Lost Dragon Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 (edited) Oh indeed, my point was, powerful hardware alone really means nothing... The line from earlier: 'Imagine Ridge Racer running on an ultra powerful Jaguar. Amazing xD' I know this is Dreamers Corner, but you'd 1st have to imagine Atari being able to afford Namco's team to convert the game to this mythical Ultra powerful Jaguar...and have the team get to grips with the hardware, release it when it was ready, not when Atari badly needed something sat on the shelf, the budget to remain untouched etc etc..... As for better looking versions of existing 16 Bit games: Core Design's Andrew Smith talked of Jaguar CD Soulstar having:better sprites, redrawn scenary, main game visuals in 16 Bit CRY, intro running in 24 Bit Colour mode etc etc, but they still canned numerous other listed Jaguar projects... :-) Edited November 19, 2015 by Lost Dragon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoGeoNinja Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 If you don't like what NFS does, then compare it to Starfighter. My favourite game on the 3DO. 'Tis an excellent game and one that didn't fair too well in the porting process to PS1 & SAT. I used to love (the gimmick as to) how you could fly out of Earth's atmosphere in partially into space. It was very cool at the time. Not to mention, deformable terrain using weapons and having to physically dock into the mothership. Pretty advanced game at the time... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 In the perfect world where the Jaguar got to the golden years (like the Playstation 2) I'd imagine the potential would bump up against hardware bugs. From the UART quirks to gotchas with GPU-in-main techniques. Of course, I am talking out of my hind quarters as I'm not qualified to back up my own statements. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
032-Bias Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 (edited) From what I can see, Zero 5 and Hyperforce are good arguements to "yes it did...eventually". At the time against its major competition of SNES and Genesis, it was doing things that these two consoles required extra chip sets or external hardware to accomplish. Granted it was 3 years newer, but it had unhelpful development tools at the time and the games that were "impressive" with what they did (i.e., Cybermorph being able to create 3-d polygon graphics and landscape on only a cartridge) were not received well or were not that good. It had possibility to develop into something interesting (which it did after/close to its demise) and it was a 2-d sprite monster (Rayman looks gorgeous), but as others have said the Jaguar was in a transitional period in the market and it was just phased out. Similar story with the Sega Saturn if I do say so myself; co-processor machine that had amazing games if the hardware was utilized correctly and to its fullest, but dropped before it could mature to that level of game making consistently. All opinion and conjecture of course. Edited November 19, 2015 by 032-Bias 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariORdead Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 There would have been no reason for Atari to wait to release the Jaguar 2 instead of the Jaguar 1 (besides the fact that Atari needed to be earning money from SOMETHING prior to that). Few in the industry could have predicted how dramatically things would shift after the release of the PS1. Sony gambled correctly, but it was still a gamble that the type of system they created would be the one that would lead the way for all others going forward to follow. Realistically, I'd say the only area where we can really say Atari lacked vision with the Jaguar was not making it a CD-based system from the start. It's not fair to criticize them for the Jaguar's modest 3D capabilities, because that really wasn't proven necessary until after the release of the PS1 a few years later. I disagree with the CD being the only area they lacked vision. As for 3D, I would say it was a complete lack of vision, PC gaming were headed that way already, the Snes was using mode 7 to pull of F-zero and mariokart, and then were adding chips to pull off Starfox, Stunt race FX and Virtua racing. Its pretty obvious 3D was becoming a thing. And the controller, 3 main buttons when the Snes had already introduced shoulder buttons, Sega had already seen the need to reklease a 6 button controller etc. Not to mention the blatent copy and paste of any game genre that had been popular in the last couple of years/ everything stinks of a company with no forward thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warzard Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 I think the Jaguar would have faired better is things weren't so rushed and done on the cheap. If Atari Corp would have developed some decent tools, like a C compiler, tried to put together a AAA studio, and not rush the launch, we might have seen better game. Also, a strategy of 2D, 2.5D, and really "polished" flat shaded polygons games as a motifs for the Jag, would have played to it's strengths. Not having Atari Games on board was a huge mistake. Those guys were very creative and talented: And could have possibly tamed the buggy beast that was the Jaguar. There were so many 32-bit 2D and pseudo 3D arcade and computer games that never saw a console conversion. And I would have loved to see I-Robot 2000 as a Jag game. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LianneJaguar64 Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 To be fair the DC is fondly remembered for having quite a few quality releases, very little debate if it was used to its true potential, and for the short lifespan it had quite the support at almost 700 games. So the "full potential" thing about the Jaguar is that it tried to compete against new gen games that it was ill equipped to do, hence when you see it struggling in full 3D one asks if anything better could be achieved given all the hype around it .... the previous gen (16 bits or even home computer of Amiga/Atari ST class) although they struggled mightily on 3D were not questioned about "reaching their potential" as it was understood that that was not their cup of tea anyway. The Dreamcast was in competition against the PS2, a technically superior machine, if I recall correctly... PS1 et al doesn't count the same, the DC was released in 1999 here in the PAL region, four years after PSX... That was when Sega sold consoles the most, because