Road Rash pre-alpha on Jaguar at 30 fps

[sd32]

And did any racing game, ever, had higher resolution ? Because jag could most certainly pull off the scanline road in at least double resolution (e.g. 640x240x256), as if the implementation is OP-based, it's merely using the available bandwidth of the system (rather than being dependant how fast you can texture the pixels, be it on GPU, Blitter or 68k), of which there is plenty for 2D (especially if it's just 256 colors).

Well, its not a regular racing game, but i have read that Turbo Prop Racing for the Playstation runs at 368X480 and 60 FPS, that certanly higher-res than usual on that generation. Its one of my favorite racers on the PS1.

 

 

 

On Playstation there is also WipeOut 3 Special. Running on the PS1 high res mode 512x240.

 

A game with regular cars and tracks that runs on the Playstation high resolution mode is Max Power Racing:

 

 

 

Well, at least thats what i have read, hehe.

[+CyranoJ]

skip, on 28 Jan 2017 - 1:19 PM, said:

 

This is, as always, an interesting academic read. I have a simple question though that requires a single word answer (not even a paragraph or essay).

Do you plan on releasing one or more actual games in the not too distant future? y/n

 

 

I believe here is your answer, along with the obligatory Reboot insult.

 

[skip]

I'd seen vague suggestions of that. Good to be clear I guess.

 

Anyway, I hope that maybe one of the following happens:

 

 

A: A tutorial with helpful code (as downloads even) gets written in order for this work to have meaning and usefulness for the community. I can't write a 3D engine, but can code a bit. Something like this would be good to tinker with.

 

B: A demo with documented code gets made available. Same end game as A above.

 

C: Someone (or a group of people) works with you to turn the engine demo code into a real game(s).

 

I like the HERO type stuff, and the wireframe tests, but if it's all just for experimenting and academic purposes with no ultimate game or community engagement, I feel at best it's interesting, at worst it's a bit of a tease (because I've read the whole thread so far, nothing personal).

Edited January 28, 2017 by skip

[VladR]

Well, its not a regular racing game, but i have read that Turbo Prop Racing for the Playstation runs at 368X480 and 60 FPS, that certanly higher-res than usual on that generation. Its one of my favorite racers on the PS1.

 

On Playstation there is also WipeOut 3 Special. Running on the PS1 high res mode 512x240.

 

A game with regular cars and tracks that runs on the Playstation high resolution mode is Max Power Racing:

 

Well, at least thats what i have read, hehe.

Cool, thanks for the tips ! I missed those games on PS1 (PS1's library was simply huge) completely, though PS1 is a completely different beast and/or generation than jag.

 

I was actually hoping that Saturn would have some hires games, as it's got quite ample power under the hood, but ultimately suffers from same problem as Jag - who the hell can extract all that power. And even though its library is incomparable with jag (so one would think that quite few teams had a chance to spend some time with the machine and learn it), it didn't happen either (as best as I can guess from complexity of Saturn's games through watching YT).

But I don't want to start a flamewar 'jag vs saturn vs PS1'. I've seen couple of those - I merely want to get inspired by the games on similar machines of the era.

[phoenixdownita]

...

I was actually hoping that Saturn would have some hires games, as it's got quite ample power under the hood,

....

Different genre but VF2 was hi-res and 60fps.

[+madman]

There are a handful of hi-res games on the Saturn. Not that it matters here anyway.

[phoenixdownita]

There are a handful of hi-res games on the Saturn. Not that it matters here anyway.

Not that many in-game but quite a few had opening screens, in-between screens, hi score tables in hi-res.

I believe there are around 10/15 (if that) or so games that are hi-res in-game.

 

As you said, it doesn't matter here but he made a statement as to the fact that the Saturn has no Hi-res games so I felt somewhat compelled to correct him ... I know "resistance is futile".

[+CyranoJ]

I'd seen vague suggestions of that. Good to be clear I guess.

 

Anyway, I hope that maybe one of the following happens:

 

 

A: A tutorial with helpful code (as downloads even) gets written in order for this work to have meaning and usefulness for the community. I can't write a 3D engine, but can code a bit. Something like this would be good to tinker with.

 

B: A demo with documented code gets made available. Same end game as A above.

 

C: Someone (or a group of people) works with you to turn the engine demo code into a real game(s).

 

I like the HERO type stuff, and the wireframe tests, but if it's all just for experimenting and academic purposes with no ultimate game or community engagement, I feel at best it's interesting, at worst it's a bit of a tease (because I've read the whole thread so far, nothing personal).

 

Well, to answer that for you as well... (along with the obligatory AA insult)

 

 

So, no completed game, and no code to share with anyone else.

 

As for nobody wanting to release code and become the target of clueless individuals...

