Jaguar vs. 3DO?

[sd32]

Whatever he means, he's right about the Jags 2D capabilities. It's very much possible for the Jag to use 2D methods as a way to leverage for rendering 3D scenes without using a lot of memory to do so. The traditional polygon method is very clunky at best especially when you're talking about texture mapping. For example If you was to use a voxel engine on the Jag, I think the move to make is to make the voxel engine smarter by tricking the Jag to do more sophisticated 3D. Of course I've been working on a project of my own in that regard so I could go on and on about that sort of topic. Bottom line... 2.5D is the future for the Jags 3D capabilities.

 

philipj, could you tell us a bit about what your projects is all about?,

[philipj]

Whatever he means, he's right about the Jags 2D capabilities. It's very much possible for the Jag to use 2D methods as a way to leverage for rendering 3D scenes without using a lot of memory to do so. The traditional polygon method is very clunky at best especially when you're talking about texture mapping. For example If you was to use a voxel engine on the Jag, I think the move to make is to make the voxel engine smarter by tricking the Jag to do more sophisticated 3D. Of course I've been working on a project of my own in that regard so I could go on and on about that sort of topic. Bottom line... 2.5D is the future for the Jags 3D capabilities.

 

philipj, could you tell us a bit about what your projects is all about?,

 

Well the project started out as a way to produce limitless polygons using 2.5D methods rendering scenes on a scanline bases... Using normal 3D methods for a 3D scene require too much memory especially if it's a high polygon scene, but games like "Phase Zero" really showed off how fast pesudo 3D can be produce. I think it's possible for polygons to be faked using a combo of 2.5D methods. There's no need for the Jag to be bogged down with having to produce so many polygons in memory just to produce one scene; using the old 3D bounding box approach it's possible to get a snap shots of a scene using real 3D data and then have it rendered in a 2.5D fashion frame by frame... I believe the Jag is fast enough to pull it off in realtime... After all 2D and 2.5D is what the Jag is good at thus that's the direction I chose. I do think it's possible to use real real 3D polygons to pull it off, but it may wind up being slower. Right now it's all conceptual stuff, but it's all based on factual studies I've done; but don't expect anything anytime soon.

[sd32]

philipj:

Well, i dont have much technical knowledge, but it sound pretty interesting. Its always nice to know that there are people working with the Jaggy. Good luck with the project.

[JagChris]

Yeah, Sonic R is the perfect example of the Saturn not doing 3d the usual way compared with say, the PS1 and N64. What makes Sonic R impressive is the heavy and ingenious use of the VDP2. And the developers, Traveller Tales, hinted in an interview that the Saturn hardware could be pushed even more.

And as for the Jag, hopefully Atari Owls project will be finished in the not too distant future, and will give us a glimpse of what the Jag could really do. And its nice to know that there are other guys like philipj with projects too.

Hasnt someone been working on a racing game for the Jaguar for quiet a while now?, i remember reading rumors about it, but not much else.

 

Jagmod is suppose to have been working on one. But I think everything got scrapped. I dont know.

[Atari_Owl]

And as for the Jag, hopefully Atari Owls project will be finished in the not too distant future, and will give us a glimpse of what the Jag could really do. And its nice to know that there are other guys like philipj with projects too.Hasnt someone been working on a racing game for the Jaguar for quiet a while now?, i remember reading rumors about it, but not much else.

 

I really should apologise about the lack of progress, work has been insanely busy fo a year now and showing very little sign of easing off.

Its not a dead project.

Its just slow.

 

Very much hoping existing coders keep coding and new join.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Atari_Owl

[Crazyace]

It sounds a bit like a layered voxel scene - but the memory costs would be exorbitant.

For your example ( using 8 bits per pixel to save memory ) a single 1280x800 layer would need 1000KB of storage - How many layers would you have - 8,16, or more?

Also how are you going to generate these images in the first place.

 

And rendering would be expensive - for every pixel you effectively either paint all of the layers from back to front - or 'raycast' from front to back to find the first non opaque pixel, In the first case the OP is the best way, and I think you'll run out of b/w after 10 layers of 320 pixels.

