harveymush Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 I was having a bit of a heated debate( nearly came to blows ) with a friend over the capabilites of the Jag, he got into gaming late around the launch of the PS2, and thinks everything before it was 'crap', anyway I was showing him my collection of games machines and computers trying to educate him on what real games he had missed over the last 25 years or so, and got me thinking did we ever see the best of the Jag, I mean forget about Ataris problems and them winding down the company etc, I just wondered what maybe a 3rd or 4th generation of software would have given us if say the Jag had lasted say 2 more years on the commercial stage than it did, AVP was class, DOOM was a brillant version on a £200 console when at the time you would have needed £1000 worth of PC to do the same thing, IS2 and Battlemorph were supurb but what else do you think the Jag would have been able to do. Everyone knows that all consoles have a period maybe 18months or 2 years after a consoles launch when the programmers really know how to get the best out of the machine, look at the snes, early titles didn't look much different than the nes, but look at some of the stuff RARE did nearly at the end of the snes's life and its like a totally different machine, same can be said for even the PS2 early titles for it were pretty similar to the original psx, low res low polygon count etc, compare PS2 titles now to the early ones and there is a big difference. So what do you guys think, for me sadly I don't think we ever saw what the Jag could have really done, especially with the CD add on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted March 24, 2006 Share Posted March 24, 2006 You are totally right. With the Jag CD added (which also added an empty cart port for use like the Saturn - King Of Fighters anyone) the Jag CD could have easily hung out with the Playstation and Saturn. Sure it would have taken some much cleverer programming and more work to do it but the fact it it was capable. Alot of people seem to forget that the Jag did have some awesome hardware in there and could even beat the PS1 in a few areas, for example it could display more sprites on screen and also more colours (Jag Rayman has 65,000 colours on screen as opposed to 32,000 on the PS1) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I think we haven't gotten anywhere near yet what the Jag can do in 2D. It's a damn shame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GT Turbo Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I just wondered what maybe a 3rd or 4th generation of software would have given us if say the Jag had lasted say 2 more years on the commercial stage than it did. Why you use a 'past' ? Don't forget the next generation of games for the Jag is in progress With the Jag CF you will got a new generation of games, because we got 10 ( 2+8 ) megs of ram, audio-streaming, place for putting nice graphics and sounds. Ps2 keyboard and mouse, so wait and see GT Turbo (Jagware) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symmetry of TNG Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I dont whant to be a pessimist here but what i think is hidden in this diskussion is that the Jaguar hadrware is actually not that bad and was not realy taken to its full potential. The cooders need to get into the hardware & get Bits (&pieces) under their fingernails to realy take advantage of the hardware to its full potential. Re-think ideas on how to solve common DoA problems to fit the hardware. ...That was never done by ataris coders (some exceptions perhapps) and you would need "3rd or 4th" generation coders to do that.. BUT the way it seems atari wanted it, that would never happen, since they seem to have strived for getting people to use more C to ease coding... (refering to ataris C 3D examples) ..probably since writing optimised asm code is no easy task... So... even if there is yet another great hardware for the jaguar, it is never better than the code that is made for it.. BUT!... the best part of this is that the people that write the best code is usually the devoted scene people.. (cf. the st/ste/falcon scene they do stuff now that atari would not have dreamed possible on their mashines). So I for one is looking with optimistic eyes for what the future holds, when the 3rd, 4th generation Scene people code games for the legendary Jaguar =) Squeezing the full potential out of the Jaguar with a CF & a CD /Sym Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GT Turbo Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I dont whant to be a pessimist here but what i think is hidden in this diskussion is that the Jaguar hadrware is actually not that bad and was not realy taken to its full potential. The cooders need to get into the hardware & get Bits (&pieces) under their fingernails to realy take advantage of the hardware to its full potential. Re-think ideas on how to solve common DoA problems to fit the hardware. You're right !! BUT the way it seems atari wanted it, that would never happen, since they seem to have strived for getting people to use more C to ease coding... You're right too !! Atari coders stop C, that's a bad idea on Jag.... So I for one is looking with optimistic eyes for what the future holds, when the 3rd, 4th generation Scene people code games for the legendary Jaguar =) Squeezing the full potential out of the Jaguar with a CF & a CD Jag CF Power !!! GT Turbo (Jagware) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feralstorm Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 The competitive downside of the Jaguar hardware seems to be that more emphasis was paid to 2D and 2.5D power, as opposed to 3D polygon stuff. It would be neat to see what could be done on the top end of both Jag genres Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8th lutz Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 I don't think we did. It needed games like x-men the arcade game on the jaguar. It was 2d game but was a great arcade that no game console has and would've been a big seller on a game system. In terms of 2d it had the chance to be a neo geo game console in terms of 2d power with the ability to do due first person games. It don't think that part was as strong as the saturn, playstation, on 64. The reason I said neogeo was because that was the best 2d system out there when the jaguar was out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harveymush Posted March 27, 2006 Author Share Posted March 27, 2006 So I think we all agree we never saw the best of the Jag, what the Jag could really have done, so heres my second question, what do you thing the Jag would have been capable of, think of the games back then im interested in seeing what we have missed out on over the years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Just as an example of what is further possible on the Jaguar, Thunderbird, one of the programmers of Battlesphere, a first gen game by the team, but considered to be one of the best technical achievements