[VladR]

A: A tutorial with helpful code (as downloads even) gets written in order for this work to have meaning and usefulness for the community. I can't write a 3D engine, but can code a bit. Something like this would be good to tinker with.

I actually wanted to do that quite a few times. Trust me, to get e.g. H.E.R.O. running in super-slow, high-level C with bilinear filtering and perspective texturing at 60 fps without any glitches was quite an engineering feat. I went through roughly 9 rewrites, first 5 to get to 30 fps, and another 4 to reach the 60fps. I could write a short book on what works and what doesn't work well on jag, just from that engineering exercise alone. It's quite a timing concert between OP, Blitter and 68k, all working nicely in parallel without waiting for each other.

 

However, I've seen it more than once, that the moment somebody starts 'stirring the waters' on jag, he becomes a target for endless attacks. And even though I occasionally love a brutal flamewar, fundamentally, that's not who I am, and I just prefer to do my R&D coding. So, I can only loose (time, energy, sleep, zen) by trying to publish my findings.

 

B: A demo with documented code gets made available. Same end game as A above.

There's, like, 10 or so, commercial jag games out there, complete with source code. I am not aware that anybody did anything with them. And they're 'complete games' !

What makes you think this would be different ?

 

C: Someone (or a group of people) works with you to turn the engine demo code into a real game(s).

This is the most probable alternative. Not this year, though. After several years of thinking to switch to GPU/DSP, I finally did it, so now I wanna figure out what kind of performance can be unleashed from jag, before I commit myself to a game with multiple levels.

 

I like the HERO type stuff, and the wireframe tests, but if it's all just for experimenting and academic purposes with no ultimate game or community engagement, I feel at best it's interesting, at worst it's a bit of a tease (because I've read the whole thread so far, nothing personal).

As for H.E.R.O. - yes, it is one of my favourite games on Atari, and one of select few I actually want to see on jag (like, with all levels and such). Technically, as I'm reading levels from a text file (each screen is 3x16 characters), I could ask some artist to 'draw' levels in notepad, and provide me with different textures for different levels. I have actually much more of a gameplay implemented than I show , but I'm purposely not teasing people. I sure as hell, ain't locking myself to current engine feature-set, now that I've got GPU-based polygon rasterizer. If I am to release a full jag game, I need to be reasonably sure I'm using the HW meaningfully. I'm sure you'll agree that's not the case right now, as both GPU/DSP are off (for H.E.R.O.).

 

I ran some numbers in excel (based on my recent GPU benchmarks), and I strongly believe I can implement some per-pixel lighting shaders on GPU at reasonable framerate. H.E.R.O. is a game that takes place in dark caves, so some nice, real-time pulsing/flickering color lights (with proper distance fall-off) could greatly enhance the atmosphere.

 

 

But, for now, I want to finish few more features for the RR. As of today, I've started implementing terrain flatshading, so I'll be busy with it, this and next weekend...

 

 

 

BTW, where's the hurry ? It's not like after two decades jag's going anywhere, now is it ?

[sd32]

But I don't want to start a flamewar 'jag vs saturn vs PS1'. I've seen couple of those - I merely want to get inspired by the games on similar machines of the era.

Yeah, i get you. I wonder if Atari Karts was taxing the Jaguar, or if it could have done something closer to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49xKd-C7FA

 

On Atari Karts, everything was so small and flat. Always wondered if it was on purpose to copy Super Mario Kart on SNES.

[VladR]

Yeah, i get you. I wonder if Atari Karts was taxing the Jaguar, or if it could have done something closer to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49xKd-C7FA

 

On Atari Karts, everything was so small and flat. Always wondered if it was on purpose to copy Super Mario Kart on SNES.

Well, I know for sure we won't get 60 fps like PS1 has, with that textured terrain

It doesn't look like that terrain is all the time in the view, so on jag you could get to 60 fps in those scenarios, but then few seconds later, boom

[skip]

However, I've seen it more than once, that the moment somebody starts 'stirring the waters' on jag, he becomes a target for endless attacks. And even though I occasionally love a brutal flamewar, fundamentally, that's not who I am, and I just prefer to do my R&D coding. So, I can only loose (time, energy, sleep, zen) by trying to publish my findings.

 

I've been around the 'Jag' scene since the beginning, around coding since the 80s (not that I'm any good at it), and online since the very early days of the WWW. Why do I bring these things up? How many coding, designing, and hardware tutorials have been written for fanzines, magazines, websites, and blogs? I completely understand the time / sleep factor...but you do seem to write lots and lots of descriptive stuff about your adventures in coding, yet provide no documented code and how doing X or Y or Z affects the work in a positive or negative way.

 

Of course you can do what you like with your work, it's just an observation. You have code, you have videos, you have descriptions, all that's missing is the lines of code (that are already done and, I'm assuming, commented).

