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[Sapiens]

I\'m sorry could you elaborate on this.

Thank you for escaping my apostrophe three times, lol. Seek mental help.

I love threads like this.

 

[Krejlooc]

Hey look the same website:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/102168-why-are-frame-rates-of-jaguar-3d-games-so-low/page-6

Well?

Well what? That is literally what I said earlier in this topic:

The m68k isnt a "2d chip," its a cpu. And literally all it handles is controller multiplexing, you can entirely avoid the m68k all together.

The m68k doesnt handle graphics. It is used as a dsp and handles controller multiplexing.

Your quote doesnt say what you think it says. The m68k has nothing to do with "2d" or "3d."

And your claim that you "couldnt run cyber morph on the m68k"?

 

[jstripes]

Lol this is gibberish.

The sega genesis has an m68k. The 32x contains a bios rom with an m68k binary to begin execution on the sega genesis, but the 32x does not have an m68k at all. It has an sh2 processor.

IIRC, the Genesis and 32x were two separate consoles running in a weird kind of tandem. The Genesis output its own graphics, and the 32x overlaid its own over those. So ya, it would need that binary to give data/instructions to the Genesis.

What part of \\\"On the jaguar\\\" did you fail to read?

I haven't really read much about the Jag in ages, but the 68000 wasn't even meant to be used for Graphics. It was supposed to coordinate all the other chips.

Console hardware designs were an absolute mess during the transition to 3D.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

Well what? That is literally what I said earlier in this topic:





Your quote doesnt say what you think it says. The m68k has nothing to do with \"2d\" or \"3d.\"

And your claim that you \"couldnt run cyber morph on the m68k\"?

I said it was a 2D chip on the jaguar. Used mostly for 2D games. Those last two sentences are 100% Accurate.

You are evading yet again. You said the 68k in regarding bottle-necking the system in 3D was \"not true\" and now you have even more proof from the same site you just used.

 

[jstripes]

Your quote doesnt say what you think it says. The m68k has nothing to do with "2d" or "3d."

Isn't the 68k used for Blast Processing?

Spoiler

/s

 

[Krejlooc]

IIRC, the Genesis and 32x were two separate consoles running in a weird kind of tandem. The Genesis output its own graphics, and the 32x overlaid its own over those. So ya, it would need that binary to give data/instructions to the Genesis.

Right, the 32x has a video in port that takes the entire genesis output as a frame, and gets treated as a layer.

 

[Krejlooc]

You said the 68k in regarding bottle-necking the system in 3D was \"not true\"

Quote me saying this

 

[jstripes]

Right, the 32x has a video in port that takes the entire genesis output as a frame, and gets treated as a layer.

I remember people connecting their Genesis straight to their TV and wondering what the hell was wrong.

Good times.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

Quote me saying this

You\'re actual quote was \"No it wasn\'t\" to my statement of the 68k being a nightmare for 3D developers.

Which it was.

 

[Krejlooc]

You\'re actual quote was \"No it wasn\'t\" to my statement of the 68k being a nightmare for 3D developers.

Which it was.

It wasnt a nightmare for developers, it was a crutch. Most people ignored tom and jerry entirely because the BUS was a bottleneck (not the processor). Most devs leaned on the m68k exclusively because it was the most well understood and easy to work with component on the jaguar, because it was the only bit that wasnt a custom, foreign architecture. The reason most games exist on the jaguar period is because devs were familiar with the m68k, which is why they gravitated to it.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

IIRC, the Genesis and 32x were two separate consoles running in a weird kind of tandem. The Genesis output its own graphics, and the 32x overlaid its own over those. So ya, it would need that binary to give data/instructions to the Genesis.



I haven\'t really read much about the Jag in ages, but the 68000 wasn\'t even meant to be used for Graphics. It was supposed to coordinate all the other chips.

Console hardware designs were an absolute mess during the transition to 3D.

No it wasn\'t but based on the design of the Jaguar for some games it WAS used for graphics. Undeniably.

I mean you can\'t even run the blitter or the RISCs with the 68k at the same time. The system was me giving you a lost of eggs, Onions, Mustard, Mayonnaise, Ice Cream vanilla, grass, Tylenol, Vinegar, and flour and telling you to use those ingredients to make a cake.

I am fairly certain they knew what they were launching.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

It wasnt a nightmare for developers, it was a crutch. Most people ignored tom and jerry entirely because the BUS was a bottleneck (not the processor). Most devs leaned on the m68k exclusively because it was the most well understood and easy to work with component on the jaguar, because it was the only bit that wasnt a custom, foreign architecture. The reason most games exist on the jaguar period is because devs were familiar with the m68k, which is why they gravitated to it.

