Gorf Posted May 27, 2007 Share Posted May 27, 2007 The Jag was/is not on par with the Saturn's 3D... Maybe with a 68020 or 30 it would be close. Yes it is on par with Saturn. You will all see the true power of your litle black cat someday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyBuddies Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 The Jag was/is not on par with the Saturn's 3D... Maybe with a 68020 or 30 it would be close. Yes it is on par with Saturn. You will all see the true power of your litle black cat someday. I LOVE IT WHEN HE TALKS LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 The Jag was/is not on par with the Saturn's 3D... Maybe with a 68020 or 30 it would be close. Yes it is on par with Saturn. You will all see the true power of your litle black cat someday. Until then...I say NO WAY! I mean, about a year after the Saturn's launch, the 3D games starting looking damn near as good as the Playstation's 3D games! The Jag does have some pretty nice 3D games, but I dunno... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbanes Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 The Saturn and the Jaguar have very comparable specs, with the key difference being that the Saturn relies on the venerable VDP chip (two of them, in fact) rather than a custom raster chip like the Jaguar used. The Saturn's design is just as messed up as the Jags, with two major exceptions: 1. Sega didn't put a chip in that cut the bus in a quarter and the clock speed in half; then make everyone think that it was the primary method of coding for the system. 2. Sega had serious developer support from both internal and external developers. These developers were willing to put up with the machine's many quirks and failings to achieve decent games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 Yup, pretty much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete5125 Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 The 32 x was the winner if we only look at the gaming standpoint, in the short year it was out it produced more games than the Jag's whole lifetime and More A List titles than the Jag. I mean think about it it had Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighting, MK2, World Series Baseball, RBI Baseball, Star Wars Arcade, Great Holes Starring Fred Couples....Granted they only made 50 or so games but if you picked Jag's top 50 games and put them up against the list below just to pick the system w/ the best list of games you would want to play...tell me which system would win. [edit] A After Burner (After Burner Complete) [edit] B BC Racers Blackthorne Brutal Unleashed: Above the Claw [edit] C College Basketball Corpse Killer (used in conjunction with Sega CD) Cosmic Carnage Cyber Brawl [edit] D Darxide Doom [edit] F Fahrenheit (used in conjunction with Sega CD) Fifa Soccer '96 [edit] K Knuckles' Chaotix Kolibri [edit] M Metal Head Mortal Kombat II Motocross Championship [edit] N NBA Jam Tournament Edition NFL Football NFL Quarterback Club NFL Quarterback Club '95 Night Trap (used in conjunction with Sega CD) [edit] P Parasquad Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure Primal Rage [edit] R RBI Baseball '95 [edit] S Sangokushi IV (aka Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire) Shadow Squadron Slam City (used in conjunction with Sega CD) Soul Star X (used in conjunction with Sega CD) Space Harrier Spider-Man: Web of Fire Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Star Wars Arcade Stellar Assault Super Motocross Supreme Warrior (used in conjunction with Sega CD) [edit] T T-Mek Tempo Toughman Contest [edit] V Virtua Fighter Virtua Racing Deluxe [edit] W World Series Baseball '95 WWF RAW WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game [edit] Z Zaxxon's MotherBase 2000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 The 32x does nothing that the Jag couldn't do FAR better. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of facts. Just cause the Jag doesn't have software out *yet* that makes this obvious to "Joe Gamer" doesn't mean it's not 100 percent factually true. Like Gorf said, in time the homebrew scene will show the true power inside the Jag so it will not be compaired to petty 32x games but rather in rival with more suited consoles to compair agenst like the Saturn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyBuddies Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 The 32x does nothing that the Jag couldn't do FAR better. It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of facts. Just cause the Jag doesn't have software out *yet* that makes this obvious to "Joe Gamer" doesn't mean it's not 100 percent factually true. Like Gorf said, in time the homebrew scene will show the true power inside the Jag so it will not be compaired to petty 32x games but rather in rival with more suited consoles to compair agenst like the Saturn. thats right buddy JAGUAR RULES!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 I think the Jag has more good games than the 32X...Not by much though. And the Jag just has a cooler feeling to it, and the graphics and sound are better. And this coming from someone who had a Jag AND 32X back in 1994... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted May 28, 2007 Share Posted May 28, 2007 The Jag was/is not on par with the Saturn's 3D... Maybe with a 68020 or 30 it would be close. Yes it is on par with Saturn. You will all see the true power of your litle black cat someday. I LOVE IT WHEN HE TALKS LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!! Frog - stop talking dirty to Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LS650 Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 Seems like a pointless argument to me. Both the 32X and the Jaguar have some great games and some real dogs. It's like arguing who's hotter, Miss September or Miss October. Wouldn't you rather play with them both?