What are the chances of someone "capable" porting Sega 32x games to the Jaguar?

[RREDDWARFF]

Perhaps this has previously been addressed, but what are the chances of someone porting Sega 32x games (such as Star Wars, Shadow Squadron and Virtua Racing) to the Atari Jaguar? These would make great cartridge versions to collect. Plus the games naturally look so "Jaguar".

 

[+madman]

I'd like to submit an alternative option: Buy the games on the 32x and play them. It's a time saver.

[RREDDWARFF]

19 minutes ago, madman said:

I'd like to submit an alternative option: Buy the games on the 32x and play them. It's a time saver.

Lol, I thought about it, but I really don't want another console. I have a Jaguar and a 3do for my vintage systems. I really don't want to add a third.

[walter_J64bit]

Oh is the request list? I'm looking for Diablo & hellfire for the JagCD!

[+CyranoJ]

50%.

 

If there is someone, then it will all come down to if they want to or not. 

 

Can we close this discussion of d**k now? 

[Machine]

I would love to see NBA Jam TE 32X ported to the Jaguar. ?

[VladR]

6 hours ago, RREDDWARFF said:

Perhaps this has previously been addressed, but what are the chances of someone porting Sega 32x games (such as Star Wars, Shadow Squadron and Virtua Racing) to the Atari Jaguar? These would make great cartridge versions to collect. Plus the games naturally look so "Jaguar".

 

Those games you mentioned - You can't just "port" those even if you had full source code. It' a different architecture. Yes, it has two RISCs (SH-2), similar to jag.

 

But, unlike jag, it also has a VDP chip that can render textured/shaded polygons. Which  is something that on jaguar occupies at least 1 of RISCs fully (GPU has to hold Blitter's hand by each scanline completely destroying framerate compared to 32X).

 

Also, the RISC architecture is different, it's more pipelined, has more mult/div units, different instruction set, etc.

 

On top of that, the system bandwidth is handled in a smart (read: not cheap as Atari) way.

 

So, even if you rewrote the 3D engine for jag from scratch, using the same 3D assets would overload jag completely. Best-case scenario - you'd get 33-40% framerate of 32x. That's assuming god-level coding RISC skills (not somebody who putzes around 68000 kiddie pool).

 

 

The only reason why 32x games "look jaguar" is that it had such a short lifespan that its performance was barely scratched on the surface. Otherwise the 32X destroys jaguar in every single technical aspect.

 

I recommend reading https://segaretro.org/Sega_32X/Technical_specifications

 

[RREDDWARFF]

3 hours ago, VladR said:

Those games you mentioned - You can't just "port" those even if you had full source code. It' a different architecture.

 

Thanks VladR for the explanation. I was just curious because some of the 32x games look so similar to Jaguar games, that I thought it would be a good fit. I had no idea the 32x was more powerfull than the Jaguar. Thanks again, I appriciate your insight!

Edited September 5, 2019 by RREDDWARFF

[Flojomojo]

[Arcadia]

3 hours ago, VladR said:

Those games you mentioned - You can't just "port" those even if you had full source code. It' a different architecture. Yes, it has two RISCs (SH-2), similar to jag.

 

But, unlike jag, it also has a VDP chip that can render textured/shaded polygons. Which  is something that on jaguar occupies at least 1 of RISCs fully (GPU has to hold Blitter's hand by each scanline completely destroying framerate compared to 32X).

 

Also, the RISC architecture is different, it's more pipelined, has more mult/div units, different instruction set, etc.

 

On top of that, the system bandwidth is handled in a smart (read: not cheap as Atari) way.

 

So, even if you rewrote the 3D engine for jag from scratch, using the same 3D assets would overload jag completely. Best-case scenario - you'd get 33-40% framerate of 32x. That's assuming god-level coding RISC skills (not somebody who putzes around 68000 kiddie pool).

 

 

The only reason why 32x games "look jaguar" is that it had such a short lifespan that its performance was barely scratched on the surface. Otherwise the 32X destroys jaguar in every single technical aspect.

