117 replies to this topic

[rhindlethereddragon]

Both of these systems were the very first 64-bit gaming systems, both released in the mid-1990's, so I'm assuming they are very similar in archetecture, power, performance, etc.

Which system is better the Jaguar or N64?

[Austin]

/facepalm

(I've been doing a lot of this lately)

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

HA HA HA HA HA.................don't even START.

[CyranoJ]

Yes, they are identical.

[save2600]

Great question!  

Well, since it was discovered early in development that Tetrisphere's cartoony graphics and simplistic gameplay was not the greatest match for the mighty Jaguar system, that particular game was quickly translated/ported over to the N64 for salvation, where kiddies attracted to Nintendo could enjoy it.

Hardware speccing aside, Nintendo has too many fluffy kiddies based mascots - which really hurt the system back then. Mature game playing adults by this time, really wanted something they could resonate with and besides offering the grandiosity of CD-based technology, Atari delivered in spades with the diversity of their awesome characters. For instance, Mario has NOTHING on Bentley Bear. Princess Peach can't hold a candle to Miz Tress and Bowzer is a jellyfish compared to Skully.

And then there's Trevor McFur and his band of hi-res awesomeness compared to the cartoony and kiddie Fox McCloud and his lame rail riding gang.

All in all, mostly depends on level of maturity, visceral and visual preference as to which system is better. Clearly and for me, Atari trumps Nintendo each and every time. With each and every lateral comparison.



*this post brought to you by the 'Ask a Silly Question, Get a Silly Answer' Foundation.

[BillyHW]

rhindlethereddragon, on Sat Jul 21, 2012 7:38 PM, said:

Both of these systems were the very first 64-bit gaming systems, both released in the mid-1990's, so I'm assuming they are very similar in archetecture, power, performance, etc.

Which system is better the Jaguar or N64?

Well, since they are both 64-bit RISC-based, cartridge-based systems, they are pretty much identical power-wise.  About the only difference is the controller.  Since the Jaguar controller has more buttons, and can also handle overlays, I'd say the Jaguar comes out on top overall.

[Punisher5.0]

Here we go................

[CyranoJ]

Also, the Jaguar BIOS has a spinning cube, while the N64 bios has a spinning N - which is basically a cube with bits missing!!! Clearly, the Jaguar wins here too.

[Willard]

they both had good updates of classic games

[sd32]

Just like the Colecovision, Sega 1000 and MSX, the Jag and N64 are basically the same hardware, just done by diferent companies and having diferent cases and names. Thats all, i am glad i could help you. You are welcome.

[twoquickcapri]

sd32, on Sun Jul 22, 2012 12:37 AM, said:

the Jag and N64 are basically the same hardware.

I  really hope you don't believe that. The Jag and the N64 don't share hardware like the Colecovision, Sega 1000 and MSX do.

[Sauron]

twoquickcapri, on Sun Jul 22, 2012 1:21 AM, said:

I  really hope you don't believe that. The Jag and the N64 don't share hardware like the Colecovision, Sega 1000 and MSX do.

No, the cases look different! And the controllers!

[Felyx]

One was sold to almost 33 millions while the other sold only 0.2 million, one has almost 400 games and amongst them 53 are best sellers sold to more than 1 million while the other has roughly only 100 games...

Now, unfortunately, the N64 does'nt have an active homebrewer scene such as the Jag has, don't have tel keyboard on its joypad and don't even has (at least officially) CD support: how can you dare comparing this complete tat to its almighty majesty Jaguar

Sorry for Nintendo but the N64 has no chance facing the Jag...(who says bad faith? )

[rdemming]

You want a more serious answer?
Although they both are 64-bits, the architecture very different.

The Jaguars 64-bit graphics system (object processor) can be considered as the ultimate sprite system. Everything you see on screen are freely movable and scalable bitmap objects. In addition it has a 64-bit blitter to do various graphics manipulations at pixel level (moving, copying, shading, deformations, etc). All this is driven by a 32-bit RISC processor. Consequently in 3D games, polygons are calculated in software and rendered to a bitmap which is displayed by the object processor. The blitter is used for filling and shading of polygons. So the Jaguar graphics is 2D based. Although with clever programming you can do 3D games, the graphics system is not truly 3D.

The N64 on the other hand has a graphics system that is based on rendering 3D polygons. The N64 64-bit graphics chip consists of the RSP and RDP. The Reality Signal Processor (RSP) is a MIPS R4000-based 8-bit integer vector processor which is programmable with micro-code. It handles the processing (transform, clipping and lighting calculations, triangle setup) of polygons which are then rendered by the Reality Drawing Processor (RDP). So in effect, everything on screen are rendered 3D triangles.
In addition it has a NEC VR4300 RISC general purpose processor that is internally 64-bit but connected with a 32-bit databus. But 64-bit operations were rarely used (you don't need 64-bits for storing the high-score )

So the Jaguar and N64 are both 64 bits, they can't be compared because the architecture (working principle) is very different.
The Jaguar was the last console of the 2D generation while N64 together with the PlayStation where the first of the 3D generation (architecture wise).

Robert

[Felyx]

Although it is always possible to compare technical datas, it is just one side of the question: whatever the best hardware ever developped for games you got, if there are no games for it, it is useless.

