[JRISC C compiler now incorporated into my SDK environment]

Why we didn't add any sound at all, I cannot remember. The simplest explanation is probably that we didn't know how to do it because the only pieces of source we had were two examples of a Jaguar head scaling in and out, and the infamous Jaguar underground docs. This was pretty much at the very beginning of the internet; information was not as easily available as it is today.

At first, the game was completely running on the 68k and was slowing down heavily at maybe around 40-50 objects. This engine was then converted to the GPU, and it had no problems with object list slowdowns anymore (at some parts, the object processor is running out of bandwidth, but that's another story).

Hardware prices are hard to find for this time, but here is a list with the cost of goods for the Amiga CD32 and 1200, which have some comparable specs and mainboard complexity. You can see that 2MB alone was $50; even the 68EC020 is $8.

[Voxel Flight POC]

Hi Bastian, there is a little proof of concept demo from eclipse, they pitched this idea to atari.

Basically its doing exactly that, generating a polymesh from a height-map.

 

Demo is available here  https://demozoo.org/productions/154300/

maybe good for some inspiration

[Much Love for the Jaguar 3D Games]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

So there are max 1,5 years between the Jaguar and the PS1, but the PS1 made it look like much older tech. Maybe the hardware design was not that forward thinking after all?

Interesting question

I think its a combination of things, first the Blitter was one of the first components designed
at the end of 90 (The Netlist has a date of 29/11/90). At this point in time there was certainly
not much talk about texturemapping.

The second is that the market start for the machine probably was not late 93 but more like late 92
or early 93 but as the software was not even ready for late 93 that would have never worked out

As the developers were from the UK and the Amiga was the dominant machine at this time it looks like
they got a lot of inspiration from there so they made the Jaguar an all around flexibel machine
with Sprites and the possibility of line drawing support.

The main 3d performance problems are very well known today and have been discussed frequently.
- No triangle rendering so a lot more complexity in your code.
- page misses when texture mapping.

There were some changes made between the prototypes and the production machine which slowed down
texture mapping according to the eclipse coders, i don´t know what exactly was changed but the
only thing that would make sense is that the production machine used some different memory maybe
for cost cutting reasons.

[Impulse X White Cart Charity Auction is now LIVE!]

The Charity Auction is a great idea.
Unfortunately the programmer of the original Atari Falcon Version
(and Native etc...) is suffering from a related very bad
disease these days.

[What could have saved the Jag?]

Calm down guys. There is some tearing in this demo. I don't remember it occurring very often.
It happens because of this large white "cloudy" object that passes by, this object is a
so called "RMW" object if I recall the name correctly. It basically modifies the content of
the pixels, in this case adds to the brightness and is slower because it takes additional
reading and writing. It has nothing to do with the Jaguar main bus, the Objektprocessor has
simply to much to do and can't finish his line.

 

This was around 1996 when we were all flashed by the fancy Playstation transparency effects.
We played around many many hours trying to get this RMW thing rendering but couldn't get it to
work because there was only very limited information available. At one point we got it
running and it looked like some sort of transparent glass instead of a random mess of pixels.
I think we were so hype and pasted it everywhere into the demo.

 

There is certainly A LOT that could be done in this demo to improve performance, first thing
that comes to mind is splitting the Object Lists in some horizontal strips to avoid parsing all
objects all of the time etc.

 

[3D Printed Panther]

13 minutes ago, Clint Thompson said:

I've got the original drawings coming to me at some point. Once I receive them, I'll scan them in and they'll include appropriate dimensions, etc. similar to the Panther. = )  

Very cool ! That sounds awesome

[3D Printed Panther]

12 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

Very cool, thanks for sharing! =D

 

The Sega Master System II always reminded me of the Panther once I stumbled upon it sometime last year. I like how the real thing on you desk looks like a concept sketch in the downsized picture ?

 

Let me know when you're ready to do a 3D model of the JagDuo

Do you know if there is a more detailed/higher res drawing availabale for the JagDuo ?