Uh no, the 68K is mandatory that\'s why Devs kept using the 68k. There\'s a reason why there are hombrew devs suggesting the turn the 68k off for performance. Of course you can never fully remove the 68k.

The 68k grabbed resources, and it was the cause of the blitter and the two RISCs not being able to run with it at the same time. making the logic/math etc, the 68k did pointless for the most part and a resource hog as well.

I have no idea why you are acting like the 68k had nothing to do with why the Jag had issues with pushing 3D, when the way the system was set-up pretty much tells you that itself.

 

[REK]

One of my favorites was Iron Soldier. It was so much fun and had cool explosions for it time with polygons a plenty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL_x2X_BlVQ

 

[Krejlooc]

Uh no, the 68K is mandatory

No it isnt

 

[jstripes]

It wasnt a nightmare for developers, it was a crutch. Most people ignored tom and jerry entirely because the BUS was a bottleneck (not the processor). Most devs leaned on the m68k exclusively because it was the most well understood and easy to work with component on the jaguar, because it was the only bit that wasnt a custom, foreign architecture. The reason most games exist on the jaguar period is because devs were familiar with the m68k, which is why they gravitated to it.

Ah, that makes total sense. Given the option, most devs will typically work with what they're used to.

 

[MrCunningham]

I remember people connecting their Genesis straight to their TV and wondering what the hell was wrong.

Good times.

Yeah, the cable used to connect the Genesis to the 32x can be quite elusive and hard to find. The 32x is a weird piece of hardware, but I guess it was the only way that they could bypass the Genesis video display processor so they could display more colours on screen. But may 32x games tend to use the Genesis for background layers. Like Mortal Kombat II or Primal Rage.

Thank you for escaping my apostrophe three times, lol. Seek mental help.

He really needs to restart his browser or something, those backslashes are becoming really excessive.

 

[jstripes]

Yeah, the cable used to connect the Genesis to the 32x can be quite elusive and hard to find. The 32x is a weird piece of hardware, but I guess it was the only way that they could bypass the Genesis video display processor so they could display more colours on screen. But may 32x games tend to use the Genesis for background layers. Like Mortal Kombat II or Primal Rage.

Ya, the load was split between the two machines, the 32x doing what the Genesis couldn't. The Genesis would handle logic, controls, and background graphics, where needed.

He really needs to restart his browser or something, those backslashes are becoming really excessive.

I have a feeling English isn't his first language.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

It wasnt a nightmare for developers, it was a crutch. Most people ignored tom and jerry entirely because the BUS was a bottleneck (not the processor). Most devs leaned on the m68k exclusively because it was the most well understood and easy to work with component on the jaguar, because it was the only bit that wasnt a custom, foreign architecture. The reason most games exist on the jaguar period is because devs were familiar with the m68k, which is why they gravitated to it.

Uh no, the 68K is mandatory that\'s why Devs kept using the 68k. There\'s a reason why there are hombrew devs suggesting the turn the 68k off for performance. Of course you can never fully remove the 68k.

The 68k grabbed resources, and it was the cause of the blitter and the two RISCs not being able to run with it at the same time. making the logic/math etc, the 68k did pointless for the most part and a resource hog as well.

I have no idea why you are acting like the 68k had nothing to do with why the Jag had issues with pushing 3D, when the way the system was set-up pretty much tells you that itself.

 

[OhNoDangerItsaPentagonRun]

No it isnt

Yes it is you cannot completely disable the 68k. Stop.

You are now gong in cricles about something you know nothing about, and you are still evading the other points I responded to of yours. Clearly not trying to have a serious discussion.

 

[Krejlooc]

Yes it is you cannot completely disable the 68k. Stop.

You are now gong in cricles about something you know nothing about, and you are still evading the other points I responded to of yours. Clearly not trying to have a serious discussion.

Sure thing mr "lynx is almost as powerful as the gba, moto3800k, you cant run cybermorph on the m68k, m68k is a 2d chip, cd32 is not an a1200"

 

[dogmaan]

No see now you are using the \"lol\" argument instead of backing yourself up.

Tempest 2k has heavy uses of sprites, and is barely pushing an advancedments in 3D on the jaguar, which was my argument fromt he start, so you can\'t backtrack and pull this nonsense trick while you are losing the debate.

Prove to me the 68k on the jaguar was not a bottleneck. Why is the 68k often an issue when you look up the Jags set-up? Why can\'t you use the 68k at the same time as the blitter or the two more capable riscs? Why have there been statements of turning the 68k off for better results and framerate?

You have zero idea what you are talking about. Worst part s most of this is easily searchable.

There comes a point where you should have felt compelled to go along with the general consensus, and that time was probably 50+ posts ago.

