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Atari Jaguar vs Sega Saturn hardware power


babrasch

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I don't know the specs of either... but perhaps he was basing it on pure processing power and / or MHz...

 

I suppose it could be said that the Jaguar's processors were fast... but the Saturn and the PlayStation clearly had 3d capabilities that the Jaguar just didn't have... :(

 

 

 

Personally, I don't mind so much the "vs" comments. I'm not so emotionally unstable that I can't handle a discussion that challenges my beliefs. I realize every Sega person off the street comes in and challenges the "also dead" system owners... but if I didn't like a thread, I could just ignore it. :)

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WRT transparencies and Saturn I found this fascinating:

 

Yeah, that video is were i was coming from, when i posted my comment about transparencies on Saturn and Jaguar.

 

Its really cool to know about stuff like that, all the trick that coders pull off to make consoles do stuff, that they usually struggle with. When coders managed an engine that made good use of both VDP1 (sprites/polygons) and VDP2 (backgrounds) on Saturn, even the Playstation had trouble matching it. Problem was to find ways to get the most out of the VDP2 in 3d games, besides using it just for backdrops. Games that had mostly flat terrain, could use the VDP2 mode7 type layer, to create the floors without using any polygons on it, like Grandia, Virtua Fighter 2, Gun Griffon, etc. This allowed a game like Mass Destruction to run at 60fps on Saturn, and i think only 30 fps on PS1.

 

I hear that the blitter on the Jaguar also had a bunch of trick up its sleave, but i dont know anything about that. I have heard stuff like "blitter effects on Tempest 2000", but would love to have that explained.

Edited by sd32
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Wow, that Saturn video was great. Fascinating to see how the developers used those tricks to achieve all those special effects.

 

I'm surprised that Sega didn't design something closer to their arcade machines considering they were at the forefront of 3D in the arcades with all the virtua stuff. It's a little odd that the early virtua releases on Saturn didn't match up closely to expectations.

 

On the other hand, I'm a little disappointed that everything went 3D in the second half of the 90s. It would have been cool to see 2D gaming pushed to the limits now that everyone had consoles even more powerful than Neo Geo.

 

It looks like the Saturn could have done a lot of cool original games, but sure, it looks bad when it's just trying to port stuff that was originally designed for PlayStation.

Edited by BillyHW
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I'm surprised that Sega didn't design something closer to their arcade machines considering they were at the forefront of 3D in the arcades with all the virtua stuff. It's a little odd that the early virtua releases on Saturn didn't match up closely to expectations.

 

SEGA didn't want to make their own games 'so good' that you no longer neded to visit the actual Arcade for the full-fat experience. SEGA had a lot invested in the Arcade industry. By contrast, Sony were able to push as hard as they wanted as they had no arcade heritage to speak of, although, outside of Ridge Racer, Namco's arcade ports were very good (many titles being developed for a Namco board based on similar-to-PSX hardware).

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SEGA didn't want to make their own games 'so good' that you no longer neded to visit the actual Arcade for the full-fat experience. SEGA had a lot invested in the Arcade industry. By contrast, Sony were able to push as hard as they wanted as they had no arcade heritage to speak of, although, outside of Ridge Racer, Namco's arcade ports were very good (many titles being developed for a Namco board based on similar-to-PSX hardware).

 

With all due respect, there's zero evidence or logic that Sega would hold back the quality of their home games to make the arcade experience more appealing. Neither market had much to do with the other, especially by the time the Saturn was released. Even with the Genesis, the arcade ports were as close to the arcade versions as reasonably possible. The same thing on the Saturn. Sega wouldn't have gone to the trouble of releasing games like Virtua Fighter Remix if they were satisfied with less-than-stellar arcade ports. They were in a losing battle with Sony (and to a lesser degree at this point, Nintendo), so it would have been suicide to hold anything back that would have allowed them an advantage.

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" .... it would have been suicide to hold anything back that would have allowed them an advantage"

 

Amen to that. And that applies to any reasonable business company.

 

I believe that as the case for Jag releasing the chipset in a little of a rush left half features implemented and some not working as intended hence developers had to use clever tricks to achieve a visually pleasing result. As time progresses most of this has been corrected and ported to std hardware blocks and std graphics libraries and "std" (or for sale) game engines.

 

That is to say that game designers and game programmers have available now much more out of the box to build their creations and clever tricks are now a little less in need, although it's always the case that consoles tend to lag behind what the SW wants them to do so there's still plenty for hand optimized "hacks"/tricks call them whatever.

 

I am still waiting for the day in which consoles would render 3D games by way of native HW accelerated Ray-Tracing or Radiosity so all the weird visual artifacts can be contained mathematically and the result is kind of predictable especially when dealing with reflective and refractive surfaces, modern games are all over the place. Truth be told old games had their share of WTF moments especially when lighting is involved, anyone remembers the lens flare effect in Ridge Racer Revolution on PS1? ..... impressive except that I am supposed to be seating in the driver seat and I am not looking the road thru a freaking lens am I? I don't remember a single instance while I was driving in real life and noticed "hey here's a lens flare" even when wearing sunglasses.