Doing the other way would involve gpu - and be a lot slower ( at least a load/cmp/jump per pixel per layer ) - so you might have trouble with even half that many layers.

 

Also - if you really want full 3d you have to have a real volume ( 1024x1024x1024 ) to allow any viewing direction.

 

Of course you might be talking about something simpler, like the scaled sprite compositing made famous by Sega ( and used to great effect in Super Burnout ) - with that the Jaguar can shine, but it's not really full 3D.

[Crazyace]

still sounds like a voxel space - just one that's ray cast in perspective rather than orthographic. - However it's seems to be an impractical scheme to use on a Jaguar - if you are using the OP to scale layers the number of full screens will drop even further ( 5 or 6 maybe )

I guess you might want to encode all of the scenes in some kind of sparse tree structure to help accelerate things, but it seems a little bit static to me.

 

Anyway I'd love to see one day. ( I have several things I need to finish on Jag that I just never seem to find the time for, so I'm always impressed by any project that shows up, software or even hardware mod like your jagcd )

[Atari_Owl]

are we talking about a span buffer here?

Edited January 8, 2012 by Atari_Owl

[Austin]

To mix up all this technical talk, I always thought Blade Force was also one of the more impressive 3DO games, next to Star Fighter. It doesn't have the same kind of draw distance, and it uses a sprite for your character, but it has a lot of texture variety and moves very smoothly. Unfortunately, this is the best video I could find of it (the tutorial level):

 

[GroovyBee]

Just curious about the arithmetic involved in creating your MRI image. How many multiplications, divisions, additions and subtractions are required per pixel and at what bitmap "depth"?

[walter_J64bit]

Jaguar vs. 3DO?

 

Jag has Homebrew's and 3DO doesn't Jag wins hands down! :-o :-o

[philipj]

True that... Although I'd still like to see what the 3DO can truely do; maybe someday we will... That's what us homebrewers are here for.

[JagChris]

To mix up all this technical talk, I always thought Blade Force was also one of the more impressive 3DO games, next to Star Fighter. It doesn't have the same kind of draw distance, and it uses a sprite for your character, but it has a lot of texture variety and moves very smoothly. Unfortunately, this is the best video I could find of it (the tutorial level):

 

http://youtu.be/RPvZHvh4eN4

 

Another 3d game that the Jaguar really has nothing to compare to it.

[JagChris]

 

Either one of these is better than any shooter the Jaguar has available for it, except perhaps SoulStar.

 

 

You're right about that except for the Duranic demo by native... That game showed promise on the 2D front.

Yeah I was more referring to 3d shooters. Those games are more along the lines of what BattleMorph should of been instead of the achingly uninspired crap we got IMO.

[sd32]

Some homebrewer has to do Doom for the 3DO, because the one that was released is truly pathetic (except for the awesome soundtrack). Even though then, we Jag fans wont be able to proclaim that only the Jag can do Doom decently, and 3DO cant, hehe.

[Cobra Kai]

Some homebrewer has to do Doom for the 3DO, because the one that was released is truly pathetic (except for the awesome soundtrack). Even though then, we Jag fans wont be able to proclaim that only the Jag can do Doom decently, and 3DO cant, hehe.

Oh don't worry, we're the only people that think Jag Doom is even a good game. Mostly everyone else thinks the 32x version is not only infinitely more playable than the Jag version, but possibly the best port of Doom ever to grace a video game console. I'm looking at you Video Game Critic.

[twoquickcapri]

Blade Force and Star Fighter do show off the 3do power. I would like to add:

 

Battlesport

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hCSpkT5z_c

 

Captain Quazar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByH9FDAf4cE

 

I remember watching a video of CES 94 and it had both Atari and 3do in it. The 3do guys all had suits on and sounded like they're just reading off bullet points. Then the atari guys just look like normal people and seem to come off more sincere. Even owning up to some of there mistakes.

 

As a collector today I see the 3do vs Jaguar like this. If somehow I had to sell off all of my collection but one system and some how it came between the 3do and jag being that one. I would go with the 3do. Do to the bigger library and games like Need for Speed, Gex, Battlesport, Captain Quazar, Road Rash and Wing Commander III. But the problem with 3do is that almost all it's good game got port to the PSX or Saturn Or were PC game to being with. But if I already had the normal systems(NES,SNES,GEN,PSX) that people collected and was choosing which system to add. I would go with the Jag. BTW I've owned both system since the mid 90's and enjoy them both.

