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[Wildebeest]

The ZX Spectrum had a slight advantage for early 3d games because of its simple design, not despite it. Not much in the way of custom graphics hardware, screen modes, and sprites. Just directly set the values in the memory of the display buffer. I think this was also an advantage of the PC when it was up against early consoles and 16-bit computers with their custom graphics chips optimized for 2d gaming. Then this was combined with the 32 bit Pentium processors in PCs at the time.

 

[rofif]

that intro

 

[Redneckerz]

Pretty fascinating - I've never heard of this one before. Even more so given Vectrex came out just 2 years prior and the jump here is pretty large for a home device indeed.

Too far ahead of its time in the home computer space, probably. For similar reasons I-Robot was not a success either - People wanted their minimal sprites, not something future looking like actual 3D and then (state of the art) flat shaded polygon performance of 2.000 polys per sec.

I mean yes, that's true - but I'd say it's also semantics. When people debate 'can it run X' it's never a question of 'can it run the same code for X' - but whether it can reproduce (or how closely) the experience of X.

Point taken, i was more aghast that yes, there are people who think the Doom renderer is directly portable to the 68000 - Its not. That renderer needs a 68020 at the least. So the Dread Engine is very much a intermediate engine, a bit like how the Shadowcaster Engine was the intermediate engine between Wolf 3D and Doom.

You know I was relooking at the accomplishment to get BHP running on the Acorn and I think that the Acorn may have been stronger, well maybe not stronger but could more easily produce better 3D graphics than many Jaguar games:

BHP on the Acorn

Brutal Horse Power looks like a game that either needs a late RiscPC (Arm610?) or a StrongARM to look like that. So definitely not a stock Acorn Archi, but if its a StrongARM, its still pretty impressive. This post seems to suggest BHP (and a game called TEK 1608) were rather native StrongARM games.

Given how there is too little fanfare for these games, perhaps a compilation post of these Acorn StrongARM 3D games is useful? I know some sites, and perhaps some more indepth stuff on these games (Eternal Destiny, R-Comp's Doom/Hexen/Heretic games) is worthwhile just to see how these games compare against their PC counter parts.

TBA would go on make one more game - ARL, but it was cancelled. The BHP engine was also used in Wing Star, an Archimedes take on Star Fox (Drifter looks like a Wipeout clone, whereas BHP looks like a Daytona one.)

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

32 bit Pentium processors in PCs at the time.

By the time PC's had Pentiums all the computer competition was dead except MAC. That's way beyond the time frame of this thread.

Brutal Horse Power looks like a game that either needs a late RiscPC (Arm610?) or a StrongARM to look like that.

Too look like what? I think you are overestimating the graphics you're seeing and the consistent but low frame-rate may be throwing you off, it's not that much more hardware demanding than starfighter, plenty of repeating assets, and the map outside the areas around the track are basically empty.

It's not even as graphical as this disaster which could run on a toaster as is

(You may get headache viewing this jerky game)

BHP just runs smoother, but when there's not much there and a lack of real texturing and detail outside the car that's not too hard to do. A RISCPC would have better draw distance and less pop-in, and would run at least at 30fps for the lower specs. BHP isn't running that in the gif.

 

[Havoc2049]

You know I was relooking at the accomplishment to get BHP running on the Acorn and I think that the Acorn may have been stronger, well maybe not stronger but could more easily produce better 3D graphics than many Jaguar games:

BHP on the Acorn

Jaguar Checkered Flag

The only advantage I see from this gif is that the Jaguar could produce larger polygons but they are simple and flat. I don't think that Atari Jaguar could handle a game like BHP. You can see the flat buildings and mountains are towering over the car showing that the Jaguar can have large polys but if you can't do anything with them des that matter?

I tried to look for other driving games on search for the jaguar and found this on Atariage



World Tour Racing. This is a more comparable game but I'm seeing a worse frame rate, and still seeing a lot of solid polygons without much detail and single colored blocks. I'm assuming that when there's another car on the screen the frame rate drops even worse. It does look miles better than the above Jaguar game but it also looks more grainy and smudged too.

Maybe World Tour Racing is more impressive and I'm seeing things, but to me BHP looks better and if anything that's quite a mark against the Jaguar, it's either weaker than the Acorn line for 3D, which shouldn't be the case, or Jaguar development was so bad this was among the best you can do with it. I'm also making an assumption this gif is showing a race and the other cars are off-screen, if this is some practice trial where there's only one car than this is pretty damning.

Checkered Flag on the Jaguar is garbage and it has nothing to do with the graphics. The control in Checkered Flad is horrible, that's why you see the car crashing all the time in videos and in gifs.