Edited by phoenixdownita
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Re: " .... it would have been suicide to hold anything back that would have allowed them an advantage"

 

Yet it would seem in part at least that's exactly what they did, if 'grumblings' by Capcom at the time (Maximum interview i've quoted before on here..) are indeed correct.

 

 

As Capcom at least seemed to feel Sega were holding back the latest/best software libraries/tools for developing on Saturn for themselves as they did'nt want 3rd party software to be 'better' than the inhouse stuff Sega themselves were producing...

 

 

No idea just how true the claim was, but if it really was the case of 3rd parties getting latest dev.tools later than Sega themselves were able to use them, that's at the very least commercial madness.

 

Also, least we forget, Sega's in-house teams were over-streched and thus work on conversions like Manx TT, HOTD, Virtua Racing were'nt done by Sega themselves, so personally i don't think they had the sheer luxury of ensuring arcade conversions to Saturn were always as good as possible...

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  • 5 years later...
On 6/30/2015 at 2:20 PM, sd32 said:

"The Jaguar was a very powerful console for the year it got released, late 1993. Compared with other consoles released that year, it was pretty even with 3DO, and Jaguar ends up looking like a beast againts the AMIGA CD32 and FM TOWNS Marty. It kicks the crap out of those last two 32 bit systems so bad, that it validates the whole Jag 64 bitness :-D .

 

Tramiel was full of crap in that interview. Of course the Saturn and Playstation beat the Jag, they came out in 1995, 2 years later in the Jaguars market (they came out in late 1994 in Japan). They better were more advanced. But the Jag wasnt too shaby. The NEC PCFX came out around the same time as the Saturn and PS1, and the Jaguar blows it away.

 

Also, in 1995 the Funtech Super ACan was released, another system the Jaguar kicks the crap out of, even if it released later. The Apple/Bandai Pippin released on 1995 too, and at 3d its not much better than the Jaguar, and at 2d, the Jaguar beats it.

 

Oh, forgot about the 32X, released in 1994, a year after the Jaguar. Jaguar beats it on every way. More at 2d than at 3d i guess.

 

 

So, of the consoles released around the same time or a year after the Jag, we have that the Jaggy :

-Kicks the crap out of:

AMIGA CD32

FM TOWNS Marty

Funtech Super ACan

NEC PCFX

 

-Is pretty even with:

Sega 32X

Apple Pippin

3DO

 

-Gets beat by:

Sega Saturn

Sony Playstation

 

 

 

Yes guys, i am bored and had nothing better to do :P ."

Um... you forgot the N64. Also, you forgot a few handhelds that were in the 32 to 64 bit ranges.

 

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//** FAKTS **/

 

RCA Studio II is better than both Jaguar and Saturn:

 

* 1802 is greater than 64 or 32

* More buttons on the console than Jaguar or Saturn joysticks

* CPU is rated at 1.78megabtyes which when multiplied by 8 is another number.

* Combined 512 memory for both display and cloud computing.

* Hard coded to only work with RCA TVs. None of this PAL60 nonsense!

* Impossible to pirate with time tested “security through obscurity” technology

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1 hour ago, ZylonBane said:

What is it about this forum in particular that compels newly-registered members to immediately dive into the archive and respond to years-old threads?

There's this contest going on, and the cool guys (long term, old fu**s, whatever we are) haven't been invited.  Little secret for them though - I won in the 8-bit forum :)

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Just now, sirlynxalot said:

Would be sweet if through that sega games on atari systems deal we got Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally, Nights into Dreams, on carts for the Jag.

For sure... but from a technical point of view, I guess we would have to settle with ports of the 32X Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing... and they would be the best racing and fighting games on the Jag easily.

 

Would also be cool to have gotten ports of the 32X Space Harrier and After Burner. 
 

You know about how the coder of NBA JAM for the Jag was rushed and ported the 32X code in record time and still ended up improving the game over the 32X original? Imagine the 32X games I mentioned getting the same treatment!
 

 

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It’s so funny that so many people get upset when someone posts a new “vs” thread... especially when so many of you join in on the discussion anyway. Why do so many people get upset? We all see the search button... does it really matter that someone is posting a new thread?

 

Does Albert care? I don’t know. I can’t imagine it takes up more than 10k of hard drive space. It’s not like there is such a massive amount of posts like this that it knocks down otherwise super important Atari Jaguar threads.

 

Live and let live Millennials. Stop trying to control everyone’s speech.

 

Edit: lol... couldn’t tell this was an old thread on my phone, haha.

Edited by 82-T/A
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On 3/12/2021 at 6:45 PM, sirlynxalot said:

Would be sweet if through that sega games on atari systems deal we got Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally, Nights into Dreams, on carts for the Jag.