they had superior hardware (and of course, excellent games 'D) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LianneJaguar64 Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 I think the Jaguar would have faired better is things weren't so rushed and done on the cheap. If Atari Corp would have developed some decent tools, like a C compiler, tried to put together a AAA studio, and not rush the launch, we might have seen better game. Also, a strategy of 2D, 2.5D, and really "polished" flat shaded polygons games as a motifs for the Jag, would have played to it's strengths. Not having Atari Games on board was a huge mistake. Those guys were very creative and talented: And could have possibly tamed the buggy beast that was the Jaguar. There were so many 32-bit 2D and pseudo 3D arcade and computer games that never saw a console conversion. And I would have loved to see I-Robot 2000 as a Jag game.Or indeed, Area 51. A game made on CoJag hardware! A conversion of that would have been nice... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 The Dreamcast was in competition against the PS2, a technically superior machine, if I recall correctly... PS1 et al doesn't count the same, the DC was released in 1999 here in the PAL region, four years after PSX... That was when Sega sold consoles the most, because they had superior hardware (and of course, excellent games 'D) I wasn't comparing the 2, just even ift Sega went almost belly up with the DC, not unlike Atari did with the Jag, the DC does not seem to have the "untapped potential" kind of discussions, instead the Jag does, that was all. Maybe the fact that Sega didn't die is another differentiation. In 93 when the Jag shipped it was among the most powerful consoles if not the most powerful one but it did miss the trend (or it made it difficult to develop those kind of games), not so the DC, but in both cases the relative companies went under. Granted that after the direction that games took on PS1/Saturn it was pretty obvious what people wanted (the first gen was now proving ground) and Sega didn't have to guess, yet the machine has also a lot of great 2D games and gorgeous fully textured 3D games. Sega also learnt the lesson that too many processors are hard to harvest, if I remember correctly the DC is much more traditional in that regard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 (edited) I disagree with the CD being the only area they lacked vision. As for 3D, I would say it was a complete lack of vision, PC gaming were headed that way already, the Snes was using mode 7 to pull of F-zero and mariokart, and then were adding chips to pull off Starfox, Stunt race FX and Virtua racing. Its pretty obvious 3D was becoming a thing. And the controller, 3 main buttons when the Snes had already introduced shoulder buttons, Sega had already seen the need to reklease a 6 button controller etc. Not to mention the blatent copy and paste of any game genre that had been popular in the last couple of years/ everything stinks of a company with no forward thinking. Jag controller has 15 buttons, copying genres...every gaming console copies genres from the original console, the Atari VCS, Nintendo even release the same games on every of their new consoles. Edited November 20, 2015 by high voltage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Jag controller has 15 buttons, copying genres...every gaming console copies genres from the original console, the Atari VCS Which wasn't the first either, Fairchild Channel F and RCA Studio II were both cart based and beat it to market 1 full year, yet the VCS was better in many ways so it won the '70 market. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariORdead Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Jag controller has 15 buttons, copying genres...every gaming console copies genres from the original console, the Atari VCS, Nintendo even release the same games on every of their new consoles. Don't be a silly little boy. I do believe I said 3 main buttons. Reading comprehension, its actually a thing you should learn about it some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 So what? Jaguar has 15 buttons.... How do you know I am not a silly little girl? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariORdead Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 So what? Jaguar has 15 buttons.... How do you know I am not a silly little girl? It has 3 main buttons, whether you want to admit it or not. and who gives a shit whether you are a girl or a guy, you are wrong either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Oh, but you're allowed to mention SNES other buttons besides the main ones and I'm not? You also resort to abusive language, so you lost that argument already. You are very welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariORdead Posted November 20, 2015 Share Posted November 20, 2015 Oh, but you're allowed to mention SNES other buttons besides the main ones and I'm not? You also resort to abusive language, so you lost that argument already. You are very welcome. Why are you getting upset. you need to untwist your panties and shake the sand out of your vagina. I don't think anyone would find issue with saying the Jag had 3 main buttons available that were intuitive to use and realistically comfortable to use on a consistant basis, and the Snes has 6. Any reason this has you reacting like a teenage cheerleader not being allowed to the prom. is it really worth you crying about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete5125 Posted November 21, 2015 Share Posted November 21, 2015 No system is designed for its full potential, the NES was made to play basically old 8-bit arcade games, took learning the system, adding chips to games etc., same with Sega Genesis, it wasn't made with Sonic the Hedgehog or Mortal Kombat in mind. Sony, spent alot of money was very forward thinking, and planned to take no prisoners...even Sega wasn't forward thinking enough to know that 3-D was the way to go, adding extra 3-D chips at the last minute, Sony made a system with tools that made writing games easy to do, Something Sega nor Atari had foresight to do. But, Atari Jaguar is the system that all the developers cut their teeth on, if it wasn't the failure of the Jag, then PS1 wouldn't of had the research for what didn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted November 21, 2015 Share Posted November 21, 2015 Perhaps not actually reached its potential, but Tempest 2000 is of course, an Atari Jaguar masterpiece of gaming. