What can the Jaguar Hardware Possibly Do?

[Agent X]

On 1/28/2020 at 11:16 PM, philipj said:

 

"Top Gear" for the GBA isn't just a 3D texture-map based game, it's an arcade style tunnel base racing game that uses mode 7 style effects similar to "Atari Karts" or "FZero for the SNES" where the only thing that's polygonal with texture maps are the vehicles... That means low polygon-count 3D objects with very minimal use of texture maps on them, which is something the Atari Jaguar can possibly pull off. "Checkered Flag" for example used the same 3D model vehicle with different color variation, but what help to slow the game down was the high polygon background environment as well as the 68000 AI taxing the system.

 

 

That might've been a good approach for this type of racing game on the Jaguar. Use "Mode 7" effects for the track and ground surface, sprites for trackside objects, and polygonal vehicles. Some of the trackside sprites could be prerendered from polygonal objects to give the illusion of the system rendering significantly more polygons than it actually is.

 

On 1/29/2020 at 1:55 PM, 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. 

 

 

While I admire the ambition of wanting to create a fully texture-mapped game, the lesson here is that performance matters.

 

There were many games of that period (on other systems, too) that have low framerates and poor control response. They sure looked impressive in still screenshots in magazines, but fell apart when the controller was in your hand. Those games have aged horribly.

 

Meanwhile, other games of the period that featured sprites or flat-shaded polygons might have been less "impressive" on paper, but stood the test of time because they had fluid gameplay and excellent control response.

 

On 1/30/2020 at 3:26 PM, 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 think Power Drive Rally holds up very well for its age. It's a good example of a game that doesn't seem technically "impressive" on paper, but has nice, colorful sprite artwork, and solid control.

 

I liked Cybermorph, too. I would've loved to see a Jaguar version of S.T.U.N. Runner, even if it was already a few years old in arcades at the time. The only good home version was on the Lynx, which was an amazing effort considering the hardware and the clever techniques they used to render the tracks.

 

[Austin]

*skims through the thread briefly*

 

Yep, the same old pointless Jaguar circle jerk that's been going on for the last 25 years. Nothing of importance to see here.

[rayik]

On 1/29/2020 at 8:56 PM, 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.

 

 

I have original prints of those 3 books. They are for the Atari 8 bit computers. Many years ago taught myself assembly and make a couple of games which were in Antic magazine

[philipj]

29 minutes ago, rayik said:

 

 

I have original prints of those 3 books. They are for the Atari 8 bit computers. Many years ago taught myself assembly and make a couple of games which were in Antic magazine

Yea that was the point or printing those books... Someone a few years back someone had suggested these two books for learning Atari BASIC and Assembly language for the 8-bit computer game making. It's one of the gateways into the world of Assembly language; I also have a couple of books on the "Motorola 68000" Assembly language... Just diversifying myself a little bit; with Atari hardware's, the "big two processors" are the 68000 and the 6502 with the JRISC being the more exclusive CPUs for the Jag system. The main reasons is to play around with 2D graphics on my favorite systems; I got a lot of big 3D dreams for the Jaguar system, but in order to get there it probably wouldn't hurt to skew off into the 8-bit world where there's not a lot of temptations to pursue unreasonable 3D ideas that'll only let me down in the end programming the Jaguar; not acceptable. I'm hoping to develop a good strong foundation on 2D graphics in BASIC and Assembly with the 8-bit computers and then learn some foundational 3D programming in Assembly with the 68000 using a couple of books I printed up on the matter, which is one of the reasons I purchased an Atari ST. I figure if I'm going to learn hardware I probably need to have the actual computer at some point; I never really owned an ST before but the book deals with the 16-bit computer... An ST emulator is cool, but the actual hardware is even better. Besides whatever the 68000 can do, the JRISC can do it better twice as fast so whatever 3D engine I make for the Jaguar, it won't be nothing out of the unreasonable, but maybe a little out of the ordinary since the Jag isn't as beefy as the Playstation 1, Sega Saturn or N64 when it comes to that particular kind of 3D... No, you have to make something really special for the Jaguar's hardware, the traditional way of doing effective dynamic 3D with bells and whistles...? a few tricks will have to be pulled at some point... Perhaps a few non traditional and maybe unconventional tricks on such a high potential, but very limited hardware. So I'm preparing for the long game, but based on past experiences, I going to try and keep things as simple as possible if I can.

 

4 hours ago, Austin said:

*skims through the thread briefly*

 

Yep, the same old pointless Jaguar circle jerk that's been going on for the last 25 years. Nothing of importance to see here.

 

Sigh... Well... Can't blame me for trying but try I must. ?

