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Does Jag Doom run in highcolor mode?


kool kitty89

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Nope. From the Jaguar Technical Reference Manual :

Two colour resolutions are supported, 24-bit RGB and our own standard 16-bit CRY (Cyan, Red, Intensity).

I'm not normally one to argue with official manuals, but in this case I'm inclined to believe that whoever wrote that was mistaken. They got the Y = Intensity part correct, but CR standing for Cyan and Red makes no sense in light of how CrY mode actually works.

 

Nope. Thats NOT how CRY "actually works".

 

Your quoted docs are in error. The corners of the colour square are blue, cyan, yellow and red NOT blue magenta yellow and red - in fact the idea that magenta would fall on the corner instead of between the blue and the red was nonsensical.

 

 

The C and R parts are named that way because if you maximize one color component and minimize the other, you get cyan and red, respectively.

Ummm, no. You're only going to get a single color out of any given Cr value.

 

The chroma component of CrY is not like RGB or even the linear colorspace of GTIA. It's a coordinate system into a 2D projection of a color cube, thus each "axis" doesn't represent any particular color.

 

The page you posted also says "the human eye is least able to distinguish shades of green", when in fact the human eye is MOST sensitive to green. So clearly that manual wasn't edited very well.

 

Nevertheless if you consider the CRY colour to be a C nibble, an R nibble and a Y byte then for F0xx and 0Fxx you get a Red or a Cyan (with intensities depending on xx of course - i can't remember offhand which way round it was - that's the way Atari named it and that's why i called it such. Disagree all you want - that's why Atari named it the way they did - rightly or wrongly.

 

I've also commented that the green claim is actually problematic - with colour changes all too obvious.

Edited by Atari_Owl
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It's a coordinate system into a 2D projection of a color cube, thus each "axis" doesn't represent any particular color.
I never said otherwise. Atari just chose to name the axes after one of the two endpoints. That's nonstandard, but it's Atari we're talking about.

 

The page you posted also says "the human eye is least able to distinguish shades of green", when in fact the human eye is MOST sensitive to green. So clearly that manual wasn't edited very well.
I interpret "shades of green" as "green-teinted hues". It's true that the human eye is most sensitive to green light, but that's only the luminance part. It doesn't imply that given two different colors with the same luminance, they're easier to distinguish if they're in the green part of the color spectrum.
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Nevertheless if you consider the CRY colour to be a C nibble, an R nibble and a Y byte then for F0xx and 0Fxx you get a Red or a Cyan

And if you plug in different values, you get different colors. So this proves nothing. The pages of the manual that actually describe the CRY colorspace don't mention the cyan-red thing at all, and in fact only refer to the two axes as "X" and "Y".

 

that's the way Atari named it and that's why i called it such. Disagree all you want - that's why Atari named it the way they did - rightly or wrongly.

That's the way a particular Atari manual documented it. The only way to really know what the "Cr" stands for is for someone to ring up John Mathieson and ask.

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Huh, I thought the PSX actually supported a full 16-bit color mode, not just 15-bit RGB (at least 5-6-5 RGB should have been supported), maybe that was the saturn, I know the N64 was limited to using 15-bit RGB highcolor. That makes the 32x's and SNES's palettes seem a lot less limited. Could the PSX index directly from teh 24-bit palette when using a 256 color display?

It didn't work that way - the PSX didn't have a palette in the same way as VGA ( or even the jaguar ) - it's display was either 16 bit ( 5.5.5 plus stencil bit ) or 24 bit. When drawing textured sprites or polygons to the 16 bit screen the PSX would use another area of video memory as a CLUT to expand 4 or 8 bit textures, but there wasn't any limit to the number of CLUTs - they were just pointers to memory.

Oh, so the PSX doesn't even support a 256-color indexed mode? I know the 32x even does that (indexed from 15-bit RGB -enough to make a fiarly smooth transition of VGA games), as does the SNES. (depending on the mode -modes 3, 4, and 7 all use 256 color palettes) The saturn has a 256 color rendering mode as well. (in fact I think that's all VDP1 can do in the high resolution modes)

Or could you just set-up a CLUT for 256 indexed colors for a game rendered using 8-bit pixels? (couldn't it do an 8-bit bitmapped display?) It would only take 768 bytes for 256 24-bit indexed color values.

 

And does the Jag's CRY mode use normal 3-3-2 RGB for the base 256 color values? (or 3-2-3 maybe, you did mention they made the odd choice of underemphesizing green, right? -when it's otherwise considered the most sensitive color to the human eye)

 

I think once you get to a 266MHz PC you're well into Pentium 2/3 territory, and your PC is likely to have local bus VESA graphics with true colour support. Voxels wont choke at that speed.

