Wipeout Source Released. Would be fun to have on the Jag.

[youxia]

To put it in context, "Amiga 1200 PPC" means A1200 plus a very powerful accelerator with PowerPC chips inside. Also, Wipeout 2097 was a commercial release, licensed from Psygnosis, so not exactly a homebrew port.

[Lostdragon]

Been reading up a little on the later Wipeout titles on PlayStation.. 

 

The target for both was 25 FPS Pal, then coded for 30 FPS NTSC. 

 

Wasn't aware the Ghost Racers in certain modes were only available in the European release, as Atari held the US patent for such a feature with Hard Drivin. 

 

 

 

The teams sought to push the hardware with each subsequent title, new team being assigned for 2097,as the success of Wipeout surprised Sony and majority of original team had gone onto other projects. 

 

They addressed the A. I issue of rival craft being able to fly straight through scenary.. 

 

With Wip3out, they had Pete Bratcher rewrite Sony's polygon rendering code, so it now clipped polygons correctly, adjusted for lack of perspective in the texture mapper.. 

 

They utilised a higher resolution mode.. 512x256 over standard 256x240..

 

 

Sony asked for the link-up mode to be included, something in hindsight the team felt was a waste of resources, as the cable sold in such pituful numbers here in the UK.. 

 

But what struck me the most, was the sheer resources required to make these games. 

 

 

6 separate artists, 4 for track scenary alone in   some cases. 

 

[Lostdragon]

On 3/28/2022 at 1:13 PM, agradeneu said:

Jaguar is not the ST. What's the point of such comparison?

 

 

 

Wipeout designer, Nick Burcombe has gone on record stating Powerdrome on the ST /AMIGA, was a big influence on Wipeout, the game whilst being a great idea on paper, just couldn't be done justice, as the technology simply wasn't there to implement it. 

 

Moby games credits 32 people for creating PlayStation Wipeout.. 

 

 

Yet Powerdrome was the work of just Michael Powell. 

 

If a small team do want to try a Wipeout like title on the Jaguar, attempting something more akin to Powerdrome in terms of ambition, might be the more realistic option. 

 

[sirlynxalot]

Yeah but we want our 3do tomb raider moment where we can finally be vindicated and show everyone that our favorite underdog system could have gone toe to toe with the PlayStation if only developers had more money and resources. Doing something of Amiga level quality isn't going to get that reception.

[philipj]

13 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:

Yeah but we want our 3do tomb raider moment where we can finally be vindicated and show everyone that our favorite underdog system could have gone toe to toe with the PlayStation if only developers had more money and resources. Doing something of Amiga level quality isn't going to get that reception.

Yea I've wanted something like that for years since the heyday of the PS1; the only thing is Jaguar hardware and its problems... whatever can of game is made, it'll be exclusive to the Jaguar, but man I'd love to see a very close rendition of "Wipeout" on the Jag running decent if not very fast; where there's a will there's a way.

[JagChris]

2 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

Yeah but we want our 3do tomb raider moment where we can finally be vindicated and show everyone that our favorite underdog system could have gone toe to toe with the PlayStation if only developers had more money and resources. Doing something of Amiga level quality isn't going to get that reception.

It's never going to go toe to toe with the Saturn and PSX in 3D. They had video memory and dedicated 3D hardware.  It will always get beat by them putting polys on screen.

 

Though Openlara may prove it can do a recognizable Tomb Raider. This would vindicate what AtariOwl had been saying.

Edited April 17, 2022 by JagChris

[sirlynxalot]

Yeah I'm half joking, but there's always been part of the Jaguar fan base saying the system never showed it's true power and if only the stars could perfectly align and Tom and Jerry are used to their utmost potential the system will properly display it's 3d capabilities and show that it's more in the league of the ps1 era than the SNES era, vanquishing the naysayers who say the Jaguar is a joke or only capable of 16 bit era games.

[JagChris]

1 hour ago, sirlynxalot said:

Yeah I'm half joking, but there's always been part of the Jaguar fan base saying the system never showed it's true power and if only the stars could perfectly align and Tom and Jerry are used to their utmost potential the system will properly display it's 3d capabilities and show that it's more in the league of the ps1 era than the SNES era, vanquishing the naysayers who say the Jaguar is a joke or only capable of 16 bit era games.

I would more or less agree with that. 

[philipj]

Being stronger than an SNES or Genesis, there's certainly potential hit some sweet spots in pulling off some neat tricks... I want to say the Jaguar can do much more than the "FX cartridge" for the SNES or the "SVP cartridge" did for the Geny but games like "Checkered Flag" tends to get in the way of that theory at least in concept even though some mistakes were made making CF... There are better examples on the Jaguar; I have no doubt something will be worked out.

