spiffyone Posted August 13, 2009 Share Posted August 13, 2009 Also, the one game that off the top of my head I think Jag had at least a shot at doing a respectable version of would be Star Fox 64. Sans quite a few textures, of course...but, honestly, not such a big loss considering Star Fox 64 was dither hell. Yoshi's Story would have been another one, due to the 2D nature of the game. Along the same lines, perhaps Mischief Makers, although some of the polygon elements in the game (some were used during boss fights, iirc, and some of the bosses were MASSIVE, and, as is the penchant for Treasure developed games, there were quite a few effects all at once). I think Jag could've handled a port of Duke Nukem 3D about as well as N64 did. Probably would've been closer to the Saturn version, though. The N64 version was bumped up similar to how DOOM 64 isn't a straight port, but Duke3D N64 wasn't as extensive a bump up in graphics as DOOM 64 was, as the latter replaced nearly EVERYTHING in the game. That said...most prefer the Saturn version to the N64 one because, after all, it's closer to the original PC version even though it's running on a vastly different engine than that version (the PSone version is closer still, as it basically is the original engine, though optimized for PSone hardware with certain things removed). Still, the Saturn version had Netlink play, so I could see a Jag version having system link play at the very least. I also think something along the lines of Resident Evil 2 wouldn't totally be out of the realm of possibility on JagCD (though probably not the Jag alone due to space limitations). Highlander attests to that sort of thing. I'd state RE1 is more probable, but you're asking about games on N64, not PSone (yes, I know RE2 was originally on PSone, and the N64 game is a port, but RE1 isn't on 64, and the topic isn't about games on PSone, so....). Anyway, on JagCD polygon characters over pre-rendered backgrounds were possible, as Highlander shows. An RE2 port on JagCD, of course, would most likely have to have the textures on the characters themselves toned down quite a bit and possibly the numbers of zombies onscreen lessened, probably run at a lower frame rate, but I can see it being done. Ogre Battle 64, an SRPG (think Fire Emblem, Shining Force, and Final Fantasy Tactics) basically used pre-rendered sprites (ala Donkey Kong Country) and pre-rendered backgrounds, so I think that game would definitely be feasible on Jag. This and Yoshi's Story, and possibly Mischief Makers would be the most likely of those listed so far. I still think a passable version of something like Mario Kart 64 would've been possible. The characters themselves are sprites, as are the items/weapons and many of the background objects like the trees. The only things that are actual polys are the tracks themselves including mountains, hills, tunnels, etc. And the cars and trucks in the highway stage. Still...I think a version of this is doable on Jag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted August 14, 2009 Share Posted August 14, 2009 Also, the one game that off the top of my head I think Jag had at least a shot at doing a respectable version of would be Star Fox 64. Sans quite a few textures, of course...but, honestly, not such a big loss considering Star Fox 64 was dither hell. Dithering??? What are you talking about, the textures are blury, but that's par for the course on the N64 (filtering applied to mask low res textures), but actual dithering? However, I agree that you could probably do something like it on the Jag, minimal textures (lots of gouraud shading), lower polygon count models, more 2D objects (though a fair number of things are 2D in SF64 already, mainly trees, some explosions/fire, and some projectiles) and voxel rendering for a lot of the terrain/mountains. Of course, anything in the discussion depens on how you code the game on the Jag, with lots of work arrounds and optimization, with minimal to no 68k (maybe just interupts after booting) there's a lot of possibilities. The N64 version was bumped up similar to how DOOM 64 isn't a straight port, but Duke3D N64 wasn't as extensive a bump up in graphics as DOOM 64 was, as the latter replaced nearly EVERYTHING in the game. That said...most prefer the Saturn version to the N64 one because, after all, it's closer to the original PC version even though it's running on a vastly different engine than that version (the PSone version is closer still, as it basically is the original engine, though optimized for PSone hardware with certain things removed). Still, the Saturn version had Netlink play, so I could see a Jag version having system link play at the very least. Umm, Doom64 isn't a port whatsoever, it's an exclusive and a sequel, technically the 3rd game in the Doom series. (btw I'm almost positive all the console ports of Doom from this time, and the GBA are derived fromt he Jaguar port, hence many similar changes and omitions, the exception being the SNES port which I beleive was original) Anyway, on JagCD polygon characters over pre-rendered backgrounds were possible, as Highlander shows. An RE2 port on JagCD, of course, would most likely have to have the textures on the characters themselves toned down quite a bit and possibly the numbers of zombies onscreen lessened, probably run at a lower frame rate, but I can see it being done. RE isn't very graphically intensive,with the pre-rendered backgrouns and relatively low polygon count on-screen, I don't think it would be much of a problem, you could probably remove a lot of textures without really noticing much. (with good use of Gouraud shading) I still think a