 

[Lost Dragon]

Looked bit deeper into ST and Amiga versions of Power Drift:

 

Coder took it on as he wanted a challenge and turned down the ST and Amiga Galaxy Force II conversions,  saying at least Power Drift had some gameplay to it.

 

He had wanted to enable ST and Amiga link-up play ( think that was dropped), talked of support for ST Blitter and 1 Meg machines,  not sure if those made it in either.

 

[philipj]

That's funny you should mention that... I was just watching a YouTube of "Racing Hero" arcade by Sega and was thinking about all of the large sprites they were able to fit in the game. I'd love to see something like that on the Jaguar.

 

 

[Lost Dragon]

Powerdrift arcade hardware seems a bit of a monster if what i was reading was correct.

 

3 68000 chips and a supporting pair of 8-bit chips, 32,000 colours on screen..

 

Little wonder the 16-bit console/computers struggled to replicate the experience. 

[swapd0]

You forgot the most important part, a sprite engine with scaling (for free?). Even if you build the arcade with a single 68000 you couldn't match it on home computers/console.

 

[+Stephen]

Which is why it's quite silly to say "look at arcade game X from year Y" and think any other hardware from the same year could pull it off.  Arcade hardware has always  been custom, at least until the post PSX days.  Look at all the arcade games that used a 6502 and a Pokey in the 80s.  Well shit - the Atari computers have a 6502 and a Pokey, so ports should be simple.  Asteroids - shit, that was out in 1979.  Oh yeah - custom 3D vector box, etc.  I hate these threads.  The Jag can do nothing more than what we have currently seen, until someone bests it.  I'm still anxiously awaiting that Need for Speed, Wipeout killer of a game.  Should have been on sale last month if I got my number wanging correct.  Guess I'll keep on speculating the magical what ifs until I can purchase a copy.

[philipj]

Well... I enjoy comparing arcade hardware to the Jag system looking for an angle to some graphical feat... If nothing else, I'm not able to produce good graphics on the Jaguar, I'll stick to the 2D stuff, but I perfectly get why people feel the way they feel about the Jags hardware. But having committed to making something for the Jaguar, I'm not sure if that's the right kind of attitude I want to have toward the Jaguar until I've felt the pain of programming the system in Assembly... Then I might have a legitimate reason to finally clear out all of the speculation about the system and I'll know exactly what kind of monstrosity I'm dealing with the Atari Jaguar system. But I guess too many empty promises got people feeling some kind of way about the Jaguar and I totally get that; I just feel very different about topics like this, but JagChris was probably right... I probably should've kept this topic in a previous discussion similar to this one... 

 

Quote

Oh yeah - custom 3D vector box, etc.

 

My favorite 3D vector boxes were the ones that used a series of "AMD 2901" 4-bit bit-slicers to yield 32bit floating point numbers for computer graphics like the ones used on this old graphics workstation from 82 back when they had computer terminals hooked up to larger machine with custom graphic cards the size of whole motherboards. The terminal sported a "Motorola 68000" doing all of the regular task while the AMD 2901 did all of the floating point math and graphical display. I think with the Jaguar, you can't look at systems like the Playstation 1 or the Sega Saturn, but rather trying to learn something from the system of old in order to find a good angle to work is where my head is and as long as topics like this are around, you might see me in it.

 

 

 

[philipj]

I like what "Atari Karts" pulled off... It looks very close to what "Top Gear" is doing on the GBA; that would make for a great experiment.

 

 

 

[phoenixdownita]

2 hours ago, philipj said:

... But having committed to making something for the Jaguar, I'm not sure if that's the right kind of attitude I want to have toward the Jaguar until I've felt the pain of programming the system in Assembly... Then I might have a legitimate reason to finally clear out all of the speculation about the system and I'll know exactly what kind of monstrosity I'm dealing with the Atari Jaguar system. ....

 

What's stopping you from just give it a go?

Instead of taking a 6502 detour which may or may not have anything to do with building your own 3D engine, just try something out, leave the JRISC on the side for the time being and focus on the 68K to get a feel for it.

 

Earlier you stated that in order to build something 3D first you want to build something 2D which makes me think you have no experience on either front, as such the major obstacle is not in how many books you read but in starting something and getting to learn little by little.

It's fine if you read a couple of books cover to cover to get a feeling for what it takes but there's absolutely nothing like doing the real thing.

 

If you really want to play with 6502 assembly "the easy way" you can always use one of the online resources like http://www.6502asm.com/  (note you can find a whole Atari ST emu written in JS https://estyjs.azurewebsites.net/ ).

 

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