philipj

November 21, 2019

Now that the AMY chip has been found, is there any chance of putting the old sound chip to the test...? You might can use the sound card as inspiration for a cartridge release for the Atari 8bit computers or better yet, the Atari ST.

November 19, 2019

I pumped quite a few quarters in "Alien Syndrome" arcade version back in the late 80s... Great memories with that one.

November 12, 2019

It was based of work done by "Bell Laboratories" so not too surprising... But still very exciting stuff. The Casio keyboards in the mid to late 80s used PCM and Phase Distortion technology for their CZ synthesizer and shelf keyboards, but the AMY seems like it was way ahead of its time. Someone would've figured out how to put an attack and decay the speech synthesis over time before Casio came out with their stuff. I contemplated a CZ emulator on a fast 8bit micro-controller, but the "AMY" is probably well suited for wave sound manipulation via speech synthesis. It's too bad Atari used the chip for anything; I know it wind up in the hands of another company who got it working where Atari sued them and scared the daylights out them. I hope the chip manifest like the "Pokey One" chip did; I'd love to take a stab at it with a sequencer... Maybe make a 5200 game and stick the sound chip on a cartridge perhaps. Or better yet put it on an Atari ST cartridge for Cubase sequencer.

November 8, 2019

To me I think "Defender 2000" sets a better example of what "Trevor McFur" could've been only with the CGI style they were using with some nice parallax effects and psuedo 3D here and there with better music. The box art on Trevor was phenomenal if you didn't know the game play; even though it's got the CGI, the game itself feels flat with no substantial presentation to really make that game pop like it should've. I think Defender 2000 sets a good example of what could've been for Trevor to help drive the story with better sound and music, but I think Atari was to blame for the game winding up the way it did.

November 3, 2019

2 hours ago, Zerosquare said:

What would you learn from Checkered Flag in the first place? It's a mediocre game in every way: sluggish 3D, unimpressive graphics, dull music, poor controls. You'd have to scratch almost everything to turn it into a good game.

Heck, you'd learn much more by reading the source for a good Atari ST 3D game.

I'm already on top of it thanks to my HP printer... I'm hoping to learn 3D programming in Assembly with the Motorola 68000. Still it would be a great to revisit the old source code again to study how they got it all going on the Jaguar. CF seems to cover a broader range 3D realestate visually even more so than Cybermorph. It's the only game that manages to do so other than DOOM and that's not really real 3D in the traditional sense, but pulls off fake 3D quite nicely. It's clear they (Rebellion) had to pull a few tricks to fit so much 3D into their game; it seems very modular the way the 3D is being rendered where the game is using copies of the same 3D model in certain place while other places, it using low poly buildings and such once the car gets to a certain points... The affect makes for a very convincing huge 3D world despite the sluggish frame rate. Even I couldn't really do anything with the source code, there's still a lot of knowledge that can be gained; might can come up with something better.

November 2, 2019

9 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

According to ex Beyond sources I was put in contact with,early 3D models was as far as Jag Battlewheels progressed.

But others in the community have suggested it got further.

Battlewheels was nearly a selling point for me... I remember seeing the box art in game magazines back in the day, but I'd already had a Sega CD and an SNES console. Had I not gotten those, I certainly would've put my money on the Jaguar just to peep out Battlewheels.

6 hours ago, Zerosquare said:

It still wouldn't be a fun game.

Why do you say that? The goal is to learn from the source code and come up with something better... Where there's a will, there's a way.

November 1, 2019

The game looks great and is very promising for what can be done on the Jag... Very 16bit like, but very workable from an artistic standpoint using those blocky sprites. I learned a few things about using 4x4 pixel blocks to create a dithering affect when I was using MS Paint for Win 3.1 with only 16 colors back in 96 (never forgot those lessons)... I plan on taking those lessons to the next level next go round artistically; much cleaner art pieces for sprites. It reminds me of the multi-color feature on the "Texas Instrument TI-99/4A" computer where sprites can only use a few colors 8x8 at a time (something to that effect), but is great for fast graphics even though the image is very dithered like with artifacts all things considering? Well I learned how to simulate other color shades with only 4 different colors using a 4x4 paintbrush. Once I get the programming thing down, I'm definitely making something to take advantage of low color depth image for high speed display; i'll need it when I get into the 3D stuff (down the road of course).

BTW sorry for the long paragraph, but my mind is always brainstorming ideas when I see anything pertaining to graphics for these retro consoles especially the Jaguar.