passable version of something like Mario Kart 64 would've been possible. The characters themselves are sprites, as are the items/weapons and many of the background objects like the trees. The only things that are actual polys are the tracks themselves including mountains, hills, tunnels, etc. And the cars and trucks in the highway stage. Still...I think a version of this is doable on Jag. I think you'd need to alter quite a bit though, a lot less texturing (though probably not very noticable with proper selection and gouraud shading), and replacing a lot of the polygonal terrain with voxel environments instead. (which really do look great) That and probably reduce the draw distance a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted August 15, 2009 Share Posted August 15, 2009 However, I agree that you could probably do something like it on the Jag, minimal textures (lots of gouraud shading), lower polygon count models, more 2D objects (though a fair number of things are 2D in SF64 already, mainly trees, some explosions/fire, and some projectiles) and voxel rendering for a lot of the terrain/mountains. There is no voxel rendering in StarFox 64...if you mean that is how you'd do it on Jaguar then yes and it would be a much faster frame rate on the Jaguar. I have a 68k based voxel engine on the Jaguar that is not only much nicer looking than that land scape but even with the 68k Im getting 10-12 fps. I intend to move it to the GPU eventually. The N64. PSX and Saturn do not have the blitter. That is one big advantage the JAg has over these systems. Voxel engines on any of the others would choke horribly. The hardware is not geared for that on those other systems. Atari really should have played to this stregnth as a voxel engine always looks much nicer for a landscape then a poly engine untill you get up to PC and PS3/360 hardware. Even then voxels still look better. Voxel can more accurately represent a height map than you can with a poly engine. It also takes much more muscle to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 (edited) I was playing WCW/nwo World Tour and the grafix in that weren't very impressive at all lol. I wonder how close Jag could have come to replicating that. The game does not impress today, granted, but at the time it was released they were not breathtaking, but pretty good. As for N64 games truly doable I´d vote for Killer Instinct Gold. Edited August 16, 2009 by 108 Stars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sd32 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 (edited) However, I agree that you could probably do something like it on the Jag, minimal textures (lots of gouraud shading), lower polygon count models, more 2D objects (though a fair number of things are 2D in SF64 already, mainly trees, some explosions/fire, and some projectiles) and voxel rendering for a lot of the terrain/mountains. There is no voxel rendering in StarFox 64...if you mean that is how you'd do it on Jaguar then yes and it would be a much faster frame rate on the Jaguar. I have a 68k based voxel engine on the Jaguar that is not only much nicer looking than that land scape but even with the 68k Im getting 10-12 fps. I intend to move it to the GPU eventually. The N64. PSX and Saturn do not have the blitter. That is one big advantage the JAg has over these systems. Voxel engines on any of the others would choke horribly. The hardware is not geared for that on those other systems. Atari really should have played to this stregnth as a voxel engine always looks much nicer for a landscape then a poly engine untill you get up to PC and PS3/360 hardware. Even then voxels still look better. Voxel can more accurately represent a height map than you can with a poly engine. It also takes much more muscle to do it. Gorf, do you think the Jag can do a game like say Tomb Raider or Mario 64 with a voxel engine, or is that type of engine better suited for games where you drive big vehicles and you dont need much precision on your character movement, as well as the many ways Lara or Mario interact with the enviroments in their respective games. I am talking about the Jags case not voxel engines in general. Outcast for PC still looks amazing to me after all this time. A Jaguar racing game or FPS with a nice and fast voxel engine like Phaze Zero would be amazing. Edited August 16, 2009 by sd32 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 However, I agree that you could probably do something like it on the Jag, minimal textures (lots of gouraud shading), lower polygon count models, more 2D objects (though a fair number of things are 2D in SF64 already, mainly trees, some explosions/fire, and some projectiles) and voxel rendering for a lot of the terrain/mountains. There is no voxel rendering in StarFox 64...if you mean that is how you'd do it on Jaguar then yes and it would be a much faster frame rate on the Jaguar. Yes, that's exactly what I meant, I know it's polygons on the N64. