Atari Jaguar (and CD) - Fifth VideoGame Generation Recap - Adam Koralik
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- www.figureitout...
/ figureitoutproductions
This is a discussion topic video about the fifth generation of videogame consoles. This will be part four of my seven part mini-series. Here we will discuss the Atari Jaguar, Atari's swan song and the fourth entry in to the fifth generation of game consoles. I will also be discussing the Atari Jaguar CD.
The Jaguar always intrigued me because it was the highest profile example of that ‘Lost Generation’ that came and went in the early 90’s. The fact it was made by Atari and was (allegedly) 64 bit in an era when most consoles were still 16 bit only added to the mythos, because we never really got to see its potential. One of those interesting historical
what-ifs, I guess. What if it didn’t have that weird dual processor architecture? What if it was a little easier to program for? What if third party developers had really gotten behind it? Would Atari still be a dominant force in gaming today? Probably not, to be fair. They’d had their day by that point.
Hey, one of my favorites movie personalities commenting on one of my favorite small game channels
@@Michael.Hunt.14-52 I know. Great surprise.
Drinker is a top lad.
The Atari Jaguar is really a hybrid 16bit, 32bit, 64bit system.It does indeed have 64bit parts to its hardware.
Looking at its history, I think that time and money were against them. Also I do believe that there was a chip shortage that prevented them, early on, from fulfilling orders over in the UK; and a million pre orders that they had gotten from over there could not be fulfilled. Such low production numbers makes it quite a pricey machine nowadays!
@@jollywankerproductions774yield was low. I think you can see in the documentation how unbalanced the design is. Some parts need to be very fast and chips probably failed to reach the clock speed. Race conditions.
Then the transistor count is huge with no margin for error (no redundant memory banks, which could be marked as bad ).
where did you learn to fly?
WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO BE AN ASSHOLE?!!!
@@Wubsy96 hahahahahahaha
Peggasus taught me how
Let’s play some JAG!
Turn on your Jag!
Out of all the infamous consoles ever made, the Jaguar is by far my favorite one. I don't know why, but I really think it had a lot of charm.
Doom on the Jaguar was a Fantastic port; There was no music but it was the controller that really made it. You could select your weapon of choice simply by pressing one button on your pad (which was covered with a pictured template). No controller has been better suited to Doom IMO
the controller was kinda built for shooters.
Uh,there was music.
@@thealaskan1635 No, the Jag port had no music.
You could almost think of it as a precursor to PC Fortnite lol
@@usernameunlisted It had music at the intermission screen but not during gameplay
Looking back now it's amazing I had a Jaguar as my main console that generation from when I got it in 1993 and until I got a Nintendo 64 in 1997. I was a huge Atari fanboy. I got a PlayStation in 96 but I didn't want to give up on the Jag. Still have it.
That's awesome! How did you get one! Did anyone else had one that you knew
@Frankie Basile I got my Jag the same day! Christmas Day 1994.
Still own an Atari Jaguar myself with around 20 games titles.Was my main game console until later on bought a PlayStation.And had both in use until I bought a Dreamcast and Windows 98 PC.
I return back to this video for the space toilet.
Lol space toilet filled with space shit ha!
As someone who grew up with a Mattel Intellivision, the numeric keypad on the Jag controller was the most natural thing in the world to me, and I loved that about the Jaguar. And I found it read practical as, even if you’d lost the overlay, you’d quickly memorize the layout of the games you frequently played. Same as how we memorize all the functions each game maps to the 8+ buttons of modern controllers.
Yeah as a PC gamer I never found the numpad a problem either. It is very handy to have these extra buttons for quick weapon switching instead of scrolling from weapon to weapon. The controller has problems but the existence of the numpad is not one of them.
The Atari Jaguar can be summed up with a single question: "Where did you learn to fly?"
Where did you learn to fly? - Can you fly Bobby? - Can you learn to fly Bobby? - Where did you learn to fly Bobby?
+Shrek is Love Shrek is Life Thanks for watching. I may do a 4th gen recap, not totally sure to be honest.
Please, i would so watch if you did one. The SNES is my fav console of all time and i love the Genesis too, i think it would be so nice if you could give US a perspective on that era too.
Atari supported UbiSoft in order to get the exclusive for Rayman and then Ubisoft screwed them by waiting to release for almost a year so they could release on Playstation at the same time.
Adam Koralik u do know Atari is coming back with a new console
I love how you flew the Console around like a spaceship and said "I know, I'm like 6".
Someone I knew had a car sticker that said "Inner Child On Board". I think it's a good thing to keep that because it promotes things such as curiosity, wonder, and freedom to enjoy. With video games you can experience all that.
Tomorrow I get mine in the mail and I'm looking forward to playing their great exclusives like Alien vs Predator, Tempest and ...
Alien vs Predator and Tempest.
Add a gun barrel to the front and that's a hover tank...
