Voxels?

[A31Chris]

No. There's nothing I can think of that would make the Jaguar better than either the Saturn or PS1 at ANY kind of game.

Dr. Scott LeGrand, the coder for Battlesphere and currently works for Nvidia made this statement once:

The Jaguar was anything but underpowered. It had more computational firepower than anything else of that era. including the original Playstation. Battlesphere might have looked better on the PSX in terms of raw polygon count but its gameplay would of suffered for it. The Jaguar's mutliple CPUs let me do things with physics and AI that were a good five years ahead of the industry. It wasn't until Halo that I felt outgunned.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't counting the N64 as being in the same era.

[A31Chris]

Hey Chilly.
I remember reading some years back, at Atari Age, from a Jaguar coder, that the Jag had better potential for a voxel type engine than Saturn and Playstation, since the Jaguar hardware was more flexible, and not catered so much toward polygons. He also mentioned many times, that the Jaguar was better at pixel shattering effects, like those in Tempest 2000, than the Saturn and PS1.
Any true to that?

I remember Gorf giving the breakdown one time on why the Jaguar would do Height maps better than the PSX. If you were referring to him I don't remember him lumping the Saturn in with that. Brilliant man. He just likes to argue too much.

[j_factor]

In what way, exactly, does Battlesphere do "things with physics and AI" that were so advanced? It looks like a typical space combat game to me.

[Barone]

Dr. Scott LeGrand, the coder for Battlesphere and currently works for Nvidia made this statement once:
I'm pretty sure he wasn't counting the N64 as being in the same era.

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.
The Atari fans never cease to amaze me with such sort of overstatements.

I remember Gorf giving the breakdown one time on why the Jaguar would do Height maps better than the PSX. If you were referring to him I don't remember him lumping the Saturn in with that. Brilliant man. He just likes to argue too much.

Here:
"The fact that there is no dedicated 3D hardware is why hardware in the Jaguar is extremely flexible. It makes it 'better' in the sense that there are no restrictions to the kind of features you can add on the fly.

PSX, Saturn and the rest can do it but they could not do it with same flexibility the Jaguar can. You can fake Vertical line draws with polies but its not nearly as flexible as directing a blitter in software. Of course you can do it in softwre on the other machines but you render useless the dedicated hardwareadvantage.

For instance the PSX would draw the same multi effect voxel landscape as theJaguar could but would not be able to do it with the poly hardware. There goes all your speed advantage.
Why? The R3k in the PSX would have to do ALL the work along with the game logic where the Jaguar can split the tasks among 3 processors.

Just so you understand, most of today super duper cards do things with a GPU and blitters and shaders. Very similar to the thought behind the Jaguar. Like GFX cards, the Jaguar II was to have added hardware effects and the ablility to draw trips with ONE command like the PSX can. So the flexibility would have gotten better like todays GFX cards, had the Jaguar line and Atari stayed afloat.


The sad truth sd32 is that the Tom & Jerry chip combo are monsters put in a design with a 68k that chokes the system. That in itself was not a problem if the tools were written to use the machine without the 68k in the main loop. "stop #$2000" he 68k and the increase in performance is instantly and significantly noticable.

If you want to use the 68k as an interrupt controller and let it sleep until needed, you can but why? The RISC's can handle the interrupts just fine. That 68k was not even needed and wound up a good part of the reason why the game look and play like they do.


Saturn would be very good at voxel land scapes due to its quad based renderer. It would have to believe it definitely outclasses the PSX in this category. Remember voxels are 2D ( they do not require nearly the kind of trig and matrix math of 3D) even though you can fake 3D beautifully with them."

In what way, exactly, does Battlesphere do "things with physics and AI" that were so advanced? It looks like a typical space combat game to me.

This.

Are there any examples at all of voxels on N64 or PSX?

There seems to be a sample for the PSX here:
http://jum.pdroms.de/PSX/psxprog.html

Some people claim that Delta Force: Urban Warfare on the PS1 uses voxels, but IDK if that info is reliable at all and where it should be using it (it doesn't have the open areas of the first PC games IIRC). That game has some serious frame rate problems though...

[A31Chris]

In what way, exactly, does Battlesphere do "things with physics and AI" that were so advanced? It looks like a typical space combat game to me.

This is the problem. The game is so hard to get that its hard to have a wide base that has played it. But those who have claim its AI and the way the ships behave is amazing and becomes somewhat smarter as they play you.

But as for fanboys, Dr LeGrand is a very brilliant man and rather no nonsense. Even Gorf nodded to him when it came to Jaguar expertise. He was never one to shy away from the Jags shortcomings and calling them what they were. I made double sure I could quote him when he said 'here's a quote you can use sometime' and made that statement in regards to the Jaguar vs PSX. He has worked on multiple platforms and is still uber succesful in the industry and didn't get there by being full of it so he gets the benefit of the doubt from me.

