Atari Jaguar vs 3do

[Bill Loguidice]

I do feel that there is a far stronger Jaguar community than 3D0, as well as being a stronger homebrew scene... It's all very well and good to compare systems by 'back in the day', or whatever, but ultimately it's here and now that matters too...

 

Absolutely. The Jaguar has great homebrew support considering how poorly it sold. It helped the platform immensely from an emotional standpoint that it was Atari's swan song. I doubt there will ever be such an emotional attachment to the 3DO, even though it sold far better, has far more games, was taken better advantage of overall, etc. I suppose in part because of that there's also less of a need/incentive to create for it (and then there's the whole being able to play copied CDs on it thing, which probably arguably reduces the incentive to create for-pay homebrews on it even further).

 

When push comes to shove I'd still recommend a 3DO far more than a Jaguar to someone really wanting an opinion on which one to get, but there's no denying there are some interesting aspects to the platform (for me, I love the spinner support and the six button Pro controller, which makes up for the sins of the stock controller).

[LianneJaguar64]

 

That's because I didn't really make one. Just showed how Doom on 3do sucked compared to the Jag (or most other versions). Something to add to the comparison if anyone still cares

 

But either way, it doesn't matter which is better/worse. Whichever system has games you enjoy, that's what should be played with. It's all about the games and the enjoyment you get from them, so vs threads in their very nature are subjective to each individuals preference on what they prefer to play.

Well it's certainly better in the graphics department to the 32X... Doom 32X used Jaguar's source code, but tuned down for it... Although I do love my 32X a lot... But Jag is better!

[sh3-rg]

A more interesting comparison is probably...

 

snip.

 

A more interesting comparison is probably the hardware platforms, what they offered and how the systems were set up for devs to go and create.

 

Jaguar = Superpowered MegaDrive/Genesis.

3DO = Underpowered PlayStation precursor.

 

They might have dropped at similar times, but one had it's feet firmly in the past and the other a toe in the future.

 

Jaguar was just 2 years+ LTTP. By the time it finally arrived, the way games were being made was already changing.

[Bill Loguidice]

Well it's certainly better in the graphics department to the 32X... Doom 32X used Jaguar's source code, but tuned down for it... Although I do love my 32X a lot... But Jag is better!

 

Unfortunately, that's another example of a Doom port that could have been significantly optimized to create a far better version than we got. For whatever reason, pre-PlayStation Doom console ports just didn't get extra effort put into them to take better advantage of the target hardware (although I suppose it could be argued that the SNES version of Doom, with its Super FX 2 chip, was as good as that particular platform was going to get).

[Gunstar]

I will say it again...both systems are cool and have cool games, and where they overlap I just play the better version. They compliment each other and I think every fan of either could easily be a fan of both if they look at it like I do. neither system has a huge library, even if the 3DO's is twice the size, it is still very small compared to commercially successful systems and between the two there exists a truely competent library.

 

And as far as which is more powerful, I personally see nothing in either library that the other couldn't pull off for the most part, with changes adapted for each system's strengths and there is NOTHING anyone can SAY to convince me otherwise. As far as I am concerned they are both roughly equal technically. One is not a superpowered Genesis and the other an underpowered PSX...they are both just the first of the "next gen" and every system that came later had the hinesight to improve the "next gen."

 

Edited October 12, 2015 by Gunstar

[LianneJaguar64]

 

Absolutely. The Jaguar has great homebrew support considering how poorly it sold. It helped the platform immensely from an emotional standpoint that it was Atari's swan song. I doubt there will ever be such an emotional attachment to the 3DO, even though it sold far better, has far more games, was taken better advantage of overall, etc. I suppose in part because of that there's also less of a need/incentive to create for it (and then there's the whole being able to play copied CDs on it thing, which probably arguably reduces the incentive to create for-pay homebrews on it even further).

 

When push comes to shove I'd still recommend a 3DO far more than a Jaguar to someone really wanting an opinion on which one to get, but there's no denying there are some interesting aspects to the platform (for me, I love the spinner support and the six button Pro controller, which makes up for the sins of the stock controller).

I really like the OG Jaguar controller, pretty comfy and a good size... Funnily enough, I think a mate of mine is making a YouTube video about it today... Could be wrong tho anyhow, it's a good pad... I know I'm English, so 3D0 means little to me, but I don't know many games for it at all..

Edited October 13, 2015 by LianneJaguar64

[Otto1980]

 

Jaguar = Superpowered MegaDrive/Genesis.

3DO = Underpowered PlayStation precursor.

 

I Disagree..

 

3DO is same or little weaker than jag.. but most games "look" stronger for its time.. (now they aged bader than some jaggames and things turnd.. but thats my opinion.. )

 

the reason? the jag got "do the math"..

