With clever programming, do you think we could reach the true potential of the Jaguar's 3D power?

[agradeneu]

1 minute ago, phoboz said:

Yes there are plenty good examples that showcase the Jaguar's 3D capabilities. The problem is that it's not so easy for small teams to achieve something similar in the 3D domain, as tool support is so limited. In that sense, Sony, Nintendo and SEGA made excellent choices (for their post 16-bit systems) as they selected commercial of the shelf components, which already had excellent tool support (E.g. MIPS and SuperH professors)

 

To expect that some homebrewer miraculously archives something that overshine for example Skyhammer (in terms of textured polygons) is very slim. Given that it took many years for a professional team to get to that level.

We all also see where to Open Lara project stands now.

 

I did read that 4Play/SCATO Logic were in discussions to make a licensable 3D engine, that other developers could use. Perhaps the Skyhammer engine could also be generalised? That would have helped a lot back in the day. If these engine would also have been opened up when the Jaguar went an open platform, developers today could make use of them.

 

Why Skyhammer, the Doom engine would be much more versatile for a wide range of games.

 

The best polygon engine was Iron Soldier2, but as I understand it was 100% written in Assembly with complex structures. When Telegames wanted to release IS 2, only 1 guy was able to understand all the code and finish it.  

 

 

[Seedy1812]

16 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

 

Why Skyhammer, the Doom engine would be much more versatile for a wide range of games.

 

The best polygon engine was Iron Soldier2, but as I understand it was 100% written in Assembly with complex structures. When Telegames wanted to release IS 2, only 1 guy was able to understand all the code and finish it.  

 

 

Doom is not a polygon engine and you can only use it to make Doom style games.
Every game is written from the ground up - none of the Jag games shared the same engine.  I worked on I-War with Karl West. He knew 3d inside out and me not the much. The 3d stuff he wrote including the gpu code . I would not have a clue what is going on in there. The more people you have working on a project the less you know or need to know about the whole.
 

Brainworks(?) provided a compiler which we never used but i dont recall if it was only 68000 . Saying why not do a LLVM version of the compiler would be pretty pointless as there would be more people working on its its implementation than the number of people who would be using and testing it.

 

The Jaguar's 3D capabilities we just the same as the ST or Amiga , you have to draw triangles onto a bitmap which then gets displayed. Comparing it to a PS1 is pointless. It had hardware to render triangles onto the screen but all the hardware is abstracted behind APIs

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by Seedy1812

[zzip]

11 hours ago, cubanismo said:

But then what would we talk about?

Heh, that's the thing that people who complain about threads can never answer.    "If we discussed a topic once in 2005, there's no point in starting a new thread!!" and then "why did you necrobump a 20 year old thread???" 

 

How about 'With clever use of the "Ignore This Topic" button, can people who don't want to discuss something stop getting bothered that a topic exists?'

[alucardX]

1 hour ago, phoboz said:

We all also see where to Open Lara project stands now.

Of course this hasn't had anything optimized for the Jaguar's chipset, so it isn't really a fair comparison.

[agradeneu]

1 hour ago, Seedy1812 said:

Doom is not a polygon engine and you can only use it to make Doom style games.

 

The Jaguar's 3D capabilities we just the same as the ST or Amiga , you have to draw triangles onto a bitmap which then gets displayed.

yeah  i was exactly thinking of DOOM style games, e.g. with some RPG elements thrown in. There are not many alternatives being better, or?

 

I think that statement is pushing it a bit too hard, and makes little sense to me - Jaguar has a RISC processor with 3D math functions while 3D processing on Atari ST or Amiga is mostly done by an 68k.

Of course, if you are thinking about the 68K of the Jaguar doing the hard work of 3D rendering, then it is only as capable as a ST.

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by agradeneu

[42bs]

Just now, agradeneu said:

Jaguar has a RISC processor with 3D math functions

There is no such thing as a "3D math function". It can do fused multiply add and matrix multiplication.

Where I did no see a benefit of the `MMULT` for a rotation matrix.

 

[agradeneu]

1 minute ago, 42bs said:

There is no such thing as a "3D math function". It can do fused multiply add and matrix multiplication.

Where I did no see a benefit of the `MMULT` for a rotation matrix.