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BDW Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 I personally dont think it's fair to think about what N64 game the Jag could handle. It really never had the chance to be mastered by programmers like other consoles did. Example, the 2600 went really far from Combat all the way to Pitfall 2 and California Games. It would have been very awesome to see what the Jaguar could have done with super experienced programmers exploiting the hardware to the fullest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchman Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 (edited) All of them really, and without the awful fogging (On the other hand, Japan coders (if they'd support Jaguar back then) were never really experts when it comes to programming Western consoles. They were lousy actually, until XBox came along). Edited August 16, 2009 by frenchman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Owl Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 However, I agree that you could probably do something like it on the Jag, minimal textures (lots of gouraud shading), lower polygon count models, more 2D objects (though a fair number of things are 2D in SF64 already, mainly trees, some explosions/fire, and some projectiles) and voxel rendering for a lot of the terrain/mountains. There is no voxel rendering in StarFox 64...if you mean that is how you'd do it on Jaguar then yes and it would be a much faster frame rate on the Jaguar. I have a 68k based voxel engine on the Jaguar that is not only much nicer looking than that land scape but even with the 68k Im getting 10-12 fps. I intend to move it to the GPU eventually. The N64. PSX and Saturn do not have the blitter. That is one big advantage the JAg has over these systems. Voxel engines on any of the others would choke horribly. The hardware is not geared for that on those other systems. Atari really should have played to this stregnth as a voxel engine always looks much nicer for a landscape then a poly engine untill you get up to PC and PS3/360 hardware. Even then voxels still look better. Voxel can more accurately represent a height map than you can with a poly engine. It also takes much more muscle to do it. Gorf, do you think the Jag can do a game like say Tomb Raider or Mario 64 with a voxel engine, or is that type of engine better suited for games where you drive big vehicles and you dont need much precision on your character movement, as well as the many ways Lara or Mario interact with the enviroments in their respective games. I am talking about the Jags case not voxel engines in general. Outcast for PC still looks amazing to me after all this time. A Jaguar racing game or FPS with a nice and fast voxel engine like Phaze Zero would be amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doskias Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Pardon my ignorance but what is voxel rendering? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Laird Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Pardon my ignorance but what is voxel rendering? See: Phase Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Video Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 I'd have to say Battle Tanks, those two games were AWESOME, me and my friends played the shit out of them, and I think the Jag could do it spot on, with little, or maybe even no editing to fit. Pardon my ignorance but what is voxel rendering? See: Phase Zero Voxel is a 2D engine, think of like Fzero and it's 2D environment, but each pixel in the er...ground can be told to be a different height, giving a relatively smooth hilly environment. If you could combine it with a Raycasting engine (doom) then you could pull some truely amazing stuff with it. Not that' it's bad as a standalone, Quad for the GBA was an amazing game with realy nice graphi8cs, check that one out to see a good example. The problem is, it's a 2D engine, I think much of SM64 could be done with a voxel engine, but there are several places that couldn't be done...Pluss, a voxel engine would have a similar limitation on draw distance as any 2D game, like Atari carts. I think it would offer a closer match to SM64 than a raycast engine would, but it would be difficult and clumsy at best....hell, nintendo dumbed donw SM64 to fit on the DS, and it still looked and felt largely like the same game, so I don't see why not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 However, I agree that you could probably do something like it on the Jag, minimal textures (lots of gouraud shading), lower polygon count models, more 2D objects (though a fair number of things are 2D in SF64 already, mainly trees, some explosions/fire, and some projectiles) and voxel rendering for a lot of the terrain/mountains. There is no voxel rendering in StarFox 64...if you mean that is how you'd do it on Jaguar then yes and it would be a much faster frame rate on the Jaguar. I have a 68k based voxel engine on the Jaguar that is not only much nicer looking than that land scape but even with the 68k Im getting 10-12 fps. I intend to move it to the GPU eventually. The N64. PSX and Saturn do not have the blitter. That is one big advantage the JAg has over these systems. Voxel engines on any of the others would choke horribly. The hardware is not geared for that on those other systems. Atari really should have played to this stregnth as a voxel engine always looks much nicer for a landscape then a poly engine untill you get up to PC and PS3/360 hardware. Even then voxels still look better. Voxel can more accurately represent a height map than you can with a poly engine. It also takes much more muscle to do it. Gorf, do you think the Jag can do a game like say Tomb Raider or Mario 64 with a voxel engine, or is that type of engine better suited for games where you drive big vehicles and you dont need much precision on your character movement, as well as the many ways Lara or Mario interact with the enviroments in their respective games. I am talking about the Jags case not voxel engines in general. Outcast for PC still looks amazing to me after all this time. A Jaguar racing game or FPS with a nice and fast voxel engine like Phaze Zero would be amazing. First of all...Voxel engines can indeed do very amazing FPS's. Why dont they use them? Ask the GFX card