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Remembering Cybermorph


Rev. Rob

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Wasn't there another in the Cybermorph series for another console? Anyone?

 

 

Suprisingly no...at least I am not at all aware of it....would be cool to do on the

PC or a curent console. I'd love to have Atari pay me to but how can you pay

people when you are'nt making money?

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Wasn't there another in the Cybermorph series for another console? Anyone?

 

 

Suprisingly no...at least I am not at all aware of it....would be cool to do on the

PC or a curent console. I'd love to have Atari pay me to but how can you pay

people when you are'nt making money?

That's called "Atari de'ja`vu."

 

I just wish this de'ja`vu would relapse all the way back to the Nolan Bushnell days or the pre-crash Warner days, instead of the Atari Corp. and Hasbro days...

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"Suprisingly no...at least I am not at all aware of it....would be cool to do on the PC or a curent console."

 

Anyone got the source code? A PC version would be totally amazing, especially with analog controls and cooperative multi-player support.

 

I think that I was having a discussion with the soundtrack composer, who indicated that he was approached about doing the soundtrack for a Battlemorph sequel for another platform such as Dreamcast. I suspect that this never got into development.

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"Suprisingly no...at least I am not at all aware of it....would be cool to do on the PC or a curent console."

 

Anyone got the source code? A PC version would be totally amazing, especially with analog controls and cooperative multi-player support.

 

I think that I was having a discussion with the soundtrack composer, who indicated that he was approached about doing the soundtrack for a Battlemorph sequel for another platform such as Dreamcast. I suspect that this never got into development.

 

The source is useless as it is pretty much 68k and RISC assembler.

you wont be porting that to any PC very easily(at all.) That's gonna

cost you a re-write my friend. All the better as there are certainly

plenty changes that would be necessary. Scratch may be a pain but

in the end it usually is the best way.....unless a mojor game company

may fund it but then they want it yesterday and then it turns out like

crap anyway. Doh!

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"The source is useless as it is pretty much 68k and RISC assembler"

 

I was thinking more along the lines of whether someone might be able to do an update of Cybermorph or Battlemorph for the Jaguar, or a cartridge release of Battlemorph.

 

Cheers!

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"The source is useless as it is pretty much 68k and RISC assembler"

 

I was thinking more along the lines of whether someone might be able to do an update of Cybermorph or Battlemorph for the Jaguar, or a cartridge release of Battlemorph.

 

Cheers!

Now that is certainly something that can be reasonably looked into.

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The point still is that 3DO, a machine with half the horse power was also almost 3 times the price but

it had much better software support than Jaguar.

 

The price was mainly due to the fact that 3DO themselves didn't manufacture the consoles, and instead

licensed the console technology to other manufacturers. These manufacturers (Matsushita/Panasonic,

Goldstar, Sanyo, etc.) didn't get a cut of the software royalties, only 3DO did. As such, the manufacturers

had to make a profit off of the hardware itself and price it accordingly. This is the opposite of what is usually

done where video game console manufacturers take a loss on hardware and make it up with software sales

and royalties.

 

And I get what you're saying about disc based consoles vs. cart based consoles, but I disagree. If the primary

usage of the unit is to play games while hooked up to a TV, it's a game console. CD-ROM and other disc based

media are just that: media that the games happen to be on. Sure, you can play music, movies, etc., but the

unit is designed to play games first and foremost, and is therefore judged as a video game console.

 

That's why 3DO Multiplayer failed, tbqh. They tried to market it as a "multimedia system", but most of the software

was games, it was designed primarily to be a game console, and that's what made the price so hard to swallow

for many prospective consumers. It's the perceived value of a product, and that perceived value is not over $399

for a video game console. Indeed, the value most consumers put into a game console is $299 US. That's the "sweet

spot" in terms of introductory price for a game console. So 3DO and the manufacturers could've sung to the mountains

that it was a "multimedia system". It was a game console, the public saw it as a game console, and it was judged as a

game console. And a $699 US introductory price for a video game console is way over the perceived value of such a

product, but unfortunately such a price was for quite a while a necessity due to the way the business model of 3DO

Multiplayer was structured (with the technology being licensed, and the manufacturers getting profits solely off of

sales of hardware).

 

That perceived value of a game console, btw, is how Sony shot themselves in the foot with the price of PS3 and

going on and on about Blu Ray movies, etc. Peoplejudge PS3 as a game console. And $599 US is way to high a price for

such a product.