Going from the few videos that are on YouTube, it looks like BHP is from 1997 and was released for the Acorn StrongARM RISC PC, which was released in 1997.

World Tour Racing is running on a Jaguar/Jag CD, hardware released in 1993 and 1995 respectively. The game was one of the handful of games completed for the Jaguar and Jag CD at the end of the Jaguar's life and was supposed to be released in 1996. Atari sold World Tour Racing to Telegames and they finally released the game in 1997 for the Jaguar CD. I own World Tour Racing and it's a solid Formula One style racing game, with single race, season and arcade modes. It also has a split screen two player mode.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Checkered Flag on the Jaguar is garbage and it has nothing to do with the graphics. The control in Checkered Flad is horrible, that's why you see the car crashing all the time in videos and in gifs.

I didn't say anything about the car crashing tho.

Going from the few videos that are on YouTube, it looks like BHP is from 1997 and was released for the Acorn StrongARM RISC PC, which was released in 1997.

It came out on the Archimedes and the StrongARM, the Strong ARM looks and runs faster than the gifs I put up.

World Tour Racing is running on a Jaguar/Jag CD, hardware released in 1993 and 1995 respectively. The game was one of the handful of games completed for the Jaguar and Jag CD at the end of the Jaguar's life and was supposed to be released in 1996. Atari sold World Tour Racing to Telegames and they finally released the game in 1997 for the Jaguar CD. I own World Tour Racing and it's a solid Formula One style racing game, with single race, season and arcade modes. It also has a split screen two player mode.

ok.

But the question was regarding why BHP on an Arc seemed to look better than the Jaguar games which should on paper be better given the Jaguar was newer technology.

I mean Need For Speed released in 1994 on 3DO and it tramples all over all these games. The Jaguar should have had something at least heading toward that direction form the start. Instead you had Club Drive and Checkered Flag.

 

[Havoc2049]

I didn't say anything about the car crashing tho.


It came out on the Archimedes and the StrongARM, the Strong ARM looks and runs faster than the gifs I put up.


ok.

But the question was regarding why BHP on an Arc seemed to look better than the Jaguar games which should on paper be better given the Jaguar was newer technology.

I mean Need For Speed released in 1994 on 3DO and it tramples all over all these games. The Jaguar should have had something at least heading toward that direction form the start. Instead you had Club Drive and Checkered Flag.

The line of StrongARM RISC PCs first released in 1996. The base StrongARM CPU ran at 202Mz. There were various models, but it looks like many of them had 8MB RAM and 2 MB VRAM.

Jaguar first released in 1993. The 32-bit RISC GPU (Tom): 26.59 MHz. The 32-bit RISC DSP (Jerry) : 26.59 MHz. Motorola 68000 "manager chip", 2MB of RAM.

Not hard to figure out.

As for the overall quality of the Jaguar library, all I can say is that Atari released some crappy games for the Jag, with a few gems here and there.

 

[Wildebeest]

By the time PC's had Pentiums all the computer competition was dead except MAC. That's way beyond the time frame of this thread.

Shallow and pedantic.

 

[buenoblue]

Yea what is an Acorn?

So sad that Acorn get no love. They helped build ARM chips that are used in billions of devices around the world. And they were in every British school in the 80s with the BBC micro computer.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The line of StrongARM RISC PCs first released in 1996. The base StrongARM CPU ran at 202Mz. There were various models, but it looks like many of them had 8MB RAM and 2 MB VRAM.

Jaguar first released in 1993. The 32-bit RISC GPU (Tom): 26.59 MHz. The 32-bit RISC DSP (Jerry) : 26.59 MHz. Motorola 68000 "manager chip", 2MB of RAM.

Not hard to figure out.

As for the overall quality of the Jaguar library, all I can say is that Atari released some crappy games for the Jag, with a few gems here and there.

You are posting useless information(with no detail from wiki) i already know without actually answering the question. You are also ignoring what I'm writing and still taking about RiscPC's when I'm talking about late Archimedes.

Shallow and pedantic.

Projection as usual.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

So sad that Acorn get no love. They helped build ARM chips that are used in billions of devices around the world. And they were in every British school in the 80s with the BBC micro computer.

Yeah but like the ZX they were mostly regionally known, granted you could get Acorns in the US through channels which is one advantage it had over the ZX, but you had to be in computers already to really have known about it. Yeah there were some demos at some conferences that impressed people, but US ws going with PC and PC clones hard earlier than they did in Europe so most other computer users that were dealing with PC were dealing with Amiga and ST, and by the early 90's those were heading to the bin. Mostly self-inflicted arguably.

