Jaguar vs. 3DO?

[onlysublime]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EY1zK_wz_0

 

A 3DO survival horror game. In case anyone needs a good look at it running a real time polygon engine.

 

I have a hard time beliving the Jag could do this game.

 

you think this looks good??? what is that???? 5 fps??? it makes Alien vs Predator look like a speed demon!

[atarian63]

just could never get into 3dO, nobody carried stuff for it either. Games were slow,system over priced. Got to give to Jag Hands down. Heck I like my 32x much better than a 3dO

[+LS650]

Each system has its gems and its failures. I prefer Jaguar, but there are some really good games for the 3DO.

 

One advantage the 3DO has all over the Jaguar is that most of the CD images can be found via torrent - er, not that I condone that sort of evil thing.

[+thegoldenband]

I dig my 3DO. I don't bust it out often, but when I do, it usually treats me well. SSFII Turbo, Samurai Showdown, Crash 'N' Burn, Return Fire, Road Rash...plenty to like, and the library's a good bit bigger than the competition (32X, Jaguar, CD-i, etc.).

 

Is that information about not being able to bypass the OS 100% up to date? It sounds more like a licensing requirement than a hardcoded necessity. If the OS is being loaded from disc, I can't imagine that there isn't some way to hack around it.

[DracIsBack]

Holy five year old thread based upon a debate that I remember having nearly 20 years ago.

[kskunk]

Holy five year old thread based upon a debate that I remember having nearly 20 years ago.

So, since you brought it up... I've always wondered, when I encounter one of these threads... What am I reading?

 

1) Is it post-irony? A wink-wink nudge-nudge imitation of the Nintendo Power fueled "console wars"?

2) Is it nostalgia? A rose-colored recreation of the arguments we used to have at recess?

3) Or are we still defending that $268.73 (with tax!) we spent on our pre-ordered Jaguar just to get made fun of by our friends for waiting so long while the store kept delaying and delaying even while they were all playing Final Fantasy III by the time we finally had it home spending days flying through 64-bit canyons while repeating "Where did you learn.. to fly?" over and over until the motion sickness and laughter and engine noise were all mixing together in our nightmares where that "connect the dot" lady JUST KEPT ON yelling even though anybody could see that the new 32-bit consoles had better graphics and games that were just more fun and no matter how many times I did the math I couldn't convince my friends that more bits were actually better OH MY GOD SHE'S STILL YELLING AND BANGING ON THE CHALKBOARD FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP IT PLEASE YOU'RE JUST MAKING THEM LAUGH HARDER AT ME!

 

Because it's it's number three, I'm totally over that now.

 

- KS

Edited January 4, 2012 by kskunk

[MN12BIRD]

Okay as for Crash and Burn on the 3DO can someone confirm with proof that the background is indeed FMV and not real time?

 

I know the game looks almost "too good to be true" and I can see why some might think it's FMV based like Mega Race. But in Mega Race when you turn the car left and right the actual car sprite pans across on the screen from the left side all the way to the right side of the screen. You can't really slow down or stop either. Like the video is just playing and you're moving the car over top.

 

But in Crash and Burn the car is always in the center of the screen and to me it really looks like the perspective of the track is changing as you steer. Race in a straight tunnel and move from one side to the other and the center line of the tunnel roof will change angle from one side of your car (the screen) to the other. Drive on the side of the road and the side line/edge of the road will be more into the center of the screen, pull away back into the center of the road and the edge of the road moves away from the screen, drive across to the other side of the road and that edge is now closer to the inside of the screen all whilst the car sprite is dead center on the TV! The car is stationary in the center of the screen and the perspective changes around you as you steer. You can also switch into a first person view in witch the road moves under you as you steer from one side of the road to the other the center line, side lines, the whole perspective moves as you steer. The only way I can see this as being possible is if the FMV video is actually larger than the screen and the video itself can be panned from left to right. Unlike games like Rebel Assault where the sprite ship moves around the screen over top a fixed perspective being a pre-rendered video. Also is the fact you can speed up, slow down and even stop and it plays perfectly smooth as you do this? Oh and one more thing there are 30 tracks so that would be a lot of FMV and it's in full screen, full color, fast and smooth, while changing speeds as you slow down or even stop and all with no MPEG artifacts?

 

I'm so damn certain that Crash and Burn is real time but everyone keeps saying it's FMV. Go back and look at gameplay footage and notice how the perspective changes around the car as the car steers on the track yet remains dead center on screen. The car isn't moving over a fixed perspective and it would be if it was pre-rendered video but rather the perspective of the track is changing around the fixed car sprite.

Edited January 4, 2012 by MN12BIRD

[sh3-rg]

So, since you brought it up... I've always wondered, when I encounter one of these threads... What am I reading?

 

You're reading a brief warm-up for the impending 27 pages of Kool Kitty.

[Atari_Owl]

So, since you brought it up... I've always wondered, when I encounter one of these threads... What am I reading?

 

You're reading a brief warm-up for the impending 27 pages of Kool Kitty.

 

HOW DARE YOU

Thats Not FAIR

 

Its just that his posts are so long they seem like a page each

 

j/k everyone

[so_tough!]

why did Gorf get banned?

