How could they mess up Doom for the 32X?

[Punisher5.0]

To be fair, John Carmack did tell people the 32X version would not look as good as the Jaguar version, as the Jaguar version had twice the man hours spent on it.

 

You rush a project out..it's gonna suffer.

I wonder what could've been? With flash carts so available maybe someday someone will take a crack at improving it.

[Lost Dragon]

I wonder what could've been? With flash carts so available maybe someday someone will take a crack at improving it.

I don't follow the 32X scene, but with people going back and improving likes of:Rampage and Double Dragon and Rampage on the 7800, R-Type on the Amstrad CPC...

 

 

Stranger things have happened i guess.

[Lost Dragon]

Slightly off topic, but i recently asked Nick Pelling why the Playstation version of Duke Nukem 3D turned out so poorly compared to the Sega Saturn version.

 

Nick:

 

 

Hi Ross,

 

 

 

What my team and I did with Duke Nukem 3D on the PlayStation wasto convert the PC’s Build engine to use the PlayStation’s texture rendering hardware, i.e. to draw vertical strips using the 3d renderer. This meant that we were able to exactly replicate the unusual perspective and game mechanics used on the PC.

 

 

 

Convertors on other game platforms (e.g. the Saturn) adapted the game to their own game engines, giving slightly better performance at the risk of losing a lot of the fun and detail of the game. As an example, Sony’s testers found a level design bug in the first level of the game which a million-plus PC players had never noticed (a section of one wall was slightly too thin, so players were able to ‘force’ their way through it).

[DragonGrafx-16]

You did not need a high end pentium pc to play Doom back in the day. Sure you'd need at least a 486 with 4mb of ram and a soundcard, but even then there were cheaper pcs.

[Torr]

Friend of mine ran it on a 386/33 with 4MB RAM (the stated requirements).

 

My 486SX/33 did run it a bit smoother when there were imps and fireballs everywhere though!

Edited November 6, 2018 by Torr

[derFunkenstein]

You did not need a high end pentium pc to play Doom back in the day. Sure you'd need at least a 486 with 4mb of ram and a soundcard, but even then there were cheaper pcs.

 

Yeah, I played it on a 486 SX at 25MHz. No 487 floating point math co-processor? no problem.

[+chicgamer]

I bought my 32X with Doom included on clearance for $15 back in the mid '90s. It was the only way for me to play Doom until I finally got a new PC in maybe '97. Even though it wasn't the best version, it was the version I had, and I was thrilled that I finally got to play this game that people had been talking about for years.

 

I even like the music of the 32X version, but I'm sure that is mostly due to nostalgia. One thing I can say about the 32X version—for whatever reason, I don't remember getting motion sickness while playing it. I can't say the same about many FPS games released around that time.

[Lost Dragon]

Thought i might as well put this up when Doom is being discussed :

 

When we started developing Alien Breed 3D I spoke to ID about the possibility of just doing an official, I.D sanctioned Amiga Version of Doom. They wanted

$50,000 before they would even talk. I assumed this to be a starting point for negotiations, but no, that was a 100% firm position. No $50,000, no Amiga Doom!

 

They said that it was for so that they could be sure that the finished product would be worthy of the Doom name. But to be honest, if we had

given then $50K we would have had to sack Andy Clitheroe and have the game written by the tea lady, and it would have been pants.

 

They might change their mind when they've seen AB3DSE, but who gives a flying fick? We're Amiga users, do we need Doom? We've got AB3D, and Gloom Deluxe.

 

I think what Andy has done, and what he will do with AB3DSE is good enough, I.D can kiss my armpit!

 

Marcus Dyson...

[Keatah]

Id made the right decision. Quality first.

[Austin]

Id made the right decision. Quality first.

More like, "If it's not going to be quality, at least we'll still get paid." (re: 3DO Doom.)

[Keatah]

3DO Doom flopped because it was NOT done by id. It was a one-man project/conversion.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Keatah

[Lost Dragon]

Saturn Doom was a 1 main coder..Jim Bagley and I.D wouldn't let him use his method of utilising the Saturn architecture and quality took a massive hit, Carmack latter admitting in hindsight they made the wrong call, so quality not always put before everything else for I.D.

 

The Amiga was in its twilight era by time Doom arrived and i very much doubt Team 17 would of recouped the investment had they even secured the rights to convert Doom to the A1200 and CD32.

[Keatah]

Perhaps.. Sounds like ego got in the way of id. In any case I'm partial to the PC version and firmly believe that Doom needs the versatility of that platform to reach its full potential. The ability to add levels and episodes and modify stuff is genuine value-added material. This isn't easily done on consoles based on optical drives (of the day) or standard cartridges.

 

Doom is all rendered in software, on the processor and in main ram. PC Doom is designed around generic chips. That console versions have to somehow use their custom chips makes the whole thing an un-natural port.

