What can the Jaguar Hardware Possibly Do?

[agradeneu]

24 minutes ago, Lost Dragon said:

People are obviously still keen to discuss this well established topic, so your going to see new threads pop up frequently. 

 

A few common sense guidelines could help maintain focus.

 

Showcase games should be based around commercially released titles (both ends of the spectrum, best and worse examples of the Jaguar hardware in use).

 

As it was pointed out earlier, WTR Engine had been optimised further and coder planned to use it in another 2 commercial titles and would of resulted in an improved frame rate, even if perhaps not a significant one.

 

 

We still don't have closure on just who was to blame for  insisting Supercross 3D:Leonard Tramiel or Tiertex bosses, so it's a little unfair to draw too many conclusions. 

 

 

Please, NO very early game footage, so many factors can impact a games final performance during development. 

 

AVP frame rate was lovely until the Jane Whittaker A.I routines were added.

 

There is so little playtime of Dactyl Joust, it's little more than a proof of concept demo.

If they had taken away the textures Supercross would have looked like a mediocre ST/Amiga racer from the late 80's. I can't blame Atari for wanting a nicer game. 

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by agradeneu

[agradeneu]

A GBA racing game using the Doom engine...wait....Jaguar Doom? 

 

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/89929-cruisn-velocity-a-racing-game-on-the-doom-engine/

 

 

[agradeneu]

Not the best use of the Doom engine, I admit. But it's possible to use the Jag Doom engine for a racing game, and it was done.

 

This Kart Racer however, using a W3D like engine....hm.....looks much better.

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by agradeneu

[JagChris]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

 

There are plenty of Jaguar games that show 3D in much better terms too, namely Zero 5. However, that game is extremely light on texture mapping. The same applies to No Second Prize, which I played to death on the ST. The best looking texture mapped game, Skyhammer, has a low poly count and short draw distances. I think it's been pretty well established that acceptable 3D performance would have to be along the same lines of one of the existing showcase games for the Jag. What Supercross 3D proves in itself is that low poly counts simply aren't acceptable for racing games, so it serves as an adequate example.

 

IMO, racing games on the Jag are best served with superscaler sprites, a la Super Burnout. This game, as an example, is one I'd love to see done at some point:

 

 

This was also discussed before. Some thought the Jag would have trouble with the screen tilt. Others disagreed.

[+Sauron]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

Not the best use of the Doom engine, I admit. But it's possible to use the Jag Doom engine for a racing game, and it was done.

 

This Kart Racer however, using a W3D like engine....hm.....looks much better.

 

Well now, I never quite thought of that. Depending on the game being made, the Doom engine would be preferable if the course wouldn't be perfectly flat. Unfortunately both of those games look to be rather crappy racers, but the idea is there...

 

37 minutes ago, JagChris said:

This was also discussed before. Some thought the Jag would have trouble with the screen tilt. Others disagreed.

The screen tilt itself wouldn't be a problem, but it would depend on how resource intensive it would be. Unfortunately, I'm not the best judge of that myself. FWIW, the Saturn handles it pretty well.

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Sauron

[Lost Dragon]

3 hours ago, agradeneu said:

If they had taken away the textures Supercross would have looked like a mediocre ST/Amiga racer from the late 80's. I can't blame Atari for wanting a nicer game. 

 

I'm not a racing game fan.

 

But just for the sake of closure, i would be interested in finding out who really made the texture mapping decision. 

[Lost Dragon]

There was a claim Mike Beaton of Jaguar AVP fame was converting Power Drift to the Jaguar.

 

As batshit crazy as it sounded,  i did contact him just to be sure there was nothing to the claim, but made the mistake of asking about Jane Whittaker in same email.

 

Suddenly Mike no longer wanted to talk..:-)) 

[Flojomojo]

18 minutes ago, Lost Dragon said:

made the mistake of asking about Jane Whittaker in same email.

This is probably best addressed in another thread, but is this for real? 

https://airentertainment.biz/2019/08/jane-whittaker-proven-to-be-an-industry-fraud/

 

Edit: I see that you, @Lost Dragon have written extensively about this in recent months. I'll catch up there, no need to reinvent the wheel just to bring me up to speed. 

 

[philipj]

1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

This is probably best addressed in another thread, but is this for real? 

https://airentertainment.biz/2019/08/jane-whittaker-proven-to-be-an-industry-fraud/

 

Edit: I see that you, @Lost Dragon have written extensively about this in recent months. I'll catch up there, no need to reinvent the wheel just to bring me up to speed. 

 

Wow... That's kind of messed up. SMH

[philipj]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Well now, I never quite thought of that. Depending on the game being made, the Doom engine would be preferable if the course wouldn't be perfectly flat. Unfortunately both of those games look to be rather crappy racers, but the idea is there...