 

I recommend reading https://segaretro.org/Sega_32X/Technical_specifications

 

Interesting read, what game would you say showcased the potential of the 32X best? 

[Duranik]

4 hours ago, VladR said:

But, unlike jag, it also has a VDP chip that can render textured/shaded polygons. Which  is something that on jaguar occupies at least 1 of RISCs fully (GPU has to hold Blitter's hand by each scanline completely destroying framerate compared to 32X).

 

Did you discover some hidden secret features of the 32X ? The 32X VDP is very simple, it doesn't even do sprites. All is done in software on the 32X, there is no chip that can render textured or shaded polygons, it has only one feature that the Jaguar is missing and that is a simple line fill command which might be useful for flat shaded polygons

[Punisher5.0]

Wow......that brought Duranik out. Now thats saying something.

[VladR]

7 hours ago, Duranik said:

 

Did you discover some hidden secret features of the 32X ? The 32X VDP is very simple, it doesn't even do sprites. All is done in software on the 32X, there is no chip that can render textured or shaded polygons, it has only one feature that the Jaguar is missing and that is a simple line fill command which might be useful for flat shaded polygons

When I compiled dev environment (kos, mingw-w64-x86_64, gcc 4.73) , I did some initial experiments with regards to Saturn (not 32X) and the segaretro page made me believe that the portion of the VDP chip that is responsible for polygons is the same between 32x and Saturn, which I just now found out to be not true, as 10 minutes ago I downloaded the technical docs for 32X and found out that, indeed, 32X's VDP can only do 3 things:

- Direct Color Mode

- Packed Pixel

- Run Length

 

The last one being useful for flatshaded gfx.

 

So, while you still have to draw flatshaded scene scanline by scanline, just like on Jaguar, one of the SH-2 merely writes out all the scanlines and lets VDP process it.

 

Meaning, there's no sync/waiting after each and every scanline, like there is on Jaguar. Overall, it's still going to be faster than on Jag, as that SH-2 can then go on and do other things in the meantime, it isn't locked up like on Jaguar.

 

Because, even if it takes a full frame time for VDP to process a complex framebuffer, you still gain the power of one SH-2 during that time to process other parts of the pipeline in parallel (e.g. for next frame, or AI, or anything else).

 

 

But, I now have to reduce my initial assumption about 32X's performance. It's still going to be faster at the very least for reason of not locking up one chip with scanline traversal, just not that significantly as I originally thought.

[VladR]

8 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Interesting read, what game would you say showcased the potential of the 32X best? 

It is a good read, but as I just found out based on Duranik's suggestion, it is incorrect. It looks like they merely copied stuff from Saturn's VDP docs into 32X section. Oh, well....

 

I personally always admired Star Wars on 32X, as it has an incredible polygon throughput.

 

Now, that I know that 32X's VDP draws the scene by scanline, I gained a very deep respect for whoever coded that engine.

 

 

Theoretically, as I have the SH-2 / Saturn dev env compiled on my dev box, I could play with it some more (and configure it for 32X), but that would be another distraction prior to PRGE, so will resist.

[VladR]

8 hours ago, Arcadia said:

what game would you say showcased the potential of the 32X best? 

I'd love to have that discussion, but it appears this thread will get closed very soon, because:

- agradaneu already started with attacks

- Punisher is here, tolerating it (as expected)

- I will eventually get aggravated by his attacks and respond in kind / accordingly

- then I'll get kicked out of thread or banned

 

This thread is not chanting / appreciating reboot's parasiting on other people's codebase, so it's basically doomed...

[Kalani]

13 hours ago, VladR said:

Those games you mentioned - You can't just "port" those even if you had full source code. It' a different architecture. Yes, it has two RISCs (SH-2), similar to jag.

 

But, unlike jag, it also has a VDP chip that can render textured/shaded polygons. Which  is something that on jaguar occupies at least 1 of RISCs fully (GPU has to hold Blitter's hand by each scanline completely destroying framerate compared to 32X).

 

Also, the RISC architecture is different, it's more pipelined, has more mult/div units, different instruction set, etc.

