Is the jaguar the most misunderstood console?

It does float! And doesn't get soggy in milk! :)

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Post by T2KFreeker » Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:03 pm

Mobius wrote:I think his point is that there were lower expectations for what Doom on the SNES could be, so a crappy port was still impressive by SNES standards. So a 9 for an SNES version just means it's about as good as possible for what the SNES can do.

In order to garner better review scores, the Jaguar version didn't just have to be better than the SNES version. It had to be better compared to its potential. The Jaguar was capable of a lot more than the SNES, so when the Jaguar Doom failed to push the limits of what people expected from the system, it was disappointing. So, even if it was objectively better than the SNES version, it was subjectively worse because it SHOULD have been much better.

Basically, just saying you can't compare scores across such different platforms because the expectations for each are so different.
I can kill your argument in one fail swoop though. According to EGM, the Jaguar was a 16bit system, not a 64bit system and the SNES was a better system. So, with that stupid logic in place, yes, it is fair to compare the two versions together, especially in EGM's twisted world. You can't have it both ways. The Jaguar is either a 64bit system or a 16bit system. If we look at the EGM way, the Jaguar, a "16bit" system still pulled off a 100% better version of DOOM on their console without help from extra chips in the carts than Nintendo and Sega both did. See my point?
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Post by Traegorn » Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:29 pm

I have a hard time hating any console, just because usually there is at least ONE good game for it.

Except the Playdia.

There is nothing good to say about the Playdia.

I know this because I own one. :P

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Post by T2KFreeker » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:10 pm

Traegorn wrote:I have a hard time hating any console, just because usually there is at least ONE good game for it.

Except the Playdia.

There is nothing good to say about the Playdia.

I know this because I own one. :P
You know what? I actually remember wanting one of these back in the day. :lol:
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Post by 3DOKid » Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:23 pm

Traegorn wrote:I have a hard time hating any console, just because usually there is at least ONE good game for it.

Except the Playdia.

There is nothing good to say about the Playdia.

I know this because I own one. :P
I just googled for this and struck gold with Wikipedia.

It really is a Japanese console made for little Japanese kids.

They might have well just called it the Sanrio console and been done with it.

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Post by swaaye » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:27 am

T2KFreeker wrote:Here we go with this again. The Atari jaguar contains a programmable 64 bit Graphics Processor, making it a 64 bit system. It is NOT a 16 bit system.
I think it's maybe a 32 bit sys. Usually this kind of measure is based on the CPU and not co-pros. Look at PCs. You don't say a PC is 512 bit (or however large data chunks modern GPUs process.) PC OSs are just now finally using the CPU's 64 bit mode and primarily because it can address more than 4GB RAM.

Interesingly, I've read that N64 was almost without exception used in its 32 bit mode because 64 bit data and instructions come with performance impact and don't tend to benefit games.

I also think Jag as very complex and didn't perform as well as specs make it sound. Spec sheets tend to be this way lol. But see if you can find John Carmack's comments on Jag from his Doom work. He is refreshingly bullshit free too, unlike magazine developer interviews tended to be.

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Post by T2KFreeker » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:42 am

swaaye wrote:
T2KFreeker wrote:Here we go with this again. The Atari jaguar contains a programmable 64 bit Graphics Processor, making it a 64 bit system. It is NOT a 16 bit system.
I think it's maybe a 32 bit sys. Usually this kind of measure is based on the CPU and not co-pros. Look at PCs. You don't say a PC is 512 bit (or however large data chunks modern GPUs process.) PC OSs are just now finally using the CPU's 64 bit mode and primarily because it can address more than 4GB RAM.