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyBuddies Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 The Jag was/is not on par with the Saturn's 3D... Maybe with a 68020 or 30 it would be close. Yes it is on par with Saturn. You will all see the true power of your litle black cat someday. I LOVE IT WHEN HE TALKS LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!!! Frog - stop talking dirty to Buddy that Froggy never knows when to quit,LOL!!! ribbit,ribbit,ribbit........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ovalbugmann Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 Seems like a pointless argument to me. Both the 32X and the Jaguar have some great games and some real dogs. It's like arguing who's hotter, Miss September or Miss October. Wouldn't you rather play with them both?? Yeah! That's true! and since Sega is such a quality gaming company, I have been considering a Saturn or 32x, also because like was said before were all not 13 year olds any more and coming up with $50 for a older Sega system and games isn't too difficult. Both is better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyBuddies Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 Seems like a pointless argument to me. Both the 32X and the Jaguar have some great games and some real dogs. It's like arguing who's hotter, Miss September or Miss October. Wouldn't you rather play with them both?? Yeah! That's true! and since Sega is such a quality gaming company, I have been considering a Saturn or 32x, also because like was said before were all not 13 year olds any more and coming up with $50 for a older Sega system and games isn't too difficult. Both is better. heard that buddy,the only problem i have found is that their is never enough time to play them all, that why i have chosen the jaggy,if i have time to play them its gonna be the jaguar ,but hell both is better...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ovalbugmann Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 (edited) heard that buddy,the only problem i have found is that their is never enough time to play them all, that why i have chosen the jaggy,if i have time to play them its gonna be the jaguar ,but hell both is better...... True that! So many women & game systems so little time for them all. That's probably why I haven't purchased any other classic systems yet because I don't want to take gametime away from the Jag, since I want to finish some Jag games I have been playing sporadically for years. And Gorf: you have made several comments in this thread on the inner workings of the Jaguar with some detailed information about what's involved in programming it, I find this very interesting. Although software makes a system, I think Jaguar hardware facts and info are enjoyable to read. It's cool to know what's going on behind the scenes of the games I play on the Jag:) Thanks for the insights. Edited May 30, 2007 by ovalbugmann Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddyBuddies Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 heard that buddy,the only problem i have found is that their is never enough time to play them all, that why i have chosen the jaggy,if i have time to play them its gonna be the jaguar ,but hell both is better...... That true! So many women & game systems so little time for them all. That's probably why I haven't purchased any other classic systems yet because I don't want to take gametime away from the Jag, since I want to finish some Jag games I have been playing sporadically for years. And Gorf: you have made several comments in this thread on the inner workings of the Jaguar with some detailed information about what's involved in programming it, I find this very interesting. Although software makes a system, I think Jaguar hardware facts and info are enjoyable to read. It's cool to know what's going on behind the scenes of the games I play on the Jag:) Thanks for the insights. GORF is great person to have around we are lucky to have him in the community! he knows alot!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 FWIW, the JAG has everything it needs to do 3D graphics: A High Performance Microprocessor Bitmap Scaling and Rotation Z-Buffering Shading What the Jag does NOT have is dedicated texture mapping hardware. Unlike the PSX and Saturn, the Jag must perform all texture mapping in code. That's why all Jag games with full texture mapping run so sluggishly (raycast engines notwithstanding). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 Like Gorf said, in time the homebrew scene will show the true power inside the Jag so it will not be compaired to petty 32x games but rather in rival with more suited consoles to compair agenst like the Saturn. Battlesphere is the final word on Jaguar 3D. Nobody will ever out-code 4-Play. What you see in Battlesphere is the top end, period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbanes Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 (edited) What the Jag does NOT have is dedicated texture mapping hardware. Unlike the PSX and Saturn, the Jag must perform all texture mapping in code. That's why all Jag games with full texture mapping run so sluggishly (raycast engines notwithstanding). *cough*Affine texture mapping*cough* The Jag is perfectly capable of rendering 2D images scaled and rotated. Ergo, it can texture map using the exact same method that the Saturn uses: drawing 3D objects on screen as distorted sprites. Raycasting is nothing special as far as 3D rendering goes. By constraining the textures to fit along the X and Y axes, the rendering engine can quickly churn through a list of texture slivers rather than trying to scale and skew a complete 2D texture. In addition, the "casting" method eliminates overdraw without performing a computationally expensive sort. Of course, raycasters are incredibly limiting due to the aforementioned constraints. Thus the reason for their short life in the market. (Though kudos go to 3D Realms for keeping the Build engine in use for an ungodly long period of time.) Edited May 29, 2007 by jbanes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 The beauty and true advantage to the Tom chip was that is was not hard wired to draw 3d. If it were it would hardly be as flexable, also like today's video card accelerators. Sure. That flexibility shows through in stuff like Tempest 2000. It can do some very cool 2D effects. However, time has shown that it doesn't yield much in the way of 3D no matter what you do with it. As it was, the Jaguar chips were to 3D as something like the Apple II hardware was to 2D vs. the Atari 800. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 (edited) FWIW, the JAG has everything it needs to do 3D graphics: A High Performance Microprocessor Bitmap Scaling and Rotation Z-Buffering Shading What the Jag does NOT have is dedicated texture mapping hardware. Unlike the PSX and Saturn, the Jag must perform all texture mapping in code. That's why all Jag games with full texture mapping run so sluggishly (raycast engines notwithstanding). Um kinda but not exactly. The Jaguar does have a software assisted harware. No you can not tell the blitter to draw a triangle in one command, but you can tell it with several commands to do so line by line, and there for have incredible flexibilty over dedicated polygon drawing. The blitter is very fast. The gpu need only be interrupted to reload it every line. However this is the real reason why most texture mapped games are sluggish... 68k code all over the place!!!!!! ....Also most code out there, if they indeed use Atari's 3D examples as a basis are loading the blitter with the GPU, stopping and waiting for the blitter to finish, instead of letting the GPU prepare the next line and other things (and there is plenty of time between lines to do other things as well). Complete laziness! It would not take much to write a reasonable interrupt driven polygon drawing routine that NEVER halts the GPU. The other issue arises is that NO ONE at Atari realized you CAN run code out of main ram and jump back and forth between MAIN and local RAM. They said it was not possible. It's not only possible, is a heck of a lot more efficient and will eliminate local code flipping. Every 4k of code you flip per frame eats up at least 2000 cycles. That is a lot of cycles...ask any 2600 coder. When I first made the Astro battle 3D level in the Jag, I used Atari's examples to the letter. I got 10 FPS and 12 when I shot most of the invaders off the screen. I then moved all the 68k code to the GPU adding more modules to flip but I was getting 15-20 fps. Then we moved everything to the GPU except the main loop which was still doing the vblank. That got us 20-30 average. Now this is still using Atari's renderer. We then discovered the main code fix and was getting us 30- 60 with more polys on screen. We now know we can once we get to it that is, not only tripple our polygon count but add effecient textures and maintain a respectable 30- 60 FPS. The Jag's undedicated flexibility is yes harder to obtain a decent frame rate if coded inefficiently but much more able and plenty fast enough for decent texture mapping if done right. Hover Strike CD shows that t-mapping on the Jag is definitely superior in quality and MUCH harder to obatin on the PS1 which uses 'dedicated' hardware and poor quality affine t-mapping. HSCD was mostly 68k in the main loop. There is SOOOO much more horsepower availabe yet and this decision was no doubt a rush job, even though it was a cart first! Go figure. For its time, the Tom and Jerry was quite a chipset and is still a great basis for a modern version with some fixes. Oberon was definitely a step in the right direction. We are still working on a new assembler that allows main code and main to local jumps with the GPU. The assembler will be written in such a way as to completely discourage 68k code from being used in the main loop at all and only for in between level stuff and assiting with and cut scenes and that kinda silliness. The performance differences are very noticable and we've not even recoded the renderer yet. You cant expect old school 68k coders to know how to take advantage of a multi- processing system. Most will and did use the RISC as support chips only...very sad. Gorfy Edited May 29, 2007 by Gorf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Owl Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 ....Also most code out there, if they indeed use Atari's 3D examples as a basisare loading the blitter with the GPU, stopping and waiting for the blitter to finish, instead of letting the GPU prepare the next line and other things (and there is plenty of time between lines to do other things as well). Complete laziness! It would not take much to write a reasonable interrupt driven polygon drawing routine that NEVER halts the GPU. Apart from a few troubles with internal reads (you'll see what i mean) i found doing this to be quite helpful at speeding up my poly engine. A word of caution concerning running RISC code from main... the speed is HUGELY influenced by how heavily you're hitting the BUS with the blitter, DSP etc. There is a balancing act to consider here. I would also say that the best the jag has to offer... i believe... has not been seen yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isgoed Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 Well Atari_Owl, then please show us the best the Atari Jaguar has to offer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Owl Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 (edited) Well Atari_Owl, then please show us the best the Atari Jaguar has to offer! In best 'Manuel' (Fawlty towers reference.. sorry may be obscure) voice... Heventually ... at the end Edited May 29, 2007 by Atari_Owl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isgoed Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 I am really looking forward to your project(s), and I am sure that more Jaguarfans do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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