What was the Jaguar truly capable of?

[Lost Dragon]

Must of been frustrating for Adisak, but at the end of the day, he was just another employee of HVS and would of been subject to the same conditions from the powers that be as anyone else.

 

Found another comment from HVS regarding how I.D tackled Doom on Jaguar:

 

Scott E Corely of High Voltage Software:

 

I.D ran most of DOOM on the DSP because of it's 8k RAM. Apparently,

they ran the code in swapped chunks instead of writing a cache manager for the GPU or DSP. This does indeed make it difficult to write software for the Jag. The GPU 4k and DSP 8k are cache memory to run code faster on the RISC chips, and if you don't use the fast RAM as a cache, you'll run in to

headaches (spending alot of time deciding what code to glue together into a 4k loadable chunk instead of letting your cache manager figure it out itself at runtime). Referring to the 68k as the "central processor" furthers the frustrating image that the Jag has had from day 1... all along, Atari has been saying that the 68k is there because it's cheap, it's easy to program,

etc. but should not be relied upon in games (In the main loop of Ruiner, the 68k halts itself and takes itself off the bus... i.e. it does nothing in the game.).

 

 

Nice to see this thread getting some more milage, ties in nicely with recent anniversary of the Jaguar.

[Lost Dragon]

Enough from HVS, time for 1 more industry view, but this time...

Sean Timarco Baggaley (R+D Jaguar coder, Caspain Software) seemed to be of the mindset that the Jaguar hardware wiped the floor, 2D wise with any rival platform at the time (CD32, 3DO,32X etc ), but was weak at 3D.

The latter aspect he appeared to blame on Atari reducing the clock speeds on several of the Jaguar's custom chips and fitting what he described as a 'bus hogging' 68000 chip without any Ram caching to boot, to the system...looks like he would of prefered a 68030 chip instead.

 

He seemed to really like the hardware from a coders point of view, describing it as everything the Commodore A1200 should of been.

The Jaguar was in his eyes, a platform with lots of promise , but 1 Atari simply f#cked up

Edited December 5, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[swapd0]

I find funny about the topic of putting the 68k off the bus, it's the processor with the lowest priority so it will not stop any processor, it's stopped by the others.

[JagChris]

It's said time and time again though by accomplished professionals who worked on the Jag. It gets in the way of everything.

 

It was one of the very early lessons of the Jaguar - anything hitting the bus was a performance killer, and when the 68k was running, it just hit the bus for instructions all the time, so the goal was to make it go away.

-Scott Corley

 

I find it odd that there are those who dismiss it and poo poo it without looking at why these pros keep saying this.

Edited December 5, 2018 by JagChris

[Lost Dragon]

The tech talk is way above my level

I just thought with it being the Jaguar Anniversary, it might be nice to get a few more views out there from those who worked on it during it's commercial life.

Far too often i would buy a professional games magazine with a Jaguar feature and it'd be the same industry voices giving the same views.

Thought i would try and find some alternative sources and comments where possible from key development teams and publishers.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[JagChris]

And thank you for that. Though we sometimes disagree I always enjoy the tidbits of info you post from around the web.

Edited December 5, 2018 by JagChris

[+CyranoJ]

It's said time and time again though by accomplished professionals who worked on the Jag. It gets in the way of everything.

 

 

While it does chew on the bus, and it is best to disable it while running the GPU, it has to be remembered that its the only stable, reliable processor in the entire machine.

[JagChris]

 

While it does chew on the bus, and it is best to disable it while running the GPU, it has to be remembered that its the only stable, reliable processor in the entire machine.

At some level the GPU must be reliable. Or so many accomplished coders wouldn't have favored it. They got to that level where it was reliable.

[agradeneu]

The tech talk is way above my level

I just thought with it being the Jaguar Anniversary, it might be nice to get a few more views out there from those who worked on it during it's commercial life.

Far too often i would buy a professional games magazine with a Jaguar feature and it'd be the same industry voices giving the same views.

Thought i would try and find some alternative sources and comments where possible from key development teams and publishers.

np ist all interesting stuff. Only problem I have is I hear very rarely from games designers and artists. Like if there were not any I think most people dismiss this thread as the usual theoretical nonsense. I see it a bit from the practical side, because Im not an "armchair analyst" by any means lol. I really can't complain about the Jaguar - you can use very modern software for animation and graphics and it translates wonderfully to the Jaguar - I'm really impressed! When then going back to commercial releases I wonder why they 'd settled with software which only occasionally showed what the Jag really could do, why they did not bother to do some more frames of animation than 5 for a character or effect, or reworking some graphic assets to make better use of the wider color pallette - so much missed opportunities I think! They could have made a real kick ass version of Flashback and the likes but just did a 1:1 port without asking for a bit more (effort). Edited December 5, 2018 by agradeneu

[+CyranoJ]

At some level the GPU must be reliable. Or so many accomplished coders wouldn't have favored it. They got to that level where it was reliable.