 

 

 

I can only find this

[3D Printed Panther]

Yes mine is a half size model

[3D Printed Panther]

Here are the stl files. Depending on the printer it may be better
to use the two half files with the Panther splitted in the middle
into a left and right part.

Original 1:1 dimension would be 253 mm x 175 mm x 77 mm.

 

 

 

 

 

Panther_3D_STL.rar

[3D Printed Panther]

I ask Matthias if he will share the STL Files as he did some adjustments to get better results on a 3d printer.

If you can print one do it, its a very cool looking little piece of Atari history.

 

I always had the impression the original device would be very small but in real world scale, its larger than the Jaguar case.

[3D Printed Panther]

Inspired by the "We love Atari Vol2" Book I decided to create

a 3d model of the classic Panther housing. Our good old friend

Matthias Domin was kind enough to do a 1:2 3d print of it.

 

It looks really lovely on my desk So why not share a picture.

The Panther would have been sooo cool... well at least maybe.

[Sturmwind (Ex) Jaguar References]

Sturmwind EX was just released on consoles two weeks ago. There is a Switch and Xbox one Version. A Steam Version is also available since a couple of

weeks.  Your support would be greatly appreciated.

 

Nice that someone still remembers Native after almost 20 years, it certainly would be time to finish this now

 

[What are the chances of someone "capable" porting Sega 32x games to the Jaguar?]

4 hours ago, VladR said:

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).

 

Did you discover some hidden secret features of the 32X ? The 32X VDP is very simple, it doesn't even do sprites. All is done in software on the 32X, there is no chip that can render textured or shaded polygons, it has only one feature that the Jaguar is missing and that is a simple line fill command which might be useful for flat shaded polygons

[John Mathieson interview/podcast]

Just wanted to share a link with a nice interview/podcast with John Mathieson one of the

Jaguar Harware developers.

There are some interesting little bits about Atari/Jaguar and a bit of Nuon in there.

Hope you enjoy it as i did ( start at 3:40 to skip some commercials)

[Alpine Games final run]

Any word on that bonus cart I signed up for like 6 months ago??

 

Sorry for the delay. The bonus carts are ready now. We will start shipping them within the next 1-2 weeks.

[Alpine Games final run]

I guess Dragon´s Lair is out because of memory constraints of the cartridge and not so much because of the graphics resolution. If it can run on a Sinclair ZX 81 in a small window there should be a chance that it would work also on the Lynx.

 

Would certainly be more in line with the look of the Amiga/ST Version

 

We would like to use a bigger cart for this project (2MB or more) so this should be doable but it doesn't look to be as popular as i expected so its off the list.

 

 

[Alpine Games final run]

Duranik,

 

since this was supposedly the final run of Alpine Games, is there any chance that there will be a release of the ROM in the foreseeable future ?

It would be present a nice opportunity for people to play the game that haven't had the chance to order it in time or are not willing to pay overprice 2nd hand prices.

Most will just play it in an emulator (or FLASH cart for the lucky people who own one).

Maybe a slightly adapted version (title screen etc) just to be able to distinguish between the cart version and the "ROM Release" version would be a great idea to prevent any pirated copies.

 

As for the new game, I think the Lynx already has a few good racers and platform games. I would prefer a game that is "missing" from the Lynx library.

That's why i would prefer Flashback if i would have to chose from the list but i think there would even be better ideas.

 

 

The games doesn't run well on an emulator (flickering issues, sound etc) thats why we don't like to put a rom download for now.

Patching it to work better is certainly possible but we rather would spend the time on some new stuff now.

[Alpine Games final run]

Thanks for the comments und suggestions, these are very interesting to read.

The games in the list are there for the reason the Lynx could handle them very well

and the engine/programming/tools needed can be done in a reasonable timeframe or we

could even reuse some code from the past.

I expected the RPG bandwagon as the Lynx certainly lacks in these genre. Unfortunately

we are not really into these type of games, a zelda-ish game maybe as this is more

an action/adventure type of thing but a "JRPG" style of game, hmm no, never got into these.

[Alpine Games final run]

What's a LOTUS type game? Driving like Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge on the Amiga?

