Why some 3do games look so good others not so much...

bonefish · Post by **bonefish** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 5:00 pm

I've read around and seen that the 3do hardware can only be addressed through the OS? Is that true? If so that's leaving lots of power on the table. For instance Shockwave 2 is smooth moving, fast, uses lots of polygons but Doom, sprite based is downright slow. What are some of you guys thoughts on this. Did 3do cripple the system?

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 7:00 pm

Well, there are a few things to consider... #1 is that writing to an OS means you can do some powerful stuff very quickly. In the short time I spent tinkering with the 3DO SDK, I was pretty impressed with what the OS could do. Another thing is that an OS is a layer of abstraction that lets you change the hardware beneath. So things like the 3DO blaster and multiple manufacturers wouldn't have been possible (for better or worse).

But I think the big thing is what you said yourself. Some games look great and run smootly while others are choppy and crappy. But they're all using the OS, including the good looking, smooth games. So it really just comes down to how good the developers are.

I think you could see better looking, smoother running games without the OS, but it would only be a marginal improvement for an exponential increase in the amount of work needed to create the game. That also means fewer games, and even crappier games from bad developers.

bonefish · Post by **bonefish** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 10:40 pm

Yeah, it sort of has that directx mentality to it doesn't it? The hardware conforms to certain OS/Software API standards, while the coders write to the said OS/Software API without having to worry about what lies beneath. Interesting how far ahead of its time the 3do was... Yeah if it was a write directly to the hardware platform it wouldn't have had the library it did! Like that damn Saturn developers loved so much

I guess they were really serious when they said aud-io, vid-eo, 3-do
3do OS standard.

Post by **3DOKid** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:20 pm

This harks back to the old Jag is better than 3DO business. The Jag didn't have an OS, developers went straight for the CPU: a Motorola 680xx something-or-other (?) Now, people argue that because of this the Jag was capable of much more and is much faster.

Now - I've never seen Battlesphere, which I'm told does push the Jag tin quite hard, but I have seen a lot of the other stuff. Iron Soldier and Alien Vs Predator are impressive but Hauzer, Star Fighter, Space Hulk and Foes of Ali royally kick it's arse. Killing Time is very technically impressive.

The difference is the coders. It's all swings and round-abouts as far as the hardware is concerned. The 3DO's off-the-shelf ARM60 was pretty powerfull back in the day, and more than a match for the Jag with it's aging CPU and custom chips. It's like bickering whether the PS3 is more or less powerful than 360. It doesn't matter, and in 15 years it still won't matter.

What i would say is that I suspect the 3DO OS allowed developers to get grips with the 3DO hardware a lot quicker than they could with jag hardware.

...and then there was documentation to worry about...

Gunstar · Post by **Gunstar** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:43 pm

3DOKid wrote:This harks back to the old Jag is better than 3DO business. The Jag didn't have an OS, developers went straight for the CPU: a Motorola 680xx something-or-other (?) Now, people argue that because of this the Jag was capable of much more and is much faster.

Now - I've never seen Battlesphere, which I'm told does push the Jag tin quite hard, but I have seen a lot of the other stuff. Iron Soldier and Alien Vs Predator are impressive but Hauzer, Star Fighter, Space Hulk and Foes of Ali royally kick it's arse. Killing Time is very technically impressive.

The difference is the coders. It's all swings and round-abouts as far as the hardware is concerned. The 3DO's off-the-shelf ARM60 was pretty powerfull back in the day, and more than a match for the Jag with it's aging CPU and custom chips. It's like bickering whether the PS3 is more or less powerful than 360. It doesn't matter, and in 15 years it still won't matter.

What i would say is that I suspect the 3DO OS allowed developers to get grips with the 3DO hardware a lot quicker than they could with jag hardware.

...and then there was documentation to worry about...

Your right for the most part about the Jaguar, though lets get one misconception straightened out from the start; The Jaguar has a 68000 CO-PROCESSOR, that IS NOT the CPU. It is SUPPOSED to be used just for bootstrapping the system; getting the BIOS up and running and handling the controller input/output. The Jaguar has another chip with multiple processors in it that is it's true CPU, and is even labeled as such on the chip. But, the Jauguar's hardware, when used properly, doesn't really have a specific CPU at all, but several multi-tasking processors.

But the lack of an OS WAS the Jaguar downfall. It's true that more of the Jaguar's raw power CAN be tapped becuase it can be programmed directly, but it makes it extremely hard to program, therefore takes top programmers to make work well. This turned off many developers, with a lack of an OS and programming tools, and others, who were less capable ended up using the 68000 as a CPU, becuase it can be (3 out of the Jaguar's 5 processors can have total control like a CPU, the 68000 being one) used as the CPU, but drastically bottle necks the system, and thus there were many crappy games or games that just didn't use the systems power and were labeled "16-bit" quality becuase they essentially were. If the Jaguar had a proper OS and tools/software library like the 3DO, it would have had as many developers and games as the 3DO, and while a few of the Jaguar's gems that tap into real power may have been more cripple due to an OS, overall the games would have tapped more of the Jaguar's 64-bit power.

Now, in the aftermath, after years of homebrew research and hardware bug-work-arounds by good programmers, the Jaguar's real power can be tapped, and new development tools are in the works to make it so every programmer can tap it's 64-bit power, time will tell if we see some evidence of this in the future from the hombrew community.

The 3DO is however still better in this regard, as even though there is less hombrew/underground dev. taking place, the 3DO got a lot more high quality titles in it's life due to it's OS, then the Jaguar did, and the Jaguar will most likely never catch up, but it will get a few more Jaguar power titles.