 

The screen tilt itself wouldn't be a problem, but it would depend on how resource intensive it would be. Unfortunately, I'm not the best judge of that myself. FWIW, the Saturn handles it pretty well.

 

 

 

 

Power Drift for the "Turbografx 16" find a decent compromise... I think the game is doable on the Jag on some level.

 

 

[+Sauron]

33 minutes ago, philipj said:

 

Power Drift for the "Turbografx 16" find a decent compromise... I think the game is doable on the Jag on some level.

 

 

Had no idea there was a TG-16 port of it. Kinda surprising, considering it's a Sega game. It actually plays much better than the ST and Amiga ports.

 

1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

This is probably best addressed in another thread, but is this for real? 

https://airentertainment.biz/2019/08/jane-whittaker-proven-to-be-an-industry-fraud/

 

Edit: I see that you, @Lost Dragon have written extensively about this in recent months. I'll catch up there, no need to reinvent the wheel just to bring me up to speed. 

 

Apparently so. Just found out about all of that last night myself.

 

 

[+madman]

2 hours ago, philipj said:

 

Power Drift for the "Turbografx 16" find a decent compromise... I think the game is doable on the Jag on some level.

 

 

Outrun was doable on the Spectrum...does that mean anyone would want to play it?

 

[philipj]

8 minutes ago, madman said:

Outrun was doable on the Spectrum...does that mean anyone would want to play it?

 

It's just nuts how they got Outrun ported to the Spectrum... I'd like to pull something like that off on the Atari 5200/800.

[+CyranoJ]

3 minutes ago, philipj said:

I'd like to pull something like that off on the Atari 5200/800.

 

Is this before or after you write your killer Jaguar game?

[philipj]

2 minutes ago, CyranoJ said:

 

Is this before or after you write your killer Jaguar game?

Leave it to CJ to steer topics in another direction... Carry on.

[philipj]

As for the Atari 5200/800 statement, let's just say a couple of books for the old system has peeked my interest for sometime now... Been thinking of starting simple with some basic graphic theory before tackling the mammoth Jaguar graphics system, but that's for another topic elsewhere. Just posting here to clear the air.

[Lost Dragon]

ST/Amiga Powerdrift was mentioned.

 

ZZKJ and Saul Marckese took on a monumental task attempting to convert this.

 

The Coin-Op has what? 3 seperate 68000 chips powering it?.

 

Sega refused to supply them with any source code or graphics assets, so the time honoured method of having someone play the Coin-Op whilst others captured video footage and took an awful lot of photos was employed. 

 

ZZKJ never wanted to try and retain the visual complexity of the Coin-Op, but rather take a similar approach Chris Butler had with the C64 version, simplify the visuals, but retain the sense of speed.

 

Activision management over ruled that idea as they wanted as many cars and objects on screen as possible,  hence the game runs around 6-7 fps and is a mess.

[Lost Dragon]

Peter Johnson (Jaguar Power Drive Rally) was of the opinion that as he put it, results from the first teams, who believed the hype surrounding the power of the Jaguar and tried to do polygon 3D Driving games,like Checkered Flag 2 and Club Drive, showed that taking a more cautious approach was wiser.

 

 

Shame the team behind VROOM on the 16 bit machines split up and Daniel Macre quit the games industry completely. 

 

Always liked his approach, inspired by his love of games like Pole Position in the Arcades, he coded Vroom for the Sinclair QL.

 

Then later converted it to the Atari ST, but it was not up to the quality of titles available such as Buggy Boy, so team expanded and game worked on, until quality was there.

 

 

Could of done with his approach on Jaguar racing games.

[agradeneu]

2 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Peter Johnson (Jaguar Power Drive Rally) was of the opinion that as he put it, results from the first teams, who believed the hype surrounding the power of the Jaguar and tried to do polygon 3D Driving games,like Checkered Flag 2 and Club Drive, showed that taking a more cautious approach was wiser.

 

 

Shame the team behind VROOM on the 16 bit machines split up and Daniel Macre quit the games industry completely. 

 

Always liked his approach, inspired by his love of games like Pole Position in the Arcades, he coded Vroom for the Sinclair QL.

 

Then later converted it to the Atari ST, but it was not up to the quality of titles available such as Buggy Boy, so team expanded and game worked on, until quality was there.

 

 

Could of done with his approach on Jaguar racing games.

Not sure what he means. Coders were trying 3D and polygon engines on low spec machines for years, like 8 MHZ CPU with no additional hardware support, and even on C64. Sometimes with impressive results. So I'm not sure what was soo risky about working on a fairly advanced hardware with RISC tech and true hardware support for fast polygon graphics. 