I also think Jag as very complex and didn't perform as well as specs make it sound. Spec sheets tend to be this way lol. But see if you can find John Carmack's comments on Jag from his Doom work. He is refreshingly bullshit free too, unlike magazine developer interviews tended to be.
Nope, it is a 64bit system. The biggest problem with the Jaguar is Atari. They pushed it out the boor before it was finished. Kind of the same thing Sega did with the Saturn. The communication between the Tom and Jerry chips was broken. You had to know how to either completely write around the blitter to get the Jaguar to work properly, or you had to completely write the subroutines through software, which was a pain in the ass because Atari never really supplied libraries for the Jaguar and even to this day, there still is not a proper compiler written for the Jaguar. Neither in C or BASIC. Plus the fact that Programming Tools, a 3D rendering program, and even basic assembly programs do not exist for the Jaguar and you get the headache that these guys went through. Just when we thought things were going to get rolling, Jagmod, who was working on all of these things through his Jagulator program and SMAC, seems to be jumping ship and selling all of this Jaguar equipment without finishing the almost done projects. It really is sad because it seems like every time the Jaguar community gets close to getting at that amazing point, something like this happens. All of his Jaguar sites are now sites about betting on horses? Go figure. Given what the Jaguar has and the fact that there is pretty much nothing out there for developers to rely on other than bits and pieces of what they can clamor for, I have tons of respect for the devs that tackle this beast. I also still find BattleSPHERE to be an amazing accomplishment as the game theoretically never should have worked in the first place.
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Post by Doskias » Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:17 am

See this is what I am talking about :lol: . One of you claims its actually 32-bit and the other 64-bit. What metric do you use to determine a video game console's bit number?? I am really confused.

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Post by Traegorn » Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:05 am

It had some 32 bit graphics and sound processors, but the central processor and architecture was 64 bit.

The problem with the Jaguar is that programmers could write code to be processed by the 64 bit portions OR only the 32 bit processors -- and it was significantly easier to write code that only used the 32 bit capabilities...

So... the console was 64 bit, but a lot of the games were only 32 bit? :P

(The secret here is that while a higher bit processor has the potential to be faster, it doesn't automatically make it so. A 32-bit Windows machine from five years ago is faster than an N64 for example.)

Mobius

Post by Mobius » Thu Feb 24, 2011 5:35 am

Traegorn wrote:It had some 32 bit graphics and sound processors, but the central processor and architecture was 64 bit.

The problem with the Jaguar is that programmers could write code to be processed by the 64 bit portions OR only the 32 bit processors -- and it was significantly easier to write code that only used the 32 bit capabilities...

So... the console was 64 bit, but a lot of the games were only 32 bit? :P

(The secret here is that while a higher bit processor has the potential to be faster, it doesn't automatically make it so. A 32-bit Windows machine from five years ago is faster than an N64 for example.)

Heeeyyyyy, you're from Lafayette? I grew up there! Well, West Lafayette.


Also, to make this not a total derail, the 32/64-bit argument is dumb. The Jaguar is clearly a mix of both. As are many systems. Trying to label them is pointless and little more than marketing.

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Post by Austin » Thu Feb 24, 2011 6:01 am

Mobius wrote:Also, to make this not a total derail, the 32/64-bit argument is dumb. The Jaguar is clearly a mix of both. As are many systems. Trying to label them is pointless and little more than marketing.
Yes.. The thread de-rail was starting to get annoying, although sadly, that is the typical direction of such topics in the Jaguar community.. ugh.. Can't we just talk about how awesome the system is? :?

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Post by 3DO Experience » Thu Feb 24, 2011 6:18 am

I'm derailing another topic somewhere else, it's going pretty well. :D

I gotta say T2KFreeker does know his Jaguar!
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Post by Lemmi » Thu Feb 24, 2011 6:50 am

anyone want to buy my Atari Jaguar 32bit system with CD attachment and 10ish games? :P
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Post by 3DOKid » Thu Feb 24, 2011 7:44 am

Lemmi wrote:anyone want to buy my Atari Jaguar 32bit system with CD attachment and 10ish games? :P
Now, if you had said 16bit Jag I would have been interested. Those 32+32bit ones were lame.

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Post by Traegorn » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:41 pm

Mobius wrote:Heeeyyyyy, you're from Lafayette? I grew up there! Well, West Lafayette.
Recent transplant to Lafayette. I'm actually originally from Wisconsin. Ended up moving to Indiana because my wife is working on her PhD at Purdue.