[Rex Dart]

I'm just glad it was decided that the 3DO won

[+remowilliams]

why did Gorf get banned?

 

Even though his mouth kept moving, his brain had crashed years earlier. Apparently it needed a reboot.

 

Go read a bunch of his old posts where you see him go from being a potential scene contributor to an insanely frothing, endlessly argumentative, do nothing giant ball and chain to the entire Jaguar scene.

[sh3-rg]

Go read a bunch of his old posts where you see him go from being a potential scene contributor to an insanely frothing, endlessly argumentative, do nothing giant ball and chain to the entire Jaguar scene

 

To be fair, it wasn't entirely his fault as he was having his head bombarded with bs "behind the scenes" information by a manipulative little xunt who continues to do the same to this day.

 

People like to blame Gorf's meltdown on certain Jaguar fans and groups but that's utterly blinkered and a typical example of the herd mentality that's been far too aparent in the so-called 'Jaguar community' of the past. The fact is, a large percentage of his woes came about as a direct result of someone who sat by his side and filled his beleaguered brain with utter bile, playing him like a cheap fiddle.

 

Then again, you don't have to believe everything whispered in your ear, especially when each successive story is more fantastical than the last. Gorf has lost a few good friends as a direct result of this idiocy - people who have had a big impact on the Jaguar scene in positive ways, but he still chooses to play monkey to his right-hand-man's organ grinder... as long as he continues to do that he'll never be happy in what he's doing.

[16BitMan]

I don't really get involved in politics but I have heard a lot about some guy called Thunderbird who is apparently now an actual politician or trying to become one anyway.

[Austin]

Okay as for Crash and Burn on the 3DO can someone confirm with proof that the background is indeed FMV and not real time? I know the game looks almost "too good to be true" and I can see why some might think it's FMV based like Mega Race.

 

It's definitely not FMV.

 

*edit: I don't feel it looks "too good to be true" either. It looks great for '93, but several other 3DO games down the line have done just as well, if not better. Crash 'n Burn shares the same kinds of traits as them as well, including the occasional framerate hiccups, muddy textures when up close, and more. That's of course on top of what you mentioned yourself (being able to change the perspective by moving the car). It's definitely rendered in real-time.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Austin

[kool kitty89]

I rather like this summary Kskunk made a while ago:

 

I know little about the actual internals of the 3DO as no one seems to know outside of the signed developers

but though it had many more games and a few really fun games, it was no Jaguar in terms of power. It did

texture map well for what it did though.

 

I've managed to dig up some technical docs on the 3DO, but they're hard to find. It's an interesting counterpoint to the Jaguar because it meets the market requirements of a next gen system -- it's just really underpowered. On the other hand, the Jaguar is far more powerful, but of course Atari marketing was a bunch of tossers and had no idea what the market wanted. We all knew that.

 

The 3DO was designed to be programmed in C and texture mapping is a core feature, two things the Jaguar missed out on. However, the 3DO's clock rate is slower compared to the Jaguar, and the custom chips are on an older process technology, which makes the chipset bigger, less powerful, and more expensive than Tom and Jerry.

 

The 3DO's ARM is weaker than the Jag RISC, but has the advantage of an excellent good C compiler and a bug-free memory interface, making large programs a cakewalk to make.

 

Like the Jaguar, there is no cache, so main bus bandwidth is a severe restriction. While the 3DO is texture mapping the ARM CPU is frozen.

 

This led to awesome graphics demos that turned into choppy games, since gameplay logic killed graphics performance.

 

No need to debate the 3DO's severe price disadvantage. That's been done to death.

 

- KS

 

 

If you want to get into why either system failed on the market, that's a separate issue then the technical performance/programming stuff though. (the tech issues had some impact, as did the cost/performance of the hardware, but it was more up to other problems like miss-matched market models making the 3DO far more expensive than it could have been -and added hardware cost for non-gaming specific features like the excessive amount of framebuffer space to support high-res 24-bit still images- and the deluxe form-factor of the early models . . . and then Atari's whole lack of funding/PR/management/staff/stability at the time)

[+thegoldenband]

BTW, it looks like there's been some progress in overclocking the 3DO. Hard to tell from the videos, but if it smooths out gameplay and improves framerates without any untoward effects, I'm all for it.

[Punisher5.0]

why did Gorf get banned?

 

He asked for his account to be closed.

[kool kitty89]

BTW, it looks like there's been some progress in overclocking the 3DO. Hard to tell from the videos, but if it smooths out gameplay and improves framerates without any untoward effects, I'm all for it.

For that matter, I wonder if it would be possible to replace the CPU outright with a similar/compatible one with cache (like an ARM610 or 600). For software written at low-level with specific timing requirments assumed, that could screw things up, but with everything programmed exclusively at library-level (and fairly general purpose -with the libraries designed around some possible hardware changes considered too), it might work.