 

Back to 3DO, IMHO, if Matsushita/Panasonic had bought the 3DO Multiplayer tech outright from 3DO, or just bought 3DO

themselves from the beginning ('92-93) rather than buy the M2 technology a few years later when 3DO Multiplayer was

alreadyp retty much dead and buried and Sega was prepping for the next gen, 3DO Multiplayer would've been in a much

higher position in that generation. Because then Panasonic could've taken a hit on hardware knowing that they'd make it

up in software sales and royalties, and thus the price of the console wouldn't have been anywhere near $699 to start, and

the remodeled FZ-10 would've had a lower price as well in '95 (it was $299, iirc, and probably would've been a lot lower if

Panasonic made money on something other than hardware sales only).

 

Don't get me wrong 3DO was no doubt the first of the next gen sysetms.

 

Actually it was really Amiga's CD32, which, while tech-wise not being what 3DO was, was in fact the first "true" 32-bit

console released. And the first console with CD-ROM as standard (Turbo Duo doesn't really count as it was more a

TG-16/PC-Engine and CD add-on combined into one unit, similar to Sega CDX and WonderMega/X'Eye). Though I don't

think it got a world-wide release.

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The Jaguar should have been called a "64 Bit Interactive Gaming Console" instead of

"64 Bit Interactive Multimedia System."

 

Its to your point really. It really was not a multimedia system. The CD definitely gave

it that ability though.

 

The 3DO was treated like a console when it ws able to do so much more out of the

box as far as software flexibility. Having a CD drive makes a large difference in the

ability to play true multimedia.

 

Both were dubbed as such but failed to deliver on the large variety of QUALITY

games and multimedia titles.

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The Jaguar should have been called a "64 Bit Interactive Gaming Console" instead of

"64 Bit Interactive Multimedia System."

 

Its to your point really. It really was not a multimedia system. The CD definitely gave

it that ability though.

 

The 3DO was treated like a console when it ws able to do so much more out of the

box as far as software flexibility. Having a CD drive makes a large difference in the

ability to play true multimedia.

 

Both were dubbed as such but failed to deliver on the large variety of QUALITY

games and multimedia titles.

 

IIRC, "Multimedia" was as much of a buzz marketing word back at that time as the "bit wars." Everything was all about "multimedia." But I agree the only way the Jag could've been considered that is with its CD add-on. Did it come out later than Atari intended?

 

But, if it needs the CD to be multimedia, then it should've been built with the CD included. But then maybe they couldn't have gotten it at a price point they wanted, hence splitting it up.

 

Or they could've made it CD only. Was it was too early to abandon the cartridge?

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The Jaguar should have been called a "64 Bit Interactive Gaming Console" instead of

"64 Bit Interactive Multimedia System."

 

Its to your point really. It really was not a multimedia system. The CD definitely gave

it that ability though.

 

The 3DO was treated like a console when it ws able to do so much more out of the

box as far as software flexibility. Having a CD drive makes a large difference in the

ability to play true multimedia.

 

Both were dubbed as such but failed to deliver on the large variety of QUALITY

games and multimedia titles.

 

IIRC, "Multimedia" was as much of a buzz marketing word back at that time as the "bit wars." Everything was all about "multimedia." But I agree the only way the Jag could've been considered that is with its CD add-on. Did it come out later than Atari intended?

 

But, if it needs the CD to be multimedia, then it should've been built with the CD included. But then maybe they couldn't have gotten it at a price point they wanted, hence splitting it up.

 

Or they could've made it CD only. Was it was too early to abandon the cartridge?

 

I dont think carts were the issue. N64 had carts. They were still a viable means of game

media. I just think no one was really ready to be part of the next generation. The playstation

and the N64 are the only one you can call real winners. I think only becasue they happened

to be last and had time for better tech and the price of it to be lower. Remember, Jaguar

was finished as far as the chipset goes in 90.

 

Sony did not even start working on the PS1 till 93. Thats three years. That is a long time

in the chip industry. Plenty of advances were made and the cost of it came down as well.

When you really think about it, the PS1 is not such a leap technologically from Jaguar. It is

more capable but not a lot more powerful in terms of bus rate.

 

The Jaguar is rated at 106 megs a second and the PS1 132 megs a second. The advantage

of PS1 is it has one CPU to do all the thinking but its a killer CPU. It is also a much more

efficient bus design too. MIPS RISC are very efficient. The jags has three general purpose

processors.

 

The 68k should have either been another risc core wth a decent local ram or nothing at all.

The Tom & Jerrychipset in another system is a whole new ball game. The coJag show that.

Area 51 is not even pushing it. When Tramiel said the playstation was only slightly more

powerful than the Jaguar he was right.

 

The difference is Sony did not need to write 3D renderes...it was built in. You send some

attributes and three vertices to a few hardware registers and you have a texture mapped

polygon. The Jagur has to use the GPU and the Blitter together, which is worlds more

flexible but world more difficult to program.

