Gorf

It wopuld not have been needed at all with an 020 as you'd use the j_risc's in assembly from the locals anyway.

Exactly! I've learned one thing about the Jag community. Lots of people like to talk the talk but seem to have two broken legs when it comes to walking the walk. Also, most are fans who are great at back seat driving but put little up to contribute to the cause they so heartily champion. If they wasted even half the amount of time actually looking for someone talented and willing to help us where we really need it, I think we'd probably have these things we need by now....to JagChris's credit, he does indeed talk to others outside the community trying to find someone willing to write a usable compiler for the J-RISC's. I lack render writing skills and have no problem admitting that. If I were capable you'd have seen at least ten finished releases by now. Reminds me of an Alanis Morissette song. Bragging rights and really nothing else. No real logical reason. Hey im the first one to want to push the Jag to it's limits but a game like TR would be the last one I'd pick to try. Remember, the term fan is short for 'fanatic'. Keep in mind these are people who jumped for joy at the release of Frog Feast. fun game but hardly pushing the Jaguar to it's limits. Hey We started out with an old classic (Gorf) but we then wanted to move on to games that game really make use of the power the Jag is capable of. Fans don't consider these things. They are more interested in being able to say their favorite system has another release....even if it's utter crap. Like I said, fanaticism. I'll tell you what...if I had no conscience, I could make a lot of money releasing garbage for the Jaguar. Too bad for me I actually take pride in what I release. Actually in my case, the problem is no one listens when you try to tell them this. Folks like Marvio, (God bless him), would do better to understand that model makers are a dime a dozen and anyone with a decent 3D program can create them...Shit if I can do it, anyone can. What we really need and always needed is a good main RAM GPU code compiler and a very high efficiency polygon renderer. Models are the least of my worries. If I had such tools, as I have said, you'd all be playing some rather fun 3D classic updates. Most of the game logic and AI are there already...However, I don't want them running less than 60 FPS and on the Jaguar I do not believe they need to with the right renderer. Hey fans, it's not like we dont appreciate your enthusiasm but the last thing we need are more things we dont need. Great points Lars. No suprise that you only see such insight coming from another developer.

Don't be sorry. I simply saying that I don't need a 3D model designer. I need a 3D model renderer. That's not a slight on you at all.

And it was absolute garbage. Trust me. You would'nt be writting anything useful with that pile of crap. It could not even handle simple loop algs.

It never sold systems either. two fold: 1) Atari did not need to waste resources producing a RISC compiler...cost saved there.Time saved since the tool chains for an 020 are already far more bug free and advanced. 2) You now have a 3rd processor that in parallel can run off the bus handling all AI and game logic leaving the renderer and sound to the DSP and GPU, removing that burden from them. Win win win.

Yeah I said it.

You must forgive JagChris. He's a bit thick skulled at times. He knows Jagmod is essentially useless anymore yet he somehow still holds hope. Who knows, maybe Jagmod will make me look stupid and actually come up with a renderer before Christ's second comming. Then again....Im not holding my breath and neither should you. Also I am quite capable of doing 3D models on my own so the likely hood of me personnaly needing outside help is unlikely.

It would also make game development faster as no more need to debug GPU assembly. Quick, easy to debug C code could have been written swiftly for the 020, which would run it off the bus 80-85% of the time, only hitting the bus occasionally to grab more code. Then the time for assembly would be spent on the renderer and the music system. All the real involved game mechanics would be a breeze on the 020. Atari could have then spent some time getting the most efficient renderer and sound system into developers hands instead of wasting tons of time fixing RISC tool bugs. Also the system would be at least 150% more efficient allowing quicker ports of PC games. No I would replace the 68k with an 020 as well as fix the bugs. Especially another 64 longs of 32 bit registers for the write backs to eliminate any stalls and a double buffered Blitter reg file to eliminate any waiting on the GPU or GPU waiting on the blitter. Oh the interrupt bugs of the OPL too. A single speed would do nothing for more color in video as the slowness of a 1X would not allow that kind of data to flow at any decnt frame rate. the 2x barely got away with it. But adding music or video play back never sold a system. Most of the PS1 games at launch like Krazy Ivan were rather bland in this respect but it was loaded with a few dozen titles you could play. This would have been the case with an 020 Jaguar, even without a CD. Good games do not need FMV or music play back. I dont see how. We'd have the same slow system with more data capability. You might sell a few more units to the FMV/Music lovers but hardly enough to satisfy the hard core gaming public. The Jag needed more games and the 020 instead of a 68k, even without bug fixes would have cost little in the way of dev tools and programming effectiveness would skyrocket. The Jag was popular at first not because of it's medium, but because of it's promise of games that you could not do on other systems. Even cart based it would have beaten the 3DO out much worse than it already did.