on the Jaguar, recently stated on another forum that If they did a sequel (COMPLETELY hypothetical so don't get excited) to BS, with their experience from the first, could accomplish what they did with Battlesphere, but it could be fully textured (that's fully textured. garuad shaded, light-sourced polygons running at a consistant 30fps). Think of the leep from Iron Soldier 1 to 2 in graphic quality and apply that to Battlesphere, but even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_J64bit Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 (edited) I think we haven't gotten anywhere near yet what the Jag can do in 2D. It's a damn shame. The Jag can pull off Neo-Geo style gfx but Atari didn't even try! Edited March 27, 2006 by walter_J64bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_ Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 I believe we´ve seen the Jaguar stretched to its limits with Battlesphere. Sure, HAD the console lived on for a couple of years more and been financially interesting to program and market for, something out of the ordinary would have cropped up. Not so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Ummm.... do you realize that most NeoGeo game carts were MUCH larger than the biggest Jaguar carts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari-Jess Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 Of course we didn't. We've only just started seeing the best of the 2600! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_J64bit Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 (edited) Ummm.... do you realize that most NeoGeo game carts were MUCH larger than the biggest Jaguar carts? With compresion a Jag cart can hold (96 Megbit) all most one gigabyte! A NeoGeo Cart holds one gigabyte. Edited March 27, 2006 by walter_J64bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 I believe we´ve seen the Jaguar stretched to its limits with Battlesphere. As I just said, according to the PROGRAMMER of Battlesphere, it ISN'T stretching the limits and can be done even better. Battlesphere just happen's to be as far as the Jag was pushed so far... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 heck no, i dont think we've seen past 30-50% of what the jag is capable of. coders were barely aware of how to program parrallell processors back then and 99% of the jag games were sadly just 68000 based amiga-ish games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted March 27, 2006 Share Posted March 27, 2006 I believe we´ve seen the Jaguar stretched to its limits with Battlesphere. As I just said, according to the PROGRAMMER of Battlesphere, it ISN'T stretching the limits and can be done even better. Battlesphere just happen's to be as far as the Jag was pushed so far... You probably should clarify that it was Battlesphere Gold Thunderbird said he could outdo now. Didn't he say he could do it fully texture mapped now or more polygons and same textures? Ummm.... do you realize that most NeoGeo game carts were MUCH larger than the biggest Jaguar carts? Yeah but according to FROG(Gorf) the Jag could still whip the Neo Geo. Not only in processing power but that the Jag's compression ability was pretty impressive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Ummm.... do you realize that most NeoGeo game carts were MUCH larger than the biggest Jaguar carts? With compresion a Jag cart can hold (96 Megbit) all most one gigabyte! A NeoGeo Cart holds one gigabyte. And of course, there's no reason to assume NeoGeo games didn't use compression either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 The problem with the Jag is that it isn't that fast when used in a straightforward way. There are a bunch of tricks you can use to speed up some operations but a good console really needs its power out there in the open, not tucked away in the corners. So better performance is very labor intensive, much like programming a good 2600 game. Developers just don't have the time and energy to become that intimate with a console anymore (but hobbyists do, if they're lucky). -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_J64bit Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 Ummm.... do you realize that most NeoGeo game carts were MUCH larger than the biggest Jaguar carts? With compresion a Jag cart can hold (96 Megbit) all most one gigabyte! A NeoGeo Cart holds one gigabyte. And of course, there's no reason to assume NeoGeo games didn't use compression either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 The problem with the Jag is that it isn't that fast when used in a straightforward way. There are a bunch of tricks you can use to speed up some operations but a good console really needs its power out there in the open, not tucked away in the corners. So better performance is very labor intensive, much like programming a good 2600 game. Developers just don't have the time and energy to become that intimate with a console anymore (but hobbyists do, if they're lucky). -Bry Lucky for us Jag fans we do have Hobbyist developers who manage to find the time, the energy and the love for the console to become just that intimate with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_ Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 I believe we´ve seen the Jaguar stretched to its limits with Battlesphere. As I just said, according to the PROGRAMMER of Battlesphere, it ISN'T stretching the limits and can be done even better. Battlesphere just happen's to be as far as the Jag was pushed so far... He of all people would know, granted. We´ll never find out though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GT Turbo Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 (edited) I believe we´ve seen the Jaguar stretched to its limits with Battlesphere. I don't think, see on the ST history, at the beginning of the machine who will be enough mad to say it's possible to do a Wolfenstein on a little 8Mhz 68000 ? Who ? At the beginning nobody and now Ray do it. Ummm.... do you realize that most NeoGeo game carts were MUCH larger than the biggest Jaguar carts? With Compact Flash, we can use a 2 Giga cart and using compression about 4 Gigas, Try to beat dis !!! (Ray packer : http://www.jagware.org/index.php?showtopic=98) GT Turbo (Jagware) Edited March 28, 2006 by GT Turbo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 (edited) With Compact Flash, we can use a 2 Giga cart and using compression about 4 Gigas, Try to beat dis !!! (Ray packer : http://www.jagware.org/index.php?showtopic=98) I believe they were referring to the Jags potential straight out of the box, without any hardware add on. Memory wise the NG was rather mind blowing for a console.the Jag even without the CD can match it. The cart compresion ability of the Jaguar is rather amazing alone. Here's the rest of the thread for anyone interested. http://jaysmith2000.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4478 Edited March 28, 2006 by JagChris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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