Edited January 9, 2012 by twoquickcapri

[skip]

Battlesport is a cracking game. I've only played it once or twice, but it was for a long, long turn (hours?) if I remember correctly. I'd be interested to know what colour depth and resolution it ran at. I'd take a guess at 256 colours, but I'm sure someone will correct me. I'm quite surprise and perhaps a little disappointed that the IS I (and eventually II) 'engines' weren't used for a wider variety of Jaguar games...such as, for example, something like Battlesport. There's no doubt in my mind, especially with the limited size and object geometry, that Battlesport couldn't exist on the Jaguar. I remember thinking the same about 15 odd years ago

 

Captain Quazar could've been done on the Jag ,or even CD32 for that matter (I'd played a few similar games on the CD32). Fact of the matter though, similar games weren't created...which is a shame.

 

One thing I will say about a great many of the good 3D0 games - their production values destroy those of the bulk of the Jaguar games. Be it EA or Crystal Dynamics' deeper pockets than most Jaguar developers were willing to spend, or overall better dev tools on the 3D0, quite a number of Jaguar games do come off rather amateurish on the presentation side.

 

Random memory flash: I know for sure that Return Fire was 'planned' for the Jag (cart or CD, not sure), but I have a vague recollection that Star Fighter was 'supposed' to come out. I have no idea if any coding was every done for either of these two games. Personally, I doubt it.

Edited January 9, 2012 by skip

[sd32]

I have noticed that in games like Star Fighter and The Need For Speed you can see further down the horizon in the 3DO versions than in the Saturn/Playstation ports. I have heard that in the case of The Need For Speed, this happens because the 3DO is "cheatin", but i dont know to exactly what people refer to by "cheating". I can feel like the engine is more streamlined on 3DO than on PS/Sat, but i dont know exactly what the "cheating" is, if it should even be called that. Could someone explain?

And i agree that Star Fighter was pretty impressive when it got released on 3DO.

[sheath]

I would buy a modern HD free flight shooter that allowed you to exit/enter the orbit of a planet at will in a heartbeat.

 

I have tried to find any fake 2D to 3D effects in Need for Speed or Star Fighter on 3DO and I just can't find it. The draw distances are just further than anything else that generation.

Edited January 9, 2012 by sheath

[Bryan]

I normally stay out of the Jaguar forum, but I did develop for it for a short while and co-wrote the Virtual VCS demo, among other things. It isn't that you couldn't get decent performance, it's just that it was a lot of work as you had to be aware of the subtleties of everything you were doing at all times (not unlike 2600 coding). That's a strike against a game console where games are often ports and time to market is critical. You need a very large number of units sold before most companies will invest in a ninja programming team dedicated to fully exploiting your console. You develop that market share by having a bunch of killer in-house titles. Atari barely had the resources to get the Jag out the door, much less launch it with breathtaking software.

 

Overall, I thought it was a neat approach despite its bottlenecks. It was cool when you discovered a way of doubling the speed of something, but I bet a lot of Jag games were delayed by constant re-writes and tweaking.

 

I thought the 3DO was cool, but based on a misguided business model.

[kool kitty89]

I normally stay out of the Jaguar forum, but I did develop for it for a short while and co-wrote the Virtual VCS demo, among other things. It isn't that you couldn't get decent performance, it's just that it was a lot of work as you had to be aware of the subtleties of everything you were doing at all times (not unlike 2600 coding). That's a strike against a game console where games are often ports and time to market is critical. You need a very large number of units sold before most companies will invest in a ninja programming team dedicated to fully exploiting your console. You develop that market share by having a bunch of killer in-house titles. Atari barely had the resources to get the Jag out the door, much less launch it with breathtaking software.

 

Overall, I thought it was a neat approach despite its bottlenecks. It was cool when you discovered a way of doubling the speed of something, but I bet a lot of Jag games were delayed by constant re-writes and tweaking.