One thing some people forget is that when the Jaguar launched, it's competition in stores was still the SNES and Sega Genesis and not the Playstation 1. The big disappointment as an original owner was the delay between the first wave of titles: things that were technically impressive but kind of quirky like Cybermorph, Evolution Dino Dudes, Trevor McFur etc. and the really good games like Rayman, Doom, Raiden and Tempest 2000 to name a few. Those second wave of Jaguar games really did feel next gen compared to SNES and Genesis but by the time most people realized that the Jaguar had better specs and good games, the system had already lost its window to be a huge hit and when Sony entered the market the Jag was crushed for good.
+RICK C DE BACA the sad thing is, those games would probably play alot better if made for the pc...
Sort of correct. The Jaguar was released at a time when no one knew when a next generation was going to happen and saturation of the market began...1982/1983 all over again! Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Turbo Duo, Super Nintendo, NES (still relevant), Sega Master II (still trying to sell it), Genesis, Genesis 32X, Sega CD, and let's not forget about the portable market cuts: Atati Lynx I/II, GameBoy with Super Gameboy, Game Gear, and all of that crap from tiger electronics...oh a VirtualBoy!
I really like your storytelling style, how you mix your experiences with the actually consoles history. Keep doing this amazing work and greetings from Brasil!
Thanks!
@@AdamKoralikFIGURE IT OUT 😂😂
The Atari Jaguar is a truly 64-bit system and Atari didn't lie about it all.It also has a (16-bit)Motorolla 68000 to serve secondary functions (like reading the joypad) but, sadly, some lazy developers just ported 16-bit games onto the Jaguar using this (Motorolla) chip, not even attempting to take advantage of the system's 64-bit power.
It also had 32bit custom chips Tom and Jerry.And agreed many games developers didn't even bother to use the full power of the Atari Jaguar system hardware at all.Instead just using the 16bit 68000 to push game code, Atari even told games developers the 68000 was just for use as a controller chip.And yet many games developers ignored this anyway.
Jaguar was one of the first home consoles that could do free roaming 3D. It's pack-in game Cybermorph demonstrates this. It's 2D games could have up to 24-bit true color. I had a factory S-Video cable from Atari. All it does is make the 3D games look sharper and shows more detail (some cases too much detail) on the 2D games. The CD player overheats and stalls out during extended game play (MYST). All in all a decent system with a handfull of very good games and a sensible controller. I have owned mine since 94-CD since 95. Still play it today occassionaly. Thank you for not bashing it.
The Jaguar became available in my part of the U.S during the summer of 1994. I was tired of the SNES and Genesis, so of course, I bought a Jaguar. Some of the games were glorified demos (Cybermorph, which I liked, and Trevor McFur, which I didn't).
It's kind of hard to visualize now, but some of the games were actually impressive. The first time I saw a helicopter fly toward me on Iron Soldier..... the animation was so smooth and fluid (remember, the SNES and Genesis had been the top systems until then), I was impressed. AvP looks very dated now, but back then, the atmosphere while playing as a Colonial Marine.... before I found the Motion Tracker, I would get startled whenever an alien showed up when I opened a door where an Alien had been hiding. Tempest 2000 was a great update to a classic (that I already liked). The controller might have looked weird, but it felt comfortable to my hands.
Apparently it also has the best port of Doom(barring the lack of music)
You know the game Alien Vs Predator on Atari Jaguar was doing some thing very well.When it causes people playing the game to be startled so badly they nearly pull the Atari Jaguar off the table onto the floor.Which happened several times when I had some friends and relatives play the game for the first time.
This channel is basically Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia reviewing video game consoles. It's fantastic. Not sure how old OP is, but all these old consoles had me rife with envy reading about them in GamePro as an adolescent. I wanted to play AvP on Jaguar as a kid so bad. As an adult with expendable income I am now tempted to pick up one of these rigs and finally fulfilling that dream.
-Proletarian
+TheProletarianserf Thanks!
got it new, avp was interesting. still have it hopefully. had some issue with the power cable eventually, I'll have to try to fix it one day. also had kasumi ninja, the mech game, the platform with the rabbit, bugsy iirc, rayman, and prob a few I can't remember.
I did like the controller and the little tabs for a ton of buttons.
the only u.s built console I own is the only one that ever broke.
One of the Sega Genesis models has an identical power supply to the Jaguar(I think it was the first S.G. system). It has 1.2 amps output. The other S.G's have .85 amps output.
Dude. My neighbor had AvP on Jag. I spent the night once to play it and I brought my Genesis and game collection. They ended up playing my SEGA all night instead. Fuckers!
Not gonna lie, the shape and the fins make it pretty appealing to me without the cd attachment. If it was flat black it would look amazing.
I thinks it's a sexy beast too.
I think the controller is awesome.
The numeric pad is the best part, 5200/colecovision/intellivision for life.
The controller is probably not that bad, used to play fighting games with the 3 button genesis controller back in the day.
I would rather have the snes controller but the Dpad hurts my fingers
I like my Jaguar... It has a few games that are good, you just have to do your research and find out what games on the Jaguar are good. Not only that, but theres a whole community of Jaguar owners who make new games and sell them and a LOT of those games are fantastic.