So while the 3DO has a couple hundred games in it's library, with at least 50% high quality, and 50% average or bad, the Jaguar has about 75 titles in it's library(so far), with about 33% high quality, and 66% average or bad(and about 3% that actually uses the Jaguar's real power). So the 3DO has already won with it's software library; there will always be more great games on the 3DO than on the Jaguar, but the Jaguar still has great games too and is worthy.

Enjoy what you have, and don't worry about what Jaguar owners are getting now or in the future if you, unless you are a Jaguar owner/fan like me. people like me, who own and love both systems are the real winners, with lots of incredible games from two incredible systems, many of which no other systems have.

Be thankful the 3DO had a powerful multi-tasking OS to take advantage of it's powerful multi-tasking hardware. Both Atari and 3DO had the ahead-of-their-time parallel and multi-tasking capable processors, but only 3DO had the advance OS to match. Plus, the 3DO had an extra megabyte of video ram that the Jaguar doesn't have, so due to lack of ram, the Jaguar's incredible processors can never be fully exploited, it will only ever see about 75% of the multiple RISC processor's true powers due to Atari being cheep and only including 2MB of main ram. The processors were designed to handle 6-8MB directly. The 3DO has 2MB of main ram and 1MB of video ram. Ram is a distinct advantage. The 3DO also had the advantage of CD memory for mass rom storage, and the Jaguar had a max 6MB cart space, and the largest actually released was 4MB. Even with incredible compression routines it's still far less than a 3DO CD. Now, if you look at the Jaguar CD's games, also second generation sequals, like Battlemorph (sequal to Cybermorph) and Iron Soldier 2, they are much more impressive than the cartridge versions including great texture-mapping like 3DO games. These second-gen. Jag Cd titles are not well known of due to rarity.

bonefish · Post by **bonefish** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 7:26 pm

3DOKid wrote: It's like bickering whether the PS3 is more or less powerful than 360. It doesn't matter, and in 15 years it still won't matter.

But but but... teh PS3 has teh C3LL and it is 1337 man its like 8 360's in ONE.

I love it!

Post by **3DOKid** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 8:30 pm

...but if i didn't pick fights with jag owners - i'd be out of a job!

Gunstar · Post by **Gunstar** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 8:49 pm

3DOKid wrote:...but if i didn't pick fights with jag owners - i'd be out of a job!

If your refering to me, I didn't think we were fighting. I just want the truth of the Jaguar to be known, the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are FAR too many misconceptions of the Jaguar's hardware and how it works. Though this is true of the 3DO as well. Neither system was ever given it's proper respect hardware-wise, except by the hard-core fans of each console.

Post by **3DOKid** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:42 pm

we're not fighting. Or least i don't think we are. Are we? You remind me of my wife sometimes LOL. I am referring to the mighty battle between 3DO Kid and the Ataryans. But since they have killed me - that doesn't really matter anymore either.!

bonefish · Post by **bonefish** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:44 pm

YES YES!

Good... I feel your anger....

Witness the power of a fully operational 3do vs. Jaguar Flame War!

Post by **3DO Experience** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 11:53 pm

ALL HAIL THE ATARI 2600, THE MOST POWERFUL SYSTEM TO GRACE THE PLANET!!!

*Runs away in fear of mob of villagers carrying torches.*

Post by **3DOKid** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:21 am

I've been playing with bAtari BASIC ...

DragonmasterDan · Post by **DragonmasterDan** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 2:34 pm

Gunstar wrote: Your right for the most part about the Jaguar, though lets get one misconception straightened out from the start; The Jaguar has a 68000 CO-PROCESSOR, that IS NOT the CPU. It is SUPPOSED to be used just for bootstrapping the system; getting the BIOS up and running and handling the controller input/output. The Jaguar has another chip with multiple processors in it that is it's true CPU, and is even labeled as such on the chip. But, the Jauguar's hardware, when used properly, doesn't really have a specific CPU at all, but several multi-tasking processors.

But the lack of an OS WAS the Jaguar downfall. It's true that more of the Jaguar's raw power CAN be tapped becuase it can be programmed directly, but it makes it extremely hard to program, therefore takes top programmers to make work well. This turned off many developers, with a lack of an OS and programming tools, and others, who were less capable ended up using the 68000 as a CPU, becuase it can be (3 out of the Jaguar's 5 processors can have total control like a CPU, the 68000 being one) used as the CPU, but drastically bottle necks the system, and thus there were many crappy games or games that just didn't use the systems power and were labeled "16-bit" quality becuase they essentially were. If the Jaguar had a proper OS and tools/software library like the 3DO, it would have had as many developers and games as the 3DO, and while a few of the Jaguar's gems that tap into real power may have been more cripple due to an OS, overall the games would have tapped more of the Jaguar's 64-bit power..

It's just worth noting that eventually better Jaguar development kits were made available (developed independently by High Voltage who designed a reasonable number of Jaguar games) which did not require that entire games were written in assembler. The problem was they still didn't fully utilize "Tom and Jerry" and an inproportionate amount of work was done on the Jaguar's 68K.

Post by **3DOKid** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 8:08 pm

Settles it for me.

Conclusion.

1) The 3DO games looked better because the 3DO was/is better.

2) The Atari Jaguar was rubbish because it was gay. (No offense to homosexual people.)

Great! The effort was worth but we got in there in the end eh?

3DO Kid.

bonefish · Post by **bonefish** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 2:51 am

3DOKid wrote:Settles it for me.

Conclusion.

1) The 3DO games looked better because the 3DO was/is better.

2) The Atari Jaguar was rubbish because it was gay. (No offense to homosexual people.)

Great! The effort was worth but we got in there in the end eh?

3DO Kid.

AMEN!