The problem was that Atari was just in no shape to support/manage such a console by 1993, even if it had been a cakewalk to program for, they wouldn't have had a much better chance than they did historically. (their position also compromised the low-cost potential of the system since, while a very aggressively low-cost design, they were limited in negotiation for components and manufacturing -as well as volumes- and were also forced to sell it at a profit due to their financial situation, and retailers generally sold at much higher margins for hardware/software than for more trusted brands -the game prices were heavily inflated over contemporary SNES/Genesis games of similar ROM sizes)

 

Albeit, had Atari been in a better managed/funded position in the first place, some of the bugs/problems with the Jaguar may have been worked out too. (and, assuming it had a successful direct predecessor on the market, it also could have been aimed at a later date -further addressing the bugs and potentially aiming at a larger/different feature set)

 

 

However, it's still amazing that, in spite of the Jaguar's extremely weak retail performance (only 135k units sold through 1995), there were a significant number of very skilled/ambitious programmers to work on the system. (Carmak was among them, though the Phase Zero team and Battlesphere teams too -among others)

[82-T/A]

I've always considered the Jaguar, 3DO, and Sega 32x to be the "first wave" of 32-bit consoles and that the PSone, Saturn, and N64 were the "second wave" (let's not argue about "bits", shall we? I'm just going with 32 for identification purposes.)

 

Gorf has convinced me that the Jaguar has more horsepower than the 32x... but how does it compare to the 3DO? Is the Jag on top of the list in terms of POWER and POTENTIAL or is it the 3DO?

 

 

So, this is 11 pages now, but I don't think I've added in my thoughts... heh.

 

The Jaguar has some very specific graphics and hardware processing that, when properly used, can really produce some excellent games. A couple of examples would be like Missile Command 3D, Battlesphere, etc. I would say that the 3DO made a better decision by making all their games on CD, and therefore all games had cut-scenes right off the bat. That kind of gives it a plus over the Jag. I had a 3DO a couple of years ago but sold it when my daughter was born and I was trying to get rid of "crap."

 

But I have to ask, was there really any question about whether or not the 32X was inferior to the Jaguar? Not trying to start an argument here, but I thought that was pretty obvious.

 

I've got a Sega Saturn, and I love that system. When I unloaded all my games and systems, the Saturn was one of the systems I decided to keep (along with the Jaguar and my 2600). The Saturn came out after the Jag of course, so I make no bones that it's pretty much a better system overall. But the 32X? Pretty obvious that it's inferior to the Jag.

[sheath]

But I have to ask, was there really any question about whether or not the 32X was inferior to the Jaguar? Not trying to start an argument here, but I thought that was pretty obvious. I've got a Sega Saturn, and I love that system. When I unloaded all my games and systems, the Saturn was one of the systems I decided to keep (along with the Jaguar and my 2600). The Saturn came out after the Jag of course, so I make no bones that it's pretty much a better system overall. But the 32X? Pretty obvious that it's inferior to the Jag.

 

It depends on how you define the system's strengths. The 32X is classed to be able to handle anywhere from two to five times the polygons per second than the Jaguar can. Depending on what you look at, Atari Age's own specs say that the Jaguar can "theretically" pull out 20,000 polygons per second and it has trouble with texture mapping. The 32X's theoretical limit is 50,000 polygons per second, with realistic in game limits in the 20-25k range (but it doesn't have enough RAM for a lot of texture mapping). The Jaguar homebrew community has made it pretty clear that the Jaguar's real power is in other areas like Voxel or Height Map engines, which is actually where the 32X's strengths lay as well.

 

I would say that the 32X and Jaguar are in the same league in processing ability, with the Jaguar being overall better mainly because of having four times the RAM. Even the 32X CD would need cut corners compared to what the Jag could do just because of the RAM.

 

As an aside, I've just finished my second 32X and Jaguar comparison video on both system's fighting games. The first was on the Jaguar and 32X's 2D Action-Platformers. I would enjoy more discussion on this topic and plan on starting a Racing game comparison video this week after my new PSU comes in for my workstation.

[82-T/A]

Damn, so pissed... wrote multiple responses to multiple people, and it didn't save... sigh... later tonight I guess.