 

Working around bugs doesn't make it reliable. Its like going uphill to stop a car with no brakes. Please, refrain from commenting on things clearly above your head

[JagChris]

 

Working around bugs doesn't make it reliable. Its like going uphill to stop a car with no brakes. Please, refrain from commenting on things clearly above your head

In what ways are these concepts above my head?

 

Bugs or not reliable as a term is where they got to to make something like a GPU manager. I can't imagine anything more complicated. If they were not able to get things stable on what seems to be such a touchy operation working in such a small space...

[+CyranoJ]

Complicated workarounds does not equate to reliable cpu.

 

If you have a deadline you want to know that code not running is your fault and not the hardware.

 

Please, it's a simple concept. Try to keep up, lad.

[JagChris]

Complicated workarounds does not equate to reliable cpu.

 

If you have a deadline you want to know that code not running is your fault and not the hardware.

 

Please, it's a simple concept. Try to keep up, lad.

Talking down? Hmm..

 

They had deadlines, made said deadlines. Using the GPU. These facts are as clear as day.

 

Your mountain analogy is flawed.

 

When driving can you control when the mountains appear that you need? Using your analogy they were able to.

 

If you can't move mountains then obviously you have more to learn. Then you'll be able to keep up with the big boys.

Edited December 5, 2018 by JagChris

[+CyranoJ]

Yep, you don't get it. Move along.

[Lost Dragon]

And thank you for that. Though we sometimes disagree I always enjoy the tidbits of info you post from around the web.

I'm not really a people person in real life, let alone online and yep we have butted heads at times..There has never been any malice intended in any of it on my part.

 

This last spurt of developer/publisher quotes will be my last...i can hear the cheers from here .

 

It really is as simple as wanting to do it to tie in with the Anniversary and get discussion going again in this thread (which it has).

There's more odds n sods of misc info that have gone up in the Tempest X3 thread and most recently the Legions Of The Undead thread as well that folks might get something from.

 

I want to get everything out before Xmas as 2019 looks to be an uncertain year.

 

So i apologise for a lot of posts.

[+CyranoJ]

So i apologise for a lot of posts.

 

All good, always backed up with reliable sources, so it makes a welcome change

[Lost Dragon]

@agradeneu:

 

Full disclosure time.

Both Unseen64 and then myself acting as an individual, contacted (Andrew now..) Jane Whittaker in order to try and establish just what the issue was between Rebellion and Atari and Jane and Atari, as there were conflicting stories from Jane, let alone rumours of Rebellion coders sent to the USA begging to be allowed to come home.

 

I also contacted a close coworker of Janes who worked on Jaguar AVP and asked the same questions..but neither Unseen64 nor myself ever had a response.

 

Maybe the nature of the questions were not favourable? (Jane was also asked to confirm the story they'd told of a version of AVP where Predator after being exhausted having chased you, takes a breather and lights up a cigarette. . )...

 

But we did make serious attempts to get more than 1 side of a story and give those often quoted a chance to put the record straight.

 

 

Sadly that's not resulted in anything new, so i am having to just post up a collection of soundbites from others in the industry i hadn't shared.

 

 

GTW will have a Jaguar annoucement of sorts next year, i am not privy to what it is though, i only assisted on 2 Lynx titles, 1 Playstation title and an Amstrad GX4000 title of all things.

 

Reason i mention all of this?.

It is getting a lot harder to get new, credible sources of info.

 

A lot of great work has been done recently, but i sadly still see magazine claims passed off as fact and used to update Wikipedia single source claims appearing in professional magazines and thus being treated as gospel.

 

Hopefully new sources will come forward and information is shared freely with the community, not kept behind walled off areas online or reserved primarily for people to do paid for articles.

 

Here endth the sermon.

[Lost Dragon]

All good, always backed up with reliable sources, so it makes a welcome change

Appreciated and i mean that.

 

It still baffles me why someone would do an update to a Wikipedia entry on say Lynx Strider 2 and just use the Raze magazine claim of game only being 50% finished, when Frank Gasking of Games That Weren't (an established and most credible Lost Games site) took time to get the full story (100% finished, exclusive level and Panther conversion green lit ) and his Tiertex sources credited..full disclosure there...