The weird concept with the overlays on the controller's key pad, was actually based on something Atari had done back in the day with the Atari 2600. They had a series of educational games using the Sesame Street IP that used a special blue controller that was just a big number pad and each of the games came with an overlay. It was called the "Atari Kids Controller" I believe. My parent's tried to make me play educational games on my 2600, like that was going to happen when we had a perfectly good copy of Demon Attack. ;)
I recently played the complete library on an emulator. What happened to all the processing power. Most of the games look like they can be done on a 16 bit system.
Use the same Motorola chip that the Genesis used after yr1s trickle of games, Atari went after quick ports, dragon, theme park, dd5 etc. Were quick ports with slight upgrades...then all the non ports were told to go crazy with 3d, because they could see that was the direction everything was going, jag sucked at 3d was good at 2d like saturn
Well jaguar was technically pretty powerful for 3d games as the "tom" chip and the 64 but bus was pretty good considering. Like the comment above me, the Motorola 68000 chip was just supposed to be a chip that was supposed to just assign tasks, so even 3rd party develpers who were much more used to the Motorola just made it do most of the workload as a GPU and bypassing the "tom" chip.
I had an official Scart RGB cable for the Jaguar. It's interesting to note, that it somewhy had problems with upscalers, but I figured a some workaround by hooking another RGB source and somehow mix them together in a scart switchbox.
Interesting! I have one of those SCART to HDMI boxes and can’t use it with the Jaguar RGB SCART because the screen is freaking out.
Thanks for not hating the Jag! This was my favorite system as a kid, and have fond memories of it. It was the first system I purchased with my own money, and although much of the library doesn't hold up, there really is, as you know a pretty decent selection of solid games that are still pretty damn good. One thing you didn't mention also was the long running and still continuing community of homebrew games, which is pretty amazing.
Thanks for watching! I haven't followed the homebrew scene on the console to be honest.
Adam man I wish your videos were on DVD. I love your storytelling, it's like vh1 true Hollywood stories for games
newmoonsamesun Ha, thanks.
I've always thought that the Jaguar has this badass charm to it. It's so darn interesting and has quite a few great games. It's definitely underrated. It also has a great community. There are lots of homebrews on the system. And of you want to know about the Jaguar's graphical capabilities, you can go to AtariAge and look up discussions about the Jaguar vs other systems. They talk about different systems with their strengths and weaknesses.
Great video as always Adam!
I'm happy to see someone detail the 5th gen in the detail that you did. Not a lot of people really understand how deep 5th gen was. This series really fills in a lot of holes!
Thanks for watching James!
anytime :)
Well The Atari jaguar did actually have a dust protector, its called Cybermorph, at least that was the case for me given it was the pack-in game.
Back when I was a kid this was my main console (I went from the Megadrive, Jaguar, PS1, Gamecube, PS2 slim) mostly because my uncle had a jaguar, now he had games like theme park, syndicate, doom, games that look fucking amazing while I was stuck with my old Megadrive and back then I really didn't know much about the different consoles as I didn't really have the money for even a magazine subscription so I ended up getting one for Christmas, loved it, even more so when my uncle gave me a load of those games.
People give the console a lot of shit but it played a lot of PC ports amazingly well and even added stuff to the games, Wolfenstien 3d? you could carry over 99 bullets, try (I think it was) 450 rounds for your chain-gun and there was a rocket launcher and a flame thrower and was un-censored, the controller was bulky but fit in the hands comfortably and we all know the awesomeness that is Tempest 2000, I even enjoyed checkered flag in all its 6 frames per second glory haha!
I'm right there with you on the AvP game, I preferred doom and wolfen over that but my favourite games where Theme park and Syndicate, I even remember when I was able to show my uncle how to get the rollercoaster to work in theme park! (pressing 3 on the number pad and then pressing the A button on the red light to turn it green) was rather pleased I figured that out.
Yeah sorry if this got a little TL:DR on yah but this thing was my childhood console, Yeah I realise now it was a confusing to develop for mess of parts in a box, but it was a big part of what got me into gaming.
ArmouredLemming "Well The Atari jaguar did actually have a dust protector, its called Cybermorph." Hands down the funniest thing I read all day.
: Tips hat. :
AdamKoralik Stay awesome Adam. looking forward to more of your stuff.
ArmouredLemming
I had both Theme Park and Syndicate and both were fine versions of those games titles.
Apparently a version of Quake was being made for the Jag. It got cancelled something like 20% through its development before being cancelled due to the system being discontinued. Makes me wonder what the full potential of the Jaguar hardware was and makes me wish the console had held on a bit longer.
Was it going to be for cartridge or jaguar cd?
@@lonsterjackson1183 Not sure.
Marathoning all your videos right now
I am doing the same thing now!!!
