Was not releasing with CD at launch the biggest mistake Atari made with the Jaguar?

[+CyranoJ]

3 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

They made ~20K JagCD, maybe there's still what 75% around, so say 15K (maybe) .... I really don't see a market for JagCD shells, and I also see 100 people would swear right now they would buy one in trasparent-lilac if it was available just to prove me wrong

I'd buy one made from the frozen tears of Trip Hawkins.

[Leeroy ST]

9 hours ago, Zerosquare said:

*sigh*

 

You know, just because the other guy has been booted from this thread doesn't mean you have to replace him.

You mean the topic creator replacing the off topic guy with the actual topic? Oh no call the press.

[Editorb]

32 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Oh no call the press.

 

Editorb reporting for duty, sir. Twenty-eight years of experience as a journalist of sorts.

[Zerosquare]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

You mean the topic creator replacing the off topic guy with the actual topic? Oh no call the press.

I mean the posting of "information" that is completely wrong.

[+madman]

13 minutes ago, Zerosquare said:

I mean the posting of "information" that is completely wrong.

He's even changing the topic like the other guy. Post total nonsense, get called out on it, change topic. 

[+phoenixdownita]

8 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

I'd buy one made from the frozen tears of Trip Hawkins.

Not sure I know what you refer to, if you'll indulge my curiosity, did Trip Hawkins cry?

[+Stephen]

4 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Not sure I know what you refer to, if you'll indulge my curiosity, did Trip Hawkins cry?

Yeah - when he found out Atari declared $3DODEAD.

[+Sauron]

4 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Not sure I know what you refer to, if you'll indulge my curiosity, did Trip Hawkins cry?

He had some tax trouble a few years back to the tune of $26 million. I'm sure there's at least a few frozen tears to collect.

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

12 hours ago, Zerosquare said:

I mean the posting of "information" that is completely wrong.

Which it isn't. You're ignorant or not paying attention.

 

You can interface a cart with the consoles graphical set up. You see it in NES carts, Neogeo Carts, SNES carts where devs add things or use things within the carts to aid games or even work around base system limitations.

 

You can't do that with CDs. You also can't implement things like FXchips in CDs. This should be obvious.

[Leeroy ST]

12 hours ago, madman said:

He's even changing the topic like the other guy. Post total nonsense, get called out on it, change topic. 

Another ignorant wagon jumper who agreed with someone without checking.

 

14 hours ago, Editorb said:

 

Editorb reporting for duty, sir. Twenty-eight years of experience as a journalist of sorts.

I have a wagon jumper scoop for you.

[+phoenixdownita]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Which it isn't. You're ignorant or not paying attention.

 

You can interface a cart with the consoles graphical set up. You see it in NES carts, Neogeo Carts, SNES carts where devs add things or use things within the carts to aid games or even work around base system limitations.

 

You can't do that with CDs. You also can't implement things like FXchips in CDs. This should be obvious.

He knows some, "trust me":

 

 

Wrt some system being built in such a way the bus exposed to the cart slot can interact with gfx/sfx subsytems of the respective console sure, some allow it but many do not. Wrt NeoGeo pay attention that the issue is a little of the reverse aka the CPU itself has no access to the gfx data on the cart (hence why you don't actually see real-time rendered games but only tiled/sprite based ones) but we digress.

 

I am sure his comment was wrt to the statement that it is easier to deal with a CD vs a cart, which is a little weird outside the potential of some systems being able to host special chips on the cart. Even the Atari 7800 could host a sound chip because it had audio I/O on the pins and the console was already equipped to mix it with the onboard one.

 

And yes everyone agrees that if the Jag+CD did not have a cart slot (like a PS1 vs say a Saturn that could also use carts [4M cart for example]) then obviously no special mappers chip, or any other kind of smart silicon could really have been added (not that Atari planned to imho) as there would be no place to add it to. But if they kept also a cart slot .... 

[Zerosquare]

23 minutes ago, phoenixdownita said:

And yes everyone agrees that if the Jag+CD did not have a cart slot (like a PS1 vs say a Saturn that could also use carts [4M cart for example]) then obviously no special mappers chip, or any other kind of smart silicon could really have been added (not that Atari planned to imho) as there would be no place to add it. But if they kept also a cart slot .... 

The cartridge interface is basically a buffered version of the bottom 32 bits of the internal bus. Not including a cart slot in the first place would only have achieved marginal savings in complexity and development effort over the Jag+JagCD combo, so it would definitely have delayed the launch and raised the price significantly.

 

And saying than a CD-based system is simpler than a ROM-based system is plain nonsense, when you know how it works.

[agradeneu]

3 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Which it isn't. You're ignorant or not paying attention.

 

You can interface a cart with the consoles graphical set up. You see it in NES carts, Neogeo Carts, SNES carts where devs add things or use things within the carts to aid games or even work around base system limitations.

 

You can't do that with CDs. You also can't implement things like FXchips in CDs. This should be obvious.

 What? He was not referring to that. Nice example of a strawman argument BTW - he never wrote such nonsense you are making up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by agradeneu

[agradeneu]

Actually the CD drive has some disadvantages for games. You are stuck with loading your data into system RAM. Jaguar RAM is limited to 2 MB....

 

With a ROM, you can pull data as needed and go beyond the RAM limits. We see that with NEO GEO games, only little system RAM, but huge ROM space to pull your data from. 

I am not sure if our game Gravitic Mines was possible with the Jag CD addon, as it is.

 

For a proper CD system, they would have to beef up the RAM significantly, maybe 3MB at least. But that would have added to the production costs and entry price.

 

 

[JagChris]

I still don't see how adding to the cost and complexity of a system they couldn't fill the pre-orders to in it's simplest form would have helped any. 