 

On top of that, the system bandwidth is handled in a smart (read: not cheap as Atari) way.

 

So, even if you rewrote the 3D engine for jag from scratch, using the same 3D assets would overload jag completely. Best-case scenario - you'd get 33-40% framerate of 32x. That's assuming god-level coding RISC skills (not somebody who putzes around 68000 kiddie pool).

 

 

The only reason why 32x games "look jaguar" is that it had such a short lifespan that its performance was barely scratched on the surface. Otherwise the 32X destroys jaguar in every single technical aspect.

 

I recommend reading https://segaretro.org/Sega_32X/Technical_specifications

 

One of the sh-2 was used to blend genisis sound and video with the 32x video layer and the qsound. Sh2 had some code compatibly with the 68k. The vdp is a Samsung DSP.  The jag lacks the z80 and ym. Probably why 32x doom had music and jags didn't. Makes me wonder why the neogeo didn't do a fx chip/vdp  risc gpu in Cartridge to do 3d games. Or 32x addon. 

[agradeneu]

3 hours ago, VladR said:

When I compiled dev environment (kos, mingw-w64-x86_64, gcc 4.73) , I did some initial experiments with regards to Saturn (not 32X) and the segaretro page made me believe that the portion of the VDP chip that is responsible for polygons is the same between 32x and Saturn, which I just now found out to be not true, as 10 minutes ago I downloaded the technical docs for 32X and found out that, indeed, 32X's VDP can only do 3 things:

- Direct Color Mode

- Packed Pixel

- Run Length

 

The last one being useful for flatshaded gfx.

 

So, while you still have to draw flatshaded scene scanline by scanline, just like on Jaguar, one of the SH-2 merely writes out all the scanlines and lets VDP process it.

 

Meaning, there's no sync/waiting after each and every scanline, like there is on Jaguar. Overall, it's still going to be faster than on Jag, as that SH-2 can then go on and do other things in the meantime, it isn't locked up like on Jaguar.

 

Because, even if it takes a full frame time for VDP to process a complex framebuffer, you still gain the power of one SH-2 during that time to process other parts of the pipeline in parallel (e.g. for next frame, or AI, or anything else).

 

 

But, I now have to reduce my initial assumption about 32X's performance. It's still going to be faster at the very least for reason of not locking up one chip with scanline traversal, just not that significantly as I originally thought.

100% theoretical extrapolation with no value until it's proven. Go experimenting on 32X!

[agradeneu]

14 hours ago, VladR said:

Those games you mentioned - You can't just "port" those even if you had full source code. It' a different architecture. Yes, it has two RISCs (SH-2), similar to jag.

 

But, unlike jag, it also has a VDP chip that can render textured/shaded polygons. Which  is something that on jaguar occupies at least 1 of RISCs fully (GPU has to hold Blitter's hand by each scanline completely destroying framerate compared to 32X).

 

Also, the RISC architecture is different, it's more pipelined, has more mult/div units, different instruction set, etc.

 

On top of that, the system bandwidth is handled in a smart (read: not cheap as Atari) way.

 

So, even if you rewrote the 3D engine for jag from scratch, using the same 3D assets would overload jag completely. Best-case scenario - you'd get 33-40% framerate of 32x. That's assuming god-level coding RISC skills (not somebody who putzes around 68000 kiddie pool).

 

 

The only reason why 32x games "look jaguar" is that it had such a short lifespan that its performance was barely scratched on the surface. Otherwise the 32X destroys jaguar in every single technical aspect.

 

I recommend reading https://segaretro.org/Sega_32X/Technical_specifications

 

*Zero5, Iron Soldier 2 and Doom entering the chat*

[Andrew Rosa]

The only title on 32X I'd wanna' see on Jaguar is T-Mek. It's an Atari game for one, and the Jaguar would allow for link-play. Not that I have anyone to enjoy that with. Still, it would be nice. 

As a few have already pointed out, porting would undoubtedly be difficult or outright impossible. In any case, T-Mek with Jag-Link functionality would've been cool. 