I liked the name of the Jaguar and the logo. The system itself was pretty powerful. That wasn't the problem. The hardware was hard to develop for and most devs went with the 68000 CPU meant for the controllers. This is why you see slightly better 16 bit games. 3D games were still in their infancy so even when you did see 3D games on the system they were clunky. I had a Jaguar with 55 games in the box with a Jag CD. The CD unit had problems displaying correctly for reason right out of the box but I did use the RF cables back then.
The console reminds me of the ship from Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea cartoon. :)
I've wanted a Jaguar forever, but this makes me want one even more. I'm finally catching up on these videos, and they're fantastic. Loved the 3DO video, bro!
Jaguar fan here, really liked your video! Cheers
Thanks!
Tempest 2000
Defender 2000
That space ship impression is right up there with your Mickey Mouse one! Hahaha! Great video Adam! Just started watching this series and I'm really enjoying it!
Thanks dude.
@@AdamKoralikWOLFENSTINE 3D IS GREAT ON THE ATARI JAGUAR 🎮
The GC Controller is another example of a controller that was super-off-putting to look at but was really great. Still, to this day, my favorite controller; the layout just makes SO much tactile sense while, with the Dual Shock, I still have to stop and think for a second which button I'm going to press, just because it's not physically intuitive.
I mean, you think about it and, in just about any game, you've got the one button you're pressing basically all the time then a secondary button that you probably need quick access to. Then a couple buttons for functionality right above your big-fat button. The only real glaring flaw was the Z-Button, which was just in such a phenomenally stupid place that, I think, a lot of people just can't forgive. But, realistically, you weren't using it much and when you did it probably wasn't in a desperate hurry.
I was playing a lot of Need for Speed during this generation and played some versions on both PS2 and GC and, I swear to God, it's the most natural thing in the universe to play on the GC. I think what it comes down to is that it just smooths out the muscle memory learning curve. PS2 games, I'll get used to the controls and my thumbs will go to the right button naturally, eventually but with the GC controller, it's very natural and my thumbs just figure it out almost immediately.
Sorry, for the completely irrelevant tangent. Just really a huge fan of what an interesting design it is.
I don't mean to sound as if I'm bragging but I feel more comfortable with the standard face button layout because I have the layout of PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo controllers essentially committed to muscle memory. I felt the desire to mention this because I'm certain I'm not alone in having these button layouts memorized which essentially makes the few positives about the GameCube controller more or less irrelevant to many. Additionally the GC controller is far from perfect ergonomically, it lacks analog stick buttons, and it's missing a second shoulder button. Don't even mind the fact that the shoulder button that is there is extremely uncomfortable to use. Not a bad controller by a long shot, just extremely overrated.
I know I am late to this video, but Svideo cables were officially released for the Atari Jaguar. I have a boxed jaguar, and the manual talks about Svideo cables. ( Thanks for noticing my comment Adam!)
Great video. I never played a Jaguar and at the time thought that the keypad on the controller was a dumb idea. The current and past generations of consoles would benefit greatly from a keypad. I hate holding down a button to cycle through weapons. I lost count of how many times I've starred down at the chat pad of my 360 controller and wished it worked like a pc keyboard, allowing me to change weapons and bind keys to my liking. When used properly, the Wii U gamepad is as close as we'll get to that on consoles.
Thanks for watching!
The 90s was an interesting time, watching everyone throw their hat in the ring and make such a mess of things.
Exciting at the time, and I'm very glad that I stuck with Sega and PCs until 2001.
Rayman was Jaguar & 32X, but the 32X version was cancelled.
The Jaguar really was a true 64-bit console with a 64-bit system bus and memory interface. And it didn't have just two processors. Even though it was split into the Tom and Jerry chips, it actually had 5 processors. The Tom chip contained the 64-bit Object processor, GPU, and Blitter. The Jerry chip contained a 32-bit DSP. The final processor was a separate 16-bit Motorola 68000.
Great vid! Love your level-headed style and the way you seem to *kinda* always root for the underdog, or at least give it it's fair shake
Appreciated.
Am I the only one that thinks it looks fucking sick without the attachment?
FroztiProductions Looks fine to me. But the CD attachment does make it look better, yes.
I still think it's a very cool looking console, and for me it's one of the most important systems because it's the last Atari console, exempt Nuon. It's a shame that the game library was so small.
there has been a jaguar emulator for several years now, and it is very compatible
I like how you always wear a shirt that relates to the video
It had more decent games on it then one might think. I'll give a list below of all the games that are said to be good at the worst, and great at the best.
Alien vs. Predator, Atari Karts, Cannon Fodder, Checkered Flag, Doom, Flashback, Flip Out!, Iron Soldier, Pinball Fantasies, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Power Drive Rally, Raiden, Rayman, Super Burnout, Tempest 2000, Wolfenstein 3D, Worms, Zool 2, plus a few after market games like Iron Soldier 2, Soccer Kid, Total Carnage, and Zero 5. There may be more, but these are the ones you're probably going to want to start with if you're collecting for the system.
That's not even taking into account the Jaguar CD games. Include those and the list gets longer. The best ones are Battlemorph, Brain Dead 13, Dragon's Lair, Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands, Iron Soldier 2, Myst, Robinson's Requiem, Space Ace, and World Tour Racing.