 

Even if they managed it they had no games and no support for it. 

 

Releasing it as a CD system immediately would be like the Titanic hitting an iceberg then getting torpedoed right after. 

[+CyranoJ]

41 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

I am not sure if our game Gravitic Mines was possible with the Jag CD addon, as it is.

It isn't. Neither would Last Strike, Rebooteroids or several other games.

 

Games with (disengage modest chip - although I only got the music to fit, the composers who wrote them and the people who made the mod-players make them sound good) kick-ass soundtracks (and more than 2 songs) (engage modest chip) on cart:

• Superfly DX (2mb! 8 tracks)
• Last Strike (7 tracks)
• Rebooteroids (4 tracks only, sorry, I lay down and berate myself for this inexcusable lapse)
• Gravitic Mines (13 tracks!)
• Chaos Engine (8 tracks!)  *coming soon*
• Gods (5 tracks) *coming soon*

Thats just from me.... others have done some great musical scores on carts, and yes, I'm going to include ID's "DOOM" here because most of the music was present in the ROM!!!!

 

There are several other games from the original lineup with some truly great music, which I would much rather listen to than some of the crap on the CD releases.

 

So I hope that ends the 'you can't have great music in a cart game' bullshit.

[agradeneu]

5 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

It isn't. Neither would Last Strike, Rebooteroids or several other games.

 

Games with (disengage modest chip - although I only got the music to fit, the composers who wrote them and the people who made the mod-players make them sound good) kick-ass soundtracks (and more than 2 songs) (engage modest chip) on cart:

• Superfly DX (2mb! 8 tracks)
• Last Strike (7 tracks)
• Rebooteroids (4 tracks only, sorry, I lay down and berate myself for this inexcusable lapse)
• Gravitic Mines (13 tracks!)
• Chaos Engine (8 tracks!)  *coming soon*
• Gods (5 tracks) *coming soon*

Thats just from me.... others have done some great musical scores on carts, and yes, I'm going to include ID's "DOOM" here because most of the music was present in the ROM!!!!

 

There are several other games from the original lineup with some truly great music, which I would much rather listen to than some of the crap on the CD releases.

 

So I hope that ends the 'you can't have great music in a cart game' bullshit.

Redbook audio for music. I hate to disagree, but many Jaguar Cd soundtracks are fantastic, like Battlemoprh or Iron Soldier 2. Ironically, the cart version of IS2 is silent. 

 

I was referring to graphical data, not necessarely music. For any game going beyond 2 MB gfx data, CD would cause a major headache. I guess that's correct?

I still suspect Primal Rage being so underwhelming cause they ran out of RAM.

[+CyranoJ]

1 minute ago, agradeneu said:

I hate to disagree, but many Jaguar Cd soundtracks are fantastic, like Battlemoprh or Iron Soldier 2.

I didn't say some weren't great, I said some were terrible

[agradeneu]

6 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

I didn't say some weren't great, I said some were terrible

Like Baldies and WTR.

 

[+Sauron]

3 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

• Rebooteroids (4 tracks only, sorry, I lay down and berate myself for this inexcusable lapse)

To be fair, one of those tracks is an extremely long track that actually appears to be about 3 or 4 separate tracks crammed into one. So don't berate yourself too much for that one.

 

[+madman]

5 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

So I hope that ends the 'you can't have great music in a cart game' bullshit.

Facts written by those with actual experience rarely end bullshit in here, but I appreciate your effort either way.

[Editorb]

10 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I have a wagon jumper scoop for you.

[Leeroy ST]

10 hours ago, Zerosquare said:

The cartridge interface is basically a buffered version of the bottom 32 bits of the internal bus. Not including a cart slot in the first place would only have achieved marginal savings in complexity and development effort over the Jag+JagCD combo, so it would definitely have delayed the launch and raised the price significantly.

 

And saying than a CD-based system is simpler than a ROM-based system is plain nonsense, when you know how it works.

It's funny how the guy you quoted hot what I said, you then responded to HIS quote understanding that, but still said it was "nonsense".

 

Ok smartone show me where I can implement parallel graphical features or implement an MMC chip in a CD. I'll wait 

 

Some of you just keep fooling yourselves your smarter than you seem I made a simple statement, so easy to understand. I guess not for you.

 

10 hours ago, agradeneu said:

 What? He was not referring to that. Nice example of a strawman argument BTW - he never wrote such nonsense you are making up here.

 

It's not a straw man, you're acting like he started the current branch if the conversation, go back a few posts and get context.

[Leeroy ST]

9 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

So I hope that ends the 'you can't have great music in a cart game' bullshit.

I dont know where you got this from. But the Jaguar does of course have great cart music.

 

But when you look at Bubsy, Rayman, Bruce Lee, I war, Super Burnout, Penguins, Iron Soldier 1, Atari Karts, Fight for Life, and Ultra vortex there is heavy inconsistency. Some of it does have to do with devs being lazy but most of it involves the console or tools.

 

IMO, A CD standard would at least fix that to an extend by making it easier to implement CD level audio across the board as much as possible.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[agradeneu]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

I dont know where you got this from. But the Jaguar does of course have great cart music.

 

But when you look at Bubsy, Rayman, Bruce Lee, I war, Super Burnout, Penguins, Iron Soldier 1, Atari Karts, Fight for Life, and Ultra vortex there is heavy inconsistency. Some of it does have to do with devs being lazy but most of it involves the console or tools.

 

IMO, A CD standard would at least fix that to an extend by making it easier to implement CD level audio across the board as much as possible.

John Linnemann of DF actually posted on twitter something like: "Why do all Jaguar games have bad music?"

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by agradeneu