 

The idea would be somewhat like the old Cyrix clip-on CPU upgrades for PCs with surface-mounted CPUs . . . or really, like any CPU upgrade for a system not intended for CPU replacement. (so also like accelerator boards for the ST)

[kskunk]

For that matter, I wonder if it would be possible to replace the CPU outright with a similar/compatible one with cache (like an ARM610 or 600)

This is pretty tough, because you're adding a cache that wasn't there before. Games are not going to handle the cache properly, and they'll crash. Trying to avoid trouble with a writeback cache isn't enough, because the custom chips update memory without any way to inform the processor its cache lines have gotten dirty. If you limit yourself to only an instruction cache, games may crash randomly as they load overlays. Just rewriting the libraries to know about the cache may not be enough, because they don't try to abstract shared memory interactions between chips and the CPU.

 

Emulation is the most reliable way to improve framerates/graphics quality of old systems! But overclocking is pretty cool when it comes to bragging rights.

 

- KS

[twoquickcapri]

That was one of THE things I liked about the 3DO version was the guy pissing you off, or, praising you if you did good and you get more praise or more shit depending on how good or bad you did. I HATE the Saturn and PSX versions becuase they were just not quite the same in a lot of small ways and also becuase that guy WASN'T there. There's so many reasons the 3DO version is superior to the ported crap versions on the other systems. it would have been different if they had actually gotten the original developers, Pioneer Productions to do it, those guys were too good! After 10+ years of playing the 3DO version, that guy seems like an old buddy who razzes or praises you like buddies who compete always do. I love that guy! But if all he did was pee you off, then you must have really sucked at the game! I get lots of praise from him most of the time now, since I'm so good at it, oh, and I am good at the game, in fact, I'd bet my life that I'm the best in the WORLD at the 3DO version of NFS, I only wish there was a classic pro-gamer contest to prove it. I can take some pics of my times, I guarantee no one will ever beat! I OWN on 3DO NFS! I'm willing to prove it to if I ever had a chance.

 

Need for Speed for the 3do is the greatest. By far my favorite racer. And I do agreed the the 3do version out shine the rest. The banter with the road & track guy is just the icing on the cake.

 

So, since you brought it up... I've always wondered, when I encounter one of these threads... What am I reading?

 

You're reading a brief warm-up for the impending 27 pages of Kool Kitty.

 

I've been reading alot of old topics on here and he does it almost everytime. I personally like reading all the tech question/answers but he's like gorf and repeat himself over and over again.

[+CyranoJ]

but he's like gorf and repeat himself over and over again.

 

That is way, way, way, way, way too harsh.

[twoquickcapri]

but he's like gorf and repeat himself over and over again.

 

That is way, way, way, way, way too harsh.

 

Ok you're probably right. I'm not trying to be mean to him. Have you read the "Its 1993, you're in charge of the Jag, what do you do?" topic? Its a good read but 41 pages of people repeating themselves. Kind of like this topic.

[kskunk]

Its a good read but 41 pages of people repeating themselves. Kind of like this topic.

Every time I hear a "why didn't they...", I wish I could point them to the "Why didn't Atari..." FAQ. I just don't want to write it.

 

Normally, posters are missing some piece of the puzzle. The posts seem so repetitive because the same "obvious" solutions come up depending on which piece they overlook: Maybe they're fuzzy on the costs and limits of technology of the day, or unaware of the business and marketing challenges faced, or forget Atari's assets (debts) and reputation (notoriety).

 

The answer to every question is ultimately "they didn't have the money", and yet we hardly ever talk about retailer margins and NRE charges and licensing fees and cost of credit for a company in Atari's position. Instead we wonder why Atari didn't "try harder" to attract AAA partners in 1993.. the same year they notoriously avoided bankruptcy by not paying their business partners.

 

It's amazing they shipped the Jaguar. Better funded companies have failed to get cheaper products out the door. Atari was in shambles - they'd been profitable on revenue of $258M in 91, by 93 they lost $78M on revenue of $29M. Nearly everyone had been fired except for some lawyers fighting Sega, gone were all the factories and every building but one. Somehow, with a handful of engineers against the competitions' thousands, with no money in the bank and no factories and no retailer help, Atari got the thing on shelves.

 

It's amazing they sold enough decent games that we're still here yakking about them. It's amazing they recovered the company's stock price and cash reserves enough to exit the industry while paying off investors, instead of leaving everybody broke.

 

- KS

 

"Did you hear about the guy trapped under a boulder who sawed off his arm to save his life? Pretty amazing, huh?"

"Why didn't he just use a hydraulic sidelift crane to lift the boulder off? That would have worked out way better for him."

[Crazyace]

Everyone is missing something, and lots of things seem obvious in hindsight - that's what's fun I disagree with you on the "they didn't have the money" panacea though - that's an extremely lazy conclusion in some respects.

 

It's also nice that amongst the hyperbola there's often various nuggets that crop up in the comparision threads ( perhaps not this one quite as much though ) - even the Atari vs C64 one had some cool info ( and pics )

 

Maybe in 10-15 years people will play what-if's on info about PS2 or PS3 that mirror some of the what-if's the original engineers went through in design.

 

 

( At the time, looking at 3D0 and Jaguar from the point of view of the devkits and info exposed then , it was obvious that the 3D0 was vastly better than the jaguar - but it was way more expensive , and the Jaguar was still way more powerful than the SNES/Genesis. )