It's at least halfway decent for a failed system.
You forgot Syndicate, which an underrated strategy arcade shooter.And one of the better versions of the game outside of the PC version.
I just barley ran across some Atari jag, 3DO, and Sega Saturn games. I've been collecting for at least 6 months. I'm glad Adams been doing these videos. Allows me to learn about these new consoles I'm collecting for now.
Found some rare games, which makes it even better because not only is it rare to find games for these consoles....but they were worth some money. I have a video up if anyone wants to see what I got.
Thanks for watching! Glad I could help.
I believe u said 3 processors, it's 5 processors across 3 chips :) small correction on a great video. I own about 1/2 the Jaguar library & there's plenty of fun! Just added your entire 5th Gen Playlist to my watch later queue :)
I first heard about the Jaguar in a game magazine (can't remember which one) in late 1997. I was a senior in high school at the time. In January of 1998 I went with a buddy to Video Games Ect. In Davenport Iowa, and low and behold they had a boxed Jaguar. For about 80 bucks (if memory serves) I got the console, an extra controller, several games (all boxed), and the Jaguar Player's guide that broke down all the games for the system, gave tips and even cheat codes. The only thing not included was the CD peripheral. But man did I love playing it. It was an oddity among my friends who all came over to play this elusive system. I for one loved Aliens V.S. Predator. I miss that console. I wish I still had it.
You probably didn't bother talking about the jackass Atari CEO, because that doesn't interest much people.
But I remember he said "yes the Jaguar is more powerful than the Saturn, but slightly less powerful than the PS1". Which is really quite strange to say because the Saturn is more powerful than both of them.
yep
once you put the ram expansion in the machine it is way above the other two but a nightmare to program for
I was so interested in the Saturn just because it was new, and 32 bit. I went to buy the console, and a couple of games, but they were out of systems. Thank God, because that system sucked!
That's taken out of context. To be fair, he was relaying the message about 3D capabilities in which, he was correct, more powerful than Saturn less than PSONE...looking back though, it hurts to look at any of them.
@Chad Mulligan which ones are you referring to? There are many multiplatform games which have outperformed or have been relatively the same.
Seriously enjoying this Fifth Gen Recap! Some solid work Adam. Already cannot wait to see the next one. I actually have been out of the whole "Hating on the Atari Jaguar" loop. Interesting how many people bashed the controller. I think the skins that go over the buttons on the controller was an amazing idea.
Thanks for watching!
+GameCenter Baker Thanks for watching!
*****
Yep.
AdamKoralik Adam you are hilariously dude i like your vids i commented on a couple of them the first vid i saw of yours and started to watch i was like this dude is awesome you explain everything like a pro with some humor but yet very interesting you sure know your gaming consoles i didnt realize how collectible the retro games could be i always thought that the original atari 2600 with the original box in mint condition would be worth a lot of money but didnt think that newer consoles and games etc would be worth anything i have always heard of the jaguar but not actually played one in person or even seen one in person that i remember!!! keep up the vids im subbed to you now and learned a lot from you today about gaming consoles i have a lot of good memories in gaming when i was a kid and i still like to game and probably will till im an old man!!!
thescootercooter Thanks!
Rayman blew my mind when I first saw it on the Jaguar, beautiful game!
I grew up in the bit wars with the sega genesis. I remember seeing those commercials genesis does what nintendon't. Ah the good old days.
Even the "Blast Processing" days, right?
BlueComet001 Yup I was a big sega kid back then heck I even dressed up as sonic for Halloween once lol.
That's awesome :) I may be 17, but I still love my Genesis Model 1 as well as the Dreamcast. I'm also a big Sega kid and a fan of Sonic.
BlueComet001 Thats cool. I still have my model 2 genesis and sega dreamcast both in working order. Also have a pretty decent collection of dreamcast games and still growing. Most of my genesis games are still in original boxes.
This may have been said already, or you've found out anyway, but Atari did indeed make official RGB cables for this. I own one.
Very nice video! I agree that the Jag is a very underrated console. There are some really fun games for it and a few exclusives. I recommend: Attack of the Mutant Penguins, Brutal Sports Football, Bubsy in Fractured Furry Tails, Cannon Fodder, Defender 2000, Evolution: Dino Dudes, Flip Out!, Iron Soldier, Missile Command 3D, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Power Drive Rally, Super Burnout, and Zool 2. Like Rayman, it has what many gamers consider the best home port of NBA Jam: Tournament Edition. I also like Raiden for the Jaguar as much as the arcade original even though there are differences between them. Note: Atari did release an official S-Video cable in the US and a Scart cable in Europe. They’re very rare now, but do exist. There's also another official controller that’s very rare called Atari Jaguar Pro Controller. It’s similar in appearance to the standard Jaguar controller, but adds three new action buttons (X, Y, and Z) as well as two shoulder buttons (L and R) at the top of the unit. Atari Karts is actually one of the games that takes advantage of it; L and R help in cornering.
