The 68k - what could it do?

[A Sprite]

We all know the Jaguar isn't 16 bit - but when you treat it like one, what are it's limits?

 

[Gorf]

We all know the Jaguar isn't 16 bit - but when you treat it like one, what are it's limits?

 

 

 

 

See HoverStrike....an Amiga32 cant do that at any frame rate.

Edited July 21, 2007 by Gorf

[A Sprite]

That video's from a 16 bit. If the original Amiga can do those kinds of poly effects, why couldn't the CD32? Keep in mind, it was never pushed either.

[Gregory DG]

The CD32 basically is an Amiga 1200. Just like the Atari 5200 is basically an Atari 400 computer. It's not going to be doing much more than what you see in the videos.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_cd32

Edited July 21, 2007 by Gregory DG

[Gorf]

That video's from a 16 bit. If the original Amiga can do those kinds of poly effects, why couldn't the CD32? Keep in mind, it was never pushed either.

 

Its very low color too and low frame rate and no AI what so ever.

Add some interactivity to that and watch the frame rate drop to half.

that is probably pushing it extremely hard. The Amigas do about

14 mips and if you have a 060 you might get 20. Those are idea

ratings to btw. No such thing as ideal code. The Jaguar TOM and Jerry

together running from the locals can run at 55 mips. Idealy about

45 mips in parallel. That is without the blitter and the opject processor

doing anything or the 68k. Just to give you an idea.

 

It can do Amiga stuff Im sure but its not going to do 16 bit CRY

color lighted and shaded textures with a game behind it at a frame

rate that does not resemble a slide show.

 

 

Again HoverStrike CD is 16 bit CRY color full texture mapping

and it averages about 20 fps using the 68k as a CPU.

 

It can double that or more if the game logic is moved to the riscs

using parallel procesing techniques. The Amiga is one processor

pushing video hardware not unlike the ST. Not mention the totally

retarded bit plane color graphics schemes which is a graphic coders

nightmare.

 

To get one pixel to show up you have to write to several bit planes...

its idiotic. Amiga and ST could have had even faster video if you could

write just one word of data. It's just ilogical. It's blitter made use of it

but I still dont see how its more efficeint make several writes for one

pixel compared to one write for several pixels.

 

Im am going by how the ST does it but im sure it is the same thing as

that is the tech the Tramiels and Commodore fought in court over,

among othe issues. It is believed that employs from Commodore took

info and tech from thre when the left to go work for the Tramiels at

Atari , making the ST, with a blitter and bit plane graphics....hmmmmmmm.

Jack won that and few other battles with them and other in court over

the years.

[Gorf]

The CD32 basically is an Amiga 1200. Just like the Atari 5200 is basically an Atari 400 computer. It's not going to be doing much more than what you see in the videos.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_cd32

 

 

What is being done in those videos are some impressive tricks wth the blitter

but nothing you can ever hope to use in a game for the most part. A 680x0

can only do so much. The blitter helps but the blitter in that thing is burdened

with a ridiculous amount of set up to its registers to get it to actually do most folks

tend not to use it unless its worth the setup. Not unlike the ST's blitter(no doubt tech

'liberated' from CBM upon Jack's exit.)

[Cobra Kai]

Hmm ok Gorf, the Neo Geo uses a 68000. In my opinion, generally the 2d games on that system rock ass over what was produced on the Jaguar, with titles like Metal Slug 3 and something like Last Blade. To my eyes that stuff just looks better than most of the 2d stuff on the Jag. Does the Neo have an advantage anywhere over the Jaguar, or did SNK just have better programmers? ( I think the answer is obvious). I know that the Neo had humongous rom limits to the cartridges themselves, they just kept adding more memory to the carts as the years passed by.

[SINGLE TOOTH]

I would still kill to see a kick-ass demo like that on the jag. WOuld be awesoem just to see that on a jag.

[+remowilliams]

Hmm ok Gorf, the Neo Geo uses a 68000. In my opinion, generally the 2d games on that system rock ass over what was produced on the Jaguar, with titles like Metal Slug 3 and something like Last Blade. To my eyes that stuff just looks better than most of the 2d stuff on the Jag.

I'm not going to get into the vs. Jag part, but the Neo Geo was able to kick mucho 2D ass because it had the 68K@12 MHz, a Z80 co, a custom video chipset with 4,096 colors and tons 'o' sprites, and the Yamaha 2610 for sound. Nice!