[A31Chris]

Here:
[URL="http://atariage.com/forums/topic/112473-the-jaguar-gpu-flexibility/#entry1359374"]"The fact that there is no dedicated 3D hardware is why hardware in the Jaguar is extremely flexible. It makes it 'better' in the sense that there are no restrictions to the kind of features you can add on the fly.

Thanks I guess I'm remembering a different debate he had with CrazyAce specifically about the Jaguar vs PSX in Voxels or Heightmaps. CrazyAce is a big PSX fan and a good coder as well.

[Chilly Willy]

Thanks for the blunt projection, I'll go look at the Amiga and Atari ST stuff again. Kind of figured Assembler all the way would be a mandatory requirement, just goes with the territory of no extra slack in performance rate.

Yeah, something like voxels on a 68000 demands assembly.

I trust your experience but 'used for the ground commonly' doesn't negate other uses unless you can explain why? Are you saying it couldn't render 1 or 2 low res voxel models alone if it weren't terrain? Terrain seems kind of big compared to for example a teapot? I have fairly low expectations on resolution quality but you're saying none or not at all?

I never have good luck explaining graphics theory to folks. All I can say is read a few good books, and then look for tech demos on the platforms you're interested in. I don't think I've ever seen voxel models on anything less than a PC that's 20X more powerful than the systems we deal with here.

Runs like shit I can handle, most of my references also ran poorly back in the day. You're probably thinking I had Doom or Quake in mind but was actually thinking more along the lines of turn based gameplay and semi static navigation like Hired Guns on Amiga, dungeon crawlers mostly but I guess Doom RPG could work. If I wanted fast rendering on Genesis or Sega CD it looks like simple raycasting is the way to go like Wolf 3D but not Doom2. Mostly I was trying for 3D level complexity through slower movement as sacrifice.

Ah, yes. Turn-based games can sometimes make use of things that would otherwise be intolerable as far as performance goes. I still think a voxel model wouldn't have anything more than storage over sprites for something like the SCD or 32X. You can do a nice looking sprite that renders much faster than an ugly low-def voxel model.

There seems to be a sample for the PSX here:
http://jum.pdroms.de/PSX/psxprog.html

That's a nice one... don't see how I missed it since I have most of the other games off that page.

As to the "flexibility" of the Jaguar - there's no doubt it's more flexible than the PSX, but it's still limited by its design. The 68000 just can't hack it against any RISC chip of the time... hence the reason they added the Tom and Jerry RISC processors. The RISC processor in Jerry, the DSP, is fairly limited to running from its local ram. It's meant to handle audio mixing. While you can do more than that, you still need to mix the audio, which will consume quite a bit of its time. Especially as the only mode you have for feeding audio samples to the audio codec is interrupt driven, one sample at a time. That's a lot of overhead. So you DON'T have two "powerful" RISC processors, you only have one - the GPU. Now you can do whatever you like with the GPU... rasterize polys (which IS one of the intended ways it was meant to run by how the hardware in the BLITTER works with the GPU), do raycasting, whatever. In essence, you don't really have three processors - you have the GPU, with the DSP occupied with audio (and maybe serial), and the 68000 occupied with simple tasks (like handling interrupts, and OP list generation). It might do some game logic (it does in Doom, for example), but it's not going to allow the Jag to challenge the PSX.

And when it comes down to it, I'd back the SH2 in the Saturn over the JRISC in the Jaguar any day. The SH2 is roughly the same speed, cycle for cycle, with fewer "gotchas" concerning the scheduling of instructions. It has a better instruction density, which helps improve cache usage, and has a fully hardware maintained cache for that matter. The local ram in the Jaguar GPU/DSP must be handled explicitly by code, which is just more overhead, slowing things down. If the Jaguar is "flexible" because of it's two JRISCs and the 68000, the Saturn is AT LEAST as flexible with its two SH2 processors and the 68000 (which is meant for music score handling, but can do other things). The VDP1 is better than the BLITTER, and the VDP2 is better than the OP. Match the components one-to-one and the Saturn is simply better.

All that discounts the bugs in the Atari hardware, and the buggy development tools. The Saturn hardware has very few bugs, and the processors are especially bug-free. The compilers and other tools for the Saturn were far better than what you had for the Jaguar. Still is, even today. That's also the case with the PSX - better tools and fewer (no) bugs. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, that's really what killed the Jaguar - buggy tools that turned out buggy code to run on buggy hardware. Look at the readme for the very last version of the C compiler for the Jaguar GPU (which wasn't available to everyone, and was released in June of 95) - it warns about bugs in comparing negative integers. Doing a SIMPLE COMPARE could make your program work improperly. How are devs supposed to deal with that? I'll tell you how - by thumbing their nose at Atari and making a PSX/Saturn game.

[BladeJunker]

That's weird a Jaguar debate broke out here like a fight migrating to a different room so I'm a little confused lol, still I'm game, I'll talk about the Jaguar.

Saying something is more versatile just because it doesn't do anything specialized with hardware makes only partial sense, by that logic any generic computer with a generic video card is versatile.