I'd like to track down more of the games, just difficult to do.
I definitely want a pro controller, but that too is hard to find.
AdamKoralik After watching your Panasonic 3DO FZ-10 for $1 video if anyone can find the Atari Jaguar Pro Controller for cheap is you ;)
Iron Soldier also made excellent use of the Pro Controller. Although I thought the keypad was pretty excellent on its own. It was very natural layout for weapon selection. 1 & 3 for shoulders. 4 & 6 for hip mounted weapons, and 7 & 9 for each fist. IIRC.
I have a boxed pro controller which is white with blue buttons. It was made for the Atari STe/Falcon machines (hence the colour scheme), but it also works on my Jag.
Hey Arioca :) if you're a true fan of the Atari jaguar then you should be part of this group :D facebook.com/groups/jaguarsector/?ref=bookmarks
Awesome, learnt some stuff I did not know about the Jaguar. back in the mid 90's I used to rent a Jaguar and Doom every other weekend and play it at work. I had a PT Weekend job as a pin chaser at a bowling alley. Good Times.
Thanks for watching!
This thing CPU is surprisingly similar to the AMD FX series and the PS3 CPU, good but not used to full advantage
when the cd spins in the jaguar cd it looks like its flushing
This video should be called "AVGN knows nothing about this thing and you shouln't listen to his rants"
I love the AVGN actually.
AdamKoralik It's just a joke because his video about the console is probably the source of information for a lot of people (before seeing your video it was mine tbh) and you are saying pretty much the opposite of what he says.
maurih1games
Oh for sure. That's where the toilet reference comes from.
maurih1games That's where i start to have a problem with some of his rants, many of his fans (Who have never had any experience with this console or any of the others) just parrot around what he said as fact, it gets annoying.
@CrispyChickenJr ýýģģff
Loved the story about the 9 year on the shelf Jaguar you came so close to picking up. I actually used to work at KB Toys around that time, although I can't recall having seen an Atari Jaguar system there. I did however pick up the system towards the end of it's it's life cycle at Electronic Boutiques. Overall I thought it was a decent system, but like you said, it's full potential was never tapped into. I remember being a bit disappointed that it wasn't as good as advertised ( I eventually learned things rarely are), but it wasn't bad either. In my Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine I remember being blown away from some of the graphics they advertised such as the Aliens vs Predator game. In real life that game was a pixilated mess, but on paper in a little 2 inch square picture, it looked really good. I only ended up keeping the system for a short while though because a friend was interested in buying it and I wanted to save up some money for the Playstation that was coming out. Perhaps I'll pick up an Atari Jaguar again someday if I see a good deal. Congrats on your complete Jaguar CD collection btw :)
Adam, I love you especially, I fucking love those voices you make like on the CDI video where you said; guys there's so many good games on it you don't understand and on the PS2 video you said; it's just a name fuck you I hate you. I love you, your channel, and those voices....
If you want to see me do a lot more of them, watch this: ua-cam.com/video/rZjjtSRnUlU/v-deo.html
Be warned, this is a childhood destroyer.
+AdamKoralik thank you for replying
Good to see another Jag lover. I really enjoy mine!
I really like its design.
I was born in '85 and I remember the Jaguar getting quite a bit of coverage when it was around. It was one of those mystery consoles to me, along with the 3DO, CDi, etc. that I knew of but could never afford or get my parents to buy. regardless it was quite well know even to young kids who were in to games at the time.
I see they are making a console called the cougar pronounced cowgar it's like the jaguar pronounced jagwar and the Saturn pronounced satwurn
Stuart Renz ennit I know what an atari jaguar is but whats a jagwaaaar lol
Gonna take a picture when I'm at my dentist in March -- he straight up has this on his wall. Some sort of cleaning thing, still works great apparently.
someone purchased the mold casts back off the pharmaceutical company and are now re-purposing it for a new cart based console, they're calling it the Retro VGS
dylbob9000 Another strange chapter in the afterlife of Atari. I wonder how th Retro VGS is going to fare.
+Agamemnon2 hopefully It will succeed. im waiting for details with the kickstarter in sep, its a bit suspicious how the guy claims in all the podcasts that there are a lot of interested indies and "big publishers" but nothing reported directly.
dylbob9000 canceled
Great video Adam, looking forward to the next+
Thanks for watching!
The whole "bit wars" is so stupid. Dreamcast was advertised as "128-bit", but indeed it's just a highly evolved 32-bit system. Even Xbox360 and PS3 are true 32-bit systems. Just recently have we transitioned into 64-bit systems. MegaDrive is a 32-bit system as far as the programmer is conserned.
Jaguar is THAT BAD. It's terrible. It cannot decide whether it wants to be a scanline driven console, like the earlier generations, or a framebuffer driven one, like the 32-bit generation or that time's home computers that both Atari and Commodore had experience designing, and does neither of those things satisfactory. TOM is the designated "GPU" with its private memory, and due to hardware errata the program MUST be in its private memory. With that in mind, it doesn't have enough performance to run scanline driven competitively, but it doesn't have enough memory for the whole framebuffer! There is some flexibility there, but it's spoiled by issues. Fuck that shit.