Are you trying to say that the jaguars memory bus can be easily saturated by the 68000?

I looked through the technical docs for the Jaguar and it says

the 68000 normally has the lowest bus priority but under interrupt its priority is increased.

So under normal operation the GPU and DSP have higher priority access to the memory bus than the 68000, and should not be bandwidth constrained by the CPU.

Also execution of code on the RISC cores is much faster from their cache than from main RAM (just like most CPU's) in the Jaguar technical manual this is described as:

The advantage to the GPU of having local memory is both that it is faster, and that it does not require ownership of the system bus to be accessed.

This means that even in some cases where the 68000 could saturate the bus, the RISC cores can keep on trucking, and is the preferred way anyway due to GPU/DSP bugs that can occur when trying to execute from main RAM after conditionals.

sources:
Jaguar Technical Manual
AtariAge post discussing the issue

 

[SURGEdude]

Interesting thread. Feels like a blast from the past. Sounds like the hardware design for the Jag was a botch job too. Guess I need to be a bit nicer to the teams behind other convoluted platforms which now seem positively elegant by comparison.

 

[jstripes]

Interesting thread. Feels like a blast from the past. Sounds like the hardware design for the Jag was a botch job too. Guess I need to be a bit nicer to the teams behind other convoluted platforms which now seem positively elegant by comparison.

That's why I stuck around.

Aside from when I found one at a garage sale a few years ago, and didn't have the $10 to buy it (with games), I haven't talked about the system in ages.

 

[Sir Abacus]

Yes it is you cannot completely disable the 68k. Stop.

Is this supposed to be ironic? Because this is hilarious in the context of my 68K ASM classes back in college.

 

[Krejlooc]

That's why I stuck around.

Aside from when I found one at a garage sale a few years ago, and didn't have the $10 to buy it (with games), I haven't talked about the system in ages.

Ive been writing an atari jaguar retrospective for racketboy for about a year now. I wrote their cd32 primer guide.

 

[Sir Abacus]

People who have GPU main code generally turn off the interrupts on the 68000, and stop it. Doing that though can be problematic.

 

[SolidChamp]

I think it could, too. It will depend on the strength of their E3 showing this year.

 

[nkarafo]

Even if John Carmack himself tells him that Doom on the Lynx is impossible, PentagonRun will probably say he is wrong.

 

[...Scatter...]

I peeked in too see what is driving 8 pages of Jaguar talk and ooooooooh...

You guys are making me nostalgic. Old school tech fights erupting. You guys are the best.

 

[MrCunningham]

Even if John Carmack himself tells him that Doom on the Lynx is impossible, PentagonRun will probably say he is wrong.

I think he actually was planning on making a Wolfenstein 3D port for the Lynx, but it didn't happen for some reason or another. I remember reading something from him about how he was going to make the game run in portrait mode instead of landscape. But even with his wizardry, I don't think he would have been capable of getting Doom on the handheld.

 

[jstripes]

Even if John Carmack himself tells him that Doom on the Lynx is impossible, PentagonRun will probably say he is wrong.

Dude's pretty active on Twitter. Hit him up. He might be amused.

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack

Even if he says "yes", we have it from the source. I can eat crow.

 

[JinjoUnchained]

Someone should make a Jaguar chalkboard.

 

[Beer Monkey]

It wasnt a nightmare for developers, it was a crutch. Most people ignored tom and jerry entirely because the BUS was a bottleneck (not the processor). Most devs leaned on the m68k exclusively because it was the most well understood and easy to work with component on the jaguar, because it was the only bit that wasnt a custom, foreign architecture. The reason most games exist on the jaguar period is because devs were familiar with the m68k, which is why they gravitated to it.

Fuck yeah they were familiar with it they were largely game and demo coders from the ST and Amiga.

 

[Jamix012]

The N64 also had poor Japanese 3rd party support (compared to Saturn and PS1). It also had cartridges. It was also "64bit" a number that Atari surely made look bad with their shitty ads.

But it managed to do pretty OK in the end because it had a bunch of great games and they pushed those as much as they could.

The Atari Jaguar wasn't really capable of good 3D. I hear stories that it's actually damn powerful under the hood but there was no evidence of that in games. The 3DO was a much better system in every way and had a much better chance of doing good things, but was crushed by the high price.

 

[Beer Monkey]

The Atari Jaguar wasn't really capable of good 3D. I hear stories that it's actually damn powerful under the hood but there was no evidence of that in games. The 3DO was a much better system in every way and had a much better chance of doing good things, but was crushed by the high price.

Battlesphere was pretty sweet. Scott and Doug pushed the Jag well, though they spent years doing it for one title.

Honestly I like the Jag library better than the 3DO's, but I admit that us very subjective.