Shame there wasn't enough time for Acorn to establish themselves more in the early days, but their technology and designs were still used even for game consoles, and of course, mobile electronics today are primarily ran by ARMs.

 

[Havoc2049]

You are posting useless information(with no detail from wiki) i already know without actually answering the question. You are also ignoring what I'm writing and still taking about RiscPC's when I'm talking about late Archimedes.


Projection as usual.

Those Acorn ARM RISC PCs are a whole line of computers ranging over a long period of time. That BHP racing game that you are putting up against World Tour Racing requires a StrongARM, which was introduced in 1996. All I did was post the specs for that machine. So, compared to the Jaguar and Jaguar CD, that BHP racing game is running on newer and more advanced hardware, that is also more expensive. Not really a fair comparison.

 

[buenoblue]

Yeah but like the ZX they were mostly regionally known, granted you could get Acorns in the US through channels which is one advantage it had over the ZX, but you had to be in computers already to really have known about it. Yeah there were some demos at some conferences that impressed people, but US ws going with PC and PC clones hard earlier than they did in Europe so most other computer users that were dealing with PC were dealing with Amiga and ST, and by the early 90's those were heading to the bin. Mostly self-inflicted arguably.

Shame there wasn't enough time for Acorn to establish themselves more in the early days, but their technology and designs were still used even for game consoles, and of course, mobile electronics today are primarily ran by ARMs.

Yeah I always find it amusing the regional differences in 80s and 90s tech. I'm In the UK and grew up with the zx spectrum and c64. Though I did get a Megadrive too. I never even see an NES in real life till I was like 20 (in 1996). And I only knew 1 person with a SNES. It was all Atari, home computers, and Sega in the UK near me.

But all the USA media grew up with the nes it seems and I have very little nostalgia for it.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

That BHP racing game that you are putting up against World Tour Racing requires a StrongARM, which was introduced in 1996.

This is wrong, i don't know where you're getting your info from, but BHP was also available for the Archimedes and is fairly easy to look up. Also, a Risc PC would run BHP better than those gifs.

Arc

RiscPC

And there's more detail and better shading. Top GIF wasn't running anywhere near that fast and smooth. Top Gif is running at something like 20fps with pop-in, less detail, and less in the background.


But in either case it doesn't really address the problem of why no game on either computer or the Jaguar was a match for Need For Speed on the 3DO, a RISCPC is more capable than 3DO, if anything that's the evidence that it was designed for the ARC first, and then the RISC PC version just enhanced the port. Instead of f it being released for the RISC PC as you say. Risc PC has some incredible racing games, many shared with PC, can run Screamer well which blows all racing games mentioned so far out the water. This is clearly not a native Risc PC game.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Yeah I always find it amusing the regional differences in 80s and 90s tech. I'm In the UK and grew up with the zx spectrum and c64. Though I did get a Megadrive too. I never even see an NES in real life till I was like 20 (in 1996). And I only knew 1 person with a SNES. It was all Atari, home computers, and Sega in the UK near me.

But all the USA media grew up with the nes it seems and I have very little nostalgia for it.

Well Europes industry in the 80s for electronics and regulation of shady activity was different in the S. In Europe Nintendo couldn't bully their way into retail and bring 1 million stock blocking out the competition. Not even C64 period Commodore could do that, and they were cut throats. There was also a platform for cheaper micros early than the US, where Micros were growing at the time Coleco and Atari were battling it out, where the first time you saw good price for Micros in the US was during the price wars which spread to many electronic industries and contributed to a major market contraction (on the business side) that while people like to focus on the "console" crash pretty much all electronics crashed, or at least electronic entertainment.

Now not to say Commodore and Atari didn't try a price war in Europe too, but it wasn't a race to below the bottom, especially since you guys already had electronics at those price ranges, and Europe had better regulation for these types of things, UK especially.

I mean $800 devices with $150 accessories selling for $75 and $60 is making no one money, no wonder everything imploded.

Now as a consumer I couldn't complain because I got a C64 and a Xl that way. Got a premium Tandy at the bottom too. In fact, i saved up and got a few, with a bunch of software people usually used with them, and outside of what I kept resold them high when the prices jumped back up.

 

[Redneckerz]

Too look like what? I think you are overestimating the graphics you're seeing and the consistent but low frame-rate may be throwing you off, it's not that much more hardware demanding than starfighter, plenty of repeating assets, and the map outside the areas around the track are basically empty.

It's not even as graphical as this disaster which could run on a toaster as is

(You may get headache viewing this jerky game)

What's the name of the game?

