philipj

That's some good stuff guy... Congrats on your game; very inspiring... Keep it up.

Don't want to throw this off topic, but I was thinking about the SNES a few days ago and how people considered the "Mode 7" effect to be a game changer when the "Atari Lynx" had a blitter to do all of it's effects. I think if Nintendo had taken a page out of the Atari Lynx book and included some kind of math co-processor with the graphics chip they already had, it would've been changed the game even more even if it was some old cheap 4-bit bit-slicer running really fast, that would've been some extra resource on the table and you know Nintendo would've used it to the fullest. Just imagine what "Mario Kart" would've looked like; they would've had the advantage of the masses to see on such a large scale the SNES probably would've lasted longer than it did because it would've had enough chops to survive maybe another year or two when the next gen stuff like the PS1 came out. They already had the Mode 7 for Affine Transformation of graphics; a co-processor would've made a world of difference in such an environment, someone would've used for real 3D in some way instead of the pseudo stuff. At least Atari had the balls to release to release the Jag even though prematurely.

That much is clear, but look at how the ground is being rendered... I looks almost like a mode-7 kind of effect; it reminds me of Atari Kart or Val d'Isere Skiiing and Snowboarding where the game has hills and slopes with some 3D element to it with the low polygon buildings in the mix. The game looks great like the old "Buggy Boy" arcade game. https://youtu.be/awsYwI3cpxA?t=321 https://youtu.be/zIDbYcgoHNw?t=94

Don't know...? The texture maps looks pretty corrected to me... It almost look "Mode 7" like with the only real 3D are the low poly buildings. Reminds me of Atari Karts and Super Burnout with some real 3D elements in the mix. Roadrash for the 3DO had something like this going on for its game engine only they had real looking landscapes to form hills and valleys and such. This DOS game comes pretty darn close to doing that.

Hey VR-Vlad if you're still around, here's a DOS jewel I ran into yesterday... Something like this looks very feasible for the Jaguar thus this seems right up your alley.

I know this topic is a bit aged, but still very cool... Don't forget the "Casio CZ Synthesizer" which also used the "NEC D7811g" processor to manage 8 voices via "Phase Distortion".

I do have one question... Will there be any technical documentation, schematics, programmers references and things of that nature for the XM?

I almost counted the XM as a lost where as I sold all my 7800 stuff a couple of years ago... But I'm finally glad its coming out; I just have a get game console off ebay and strike the collection back up again. Also I've been meaning to Dev on the 7800 for some time now thus the XM is a nice incentive for me to get back on board with that sort of thing especially with the added memory and two sound processors. Don't exactly know how far I get with it, but if I good a strong foot hold on this programming thing, I'll take things to the moon God willing.

I've had my email since the late 90s... In fact it's the very first email I signed up to. Still using it after all of these years.

Quote from John Carmack:

Wasn't a custom C compiler used to program Doom for the Jag...? Every one and their mother was looking for the compiler at one time before they gave up.

Wow...! I nearly missed this. Just submitted mine in. Can't wait to get the module; I might order a second one.

Here's a little fact nugget about the music I did for "Jamind Bomb Squad"... The inspiration for the song came from a couple of sources; originally I only knew the game to be "Jagmind" in the beginning. When Is started working on the song, at the time I had just obtained an Intellivision with the game "Bomb Squad" that I was playing a lot back in those days. I didn't know what the game would play like so if I recall Starcats had brokedown the game play to me in description as a puzzle game so my first thought would be to create something of mystery and atmospheric while the player figure the puzzle out. A song that came to mind was one off of "Samurai Showdown" for the SNES, which was Nakoruru theme song; so I would play the SNES song in the background while playing a game of "Bomb Squad" on my Intellivision to help drum up some inspiration "Jagmind" and that's how I wind up making two songs for the game. Also that's how "Jagmind" had the name "Bomb Squad" added where as before, it was only known as simply "Jagmind". Lars changed up the game a little and added new stuff to what he had already made as well as the Bomb Squad name at the end. One more thing I want to mention... I remember a person posting sometime ago about me not making more songs for the "Jagmind" video game...? Well there's a very good reason for that. I'd previous made a crap load of songs for the game "Jagworm" and the songs were set and already made with the game still being worked on until the infamous "Hard Drive Crash" were the original source code or game got lost. When I did the music for Jagmind, I remember asking Lars if he wanted more songs, but he didn't seem to want to take the chance again of me making a lot of songs and him loosing his work again, which was completely understandable at that time. But for those who might remember those days, yea I did want to do more songs, but it just never worked out that way.