makers who only make hardware to push polygons. The card on PC and in todays consoles do not have super flexible user programmable blitters on board. The have blitters but they are dedicated to the poly renderer. Ever try to draw a lot of pixels and lines in Open GL or Direct X? Can you say choke? The Jag can ALMOST keep up with todays hardware and even surpass it in some cases. These cards are designed to push polygons....that's it. With enough polygons one could certainly make some very realistic and convincing landscapes, but voxels will put a hurtin' on even some of the best cards out there. Case in point.....I tried to emulate the pixel blasts of Tempest 2k using pixel calls in open GL and Direct X(to compare, but GL blows Dx away) on a PC and believe me, its not very impressive when you consider a 26 mhz game console (Jaguar) can keep up or out do it. After just a few objects blasting with a nice moving starfield and a hand full of 3D models on the screen, the PC dropped its frames considerably(choked). I had a ATI-9800 and it was the only card I had a hard time putting a hurt on( I did with one project....mwahahahahahaha! ...many you guys would love that one....) Man that card was sweet...till it toasted out on me. With out much cash I went for a lesser (ATI-9250)card and it just dies with lots of lines and pixels. I had an argument once here with some one who swore the Jaguar could not do Rogue Squadron. If Phase Zero does not show him that the Jag indeed can HANDILY do it, I do not know what else could. Keep in mind also, Though the Jaguar can't push as many polygons it can push enough polies along with a voxel scape to certainly compete with Rouge Squadron. The biggest mistake Atari made was to not at lest make an offer to buy/license that voxel engine for the other developers to use...that engine and the engine of a few other games like BattleSphere(especially the multiplayer DSP link up code) and the IS series and Morph series as well. The could have gone a lot further using these. License each for a million each over 3 years. Thats 9 million. Well worth it....before you ask.....from the 90 mil Sega money....that would have been right around that time when all of those engines were further ahead and more fine tuned. Make it an even 10 million and have BrainStorm make a REAL set of USEFUL tools for the J-RISCs. Or at least release the GPL sources to us once and for all! I think if we had access to the sources to the RISC C compiler it would have been fixed by now and even main code impemented at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 The problem is, it's a 2D engine, I think much of SM64 could be done with a voxel engine, but there are several places that couldn't be done...Pluss, a voxel engine would have a similar limitation on draw distance as any 2D game, like Atari carts.I think it would offer a closer match to SM64 than a raycast engine would, but it would be difficult and clumsy at best....hell, nintendo dumbed donw SM64 to fit on the DS, and it still looked and felt largely like the same game, so I don't see why not. Huh? A voxel engine is no less 3D than a poly engine is. In that respect there is no TRUE 3D visuals. There is no real depth in a 2D monitor. The only thing that makes either 3D( and both are certainly capable) is the math used along with them. You look at the various sample code out there( and there are plenty) and you will usually see a qsort for the z plane. If not they are recent samples and rely on the hardware z-buffers. I think if you rewrote the micro code in the N64 MIPS, you MIGHT compete with the Jag's blitter at voxels. The video hardware of the N64 is pretty much a 3D engine. It can push a lot of poly in the form of lines and pixels but the Jaguar is going to do this much easier and more flexibly. The N64 will certatinly push many more polies per frame than the old black cat could though. The Jag II blitter would have blown you folks away. It not only was a corrected buffered version of the blitter(much more efficient and no more waiting for the GPU or visa versa.) It also had the ability to do triangles, textured, lighted, shaded and filtered in one single blitter command. No more command for every line of the triangle....just one. It would have out graced the PS1, N64 and the Saturn easily. Shame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 (edited) I personally dont think it's fair to think about what N64 game the Jag could handle. It really never had the chance to be mastered by programmers like other consoles did. Example, the 2600 went really far from Combat all the way to Pitfall 2 and California Games. It would have been very awesome to see what the Jaguar could have done with super experienced programmers exploiting the hardware to the fullest. True, except for Pitfall 2. Remember that that game uses an added processor on-cart (enhancing video capabilities as well as sound), so more in line with something liek Star Fox on the Super NES. All of them really, and without the awful fogging (On the other hand, Japan coders (if they'd support Jaguar back then) were never really experts when it comes to programming Western consoles. They were lousy actually, until XBox came along). I think this is a gross exaggeration. What other Wester consoles were around in Japan anyway? (the 2600 wasn't really pushed in its heyday and didn't really catch on, same for many other US consoles, and from the mid 80's to the Xbox's release, there were only the 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar -inless you include the commodore Game systems ans XEGS- and except for the Jag, those were never even released in