See the weirdness here?

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Post by T2KFreeker » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:59 pm

Lemmi wrote:anyone want to buy my Atari Jaguar 32bit system with CD attachment and 10ish games? :P
I'll buy it! :shock:
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Post by swaaye » Thu Feb 24, 2011 10:34 pm

Doskias wrote:See this is what I am talking about :lol: . One of you claims its actually 32-bit and the other 64-bit. What metric do you use to determine a video game console's bit number?? I am really confused.
Console bit measure was primarily used to make it easy for gamers to relate to individual console generations. It was easy to market the number to people, basically. It's a number that's too simplified to really mean anything in the end. But it's easy to look at say NES and SNES and equate 8-bit to basic and 16-bit to better. Some people used to say Gameboy was 4-bit because it was even less powerful than NES, but GB is an 8-bit machine (sort of a 8080/Z80 CPU). In actuality you could probably build an 8-bit console that dusts SNES because there's so much more to it than how many bits it processes at once or how wide the data buses are.
Last edited by swaaye on Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Doskias » Thu Feb 24, 2011 10:57 pm

Thanks swaaye that really cleared it up for me :D .

swaaye

Post by swaaye » Thu Feb 24, 2011 11:06 pm

Here's a link to John Carmack's Jaguar comments.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?s ... id=1225529

Basically it sounds like an interesting mess. ;) It's really pretty ugly overall though because of poor design decisions. Actually it sounds like they designed the hardware without talking to game programmers.

Mobius

Post by Mobius » Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:44 am

Traegorn wrote:
Mobius wrote:Heeeyyyyy, you're from Lafayette? I grew up there! Well, West Lafayette.
Recent transplant to Lafayette. I'm actually originally from Wisconsin. Ended up moving to Indiana because my wife is working on her PhD at Purdue.

See the weirdness here?
Now you're going to tell me you lived in Madison.
swaaye wrote:Here's a link to John Carmack's Jaguar comments.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?s ... id=1225529

Basically it sounds like an interesting mess. ;) It's really pretty ugly overall though because of poor design decisions. Actually it sounds like they designed the hardware without talking to game programmers.
Man, I'm in the middle of reading Racing the Beam right now, and between that and Carmack's description here, I'm convinced that Atari had absolutely no idea how to design a system for programmers. With the VCS/2600, it was all about the hardware engineering and keeping costs down. The system was basically hardwired to do 1-on-1 games like Pong and Combat. It was literally built to display 2 or 3 sprites and had hardware support for a "missile" object.

Of course, the market was very different then, so I can't fault them too much, but all the good stuff like Pitfall was never supposed to be possible.

It's telling that Carmack likes the Lynx, considering it wasn't designed by Atari!

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Post by Traegorn » Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:53 am

Nah, raised in Milwaukee, and spent the last decade in Eau Claire.

Although both my brother and sister lived in Madison at various points.

(Well, and since the protests started, my brother has pretty much lived in Madison again as he works for AFSCME. :P )

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Post by swaaye » Sat Feb 26, 2011 8:31 pm

I live in the Fox Valley area. ;) What's with all the Wisconsinites here chatting up Jag/3DO?!

Yeah Jaguar sounds like it suffered from engineers who didn't have a lot of experience designing graphics engines and just from being a early 3D design in general. The flaws that Carmack describes are major though and it's pretty incredible that they would completely cripple their design as they did.

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Post by Lemmi » Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:33 am

oops

no need, i forgot to remove it last night
Last edited by Lemmi on Sun Feb 27, 2011 6:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by 3DO Experience » Sun Feb 27, 2011 4:00 pm

Hmm now it's on e-bay one day later... shall I delete the post?
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Post by Jones » Tue Mar 01, 2011 1:38 pm

What I've realized all the years looking at the console comparisons between the Jaguar the 3DO and probably also the CD32 is, that there were made many "mistakes by category".

