The best 3D engine on Jaguar ?

[Fredifredo]

What is the best 3D engine on the Atari jaguar ?

 

[+doctorclu]

What is the best 3D engine on the Atari jaguar ?

 

993790[/snapback]

 

I know people are going to get all technical about this, but I will go with "what looked 3D-ish and cool" and for that, I would have to say Battlesphere.

 

Just to start things off.

[JagFan422]

Of the 3-d games i have, I-war, Iron Soldier, Doom, AVP, Towers II, Wolf 3d, Checkerd Flag, i would have to say that the Doom engine is by far the best, with AVP a close second.

[ZylonBane]

i would have to say that the Doom engine is by far the best, with AVP a close second.

Then you would have to be wrong, because the Doom engine is not a 3D engine. Neither is the AVP engine. They're both "2.5D" raycast engines that simulate 3D, but only work with very specific viewport and architecture limitations.

 

I'll go with Iron Solider II, then Hoverstrike CD. Yeah, I've heard all the crowing about BattleSphere's engine, but when I look at the screenshots all I see is empty space and a few monochromatic gouraud-shaded ships. Hoverstrike may have been marginal as a game, but its engine managed to generate a completely textured, dynamically lit 3D world at a playable frame rate, on a system that didn't even have any dedicated texture-mapping hardware. That's impressive.

Edited January 4, 2006 by ZylonBane

[JagFan422]

i don't understand, how can Doom, AVP, or Wolf 3d not be 3d engines? Yes the sprites are 2d, but the environments are full 3d.

[Gunstar]

i would have to say that the Doom engine is by far the best, with AVP a close second.

Then you would have to be wrong, because the Doom engine is not a 3D engine. Neither is the AVP engine. They're both "2.5D" raycast engines that simulate 3D, but only work with very specific viewport and architecture limitations.

 

I'll go with Iron Solider II, then Hoverstrike CD. Yeah, I've heard all the crowing about BattleSphere's engine, but when I look at the screenshots all I see is empty space and a few monochromatic gouraud-shaded ships. Hoverstrike may have been marginal as a game, but its engine managed to generate a completely textured, dynamically lit 3D world at a playable frame rate, on a system that didn't even have any dedicated texture-mapping hardware. That's impressive.

993845[/snapback]

I agree with you 100% percent.

[Gunstar]

i don't understand, how can Doom, AVP, or Wolf 3d not be 3d engines?  Yes the sprites are 2d, but the environments are full 3d.

993859[/snapback]

Becuase 3D engines are 3D due to the three-demensional mathematical points in "space" (generally Polygonal); x, y, z co-ordinates. Doom, AvP and Wolfenstein use completely 2D calculations with scale graphics, so though they look 3D they are not. Now, there are some first-person shooters, especially modern ones like Doom 3 that DO use true 3D engines, but back then to get the best performance, psuedo 3D tricks (2.5D) were used. For all intents and purposes these games are 3D to the lamen, but not TRUE 3D. Iron Soldier 2, Hoverstrike and Battlesphere are true 3D polygonal engines.

 

Imagine that a holographic television hit the market today, if the source code for 3D games were availbable, they could theoretically be "modified" to show up in true, stereo-scopic holographic 3D on the new "holoTV" games like Doom and AvP could not be modified in this way because the 3D co-ordinates do not exist.

Edited January 4, 2006 by Gunstar

[ZylonBane]

Imagine that a holographic television hit the market today, if the source code for 3D games were availbable, they could theoretically be "modified" to show up in true, stereo-scopic holographic 3D on the new "holoTV" games like Doom and AvP could not be modified in this way because the 3D co-ordinates do not exist.

Well, they could, actually. There are OpenGL ports of Doom, remember? Any data set can be rendered into 3D space.

 

The "what is true 3D?" argument has been around and around and around, but basically breaks down into, "Can the level data format represent arbitrary 3D objects?" and "Does the engine allow rendering from any arbitary angle/position?"

 

With Doom, the answer to both of these questions is NO. Doom has a "3D" engine in the same sense that Pole Position has a 3D engine. It does just enough to provide the illusion of three dimensions.

Edited January 4, 2006 by ZylonBane

[Gregory DG]

I know there's more technical answers to the Doom isn't 3D statement. But I think of it like this: If you can look up and down in addition to left and right, then it's 3D. Otherwise, it's not.

[+doctorclu]

I know there's more technical answers to the Doom isn't 3D statement. But I think of it like this: If you can look up and down in addition to left and right, then it's 3D. Otherwise, it's not.