 

Yuo have to have the GPU calculate each horizonatal line of the polygon and send the Blitter

the paramaters to draw that line. Its about 4k of assembly with the translation and worldveiw.

No such code is needed on the PS1 and all code it written in C. you can write about 50,000

lines of code in C and debug it lickaty split. Try that in assembler.

 

You can write a PS1 game in C. No such tool for the Jaguar. All Assembly. It is why I maintain

that the Jaguar could put up a decent fight against the PS1 if I ever get these friggin tools finished!

IT wont throw as many polies but it will look like a game worthy of a 64 bit system and look nice

against a typical PS1 game. If I cant prove this....I'll eat my hat(I'd beter get the salt ready just

in case!)

 

:P

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Don't get me wrong 3DO was no doubt the first of the next gen sysetms.

 

Actually it was really Amiga's CD32, which, while tech-wise not being what 3DO was, was in fact the first "true" 32-bit

console released. And the first console with CD-ROM as standard (Turbo Duo doesn't really count as it was more a

TG-16/PC-Engine and CD add-on combined into one unit, similar to Sega CDX and WonderMega/X'Eye). Though I don't

think it got a world-wide release.

 

Actually, the Fujitsu Marty was released before the CD32, and like the CD32, it was a console based on a computer, in this case the FM Towns line of computers. The Marty was a Japan only system, and its got awesome ports of some Lucas Arts point and click adventures from the early 90s, featuring 256 color graphics and cd sound. Zak Mackraken anyone?

Anyway, i think Gorf meant that the 3DO was the first of the next gen systems, because of its 3d capabilities, i mean, did the CD32 had any? I dont know much about its hardware even though i own one (i play it in black and white because its a PAL system, and my TV is NTSC, and there are no PAL TVs over here in Mexico, sob).

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You know Gorf, I wish you had been one of the lead programmers at Atari back in the early 90s when the Jaguar was just getting underway. You could have helped them so much! ;) :)

 

 

I appreciate the compliment but they just needed to listen to some of the guys

they already had. Namely the designers of Tom & Jerry would made it CLEAR

that the 68k was to do liltle other than boot the Jaguar.

 

The 68k they insist should have been an 020 or nothing at all other than a unity

cache between the two chips. If Atari did not even take the advice of the designers

and guys like Scatologic, im sure they would have ignored me no less.

 

Again all of what I tell you technically is moot. The two biggest issues still

remain as to why the Jaguar was a sad and abismal failure.

 

1 ) Lack of tools that would ebable to take advantage of the horsepower within.

MADMAC and ALN converted for Local ONLY GP code and DSP code is just

notgoing to help you produce and ebug code very fast at all.

 

2 ) Lack Software titles from the extensive Atari classic library of IP's.

 

Asteroids

Centipede

I Robot

Major Havoc

Crystal Castles(this may actually belong to Atari games though.)

Night Driver(again this would have had to be better than Club Drive or Checkered Flag!)

Millipede

 

and more than I feel like remembering or listing.

 

How do you not make a new PONG in 3D for your Next Gen system? How?

 

With all of its bugs, the Jaguar would have been maybe not # 1 but

would have definitely beable to hang around for Jaguar II which

would have left the PS1 in the dust.

 

Then atari would have only needied to worry about the upcomming DC. That

would have been the only console to out class Oberon and Puck's power.

Midsummer would have doubled and maybe even quadrupled the poly counts

of the PS1 and much better and more flexible special effects.

 

Oberon is TOM with no bugs and a blitter that only needs one command

like the PS1 to draw triangle fully effected in ONE pass. It also has more

internal ram. The little bit they added made a world of difference. A shame

only 3 protos exsist and only one actually works.

 

At least we have the nets. I hope I can find those libs.

Edited by Gorf
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Y'know, from where this thread started, it ended up being a fascinating discussion and a great read. I learned quite a lot about the inner workings of the Jag, as well as insight on the comparisons of the Jag vs the other consoles of the day. A lot of articulate, informative stuff here.

 

Especially you, Gorf. Thanks for taking the time to lay all that out.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're not bogged down in defending yourself from slander or stupid peoples' comments. ;)

 

Cheers,

Smeg

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Y'know, from where this thread started, it ended up being a fascinating discussion and a great read. I learned quite a lot about the inner workings of the Jag, as well as insight on the comparisons of the Jag vs the other consoles of the day. A lot of articulate, informative stuff here.

 

Especially you, Gorf. Thanks for taking the time to lay all that out.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're not bogged down in defending yourself from slander or stupid peoples' comments. ;)

 

Cheers,

Smeg

 

 

I have been trying to ignore those...but i am who i am... :D

 

Im glad you found it informative along all the combative stuff. :P

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[ I dont know much about its hardware even though i own one (i play it in black and white because its a PAL system, and my TV is NTSC, and there are no PAL TVs over here in Mexico, sob).