The only thing Jaguar taught developers is how to endure massive PAIN, because Jaguar just rebelled against being programmed. Saturn also can't quite decide whether it's framebuffer or scanline, but at least everything worked. You had one CPU and one GPU do to your scanline work, and one CPU and one GPU, and a whole working framebuffer, to do your framebuffer work, and if you had some time left over, you could occupy the other CPU a bit. Not particularly tough, just unwieldy to get the maximum out of it. On Jaguar, the blitter needed to be hand fed scanline wise, but on Saturn it was an easy set up and pump kind of thing, and the scanline graphics had a guaranteed level of performance that it always obeyed, not just when it felt like it.
Playstation is the simplest system and does a lot of things right, being a framebuffer based design with a simple co-processor to help the common tasks. Though its affine texture mapper was a source of frustration, some quality conscient developers wished it had a proper quad mapper like Saturn in addition to triangle mapper - it wouldn't have been a huge extension if the two were combined into a single unit. And if it didn't just drop pixels at times and had sub-pixel vertex placement, that would have been just great.
3DO came out at the same time as Jaguar, it wasn't fast but it wasn't a design blunder either, so i don't think Jaguar's sacrifice was really that needed - arguably Jaguar should have told SEGA to ditch the whole scanline thing and put more resources into framebuffer, but it didn't.
I'm not sure whether we haven't seen the top of Jaguar's performance. The design was opened up to 3rd parties for free by Atari (making it one of the first open consoles), so games for it are published to this day. It won't come close to the rest of the generation, not even the 3DO, no hopes there. It can do more than CD32 though.
I agree, the Jaguar was a scam!
+Siana Gearz not only i agree with you but i will also complement, the jaguar 3d "sacrifices" are really not even relevant, because its arquitecture was so hard to program, each game had to basically "reinvent the wheel", not only that but most of its 3d were also based on pc 3d games, most fps were basically doom clones, most space shooters were clones of similar pc games(with a few gimmicks that clearly didnt work)...
its controllers are really awfull, they are ergonomic, sure, but beyond that, its dpad, is one of the worst from that era,(i could even argue that its as bad as the 360's).
and finally, him saying(adam) saying " oh its not that bad of a console", while its, a more expensive, less fun more prone to problems, very small trully worthy library, its the typical console for people that want to collect, but not really use their collection... i really cant see any reason for getting it...
and also, im sorry adam but, the "oh people say it never works but mine works", regarding the cd addon, is not a good excuse, "but you only really need to take good care for it to work", its not like that, i bet if the newer gen had that, you would be bashing it from here to oblivion, finnicky and bad design are a problem, for everyone, its not because YOURS is working that its everyone elses fault...
Marcos Danilo I did a bit of a mental exercise, and in my mind, i came up with a perfect software architecture for Jaguar games:
* Halt the 68k. It steals too many memory cycles for the performance it may potentially provide. The most you could use it for, is set up a timer and output a sound sample, then halt again.
* Have all the gameplay code run on Jerry, the sound processor - it's not slow and is well positioned to do so by memory arrangement. Let it perform most of the graphics related code with output to shared RAM. Don't let it run any sound code.
* Have all the sound/synth code run on Tom, the graphics processor, outside the interrupt handler, interleaved with blitter commands, prepared by Jerry, with blitter generating a circular buffer of a few lines. In the scanline interrupt, output the sound (fixed at 15 KHz), unless doing so elsewhere, and then draw the line.
I hope this is a sign of how bad the hardware design is, not of my insanity.
+Siana Gearz but acording to Koralik, its not the hardware problem, its just people didnt giv eit enought of a chance...
and the funny thing is, he bashed the wii,(considering it one of the worst consoles)... go figure...
Marcos Danilo Wii does seem a wii bit outdated for its time hardware wise, but it had a unique input device and fun titles, lots of them. It also had some titles, some marketing, and public image, which were perhaps... offensive to the hive mind of a "hardcore gamer"? And i could nitpick around the hardware of GC and Wii, but it certainly works as intended. It doesn't seem to have terrible errata designed into it, and even the so loved by everyone PS2 has some major ones.
I don't think we should let Adam judge the merits of hardware, because he's not an engineer and can't wear a game developer's hat for a minute or so.
I've always wanted to play/own a Jaguar. I'm glad to see you think it has its merits.
It does.
I'm actually quite enjoying this series. I was never aware that all these consoles were part of the 5th generation, I assumed they were 4th but never looked it up. I loved the part where you went to buy the Jaguar finally, and someone had gotten it. Solid gold right there.
Thank you.
Yeah, that story still baffles me.
As much as I want, I can't take the picture of AVGN shitting on the Jaguar CD like an actual toilet.
I gotta say, Adam, I've been subscribed to your channel for a while and I occasionally watch your videos. You have now been put in normal rotation because of that Jaguar dental white case fact. I NEVER knew about that. This dude REALLY knows his stuff!