[Gorf]

Hmm ok Gorf, the Neo Geo uses a 68000. In my opinion, generally the 2d games on that system rock ass over what was produced on the Jaguar, with titles like Metal Slug 3 and something like Last Blade. To my eyes that stuff just looks better than most of the 2d stuff on the Jag.

 

 

Rayman alone surpasses anything a NEO GEO could ever possibly hope to do.

Even trevor Mcfur is more than enough to piss all over the NEO GEO.

 

Just plain silly to even try to say that the NEO GEO is a as powerful as the

Jaguar at 2D...not even in the same league. Not even close. The color alone

would choke a Neo Geo. The OPL in the Jaguar is all you need to utterly destroy

a Neo Geo .

[Gorf]

Hmm ok Gorf, the Neo Geo uses a 68000. In my opinion, generally the 2d games on that system rock ass over what was produced on the Jaguar, with titles like Metal Slug 3 and something like Last Blade. To my eyes that stuff just looks better than most of the 2d stuff on the Jag.

I'm not going to get into the vs. Jag part, but the Neo Geo was able to kick mucho 2D ass because it had the 68K@12 MHz, a Z80 co, a custom video chipset with 4,096 colors and tons 'o' sprites, and the Yamaha 2610 for sound. Nice!

 

 

For its time it was impressive but it is week in comparison to a Jaguars 2D abilities.

The 68k at 16 mhz is going to max out at 9 -10 mips. The JAguar is not even putting

up a sweat. The Jaguar only need the OPL to blow the dooors completely off a Neo Geo.

 

Not even on the same planet.

[supercat]

The 68k at 16 mhz is going to max out at 9 -10 mips.

 

Are there any instructions on the 68000 that take less than four cycles to complete? How can a 68000 at 12MHz run anything faster than 3MIPS?

[Symmetry of TNG]

*dusting of AA keyboard*

 

That was a nice demo!... But beeing a bit of a demo freak myself I just have to say some things about amiga demos.

 

the ST had a 8MHz 68000 and it made ~0.8MIPS... the original amiga 500 iirc was putting out 1MIPS, yet the ST kicked its ass ;P

assuming the 68K scales linerarly id say 12MHz= 1.2MIPS... but thats besides the point...

 

my point is that the 68K at almost any clockrate could NOT do that demo! ..id bet its made for a 68060 amiga 1200 ...perhapps with their AGA video chipset (but it was so darn slow that its probably not made for that gfx card either). ...reading the video comments you can se that someone is suppriced that it "even runs on a 030" ....so taking that demo as a reference to what the 68K could have done is not realy fare...

 

..but! =) ...that demo could most defenitely be made for the Jaguar, live rendered!... and much more! and that with the 68K turned off! (a must =)

So the competition would then be 68060 vs Tom&Jerry ...which becomes a far more interesting competition =)

 

Seeing what the 060 can do today (falcon demo scene) ..i'd say that the Jaguar has enough power to kick its ars, defenitely! ...but I'm a bit partic beeing a jaguar fan ;P but hopefully the jaguar demoscene will kick off and we will see some realy nice demos for the jaguar, and hopefully in the future they will show what the jaguar is realy capable of...

 

the jaguar have 2 problems: only 2Mb memory and no quick & easy way to load lots of data. That problem will be solved with the jagCF, which will make the jag more like a "computer" or atleast give it more "computer like" options.

That would make such a demo easier to do than it is now... (granted it would be done..with the jagcd but... but... aarrgghhh its so hard to develope/debug on it).

 

but we still need good coders! ..so lets get down to assembler & renderpipelines! ;P

 

cheers

/Sym

 

ps. regarding 2D i'd say the jag kicks anytning in its time-era, but then I am a bit partic ;P ds.

[Gorf]

The 68k at 16 mhz is going to max out at 9 -10 mips.

 

Are there any instructions on the 68000 that take less than four cycles to complete? How can a 68000 at 12MHz run anything faster than 3MIPS?

 

My bad....I meant the 030 or higher not the 68k. Probably like the 060

and that wont even help unless you use a75MHZ version and redisegn the

the rest of the system to make use of the extra speed. even then you are

not going to easily beat a Jaguar.