I like that "real-time Mandelbrot" demo Atari had with their development software where they used both the GPU and the DSP to render fractal mandelbrot in real-time... That seem pretty promising especially when it was demonstrated on "Battlesphere" in one of the menus. I think the way those fractal mountains done on the 8-bit platform was very simplistic considering how fast the 6502 was able to pull off the pseudo 3D effect on the Atari-8. I think fractals has become a bit of a lost art in the gaming world today, but I think that's on account that back in the old days, computers just couldn't handle the number crunching it took to do what most people wanted fractals to do and in the case of "Rescue on Fractalus" that was some level of fast/cheap reasonable pseudo 3D visuals on an 8-bit system, which was very ambitious for its time being the original "Behind Jaggi Lines" using a scheme designed for "anti-aliasing".

Just wanted to wish everyone a "Merry Christmas" and a "Happy New Year"... Included with this post is a "Jaytrax" file that has 2 "sub songs" on it; these songs help to inspire the work I did for "Jagworm"... In fact you can almost here similarities between the musical styles thus it became the frame work for what I would eventually do with the "Jagworm" music. To access the songs, just click the "Sub Song" drop-down-box located on the top right of the menu upon opening the file, select the desired song, then click the "Play button" at the bottom..." Remember you can use the "Spacebar" to make the song completely stop without lingering instruments playing versus using the "Stop button". Just a little tid bid I thought I would add for the record. Anyways I hope everyone enjoy the music; I think the style of the music is very appropriate for the holiday season. Once again have a merry Christmas and happy new year. Hope (Philip Wood (C) 2018).zip

I'm going to see if I can get a set this holiday... I just purchased me a Truck so I might can get them depending on how the money will look this holiday.

Well clearly the home console isn't JAMMA, but thanks for shedding some light on that... It's been years since I looked at anything JAMMA other than Wikipedia specs and emulation sites. The point I was making was trying to find a balance concerning graphics and animation on a limited file size versus what the Neo Geo cartridge was handling; I'm not even talking about emulation any more at this point for the sake of clarity, but just graphics, animation, and file size... Something that Duranik dealt with when they used the DSP to decompress the images; it reminded me of the JagPEG format I read about in the Jag documents that used CRY via the GPU; I use to think Duranik was using that particular format for there graphics to cram in a cartridge.

One of the things I admired about the Jag was its ability to do high resolution, but I see why a lot of developers never really shot for the 600x400 res style graphics in the beginning... Just looking at Neo Geo specs on Wikipedia and other emulation sites in the past (and I haven't forgotten the links provided on this topic, thanks btw), I think it's pretty impressive what Duranik was able to do with the animation. I guess in my search for a comparison between the two hardware the Neo Geo and the Jaguar was an attempt to find a balance for graphics and animation in a way that helps to free up some of the Jag hardware responsibilities. I remember reading about how Duranik used the DSP to decompress those graphic files and how there wasn't enough cartridge space to finish the game. Just look at the animation YouTube... That's was the game they intended, but never saw the light of day, but the fact that they got that close meant that you do a modest level of good stuff on the Jaguar. I've always known that the Arcade Jamma standard the Neo Geo sported on its hardware using high bandwidth was a big factor, I just didn't know to what degree, but just look at the size of the Neo Geo cartridge versus the Jag cartridge with two output slots at the bottom instead of the typical small mass market game console off-the-shelf cartridge with fewer pins than the Neo Geo.

