Neo Geo to Jaguar ports in 3,2,1 GO!

[Zerosquare]

If you think we're all wrong, why don't you show us what you can do with JagStudio?

[+cubanismo]

47 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

PCs were hogging a lot of RAM for the OS alone

Getting OT, but sorry, I found this funny. We're talking about MS DOS on machines with 8MB+ of memory, right? It took a lot of Googling to confirm my intuition, but it sounds like the biggest version off DOS took under 140KB of memory (Look at some of the follow-up comments on the actual responses to find the numbers):

 

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/5327/is-there-a-reason-to-prefer-earlier-versions-of-ms-dos-over-later

 

Say you take another 100k for misc. device drivers on the extreme side (CD-ROM maybe, of course if you're anyone who knows anything, you were running SciTech Display Doctor, etc.), you're still under 256KB. Operating systems of the era were not hogging RAM relative to machine specs and functionality. That arguably started with Win95, which got very, very swappy when running on less than 8MB of RAM and really wanted 16MB, which I recall being somewhat high-end at the time.

[Gummy Bear]

[Jagosaurus]

This thread reminds me I owned Samurai Showndown for the Genesis ?

 

... but I actually really enjoyed the Metal Slug games on PS1, looking over the loading into areas ?

[Rick Dangerous]

To me it makes sense to port Atari ST games to the Jaguar.  They were contemporaries from the same company and not many people have access to a working Atari ST these days.

 

Porting games from other commonly available systems makes little sense to me, be it NES, SNES, Genesis or Neo Geo.   If you want to play those games, get one of those systems, or a Mister. 

[JagChris]

11 hours ago, Jagosaurus said:

This thread reminds me I owned Samurai Showndown for the Genesis ?

 

... but I actually really enjoyed the Metal Slug games on PS1, looking over the loading into areas ?

Aren't they porting metal slug to the ST?

[agradeneu]

29 minutes ago, JagChris said:

Aren't they porting metal slug to the ST?

Its not really a 1: 1 port

[JagChris]

6 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Its not really a 1: 1 port

Yeah but it looks great. Just think what something like DMLs game engine could do for the Jag. 

[agradeneu]

On 3/22/2022 at 6:41 PM, cubanismo said:

Getting OT, but sorry, I found this funny. We're talking about MS DOS on machines with 8MB+ of memory, right? It took a lot of Googling to confirm my intuition, but it sounds like the biggest version off DOS took under 140KB of memory (Look at some of the follow-up comments on the actual responses to find the numbers):

 

https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/5327/is-there-a-reason-to-prefer-earlier-versions-of-ms-dos-over-later

 

Say you take another 100k for misc. device drivers on the extreme side (CD-ROM maybe, of course if you're anyone who knows anything, you were running SciTech Display Doctor, etc.), you're still under 256KB. Operating systems of the era were not hogging RAM relative to machine specs and functionality. That arguably started with Win95, which got very, very swappy when running on less than 8MB of RAM and really wanted 16MB, which I recall being somewhat high-end at the time.

 

 Its still a far stretch to compare PC RAM with RAM of console hardware or arcade hardware, even if it was MS DOS. It does not matter how you spin it.

 

BTW, I found some (incomplete)  specs about the T Unit arcade hardware that MK 2 and NBA Jam runs on, it seems really top secret

 

Video RAM = 8x128KB

 

4 bit or 8b bit indexed palettes for sprites, 15/16 bit color space. 

 

 

Looks like the arcade hardware was not requiring anything near 8MB RAM to begin with, jackpot!

 

 

 

NBA Jam was really great on Jaguar, I guess a very faithful version of MK2 was technically feasible. After seeing the excellent Mortal Kombat on Lynx, Jaguar might not be a big enough challenge probably.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by agradeneu
grammar/wording

[agradeneu]

7 minutes ago, JagChris said:

Yeah but it looks great. Just think what something like DMLs game engine could do for the Jag. 

True. But it's a bootleg version and risky. 

All the great gfx are IP of SNK Playmore.

 

[agradeneu]

On 3/22/2022 at 6:21 PM, Zerosquare said:

If you think we're all wrong, why don't you show us what you can do with JagStudio?

Gravitic Mines or Jumping at Shadows anyone?  Nevermind. 

 

BTW who is "we all"? What kind of game is that?

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by agradeneu

[JagChris]

On 3/21/2022 at 11:00 PM, agradeneu said:

How much faster is the ROM access of the NEOGEO?  