 

I think TNG put it properly but I disagree with the fan thing part about

defending the Jag...Those who know me know I have plenty of complaints

about the Jaguar hardware and who had their head up their ass when

designing it.

 

I base what I say on known info. It 's too easy to look like a horses ass

doing that never mind making shit up as you go.

[Gunstar]

Hmm ok Gorf, the Neo Geo uses a 68000. In my opinion, generally the 2d games on that system rock ass over what was produced on the Jaguar, with titles like Metal Slug 3 and something like Last Blade. To my eyes that stuff just looks better than most of the 2d stuff on the Jag. Does the Neo have an advantage anywhere over the Jaguar, or did SNK just have better programmers? ( I think the answer is obvious). I know that the Neo had humongous rom limits to the cartridges themselves, they just kept adding more memory to the carts as the years passed by.

 

We'll let Gorf really answer this, but I do know that the Neo-Geo had access to hundreds of megabits of cartridge space. If the Jaguar had cartridges that were as large as the Neo-Geo's: 100-330Mbits which is 12.5-41.25 Megabytes(upto 716Mb bank switched carts: 89.5 Megabytes) instead of 16-32Mb (2-4 Megabytes) of the Jaguar, you'd be able to see a difference in games, even with it's 2MB main ram; IIRC the Neo-GEO only had 64K of MAIN ram didn't it? So it has to be do to the HUGE cartridge memories. Now, of course the Jaguar CD has up to 790 Megabytes of storage, so if we could have seen it really put to use, you'd see 2D games similair to Neo-Geo cartridge games.

 

EDIT: o.k., below are Neo-Geo specs, for the Neo-Geo and Neo-Geo CD unit, and I want to point out that the 7Mb is MEGABITS, not MEGABYTES, one MEGABIT is only 128k, one MEGABYTE is 1024K. That's 8 Megabits to 1 Megabyte.

 

 

A1: Neo-Geo Specs

Arcade system that is module based, so you could swap the games and only have to buy new carts, not the full board

Like PGM / Super Kaneko Nova System / Taito F3

came in various flavors: 1/2/4/6 slot boards

Processors: Motorola 68000 (12Mhz, 16-bit), Z80 (Zilog-80a 4Mhz, 8-bit)

Resolution: 304x224

Color Palette: 65,536

Maximum colors on-screen: 4,096

Maximum sprites on-screen: 380

Minimum sprite size: 1x2

Maximum sprite size: 16x512

Maximum amount of game planes: 3

Sound Channels: 4-FM synthesis, 7-Digital Internal, 3-PSG, 1 noise channel

RAM: Internal RAM: 64kb, Video RAM: 68kb, Z80 RAM: 2kb

Memory Card: 8kb or *68-pin JEIDA ver.3 spec memory

*Any 68-pin memory that fits the JEIDA ver.3 spec will work

 

A2: AES / MVS

 

CD:

 

 

Tech Specs:

 

CPU: 16bit 68000chip running at 12Mhz with a 4Mhz Z80 chip helping out. It can handle 4,096 colors on screen at once with three simultaneous playfields.

 

Sound: 13-channel Yamaha sound chip in stereo.

 

Memory: 7Mb of DRAM; 512K of VRAM; and 64K of SRAM.

 

Resolution: 320 x 224

 

Color Palette: 65,536

 

Max colors on screen: 4096

 

Max sprites on screen: 380

 

Internal RAM: 56 Mbits

 

CD: Single-speed drive with the ability to play audio CDs.

Edited July 21, 2007 by Gunstar

[Gorf]

LEt me see if I acn do this one more time....

 

Memory is an issue but not a big one...rather a moot one...until

you have tools it does not matter what you do to the Jaguar

and its hardware. If you can't code it for efficiency, gigs of

memory wont do you any good. The 68k needs to die after boot

and let the dogs out(start TOM and Jerry.)

 

 

Neo Geo:

The machine is out sped, out sprited, out colored, out resolutioned and just plain outclassed in every way

way compared to the Jaguar. Its a memory huge Genesis at a faster clock rate. I still laugh at the price of

that machine. It does have a killer spprite engine but it will enver compete on the same level as the Jaguar

in 2D. Rayman alone pisses al over anything you will ever see on a Neo Geo. However, when you have great

arcade quality games like those of that time, you really have a great product. If they sold that at $299, I would

have bought one.