 

For what it's worth, if you have a mouse for the CD32, you can make it boot in NTSC.

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Gorf - since we know the Jaguar can match Tekken's polycount, wouldn't it be fair to say the Jag is equal to first generation PSX games with the smoother textures and higher resolution you'd expect of emulation?

 

 

The issue with textures on the Jaguar is the fact that atari designed the blitter to

only to pixel mode.....that means that instead of writing 4pixel at once it only

writes one pixel at a time. That is also because the blitter has only one channel

that does fractions. There is a trick to revers the two channels if I am not mistaken

to get phrase mode texture writes but its a bit buggy. The jaguars other issue

with textures is you have to maintain a texture buffer in an already small 4k

local ram to get fast texturing.

 

The truth is, even with the one pixel per write mode, the Jaguar can still through up

a useable amount of textured polies. Just four times less than the g-shaded polies

with are phrase mode fast or 4 times faster. Hover Strike is better than the average

PS1 game in texture quality. the jaguar's flexible blitter is harder to program but

much cleaner at texturing. It can also do very nice effects as well. IT just does

about 1/3 of what the PS1 is doing.

 

The PS1 beats is in poly counts and frame rate however. Why...Hover Strike is

a ton of 68k code. If that was re-written to use the GPU and DSP only, it would be

30-60 FPS. So much wasted bus and bandwidth happening because the 68k just plain

hammers the throughput.

 

If anyone has every seen a BattleSphere Network with about 8 players rolling

you would see the Jaguar throwing more shit around the screen then you ever

thought possible and never drop below 30 fps. If you have ever played even the

single modes and have been attacked by the pilots, then you know the Jaguar has

plenty of balls under the hood. the game logic going on there would even give a

ps1 a hard time, not graphically, mathmatically. Scott Legrand has told us many

times that the Jaguar wins in shear computational power over PS1.

 

The other advantage is the Jag has 3 proccessor that can do math simultaniously.

Even the 68k is useful here. Keep it off the bus to do simple math. The DSP does

all kinds of crazy math and the GPU does as well. The PS1 cant keep up here. It

may maintain a high frame rate but its a devil with math.

 

At one time I thought BattleSphere may very well be the peak of the mountain.

Lately however, something tells me that, with all we have discovered about the

Jaguar recently and since Battle Sphere, we are only half way up the mountain.

Edited by Gorf
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The quality of the textures is superior to the Playstation hands down. There is no warping, bending, or accidental transparencies (you know, where for a second or two the polygon disappears).

 

Hoverstrike was freaking awesome, I love that game, I lost my first copy, but I'm about to buy a new in box version, still shrink wrapped. Hmmmm...tasty...:)

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The quality of the textures is superior to the Playstation hands down. There is no warping, bending, or accidental transparencies (you know, where for a second or two the polygon disappears).

 

Hoverstrike was freaking awesome, I love that game, I lost my first copy, but I'm about to buy a new in box version, still shrink wrapped. Hmmmm...tasty...:)

The CD is even better and a bit faster.

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Since there are games that use the 68000 so much, has anyone tried putting a 68000 accelerator in the Jaguar?

Short answer, YES: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=109944

 

 

The clock rate is not the issue. The choking of the bus with a

processor 1/4 the width and half the speed is. The Jaguar

should be doing that kind of frame rate by laying of the 68k.

 

I will never understand the fear of low level language.

 

 

 

Here guys...quickie lesson

 

code in basic , then code in Jaguar RISC assembler

 

 

LET A = 1000
movei #1000,A

 

LET A = A+B
add B,A

 

IF A > B GOTO label
movei #LABEL,label
cmp A,B
jump GT, (label)
nop
...code
...code
...code
LABEL:

 

Granted, these are simple tasks but what do you think all those complex

tasks are done with? All of you grow a pair!!!! Learn Jag RISC assembly

and write killer jag apps!!!! (so I dont have to write as many!!! :P)

Edited by Gorf
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Learn Jag RISC assembly

and write killer jag apps!!!! (so I dont have to write as many!!! :P)

 

I have too many things on my plate to learn yet another platform, but I was under the impression there were weird quirks with the Jag's RISC; people have figured out how to work around them, but the workarounds were not known back-in-the-day.

 

Also, I wouldn't consider the use of the 68000 to be unreasonable if there were anything resembling a reasonable effort to limit bus overhead. The circuitry required for a one-line (8 bytes) read cache would not have been much more extensive than that required to allow even a clunky interface, but such a thing would probably have reduced the 68000's bus overhead by 75%. I wonder why Atari didn't do such a thing?

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