 

there are 2 "do the math" on the jag.. one is a slogan for the customer to make advertising

and the other is for the programmers to let them know they have to "do the math" for everyting they want on the jag

 

so this "do the math" is the biggest problem when you have or wanna do "nextgen" games..

because if you not able to make that "math" for it.. the jag (or lets say the devkit&Libs) didnt do it for you or even might help you

 

The 3do does.. because it had that "nextgen" math inside its public devkit and devlibs..

Edited October 13, 2015 by Otto1980

[sh3-rg]

I Disagree..

Naturellement.

 

3DO is same or little weaker than jag.. but most games "look" stronger for its time.. (now they aged bader than some jaggames and things turnd.. but thats my opinion.. )

 

the reason? the jag got "do the math"..

 

there are 2 "do the math" on the jag.. one is a slogan for the customer to make advertising

and the other is for the programmers to let them know they have to "do the math" for everyting they want on the jag

 

so this "do the math" is the biggest problem when you have or wanna do "nextgen" games..

because if you not able to make that "math" for it.. the jag (or lets say the devkit&Libs) didnt do it for you or even might help you

 

The 3do does.. because it had that "nextgen" math inside its public devkit and devlibs..

 

NathanFillion.gif

[Bill Loguidice]

 

I Disagree..

 

3DO is same or little weaker than jag.. but most games "look" stronger for its time.. (now they aged bader than some jaggames and things turnd.. but thats my opinion.. )

 

 

OK, I'll bite. In what way technologically was the 3DO the same or a little weaker than the Jag? If you compare actual games released (acknowledging the 3DO has the advantage of a larger library from bigger name developers), the 3DO seems to outperform the Jaguar pretty handily in nearly every genre and game type. To also be fair to the Jaguar, it was being sold for much less than the 3DO at launch, so you wouldn't expect it to have the same technological chops. So kindly tell us in what ways you think the hardware in the Jaguar bests the 3DO. Because the way I see it, the 3DO has a higher resolution, more on-screen colors, better FMV processing, better audio, better 3D capabilities, etc.

[Gunstar]

 

I Disagree..

 

3DO is same or little weaker than jag.. but most games "look" stronger for its time.. (now they aged bader than some jaggames and things turnd.. but thats my opinion.. )

 

the reason? the jag got "do the math"..

 

there are 2 "do the math" on the jag.. one is a slogan for the customer to make advertising

and the other is for the programmers to let them know they have to "do the math" for everyting they want on the jag

 

so this "do the math" is the biggest problem when you have or wanna do "nextgen" games..

because if you not able to make that "math" for it.. the jag (or lets say the devkit&Libs) didnt do it for you or even might help you

 

The 3do does.. because it had that "nextgen" math inside its public devkit and devlibs..

I agree. The only reason some of the 3DO's games made it seem more powerful at first was the advantage of CD memory over cartridge and better devkits to use early on, later Jag games look as good once developers learned the machine better. And then the Jag CD never got much of an opportunity to show it brought the system up to equal levels of the 3DO. But what there is on CD for the Jag does show glimpses, like IS2, Battlemorph and Hoverstrike. But even then, late cartridge games on the Jag like Skyhammer look just as good as 3DO games, just lacking variety in textures due to memory constraints. Plus, games like 3DO's Starfighter textures just look like generic cut and paste stuff from a premade texture library and have not aged well (I still LOVE Starfighter). But on the other hand, I think the Jag's garaud shaded polygons have aged much better and look better, to me, than those blocky low-res textures of games like Starfighter or Bladeforce on 3DO. I think a Starfightet on the Jag with less textures( like landscapes) and instead garaud shading like Battlemorph look far superior. Games on the Jag Like Skyhammer or Hovetstrike cd even held up far better with age than many 3DO textures, though there are good examples of better texturing that held up better over time in the 3DO's library too, like Shockwave 2 or Spacehulk. The more and more I compare some games on each, the more and more both systems seem quite equal. Edited October 13, 2015 by Gunstar

[Otto1980]

Games on the Jag Like Skyhammer or Hovetstrike cd even held up far better with age than many 3DO textures, though there are good examples of better texturing that held up better over time in the 3DO's library too, like Shockwave 2 or Spacehulk. The more and more I compare some games on each, the more and more both systems seem quite equal.

 

my words.. i would say hoverstrikeCD is texturquality master of bouth systems

 

 

better 3D capabilities

 

cluing some lowres textures on a very basic 3d environment is not "better 3D capabilities"

in most cases you just have more quality artwork/textures like in killingtime.. (but there you also see the 10 fps "better 3D capabilities" of the 3do)

IronSoldier2 for example has much much more 3d environment than most or maybe all other 3do games..