 

it is math useful for 3d, isnt it?

[42bs]

1 minute ago, agradeneu said:

it is math useful for 3d, isnt it?

🙂 Any math is also usefull for 3D, so it is for 2D. Even music (FFT).

[agradeneu]

Ok, whatever. I was not expecting a useful discussion anyway. It never did.  

[Seedy1812]

54 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

yeah  i was exactly thinking of DOOM style games, e.g. with some RPG elements thrown in. There are not many alternatives being better, or?

 

I think that statement is pushing it a bit too hard, and makes little sense to me - Jaguar has a RISC processor with 3D math functions while 3D processing on Atari ST or Amiga is mostly done by an 68k.

Of course, if you are thinking about the 68K of the Jaguar doing the hard work of 3D rendering, then it is only as capable as a ST.

 

 

 

The blitter does the rendering. The rest is doing maths, feeding the blitter with data.


If i read it right ( also remember correctly )  in the Jag 2 documentation ( downloaded it with latest programmer documentation ) that it would have a triangle filling bit of hardware where you specified 3 points  it would create that triangle for you . You would have to feed it say a triangle fan of data but that would be considerably a lot quicker and easier than everybody writing their own triangle filling code . The processor time used in creating the triangle edge data is time consuming

Edited February 23, 2023 by Seedy1812

[zzip]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

yeah  i was exactly thinking of DOOM style games, e.g. with some RPG elements thrown in. There are not many alternatives being better, or?

Has anyone managed to port other Doom-engine games to Jaguar?    I see there was someone working on Heretic as recently as last year, but I don't think it's complete.

[phoboz]

4 hours ago, agradeneu said:

When Telegames wanted to release IS 2, only 1 guy was able to understand all the code and finish it.

Yes this is definately a big risk that few commercial software companies would accept today.

[42bs]

3 minutes ago, phoboz said:

Yes this is definately a big risk that few commercial software companies would accept today.

I have seen this in my professional carreer quiet often. Esp. small companies cannot afford to have two or more programmer knowing everything about a project. You can hope for a good documentation.

[phoboz]

3 minutes ago, 42bs said:

I have seen this in my professional carreer quiet often. Esp. small companies cannot afford to have two or more programmer knowing everything about a project. You can hope for a good documentation.

Yes good documentation helps, as well as having a common programming convention/style guide. Even a set of design rules can help, provided that programmers are ready to follow them.

For example MISRA C is common in the automotive industry.

[phoboz]

5 hours ago, agradeneu said:

Why Skyhammer, the Doom engine would be much more versatile for a wide range of games.

To answer your question. Skyhammer has 3 degrees of freedom, while Doom only has 1. (E.g. it needs full matrix, or quaternion calculations) In short, much more complex math than Doom.

 

Although I do agree that the Doom engine could be nice for many other games.

Edited February 23, 2023 by phoboz

[Class316]

Jag is a fun and novel thing to play on an emulator as snapshot of what was so long ago now. 

 

But imagine being someone in the mid 90s, believing Atari's hype, spending money on a whole new 64bit system, and expecting the world. Only to find out the games are sub par and are technically not really more than what SNES could do. Must have been heart crushing. 

 

Even more insane is making a Jag CD. So here you have a system that is barely selling. So you make an addon for it that requires that system. What were they thinking? 

 

Have to give 93-96 credit on one front. The most diverse era of gaming. Even if a lot of it was bombs. Various Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Atari, and 3DO, consoles and add ons, CD-i, CD32, Neo Geo, more I'm forgetting I'm sure.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Class316

[zzip]

10 minutes ago, Class316 said:

Jag is a fun and novel thing to play on an emulator as snapshot of what was so long ago now. 

 

But imagine being someone in the mid 90s, believing Atari's hype, spending money on a whole new 64bit system, and expecting the world. Only to find out the games are sub par and are technically not really more than what SNES could do. Must have been heart crushing. 