I base this observation based on StrongARM powered PocketPC's that could do full 3D rendering, but at low framerates. A StrongARM PC could run Hexen quite well and at rather high resolutions, but texture mapping might be more trouble some.

EDIT: Missed the latest post, but i leave it here for now (Its late here)

BHP just runs smoother, but when there's not much there and a lack of real texturing and detail outside the car that's not too hard to do. A RISCPC would have better draw distance and less pop-in, and would run at least at 30fps for the lower specs. BHP isn't running that in the gif.

I don't know what BHP requires...

The line of StrongARM RISC PCs first released in 1996. The base StrongARM CPU ran at 202Mz. There were various models, but it looks like many of them had 8MB RAM and 2 MB VRAM.

It should be said that the video controller doesn't do much here. Its pure CPU rendering and a StrongARM can render some decent texture mapping. We are very much in early 3D territory though.

Jaguar first released in 1993. The 32-bit RISC GPU (Tom): 26.59 MHz. The 32-bit RISC DSP (Jerry) : 26.59 MHz. Motorola 68000 "manager chip", 2MB of RAM.

Not hard to figure out.

As for the overall quality of the Jaguar library, all I can say is that Atari released some crappy games for the Jag, with a few gems here and there.

If i look at Skyhammer, which is tour de force on Jaguar, it does show the Jag can render some convincing texture mapping.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Rudimental 3D games have always given me a special kind of anxiety.
Racing games and air/space shooters were fantastic, but those adventure games fill me with an irrational dread of the unknown. Watching some of those gifs in the OP is like being lost in outer space. So much empty space, plus the pop-in and some appalling framerates… nope. Doesn’t help that the typical European adventure games of old could be magnitudes more cryptic and obtuse than the average Japanese console game. If you ever felt lost and clueless in a NES JRPG, a computer game from that era will reduce you to a whimpering blob on your gaming chair.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Rudimental 3D games have always given me a special kind of anxiety.
Racing games and air/space shooters were fantastic, but those adventure games fill me with an irrational dread of the unknown. Watching some of those gifs in the OP is like being lost in outer space. So much empty space, plus the pop-in and some appalling framerates… nope. Doesn’t help that the typical European adventure games of old could be magnitudes more cryptic and obtuse than the average Japanese console game. If you ever felt lost and clueless in a NES JRPG, a computer game from that era will reduce you to a whimpering blob on your gaming chair.

At least in the US, the "adventure" games were getting better and more streamlined for casuals which is why the biggest Adventure games were not as mind-numbingly BS as say, Kings Quest V or those games were can can screw up and play for 5 or 6 hours before realizing you have to start over.

But there were still some terrible Adventure games in the late 90's with those obtuse puzzles, Ripper was reviewed bombed instead of considered a master piece specifically because of the puzzles, one of the worst being within the first 5 minutes of the game.

Comparatively, Europe seemed to still be stuck in Sierra land. It almost seems like they were made to sell guides, until you discover many of them don't have guides and actually expect you to play them.

 

[Havoc2049]

This is wrong, i don't know where you're getting your info from, but BHP was also available for the Archimedes and is fairly easy to look up. Also, a Risc PC would run BHP better than those gifs.

Arc

RiscPC

And there's more detail and better shading. Top GIF wasn't running anywhere near that fast and smooth. Top Gif is running at something like 20fps with pop-in, less detail, and less in the background.

I'm no Acorn computer guru, but all the info I find on BHP points to it as a 1997 release.

Here is a review of BHP from October of 2000:
It's been a long time since we had a decent car racing game for our platform; it is a commonly suscribed consensus that the only ones worth bothering with have been Stunt Racer 2000 and Saloon Cars from the now largely inactive 4th Dimension, and FTT from TBA. At last we have a new one: from the makers of FTT, enter BHP. The game comes on 3 HD floppies, and is easy to install. You need to keep disc 1 in the drive to play. There is no written manual, but a simple helpfile is included. The minimum specs are: 6Mb free RAM, and a StrongARM RPC.

Source:
https://www.acornarcade.com/articles/Review_-_BHP/index1034.html

Here is a video of BHP:

In the comments section the author of the video says that the minimum specs to run the game is a StrongARM RISC PC.

So if you look up Acorn StrongARM RISC PC, you fnd out that it was released in 1996 by Acorn.
https://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/SARiscPC.html

So my point that comparing it to a Jaguar game isn't really a fair comparison.

 

[Roberts]

Epic on the Amiga was quite nice (ofc better on PC), done by DID, also responsible for Robocop 3, their 3d stuff was quite smooth for the time.