Calling the Jaguar a 64Bit system would be the same as calling the
NeoGeo or the Sega Genesis a 32bit system. (The MC68000 CPU works
internally with 32bits, but has an only 16bits wide bus).
It reminded me also pretty much of commercials saying that the NeoGeo
was the "first 24bit gaming console". 24bits = 16bits (68000 CPU) + 8bits (the Z80 Coprocessor).

Saying that the Jaguar is running at 27MHz would be the same as saying
that the 3DO is running at 25MHz - since the 3DO's graphic chips actually do.

Many different numbers are used for many different things - some magazines praised the Jaguar for it's ability of handling sprites while
saying at the same time that the 3DO has no hardware sprites at all,
what is definitely not correct.
And so on, and so on.

I do like the Jaguar and I love the 3DO, but this is just a personal preference. Anyway, since I never found any *decent* and *neutral*
comparison between those 2 machines, I am still wondering, which
machine is better in what. Just because I am interested and not because
I dislike one of both.

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Post by martyg » Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:37 am

Mobius wrote:
Traegorn wrote:
Mobius wrote:Heeeyyyyy, you're from Lafayette? I grew up there! Well, West Lafayette.
Recent transplant to Lafayette. I'm actually originally from Wisconsin. Ended up moving to Indiana because my wife is working on her PhD at Purdue.

See the weirdness here?
Now you're going to tell me you lived in Madison.
I live in Milwaukee, small world.
Man, I'm in the middle of reading Racing the Beam right now, and between that and Carmack's description here, I'm convinced that Atari had absolutely no idea how to design a system for programmers.
Two completely different Atari's. Atari Inc. did the 2600, Atari Corp. did the Jaguar (and actually that was Flare who designed the Jaguar for them).
With the VCS/2600, it was all about the hardware engineering and keeping costs down. The system was basically hardwired to do 1-on-1 games like Pong and Combat. It was literally built to display 2 or 3 sprites and had hardware support for a "missile" object.
It was literally built to do ports of Atari Inc.'s mid 70's coin-op games, that was it. They didn't intend it to go much beyond that and were looking to do another more advanced console after (which wound up being their 400 and 800 PCS's).

Likewise, it was designed by engineers, not programmers. CPU based games were brand new at the time design started (1975), everything before that was discrete logic. I'm also not sure what you mean by "hardwired" though, the sprites were programmable hardware based player missile graphics, and that kind of fast hardware based sprite/collision support (what later was called sprites) were considered a luxury at the time.
It's telling that Carmack likes the Lynx, considering it wasn't designed by Atari!
Neither was the 7800 or the Jaguar.

Jones wrote:What I've realized all the years looking at the console comparisons between the Jaguar the 3DO and probably also the CD32 is, that there were made many "mistakes by category".

Calling the Jaguar a 64Bit system would be the same as calling the
NeoGeo or the Sega Genesis a 32bit system. (The MC68000 CPU works
internally with 32bits, but has an only 16bits wide bus).
It reminded me also pretty much of commercials saying that the NeoGeo
was the "first 24bit gaming console". 24bits = 16bits (68000 CPU) + 8bits (the Z80 Coprocessor).
Except as already pointed out, the Jaguar actually has a 64-bit data bus. It's a multi-processor system, which is one of the reasons it (and later such systems) are harder to program for.

At the risk of repeating what a previous poster stated, a jag is a multiprocessor system, 5 in total. Tom contains the processors responsible for graphics, which work in conjunction with one another. A 32 bit "GPU" (which I put in quotes because the other standard functions one would expect in a single GPU are actually split between these three processors), a 64 bit fully programmable object processor, and a 64 bit blitter processor (which also handles z-buffering, gouraud shadding, and other functions). Tom also contains the memory manager, which connects to the 64-bit data bus. In fact both the object and blitter processors run their own code, and once loaded can process fully with no other intervention. (Likewise for the DSP processor - Jerry, which can actually be used as general purpose processor as well). That was actually the purpose of the 5th processor, the 68000, which was meant to be used as bootstrap only and never used again. In fact you can turn off any one of the 5 processors completely at any given time.
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Post by Martin III » Sun Oct 09, 2011 5:08 am