By the time the Jaguar came out, the audience for Atari products was basically Atari die-hards.    Everyone else abandoned the brand for Nintendo or Sega on the Console side, or the PC world on the computer side.     Given that,  the Jaguar was far more powerful than the previous Atari consoles, the 7800 and XEGS,  and it could even seemingly outperform the Falcon-  the most powerful computer in the ST line.   And it was more powerful than anything else on the market (except possibly the far more expensive 3DO).   Even if had a bunch of SNES-quality titles the expectation was it would eventually come into its own (every console's early games look last generation)  after all this was a "64-bit system" (whatever that means to videogame quality).    So there was a lot of excitement in the Atari world towards the Jaguar.   I don't recall a lot of disappointment.    Some skepticism sure,  especially among those who had watched the company's prospects dwindle over time and a history of products that were a day late and a dollar short.   Would they finally get it right this time?  Atari's going all-in on this one, but is it enough?

 

Outside of the Atari fandom,  there may have been some Nintendo/Sega fans who bought into the hype and felt burned, but I think by and large they ignored it and waited for the next console from their favorite brand instead.

 

30 minutes ago, Class316 said:

Even more insane is making a Jag CD. So here you have a system that is barely selling. So you make an addon for it that requires that system. What were they thinking? 

CD-ROM was all the rage in the early 90s so it made sense for Atari to be in that space.   Same for VR which had a lot of short-lived hype in the 90s.   Also remember that Atari had cancelled all it's other product lines at this point and went all-in on the Jaguar.   They couldn't be like "oh well that isn't working, let's focus on something else"  There was nothing else!   Also the 2600 and NES didn't sell super well right out of the gate, their success came later after some killer game dropped.    It wasn't like today where companies will quickly drop products if initial sales aren't great.

[+Biff Burgertime]

1 hour ago, Class316 said:

So here you have a system that is barely selling. So you make an addon for it that requires that system. What were they thinking? 

- AVGN

[Class316]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

By the time the Jaguar came out, the audience for Atari products was basically Atari die-hards.    Everyone else abandoned the brand for Nintendo or Sega on the Console side, or the PC world on the computer side.     Given that,  the Jaguar was far more powerful than the previous Atari consoles, the 7800 and XEGS,  and it could even seemingly outperform the Falcon-  the most powerful computer in the ST line.   And it was more powerful than anything else on the market (except possibly the far more expensive 3DO).   Even if had a bunch of SNES-quality titles the expectation was it would eventually come into its own (every console's early games look last generation)  after all this was a "64-bit system" (whatever that means to videogame quality).    So there was a lot of excitement in the Atari world towards the Jaguar.   I don't recall a lot of disappointment.    Some skepticism sure,  especially among those who had watched the company's prospects dwindle over time and a history of products that were a day late and a dollar short.   Would they finally get it right this time?  Atari's going all-in on this one, but is it enough?

 

Outside of the Atari fandom,  there may have been some Nintendo/Sega fans who bought into the hype and felt burned, but I think by and large they ignored it and waited for the next console from their favorite brand instead.

 

I'm sure their goal was to attract those Sega and Nintendo fans. Not just Atari die hards. And how many of those existed anyway? Not very many as was proven by Jag sales. I certainly hope Jaguar was more powerful than something like the 7800 made in the 80s. It may have been more powerful than most other consoles but the games certainly didn't show that off. Mario Kart was much more impressive that Atari Karts. Tempest looked outdated even by 90s standards. Wolfenstein was relatively an impressive port but the original game was old and was technically able to exist on SNES (and even that had shortcomings). Pitfall the Mayan adventure, again nothing 16bit couldn't do. And so on and so forth. Even the pricey 3DO sold 2 million units. Considerably more than Jaguar. Why? Probably because their 32-bit games showed technical superiority that didn't exist on Nintendo and Sega (even if they were largely lack luster).

 

Quote

CD-ROM was all the rage in the early 90s so it made sense for Atari to be in that space.   Same for VR which had a lot of short-lived hype in the 90s.   Also remember that Atari had cancelled all it's other product lines at this point and went all-in on the Jaguar.   They couldn't be like "oh well that isn't working, let's focus on something else"  There was nothing else!   Also the 2600 and NES didn't sell super well right out of the gate, their success came later after some killer game dropped.    It wasn't like today where companies will quickly drop products if initial sales aren't great.