 

You can tell what Atari wanted from their lynx advertisement though...

 

Click for Next Page.

Oh, man.  That flyer takes me right back to my youth.  I don't think I've seen this particular flyer before, and I've known the ins and outs of the majority of the Lynx library for ages.  But somehow seeing that this morning sent waves of delicious nostalgia washing over me.  Thanks for that.

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On 3/9/2021 at 9:23 PM, Neko Koshaichi said:

Um... you forgot the N64. Also, you forgot a few handhelds that were in the 32 to 64 bit ranges.

 

Nintendo basically did what Sega did by going to an industry standard when they made the N64 back when Mario would make appearances on electronic bill boards in basketball game as a real-time CGI; they basically went the way of SGI (Silicon Graphics) type technology IMO... Same way with Sega when they created the "Virtual Racing" arcade game, however it seems like Sega was trying to do their own thing based on the "sprite based" arcade games that they were already doing with such games as "Out Run, Space Harier," and so-on thus the Saturn hardware seem to reflect some lessons from those proven technique. The good thing is that the "Atari Jaguar" seems to be right on the heels of the kind of graphics Sega was producing with the "Object Processor" originally designed for the Panther... I can go on and on about that sort of thing so forgive me if it seems like I'm coming out of the blue. The only problem with the Atari Jaguar is the "Video RAM" or lack there of in comparison to systems like the "3DO, Sega 32X (which has less RAM then the Jaguar, but better access to more memory than the Jag), and the Sega Saturn" which has more than enough video memory to give the Playstation 1 a run for a short time.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/12/2021 at 6:03 PM, ZylonBane said:

What is it about this forum in particular that compels newly-registered members to immediately dive into the archive and respond to years-old threads?

You think that's weird?  You think it's only this forum?  People like nostalgia and new people want to see if anyone thinks about these long dead systems and maybe what could have been. Sometimes old threads contain such info. Because you've seen it doesn't mean everyone has seen it. Why does that bother you so much?  

 

It's not like it's pushing breaking news down the forum (homebrew/controller mods) respectfully acknowledged.  I was an original Jaguar supporter, I met many of the Atari crew a few times during visits and at E3 and I don't mind noob questions. Just weird how many Nick Burns Computer Guy types are on the retro forums. 

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14 minutes ago, MAYAman said:

You think that's weird?  You think it's only this forum?  People like nostalgia and new people want to see if anyone thinks about these long dead systems and maybe what could have been. Sometimes old threads contain such info. Because you've seen it doesn't mean everyone has seen it. Why does that bother you so much?  

 

It's not like it's pushing breaking news down the forum (homebrew/controller mods) respectfully acknowledged.  I was an original Jaguar supporter, I met many of the Atari crew a few times during visits and at E3 and I don't mind noob questions. Just weird how many Nick Burns Computer Guy types are on the retro forums. 

c9cd8fc5c93820ba2d56c856d3b4ad97.jpg

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On 4/6/2021 at 7:34 PM, MAYAman said:

You think that's weird?  You think it's only this forum?  People like nostalgia and new people want to see if anyone thinks about these long dead systems and maybe what could have been. Sometimes old threads contain such info. Because you've seen it doesn't mean everyone has seen it. Why does that bother you so much?  

 

It's not like it's pushing breaking news down the forum (homebrew/controller mods) respectfully acknowledged.  I was an original Jaguar supporter, I met many of the Atari crew a few times during visits and at E3 and I don't mind noob questions. Just weird how many Nick Burns Computer Guy types are on the retro forums. 

It is because likely they are not going into the forum archives through the forums rather they are getting to the posts from a search engine then registering to reply.  I am sure many of these threads rank real high on google for specific Jaguar specific key words.  This forum is the primary source for Jaguar information on the web that is for sure.

Edited by The Helper
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On 6/30/2015 at 3:42 PM, Lost Dragon said:

Time to draw a line under this.

 
Yes Tramiel made those claims in Edge here in UK if my memory serves and Darryl Still (Atari UK Marketing) made a similar blunder in the letters page of Computer And Video Games.
 
Darryl was kind enough to clear up just how that happened when i put the question to him months ago, if your interested full interview can be found here:
 
 
Atari made a lot of false claims about the Jaguar..The Press made a lot of false claims about the Jaguar....
 
It happened with systems before, during and long after and i'm sure it keep happening in future generations.

Here’s that interview; the link broke: https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/rvg-interviews-darryl-still/

 

Basically, ha says he’s not a tech guy, & he was repeating key points he heard from Atari’s tech people. Sounds about right to me.

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12 hours ago, pacman000 said:

Here’s that interview; the link broke: https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/rvg-interviews-darryl-still/

 

Basically, ha says he’s not a tech guy, & he was repeating key points he heard from Atari’s tech people. Sounds about right to me.

Great interviews. I read the one by John Matthison too. I have yet to try Attack of the Mutant Penguins or Zero 5. Someday...

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