Holy shit, you brought back so memories. I don't remember playing it, but I just know I have, because everything in that video feels instantly familiar.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I'm no Acorn computer guru, but all the info I find on BHP points to it as a 1997 release.

was released in 1996 by Acorn.

what?

There is no written manual, but a simple helpfile is included. The minimum specs are: 6Mb free RAM, and a StrongARM RPC.

You finding a review of one version of the game ignoring the context of where the review is and what's in it, doesn't mean that there isn't another version of the game for the Archimedes.

I literally just showed you proof of two different built of the game this isn't disputable and it's also incredibly easy to look up sites that show BHP was released both for RISC PC's and the Archimedes. You seem to be trying to compile selectively info. Those two gifs clearly show differences in detail and frame rate.

As far as i can see there's very little videos on Youtube of the game as is, finding a random video doesn't prove anything when you can clearly look up the release data and see releases for both. The gifs above are also clearly different, so there's really no need to continue this argument unless you think near 60fps and 20fps are the same thing.

Finally your Jaguar point still as last time, dodges the 3DO, which produced early in its life a more graphically impressive game than BHP and all Jaguar racers yet is weaker than a RiscPC, which again since you ran past this as well, gives additional evidence BHP was made for the Archimedes, not the RiscPC, and the RiscPC version as shown in the above gif, runs better with additional improvements. though iirc BHP was released first on Risc PC to show off the improvements but as you can see above the Archimedes also runs the game, worse.

Keep in mind the StrongARM can run Quake kind of. It also can handle the 3D accelerated much more graphically impressive PSX level racing game PC ports at 30fps, BHP is nothing. It's an Arc game with improved details and frame rate, as shown in the gifs. There's almost nothing going on that require3s a strong Arm, and if BHP was designed at first with StrongArm in mind than why does it have compromises it wouldn't need to compromise on?

As the first gif on the Arc shows, it's a mostly empty games outside the track, with a lot of repeating textures, a poor frame rate, chugs, doesn't have much detail, and there's close pop-in. Nothing actually impressive, in fact, Star Fighter is more impressive as a 3D game on the Arc than BHP is. So acting like BHP is some amazing StrongARM build game, a line that can run most mid-90's PC ports in some fashion, yeah.


Another example Starfighter

Here's the Arc version (skip to 4:22)


Here's the StrongARM version (skip to 1:36)


Risc PC version has better draw distance, cleaner, more detail, and runs at a higher frame rate, not sure about where the shaking is coming from though but that may be the guys fault instead of the game. Arc version is slower, less draw distance, not as clean, loss of detail, and runs slower.

 

[Havoc2049]

And of course you provided no links to prove your BHP claim, just some gifs that you probably made. I notice when you first brought up BHP and posted a gif of it on page two, it was lifted from that YouTube video of BHP that I posted, where the creator of the video says BHP requires a StrongARM RISC PC. First there was the Doom on and Atari STE claim and now this. Have fun drowning in your own BS. I'm out.

 

[NXGamer]

Just wanted to inform that the game is on Amiga too, but under a different name.

Tbh the videos you showed aren’t original quality either, 99.99% sure it’s emulated.

I’ve tried many times to record PAL Amiga stuff and it’s… not easy. You need a video capture device capable of doing PAL and if you manage to get a video it’ll still look like ass on a anything but a PAL screen. And if you try record the PAL screen with a camera you get bands wandering over the screen.

That’s my experience at least. Been trying to document how it actually was back then while my old stuff still works. Had an idea to record full playthroughs with loading times and floppy swappings and all.

Original Amiga 500 on an original Philips 8833-II monitor.

I’ve come close to modernize an Amiga 1200 though by using a DVI expansion and run the output in 100hz (2 duplicate frames on the screen per frame from the Amiga). That’s my plan B.

But. There is always a but. There is still a tiny tear line slooowly wandering over the screen, from the Amiga outputting 49.92hz, or something like that (don’t sue me if I’m wrong) and then doubled each frame and the screen updates in 100hz instead of… idk, 99.84hz maybe?