Yeah, but that assumes you've got the necessary time and funding to work out the additional bugs. (using a 68EC020 souldn't have added any development time) Also, i though Doom on the Jaguar still used a good chunk of work on the 68k. (I've heard mixed info on these forums, but Chilly Willy -current 32x homebrewer over at sega-16 and on spritesmind- was commenting on the Jaguar Doom code and said it apeared to have a lot of C coding targeting the 68k, with mostly assembly used for anything RISC) OK, well maybe they could have done a split bus with 1 MB 32-bit bus (2x 512 kBx16-bit DRAMs) plus 512 kB 64-bit (4x 16-bit 128 kB DRAMs), but even then you'd add cost due to the greater amount of board space among other issues, pluis less flexibility of RAM useage, and less total memory available. (the single bus design was one of th ekey features of the Jaguar's design -and low cost emphesis) A cache for the RISCs (even just one) would have been a much more significant feature, but that would have required a lot more invested in development. (and somehting Flare/Atari weren't willing to risk) I think Phaze Zero is much more impressive considering the Jag is a few years older tech. Well, yeah, voxel engines are really cool, particularly if you think they're actually polygon environments at first. (then again, who knows what the N64's RSP might have been capable of with custom microcode tailored to such rendering) Static RAMS are no wait state or cycle losses for the GPU or DSP and those would have been much nicer but a lot more costly. Wait, are you taliking about using SRAM for main? (which is completely unrealisic) It's not unrealistic at all...just expensive. The T&J using statics, even externally run as fast as if they were in the local. I already stated it would have been costly.

As far as Atari Owl's renderer, I think he's worked too hard and too long for anyone to expect him to give it away. I especially find it rather tasteless for those of you offering it to the public. I'm not offering it to the public - so please don't imply that I am. I did not...you did..or at least that is how that statement came across.

It's not like anyone would make use of it anyway. Lets face it..we have tons of sources to Jag games and so far the ONLY thing we have seen is a DOOM hack that wont get released anyway. I for one am completelyin agreement with you. That and as far as I am concerned no one has any right to it just because the fans say so. You've worked way too hard on this project and you should do as you see fit with it. Here, here!( or is that Hear, Hear!)

I think Phaze Zero is much more impressive considering the Jag is a few years older tech.

Nope, there is no such truncation....the truncation happens when the 68k is running. However its not truncation at all. More like one of the Wonder Twins trying to boss around Superman, Wonder Women, Batman and Green Lantern.

Static RAMS are no wait state or cycle losses for the GPU or DSP and those would have been much nicer but a lot more costly.

Im not trying to insult anyone. Im pointing out that you keep diverting away from the original issue. What I would do and why I think it would be necesary. I feel I've been more than logical and it's as if you did not listen. I would say more fustrated than insulting. The trouble with this is even a single speed CD ROM woudl have it's obvious slowdowns to the system. I think the 020 is a much more well rounded solution for the many reasons I stated and I also and quite positive that it would have been much more welcome thatn a CD ROM that does little for anything but fluff added to already piss poor games. The 020 would be a mutli faceted improvement in all the important areas.

I'd love to see the schematic for this system. I'd even like to try and re-fab one with some upgrades.