November 1, 2019

I remember "Battlewheels" being advertised for the Jaguar... What if you made the vehicles in CF apocalyptic and reduce some of the 3D models in the levels...? I'd like to see something like that on the Jag using CF engine. Just throwing ideas out there for the duration; I'm doing it a little old-school here, it's probably more YouTube stuff than I need to be posting; I draw inspiration from other great ideas. I can't really tell how many ideas come to mind when I first got my hands on the source code sometime back. I hadn't look codes until recently... Lots of 3D coordinates for object in Assembly, the rest is stuff I hope to pick up along the way at some point.

October 29, 2019

The Jag was originally suppose to compete with the 3DO as well as the 16bit consoles (Genesis & SNES)... I don't think there's too much of a comparison considering the GPU, the Blitter, and Object Processor although I do have to admit the Amiga did have better graphics and sound than the Atari ST 520. The "Hold And Modify or HAM" is something unique to the Amiga machines only, which uniquely set those machines apart from others in a good way (RIP Jay Miner). I guess in a way the Jag kind-of has it's own version of HAM on it and it's basically the GPU not able to make jumps to main memory without a work-around. lol

All jokes aside, it's kind of interesting how I ran into the phrase "Hold And Modify"... Back in the late mid 90s I had a program called "Impulse Imagine 3D" for MS-DOS which was a wire-frame modeler and raytracer; it came as a 2 diskette set with a book called "3D Modelling Lab by Phillip Shaddock". It had a rendering feature that supported images being rendered as Bit Map, TIFF, TGA, using a Native or "HAM" to render the image, which was something I'd never heard of until I looked it up and found out what it was. If the Jaguar supports HAM, I think it can fairly be compared to an Amiga... The Jag architecturally is an animal unto itself.

October 27, 2019

Gremlin... Isn't that the company who made that DOS game "Whiplash"...? The moves Atari was making back then; you know some decisions you can kind of see the logic and justifications, but Atari must have really been desperate the decisions they were making. All in all Checkered Flag really is a good first effort game for a start up company, unfortunately people don't see regard first efforts, they look at the end results, but Rebellion did make AVP which was a system seller so it's pretty evident that their vision was pretty broad at that time. Still I was very happy when CF source code first got released some years back so I certainly understand anyone who'd want to take a good look at it; it's just a lot to it I didn't understand at first, but man talk about a game that has a large 3D world to it that's almost comparable to Virtual Racing... If only CF ran as smooth as it does on an emulator.

October 26, 2019

7 hours ago, Sporadic said:

I'm pretty sure I tried removing the AI as one of my tests. It still ran like crap.

The source code does seem like a bit of cluster screw when going through it... I'm still thinking the Motorola has something to do the the slow down, although I can't really prove it. A real shame in a way... Sega was able to port Virtua Racing to the Genesis and get a very decent frame rate, but Rebellion couldn't get their game to do the same. Still it's good to have the source code available to take a good look at.

October 26, 2019

There's this book I ran into around the late 90s called "Virtual Reality Madness by SAMS publishing" that came out right around the time "Checkered Flag" came out and it's basically a book that highlights the VR technology of the times around 93 or 94. I found the book in a bargain bin around 97 or 98, but it was my introduction into the world of Virtual Reality. It came with a couple of CDs with shareware programs that required DOS or Win 3.1 and it featured some pretty amazing stuff or so I thought at the time; it also had a wire-frame modeler for DOS called "Impulse Imagine 3D", which I later found out was originally an Amiga software ported over. Looking at all of that polygonal stuff on Checkered Flag sort of reminds of the programs they used in the book and I sometimes wonder what kind of 3D program they used to model the 3D objects for the the game.

As choppy as the game is, I actually like the open world feel of the game... It's my understanding the only reason the game ran slow was because of the 68K Motorola controlling the AI caused the slowdown. The game play was a bit stiff with the controls, but it does show off some of what the Jag is capable of especially considering the tools "Rebellion" had to work with. Still I would love to learn what made that game tick and perhaps make something better.

October 24, 2019

Ok... Here's a YouTube I just finish watching that seems very appropriate for this topic. It's a great documentary on the game company "RARE" and the two games that they're best known for "Donkey Country & Killer Instinct". Not that I'm implying I want to see these two games on the Jaguar (Although the Jag is very well capable), it's a great viewing for learning and brainstorming ideas whatever game concepts that might still be floating around out there in the wild not really seeing the light of day so to speak. It's a great view of how the games were made from scratch for the arcades and the consoles.