I won't deny sophisticated AI but I'll also say I've played more than a few games where AI was cited as a key feature only to have it behave the same as any game, harder code same results. AI is a vague thing to interpret unless its bad.

I think that the Jaguar is more than capable at rendering 2D voxels well but they are an approximation of 3D, a lesser but viable choice when you can't render very many polygons in a practical manner. I think if the developers had gone full force with voxels instead of polygons most of the 3D Jaguar games would have been more impressive and aged better, as they were they struggled to render much scene furniture and draw distance just like the 3DO.

[A31Chris]

That's weird a Jaguar debate broke out here like a fight migrating to a different room so I'm a little confused lol, still I'm game, I'll talk about the Jaguar.

There's no fight.

We're all just having fun here. That was what I thought was neat about the 90s. All the different hardware systems and their unique strengths and weaknesses. For instance some 3do developers were talking about how the psx version of PO'd had to be tuned down colorwise I think because the 3do could do things 'for free' that cost the PSX processing time.

[A31Chris]

Some people have given really good descriptions of the AI behavior in Battlesphere over the years because the question 'whats so special about its physics and AI' have come up a lot before. Perhaps they should be collected somewhere.

[BladeJunker]

I never have good luck explaining graphics theory to folks. All I can say is read a few good books, and then look for tech demos on the platforms you're interested in. I don't think I've ever seen voxel models on anything less than a PC that's 20X more powerful than the systems we deal with here.

I hear you friend, it sounds quite dire and abysmal. I can see why you try and use the 32X for help. Don't feel bad, I've struggled to explain lots of things to people.
Still I could see how somebody with more technical knowledge might not want to take this path with me, ran into that on Colecovision as some were confused by my interest in its lesser used screen modes.

Ah, yes. Turn-based games can sometimes make use of things that would otherwise be intolerable as far as performance goes. I still think a voxel model wouldn't have anything more than storage over sprites for something like the SCD or 32X. You can do a nice looking sprite that renders much faster than an ugly low-def voxel model.

Yeah for storage I can see how that would help, just a little more transparent or "behind the scenes" for my intentions.
Well that's the thing about 3D rendering of any kind, you lose visual quality but you gain certain things, in a Resident Evil game you gain animation variety mostly as a sprite would take an enormous bitmap to hold up even with scaling when it gets close to the camera and the keyframe storage would be huge let alone multiple sprites, a raycasting engine saves on a lot of 2D tilesets (8-bit days) if the perspective is real time rendered, or 3D objects inventory screens where you can look at things from multiple angles in full screen rather than a small icon. Looks worse but it's '3D!', the 32-bit console era was pretty ugly but it happened anyway.


Don't mind compromises but if you think voxels on anything but a 32X is folly I'll look to raycasting instead for possible Sega CD homebrew ideas. Easier to adjust a design rather than pursuit something to its end and it doesn't work to a satisfactory level. Feel free to draw a line the sand CW.

[BladeJunker]

There's no fight.

We're all just having fun here. That was what I thought was neat about the 90s. All the different hardware systems and their unique strengths and weaknesses. For instance some 3do developers were talking about how the psx version of PO'd had to be tuned down colorwise I think because the 3do could do things 'for free' that cost the PSX processing time.

Ah ok, that makes more sense, just felt out of the blue or like walking into a conversation half way. Yeah I heard about the trouble they had going from quads to triangles as well, heard about it from some 3DO developers one of which made Escape from Monster Manor. Interesting to hear about, never had a 3DO.
https://www.youtube.com/user/BolsEwhac/videos

[Chilly Willy]

Don't mind compromises but if you think voxels on anything but a 32X is folly I'll look to raycasting instead for possible Sega CD homebrew ideas. Easier to adjust a design rather than pursuit something to its end and it doesn't work to a satisfactory level. Feel free to draw a line the sand CW.

I found some voxel code in assembly for the Amiga a while back, but it's in German, so it's taking some time to go through it. I'm hoping that makes the SCD demo reasonable. A 12.5 MHz 68000 should be able to make a decent voxel game.

[BladeJunker]

I found some voxel code in assembly for the Amiga a while back, but it's in German, so it's taking some time to go through it. I'm hoping that makes the SCD demo reasonable. A 12.5 MHz 68000 should be able to make a decent voxel game.

Okay that sounds promising, a bit of sunshine lol. German huh, well I guess that is easier to translate than actual language sentences but it all takes time. Look forward to see how well that turns out, did you ever post your slower C version of that demo anywhere, would like to check it out?

[Chilly Willy]

Okay that sounds promising, a bit of sunshine lol. German huh, well I guess that is easier to translate than actual language sentences but it all takes time. Look forward to see how well that turns out, did you ever post your slower C version of that demo anywhere, would like to check it out?

No, and I don't intend to post that first try. It's like posting a video of Bobby Brown beating Whitney when asked if men can be good husbands.