 

As far as 'stirring the waters', that's a fallacy in the Jag scene perpetuated mostly by those who don't actually make anything (20 plus year of evidence) as opposed to what you're doing which is making something. It's bulls**t claims by those who don't even know how to code that have been muddying the Jag waters in online spaces since the early 90s.

 

As shown above, did people get "angry" when various development tools and tutorials were released? I didn't think so, people started doing things with them.

 

 

There's, like, 10 or so, commercial jag games out there, complete with source code. I am not aware that anybody did anything with them. And they're 'complete games' !

What makes you think this would be different ?

I can tell you as someone who can program in a variety of "high level languages" yet hasn't done any assembler stuff since the early 90s, I've had a look at some of the source code and it's way too overwhelming. Small(ish) chunks of code, with comments, with things showing how (for example's sake) the 3D meshes are calculated, pulled in and out of memory, and drawn would be much handier. Again, do what you will with the code...but your extended replies, your descriptions, your video, and the code you've written is 90% of the work done. I teach programming to school kids. Once I'm at the stage of having something working, videos, commented code, screenshots, and notes, putting into tutorial or explanation form is a short cut and paste job away into a web template or Google Doc.

 

 

BTW, where's the hurry ? It's not like after two decades jag's going anywhere, now is it ?

No rush. Your code, your thread, do what you will with it. I guess I just got frustrated reading a six page thread that was big on general descriptions (and videos, granted) and there was no code examples, no downloads (of even a tiny demo to chuck on the skunk, but again that's your prerogative), and as someone said, a lot of squirrel chasing with shifting goalposts.

 

It's cool, you're a better coder and mathematician than I ever will be and you at least have time to experiment (I'm envious!), but I fear there'll be no 'end game' (pun intended) other than it just being an academic exercise that doesn't end up being used by anyone for anything. I was just hoping that at the end of this thread (10 pages? 100?), there'll be a groundbreaking game or two (using the Jag as a baseline of course) to play. I've been around the Jag scene long enough that reading threads like this with no payoff is an unfortunately too common occurrence...but if it's my problem, I'll accept that and move on. Other than the experimentation aspect, it does seem odd to me that there's no real goal planned for the end of this other than to see for yourself what the Jag can do.

 

FWIW: I have at least three simple games 'planned' (with a couple already running in other environments, not on the Jag) that I think I'm capable of making in RB+. I also have a pricey but potentially great Jag peripheral that I could have for sale to the market within a two months of getting it started. But I'll not breathe a word about these things until they're ready, be it next month or in five years. No rush

 

As a university researcher (game/computer/educational history) the end game is to always publish something to benefit others and dispel myths if they exist. As a game player, all I want to do is play games. Both of those parts of me are what drives the questions I'm asking.

Edited January 28, 2017 by skip

[VladR]

skip: I agree virtually with 100% of your viewpoint. If you want to know why I am stopped uploading the binaries, go read the Great Klax Thread, and you'll understand. The clusterf*ck that ensued after that (endless bitching at this or that feature) made me realize, it's a dangerous proposition (unless one wants to engage in flamewar), so best avoided. Plus, I lost incredible amount of time to that flamewar, and just became frustrated, and inevitably stopped coding for quite some time.

 

Also, if you've read the whole thread, you noticed that it was also quite an educational experience for me. Guys like sirlynxalot, sd32 have shown me examples of other games of the era, that made me attempt totally crazy things (like that terrain LOD, or 2,048 tris wireframe). I would have not tried something like that this year, simply because even I would think it's crazy, or would think it'd take ages to implement.

 

So, this "pushing of the HW limits" is actually a community effort.

 

Ultimately, I want to remake my favourite 8-bit games like International Karate, Karateka, H.E.R.O., Gyruss, Star Raiders, Pole Position, but in the ultimate best possible visuals that Atari can achieve (High Resolution, Postprocessing shaders, per-pixel lighting, Procedural content generation (as there's just 2 MB of RAM), ...).

if it takes me 5 more years to build the engine, so be it, but I'm definitely getting much closer than I was a year ago. This is the last Atari, and forever will be.

[+CyranoJ]

^^^ Would be so much easier to believe if you weren't contradicting yourself elsewhere all the time

 

In any case, if you can make those games, I will play them. In fact, put me on the list.

[VladR]

^^^ Would be so much easier to believe if you weren't contradicting yourself elsewhere all the time

 

In any case, if you can make those games, I will play them. In fact, put me on the list.

Well, you just made sure I am not going to do any of that 'contradicting' anymore, as half an hour ago I made a post on that FB page I joined a week ago, that some mole is capturing screenshots of my FB posts (that you so graciously shared).

 

Guess what, I just got banned there. Well, less time for posting, more time for coding, I guess !

[+CyranoJ]

Well, you just made sure I am not going to do any of that 'contradicting' anymore, as half an hour ago I made a post on that FB page I joined a week ago, that some mole is capturing screenshots of my FB posts (that you so graciously shared).