You seem to fail to understand a whole lot more than one simple point. And we have found out that it does not help and in fact via our tests you are wasting tons of time moving data to and from the locals...wasting cycles to save them. The overall performance of grabbing 64 bits at a time is still going to be better...this based on the tests we've actually run. They could have done this with 2 megs of ram just as easily. I'll stick with the 64 bit width as you are still grabbing 8 bytes at a time even with a cycle hits as opposed to 32 bit's just to save two cycles...think about it.

And your idea that a CD ROM included making the Jaguar cost $400 at launch would have? What you are saying is selling the same exact system with a larger medium at a higher price would make the developers do any better? Come now. Because you don't know what you are talking about. That is why you dont agree. If you actually knew the first thing about what I said over and over, it should make perfect sense. Have 3 processors doing the work off the bus most of thetime in parallel is definitely going to be better than a 68k choking the bus most of the time while the real workhorses in the system have to beg for bus time. The dev time is reduced greatly since most of the game(logic and AI) can now be written in C for the 020 and not in hard work and time consuming assembler. No you have ignored them time and time again. I would not have to go on and on about 3 processors if you had even the simplest clue of what you are talking about. You fail to see the logic, not that the logic is not sound. a CD would only add larger games that ran at horible frame rates. Look at all the CD game that were relased even with a 2x drive....none of these did anything to blow away anyone. History says you are wrong as well as your lack of hardware performance on the CD games that did get released with the add-on. I dont fail to see your point at all, I'm simply stating you are wrong. For the billionth time, no host would add a larger burden on the two RISC's as compared to an 020 running off the bus doing all the game logic and AI while theOPL/Blitter, GPU/DSP(now running at twice the bits to the bus and less half the cycles) could have the bus to itself MOST OF THE TIME as opposed to less than half the time beggin the 68k for bus face time. A completely logic understanding that you can't get your head around. And the games would not have been one bit more spectacular as the games would have suffered from dev time, frame rate and an absolutely horrible tool kit on a console that now cost $50-100 dollars more, so you fail in cost and in performance improvement. Your wrong. An 020 automatically corrects the speed issue, which in turn corrects the dev time issue as the C compiler for the 020 would be able to handle the game logic and AI and take the burden of writing all this on two risc's with only an assembler to work with. How this is not logical to you is beyond me. Because it did nothing to enhance the system outside of larger data content. If you had an 020 even without the CD it would have done much more for the system...read on and I will once again try to hammer home very logical reasons as to why you are wrong. Larger game s that suck dont sell systems either. Your cluless...mine would have been $300 tops and $50-$100 less than yours and once again... Mine would be.... TWICE the clock TWICE the bit width able to run OFF THE BUS IN PARALLEL MOST OF THE TIME. (CD cant help here) A DSP that now take half the access cycles to the main bus and at TWICE THE BIT WIDTH (Cd cant help this either) An OPL and Blitter that had MOST OF THE FACE TIME to the main bus. (Cd can't help here either.) No need to try to flip modules in and out of the RISC locals doing AI and rendering on two riscs. (CD cant help this either) And MUCH LESS DEV TIME because all the game logic and AI can now be reasonably done on the much more bus efficient, bit efficient 020. also allowing the OPL and the Blitter MOST of the bus time. (CD cant help here either) The best argument you have is more room for data....this at best offers content and you are still plagued with everything else the Jaguar was initially as even the CD add-on did not help one bit. Name one CD game that showed the advantages of a CD by adding more power and faster dev time to the system...it does not exsist. HoverStrike CD and BattleMorph took forever to be released because the Cd rom did NOTHING to speed up development time. Why? Because to get that small amount of extra performance, they had to move some of the code over to the GPU in assembly, where as with and 020 that could have all been done much more efficiently in C with much less time and much less cost choking the system with local ram loads. They still needed to rely heavily on a bus choking 68k to get the games out the door. Your CD at launch would have done NOTHING to help anything other than extra content. In other words more content that sucked. It adds $50-100 dollars to the cost of the system and does not help any of the other areas an 020 CLEARY would at $50-100 dollars less. Sorry...you lose.