 

at the jag side they didn not even know how to use the risc without splitting everything into its ram..

i think we maybe never see something that really uses the jag in the "optimal" way and shows his power..

(projects like atariowls was a nice impressive demo of what could be possible)

 

all in all.. i think the jag as strong as the 3do in terms of 3d.. in some cases he is stronger..

plus the jag got more technical freedome .. compare BC racers and atarikarts.. doom and doom ... phaseZero and the non existant 3do voxel game

[+remowilliams]

at the jag side they didn not even know how to use the risc without splitting everything into its ram..

 

lolwhut ?

 

The Jaguar RISCs come with their own RAM. Like by design. Like for good reasons.

 

Have you ever seen NFS on the 3DO... ?

[Gunstar]

 

 

lolwhut ?

 

The Jaguar RISCs come with their own RAM. Like by design. Like for good reasons.

 

Have you ever seen NFS on the 3DO... ?

 

As a matter of fact, I have, one of my all-time favorite racers. It is good becuase it is a very narrow "world" that follows the road with invisible walls. The Jag could have easily done the same with the proper programmers and tools at the helm.

 

[Bill Loguidice]

 

Have you ever seen NFS on the 3DO... ?

 

As a matter of fact, I have, one of my all-time favorite racers. It is good becuase it is a very narrow "world" that follows the road with invisible walls. The Jag could have easily done the same with the proper programmers and tools at the helm.

 

 

 

I don't think NFS is a good example of a game the Jaguar could pull off. The 3DO was designed to stream textures, something I can't recall ever seeing the Jaguar do. If you argued - with the right programmers and tools - the Jaguar could pull off a wonderful port of Virtua Racing, I think that would be reasonable, but not something resembling NFS.

[Zerosquare]

There's really no comparison. The 3DO has hardware support for drawing polygons and performing geometical transforms (much like the PS1), whereas on the Jaguar you have to draw polygons line-by-line and there is no geometry acceleration whatsoever. Which is not surprising considering that the 3DO's launch price was almost three times the Jaguar's one.

[+Gemintronic]

There's really no comparison. The 3DO has hardware support for drawing polygons and performing geometical transforms (much like the PS1), whereas on the Jaguar you have to draw polygons line-by-line and there is no geometry acceleration whatsoever. Which is not surprising considering that the 3DO's launch price was almost three times the Jaguar's one.

 

As a limp newbie who only knows how to install rB+ I think I can authoritatively state that GPU in main. You're argument is invalid!!

[+madman]

3DO Road Rash vs Supercross 3D. Do the math.

[Bill Loguidice]

3DO Road Rash vs Supercross 3D. Do the math.

 

Supercross 3D is also a Myst-like.

[Agent X]

 

I don't think NFS is a good example of a game the Jaguar could pull off. The 3DO was designed to stream textures, something I can't recall ever seeing the Jaguar do. If you argued - with the right programmers and tools - the Jaguar could pull off a wonderful port of Virtua Racing, I think that would be reasonable, but not something resembling NFS.

 

I believe part of the problem was that (thanks to the Jaguar CD's relatively scant library) we never saw any games that would demonstrate the capability to stream textures. Most of the Jaguar CD games that made it to store shelves were either full-motion video games, or enhanced cartridge games (or "cartridge-style" games) with injected CD audio and FMV cinema sequences. There were very few games that made an effort to push the limits of the format.

 

If I recall correctly, Electronic Arts did intend to bring Need for Speed to the Jaguar, so they must have had some confidence that the task was feasible.

 

I always thought that BattleMorph's interleaved music was a rather cool trick. The game would switch music virtually instantaneously when transitioning between air, underwater, or tunnel areas. This proves that the Jaguar could continuously read data off of the disc and determine what to do with that data, based on in-game context as a direct result of the player's actions.

[Bill Loguidice]

If I recall correctly, Electronic Arts did intend to bring Need for Speed to the Jaguar, so they must have had some confidence that the task was feasible.

 

Unfortunately, there were a lot of false rumors. I would suspect this is one of them because I would think EA would have little incentive to create a Jaguar CD game considering how abysmally the console sold to that point (<100,000 units, and then factor in an add-on with a rounding error for an install base). They probably wouldn't have even supported the 3DO like they did if they weren't investors, and even then they didn't release several of the games promised early on.

[sd32]

3DO Road Rash vs Supercross 3D. Do the math.

 

Want to do the math with the Doom ports ?