I meant to reply to this months ago but forgot... and this forum looks like it could stand some necro-posting.
3DO Experience wrote:My most hated moment of all of Angry Video Game Nerd vids is when he talked about the Power Glove. My god, he actually thought that every game had code for it!!! There are like 5 basic codes and just because he doesn't know how to use it (because he doesn't have the manual) he thought it didn't work, except for one game that is. It works great! Especially for Punch Out!! I still have my first one complete in box, a Canadian one, a complete in box Japanese one and another I adapted for running on REND386. It F*ing works damn it!!!
From the Nerd FAQ:
Q: That game's not that bad, you're whining about it, just because you suck at it!

A: Remember this is for comedy. Sure my gripes with the games stem from truth, but they are exaggerated. The whole point is to play bad. If you want to see somebody play good, go watch a speed run. If you take my reviews seriously, you are missing the whole point. Think for yourself. I may actually like some of the games I'm complaining about. I only focus on the negative. Some of my complaints may be legit and others far fetched. (left out second half of answer because it consists of Rolfe ridiculing anyone who criticizes the show)
I'd agree that complaining about problems which don't exist is a stupid premise even for "just a quick little video I made one night when I was bored", much less a series of 15-minute videos with special effects budgets, but that's Rolfe's story and apparently he's sticking to it. You'd think with all the AVGN fanatics who go around quoting his show as Gospel truth would clue Rolfe in to the fact that his delivery is more than a bit misleading, but there you go.

I'm bewildered as to where you guys got the impression that the episode on the Jaguar was arguing that the console isn't 64-bit, though. It seemed to me that he was very clearly saying the opposite.

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Post by elitegamer » Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:55 am

Like the Lynx, Atari had a cutting edge unit they didn't know what to do with (or refuesd to) I know I was bitter towards them ... I grew up with Atari, and to see the giant fall from grace over seemingly stupid errors in judgement was tough.[/quote]

Cutting edge... Yeah alright! Atari almost single handedly destroyed the home gaming industry and market. The lynx and the both suck "d-sized" batteries. Matter fact the Jag had 3 things going for it: some ol' rehashed crap Tempest, Alien vs. predator and it sales slogan "Do the Math". Unfortunately your argument can't add up. Really where is the logic.

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Post by Martin III » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:01 am

elitegamer wrote:
Like the Lynx, Atari had a cutting edge unit they didn't know what to do with (or refuesd to) I know I was bitter towards them ... I grew up with Atari, and to see the giant fall from grace over seemingly stupid errors in judgement was tough.
Cutting edge... Yeah alright! Atari almost single handedly destroyed the home gaming industry and market. The lynx and the both suck "d-sized" batteries. Matter fact the Jag had 3 things going for it: some ol' rehashed crap Tempest, Alien vs. predator and it sales slogan "Do the Math". Unfortunately your argument can't add up. Really where is the logic.
Er... Beyond the first two words, how does any of this relate to the post you're quoting?

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Re: Is the jaguar the most misunderstood console?

Post by ArfredHitchcacku » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:13 am

Over-hyped? I understand there's a decent Homebrew/Forum following on the net but I usually hear the latter-two. Especially for things obscure and failures at their time of release, people are quick to be conformist to the standard opinion and leap to conclusions. They don't understand that despite not having as large a library or following as the more successful competing consoles what matters is that there are plenty of games worth playing the Jaguar versions of and on the original system. Yes, you can get Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Rayman, Raiden, Tempest 2000 and many more through higher quality, more modern methods but the feeling of playing these games on the Atari Jaguar, the original hardware and the original, ground-up port is a feeling that cannot be understood by people who simply don't enjoy it to begin with. It seems a lot would assume someone who craves pretty much every game console (as I do) is a basement dweller who avoids new games in a vain attempt to go against the average gamer who plays Madden and Gears of War on his Xbox 360 all day. As someone who has almost 20 game systems including every 6th and 7th generation one, I can safely say that I am not the latter and as for the former, I can only hope I can be one of the first Neo Geo Pocket Color enthusiasts to lose my virginity one day. :roll:
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