 

You are pointing out it's slower than RAM, but how much faster is it really compared to Jaguar?

 

NBA Jam, WMCJ both decompress graphics on the fly from rom. I think Doom and Downfall do as well. 

 

Might be times where it's useful. 

[agradeneu]

33 minutes ago, JagChris said:

 

NBA Jam, WMCJ both decompress graphics on the fly from rom. I think Doom and Downfall do as well. 

 

Might be times where it's useful. 

There is always a solution. The whole RAM argument sounds way to convenient in my eyes, but whatever.

 

If you look at the STE port of Metal Slug, you can bet your money on that the Jag could do a version MUCH closer to the original.  

The problem is not the hardware or poor arguments surrounding it, but many other troublesome obstacles, like licensing issues, time, lack of manpower, lack of interest, costs.....

Edited March 24, 2022 by agradeneu

[Gummy Bear]

So if people say the Jag simply can't do straight ports of Neo games, it's a poor argument? 

 

It's very much about the hardware. 

Not just the amount of addressable ROM data, but the Neo's hellish fast bus is far from typical for a cart system. 

 

You might be able to get something close enough for some, but it would be an awful lot of work. Also, SNK (or whoever owns them this week) would barbecue your ass. ??

[JagChris]

12 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

There is always a solution. The whole RAM argument sounds way to convenient in my eyes, but whatever.

 

32X Doom pulled graphics from rom. Part of the speedup they did for D32XR was to move them to ram because it's faster of course. But having them in rom seems to have worked enough to be serviceable. It's how it was played on the 32X for nearly 30 years now. And how it's still done on JagDoom.

[agradeneu]

5 minutes ago, Gummy Bear said:

So if people say the Jag simply can't do straight ports of Neo games, it's a poor argument? 

 

It's very much about the hardware. 

Not just the amount of addressable ROM data, but the Neo's hellish fast bus is far from typical for a cart system. 

 

 

That sums up poor argumentation perfectly. Look, just because you think your bias was the pinnacle of common sense, does not make it a reasonable or valid argument.

Second, you don't need to lecture me on points I just made in my article you are replying to. 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by agradeneu

[JagChris]

Maybe the Jag doesn't need a hellish fast bus. Perhaps it needs one just fast enough. 

[agradeneu]

14 minutes ago, JagChris said:

Maybe the Jag doesn't need a hellish fast bus. Perhaps it needs one just fast enough. 

It's a matter of the abilities of the people handling the hardware. Simple. 

And second, you need an idea of what "hellish fast" was? I am really not convinced by yellow press buzzwords. 

 

I already asked Zero about the hard numbers of data throughput of NEOGEO and Jaguar - and look what reaction I recieved.  

 

Argueing that several busses are better than one bus is grammar school maths. Without giving any details, that does not mean much.

What counts for gfx is data throughput, then we are talking! 

 

The argument about insufficient ROM space is surely invalid, as a recent game like Gravitic Mines already counts for over 300 Mbit on a 6MB cart. And that is not the limit. 

 

Clint T. streamed gfx data from Jaguar GD for a full screen corridor animation. With Raptor Basic, not new Jaguar Studio and not handcoding in Assembly. 

So streaming gfx data from Jaguar GD seems to be fast enough for animation, exactly.  If its fast enough, and it works,  you don't need buzzwords like "Blast processing" or other bullshit.

 

But sure, some people might think the Jag can't run Sonic, as it lacks "Blast Processing", among other things like "hellish fast bus". LOL.

 

 

 

 

 

,

Edited March 24, 2022 by agradeneu

[Zerosquare]

54 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Gravitic Mines or Jumping at Shadows anyone?  Nevermind. 

With no disrespect meant to CyranoJ, neither of those are anywhere near as graphics-intensive as something like Metal Slug X.

 

54 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

If you look at the STE port of Metal Slug

...you'll notice that while it is really impressive, it already requires 4 MB of RAM (twice as much as the Jaguar has) despite using 4-bit graphics.

 

26 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

It's a matter of the abilities of the people handling the hardware. Simple.

54 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

There is always a solution. The whole RAM argument sounds way to convenient in my eyes, but whatever.

Again: if you think it's so simple, just do it and show us

For some reason, it's always people who don't code who argue that such-and-such should be "easy".

Edited March 24, 2022 by Zerosquare

[agradeneu]

10 minutes ago, Zerosquare said:

With no disrespect meant to CyranoJ, neither of those are anywhere near as graphics-intensive as something like Metal Slug X.