Japan) Technically, you could argue the N64 is American made due to the MIPS/SGI chipset, but that's kind of a gray area. There's also the Pippin, but that was done in cooperation with Bandai, same for the 3DO with Panasonic. Anyway, that really is n oversimplification, plus look at the Sega CD, the opposite case, a Japanese console, but the only ones to really push the hardware (with a couple exceptions) were in the west, particularly Europe, like CORE, but also others like Dynamix and Malibu Interactive. (and there's others like Psygnosis, but that was pretty much all FMV stuff, like microcosm or novastorm) You gotta remember that Atari essentially died, and was rebooted several times during the 80's and 90's. In short, Atari was king of jack shit by the time the Jaguar came on the scene. Yeah, there was a glimer of hope in salvaging the company durring the crash, through Morgan's efforts, but of course, Warner sold to Tramiel. (but who knows if Morgan would have been abole to pull them through or not) As for the 80's, uh..."nintendo took care of retailers? Huh???" Yeah, Nintendo "took" care of retailers, with outrageous monopolistic practices, including requireing retailers ro deal with them, and only them, or not deal with them at all. People seem to either forget, or forgive this action for whatever reason. This is true, but what's overexaggerated is how early they had such a grip on the market (and developers alike), this really didn't come into play until 1987 at the earliest. Prior to this there was the test market in NY and the novelty of R.O.B. More significantly was the cooperation with Worlds of Wonder, allowing them to more or less bribe (or blackmail depending on how you look at it) retailers into carying their stuff. (forcing retailers to stock NES's if they wanted to stock Lazer Tag or Teddy Ruxpin) As near as I can tell, it's one of the worst selling consoles of all time (not couning uber limited run proto systems or someting. I think the Pippin and CD32 sold significantly worse, maybe the FM Townd Marty as well. (and probably CDi, but that's not a game console first and foremost) The 3DO's figures are iffy to some people (especially the 2 million figure -though this would be taking units dumped at low prices to clear stock), but then again, it supposedly sold much better, and longer in Asia. (the VCD functionally probably being no small part) It really didn't get a fair shale though. Too bad there's no one to really blame but Atari Corp. themselves. (or the management rather) I'm not saying they could have competed directly with Sony, Nintendo, or Sega (though Sega was screwing themseves badly during the Saturn) in terms of marketing/advertizment budgets, but they could have managed things a lot better, and used what they did have more efficiently. A lot of th management of the Jaguar seems to have been pretty half assed. Really sad. Kind of interesting though that I'd never heard of a 3DO until I got into the online retro community (I think the first time I actually say it was a couple years ago in some compaison video on youtube or gametrailers), but I had heard of the Jag growing up, mainly from my dad expressing how it was ahead of it's time and never got the support it should have. In that respect there is no TRUE 3D visuals. Stereoscopy I think it would offer a closer match to SM64 than a raycast engine would, but it would be difficult and clumsy at best....hell, nintendo dumbed donw SM64 to fit on the DS, and it still looked and felt largely like the same game, so I don't see why not. You wouldn't be using a pure voxel environment, just for the portions that it's adnatageous for, use polygons and sprites/2D tiles for the rest. And was SM64 really cut down too much? I know the resolution's lower (but that's a screen limitations), the poly cont might be a tad lower, and far less filtering is done, but a lot of that filtering really wasn't necessary in the first place. (somtimes pixelated textures can look better than blurred ones, not sure about antialiasing) First of all...Voxel engines can indeed do very amazing FPS's. Why dont they use them? Ask the GFX card makerswho only make hardware to push polygons. The card on PC and in todays consoles do not have super flexible user programmable blitters on board. The have blitters but they are dedicated to the poly renderer. Ever try to draw a lot of pixels and lines in Open GL or Direct X? Can you say choke? The Jag can ALMOST keep up with todays hardware and even surpass it in some cases. These cards are designed to push polygons....that's it. With enough polygons one could certainly make some very realistic and convincing landscapes, but voxels will put a hurtin' on even some of the best cards out there. Case in point.....I tried to emulate the pixel blasts of Tempest 2k using pixel calls in open GL and Direct X(to compare, but GL blows Dx away) on a PC and believe me, its not very impressive when you consider a 26 mhz game console (Jaguar) can keep up or out do it. After just a few objects blasting with a nice moving starfield and a hand full of 3D models on the screen, the PC dropped its frames considerably(choked). I had a ATI-9800 and it was the only card I had a hard time putting a hurt on( I did with one project....mwahahahahahaha! ...many you guys would love that one....) Man that card was sweet...till it toasted out on me. With out much cash I went for a lesser (ATI-9250)card and it just dies with lots of lines and pixels. In these circumstances wouldn't it be just better to use a software renderer catering to this? (particularly with how fast current CPU's have gotten) In fact, this is exacly what there are some examples of in some older PC games, like Comanche. (particularly predating common 3D acceleration hardware) I'd immagine you could do a lot more with modern hardware. Edited August 17, 2009 by kool kitty89 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Needles Kane Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 I had an argument once here with some one who swore the Jaguar could not do Rogue Squadron. If Phase Zero does not show him that the Jag indeed can HANDILY do it, I do not know what else could. Keep in mind also, Though the Jaguar can't push as many polygons it can push enough polies along with a voxel scape to certainly compete with Rouge Squadron. Try to see it from a layman's point of view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s9LC4LmsGU Which looks better? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 (edited) Most of the landscape and terrain would work great in voxel rendering, a lot of the polygonal models could be replaced with sprites/2D tiles with little visual change (the probe droids on the first level for example), and finally, any remaining polygonal models would use gouraud shading alone with textures only where absolutely necessary. And make the cockpit 2D instead of rendered 3D. With the right tools to really use the Jag hardware efficiently, I can se an aproximate equivelent, it might not look quite as good in some areas (I think buildings/structures on the ground would probably take the biggest hit if anything, and some of those, like the homesteads on tatoine, would look OK in 2D as well) Otherwise I think it would look fine. Inless of course, you're comparing the N64 game with 4 MB RAM expansion, which bumps the 320x240 resolution to 640x480 and significantly increases the draw distance as well. (not sure how the frame rate holds up in high detal mode) In fact the Jag could have the advantage of color count, as I'm pretty sure the N64 could only support a 15-bit (32,768 color) display, while the Jag often did double that (as did the Saturn), but could also go up to the full 24-bit palette on-screen. (though that probably wouldn't be appropriate here) Still, I think an approximation of the game could be done on the Jag, at least in visual terms. In terms of audio, I don't know. With CD it's easy, but otherwise, I'm really not sure about what Jerry's capable of. (particularly if it's handeling anything else, like helping with 3D calculations) At some point you'd have to cut things down, RS on N64 use a 32 MB cartridge (that;s 256 Mbits), 6x any Jag game, and with a good deal of compression at that. (the PC version took up close to the full 700 MB capacity of the CD) Though you'd save quite a bit of space by removing a lot of the texture data. (don't need it for voxel, and a lot of polygonal stuff can be untextured) But the stock N64 also had double the RAM available and RS was a well above average N64 game. (with Factor 5 breaking free of the restrictive standard microcode and writing their own) With a scenario at the time of programmers having that kind of dedication and budget/resourses as Factor 5 with the N64, then yeah, probably some really amazing stuff that plays to the system's strengths. Edited August 17, 2009 by kool kitty89 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 I had an argument once here with some one who swore the Jaguar could not do Rogue Squadron. If Phase Zero does not show him that the Jag indeed can HANDILY do it, I do not know what else could. Keep in mind also, Though the Jaguar can't push as many polygons it can push enough polies along with a voxel scape to certainly compete with Rouge Squadron. Try to see it from a layman's point of view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s9LC4LmsGU Which looks better? I am seeing it from a gamers point of view...I'll take Phase Zero any day. The frame rate is TWICE that of Rouge squadron and the action is more intense. The N64 is using serious fog and a really short draw distance. The only advantage I see in the RS video is more buildings. PZ is more colorful, faster moving and a much better draw distance. Plus the landscapes PZ is drawing are tall and far where the RS landscape and not very high and seemingly flatter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Most of the landscape and terrain would work great in voxel rendering, a lot of the polygonal models could be replaced with sprites/2D tiles with little visual change (the probe droids on the first level for example), and finally, any remaining polygonal models would use gouraud shading alone with textures only where absolutely necessary. And make the cockpit 2D instead of rendered 3D. With the right tools to really use the Jag hardware efficiently, I can se an aproximate equivelent, it might not look quite as good in some areas (I think buildings/structures on the ground would probably take the biggest hit if anything, and some of those, like the homesteads on tatoine, would look OK in 2D as well) Otherwise I think it would look fine. Inless of course, you're comparing the N64 game with 4 MB RAM expansion, which bumps the 320x240 resolution to 640x480 and significantly increases the draw distance as well. (not sure how the frame rate holds up in high detal mode) In fact the Jag could have the advantage of color count, as I'm pretty sure the N64 could only support a 15-bit (32,768 color) display, while the Jag often did double that (as did the Saturn), but could also go up to the full 24-bit palette on-screen. (though that probably wouldn't be appropriate here) Still, I think an approximation of the game could be done on the Jag, at least in visual terms. In terms of audio, I