Kinda wish there were more sprite scaling racers like this on the system, it does some smooth arcade-like sprite scaling at 60fps. I would have liked to see a Jaguar Road Rash.
So the Object processor is busy and all others (CPU halt, DSP,GPU work on internal RAM) better don't trash pages in RAM on the busy lines. I could imagine that the blitter pre-scales some upcoming sprite lines so that the object processor can use its fast 1:1 copy mode. > If an object is scaled the Object Processor deals with one pixel at a time not pairs. ObjectProcessor has a latch to read 64 bit at once and then process 16 bit CRY values without touching the memory. When scaling up, one could try to interleave this with blitter access to RAM. The blitter is about 8 times slower than the ObjectProcessor. Transparency needs 8bit or less. Any memory access gives us 8px at least. Still align stuff along page boundaries! For compactness it may help to compose a sprite out of multiple smaller sprites stacked. Objects are stored at 16byte boundaries. So just the Object description costs about as much as loading 16px ( when zooming in ). Objects should be stored in the same page where the Data resides they reference. Avoids one page miss. Please don't make the OP zoom out! The manual says: By adding 8000h to the above address ranges 32-bit writes can be made to the line buffer. This is mainly to accelerate the Blitter. So they mean 1:1 blit? The Blitter needs two memory reads for unaligned data while the OP can reuse its last read. Otherwise I would have thought that this could allow to let the GPU process the object list from internal SRAM ( somewhere it is written that OP only sees external DRAM ). Page size is 2kB. So the data of a sprite may fit completely, but object list not? Objects need to be pre-scaled by the OP ( in the borders ? ) and then copied ( 16 bit bus width ) into a cache. The smooth asphalt may be generated by rendering gradient spans into the line buffer at high resolution.
Due to the use of the D pad for turns in that it's not simple left or right you touch a little on the angle , so if up and down where gear shift you would be changing gear mid corner. This is where you need shoulder buttons.
Your right about the up down. Shifting with the shoulder buttons using the pro controller is easier but not everyone can get one of those now its a shame. something else needed done to fix it. Its still a great game its really a minor complaint.
You'd hit up and down accidentally all the while, man. That would suck balls. If you have a Pro controller, the shoulder buttons shift gears. Great little review btw.
Very wise words, the coders used the hardware wisely and what did they get for doing so? Scorn from so much of the games press because it was 2D 🙄 Fickle lot, the press.
Another great review from my new favorite channel! Right now I'm on the tail end (last week) of a three week Christmas vacation (staycation). It's going to be very hard going back to the grindstone next week. For example, I won't be able to jump on here whenever I feel like to watch endless Jaguar reviews. Something about working and paying bills...I don't know. :) I have a question for you about the Jaguar that I hope you can answer. I'm hoping to find a decent Jaguar emulator and want to know if you know of any? I understand you cannot discuss ROM's and I'm perfectly fine with that. I would very much like to play some of these games before plunking down hundreds of dollars if possible but I need a working emulator to facilitate this first.
And I would like to know about the timing in an emulator. Like we know that the blitter and Object processor are slow at scaling. There is fast page mode. Depending on functions enabled the blitter takes longer per pixel, longer per scanline etc. .
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt Hey man, if you can find answers on this channel more power too you. I wasted my time typing what I did as I received no answer and I'm still searching for a decent Jaguar emulator.
@@Sinn0100 I did look too long into the Jaguar programmers manual. I already feel like I want my own assembler and VSC integration. Maybe I should start to write an emulator .. GPL .
One of the few fun games on the system Though the corners are a beast The undulating hills are mental. A second edition with more tracks , and unlockables would have gone a long way.
Love this game!the game is not really expensive,you can't take the game brand new on telegames website!this game and many others brand new games for the atari jaguar!
Good review you've played it a lot, a lot more then I have, I tend to favor the Road Rash on the Sega Saturn and PS 1 more time like a more 1000 times then this Jag Super Burn Out, it simply super BURNED me out. Road Rash on Playstation has much better control and the music and the Juke Box part was awesome. I would play SBO more if the control was better.
Shows what the JAG is capable of in the hands of a competent Dev. To bad so many took shortcuts and used the Motorola chip instead of Tom and Jerry. Sucks
But how did they get the scaling road under all the sprites? The ObjectList points to Data. The internal RAM of Tom can be assigned an external alias .. so the ObjectProcessor could get data the fast way. I would set a branch object in the display list and have a front and back buffer list so to say where I can change x position and x-scale. The Object List is a single linked list. So will fill it back to front for correct z-sorting. The GPU or even the CPU could also go over this list and look for objects already full drawn. One atomic write to jump over those. Bit 24-42 LINK The Object Processor is completely busy on all visible scanlines. You better stop all other bus access on full scanlines. I could only imagine that the blitter prescales smaller objects so that the OP can use fast 1:1 on over-full scanlines. Maybe there are occluder boxes inside of large sprites?
I have heard of "rubber banding" where you seem to snap backwards due to lag and slowdown.. but I never heard of "rubber banding AI". Sounds more like the computer is cheating, if you ask me. ;-)
James Barrett That's exactly what it means :) Mario Kart is a prime example. You kick the shit out of an opponent and a few seconds later they are right behind you again.
Poor way of editing your distaste for reviews on professional publications by posting 2 comments @The Furthest Man From Home? :-) Not bashing SOG's review on the game BTW, it's a great review to one of the Jaguar's best and underrated titles.