[Lost Dragon]

Judging by Carmack's very open admission that in hindsight it really would of been better to let Jim use the Saturn hardware as he saw fit in order to convert Doom to it, i would say ego and being understandably protective of a flagship title you put so much into, might of blinkered Carmack at the time.

 

But at least he's had the decency to admit it was a mistake and the consumer suffered as a result.

 

I have a lot of respect for industry folk who can be honest and admit at times they simply got it wrong.

[Lost Dragon]

Might as well get a quote from a top coder at High Voltage Software, regarding Doom on Jaguar running in the machines low resolution mode :

 

 

Adisak Pochanayon:

 

 

I don't really see anything wrong with Doom in 160x180. IMHO, it's

more than enough resolution for the game. Doom is quite playable in the

"small screen" versions on the PC that allow higher frame rates. With

smooth 64K graphics, one of the main features to creating a realistic

feel with Doom will be a higher frame rate. I can give you another

suggestion to why ID has gone to 160x180.

 

 

First of all, consider that the published speed of the Jag is a 26.6

Mhz master clock. Given a normal DRAM memory system, it takes 4 clock cycles at this speed to make a memory access read or write unless performing burst

reads or writes with page hits (this usually only works on continuous data).

 

 

This is because normal DRAM requires that a uP provide a "row" and a "column"address and then a read/write signal followed by data (one reason why the

minimum instruction time on a 68000 is 4 clock cycles). Assuming that

the textures and screen are not located in the same page, this can

be used as a reference. Since texture mapping in DOOM requires reading and writing one pixel at a time, we can roughly estimate that the maximum speed of the texture mapping would occur at((26.6e6/4)/2) the maximum output speed is 3-4 million pixels texture mapped per second. This really isn't a lot to work with when you are doing as complicated texture mapping

as DOOM. Now I would assume that this limitation of using normal DRAM and texture mapping a pixel at a time is going to hold with SATURN as well if they use a blitter for texture mapping. The reason the PC can do more pixels is because it doesn't use "normal" RAM accesses. Due to the uP cache, the uP reads data from the textures in burst mode, may perform delayed

writes (also in burst mode) and the actual texture may be in a cache (most PC's have 128K-256K of cache). This makes for an incredible speed difference in the maximum speed of writing individual pixels. The good news, is that the Jaguar can use burst mode itself to write out 4-pixels at a time when doing 3-d polygon graphics with Gouraud shading (which probably gives the

Jag an ability to hit around 20+ million Gouraud shaded pixels per second!!!!!).

 

Second reason is that 160x180 resolution with 64K colors will look A LOT better for a game like DOOM than on a PC. The color variations on DOOM are going to be so much smoother on the Jag that it will look better than the higher

resolution version on the PC with fewer colors.

[Austin]

3DO Doom flopped because it was NOT done by id. It was a one-man project/conversion.

You missed the point. Id claimed there was a high licensing fee to ensure the game would meet certain quality "standards", but it was undoubtedly there so even if a version turned out poorly, id still laughed their way to the bank.

 

Regarding the 3DO version, it didn't turn out poorly because it was a one-man conversion. It turned out poorly because of a management team that had their heads up their asses. They literally thought you could put static images on a disc and "poof", a working game would magically appear (straight from the developer's mouth).

 

Other versions turned out poorly as well, yet id still got paid (look at the SNES version, the Saturn version, the Tapwave Zodiac version of DOOM 2 with broken controls, etc., etc).

Edited December 19, 2018 by Austin

[Lost Dragon]

Whilst heavily comprised, could much more really been done with SNES DOOM?.

 

As it was it used the SFX 2 chip, which pushed the price of the cartridge up and thus meant putting extra memory on it, which might have avoided the issue of enemies always facing the player could of been avoided.

 

No texture mapped walls or ceilings, enemies stone deaf and no particle effects etc.

Whilst not full screen, it still managed an impressive resolution.

 

And on the plus side, I.D seemingly had no issues with Randy Linden using his own custom Engine to power the game.

 

It has the Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon both missing from the 3DO, Jaguar and 32X versions.

Plus has in game music.

 

For a conversion to an aging 16 bit system, it's as good as i could of expected.

[Austin]

Whilst heavily comprised, could much more really been done with SNES DOOM?.

 

As it was it used the SFX 2 chip, which pushed the price of the cartridge up and thus meant putting extra memory on it, which might have avoided the issue of enemies always facing the player could of been avoided.

 

No texture mapped walls or ceilings, enemies stone deaf and no particle effects etc.

Whilst not full screen, it still managed an impressive resolution.

 

And on the plus side, I.D seemingly had no issues with Randy Linden using his own custom Engine to power the game.

 

It has the Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon both missing from the 3DO, Jaguar and 32X versions.

Plus has in game music.