[agradeneu]

2 minutes ago, Andrew Rosa said:

The only title on 32X I'd wanna' see on Jaguar is T-Mek. It's an Atari game for one, and the Jaguar would allow for link-play. Not that I have anyone to enjoy that with. Still, it would be nice. 

As a few have already pointed out, porting would undoubtedly be difficult or outright impossible. In any case, T-Mek with Jag-Link functionality would've been cool. 

Why that? 

[Andrew Rosa]

It's either/or. I don't know. I'm not a coder. Does it really matter though? Say it's possible, then great! Who would do it? It's T-Mek. Haven't encountered too many people crying out for that one.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Andrew Rosa
Clarification and spelling.

[agradeneu]

Just now, Andrew Rosa said:

It's either/or. I don't know. I'm not a coder. Does it really matter though? Say it's possible, who would do it? It's T-Mek. Haven't encountered too many people crying out for that one.

It would look quite outdated, even for the Jag.

[Andrew Rosa]

True, though I'd accept it, just as I accept Virtua Fighter on 32X. Doesn't live up to its arcade original, but it's still a blast to play. Kind of the same for T-Mek. 

[philipj]

I manage to get my hands on a model 1 "Sega CD and 32X" unit last year... Great little systems; personally I'd like to see something that takes advantage of the 32X using the Sega CD and Genesis. It has two perfectly good 68000 cpu's with 2 sound sources; a potential third sound source if a game is using the SH2 on the 32X, but why use that when the Genesis has a good synth chip and the CD unit can hand PCM. This is really for another kind of topic, but my favorite game was "Silpheed and Soulstar" mainly because they both made good use of the Motorola 68000; Silpheed used both sound chips on the Geny and the CD unit. As far as porting 32X games to the Jaguar, I guess it would be Ok to do, but I'd rather see something new pushes the Jaguar outside the confines of a cool tech short demo scene... All of the cool gimmicky graphical stuff you see in the demo scene, put it in a game like that company "Zyrinx" did with "The New Adventures of Batman & Robin".

 

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by philipj

[philipj]

On 9/5/2019 at 2:41 AM, VladR said:

Those games you mentioned - You can't just "port" those even if you had full source code. It' a different architecture. Yes, it has two RISCs (SH-2), similar to jag.

 

But, unlike jag, it also has a VDP chip that can render textured/shaded polygons. Which  is something that on jaguar occupies at least 1 of RISCs fully (GPU has to hold Blitter's hand by each scanline completely destroying framerate compared to 32X).

 

Also, the RISC architecture is different, it's more pipelined, has more mult/div units, different instruction set, etc.

 

On top of that, the system bandwidth is handled in a smart (read: not cheap as Atari) way.

 

So, even if you rewrote the 3D engine for jag from scratch, using the same 3D assets would overload jag completely. Best-case scenario - you'd get 33-40% framerate of 32x. That's assuming god-level coding RISC skills (not somebody who putzes around 68000 kiddie pool).

 

 

The only reason why 32x games "look jaguar" is that it had such a short lifespan that its performance was barely scratched on the surface. Otherwise the 32X destroys jaguar in every single technical aspect.

 

I recommend reading https://segaretro.org/Sega_32X/Technical_specifications

 

 

The 32X graphic chip has better access main ram than the Jaguar and will work at full speed without any work around's to slow it down unlike the Jaguar... However the 32X doesn't have a 64bit blitter or a 32bit object processor thus the only reason the Jaguar can't do as well is because the GPU inability to make jumps to main ram without the work around. I think if the Jaguar had a better architecture it would total demolish the 32X, but neither one of those systems never really saw it's fullest potential during their commercial shelf life. Another thing to consider is system ram; the Jag has more ram than the 32X yet the bus is not as bottleneck as the Jaguar. It all really just depends on the programmer, but I'm just speculating based on what I know from what I've read. Still I agree with you on some level; I think the 32X has a better advantage as far dual SH2 processors having it's own access to 256KB of ram per chip... I wish the Jaguar GPU and DSP had it's own portion of dedicated memory in addition to the 2MB of main ram.