don't know. With CD it's easy, but otherwise, I'm really not sure about what Jerry's capable of. (particularly if it's handeling anything else, like helping with 3D calculations) At some point you'd have to cut things down, RS on N64 use a 32 MB cartridge (that;s 256 Mbits), 6x any Jag game, and with a good deal of compression at that. (the PC version took up close to the full 700 MB capacity of the CD) Though you'd save quite a bit of space by removing a lot of the texture data. (don't need it for voxel, and a lot of polygonal stuff can be untextured) But the stock N64 also had double the RAM available and RS was a well above average N64 game. (with Factor 5 breaking free of the restrictive standard microcode and writing their own) With a scenario at the time of programmers having that kind of dedication and budget/resourses as Factor 5 with the N64, then yeah, probably some really amazing stuff that plays to the system's strengths. I quite frankly do not know how any one can view those two videos and think there is something special about RS against PZ of all things. I see RS with half the FR and it's draw distances are awful for a machine that is 3 times the clock speed and dedicated 3D hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 Most of the landscape and terrain would work great in voxel rendering, a lot of the polygonal models could be replaced with sprites/2D tiles with little visual change (the probe droids on the first level for example), and finally, any remaining polygonal models would use gouraud shading alone with textures only where absolutely necessary. And make the cockpit 2D instead of rendered 3D. With the right tools to really use the Jag hardware efficiently, I can se an aproximate equivelent, it might not look quite as good in some areas (I think buildings/structures on the ground would probably take the biggest hit if anything, and some of those, like the homesteads on tatoine, would look OK in 2D as well) Otherwise I think it would look fine. Inless of course, you're comparing the N64 game with 4 MB RAM expansion, which bumps the 320x240 resolution to 640x480 and significantly increases the draw distance as well. (not sure how the frame rate holds up in high detal mode) In fact the Jag could have the advantage of color count, as I'm pretty sure the N64 could only support a 15-bit (32,768 color) display, while the Jag often did double that (as did the Saturn), but could also go up to the full 24-bit palette on-screen. (though that probably wouldn't be appropriate here) Still, I think an approximation of the game could be done on the Jag, at least in visual terms. In terms of audio, I don't know. With CD it's easy, but otherwise, I'm really not sure about what Jerry's capable of. (particularly if it's handeling anything else, like helping with 3D calculations) At some point you'd have to cut things down, RS on N64 use a 32 MB cartridge (that;s 256 Mbits), 6x any Jag game, and with a good deal of compression at that. (the PC version took up close to the full 700 MB capacity of the CD) Though you'd save quite a bit of space by removing a lot of the texture data. (don't need it for voxel, and a lot of polygonal stuff can be untextured) But the stock N64 also had double the RAM available and RS was a well above average N64 game. (with Factor 5 breaking free of the restrictive standard microcode and writing their own) With a scenario at the time of programmers having that kind of dedication and budget/resourses as Factor 5 with the N64, then yeah, probably some really amazing stuff that plays to the system's strengths. I think it would do just as good a visual version. I laso think it would easily handle those very simplex building structures as well at the same or higher frame rate using a voxel landscape. The JAguar start getting hammered when it uses too many complex models but four walled structures are hardly a sweat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted August 17, 2009 Share Posted August 17, 2009 The N64 and Saturns were a big leap forward from the Jag in many ways. I think one of the biggest ways was in available memory and expandability. Man if they had just put memory expansion slots in the Jag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted August 18, 2009 Share Posted August 18, 2009 (edited) I think the use of RDRAM facilitated the N64's memory expansion. And the Jag should have been expandable in the same fassion as the Saturn, via the cartridge slot, except the Jag's cartridge slot only uses 32-bits of the data bus, so it'd only allow 1/2 the bandwidth of main. (I'm not sure about other peculiarities, or of the Saturn's cart/expansion slot's configuration) I also think you'd either need to add additional logic onboard such an expansion cart (for refreshing DRAM), or use expensive SRAM instead. (the latter not being very practical, the former adding complexity) The Saturn's expansion abilities were squandered outside of Japan though. (along with a lot of other things, but that's another issue) One thing to noe though, is that, in cart based games, a lot of ROM takes the place of what would need to be loaded into RAM on a CD based console, though you can treat carts like CD's (or disks as the case may be) and load the data into RAM as well (I beleive carts on the Lynx were used exclusively in this mann, same for the C64), some things you have to do this with is ROM is too slow. This would make RAM expansion most useful in conjunction with the Jaguar CD. (basicly using RAM with the Jag CD in place of ROM of cartridges, rather than loading data into the Jag's main RAM) Of course, this would have been most useful onboard the