[sd32]

Since their launch, i have read many times, from coders, that the Jaguar had more overall horsepower than the 3DO. But the 3DO has great tools and the Jag doesnt, so its easier to get great results on 3DO. Also, it had support from some big name developers, while the Jag didnt. But reading comments from guys like Zerosquare, Cyrano, Groovybee really make me doubt some of those beliefs i have, i respect their knowledge.

 

 

I know crap about coding, but from stuff i have read through the years i think that:

 

The Jaguar is better at 2D. So many 3DO 2d games fail to run at 60 FPS, like Gex, Johnny Bazookatune, etc, even some big name titles like Samurai Spirits. SSF2X while a terriffic port, is missing the parallax that even the 16bit version had. Then you had 2d games with heavy scaling and rotation effects on 3DO that turned out very choppy, like BC Racers and FH Goal, in comparison with some Jag stuff like Super Burnout and Atari Karts.

 

In 3D, the 3DO always has the advantage when it comes to textured mapped polygons, but the Jaguar has it when it comes to Gouraud shadded polys. 3DO seems to have the advantage at transparency effects in polygonal games. As for lightning effects, i dont know, Hover Strike CD has some pretty impressive ones, i dont recall anything as good on 3DO.

 

Now, when it comes to stuff like voxel engines, which from what i understand rely more on CPU horsepower, i guess the Jag has a nice advantage over the 3DO. I guess the 3DO dedicated hardware doesnt help much for that sort of stuff, and the 3DO big weakness is its CPU, am i correct?

 

Sound?, both use a DSP for sound, and the Jaguars is more powerful, but again, i guess it comes down to TOOLS to take advantage of them.

 

FMV?, from what was seen, 3DO seems a bit better. But i dont know, maybe the with time the Jag CDs fmv codecs could have been improved?

 

 

I am not claiming that these points are right. These is just what i think i understand from some tech talk i have read, so please correct me on what ever is wrong (everything? ).

Edited October 14, 2015 by sd32

[sd32]

I understand many like to look at the libraries to judge which is more powerful, but the really impressive stuff on 3DO comes from big studios something the Jag didnt have. And 3DO just received so many more games overall. Multiplatform stuff is pretty even between them. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Primal Rage, Robinsons Requiem, Soccer Kid, Syndicate, Cannon Fodder... its pretty even overall.

 

Come on, comparing Road Rash with Supercross 3d?... lets compare stuff from studios with similar budgets, like say, the 3DOs F1 GP with the Jags F1 World Tour Racing, see, F1 WTR aint that bad. I mean, on 3DO there are so many turds coming from the small companies, tons of terrible stuff from a technical point of view, as bad or worse then the Jaguars worst. Also, we dont know how that Road Rash and Need For Speed engine would turn out on the Jaguar. We all know that it works on a tricky way to get the most out of the 3DO, and ends up feeling limited and no fully 3d in some ways. We didnt see anything like that attempted on the Jaguar, so maybe it wouldnt turn that bad. Now the only 3DO racing game thats fully texture mapped that gives you more freedom of movement is Autobahn Tokyo, and that game is really rough from a technical point of view, so maybe the 3DO cant do a "standard" texture mapped racer that really feels 3d?

 

So i think that their overall capabilities are pretty close, both with strenghts and weaknesses. Kinda like between the Saturn and Playstation. Now, if we are comparing game libraries, then yeah, 3DOs is simply much larger, no contest. I actually play my 3DO more than my Jaguar .

[sd32]

I swear to god, you 3DO marks, onalok is gonna make all of you wanna go cry to mommy once you see his Doom 3 stuff on the Jaggy. WORD !

Edited October 14, 2015 by sd32

[Agent X]

 

Unfortunately, there were a lot of false rumors. I would suspect this is one of them because I would think EA would have little incentive to create a Jaguar CD game considering how abysmally the console sold to that point (<100,000 units, and then factor in an add-on with a rounding error for an install base).

 

It very well might have been a false rumor. It's also possible that there was some "agreement" made between EA and Atari to bring EA games to the Jaguar in some form. (I believe they also announced FIFA Soccer and Super Wing Commander at the same time.)

 

A likely scenario would be for EA to license the game to Atari, who in turn would farm out the Jaguar port to another third-party developer. Atari takes all of the financial risk and manages the project themselves. EA would have to do absolutely nothing, other than send Atari some raw resources (graphic and sound data, source code from the "original" version), and sign off on final approval when the game goes gold. Maybe they'll check in on the occasional milestone. Apart from that, their hands are off--they basically sit back and wait for their royalty checks to roll in.

 

It wouldn't be the first time this happened on the Jaguar. Many big-name "third-party" games were licensed by and published by Atari, and frequently had little or no involvement from the original publisher and developer. Some examples include Raiden, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Myst, and NBA Jam Tournament Edition.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Agent X