October 23, 2019

5 hours ago, agradeneu said:

Use the hardware to its strength - that is the secret of good games you are mentioned. You can think/complain of missing hardware feats the whole day - ANY hardware has shortcomings and missing some cool feats a coder or artist would like to have. Regarding the Jag: you can do a LOT of things which are absoletely impossible to do on the SNES or Genesis. The Jag can do better 2D games than both 32X and 3DO and it actually DID - Ubi chose Jaguar as the leading platform for Rayman for some reason - not other game had that level of color, art quality and fluid animation before, not even NEOGEO.

The SNES had to use extra chips on a cartridge to even remotely come close to what Rayman pulled off on the Jaguar... Street Fighter Alpha 2 is a good example of coming close to doing what Rayman did on the Jag and it's still not as colorful or as detailed. I think as far as "Metal Slug" style animation, using low resolution like the SNES or a slightly higher res like the kind used on the Neo Geo, it's possible to get good animation if the sprites are reasonably small, but considerably a good size for visual impact. I think Street Fighter Alpha sets a good example for a good resolution to use for the Jaguar where you can put a lot of good animation in sprites without it breaking the cartridge size. I think Primal Rage for the Jaguar did a good job with sprites, but the background image seemed large and a little out of proportion compared the sprites; it seemed rushed.

October 22, 2019

11 hours ago, KevinMos3 said:

Looks like I'm a little late to the party, but here's a video I took of the game at PRGE.

I know when you started posting still images of the your work it looked pretty promising, this video looks freaking great... I had no idea it would look that good. Congrats VRVlad...! All of your hard-work looks like it's paying off.

October 18, 2019

Pretty good stuff...

September 15, 2019

On 9/7/2019 at 4:07 AM, agradeneu said:

This is all highly theortetical. However I can say, from some humble expierience, that only 512Kbyte of system RAM would command some significant limits on the looks and quality of 2D bitmap graphics. The Jaguar is just fine handling Rayman graphics at 60 FPS without much sweat.;-)

Well you're right about that... Rayman made good use of the blitter for those graphics to really pop on the Jag; even better than the Playstation 1.

September 7, 2019

15 hours ago, agradeneu said:

I think you re confusing System RAM with on chip CACHE, the two SH 2 have just 4Kbyte cache, 2Kbyte per chip, VDP has 1Kbyte. So overall its just 5Kbyte on chip RAM alltogether for the 32X. The Jaguar has 4+8Kbyte. Do the math! lol

Not really... I didn't mention cache ram at all. I was referring exclusively to system ram where the 32X has 256KB of ram per SH2 processor versus the Jaguar only having 2MB of non dedicated system ram. Of course I know about the JRISC internal memory, but with the GPU not able to do jumps like it should, the 32X has a profound advantage over the Atari Jaguar in this regard even though the Jag has 2MB of main ram.

15 hours ago, agradeneu said:

"A lot has been written about problems with the low GPU RAM, but you could do amazing things with it. The architecture accommodate developers who knew what they were doing and could correctly analyze how to use hardware ressources." Marc Rosocha, foreword in Return of the borders, p.8 (amazing book by the way)

Still it would've been an advantage if the Jags graphics and sound chip had some external memory dedicated exclusively each processor to help it stay off of the bus when needed if you want to do a comparison between the Jag and the 32X... This is where the 32X has the advantage as a game system.

Quote

First time seeing the 32X game Kolibri at a local game store over the weekend and was kind of wowed by the box screenshots as well as the asking price of $97. Found a video and while still nice looking, noticed that it's not nearly as sharp as it appeared to be on the box. But the 32X doesn't seem like better hardware, especially considering the cramped RAM and limited color output. They didn't make the window of 32X Doom small just because. Sure, it had music but it has now been proven the Jaguar was certainly capable of offering so much more in that regard, full-screen even.

With that said, the chances are zero. Call me an optimist.

I remember back in 95 or 96 toward the end of the 32X shelf life, Toys R Us were selling on the cheap much like the Jaguar... Of course I got in on it and purchased "Virtua Fighter" then later "Virtua Racer" and "Star Wars" the more flagship games. Later I would go back to get "WWF Wrestlemania Arcade" and was looking for "Zaxon Motherbase" but they were sold out. I also remember seeing the rare "Amazing Spiderman Web of Fire", but the bargain bin was emptying fast with people buying them on the cheap. Around that time KB Toys were selling the Jaguar games on the cheap, which I wish I'd taken advantage of at the time. It was right around the time the Playstation 1 was all of the rage. By 97 I still had my SNES, Sega Genesis-CD-32X, and managed to find a 3DO at a local pawnshop with "Crash-N-Burn". A year later I finally yield on the PS1 bandwagon and found a good used one at a pawnshop with the game "Battle Arena Toshinden" and was floored with how well the graphics looked even though the game-play was a bit clunky. Not quite sure why I went down that memory lane, but those were great memories. lol ?