We probably all agree that there is no comparison between the 2 systems: if you're looking for playing videogames, although the Jag has some good games it can't sustain the comparison with the N64 which are far more games.

Saying that doesn't mean the Jag is a bad system or without any interest like says it common reputation: it was tricky to code for and didn't lived enough to see games exploiting its capabilities.

Games are more important than technical aspects because they make the sales of the system and not the opposite.

The Lynx was far better in many tech aspect to the poor B&W Gameboy and see what happened...

Last point: the Jaguar good for 2D and Playstation for 3D sounds like what says people when comparing the Sega Dreamcast with the Playsation and depsite it is probalby true it sounds like a consolation prize.

Edited by Felyx, Sun Jul 22, 2012 7:09 AM.

[Tyrant]

All seriousness aside, one of the major reasons the Jaguar failed commercially is that while there was plenty of hype around the Jaguar, Nintendo spent almost half a decade hyping up the N64. It was announced as imminent almost as soon as development started, and they continued to encourage consumers not to buy a Jaguar or 3DO but to wait for their new system which was always just around the corner.

[108 Stars]

It is sad that Nintendo had much more budget for marketing. It's rumored that the unreleased Bentley Bear 64, which was in development for Jaguar would have outperformed Super Mario 64 graphically. When Atari Corps hit financial troubles, they had to sell the engine to Nintendo who made Mario 64 based on that; however it is said to be watered-down compared to the BB 64 Alpha, since the engine made heavy use of the Jaguars custom chips Tom and Jerry which the N64 lacked.

So based on that anecdote, that a top-N64-title is basically just an inferior version of what was meant to run on Jaguar you can say that the Jaguar was stronger.

[Tyrant]

The sad part is, I was being serious. I should have known better.

[108 Stars]

I know you were serious, I started my reply before you posted.^^

Yeah, Nintendo started hype early, but I don't think it paid off that much. They still got their asses whipped by the PS1.

For my part, I saw the Jaguar in 1994 and I just wqasn't very impressed. Cybermorph didn't look much different to Starfox to me (I know it is technically, but that's how I felt from my impression as a kid), the racing games looked worse than Virtua Racing, and Kasumi Ninja didn't set the world on fire because of a somewhat higher resolution and color count than Mortal Kombat.

I think the problem was really that people like myself were not very impressed with what was released. Partially thanks to not understanding 3D and all, partially thanks to bad QA from Atari. With all that talk of not only 32-bit, (twice the power of Genesis and SNES to us kids) Atari shouted something about 64 bit in our faces, and it just did not look twice as good, let alone four times. SNK was clever by calling the Neo Geo 24-Bit; technically nonsense, but to the kids understanding in the bit wars it meant "somewhat better than 16-bit, but not a new dimension like 32 or 64".
Expectations for a 64 bit system were too high for what the Jaguar delivered. Blame Atari's marketing and Sega's and Nintendo's teaching us how bits equal power.

[davidcalgary29]

Felyx, on Sun Jul 22, 2012 2:14 AM, said:

Now, unfortunately, the N64 does'nt have an active homebrewer scene such as the Jag has,

I nominate Club Drive to be the first Jag conversion project for the N64! Seriously, that game deserves to be on every system ever made. Or maybe we could give them something with Skylar in it...

[108 Stars]

davidcalgary29, on Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:35 AM, said:

I nominate Club Drive to be the first Jag conversion project for the N64! Seriously, that game deserves to be on every system ever made. Or maybe we could give them something with Skylar in it...

You seem to use the term "game" very loosely I guess.^^

[Tyrant]

I still want a Skylar voice for TomTom... not that I have a car or anything, I just think it'd be cool.

[Felyx]

Despite ugly graphims Club drive is surprinsingly not that bad and especally the 2 players mode gives it some interest. Nothing transcendental for sure but it is possible to have some fun with it.
The idea of driving a modelcar inside a house was quite original too.

Since the AGN Skylar is famous but Cybermorph wasn't that bad back in 93 and its sequel Battlemorph is even very good (you need a Jag CD to pay it)

For me, the worst game on Jag is Supercross 3D: ugly and unplayable.

Edited by Felyx, Sun Jul 22, 2012 11:54 AM.

[theloon]

I can't really compare the two.  All I can think about is magically snatching that RAMBUS memory from the N64 and putting it on the 64 bit memory interface of the Jag... yummy!

[Felyx]

Tyrant, on Sun Jul 22, 2012 8:56 AM, said:

All seriousness aside, one of the major reasons the Jaguar failed commercially is that while there was plenty of hype around the Jaguar, Nintendo spent almost half a decade hyping up the N64. It was announced as imminent almost as soon as development started, and they continued to encourage consumers not to buy a Jaguar or 3DO but to wait for their new system which was always just around the corner.

As Nintendo was leading on the video game market it was easy for them to be listened too and especially on their future products. Atari which were not at all in a same favourable position succeded to suprise everyone with the Jag.
Unfortunately they announced a revolution and released at same time games similar of what people already have on 16 bits.
I agree there were a tough competition between few companies, but if Atari had released more killer app there would have been room for the Jag on the market but it simply get down as quick as it came