X Resurrection versus what we got. Frankly, any of these systems of that era, given enough care, could have easily handled any of the Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, or Duke Nukem engine games without much, if any, compromise. 

[agradeneu]

42 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

 Frankly, any of these systems of that era, given enough care, could have easily handled any of the Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, or Duke Nukem engine games without much, if any, compromise. 

 Easily - so easy to make such claims without any explanation or backing them up.

 

There is quite some difference between Wolfenstein, Doom and Duke Nukem Engines in terms of complexity and taxing the hardware. 

 

Doom does not use any hardware 3D rendering - that is why the Saturn version and 3DO run so poorly. Saturn comes as a surprise with its beefy 2x SH2, but not so sure about 3DO though. 

 

The Jaguar RISCs run Doom pretty well as the computional power was good enough, obviously. (But not good enough for DSP running music).

 

For any detail, the Doom Slayer guys know best, as they are working with the Doom engine actually and it seems that it has not reached its full potential yet.   

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by agradeneu

[zzip]

39 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I don't want to overdefend the 3DO in this thread, but the 3DO port could have been considerably better, obviously, and matched or exceeded what the Jaguar version could do (and the Jaguar version itself should have had the music, so it's not like there weren't certain corners cut on that one either). Rebecca Heineman detailed what she was up against. It should have never been developed or released under those circumstances. It's a similar thing with Doom on the Saturn, which was both rushed and also not allowed to use a better engine. We've also seen what can be done with a properly optimized Doom on the 32X with Doom 32X Resurrection versus what we got. Frankly, any of these systems of that era, given enough care, could have easily handled any of the Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, or Duke Nukem engine games without much, if any, compromise. 

Yeah that's why I said "the 3DO port couldn't" rather than "3DO couldn't".  Even though I don't know a lot about 3DO, I know there's a long history of bad commercial ports that often get improved later by the community.

 

Along that line I was kind of shocked to find out that someone ported Wolfenstein 3D to Atari ST.   I thought surely that era of games was beyond the ST's capabilities

[Mittens0407]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

Doom does not use any hardware 3D rendering - that is why the Saturn version and 3DO run so poorly.

Optimus has been working on that, walls being rendered with full quads instead of pixel-wide strips.

[+Gemintronic]

Last time this topic came up I thought we agreed that:

 

A.  Prioritize the Europeon market

B.  Focus on cranking out developer tools and support instead of farting flame fighter games.

[Bill Loguidice]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

 Easily - so easy to make such claims without any explanation or backing them up.

 

There is quite some difference between Wolfenstein, Doom and Duke Nukem Engines in terms of complexity and taxing the hardware. 

 

Doom does not use any hardware 3D rendering - that is why the Saturn version and 3DO run so poorly. Saturn comes as a surprise with its beefy 2x SH2, but not so sure about 3DO though. 

 

The Jaguar RISCs run Doom pretty well as the computional power was good enough, obviously. (But not good enough for DSP running music).

 

For any detail, the Doom Slayer guys know best, as they are working with the Doom engine actually and it seems that it has not reached its full potential yet.  

 

 

I stand by my statement that systems like the 3DO, Jaguar, PS1, 32X, and Saturn could "easily" handle Wolfenstein, Doom, and Duke Nukem Engine games with the right care and optimizations, even if that means making a platform-specific version of the engine like was denied with Doom Saturn. Each of the platforms has enough horsepower one way or the other for that style of game and each one has examples of either those exact games or games that meet or exceed what they could do. Of course, the "easy" never applies to the actual effort, just the capabilities of the hardware. I also obviously never meant direct ports of the PC original engines. While that more or less worked with the Jaguar and Doom, it was still lacking in some ways and could have benefited from further optimizations. There just wasn't enough incentive to bother.

[+cubanismo]

Nothing could have saved the Jag. What would have been cool though, is if they hung in there for another 1-3 years somehow and:

 

-Ported the CoJag games to JagCD, complete with a badass light gun for Area 51 and Maximum Force. I love playing these on Saturn.

 

-Finished BIWN. Should have been epic.

 

-Got that MK3 port online.

 

-Got the Jaguar 2 out, with built-in CD (Or DVD?) drive, and Battlemorph 2, Tempest 3k, AvP 2, WTR 2/Checkered Flag 2, Hoverstrike 2, and some awesome 3rd party franchises (Let's pretend Sega came through on those promised ports, but moved them to Jag 2 and we really did get Daytona/Virtual Fighter 3/Virtual On) on day 1, and of course, flawless backwards compatibility.

 

The platform and probably the company still wouldn't have made it, but man, that would have been cool.

 

 

[+CyranoJ]

I think I've replied in here a few times, with different answers, in the many, many decades since this thread and others like it have been open.

 

Better sales could have saved it, and thats the bottom line.

 

Not the tech docs, not the dev systems, not the myriad of other things you can come up with. People didn't buy it. 

Jag users in the 90s must have been significantly higher than today - and even now only a fraction of fans buy the modern homebrew releases.

Lack of support from people is what killed it. Apathy towards Atari.

 

Also Club Drive and Checkered Flag. They killed it dead as well. LOL.

[CapitanClassic]

I think the vast consensus is that nothing could save the Atari Jaguar, because the PlayStation dominated that console generation.

 

If you track the Jaguar Price drops, it matches the releases of major competitors (May/Sept 1995 for Saturn/PSX), and by Christmas 1996 it was clear that the Jaguar install base wasn’t going to be able to support 3rd party developers. (PSX 1 million 1995, 9 million 1996) (Saturn 400k 1995, 1.2 million 1996) (N64 300k 1996)

 

Jaguar Price Drops

$250, Nov 1993, Launch (w/cybermorph)

$160, Mar 1995, (No game)

$150, May 1995

$150, Jun 1995, CD peripheral

$100, Dec 1995
Dec 1996, liquidation to Tiger $20

$60, Jan 1997, (4 games)

 

If you like cool charts, or ancient advertisements, this site HuguesJohnson.com has some nice examples from 1994 and 1996

 

The Jaguar’s real competition was the Genesis and SNES, and the market dip in 1995 was due to a major change in hardware and too many systems (3DO, Sega CD/32x, Philips CDi, …) on the market (the public didn’t know which one was going to win out…until 1996).

 

I know I didn’t get a PSX until either March 1996 (or July), based upon the games released at the time. I wanted Tekken 2 for the home after dropping too many quarters at the arcade. The only killer app for the Jaguar would have been Alien vs Preditor, since the family already had a PC for Doom / Wolf 3D. I didn’t know I wanted Tempest 2000, and anything else was available on other systems or wasn’t worth getting.

Edited November 17, 2023 by CapitanClassic