 

[MrCunningham]

Someone should make a Jaguar chalkboard.

 

[Beer Monkey]

White Men Can't Jump was actually a fun four player game, despite not being a great game. Kind of like Basketball with 4 players on an Atari 800 was.

Power Drive Rally is my fave Jag game after T2K.

That's a decent chalkboard.

 

[shouamabane]

Most disappointing console I've bought.

 

[MrCunningham]

White Men Can't Jump was actually a fun four player game, despite not being a great game. Kind of like Basketball with 4 players on an Atari 800 was.

I added it because of the absurd name. And I do know that it was based on a movie with Woody Harrelson. It wasn't one of the worst games for the Jaguar. Power Drive is pretty cool too.

 

[dark10x]

Killing Time as well. Both great games.

3DO had a lot of good to great games. It gets so much hate because of the insane price and the stupid business model.

Killing Time is a bad example due to the absurdly low frame-rate. It runs slower than SuperFX SNES titles.

 

[Pancake Mix]

The reality is that Rayman wasn't big until the amazing 2, so having the original first meant little. It's not like, say, Tomb Raider on Sega Saturn. Was very brief sure and probably didn't change a thing, but it was a big game at least.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I feel like that Genesis Nomad could be a success

My cousin actually had a Nomad. That thing had a battery life of 30 minutes.

 

[Krejlooc]

Battlesphere was pretty sweet. Scott and Doug pushed the Jag well, though they spent years doing it for one title.

Honestly I like the Jag library better than the 3DO's, but I admit that us very subjective.

I do as well. There are actually a lot of seldom talked about jag games I really like, more than 3do games I like. Games such as zero5 or battlemorph or skyhammer. Everyone only ever talks about the common, really crappy jag games.

I think the jaguar is sort of underrated. But that doesnt mean I think it was an awesome system or anything. To me, the jaguar is more of an interesting train wreck with some gems sprinkled through the library.

 

[wazoo]

The Jag was a disaster from the start. Check devs comments from that time. They were treated like shit by Atari, API were incomplete, docs were missing, bugs, lots of bugs and lots of hidden shortcoming in the hardware.

 

[wazoo]

Killing Time is a bad example due to the absurdly low frame-rate. It runs slower than SuperFX SNES titles.

Killing Time had probably - correct me if I am wrong - one of the very first streaming tech in a video game. It does not make a good game, and the game was no worse than many, but still for historical interest, I like it. And the soundtrack was great.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I feel like that Genesis Nomad could be a success

My cousin actually had a Nomad. That thing had a battery life of 30 minutes.

I had one, but didn't dare put batteries in it. I'd sit by an outlet when playing.

Some games didn't work on it. I remember Golden Axe 2 being one of them.

 

[Celine]

The reality is that Rayman wasn't big until the amazing 2, so having the original first meant little. It's not like, say, Tomb Raider on Sega Saturn. Was very brief sure and probably didn't change a thing, but it was a big game at least.

Nope, first one was was big (about 4 million units sold in total).
Probably sold better than 2.
Rayman 2 had a great critical reception though.

Rayman was definitely big early that generation

Spoiler

just not on Jaguar.

Honestly I like the Jag library better than the 3DO's, but I admit that us very subjective.

The two are interesting for different reasons.
3DO is interesting because it is sort of an early PS1/Saturn (but without the stand out games of the two despite EA good support).
On the other hand Jaguar is a more personal and peculiar experience which you cannot find on other consoles, just very niche and with low budget games.

 

[wazoo]

3DO is interesting because it is sort of an early PS1/Saturn (but without the stand out games of the two despite EA good support).
On the other hand Jaguar is a more personal and peculiar experience which you cannot find on other consoles, just very niche and with low budget games.

3Do had quite good support because of the CD storage costing less.

Still, it was mainly a Xbox-style console with heavy PC/western support and mostly nothing from Japan. Problem, that was a time where japan was way bigger than now.

Most games were reviewed in PC-centric magazine and heavily criticized as "not-console-games' in console oriented mags in Europe for example.

Problem also is beyond te early push of western devs, only Crystal Dynamics and 3DO were producing games, when the news about Sony started to appear.

 

[soxinthebox]

I only ever knew the Jaguar by some bad reviews in an old issue of Gamepro I still have. I'll dig it out and take photos later.

Bravo 👏

 

[AbandonedTrolley]

I had a Jaguar, I remember purchasing it from Rumbelows here in the UK, I had quite a list of games for it too

Zool 2, AVP, Doom, Theme Park, Tempest 2K, Chequered Flag, NBA Jam, Rayman and Syndicate.

Ended up trading it all in for a PS1 when they launched.