CD unit itsself. (particularly with the mory track also using the cart slot) Of course, by the time the Jag CD came out it was almost dead in many areas and then ended alltogether when Atari merged with JTS... (at least from a hardware standpoint; there were a handfull of commercial releases after this, and homebrew of course, but generally it was dead as far as th emarket was concerned) Hypothetically, if the Jag was CD based from the start, it probably would have been good to have an expansion/cartridge slot using full 64-bit data bus, possibly facilitating DRAM refresh as well (making the expansion module cheaper), and obviously have memory card slots separate. (for gmae saves, preferably with EEPROM or flash memory, like the Jag's memory track or PS1 memory cards, rather than expensive battery backed SRAM -which the N64 used for its memory cards -and some carts, others using eeprom or flash) But really, lack of RAM expansion is so much lower in prority than other issues that should have been corrected... (changes to the hardware istself that could have been made prior to release, or, even with the current hardware, focusing on producing good tools to work around problems and efficiently utilize the hardware, then the're the marketing and overall management) Edited August 18, 2009 by kool kitty89 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sd32 Posted August 18, 2009 Share Posted August 18, 2009 How about Bangaioh!, its a great 2d shooter from Treasure. Jag should be able to handle it. The early N64 racer F1 Pole Position had some pretty short draw distance, pretty basic level of geometry and really basic textures. Maybe F1 World Tour Racing 3;) on the Jag would have come pretty close to that game. Also, the awesome Body Harvest wasnt the most impressive looking N64 game, i think the Jag had a shot at that one too. Smash Bros. would be even better on the Jag with an awesome 2d engine featuring prerendered sprites and backdrops, high color graphics, a zooming and panning camera and a plettora of blitter special effects (whatever that means, hehe).Who needs polygons when you kick so much ass in 2d. N64 Smash Bros looked pretty lame in my opinion, played great though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kool kitty89 Posted August 18, 2009 Share Posted August 18, 2009 Gorf, comparing framerate in youtube videos can be tricky, still, I think PZ is probably smoother. There are other levels in RS with more height (the first level -on tatoine- for example -though this level in particular would seem ideal for voxel rendering on the Jag with the very limited number of buildings and envronment fich with dunes, canyons, and mountains) Another thing to note on RS is that it will look significantly diferent with the RAM expansion PAK (doubling horizontal and vertical resolution and increasing draw distance -not sure on the effect on framerate though), supposedly the draw distance is even longer than the PC version when the Expansion Pak is used. In any case, I think the biggest difference noticable to the average gamer is the use of 2D models (for trees, objects, enemies, weapon fire, explosions etc) in PZ vs 3D poligonal models in RS. (for the most part) PZ also has a somewhat limited draw distance and uses distance fog to mask this (to good effect too), I think it's more obvious in RS (along with the seemingly flatter environment) is the difference in perspective: staying close to the ground in PZ, but often high above in RS. I really like the smoothe look of voxel environments though, particularly on the Jag compared to polygon ones like in Cybermorph or Checkered Flag (BM looked a bit better, but nowhere near as good as PZ's voxels). It seems to me that to best take advantage of the Jag graphically, you'd want to use a number of different renering techniques together, each used where most advantageous. (voxel landscape, polygonal buildings like in Iron Soldier, or preferably more like IS 2, polygonal models for some enemies/objects and effects, with textures when really necessary, and use of 2D parts of the environment, objects, or effects where appropriate -like trees, weapon fire, explosions, maybe some smaller buildings as well) Looking at something like Battlemorph, it really seems like they overused polygons, not just for the terrain either, but for trees and objects that would have looked much better as "sprites." (nevertheless Bm is a nice looking game, though it probably didn't seem like that to some people -at the time or still now, but then again, I'm partial to shaded polygon graphics -particularly in a sureal environment of a game like BM) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Owl Posted August 18, 2009 Share Posted August 18, 2009 I really like the smoothe look of voxel environments though, particularly on the Jag compared to polygon ones like in Cybermorph or Checkered Flag (BM looked a bit better, but nowhere near as good as PZ's voxels).It seems to me that to best take advantage of the Jag graphically, you'd want to use a number of different renering techniques together, each used where most advantageous. (voxel landscape, polygonal buildings like in Iron Soldier, or preferably more like IS 2, polygonal models for some enemies/objects and effects, with textures when really necessary, and use of 2D parts of the environment, objects, or effects where appropriate -like trees, weapon fire, explosions, maybe some smaller buildings as well) Its entirely possible that people may discover that someone has already been thinking upon those lines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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