First of all Jerry would be able to grab twice the bits at once. The GPU would handle all the geometry and rendering since it would not need to be tied down to AI and game logic. In the Day of Jag, the multimedia features meant little to consumers. When working part time at radio shack I learned that most people were not interested in that for a gaming console. Most people were interested in the game play and content. Quantity does not necessarily = quality. Though some people liked multimedia, they wer happy with that on their computers but the true gamer was fine with the gameplay and good titles. The PS1 was able to grab textures from its main ram well enough where the texture cache did not really matter so much. This was not the case with the N64. The draw distances in RS still sucked in comparison and though RS was a much better game than most, most developers did not have the re-written micro code and Nintendo did not allow for it either.

I still think a great idea would be someone who has experience with making renderers(maybe someone like CrazyAce) and others willing to learn(perhaps SubQMod) putting their heads together and working on a renderer for the community where everyone willing could perhaps have some input in. I think only in cooperation can you achieve the best possible speeds, such as Gorfs and yours eventual cooperation towards refining the main ram techniques. Just a thought. Main code took me two days to figure out. Quite a huge difference from that and writing a usable renderer. SubQMod from what I understand has much more pressing matters to attend to , much more important to anything Jaguar related.

As far as Atari Owl's renderer, I think he's worked too hard and too long for anyone to expect him to give it away. I especially find it rather tasteless for those of you offering it to the public.

Yeah right..i've been waiting over 11 years now for him to get me a renderer. At this point you'd have better luck getting Scatologic to cough up theirs.

Yeah it would run half the bit rate per read/write...that's brilliant. Lets waste 32 bits just to save two cycles every page brake. OY! or save 6 cycles per pixel - thats over 2x faster for general texture mapping. It was only an observation though - I just found it funny that reducing the bus width might actually make some things go faster... No because the page breaks do not happen every read but every page boundary. The only thing that slows down the DRAM is the refresh on pages and they do not occur every read and write. Grabing 64 bits a a time with a few cycles lost for page beaks every so often is still much more efficient than a 32 bit wide bus.

whatever...you get the point and there were 64k single chips, then and static ones that would have been even faster. 64k would have been plenty as the blitter would have been able to pop more code in and out of that private area faster than you can say 020. The static 64k chips were not at all expensive either. The disruption would have been very minimal and unnoticable. With the hardware as is, the private ram at even 2k would have shown a grave improvement in bus performance. The N64 was fine with a cart...it was the lame hardware with it's tiny texture cache that was even more of a major offense. The Jag Dou would not have had to come out faster with an 020 and an add on CD and the games would have been fine on cart. The system would have been much more efficient regardless of the title games released which is as far from the point that Crazy Ace can't seem to get.

Im willing to bet Atari would have loved N64's massive flop compared to theirs. Read your above statement and then tell me who the deluded one is again? No you are right, I dont think, I know it would have. It would have at very least allowed even more games out the door MUCH closer to the release date of the Jag. And I repeat, you are constantly missing the obvious and are rather weak on the understanding of hardware if you can't get it through your thick skull that 3 processors running IN PARALLEL OFF THE BUSallowing the OPL and the Blitter at least 85 percent face time on the bus instead of less than half the time using a 68k in the loop. You keep repeating weak games that would not have even been the release titles had an 020 been the main processor. I've stated perfectly logical and sensible reason as to why all too many times. You are just wrong and are diverting the subject in a desperate move to sound like you have even the smallest beginings of a clue. The title games are not even remotely the issue here. The ability to write better games in much shorter time would have averted the sad first four releases. Cybermorph would have greatly benefitted from an 020 in frame rate alone, never mind better shaper AI. As far as release games being better, a Cd would have offered nothing other than a few more levels at best. It would do NOTHING for the machines performance and the constant need to read the CD would only further slow things down.