Right and to my point...sad that it takes a processor with all the latest tech to beat a console one tenth it's clock speed and a few years later to boot.

Yeah, but that's all software rendering and a simple SVGA card. Hardware acceleration didn't even take off for consumer PCs until 1996, and it's been pretty much always optimized for polygon+texture+shading, hence why Outcast had to rely on software rendering alone for the flexibility necessary.

 

 

Still it's ten times the clock rate. That is very significant. Not something you brush off.

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Woo Hoo! A ZB post! I was wondering where you'd been. Thought maybe you didnt love us anymore. :)

 

 

 

Think of CRY mode in the same way as component video - or SVHS , one byte represents the colour (like chroma on SVHS) and one byte represents the brightness ( luma on SVHS )

SVHS is a kind of VCR. You're thinking of S-Video.

 

 

Hi Gorf - i change the CLUT all the time - as far as i can see, CRY colours are always CRY colours, 00 is always blue, FF is always yellow - thats why its CRY=CyanRedintensitY, where one specifiec levels of C,R and Y.

No. The "CR" represents chrominance, and the "Y" represents luminance.* This is why early monitor cables were sometimes referred to as Y/C cables

 

 

Magic carpet was another PC game using voxels

No, it wasn't. Magic Carpet used texture-mapped polygons. Look at the screenshot here. That's clearly not a voxel engine.

 

 

And for the love of god, people--

 

itsits.gif

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Still it's ten times the clock rate. That is very significant. Not something you brush off.

Yes, that's certianly true, and PCs contemporary to the Jag (ie 1993/1994) would be doing 256 color rendering with a 50-100 MHz 486. (pentium maybe, but that would tend to be pretty expensive still in 1994)

But witht he 266 Mhz P2/3, you'd be even faster than that by comparison with the superscalar architecture and such. (improved per clock over the original Pentium a fair bit I beleive, definitly a lot more than a 486 -plus 486 only has a 32-bit databus, then there's cache as well and FPU performance)

 

And of course, a decent mid-range PC is going to be much more expensive than the Jaguar (or PSX, or Saturn for that matter -maybe not 3DO), if you're buoing a out of th ebox macine new. (shopping around for deals/sales and assembling your own, not to mention upgrading an older machine)

 

It really is too mad that more Jaguar games didn't focus on alternate rendering techniques for 3D environmnets like that. (I men there are a couple raycasters, and Doom is damn good, especially considdering it was rushed and not nearly as optimized as it could have been, AvP is rather lackluster by comparison -much simpler map design -more like wolf3D- and pretty choppy at that) I mean, there were a a bunch of polygon based games in the Jag's main lifetime (ranging from quite poor, to pretty darn good -too bad ones like Battlemorph and IS2 were CD exclusives -plus some later games that came several years after Atari left the market -Sky Hammer, BattleSphere, etc), but only Phase Zero pushed voxel rendering, and it really looks awesome. (I mean, had a game like that come out in '94 or '95, even at 1/2 the framerate it would have been awesome)

Some more good raycasters would have been nice. (and homebrew projects based on the Doom engine have shown you can get pretty decent 3D-ish platformers usign that as well -like Sonic Robo Blast -not to mention if that was combined with voxel terrain)

 

 

However, I think the thing Crazyace really took issue with, wasn't so much your stating that the Saturn/PSX/(contemporary)PC wouldn't be capable of Voxel rendering on par with the Jaguar, but rather to this:

... you are NOT going to draw voxels like the blitter can. If this were the case,

not only would the PSX have done so, the PC would have back then as well. It is not until recently

that the PC can do this and that is only because of the ridiculous speed of the processors.

Neither the PC or the PSX are geared toward voxel...they are poly engines and the blitter in the

Jaguar in that time period will whip both there asses in this respect hands dwon.

 

I dont think you understand the difference in what a polygon and a voxel is, or you would known why the PSX or Saturn(or even the PC's of that day) could not pull them off.

You make it sound like PCs were better off using polygons, when at the time, it was software rendering only, thus voxels (and ray casting) would be preferred in many situations, hence why such methods were used rather than polygons.

 

Also, you say PCs couldn't do that until recently due to rediculously fast CPUs (which would be necessary due to the lack of support for such in standard video cards), but unless you call 10+ years ago recent, that's not true either, much later than the Jag of course, but 1999 is a good bit closer to 1993/1994 than it is 2010. (I mean Outcast here, which could play at full speed in max detial on a ~500 MHz PII/III/Celeron in 1999 -and that had to deal with perspective corrected texture mapped polygon models on top of the voxel terrain -and all software rendering)

Edited by kool kitty89
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that's the way Atari named it and that's why i called it such. Disagree all you want - that's why Atari named it the way they did - rightly or wrongly.