Very nostalgic reading that about "Duranik"... It was the buzz around that game that got me into the Jag scene in the beginning. I'd mark the Jaguar as another faded game console like the 3DO, which is also a good console in it's own right, until I ran into "Atari HQ" and saw images of the game in development. That's when I knew I wanted to make games for the Jaguar; been stuck with the idea ever since not really knowing what all that involved. Great memories man... Good old college days.

Thanks man... That was a while back I did all of that, but I've been a fan of the 7800 for awhile. Never did get into the programming aspect of things, but maybe one day I'll get a chance to do something for the old system. Good luck with your project dude.

Hi... R_Leo_1 First off, congrats on your artwork... I think it would be very cool to see your stuff on real 7800 hardware; I think it would be a breath a fresh air from the retro style I'm use to seeing. 21 years ago at about age 20 I was an MS paint user... Before then I started out using "Mario Paint" for the SNES in my teen years until I got my hands on an old IBM 386 that had "Windows 3.1" installed on it when I was 19. I found that "MS Paintbrush" tool set wasn't as good as the ones on Mario Paint, but I didn't let that stop me... I was determined to make the best of out of what I had at the time. There was only 28 colors to work with versus Mario Paint, which had more colors so it was tricky at first. Over time I found that MS paintbrush had a blending tool where you can blend different colors together, but the trick was that art piece had to be at a decent resolution. Up close you can clearly see the blending, almost dithering effect, but looking afar, the blended colors looked like one color, very similar to how a dot-matrix printer blend various shades of three or four colors on a white sheet of paper in various hues and shades, but looking at it afar it looks like one single color. MS Paint wasn't the best program in the world, but you can pull off some very decent art works so just keep doing what you're doing. Don't let the nay-sayers discourage you.

Who's Carmel Andrews...? I was trying to just blend in and be a regular, that's all.

Awe man sorry to hear that man... Chronic back pain is no joke. Popping them pain pills is serious business especially with the "Ibuprofin"... That stuff can cause "Cirrhosis of the Liver" over a long stretch of time if you take it daily; I only take it if I really need it and some days I just put up with the pain to keep from taking so much of it. A lot of times it could just be stiffness of the muscles where you have to work with the pain until the stiffness goes away... And "Iceyhot and Blue-Emu" always good for pain relief. I don't want to throw the topic off course, but keep fighting man for a better quality of life and try not and wind up bed ridden at an old age because back stress.

Oh man I'm sorry hear about that... Before I had took up CAD I worked at "Home Quarters" before the franchise closed doing all kind of manual labor lifting 40, 60, and 80 pounds of concrete and all sorts of lumber and every other thing you can imagine having to were back braces and what-have-you. I committed to getting an office job in CAD and that's exactly what I did before my back would give in; My doctor warned me and I listened and I'm glad I did. Today I have chronic back pains, but I think it would've been a lot worse if I hadn't followed through. It's manageable today, but I hope things work out for you man.

Actually I am learning to program on the PC first using QB64 just to get a basic understanding on programming in general before I get off into tackling the Jaguar... I certainly don't won't the thread to spiral out of control, but it's every post, I get some measure heckling from someone and although Zerosquare has given me sound advise, it was not without some measure of attitude behind it... If some one did him the same way, he would probably do what he's doing now by browbeating the members here. But I do agree with him games never being released for the Jag by dreamers and that has been the problem and you can since my doubling down tone, that's because the thread looks like it's getting a little heated, which is not what I want here. And Clint Thomas I hear you man and I do listen to the experts here and in the past... I wouldn't know what I know except they gave me understanding about so to say that I'm not listening just isn't true Zero would have people believe. It does feel like censorship in some ways because my opinions and expressions here is not without a smart remark or some level of "Nope... You can't do that either" in that type of affect and it gets sometimes hostile as if they don't want me, which I know may or may not be true; I just approach it as lightly as I can, but I had to vent that time. I don't won't the thread to get that "wink-and-nod" again about locking it up... It's a very decent thread and I think it deserves to stay open, but I also think the game enthusiast voice doesn't always sync with the reality of the hardware so I hear you Clint. I got to avoid that wink and nod though... lol