Right. So Jaguar should have probably been CD right off the bat. Like 3DO and many other system. And yes not everything sells well right off the bat. And at that point made no sense to make an add on for something that very few people have. Sega CD made a little sense since Genesis sold so well (and even that failed). You have to figure you're lucky if 40% of people that have the system buy the addon.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Class316

[zzip]

22 minutes ago, Class316 said:

I'm sure their goal was to attract those Sega and Nintendo fans. Not just Atari die hards. And how many of those existed anyway? Not very many as was proven by Jag sales. I certainly hope Jaguar was more powerful than something like the 7800 made in the 80s.

No there weren't a lot of Atari fans left and sales reflect that,  The 7800 was a good demonstration of why.   It was already kind of dated when it finally made it out the door in 86,  they never did a 16-bit console to compete with Genesis and SNES, so Atari basically skipped a console generation.  There was a 10 year technology gap between the 7800 and Jag.   Many of their fans wanting something better than 7800 where already jumping ship.

 

 

[Editorb]

2 hours ago, Class316 said:

Tempest looked outdated even by 90s standards.

 

Pshaw.

[Warmsignal]

Seems that the conversation always circles back to "bits" and short-sighted expectations. The AVGN mantra. As I understand it, bits were mostly a marketing gimmick, but the consumer was duped into thinking bits equate to games that are this many times more advanced. Obviously people still buy that.

 

Are Nintendo 64 games twice as advanced as PSX, or Saturn games? If they are, it's totally lost on me. Was the Saturn somehow "not a true 32-bit system" because the PlayStation outperformed it in terms of it's 3D capability? Nah. So why do so many insist on arguing in circles about Jag's next-gen validity? Because of the quick and dirty ports the system received, I'd have to assume. It's a common practice in the industry to port over recent games to a new platform, but folks are quick to judge the console based on those ports alone because they make up a portion of the already small library. It doesn't mean that's all the console could have ever offered. Things were barely off of the ground before it was over.

 

My armchair take, is that Atari was too broke and too naive for it's ambitions to be properly realized. Very little ever materialized before bankruptcy... Atari was funding the development of almost everything that actually saw the light of day on the system. I kinda doubt that it's capabilities end where Atari ended it. Similar deal with Saturn, some of those later games in 97' were looking more and more refined for a system that "wasn't conceived to do 3D gaming", but then Sega pulled the plug because it wasn't selling. We'll never know the extent of what could have been rung out of that machine, either.

[Cris1997XX]

21 hours ago, cubanismo said:

But then what would we talk about?

We would talk about the Jaguar 2, of course! 😛

[Cris1997XX]

3 hours ago, Class316 said:

I'm sure their goal was to attract those Sega and Nintendo fans. Not just Atari die hards. And how many of those existed anyway? Not very many as was proven by Jag sales. I certainly hope Jaguar was more powerful than something like the 7800 made in the 80s. It may have been more powerful than most other consoles but the games certainly didn't show that off. Mario Kart was much more impressive that Atari Karts. Tempest looked outdated even by 90s standards. Wolfenstein was relatively an impressive port but the original game was old and was technically able to exist on SNES (and even that had shortcomings). Pitfall the Mayan adventure, again nothing 16bit couldn't do. And so on and so forth. Even the pricey 3DO sold 2 million units. Considerably more than Jaguar. Why? Probably because their 32-bit games showed technical superiority that didn't exist on Nintendo and Sega (even if they were largely lack luster).

Some 3DO games really did show off the machine's beefy hardware when compared to SNES and Mega Drive. A couple of examples are Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Samurai Shodown and Wolfenstein 3D (Even better than the Jaguar version in my opinion)

[7800JAGFAN]

1 hour ago, Cris1997XX said:

Some 3DO games really did show off the machine's beefy hardware when compared to SNES and Mega Drive. A couple of examples are Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Samurai Shodown and Wolfenstein 3D (Even better than the Jaguar version in my opinion)

Both of those games looked "SNES" level to me at the time, both were indeed on it (Super SF 2 anyway).  Wolf 3d Looked best on Jaguar and AVP and Iron Soldier looked as good as anything at the time.  I was there and at my local mall Jaguar was clearly better than Snes and Genesis, it was just that it was already price reduced to $99 and no new games seemed to be coming.  Plus at that point as a 7800 owner I had already watched Atari fail once, and didn't want to risk the $$$ on the Jaguar- at the time.