Also you're right about Doom... That game is a hardware truth machine pre-Playstation 1 era. They had to use the FX chip just to getting working on the SNES and it still didn't do as well as the 32X. The Jaguar reign supreme when it comes to Doom.

September 6, 2019

On 9/5/2019 at 2:41 AM, VladR said:

Those games you mentioned - You can't just "port" those even if you had full source code. It' a different architecture. Yes, it has two RISCs (SH-2), similar to jag.

But, unlike jag, it also has a VDP chip that can render textured/shaded polygons. Which is something that on jaguar occupies at least 1 of RISCs fully (GPU has to hold Blitter's hand by each scanline completely destroying framerate compared to 32X).

Also, the RISC architecture is different, it's more pipelined, has more mult/div units, different instruction set, etc.

On top of that, the system bandwidth is handled in a smart (read: not cheap as Atari) way.

So, even if you rewrote the 3D engine for jag from scratch, using the same 3D assets would overload jag completely. Best-case scenario - you'd get 33-40% framerate of 32x. That's assuming god-level coding RISC skills (not somebody who putzes around 68000 kiddie pool).

The only reason why 32x games "look jaguar" is that it had such a short lifespan that its performance was barely scratched on the surface. Otherwise the 32X destroys jaguar in every single technical aspect.

I recommend reading https://segaretro.org/Sega_32X/Technical_specifications

The 32X graphic chip has better access main ram than the Jaguar and will work at full speed without any work around's to slow it down unlike the Jaguar... However the 32X doesn't have a 64bit blitter or a 32bit object processor thus the only reason the Jaguar can't do as well is because the GPU inability to make jumps to main ram without the work around. I think if the Jaguar had a better architecture it would total demolish the 32X, but neither one of those systems never really saw it's fullest potential during their commercial shelf life. Another thing to consider is system ram; the Jag has more ram than the 32X yet the bus is not as bottleneck as the Jaguar. It all really just depends on the programmer, but I'm just speculating based on what I know from what I've read. Still I agree with you on some level; I think the 32X has a better advantage as far dual SH2 processors having it's own access to 256KB of ram per chip... I wish the Jaguar GPU and DSP had it's own portion of dedicated memory in addition to the 2MB of main ram.

September 6, 2019

I manage to get my hands on a model 1 "Sega CD and 32X" unit last year... Great little systems; personally I'd like to see something that takes advantage of the 32X using the Sega CD and Genesis. It has two perfectly good 68000 cpu's with 2 sound sources; a potential third sound source if a game is using the SH2 on the 32X, but why use that when the Genesis has a good synth chip and the CD unit can hand PCM. This is really for another kind of topic, but my favorite game was "Silpheed and Soulstar" mainly because they both made good use of the Motorola 68000; Silpheed used both sound chips on the Geny and the CD unit. As far as porting 32X games to the Jaguar, I guess it would be Ok to do, but I'd rather see something new pushes the Jaguar outside the confines of a cool tech short demo scene... All of the cool gimmicky graphical stuff you see in the demo scene, put it in a game like that company "Zyrinx" did with "The New Adventures of Batman & Robin".

September 4, 2019

When I ran into this YouTube video, for some reason I thought about this old forgotten topic. It's not really XM related, but just a very interesting video about the very rare "Yamaha DX-1" synthesizer. It's got a great little part on how the DX sound works giving some simple explanations that's easy to understand. Of course the YM2151 chip will never sound nearly as good as the full on DX-1 keyboard, but 9 out of 10 there's probably more than a couple of those chips inside the synthesizer.

September 1, 2019

8 minutes ago, Greg2600 said:

I never understood the fixation on graphics and/or sound alone, as if that makes a game successful or not. My favorite N64 racing game was Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA, and the graphics were terrible!

I agree... One of my favorite games for the "Playstation 1" was "VS. by THQ". This game has some of the worst graphics I've seen on the system, however it's got one of the most unique fighting engine I've ever played. Compare it with "Fight For Life" for the Jaguar and I think a better fighting engine could've been implemented for FFL. I remember playing VS and wishing they'd put more work into the game, the fighting engine is very engaging once you get over the learning curb.

September 1, 2019

7 hours ago, VladR said:

The only way you will prove the theories is by implementing them.

And you can't really do that using some high level language that produces a horrendous ASM code. Let alone if the produced code is for 68000.

You need to get down to the metal - Risc ASM - and as rewarding as it is, it's a tedious and painful process.