[sirlynxalot]

Tempest 2000 did a good job of presenting some of the next gen "wow" factor while working well on the Jag's hardware.  I'd definitely put that game more in line with what was expected in the ps1/saturn/n64 era in terms of graphics, sound and gameplay than the snes/genesis era of gaming.

[Lostdragon]

12 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

Yeah I'm half joking, but there's always been part of the Jaguar fan base saying the system never showed it's true power and if only the stars could perfectly align and Tom and Jerry are used to their utmost potential the system will properly display it's 3d capabilities and show that it's more in the league of the ps1 era than the SNES era, vanquishing the naysayers who say the Jaguar is a joke or only capable of 16 bit era games.

I can only assume the naysayers bury their heads in the sand and ignore things like Skyhammer and have never read an article on or watched a video of... Black Ice White Noise? 

 

Hardware being used to it's potential by commercial developers with available tools and tricks known back then and the latter being a very ambitious project. 

 

The issue of trying to prove the system had a lot more to give under the hood, is that at best you'll end up with something recognizable as say Wipeout or Tomb Raider, it won't be either and performance will be less, as the hardware lacks features found in the Saturn, let alone PlayStation. 

 

You'd also get the Sony fan brigade pointing to just how much further the PlayStation hardware was taken beyond the original Wipeout with Wip3out (I didn't mean my chat about what teams did with later games on PlayStation to come across in that manner), Tomb Raider Engine by time of Tomb Raider Chronicles.. 

 

Quake II and how the Saturn couldn't even compete with these. 

 

 

The Jaguar can never hope to win a pointless 'arms race' 

 

But can and is, thanks to the time and talents of so many, now playing host to a fantastic range of gorgeous 2D games that people will get a lot of enjoyment out of. 

[Lostdragon]

9 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

Tempest 2000 did a good job of presenting some of the next gen "wow" factor while working well on the Jag's hardware.  I'd definitely put that game more in line with what was expected in the ps1/saturn/n64 era in terms of graphics, sound and gameplay than the snes/genesis era of gaming.

High Voltage Software did a respectable enough attempt at bringing Tempest to both Saturn and PlayStation, neither system was going to be able to replicate Jeff's Melt-O-Vision special effects fully, so the Saturn version was less mesmerising i found. 

 

No idea what happened with the weaker music though, Saturn soundchip was a beast. 

 

They also messed around with the spikes and fuseballs ?

 

With Tempest X3, they embraced the hardware, used the light sourcing and transparency effects well, but game lost a lot of it's style. 

 

 

They ruined the AI Droid, you had to wait until you had the Super AI Droid, until you had anything useful. 

 

 

The "AI Droid" only follows the player, instead of acting autonomously. A new, "Super AI Droid" powerup rectifies this somewhat, but it takes a very long time within a level to acquire it.

 

Pulsar behaviour was changed, the Particle Laser was weak, bonus rounds less hypnotic. 

 

 

Would love to know why they changed  core gameplay mechanics. ?

 

AVP was the Jaguar's first Killer App, previous Alien/AVP games were 2D affairs, the 32X was expecting a conversion of the Capcom 2D Arcade game. 

 

This set the hardware head and shoulders above anything that was being done with SVP and SFX 2 chips on the 16-bit systems. 

 

 

[alucardX]

Realistically, and again, since this would be an effort in rewriting code from this source into something the Jaguar RISCs could use as fuel it seems like this resource is probably best for reference. I guess if you wanted to see the way something was programmed so you could try and match that on the Jaguar "version" of something similar to Wipeout then these references would be useful.

 

As stated by someone earlier, trying to lower the expectations a bit might be the best approach to take. As mentioned previously as well, Tempest 2000 did a nice job of bringing that next-gen feel to the Jaguar. It was fast, it looked really good with 3D and it was fun. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but it is a great example of using the Jag's capabilities to realize a vision.

 

If we can get a really nice renderer that can do a reasonable framerate and maybe even push some textures then games can be designed to work well and look good within those limits. I always appreciate looking back at old games that hold up because the designers knew the limits of the system but maintained the integrity of their artistic vision. Or in some cases used those limits to inspire new ideas to enhance their game. I'm not sure Tempest 2000 was designed with "limits" in mind but it works really with within the limits and I don't know if I could ask anything more of it.

 

Maybe the texture mapping trick that was used in Iron Soldier II could be applied to a 3d engine? It also seems like have CRY can be a real advantage to doing neat tricks using hardware, but correct me if I'm wrong. The scaling and rotation abilities seem to be another real strength that makes the system stand above the 16-bit systems of the day. Trying to match the PSX or Saturn seems almost silly if you're looking at performance, but beautiful visuals can still be achieved, even if it is just trickery and not true 3D performance. That's what game systems do anyway, visual trickery.