Power Drive Rally is utterly unimpressive for  a machine like the Jaguar, as mostly any pseudo 3D sprite based racer would be.

Fairly impressed with it's debut Cybermorph,  I was quite enthusiatic about the prospect of polygon racers for the Jaguar, as the machine looked to be very capable (for the time). Back in 1994 I hoped for some kind of Off Road polygon racer with dynamic suspension, and ironically I can play something similar with the port of "Stunt Car Racer". That thing is a better game than both CF and Club Drive (needless to say, that game is a joke) , originally programmed for a 8 MHZ CPU machine. Unfortunality Geoff Crammond did not work for Atari, to me that was the true issue, actually only few coders could handle the Jaguar, especially under the circumstances how Atari managed software development.

Edited January 30, 2020 by agradeneu

[roots.genoa]

3 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Shame the team behind VROOM on the 16 bit machines split up and Daniel Macre quit the games industry completely.

Daniel Macre made games for the original PlayStation and I think his last game was Ski Park Manager in 2002, so he was still around at the time of the Jaguar.

[Lost Dragon]

1 hour ago, agradeneu said:

Not sure what he means. Coders were trying 3D and polygon engines on low spec machines for years, like 8 MHZ CPU with no additional hardware support, and even on C64. Sometimes with impressive results. So I'm not sure what was soo risky about working on a fairly advanced hardware with RISC tech and true hardware support for fast polygon graphics. 

Power Drive Rally is utterly unimpressive for  a machine like the Jaguar, as mostly any pseudo 3D sprite based racer would be.

Fairly impressed with it's debut Cybermorph,  I was quite enthusiatic about the prospect of polygon racers for the Jaguar, as the machine looked to be very capable (for the time). Back in 1994 I hoped for some kind of Off Road polygon racer with dynamic suspension, and ironically I can play something similar with the port of "Stunt Car Racer". That thing is a better game than both CF and Club Drive (needless to say, that game is a joke) , originally programmed for a 8 MHZ CPU machine. Unfortunality Geoff Crammond did not work for Atari, to me that was the true issue, actually only few coders could handle the Jaguar, especially under the circumstances how Atari managed software development.

I got the impression he meant, don't try and make your inital project on the Jaguar, Atari's answer to Virtual Racing.

 

Find your feet with the new and difficult to develop for hardware and when your comfortable,  then go for the more ambitious titles.

 

Never a fan of Power Drive Rally in any incarnation myself.

 

 

Cybermorph gets bad press these days, personally found it ok. 

 

Morphing craft in games was already being done on the SNES and the whole free roaming gameplay had been done and far better in my opinion,back on the ST/Amiga by StarGlider II 

 

That was a vastly superior playing experience than Cybermorph, but ATD were no Argonaut. 

[phoenixdownita]

6 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Daniel Macre made games for the original PlayStation and I think his last game was Ski Park Manager in 2002, so he was still around at the time of the Jaguar.

Yup, following the bread crumbs:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_Park_Manager

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lankhor

https://www.lankhor.net/

https://www.lankhor.net/personnel.php

https://www.lankhor.net/personnel.php?menu=fiche&ident=10

[Lost Dragon]

4 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Daniel Macre made games for the original PlayStation and I think his last game was Ski Park Manager in 2002, so he was still around at the time of the Jaguar.

He stuck around for a few years after?

 

Outstanding. 

 

In his interview on ST Graveyard and ST Gamer Volume 2 he said he had quit after Vroom and thar seemed like such a tragic loss.

 

Really appreciate you putting that up.

 

Hope his PlayStation titles were successful for him.

[phoenixdownita]

19 hours ago, philipj said:

As for the Atari 5200/800 statement, let's just say a couple of books for the old system has peeked my interest for sometime now... Been thinking of starting simple with some basic graphic theory before tackling the mammoth Jaguar graphics system, but that's for another topic elsewhere. Just posting here to clear the air.

 

 

.....

 

Out of curiosity, did you actually try to use rB+ just to get your feet wet:

For the 800 you should be able to just fire off Altirra and go.

 

I guess I was asking aside from reading/want-to-read have you tried actual programming the systems? If not what's the hold-up? 

 

Keep in mind your first few attempts will amount to a whole lot of "nothing" and that's expected.

[agradeneu]

On 1/29/2020 at 6:49 PM, pacman000 said:

There was another texture mapped racer:

 

 

I'd say that's about the best, tho the programmer did say he  could've got the frame rate a bit higher with more time to optimize it.

Actually there is a good game hidden in there. If just the graphics were less cluttered with low res bitmaps and textures ( check the road "texture" - ugh!), but cleaned up and optimized for better frame rate. The version Telegames released feels unfinished and somewhat messy, surely the programmer could have done better if he had the chance to finish his game.