 

For a conversion to an aging 16 bit system, it's as good as i could of expected.

I agree it was a bit unfair to lump the SNES version in my example given that it is an impressive technical feat and it probably shouldn't have even happened to begin with. Again though, the point was about id saying one thing about their quality standards and then allowing something that goes against that. Take away the fact it is running on a SNES, and the game is kind of a mess. So I suppose what I meant is, regardless of how certain versions panned out or what their circumstances were, I don't really believe id's reasoning for their licensing practices.

[Lost Dragon]

It was an ambitious conversion to the SNES,but i am with you on it being 1 that really shouldn't of been attempted.

 

I.D had a knack of conflicting statements.

 

When the Jaguar first arrived you could find very positive comments about it from both Romero and Carmack, but when you look at comments made at the end of the Jaguar's commercial life and after, views seem to of drastically changed.

 

As for them wanting to put quality first, never bought that line myself either.

 

Going off memory, but the 3DO version of Doom was given to Art Data i believe, the same people Atari had signed to convert the dire Rise Of The Robots (Mirage) to the Jaguar?.

[Punisher5.0]

It was an ambitious conversion to the SNES,but i am with you on it being 1 that really shouldn't of been attempted.

 

I.D had a knack of conflicting statements.

 

When the Jaguar first arrived you could find very positive comments about it from both Romero and Carmack, but when you look at comments made at the end of the Jaguar's commercial life and after, views seem to of drastically changed.

 

As for them wanting to put quality first, never bought that line myself either.

 

Going off memory, but the 3DO version of Doom was given to Art Data i believe, the same people Atari had signed to convert the dire Rise Of The Robots (Mirage) to the Jaguar?.

I heard Carmack praise the Jaguar in an interview a few years ago.

[Austin]

Going off memory, but the 3DO version of Doom was given to Art Data i believe, the same people Atari had signed to convert the dire Rise Of The Robots (Mirage) to the Jaguar?.

Yep, Art Data was responsible for managing the 3DO Doom conversion.

 

I heard Carmack praise the Jaguar in an interview a few years ago.

I have heard Carmack talk fondly about it as well (he references it in a QuakeCon speech or two). John Romero on the other hand, I recall seeing some statements along the lines of, "Man, we could barely get the game running on the Jaguar," indicating the hardware wasn't up to snuff (I'm not necessarily sure I agree, the port was solid for the time and still holds up decently).

[Lost Dragon]

I'd gone from seeing Carmack do little but sing the praises of the Jaguar Hardware and why I.D were developing on it, rather than the 3DO

...to comments like:

 

"Developing on the Jag started out fun, but pushing the jag hard

started showing up some architectural problems.

 

The system suffers from a critical lack of balance. The central

processor is well over an order of magnitude slower than the risc

chips, but the risc chips are not suited to running the entire program because of their small fixed code memories.

 

There is quite a bit of power there, but you have to go through

contortions to get a lot of it.

 

The worst problem is that the system has some hardware flakyness when

all the processors are banging on the bus at once. This is what

causes the network errors (they aren’t really network errors, they

are game errors that show up by different things happening on the two

systems). In hindsight, I should have just run the net game without

all the processor overlap. It runs a good deal slower, but it

doesn’t get the errors."

 

It sounded as if he'd started to become more frustrated with the architecture.

 

Romero had been quoted in a UK magazine (possibly ST Format off the top of my head), praising the Jaguar hardware, early on to the infamous..No way could the Jaguar run Quake, it could barely handle Doom...quote.

 

I've not seen Carmack talk of the Jaguar in recent years, not seen an interview with him since I.D were hyping up the tech to be used in Rage and why Blu ray was an ideal storage format for Mega Textures, but i am not a PC gamer, so don't follow Carmack to any real degree.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

This was the other Carmack quote i was thinking of from around 2000 maybe?

 

"The Jaguar was definitely significantly hampered by its technical flaws, which kept me from ever being too big of a Jaguar booster. I was proud of my work on Wolf and DOOM (more so than just about any of the other console work Id has been involved in until just recently), but in the end, the better consoles won the war."

 

His enthusiasm for the system just appeared on the wane compared to his earlier comments.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Edit: Nevermind, the post I was going to make here deserves it's own thread.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Jin

[Lost Dragon]

 

(Jaguar) DOOM will run at 160x180. The main reason is speed. With 320x200 res, we could have gotten 20 FPS in some places 15 in most. With

160x180, we get 20 all around. As far as the cache architecture goes, I don't think the res lowering is directly related.

 

(Regarding why no resolution toggle as in the PC version)

 

The reason the PC has it is because the hardware it can be played on varies is speed/processing power. All of the Jaguar boxes are the same. (Isn't developing for consoles great? :-)

 

-Shawn Green

id Software

 

 

- id Software, Written 29-Jun-1994