 

...you'll notice that while it is really impressive, it already requires 4 MB of RAM (twice as much as the Jaguar has) despite using 4-bit graphics.

 

Again: if you think it's so simple, just do it and show us

For some reason, it's always people who don't code who argue that such-and-such should be "easy".

 

 

I didn't say it was easy. Never.

 

Well, and I never said GM was the best gfx the Jaguar could offer. I merely adressed it as an example of ROM space exceeding 300MBit. Thats all.

 

Well, comparing GM to Metal Slug X, I take this as a compliment. But truly, its just another apple and oranges comparison and throwing in an red herring.

 

There are surely technically more impressive games on the Jaguar than GM, like Rayman. So what's the point? 

 

Half of Metal Slugs appeal is the artwork and frankly Iam not able to pull something like that off, even if somone offered me 1 Gbyte of space on the Jaguar GD. So what?

 

Are we talking in vain or do you finally realize that you just need to talk to me in a sincere fashion? This is not a pissing contest, doh! 

 

However, you took it personally by portraying me as some kind of armchair game developer. Just for the record, CJ is not a one man show regarding those games of GM and Jumping at shadows.

I have no idea what power games you are playing here, with things like "we against him",  but it surely does not raise any confidence form me in you if you play mobster games with members of Jaguar community that actually contribute. 

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by agradeneu

[Gummy Bear]

7 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Are we talking in vain or do you finally realize that you just need to talk in a sincere fashion with me? This is not a pissing contest, doh!

 

 

 

Maybe if you weren't so dismissive/derisive people would be willing to spend more time giving you the info you seem to lack. 

[Zerosquare]

3 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

I didn't say it was easy. Never.

40 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

It's a matter of the abilities of the people handling the hardware. Simple.

 

5 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Well, and I never said GM was the best gfx the Jaguar could offer. I merely adressed it as an example of ROM space exceeding 300MBit. Thats all.

And that's not the point. The size of the ROM is the easy part. Performance is the hard one.

(And the Gravitic Mines ROM is definitely not 300 Mbits. Maybe it contains 300 Mbits of compressed graphics data, but that's not the same thing at all.)

 

6 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Are we talking in vain or do you finally realize that you just need to talk in a sincere fashion with me? This is not a pissing contest, doh!

I am sincere. I'm telling you, as someone who has been programming on the Jaguar since 2006, that porting NeoGeo games is far more difficult than you think it is and that there are real technical reasons for that. But for some reason, you don't want to hear it.

[agradeneu]

1 minute ago, Gummy Bear said:

Maybe if you weren't so dismissive/derisive people would be willing to spend more time giving you the info you seem to lack. 

Probably deserved. BTW you don't even ask for any info you lack, obviously  

[agradeneu]

2 minutes ago, Zerosquare said:

 

And that's not the point. The size of the ROM is the easy part. Performance is the hard one.

(And the Gravitic Mines ROM is definitely not 300 Mbits. Maybe it contains 300 Mbits of compressed graphics data, but that's not the same thing at all.)

 

I am sincere. I'm telling you, as someone who has been programming on the Jaguar since 2006, that porting NeoGeo games is far more difficult than you think it is and that there are real technical reasons for that. But for some reason, you don't want to hear it.

Once again you are throwing in red herrings, and you are just contradicting your very last sentence. Iam listening to your arguments, otherwise I would not reply. But thats completely undeserved. Honestly, if you would decide to stop bullshitting and patronizing, it might help a lot.  

 

So 300Mbit does not count because it was compressed? Wow!

 

 Well, ok, then let's use uncompressed data - ups we can't have any music, sorry, we can have only half of the levels, sorry only 4 bit gfx  instead of 8 bit, no 16 bit backdrops....

 

Simply put, we would had to cut GM more than 50% if the data was uncompressed. So practically, we have over 40 MB of data on the cartridge. 

 

Maybe listen to the POV of game developers? Just a thought. 

 

 

 

 

[ColecoGamer]

21 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Maybe listen to the POV of game developers? Just a thought. 

 

 

 

 

Uh… @CyranoJ and @Zerosquare ARE Atari Jaguar game developers who know the Jaguar’s hardware far better than most here in this thread (myself included). So when you say, “Maybe listen to the POV of game developers? Just a thought.”, maybe it’s time you took your own advice? 
 

Edit: I’m not saying you’re not a game developer (maybe you are?), but that doesn’t mean you understand how the Jaguar’s internals work.

Edited March 24, 2022 by ColecoGamer