Console programming (was: Re: Greatest videogame device)

On 5/2/2010 10:06 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: Which one? IIRC the Saturn was a dual-proc console, which added to the difficulty of programming for it. Speaking of multi-proc consoles, I look upon my time with the Atari Jaguar with sadness, despair and anger. The thing had between three and five effective CPUs depending on how you wanted to look at it (a 68000, "tom" which had 32-bit gpu, 64-bit RISC and 64-bit blitter with z-buffering and gouraud shading, "jerry" which had 32-bit RISC and a DSP) and yet there isn't a single decent game for the platform that takes advantage of the hardware. Atari didn't learn from the mistakes made with the Lynx, so they didn't shell out money for decent licenses and companies to implement them, relying only on internal new IP and whatever 3rd-party sucker would develop for it. Just ONE license could have saved the console, probably the Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter series, which would have been perfect for it because it had a truly kick-ass blitter. "NBA JAM" didn't cut the mustard. With 32-bit and 64-bit RISC under the hood, plus a lightening-fast 16-bit color blitter, you'd think the thing would have been capable of a lot, but nobody could figure out how to code for it. One of the launch titles for it, Checkered Flag, was a flat/lambert-shaded monstrosity that, despite low poly count, ran between 3 and 8 frames per second. **I swear I am not making those numbers up.** 3fps is acceptable for, say, moving chess pieces on a board, but not a high-speed racing game. Cybermorph, the 3-d shooter pack-in, ran at about 12fps, which was acceptable but still took getting used to. The PS2 almost suffered from this -- it had dual procs and truly terrible programming documentation from Sony, but all the companies knew that developing for PS2 was a sure bet, and they were right. I love to look at games from the END of a console's life, as they show some of the true programming wit and magic that comes with being able to amass console knowledge for 5+ years. For example: - The God of War series for PS2 show a nearly full framerate with reflections, water, and (seemingly) detailed geometry - Because the Genesis was based on a 7.16MHz 68000, some 3-d computer games were ported over (LHX attack chopper, some Wolf3d clones, etc.) The Jaguar, even though I just finished dumping on it, had a truly 3-d textured world engine to be used in an upcoming dragon-fighting simulator, but sadly the Jag was discontinued before the game was finished. Name and company escape me but I saw it demonstrated at CGE2003. World Circuit was another unreleased 3-d driving game until Telegames republished it, which is probably the best released example of what the Jag could actually do (gouraud shaded polys and texture mapping at a decent framerate). -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/