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariORdead Posted November 21, 2015 Share Posted November 21, 2015 (edited) No system is designed for its full potential, the NES was made to play basically old 8-bit arcade games, took learning the system, adding chips to games etc., same with Sega Genesis, it wasn't made with Sonic the Hedgehog or Mortal Kombat in mind. Sony, spent alot of money was very forward thinking, and planned to take no prisoners...even Sega wasn't forward thinking enough to know that 3-D was the way to go, adding extra 3-D chips at the last minute, Sony made a system with tools that made writing games easy to do, Something Sega nor Atari had foresight to do. But, Atari Jaguar is the system that all the developers cut their teeth on, if it wasn't the failure of the Jag, then PS1 wouldn't of had the research for what didn't work. What complete and utter nonsense. Are we now claiming part of the PS1 being a success was down to the Jag. its getting pitiful now. Where are all there developers that cut their teeth on the jag. Was it Namcos experience with the jag that gave them the know how to do Ridge racer and tekken on PS1. Its a good job Konami and Capcom had experience with he jag and were not stupid enough to try and make games like MGS and resident Evil straight of the bat. what a strange statement. No-one needed to learn from the Jag to be aware that you need killer games that were polished and played well. who would be stupid enough to do that. Apart from Atari of course. Edited November 21, 2015 by AtariORdead 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Dragon Posted November 21, 2015 Share Posted November 21, 2015 Everything i've so far read and been told by coders i've chatted to via email, suggests the Jaguar was in essence, a return to the days of coding for the ST and Amiga, people discovered tricks and work arounds to get the best from the hardware and Sega's Saturn feel into rthe same proverbial boat, where as the Playstation 1 made things a lot easier, everything pretty much laid out for you. The Playstation 2 however reveresed that trend and once again coders had to 'learn the system' to get the performance from it.I know Mike Singleton refered to it as being similar to ST/Amiga coding and i've started asking those who coded on PS1/Saturn before moving to PS2, which they prefered in terms of coding on and why... The easy to use, but rather rigid nature of the PS1 or the flexibility, but head scratching nature of the PS2. I've yet to hear any say the Jaguar gave them a head start on coding for later hardware mind.... Dual CPU coin-ops eased some (Panzer Dragoon team) into coding on Saturn yes, but Jaguar? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+madman Posted November 21, 2015 Share Posted November 21, 2015 But, Atari Jaguar is the system that all the developers cut their teeth on, if it wasn't the failure of the Jag, then PS1 wouldn't of had the research for what didn't work. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 (edited) Just played Val D'Isere, they should have made it a "crazy rally" kind of game [a pretend sega rally of sorts], change the snow to brown-ish dirt, change the character to a jeep or dune buggy and here you go. It's crazy fast and fluid, still waiting for my RGB cable to play it at 50Hz to see if it is any easier. Disclaimer: I only played the downhill event for now. I am no fan of snow based games, never got into them, but this one as an arcade "racer" is not half as bad as I thought. Edited November 22, 2015 by phoenixdownita Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 Just played Val D'Isere, they should have made it a "crazy rally" kind of game [a pretend sega rally of sorts], change the snow to brown-ish dirt, change the character to a jeep or dune buggy and here you go. It's crazy fast and fluid, still waiting for my RGB cable to play it at 50Hz to see if it is any easier. Disclaimer: I only played the downhill event for now. I am no fan of snow based games, never got into them, but this one as an arcade "racer" is not half as bad as I thought. I think a lot of people really like that game, but I never found it particularly impressive. With that said, it's quite a bit better than the SNES version and is how more of the 16-bit ports should have been treated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LianneJaguar64 Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 So what? Jaguar has 15 buttons.... How do you know I am not a silly little girl? Are you? That would make two of us 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 I of course don't think it hit its potential either with 2D or 3D. In 3D it will never be a PSX obviously for throwing around polies. But I think more was waiting than what we have seen. Several months ago someone who has done 3D for a long long time (NOT Vladr) took a look at the Dactyl Joust video and was very impressed with the apparent resolution and performance High Voltage Software achieved with that work on our favorite cat. But that may have been a result of the excellent custom development toolset they created for the Jaguar. It may not be anywhere near so easy to achieve/recreate that kind of performance without those tools. And speaking of which it would have been nice if the Jaguar had had better tools support. Even after all this time Atari had no idea that John Carmack had made/targeted a C compiler for the Jaguar's GPU. 20 years later and they had no idea. Neither did they even know of the success High Voltage Software had with their GPU C compiler until a couple years ago. Atari thought it was unusable because of the GPU bugs. Impossibru! Threw up their hands. Not being saddled with such a limiting mindset HVS blew right through this bit of impossibru-ity and used it for everything they did on the Jaguar except WMCJ and NBA Jam TE. I think a deadly mix was created with some rushed deadlines and incompetent/uncaring developers to see what we get today. No I think a chunk more was waiting to be dug up in all directions. I think that's why most of us are here. For some reason this crazy machine intrigues us. And for all those who hate the 'what if' threads there may not even have been a Jaguar community without this mystery. I believe those developers here who berate those who wonder about these things are berating the very reason anyone is here to give them any attention at all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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