 

 

But then we live in an era when rather than thank or at the very least appreciate the vast amounts of effort the likes of your good self, Songbird and Piko Interactive constantly put in to bring new titles to the Jaguar, there are still certain elements within the community that attempt to slander them, each time a new release appears.

 

None of us are going to change that, sadly. .

 

But in the case of likes of myself acting as an individual or on behalf of a community, i can say every effort was made to try and get as many sides of a story as possible and an understanding why a commercial title arrived in the manner it did.

[Clint Thompson]

In regards to what the Jaguar is truly capable of, I feel too often people are quick to point out how some magical 3D-engine that hasn't been created yet would somehow utilize the Jaguar's hardware to an unprecedented level and literally blow everyone's socks off. Somehow, that creating this magical 3D engine will once and for all prove the almighty Jaguar to be a truly wondrous beast of untapped potential and that after all this time, it only took "Programmer X" to finally uncover some sort of hidden performance that surpasses the many talented and experienced programmers over the course of the past 25-years who have achieved games such as Skyhammer, Iron Solider II or BattleMorph - all of which are truly amazing games for the Jaguar. But there are other factors to consider in regards to pushing what the Jaguar can do.

Today we are able to remove many of the major bottlenecks or limitations that plagued the Jaguar up until just recently, such as the ability to program with modern tools and soon to overcome storage constraints with the upcoming SD cart. If you really look at what the Jaguar has to offer in terms of core hardware capabilities and with the newly developed software and hardware that will allow programmers to actually utilize the Jaguar without the storage constraints, there's a whole new horizon of possibilities ahead for games to really take advantage of what the Jaguar has to offer, even with its limited RAM. Not in a sense that a next level, ground breaking 3D-engine will ever surpass what IS2 has accomplished but something with depth as a result of the seemingly unlimited amount of storage space available to be utilized for graphics, music and animation.

 

I've experimented with a ton of game ideas and with the SD card almost complete, would really like to make a Cyberpunk styled game utilizing that new storage available - sort of a mixed bag similar to Rise of the Dragon but also some faux 3D environment with animated character sprites, rendered scenes, environment animations, voice overs, music, the works. The Jaguar can output some really nice looking visuals.

 

My latest toying around running on the Jag:

 

 

Granted there's no real animation yet, but gives you an idea of possible character movement. Add in characters, 100s of different backdrops with music and a few dozen other elements including puzzles as such and it could become a nice adventure game.

 

[JagChris]

Hell even Eclipse as much as said they could surpass IS2.

 

Plus that engine has that annoying warping on the left side that needed fixing.

[Andrew Rosa]

@Clint Thompson

That's lookin' sweet, bro. I really can't wait to see where this one goes.

[Lost Dragon]

@Clint:Are you thinking of point and click type games?.

 

Likes of Broken Sword 1 and 2, Disc world, Blazing Dragons etc showed the Playstation was more than just texture mapped polygons, fantastic to see you experimenting here.

[Lost Dragon]

Hell even Eclipse as much as said they could surpass IS2.

Plus that engine has that annoying warping on the left side that needed fixing.

 

Judging by the fuss at the time, talk of boycotting the game, i would assume a few people would want link up play put into Iron Soldier II as a fix, rather than improved frame rate, more varied and detailed textures etc.

[PeterG]

@Clint: your project is looking very good as usual.

 

@Ross: What kind of talk about boycotting the game?

[Lost Dragon]

@Clint: your project is looking very good as usual.

 

@Ross: What kind of talk about boycotting the game?

You mean you weren't on the list of 48 or so names?

 

Long story short:

When news broke that Eclipse weren't planning any form of Head to Head play in I.S II yet likes of Krazy Ivan had it on PlayStation, a movement shall we say? was started and the plan was for a list of names of people who were refusing to buy I.S II at release unless network play was implemented, was to be drawn up and sent to Atari.

 

Some of the more ahem, familiar names were Scott Legrand, Steve Scavone and Dark Science.

 

The entire fiasco fell apart once talks were underway with Eclipse and Don Thomas at Atari and it became apparent Atari weren't going to release I.S II on Jaguar, period.

 

What's the old saying? Be careful what you wish for...?.

Making threats of non purchase to an Atari who'd already amply demonstrated they didn't care if a title was ready to ship or not, if they needed product out, it just shipped, never seemed the wisest ideas to myself.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Lost Dragon