Anyway, Acorn version of Zarch/Virus looks splendid going by the videos in this thread. Never had an Acorn, looks like an interesting retro computer. I want one!
It was just Amiga 500 or Atari 520 ST people had during my days. And C64/C128 or Spectrum before that. I started with a Spectravideo, not very popular computer.
Eventually bought a C128 and became an annoying Commodore fanboy lol

Ah, the AMIGA was my 2nd bought and paid for Computer (my C64 was partly my Mum). I sold my ST to fund part of it and then was blown away from 87-88 onwards.
Re PAL direct capture, I made my own Analogue converter for my set-up which I use on my old Retro videos such as My Amiga vs Atari ST ones from 4 years ago or so, but many options now in the marketplace.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Wasn't Virtua fighter trademarked by Sega? (Actually ignore that....my error... )

 

[Fess]

Ah, the AMIGA was my 2nd bought and paid for Computer (my C64 was partly my Mum). I sold my ST to fund part of it and then was blown away from 87-88 onwards.
Re PAL direct capture, I made my own Analogue converter for my set-up which I use on my old Retro videos such as My Amiga vs Atari ST ones from 4 years ago or so, but many options now in the marketplace.

Nice videos!

How did you build that analog converter? And what alternatives are there? Can a converter handle ham mode too? The super flickery thing with more colors. Was it 25 fields per second?

Anyway I still see some PAL to NTSC judder there but I assume it’s coming from youtube rather than the converter. Still a million times better footage than anything I’ve tried recording!
iPhone can actually film in 25fps but filming an old tube monitor, not so much lol

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I'm out.

Well after your argument was completely dismantled it's not really surprising you became a scared fool and decided to not only address valid issues with your misleading foolishness, but you didn't even tag, a sure sign of rage quitting, but unlike you i will be addressing your dishonest and misleading attempt to exit.

And of course you provided no links to prove your BHP claim, just some gifs that you probably made.

The gifs do prove the claim. Apparently, the implication you are moronically trying to convey here is that the gifs may be tampered, except for the difference in graphical detail which I can't possibly add without a time machine and improving the developers code and creating the clearly different version of the game shown.

So in otherwords you have no idea what you're saying, and Starfighter, an earlier release with a higher quantity of copies printed, had enough videos of it supporting the fact that these games were made with the Archimedes in mind and not the RISC PC, completely shattering your narrative as well.

I also like how you intentionally avoided addressing Quake, which is a StrongARM game that could only run on a RISC PC which came out within the same timeframe of BHP, yet want people to believe BHP which barely has anything demanding or really much going on at all, was somehow a game released directly for RISC PC, even though you can easily find release information for the Archimedes version of the game as well, another point you have conveniently avoided because it shatters your whole narrative.

I notice when you first brought up BHP and posted a gif of it on page two, it was lifted from that YouTube video of BHP that I posted

Except this is a lie since your video was all in first person, and 2/3 gifs I posted, not just one as you clearly say here, were third-person view.

First there was the Doom on and Atari STE claim and now this.

Taking someone elses argument because you don't have one is the sure sign of a sore loser. An argument that was bad at that.

Doom can "run" on an STE, the mental gymnastics to imagine that means even 20fps in full screen mode is a delusion. It can run the game in Windowed mode, will it run it great? no. It'll still run it, given that STE was more capable hardware for the game compared to MOST ports of the game outside of PC, and PC on the higher-low end wasn't far from the STE with main advantage being speed, and the lowest seems to be in some areas worse, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone actually THINKING instead of imagining "run" doom means an STE is running it like the Jaguar or Falcon, which wasn't the point.

Were as in comparison no version of the Amiga at the time could "run" most semi-complex 3D polygons or otherwise. it couldn't even run FPS games made for it well, at least at the time, I'm sure some homebrewer made a better optimized clone post-death, but back then that was not happening.

Now with that said, the only computer that could run doom at an acceptable level is Acorn, at least the Amiga 1200 equivalent of it (replacing base wise not power wise).

drowning

Projection, and yes you are.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Wasn't Virtua fighter trademarked by Sega? (Actually ignore that....my error... )

Lol, knew someone was going to fall into that joke at some point.

but I assume it’s coming from youtube rather than the converter.

YouTube always makes stuff like this worse than it actually is, and not just for the this.

Curiously, Dailymotion is better for this stuff but no one uses it so what can you do.

 

[Fess]

YouTube always makes stuff like this worse than it actually is, and not just for the this.

Definitely but with PAL games things are even worse, don’t think you can upload a video with a framerate evenly divided for 50/25fps content, effectively makes everything seem to stutter more than it do in real life.
That said, many games already stutter quite terribly, especially 3D games. Gaming has come a long way since the 80s!

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Definitely but with PAL games things are even worse, don’t think you can upload a video with a framerate evenly divided for 50/25fps content, effectively makes everything seem to stutter more than it do in real life.
That said, many games already stutter quite terribly, especially 3D games. Gaming has come a long way since the 80s!

Well even the 90's, PAL still had differences that to be honest they really shouldn't have had for games but these days you don't have to worry about that crap but man.