That's the way a particular Atari manual documented it. The only way to really know what the "Cr" stands for is for someone to ring up John Mathieson and ask.

 

Thats it - put your fingers in your ears and sing LA L ALA really LOUD - whilst still believing that Magenta is on one of the corners.

 

From the Official ATari docs we have both from the time and the revised one from John Mathieson INCLUDING the JagII docs (which actually have the X and Y axes renamed to C and R on the associated diagram) that was their reasoning - however reasonable it may or may not be

 

The FACTS of the situation therefore are that we have multiple official Atari docs to back up the naming convention stated and you have... your own little reality... is it nice there?

Edited by Atari_Owl
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Oh, so the PSX doesn't even support a 256-color indexed mode? I know the 32x even does that (indexed from 15-bit RGB -enough to make a fiarly smooth transition of VGA games), as does the SNES. (depending on the mode -modes 3, 4, and 7 all use 256 color palettes) The saturn has a 256 color rendering mode as well. (in fact I think that's all VDP1 can do in the high resolution modes)

Or could you just set-up a CLUT for 256 indexed colors for a game rendered using 8-bit pixels? (couldn't it do an 8-bit bitmapped display?) It would only take 768 bytes for 256 24-bit indexed color values.

 

PSX display is only 16 bit or 24 bit. It's a lot simpler than the Saturn ( which does have the 256 colour limit in hires going from VDP1 to VDP2 ) so if you wanted to reproduce an 8 bit display you would have to treat the 8 bit data as a texture.

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Between Atari_Owl, Gorf, and Thunderbird, one has to wonder what it is that programming the Jaguar does to people.

 

It further open's our eye's to the nonsensical rambling's of the like's of you.

Its just that simple!

 

 

Hope thats enough incorrect grammar for you to whine about. :P

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However, I think the thing Crazyace really took issue with, wasn't so much your stating that the Saturn/PSX/(contemporary)PC wouldn't be capable of Voxel rendering on par with the Jaguar, but rather to this

 

No, he take's issue with everything I say. However I stand by what I said about the

PCs. Until recently, you did not see CRY color high rez voxel engine's with

tons of enemies and object's along with a voxel cloud column on the PC until recently

(or nor do you still see such a thing as the majority of developer's rush shit out the

door using bloated lib's using polygon's since the hardware does it for them.

 

I never said you did not see voxel's EVER or AT ALL. I was pointing out that with all

it's ploygon weakness, it out powered anything in it's time frame handily in

other area's, including AI as well as 2D. But as usually, the point is alway's

missed in the hope to one up ol' Gorfy. ;)

Edited by Gorf
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No, he take's issue with everything I say.

There are things where we disagree , but I don't take issue with everything you say Gorf.

 

But as usually, the point is alway's missed in the hope to one up ol' Gorfy. ;)

Poor ol' Gorfy ;) - it's not 'one upping' , just disagreeing :) - I think I do it more with Atariksi than you though :)

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No, he take's issue with everything I say.

There are things where we disagree , but I don't take issue with everything you say Gorf.

 

But as usually, the point is alway's missed in the hope to one up ol' Gorfy. ;)

Poor ol' Gorfy ;) - it's not 'one upping' , just disagreeing :) - I think I do it more with Atariksi than you though :)

 

Poor Crazy, why disagree with reality? :D

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If Gorfian reality was a 266MHz PC in 1992 , I think I need to disagree :D

 

Anyway , disagreeing with you about being able to run voxels on PC/PSX doesn't stop us agreeing that PZ is an amazing game for the Jaguar , or that Jaguar Doom was one of the best versions available on console.

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Anyway , disagreeing with you about being able to run voxels on PC/PSX doesn't stop us agreeing that PZ is an amazing game for the Jaguar , or that Jaguar Doom was one of the best versions available on console.

 

Cant argue with that.

 

Anyway enough of such nonsense I still need to try to figure a way to more smoothly change between CRY (CyanRedintensitY as defined in the Atari docs) colours

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No, he take's issue with everything I say. However I stand by what I said about the

PCs. Until recently, you did not see CRY color high rez voxel engine's with

tons of enemies and object's along with a voxel cloud column on the PC until recently

(or nor do you still see such a thing as the majority of developer's rush shit out the

door using bloated lib's using polygon's since the hardware does it for them.

