Now that the encryption is broken...

[das]

Anyone can make a JagCD game cheaper - w/o needed a bypass cart I take it. So by that, they (whoever is making a jaguar game) can encrypt the game and press it on a CD-R (can the Jag even read them?) or press it on a commericaly pressed CD?

 

Would it make everything cheaper and easier for the gamer?

[atarifan49]

Anyone can make a JagCD game cheaper - w/o needed a bypass cart I take it. So by that, they (whoever is making a jaguar game) can encrypt the game and press it on a CD-R (can the Jag even read them?) or press it on a commericaly pressed CD?

 

Would it make everything cheaper and easier for the gamer?

 

 

Even though what you say is very logical and makes sense it's not always the case.

 

The guys working on Mad Bodies have cited a reason to not release their game on CD. Initially they planned on releasing the game on CD. But with the way they were developing the game the load times were just getting too long and were ruining the gameplay of the game. So they've switched over to releasing the game on cartridge to keep gameplay consistent and flowing (imagine having to wait between levels on Tempest 2000 and keeping a hot streak of awesome play continuing when you're on a role).

 

One of the problems developers run into with the CD unit is they are working with at least half the amount of memory they would normally have for cartridge.

 

For example with a game that is on a 2MB cartidge the developer has the main memory (almost 2MB) that is available in the system and can store compressed image data in slower ROM memory on the cartridge when needed.

 

When you develop with the CD you only have the less than 2MB of main memory available to you (besides the RAM that's inside the DSP and GPU). Some of this needs to be set aside for memory buffers when loading and searching through track data. The CD can be used to store a lot of data compared to cartridge but is a lot slower to access.

 

Certain games do very well in a CD environment others do not. When the loading times for each level or other features get in the way of playing a game then your game doesn't have much chance of becoming a fun game to play. The Turbo Graphix CD system was plagued with CD loading times.

 

And for a large run its better to have CD's pressed. One it ensures consistent quality. Trying to get a perfect copy everytime with CDR is difficult. But now that we have the encryption keys it makes the job easier to test CD's to ensure you have a working copy. But this stills makes the task of verifying those CD's a very cumbersome task if you're doing a large run (i.e. several hundred CD's).

 

That's my slant on this. What do other people here think?

 

Regards,

Glenn

[das]

Thank you VERY much for that answer, that helped me with my question.

 

I thought I'd get flamed or something, heh. Speaking of CD's and such, what is "Doom+"?

[TheGrandPubaa]

Doom+ was a project to enhance the Jaguar version of Doom to include new features and levels, and even to attempt to fix the networking bug. I dunno if anybody is still working on it, but the source to Doom was released a while ago. Even so, the main problem is trying to make new(i/e: unique) graphics files, which are proprietary on the Jag. I'm not the expert, though.