Well that's why I'm starting off simple with QB64 so I can wrap my head around programming in general... It makes for a great prototyping tool, it's compatible with Windows, Apple, and Android thus becoming a gateway for some indie stuff, and whatever I make with it I can port down to the Jaguar; I'll get to the Motorola 68000 eventually. Although I mentioned QB64 earlier, I also have a copy of "GFA-BASIC" for Windows and an "Atari ST 520" to sort of help me alone (also to control some old synthesizers I own); would be great for experimenting with some things in the 3D department, but before I get to that, I will have already done so in QB64. It's basically a process of gaining understanding, I am more of an artist after all than I am a programmer although I did do some HTML once.

Here's a link of some books I ran into on programming 3D on the Motorola... I know the information is old, but still some good today for what I need.

Real Time 3D GFX for Atari ST

Amiga 3D Graphic Programming in (GFA) BASIC

4 minutes ago, Clint Thompson said:

The ability to do something in assembly doesn't translate to something great or anything at all in most cases since it apparently takes a decade of learning just to implement and another decade to produce anything worthwhile from it. Most people don't have the spare time or willingness to dive that deeply just to try and get theoretical results from a 25-year old console but more power to you or anyone else that does I guess. I've only been around 25-years, what's another 25. (I mean, I'll be dead before then but you know, whatever lol)

@philipj - Ideas mean nothing if not acted upon and you can't prove anything if you don't act. You're the only one stopping you from creating something cool at this point. Even if it sucks at least you tried. You've either got to shit and get off pot or die trying ? I hear there's this cool software package that lets you create you're own games on the Jaguar that doesn't require 10+ years of experience, but I've probably mentioned it x times before:

It'll be about 19 or 20 for me with most of those years taking a backseat to programming in favor of real life, but planning for the of future making games just in case. I'm at the point now I just want to know how to program and make games now Jag or no Jag, but no need in letting all of that knowledge of the system go to waste. I was a hair away from letting go till I sold my collection and regretted doing so afterwards. I'm in it for the long haul this time; I still have the "Gorf Lessons", but we both know how he felt about the 68000 (Turn it off)... Since he isn't around any more I got to go a different route in regards to learning Assembly Language. I probably will use those tools you link me to as a starting point for Jaguar programming once I have a good footing on programming the Motorola then use the Reboot tools as a kick-start. Some ground work is already in motion believe it or not; just have to make time for stuff and stay committed. Also I've been eyeballing the "Atari 5200" lately, but that's for another topic.

August 31, 2019

Well... back in the day, for me, no idea was too big, too small, or too crazy for a very deeply flawed Jaguar system. Like I mentioned earlier I'm a little more sober minded today as I was in yester-years. Not the hardcore mindset I use to have that someone might consider to be idiocy; I didn't know how to program so I had absolutely nothing to loose therefore all bets were off. But that was back in the day, I'm a bit more realistic today about all of that kind of stuff now then I was in my youth... I think my only regret is not being able to prove my theories; I still have my old ideas written down from those old days so I'm glad I still have them... I get to see where my head was when I came up with them versus what's more feasible. But if people don't always get what I post, I perfectly understand and appreciate the feedback and corrections, I wouldn't have gotten this far without them.

August 31, 2019

3 hours ago, A Black Falcon said:

Most N64 games use the default microcode, but a couple of developers convinced Nintendo to allow them access to the custom microcode, to make their own changes to it. The two external developers who are best known for custom microcode are Boss Games (as seen in World Driver Championship and Stunt Racer 64) and Factor 5, as seen in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and Star Wars: Battle of Naboo. I'm not sure if Rogue Squadron had custom microcode, probably phillipj was thinking of Battle for Naboo would be my guess. Battle for Naboo is a pretty amazing looking game and one of the best-looking games of the generation.

Yes I was... Hi res butter smooth 3D graphics; Battle for Naboo looked incredible... Rouge Squadron was a great looking game as well; I had that game and played it often. Another game "Phantom Menace" was a pretty good looking game that shine with the graphics. Great game at the arcade and the N64. Being that both the Jaguar and N64 are two very different systems the Jag using general purpose JRISC instead of the tried and true MIPS the way the PS1 and N64 did, butter smooth 3D graphics isn't possible in the same way for the console to come after it except for when it came to the 2.5D stuff (Doom, Phase Zero, Super Burnout i.e. OP). Not even "Open GL" would work on the Jaguar because it was most likely designed to work on the MIPS even though it was created around the same time the Jaguar was. It became my conclusion 2.5D or fake 3D would be something worth looking into and with the Jag having so many processors there was really no reason why making a smarter 2.5D engine wasn't couldn't be done. I still believe that today as I did in yester-years.

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