[A Sprite]

The only reason the NEO-GEO can compete with the Jaguar is due to the software - SNK had some of the greatest artists of the time. Atari had everyday Joes. Metal Slug 3 was released for X-Box, and stores in my area demoed it in an attempt to sell the X-Box. Could anything 2-D on the Jag come close? Rayman eliminates arms and elbows, legs and knees - it looks great, but it also looked great on the Gameboy.

 

But here's the thing, switch programming teams on the systems, and try to imagine a low resolution, low color Trevor Mcfur competing with the Jaguar's Blazing Star...

[Gorf]

Oh and BTW it would take nothing to bank switch well beyond that in the Jaguar. Ther aer plenty of control lines.

[Gorf]

The only reason the NEO-GEO can compete with the Jaguar is due to the software - SNK had some of the greatest artists of the time. Atari had everyday Joes. Metal Slug 3 was released for X-Box, and stores in my area demoed it in an attempt to sell the X-Box. Could anything 2-D on the Jag come close? Rayman eliminates arms and elbows, legs and knees - it looks great, but it also looked great on the Gameboy.

 

But here's the thing, switch programming teams on the systems, and try to imagine a low resolution, low color Trevor Mcfur competing with the Jaguar's Blazing Star...

 

 

Yep.

 

Why SNK did not jump ont he Jaguar still suprises me. But you are right some of the Neo Geo

game would have ported over nicely and taken litle to upgrade the colorlevels and such.

Then the fact that you now have two RISC processors wide open to handle any extras,

it seemed like they would have been a perfect fit and Jaguar may have survived if SNK and

Atari could have worked out a deal which no doubt would have drew Neo Geo fans.

 

I personnally never like much of anything from SNK. I could call those SNK titles average joes

of that day too. Yeah they had more content but there were a lot of the same old same old with

different graphics.. to each his own.

[EmOneGarand]

That video's from a 16 bit. If the original Amiga can do those kinds of poly effects, why couldn't the CD32? Keep in mind, it was never pushed either.

the CD-32 didn't have the RAM for it, thats why. Hence why Amiga Quake does not work on the CD-32.

[A Sprite]

I could call those SNK titles average joes

of that day too. Yeah they had more content but there were a lot of the same old same old with

different graphics.. to each his own.

 

Gorf - since you're a programmer, let me give you a test where you can quantify the results in numbers. Combine the total amount of animation frames per object/character in Metal Slug 3 - now find a non FMV, hand drawn, non-rotoscoped Jag game that comes close with full body character sprites.

 

Still not convinced?

 

The artists were good enough that there are fan clubs to their characters, with members who don't even like fighting games, and they still are appearing in new games a decade later.

 

Find me an Atari character who can say the same?

[EmOneGarand]

I could call those SNK titles average joes

of that day too. Yeah they had more content but there were a lot of the same old same old with

different graphics.. to each his own.

 

Gorf - since you're a programmer, let me give you a test where you can quantify the results in numbers. Combine the total amount of animation frames per object/character in Metal Slug 3 - now find a non FMV, hand drawn, non-rotoscoped Jag game that comes close with full body character sprites.

 

Still not convinced?

 

The artists were good enough that there are fan clubs to their characters, with members who don't even like fighting games, and they still are appearing in new games a decade later.

 

Find me an Atari character who can say the same?

The quality of animation on most of them is why the system was still viable on the market for 12+ years... don't even get me started with SVC: Chaos and Samurai Shodown V/Zero

[Symmetry of TNG]

Find me an Atari character who can say the same?

 

Rumour has it that KasumiNinja were to play the role of Ninja Gaiden Black to PS3. But its been like 14 yeats since Kasumi did KungFu so his bearbelly & headband didnt quite convince the rolecasters, so they just stole the concept & did CG instead

 

/Sym

[Gorf]

Amination and art isn't game play.

[A Sprite]

Look back: Animation and art were what I was talking about when you challenged me. You think I'd try to argue AI and input response times with you?

 

I'll say it again: Jaguar was hurting when it came to art direction. You have Jeff Minter and Michel Ancel in the majors, a few guys looking not bad in the minors, and then you have people so bad that Double Dragon V, Bubsy 2, Air Cars, White Men Can't Jump, and Fight for Life are still selling the 2600 over a decade later.