 

Guess what, I just got banned there. Well, less time for posting, more time for coding, I guess !

 

Um. But you said those things just the other day. And now you've been banned, are you saying you don't mean what you said? Or that you won't write what you mean?

 

I don't understand. *shrug*

[VladR]

 

Um. But you said those things just the other day. And now you've been banned, are you saying you don't mean what you said? Or that you won't write what you mean?

 

I don't understand. *shrug*

Oh, I see you just want to provoke. Again. As always.

 

Pass - I'm not going to get provoked into the flamewar again...

[+CyranoJ]

No flame war, no blind provoking (*cough* unlike your facebook posts *cough*) just asking a question.

 

You have said, this week, in two different places that:

 

• you have no plans to release a game (at best a video or a screenshot)
• that you "want to remake my favourite 8-bit games like International Karate, Karateka, H.E.R.O., Gyruss, Star Raiders, Pole Position"

 

Just wondering which it is, because if it is the first then the thread title of "Road Rash pre-alpha on Jaguar at 30 fps" seems, at best, misleading.

 

Honestly, now you've moved to the GPU (as was suggested, and dismissed, when you started 2 or so years ago) you have the basis for an engine fast enough to do the things you have proposed.

 

I can see the wireframe demo being quite capable of doing Stun Runner with very little extra required. And it'd be awesome to hear "Welcome, Stun Runner" without wanting to vomit at the screen. (I did look at the ST version of that last night, even at 14Mhz it would suck)

 

*also, blaming me, for you getting banned, because someone shared a post of something you posted... wtf, dude? LOL.

[Swansea_Mariner]

I love a nice amble around the countryside to see a good folly. Back to the grind though and one more thread to avoid.

[KidGameR186496]

I believe here is your answer, along with the obligatory Reboot insult.

 

vladr.png

Well, to answer that for you as well... (along with the obligatory AA insult)

 

vladr-a.pngvladr-b.png

 

So, no completed game, and no code to share with anyone else.

 

As for nobody wanting to release code and become the target of clueless individuals...

^^^ Would be so much easier to believe if you weren't contradicting yourself elsewhere all the time

 

In any case, if you can make those games, I will play them. In fact, put me on the list.

Um. But you said those things just the other day. And now you've been banned, are you saying you don't mean what you said? Or that you won't write what you mean?

 

I don't understand. *shrug*

No flame war, no blind provoking (*cough* unlike your facebook posts *cough*) just asking a question.

 

You have said, this week, in two different places that:

 

 

• you have no plans to release a game (at best a video or a screenshot)
• that you "want to remake my favourite 8-bit games like International Karate, Karateka, H.E.R.O., Gyruss, Star Raiders, Pole Position"

Just wondering which it is, because if it is the first then the thread title of "Road Rash pre-alpha on Jaguar at 30 fps" seems, at best, misleading.

 

Honestly, now you've moved to the GPU (as was suggested, and dismissed, when you started 2 or so years ago) you have the basis for an engine fast enough to do the things you have proposed.

 

I can see the wireframe demo being quite capable of doing Stun Runner with very little extra required. And it'd be awesome to hear "Welcome, Stun Runner" without wanting to vomit at the screen. (I did look at the ST version of that last night, even at 14Mhz it would suck)

 

*also, blaming me, for you getting banned, because someone shared a post of something you posted... wtf, dude? LOL.

You won't stop being yourself right > : - ( ? Edited January 28, 2017 by KidGameR186496

[+CyranoJ]

You won't stop being yourself right > : - ( ?

 

Exactly what have I done there except post things other people have said, compliment vladr on his GPU engine, and say I'll play any games that come from it? It's called a polite debate. It is quite different from Libel (Which I suggest you look up in a dictionary)

 

What, exactly is YOUR problem? (And a little harsh for someone who friend requested me on facebook)

[KidGameR186496]

Exactly what have I done there except post things other people have said, compliment vladr on his GPU engine, and say I'll play any games that come from it? It's called a polite debate. It is quite different from Libel (Which I suggest you look up in a dictionary)

 

What, exactly is YOUR problem? (And a little harsh for someone who friend requested me on facebook)

Whoa hold your phone! I've NEVER send you a friend request.

[+CyranoJ]

Whoa hold your phone! I've NEVER send you a friend request.

 

I'm hurt, Robert

 

You do have a very short attention spam(SIC), though. It's OK, though, I didn't accept it.

[KidGameR186496]

I'm hurt, Robert

 

You do have a very short attention spam(SIC), though. It's OK, though, I didn't accept it.

Maybe but i'm not stupid either

[+CyranoJ]

Maybe but i'm not stupid either

 

Woah hold your phone! I NEVER called you stupid.

 

Libelous, yes, stupid, no.