I'm glad we are unified now with a single standard instead of having to make 5 versions of the Xbox Series/PS5 that would be incompatible base on where you were.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Forgot all about Midwinter and Midwinter 2 for Atari St (and Amiga)

These were some fun games.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Forgot about Strike Team from EA back when they were more ambitious and ahead of the curve from 1993, sometimes called Seal team also.

Free form camera, third person action, polygonal graphics, animated objects in the background, able to command troops with AI, large environments, waters effect when stealthing in water, can crawl, enter first person mode, and it ran pretty well too (assuming you have the right hardware config) really ahead of it's time. The characters were sprites though, but they are detailed, large, and work with how you rotate the camera so it doesn't seem like they are sprites.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

I tried to research a few years ago what the first 3rd person game ever was and couldn’t find a definitive answer.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I tried to research a few years ago what the first 3rd person game ever was and couldn’t find a definitive answer.

Depends on what you're looking for that's in first person, a sprite model or a polygon model.

 

[old-parts]

Abrams Battle Tank 1988 by Dynamix, they would release Mechwarrior 1 in 1989 so this is kind of a precursor to that.



Dragonstrike 1990, this is really a simulator dressed up as a fantasy game were you ride a dragon.



The Colony 1988, kind of a adventure game in first person.



Castle Master 1989



Powerdrome 1990, this is almost like a proto wipeout and it has an external camera of your ship on the race track, the video below is the only one that shows the behind ship camera mode.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

Depends on what you're looking for that's in first person, a sprite model or a polygon model.

I was just looking for the first 3D game to ever present a character from a third person and have them run around a 3D environment.

Hunter us a good example. But I don’t know if they were the first to do that

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I was just looking for the first 3D game to ever present a character from a third person and have them run around a 3D environment.

Hunter us a good example. But I don’t know if they were the first to do that

I robot by Atari came out in 1983.

Unless you are talking about roaming 3D games.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Abrams Battle Tank 1988 by Dynamix, they would release Mechwarrior 1 in 1989 so this is kind of a precursor to that.



Dragonstrike 1990, this is really a simulator dressed up as a fantasy game were you ride a dragon.



The Colony 1988, kind of a adventure game in first person.



Castle Master 1989



Powerdrome 1990, this is almost like a proto wipeout and it has an external camera of your ship on the race track, the video below is the only one that shows the behind ship camera mode.

The problem with PC emulation is that most of the time people used to run these games on 16mhz 286 machines that had really slow graphics compared to Amigas or Atari ST even by 1990. Emulation gives the impression they ran decently well.

 

[Futaleufu]

The problem with PC emulation is that most of the time people used to run these games on 16mhz 286 machines that had really slow graphics compared to Amigas or Atari ST even by 1990. Emulation gives the impression they ran decently well.

They did when you had a 386

 

[Cattlyst]

I remember playing Zarch on Acorn at school when I was probably 10 or 11. I never knew what it was called until now though! Brings back some long locked away memories of trying to describe it to my brother as we went to different schools and they didn’t have Acorns. Thanks op!

 

[Windle Poons]

Did anyone ever mess around with

 

[OldBoyGamer]

I robot by Atari came out in 1983.

Unless you are talking about roaming 3D games.

That’s pretty much where i landed actually. I couldn’t find an example of a third person perspective from before I Robot.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

That’s pretty much where i landed actually. I couldn’t find an example of a third person perspective from before I Robot.

Well if you are looking for third person in general this came out a bit before I, Robot on the Atari 400|800

Also had day night cycle.

 

[OldBoyGamer]

Well if you are looking for third person in general this came out a bit before I, Robot on the Atari 400|800

Also had day night cycle.

Never seen that. What’s it called??

 

[alucard0712_rus]

3D graphics without textures always looked perfect! It's timeless.

 

[Clear]

Zarch/Virus was an overgrown tech demo, and played about as well as you'd imagine.

Zeewolf on the other hand used similar tech and was actually decent fun.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Zarch/Virus was an overgrown tech demo, and played about as well as you'd imagine.

Zeewolf on the other hand used similar tech and was actually decent fun.

I'd say Zeewolf is is worse than Zarch, which runs and plays well on an Acorn, the Virus ports are the ones that play poorly.

But you are correct, those were supposed to be early show off games, well Zarch was, and other computers tried to imitate it or come out with games with the similar small square play field surrounded by no draw distance style, however we did end up seeing deeper games later on much better and larger than Zarch, Zeewolf, and Conqueror despite the many games resuing that formula for years.

