Gorf Posted April 27, 2007 Share Posted April 27, 2007 You know, actually I was thinking, Area 51 is really not doing anything a regular Jag cant handle. It's moving bitmaps around ...the blitter and OPL are the workhorses in this game anyway. Im willing to bet that using the CD as the storage medium should be enough to handle it. I know I have seen at least one post somewhere about hooking a lightgun to the Jag. I think it can be done. I just don't see anything beyond the Jaguars ability here. My only thought was where do you put the data, then the CD came to mind. Any idea what size the data of that cojag's area 51 drive is? Perhaps a few CD's to hold it but that would make for level and content add on capabilities too. The easy part here would be to use the data already there and then you only have to alter the actual code that uses it. I would no doubt move all of the code over the the GPU/DSP instead of using the 68k at all. The GPU/DSP would easily handle what the 020 was doing and stil be abvle to tell the blitter and OPL what to do. The hard part is if they used all 8 megs for each level, and I am sure they did, that will seriously slow things down as the jagaur only has 2megs. Im guessing they did inded use all that RAM to load in nearby scenes that would be accessed quickly. That means of course that the Jag would have to load from CD 4 times as much and that I am sure would bottle neck things. Of course if we accept some image loss to the point where we can fit the 8 megs of data compress( and the GPU/DSP is well suited for compression) than it may be able to be done reasonably close to the arcade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted April 27, 2007 Share Posted April 27, 2007 You should go for it Gorf! That would be awesome to have Area 51 on the Jag CD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted April 27, 2007 Author Share Posted April 27, 2007 You should go for it Gorf! That would be awesome to have Area 51 on the Jag CD. It would definitely be a "killer app". Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted April 27, 2007 Share Posted April 27, 2007 No pun intended? ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted April 28, 2007 Share Posted April 28, 2007 You should go for it Gorf! That would be awesome to have Area 51 on the Jag CD. Um no thanks. Im piled high enough with work, plus I've had my share of licensing issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted April 28, 2007 Share Posted April 28, 2007 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorf Posted April 29, 2007 Share Posted April 29, 2007 How stupid was Atari not to have part of the TW cojag deal to be that they exclusively release a Jag version of Area51. Maybe even a pack in!!! Then again, Atari may have been begging them to use the chipset as it is. ...le sigh.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 I've been wondering why Atari never tried to just make good games for the Jaguar like they did on CoJag? More proof they didn't care. Necroposting something from 2007 AND stating the Jag didn't have any good games in the Jaguar section? Sounds like it's time to get the popcorn ©@©©@© @@©@©©@© ©©@©©@@©@©@ |\@©@©©@©@@@@/| | | | | | ========| | | | POPCORN | | | @ | ========| | | @ © @© |_________|_|_| @@@@ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 9 posts, all of them trying to stir things up. Smells a bit trollish. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 No offense...but why would you want to? Believe me, Area 51 and Max Force have no aged well at all. I have the arcade perfect version on the Satrun of Area 51 and it still never gets played. I even have two light guns. And since the Jaguar doesn't have a light gun, it would suck because using a controller is no fun! Actually the Saturn version is buggy with the light gun. Hit detection is atrocious. The only way to reasonable play it is with the controller on that version. And speaking of which, the Saturn runs Area 51 on CD. And it does not have a hard drive. What pissed me off is after having the game for 2 years and not being able to beat it my friend sat down and beat it the first time he played it. Well actually the second time. He's one of those real good hand/eye coordination fellas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkoVitch Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 In answer to the question I'd imagine the games released on the CoJag Arcade platform are by Atari Games, and the ones released on the Jag are by Atari... Think the company was split around the Time Warner/Tramel era of its life, one portion concentrating on Arcade stuff and the other on home computers. Interesting (probably not) point.. Primal Rage arcade board ISN'T a co-jag! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 What about porting the games instead? Could probably use most of the source code and make the needed changes to get it to run on a 68000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkoVitch Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 What about porting the games instead? Could probably use most of the source code and make the needed changes to get it to run on a 68000. Assuming you had the source I'd imagine for some game there may be quite a bit of reworking to do. CoJag boards can run at higher clockrates than the jag.. IIRC The board GazTee had was clocked at 50MHz, the chips on that board got a bit toasty too.. Not all CoJags have a Motorola General CPU either, some had MIPS systems.. So you'd be dealing with higher clockrates and different CPU, which would mean rewriting chunks of code and then if a faster clock rate you'd also have to cut down some aspects of the game.. and that's also assuming there was no additional hardware (more RAM, HDD etc etc) It may be possible for some games to almost re-assemble them to the Jag (assuming you had the source and assets) with minimal tweaks, but I'd imagine the majority would require significant reworking, pretty much putting you in a similar boat to trying to port from differing hardware. Are any of the sources available for CoJag games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Upgrade the 68000 with a newer CPU like the 68030 maybe a CT60 like the falcon upgrade, then overclock the jagchipset add IDE and CF or HDD to it and you're getting close to a co-jag Bad thing is that this can't fit in the jag case ... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 No, I'm not trolling... I actually found this thread through a Google search. To me, it seems like Atari made a bunch of wrong moves with it's hardware and alot of games released just seemed like the developers didn't care. There ARE some good games on the Jag but alot of them seem unpolished and uninspired. A lot of them were unpolished and uninspired because atari employees were underpaid, given limited tools to work with, and had smaller development teams than sega or nintendo etc. Super burnout was made by a few guys in their home in france for instance. Atari Karts was coded by 1 guy. Jaguar hardware was amazing for its time even given its flaws. sold at an amazing price too. 1993, 3do, which was less powerfull than jag, cost 800 new. jag was 250. you want to talk about uninspired games, 3do was worse than jag. tons of crap on that system. atleast all the games released for jag were actual games with gameplay. it boils down to atari as a company simply did not have much money to work with. not sure how old you are but you had to live in the times to appreciate the jag. in 1994 games like avp doom iron soldier and more were mind blowing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 (edited) In answer to the question I'd imagine the games released on the CoJag Arcade platform are by Atari Games, and the ones released on the Jag are by Atari... Think the company was split around the Time Warner/Tramel era of its life, one portion concentrating on Arcade stuff and the other on home computers. Interesting (probably not) point.. Primal Rage arcade board ISN'T a co-jag! When the Tramiels bought Atari, they got the computer and console divisions and Time Warner, who owned Atari Inc. held onto the Arcade division (Atari Games). But Time-Warner also held on to 20% of Atari Corp. stock too. Time Warner released Atari Games arcade games on consoles under the Tengen name. Due to the 20% stake Time-Warner maintained in Atari Corp., it was natural for Atari and Time-Warner to get in bed with the Co-Jag for the arcade division and then the other part of the deal was Time-warner Software for the Jag; we got Power Drive Ralley and Primal Rage. Other titles like T-mek and a Nerf game and others were supposed to come as well, including ports of Co-Jag games. Primal Rage and other Time-warner games Atari was going to get were made before Co-Jag. A lot of companies signed deals with Atari to make games and hardware for the Jag, and then never got far if started at all when they saw the Jag and Atari not being competative in the market. This is one deal that probably would have seen full fruition had Atari been able to continue and not do the reverse merger and drop the Jag. If Atari could have held on one more year it might have started turning things around for them and the Jaguar, along with other software that just wasn't finished soon enough. If it weren't for Mr. Tramiel's heart attack, causing him to want to get out of the business, they might have held on long enough to get a foot-hold in the market again and later the Jag 2, instead they found a way to back out on everything. Instead of re-investing monies settle on out of court with Sega, they took the money folded Atari into JTS. This wasn't there intention until after the heart attack though, that's what changed everything. Otherwise they would have tried holding on at least another year, like theyed been doing for most of the past decade. Edited November 4, 2013 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerosquare Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 (edited) Assuming you had the source I'd imagine for some game there may be quite a bit of reworking to do. CoJag boards can run at higher clockrates than the jag.. IIRC The board GazTee had was clocked at 50MHz, the chips on that board got a bit toasty too.. Not all CoJags have a Motorola General CPU either, some had MIPS systems.. So you'd be dealing with higher clockrates and different CPU, which would mean rewriting chunks of code and then if a faster clock rate you'd also have to cut down some aspects of the game.. and that's also assuming there was no additional hardware (more RAM, HDD etc etc) It may be possible for some games to almost re-assemble them to the Jag (assuming you had the source and assets) with minimal tweaks, but I'd imagine the majority would require significant reworking, pretty much putting you in a similar boat to trying to port from differing hardware. Are any of the sources available for CoJag games? Linko, have you seen how the PCBs look like ? http://zerosquare.free.fr/ac_2007/DSCF0504.JPG Different CPU, higher freq, more RAM, HD interface (which is used to stream video from), and other stuff - it may even have video decompression HW acceleration (not sure about that last point). Good luck porting anything to the Jag (plus, the lightguns games have a really shallow gameplay anyways - after 5 minutes or so, the noverlty wears off). Edited November 4, 2013 by Zerosquare 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkoVitch Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Not all of them look like that though There are some which don't have the IDE etc on there and are simpler games. GazTee had one called FrostBite which was a puzzle game, it probably still had increased RAM, but there was no disk extra just ROM on the board, significantly simpler board layout, although from memory it looks similar just less populated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Converting a Mega Drive game to run on jag might be an interesting project. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkoVitch Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Converting a Mega Drive game to run on jag might be an interesting project. Given a lot of the Sega arcade boards weren't much more than a sooped up MegaDrive.. It would probably be quite plausible to port a Sega arcade board to the Jag for a pretty much spot on Arcade Perfect port... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 I wasn't aware of any Sega boards being based onthe MD... anyway, I think the Super Scaler games would be a good fit for the Jag. The 32X got two very good ports of Space Harrier and Afterburner. Outrun would be awesome too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkoVitch Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 It's not a 'fact' just something I thought seems most likely looking at the specs of their System 16 boards : http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=701 It would make some sense as it would allow for simplified developement of games for Arcade and then releasing a home version too.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 The Jag could do a fantastic version of Outrun, as Super Burnout shows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Gemintronic Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Maybe something like the JagCD except instead of a CD you get an SSD. Instead of a save game cart you get more memory. Hmmn.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 (edited) It's not a 'fact' just something I thought seems most likely looking at the specs of their System 16 boards. It would make some sense as it would allow for simplified developement of games for Arcade and then releasing a home version too..[/url] I see what you mean, it System16 is very similar. But it's probably the other way arond, Sega designed the Mega Drive as a watered down System 16, seeing that the first System 16 games preceded the MD by 2 years. BTW, I never was aware that Shinobi uses the System 16 board. This makes me wish for someone to make a great Mega Drive port of the game. Then there would be Shinobi, Revenge of Shinobi, Shinobi III and Shadow Dancer available on it. Heaven for the little fanboy that I am.^^ The Jag could do a fantastic version of Outrun, as Super Burnout shows. True. I had to double check to see if you are trying to rib me, as I always confuse that other horrible motorcycle game on Jag with this one.^^ But yeah, Super Burnout has wonderful scaling and seems to run smooth as hell. So, can we expect to play Outrun Jag at e-Jagfest? Kidding aside, while it seems very possible to make a really great port I doubt it will be as simple as getting some ST games to run on the Jag, at least if you want to port the arcade version. The arcade board (not System 16) was substantially more powerful than home machines of the time. Edited November 5, 2013 by 108 Stars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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