993914[/snapback]

 

We also have Highlander and Fight For Life as 3D types.

[ZylonBane]

But not very good ones.

 

Well, maybe Fight for Life had a great 3D engine, but it certainly didn't do enough with it for us to tell one way or the other.

[The_Laird]

Definately Checkered Flag 2!

[Goochman]

Ill throw my vote in for Hover STrike CD - Many folks pan this game but I enjoyed playing through all the levels.

 

Then again I liked Artic Fox on the ST

[The_Laird]

Seriously though I would go with the Hoverstride CD engine with its total texture mapping, speed and good frame rate. IS2 is a very close second though.

[kevincal]

Club Drive hands down...

[ZylonBane]

Honorable Mention for the Zero 5 engine. Blazing fast, but since it ran in 256-color mode it bloody well should have been.

[ls650]

I can't comment on the Jag CD games, but I've played most of the cart games.

I'd have to say that 'Skyhammer' actually had a pretty good 3D engine for the Jaguar.

[Starcat]

Hi!

 

To me it's definately Iron Soldier 2, Battlemorph and Missile Command 3D so far.

All three games were really fast and had amazing 3D graphics on the Jag, with MC3D, probably having the best textured 3D models I ever saw on the Jag.

 

Zero5 had a fast 3D engine too, but I never played it enough or saw enough of it to really comment on it. It certainly is a lot better than some of the other engines on the Jag. And I definately prefer a fast 8-bit color engine, than a slow 16-bit color 3D engine if the games look the same

And as you just see the ships in zero5 most of the time, they don't look worse than the models in most other Jag 3d engines, even though it's just 8-bit.

 

Of course not every 3d engine is the same and they all have limitations, which makes them difficult to compare, but the three ones I mentioned first are all amazing and obviously quite flexible 3D engines with high polygon count, some texturemapping (or even full) and are very fast too.

 

So to me that makes them the winners.

 

Regards, Lars.

[Bill Brasky]

Missile Command 3D (Virtual Mode)

[The_Laird]

Hi!

 

To me it's definately Iron Soldier 2, Battlemorph and Missile Command 3D so far.

All three games were really fast and had amazing 3D graphics on the Jag, with MC3D, probably having the best textured 3D models I ever saw on the Jag.

 

Zero5 had a fast 3D engine too, but I never played it enough or saw enough of it to really comment on it. It certainly is a lot better than some of the other engines on the Jag. And I definately prefer a fast 8-bit color engine, than a slow 16-bit color 3D engine if the games look the same 

And as you just see the ships in zero5 most of the time, they don't look worse than the models in most other Jag 3d engines, even though it's just 8-bit.

 

Of course not every 3d engine is the same and they all have limitations, which makes them difficult to compare, but the three ones I mentioned first are all amazing and obviously quite flexible 3D engines with high polygon count, some texturemapping (or even full) and are very fast too.

 

So to me that makes them the winners.

 

Regards, Lars.

994145[/snapback]

I actully forgot about Missile Command 3D's VR mode, that is incredible! It actully conveys the whole experience even without the headset.

[ZylonBane]

You forgot the only mode that it made sense to mention in this context??

 

It wasn't that great, anyway. Actually ran pretty choppy for what little was being rendered.

[Gunstar]

Honorable Mention for the Zero 5 engine. Blazing fast, but since it ran in 256-color mode it bloody well should have been.

994072[/snapback]

 

Why do you think Playstation 1 games are so fast? The vast majority were in 256 colors!

[Gunstar]

Imagine that a holographic television hit the market today, if the source code for 3D games were availbable, they could theoretically be "modified" to show up in true, stereo-scopic holographic 3D on the new "holoTV" games like Doom and AvP could not be modified in this way because the 3D co-ordinates do not exist.

Well, they could, actually. There are OpenGL ports of Doom, remember? Any data set can be rendered into 3D space.

 

The "what is true 3D?" argument has been around and around and around, but basically breaks down into, "Can the level data format represent arbitrary 3D objects?" and "Does the engine allow rendering from any arbitary angle/position?"

 

With Doom, the answer to both of these questions is NO. Doom has a "3D" engine in the same sense that Pole Position has a 3D engine. It does just enough to provide the illusion of three dimensions.

993880[/snapback]

Fair enough.

[CrazyChris]

Club Drive

 

I like the cat?

 

I'd say IS2, I remember the first time I saw the

tanks being dropped out of a plane.

 

Chris

[Bill Brasky]

Dactyl Joust, if that video was of in-game play. IS2 is very impressive.