 

 

[sirlynxalot]

I was playing Radiant Silvergun on the Saturn yesterday, which is often regarded as a stellar title that finally has the Saturn living up to it's own hype, and I have to say that it was very interesting to see how much of it was literally 2d sprites/pre rendered 3d cut out as sprites to bolster the meager actual polygons and simple 3d models that are actually used in the game. RS, as graphically impressive as it is in its own right, definitely doesn't seem to be on the level of wipeout 1 in terms of pumping out a large quantity of texture mapped polygons, let alone other ps1 polygon worlds like in jumping flash or Spyro or the like.

 

The overall effect of simulating a 3d world in RS was quite nice, playing within the Saturn's limits, and made me think back to this conversation on how something graphically impressive could probably be done on Jaguar that implies a game and environment with more "3d"ness than there actually is.

 

For example, I think everything in this scene, the player, ship the enemies, the bullets, the y-unit objects, clouds/haze and background are all 2d sprites/images on different planes.

Edited April 18, 2022 by sirlynxalot

[JagChris]

I think the Saturn could compete with anything 3D wise the PSX could do. It just took a little more time to do.

 

 

[Jag64]

2 hours ago, JagChris said:

I think the Saturn could compete with anything 3D wise the PSX could do. It just took a little more time to do.

 

Agreed. We see a lot of similarities, or parallels in the Jaguar and Saturn - with the "It's super powerful, but no one took the time to learn it," arguments often seen for both. I think it's a little "truer" with the Saturn than the Jaguar. While Sega of Japan screwed up about as much as it could, the company knew game development was paramount. We know from Leonard Tramiel first-hand that Atari designed the hardware backwards, with software not mattering to Atari. So the Saturn is at least programmable, and has been shown to do some impressive stuff on par with anything the PSone had. And of course, the 2D gaming was superior. As for the Jag though, I keep hearing about these amazing RISC processors and the potential of a thousand suns ... in each new tiled side-scroller that's pushing the limits of what's possible ... from 1994, I guess.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Jag64

[JagChris]

55 minutes ago, Jag64 said:

I think it's a little "truer" with the Saturn than the Jaguar. 

Yeah I'm the opposite. The Saturn  had better dev teams. It had more to give but I think percentage wise they went farther with it. 

 

Quote

As for the Jag though, I keep hearing about these amazing RISC processors and the potential of a thousand suns ... in each new tiled side-scroller that's pushing the limits of what's possible ... from 1994, I guess.

I think the only person here who let's the risc processors run the show is 42bs.  For the most part everyone else is using the 68k to run everything. Later devs said to get away from that as it kills performance as its the first primitive implementation of the Jags graphic system and for the most part is still in use today. 

 

Are they right? Could be. We've seen hints of it with Duranik, Scato and AtariOwls work. 

[sirlynxalot]

There's a fair bit of parallels because both the jag and Saturn had complex dual processor hardware that seemingly few developers of the time had the ability or resources to explore. We did see some great productions on the Saturn with several first party big budget sega titles like virtua fighter 2, but for every big budget first party 3d game by people who understood how to maximize the hardware's potential, there were 30 third party games from third parties who did not get good hardware support from sega or adequate development manuals, and who had to compromise and make things work with only one of the sh2s or some other more limited configuration of the hardware.  It was a bit similar to the refrain we've all heard about third parties on the Jaguar defaulting to using the 68k for the game code due to lack of technical support, time, resources, etc.  Skyhammer is pretty impressive though and I wonder how much it maximizes use of the jags hardware.

[Jag64]

24 minutes ago, sirlynxalot said:

... but for every big budget first party 3d game by people who understood how to maximize the hardware's potential, there were 30 third party games ....

At least the Saturn owners got 30 retail games releases, lol.

[Zerosquare]

13 hours ago, JagChris said:

For the most part everyone else is using the 68k to run everything.

And you know this because...?

[JagChris]

Some time ago someone ripped the track data. Maybe would be better to use that and do a custom engine for it. 

 

https://phoboslab.org/log/2015/04/reverse-engineering-wipeout-psx

[alucardX]

12 hours ago, JagChris said:

Some time ago someone ripped the track data. Maybe would be better to use that and do a custom engine for it. 

 

https://phoboslab.org/log/2015/04/reverse-engineering-wipeout-psx

That would be a really cool idea. What kind  of "lighting" effects could be pulled off with CRY I wonder? I don't expect it would be the same look as lighting effects we normally see, but maybe something unique and cool looking?

[+Stephen]

40 minutes ago, alucardX said:

That would be a really cool idea. What kind  of "lighting" effects could be pulled off with CRY I wonder? I don't expect it would be the same look as lighting effects we normally see, but maybe something unique and cool looking?

Hover Strike CD had some decent lighting effects.

[alucardX]

26 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Hover Strike CD had some decent lighting effects.

It really did have nice lighting effects.

[JagChris]

Jagmod has a burnng fast 3D engine. Maybe he'd let someone lease it for trade.