Would you call 1999 "recently" ? (not sure if outcast runs in truecolor -which you'd need to have the shades of CRY -onless SVGA cards supported 16-bit indexed palettes with 24-bit entires -which would require 192 kB for the CLUT, I don't know that they did though -just 15/16-bit RGB for highcolor) I wouldn't be surprised if outcast supported truecolor though, Tomb Raider II did a coupel years earlier. (and up to 1440x900 resolution -albeit the DOS Duke Nukem 3D actually supported higher res -I think Quake may have as well)

 

Are you sure all the enemies in PZ are voxel models BTW? (I can't tell one way or another by youtube and couldn't get it to work on emulators)

 

 

And is CRY the only 16-bit color mode available on the Jaguar, or does it support 15/16-bit RGB as well? (I'd think the latter would be advantageous for a lot of flat shaded 3D stuff, and 2D especially)

 

You do realize that by intentionally using the apostrophe incorrectly, you're demonstrating that you now know how to use it correctly.

 

Victory is mine.

stewie12.jpg

:D

Edited by kool kitty89
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And is CRY the only 16-bit color mode available on the Jaguar, or does it support 15/16-bit RGB as well? (I'd think the latter would be advantageous for a lot of flat shaded 3D stuff, and 2D especially)

 

Yes. The Jag supports the following video modes:

 

16-bit CRY

24-bit RGB

Custom (requires external hardware)

16-bit RGB

15-bit CRY + 15-bit RGB or "Variable Mode"

In this mode, you can switch from RGB to CRY mode on a pixel by pixel basis

I.e., some sprites could be RGB and others CRY, or background RGB with CRY sprites, etc...

 

All modes except RGB work with color look up, so you can use 1/2/4/8 bit sprites.

 

- KS

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If Gorfian reality was a 266MHz PC in 1992 , I think I need to disagree :D

 

P5 were released in 1993 anyway..the official release year of the JAguar.

75-120 mhz pentiums were released in 1994, the same time as Jag Doom. Phaze Zero was

not slated for release until at least 1995. That is when the 233mhz pentiums were

indeed released. My mistake on the 1992 year for 266's but clearly, you need to use

all this nonsense to divert from the REAL issue which is the PSX or a PC of that

time and years after can not do a voxel engine like the Jaguar did and does. It can

not match the frame rate or color till years later...perhaps not recently but certainly

not for a few techological generations....which is usually about 6 months per gen.

 

(see how I can own up to my mistakes? Let's see you do so ...but I wont hold my breath.)

 

Then you once again use diversion tactics with one mips and a geometry engine is

more powerful than a two risc jag ....ok...at polygons yes, but not in AI and game

logic where a geometry engine does nothing to help AI or game logic, not does it

do so in voxels. It also can not reproduce T2k with all the pixels blasts and the

blitter effects. If it were able to it would have and it fell quite short. It had to

replace everything with polygons and did not come close in the pixel and blitter

effects department. The geometry engine does not help in voxels at all. You have

yet to back this up in any way shape or form. It's really horid at lines and pixels too.

 

Posting links to lame 8 bit color slow frame rate games and sad choke frame rate

demos that do not have any other computation but the voxels and poorly and extremely

low rez crap on the PSX does not help you one bit.

 

Anyway , disagreeing with you about being able to run voxels on PC/PSX doesn't stop us agreeing that PZ is an amazing game for the Jaguar , or that Jaguar Doom was one of the best versions available on console.

 

Yes DOOM is the best versions of this game by far for it's time considering

the flawed console it had ran on. PSX is not high color like the Jag version

so even though we lack in game music(which I find lame anyway after the first

few times) GFX's were much more impressive, even if they were lower resolution.

OF course we did not have a CD player yet and Sony did. Considering the lack of

the other 8 bits of color on the PSX, the geometry engine aint looking all that,

now is it? Sure you have a few more levels and textures but yu also had a 650 meg

disc to hold them on and spool music off of.

 

 

And yes, more diversion and twisting of what I ACTUALLY said You mash my words

inaccurately as one who is wrong ususally does. How else can you divert attention

from the real issue. I never once said they can't do voxels. As an owner of an Atari

8 bit, I can tell yout they have been around long before any PC,PSX or Jaguar was.

The point I made was simply no machine of Jaguar's time and not until a few years

later, will you find a PC that could throw around the voxels as fast as a JAguar,

in 16 bit CRY color and a much higher resolution(in terms of voxel width). The PSX

never did and never will. It is not it's strength. So please stop putting extra words

in my mouth to try to divert from you're inability to prove otherwise.

Edited by Gorf
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