 

I'd like a horizontal shoot'em up like Gradius/Nemesis but I didn't see that in your list

 

Rgds

BadPricey

 

Yes, 2d scaler ala Outrun, Lotus Esprit 1/2/3

 

Ohhh noo, a horizontal shmup really ?

[Alpine Games final run]

I GOT 'EM!! Got the package today (10 June). The carts are FANTASTIC! I was already expecting that to be the case after seeing pics of them online, but what blew me away is the quality of the Alpine Games box! in all seriousness: BEST. BOX. QUALITY. MATERIAL. EVER!!!

 

Thank you again guys for making this run for all those like me who not only missed the game but the bonus cart the first time around. Much appreciated

 

Thanks for the kind words thats very nice !

We were a bit worried about all this shipping as this

was almost too much for us to handle but it went really smooth

till now, also a big thanks to the Lynx community, no

complains or anything about packages not yet deliverd or anything,

everyone was patient, thanks !

 

Actually we got a lot of motivation to probably do one more Lynx game

whats the game you guys would like to see the most

 

- a "Lotus" style game

- something "Giana Sisters"

- a "Flashback" thing

- some easy to pick up "Dragons Lair" type

 

This is just for a little brain storming, no promises if we ever find the

time to do the actual thing. Now all i want to hear is LOTUS.

[Alpine Games final run]

Hello duranik thanks for your replies. So, the plastic cases would only fit PCBs with the circular hole?? If so I am happy to purchase some from you for the PCBs I have that are like this.

 

If your cart looks like this http://atariage.com/forums/uploads/monthly_06_2008/post-12435-1213721737.jpg

it _should_ fit (can't see how tall this chips are bit i guess the same size) otherwise you can probably make it fit easily with some minor "craftsmanship"

and something like this http://www.dremeleurope.com/at/de/multifunktions-werkzeugsystem-6006-ocs-c/

[Alpine Games final run]

Mine is in NY right now. Hopefully it makes it to me soon.

 

I'm also interested in the bonus cart if they are available again.

 

Later this summer we might ge some more of those bonus carts, write a mail to ag-reserve@duranik.com if you don't want to miss it.

We expect a very low amount of carts again

[Alpine Games final run]

Duranik, many thanks for the cool new cart designs. May I ask ..

 

1 the reasoning behind the circular cross imprint? I see in fact that the circular hole in the red PCB has been filled with something.

 

2 the plastic grip attached to the PCB.. Do you have any more I/we could buy for other PCBs such as Yatsuna?

 

3 what is the plastic grip attached with? Super glue?

 

We used the existing cart design from Lynxman as we thought this final run would only be around 50 carts. So creating a new batch was to expensive

the hole is in the PCB to get it out of the Lynx1 i think, we designed the plastic case to fill the hole.

After we announced the final run we got much more than those expected 50 carts, so we had to make a new run of the PCB anyway, we tried to remove

the hole in the last minute but the tooling for the case already started and the carts were ordered so we just had to accept it.

 

We have more of these Plastic cases left, if anyone wants to buy some, drop me a line

 

It is some industrial glue, i don't know the exact name but the combination pcb>plastic is good for any glue i think, its not hard to attach these

[Alpine Games final run]

The bonus cart amount was very limited from the begining, at one point we had the plan to let

people optionally add it to the order but this would have delayed everything by at least 3 monhts as

we would have to collect the orders to get a higher amount together. This price of 39 Euro only was

possible because some retailers took a couple of those games.

We couldn't offer them a big discount because the whole package wasn't very cheap to produce.

It uses a custom made injection molded plastic cover. Thats not exactly cheap to do in this

low quantities.

 

We are looking into the possibility of getting some more of those bonus carts, again this will

most likely be a very low amount, if we can confirm this we write a mail to all AG preorder people.

[Alpine Games final run]

I received a reservation email, but haven't seen anything since then.

 

Everyone who ordered with email should have an "Production update #1" mail (about 2 weeks ago). Please check your spam folders etc..

Next Production update mail we be send in a couple of days.