Air Supemacy is one such game

Also Guyle on the Acorn which even use a higher polygon flying character with similar particle effects

Much more impressive than the many limited square playfield games and clones out there, You'd be surprised how many games play like Zarch/virus out there with the same playfield, at a certain point that's not impressive anymore once you get past 1988. But these two are thee evolution of that idea in Zarch 9and Zeewolf).

Something about the bright almost neon color choices also makes these games age well visually too.

Never seen that. What’s it called??

Rainbow Walker, on the Atari 800|400|XL|XE

Also the you can move the other direction as well, it doesn't only move downward, that was also something reviewers praised of the game for the time. Really ahead of it's time, Took the Q*bert formula, spiced it up in a 3Desque space, upped the color count and sprite effects, unusual enemy types, a powerup, bonus stages, some tiles can break, added a day night cycle, and you aren't forced to only hope, you can also walk on the tiles. I forgot how many levels it has but the game actually ends too, I believe it's less than 30 levels iirc.

There is a C64 version but it looks considerably worse.

Atari

C64

There's a big downgrade in resolution, single-colored sprite character, less enemies, less colors, and the visual effect isn't as smooth.

 

[Clear]

I'd say Zeewolf is is worse than Zarch, which runs and plays well on an Acorn, the Virus ports are the ones that play poorly.

But you are correct, those were supposed to be early show off games, well Zarch was, and other computers tried to imitate it or come out with games with the similar small square play field surrounded by no draw distance style, however we did end up seeing deeper games later on much better and larger than Zarch, Zeewolf, and Conqueror despite the many games resuing that formula for years.

Air Supemacy is one such game

Also Guyle on the Acorn which even use a higher polygon flying character with similar particle effects

Much more impressive than the many limited square playfield games and clones out there, You'd be surprised how many games play like Zarch/virus out there with the same playfield, at a certain point that's not impressive anymore once you get past 1988. But these two are thee evolution of that idea in Zarch 9and Zeewolf).

Something about the bright almost neon color choices also makes these games age well visually too.



Rainbow Walker, on the Atari 800|400|XL|XE

Also the you can move the other direction as well, it doesn't only move downward, that was also something reviewers praised of the game for the time. Really ahead of it's time, Took the Q*bert formula, spiced it up in a 3Desque space, upped the color count and sprite effects, unusual enemy types, a powerup, bonus stages, some tiles can break, added a day night cycle, and you aren't forced to only hope, you can also walk on the tiles. I forgot how many levels it has but the game actually ends too, I believe it's less than 30 levels iirc.

There is a C64 version but it looks considerably worse.

Atari

C64

There's a big downgrade in resolution, single-colored sprite character, less enemies, less colors, and the visual effect isn't as smooth.

Rainbow Walker was just a bad port, there's no particular reason why the C64 version should have been inferior.
Its not actually 3d, its just raster-splits across a mostly static pre-drawn pattern like all animated road effects.

8-bit Atari had a slightly faster 6502 than the C64, but weaker sound and less exploitable video hardware. Very comparable systems but obviously Commodore's machine had far more longevity thanks to its success in the European market. Early US-developed titles like those published by Synapse tended to start out on Atari and Apple ][ so they were generally inferior ports.

 

[Thanati]

Yea what is an Acorn?

It was the Acorn Archimedes. It was one of the first (if not first, happy to be corrected) home machines with a RISC chipset.

 

[Thanati]

In all fairness - Virus was not what I'd consider well optimized Amiga title, especially when you compare how it ran on the Spectrum (which itself had games with similar visual make-up that ran better too - but that's another story):



Indeed - filled polygonal games were around since early 80ies.
But let's show-case some better titles though:

GTA3's grand-grand-daddy:


Flight-combat with filled graphics in the early 80ies.


Basically what you get if you cross Battlezone, Elite, Text Adventure/RPG, and a filled/polygonal-graphics engine with realtime-lighting model and somehow fit it inside 48K.


Carrier Command - again in 48K, with full polygons.



Rescue on Fractalus and its 'sequel' Koronis Rift, were really ahead of their time, it was essentially the 8bit take on a voxel-renderer, the same type that Comanche series eventually popularized on PC a decade+ later. And even C64 got its own version of it - albeit barely running.

I still can’t believe they got carrier command to work on the 48k speccy. Phenomenal!

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Its not actually 3d

No one said it was.

8-bit Atari had a slightly faster 6502 than the C64, but weaker sound and less exploitable video hardware. Very comparable systems.

Games released after 1983 with more complexity widened the gap for the Atari computer considerably, but I only mentioned Rainbow Walker was a worse version because it was, I wasn't comparing hardware.