Thank you sir.
The Jaguar was my 2nd game console. I had a NES forever while everyone else had a Sega pr SNES. My dad bought the Jaguar brand new in 93. I was the only person I've ever known to have owned one. Nobody then had one or knew what they were, few people today do. I loved that thing. I miss it. I was the coolest kid on the block. I had a 64 bit console before they were cool. Then one day my dad got rid of it and said people at the game store told him it was outdated. He traded it in for a model 2 Genesis. Though I love my Genesis I will forever miss my Jaguar. I played the fuck out of it.
I remember seeing a Jaguar in a store, I think in Blackpool in the late 90s... maybe 96 or 97. Can't remember how much it was selling for. It was the only Jaguar I've ever seen.
If you are into puzzle games, there a Jaguar game called Flip Out. It's actually a really cool game and so far has never been ported to another console. The beginning levels are pretty easy but it gets pretty challenging.
I have watched this video (as well as all the other retrospective videos) so many times, but I've never had a Jaguar until a few days ago, where I finally got one, fully boxed and complete with Manuals and cables as well as a copy of Cybermorph with the overlay. It's in great condition, but the store also had a Jaguar CD, which I passed on as it was too much money for me to justify at the moment, especially with a library of only 13 games
I briefly had the Jaguar. Iron Soldier was another enjoyable game for it. Cybermorph, if one can look past its spartan visuals, had some varied objectives and level design. For its time, it was an interesting experience in an elementary 3-D space, before such gaming environments becomes more common on consoles.
Apparently Atari was planning a successor to the Jaguar called the Jaguar II, which was going to focus on textured polygons, polygon rendered speed, computational ability, and audio synthesis, and some of its parts and project name were motivated from A Midsummer's Night Dream and probably would have been released in 1996-1997. However, Atari got taken over by JT Storage, which ended production of the original Jaguar, as well as the Jaguar II project. However, there are prototypes for the Jaguar II that mostly consist of their motherboards, since the case design never got fully completed.
It looks like they just wanted to debug the Jaguar and optimize details. In 1996 we got the N64 instead, which also needs skilled developers.
Excellent reviews and history. Binge watching. Thanks for uploading!
I really enjoy your videos on old consoles, oh the memories! Do you own all of those old systems and games? If you do, Dam! you should open up a video game museum!
I remember back in the days reading up on these consoles dreaming of owing them ( had a Nintendo GameBoy, Commodore Amiga 500 ( my all time favorite ), SNes - my first systems included the Atari 2600 & my Commodore Vic20 which I learned Basic & other things...
You talking about the keypad made me think of the Wii u pad. Cool video
I like your mix of practicality and frivolity. "Hey this console is nearly useless and expensive to buy... so I went and found the whole set." Cracks me up every time :)
The Jaguar has a 64 bit 'architecture'. Meaning it had a 64 bit wide data bus transferring graphics/game data at 106.8 megabytes per second. The parts that were designed to use this specifically were the Blitter chip and the Object processor. If you look on the Jaguars specs, the 32bit risc graphics processor has a mhz rating of 26mhz or some such. And you'll notice that the blitter and the object processor have no 'mhz' or 'bit' rating associated with them. That's because their performance is based on the system bus and how much access they have to it. You'll see heavy duty Jaguar programmers talk about bus saturation. That's when the object processor and blitter chip hit their limit. It's based on the bus and getting other things out of the way for these two crucial processors to have full access to this 64bit bus.
Very few programmers had started to learn how to give the Object processor and the Blitter chip full run at the bus. High Voltage Software had begun to learn how but everything got canned before any steam could get built up. They were learning that they needed to shut down the slow Motorola processor and get it out of the way once it had bootstrapped the system.
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It was one of the very early lessons of the Jaguar - anything hitting the bus was a performance killer, and when the 68k was running, it just hit the bus for instructions all the time, so the goal was to make it go away. Likewise, having the GPU hit anything but its own 4k SRAM was undesirable, and should be avoided if possible. -Scott Corley; HVS
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Look up their Jaguar work.(White Men Can't Jump, Ruiner, NBA Jam TE, Vid Grid) The last one they were working on that got canned was 'Dactyl Joust' of which a video can be seen here on YT. Very impressive 3D.
The Jaguar's 64-'bitness' is absolutely NOT derived from adding two 32 bit processors together and coming up with 64bit. That ridiculous belief really needs to die.
Most programmers used the 16 bit Motorola processor in it (same as the genesis except double the speed) which hogged the bus and slowed everything down by 4x up to 20x. Can't blame them really. It was easier to program for and was better known and these guys were on the clock to get product out.
very enlightening! thanks for such in depth analysis!
in a way it is similar to the PS3, that CPU was so hard to code for that its full potential was never truly used
@russ g get an Amiga!
@russ g what did you end up getting
@russ g awesome that's great. I wish I had one.
I recently was able to play on a Jaguar at a retro game show, the controller is way bigger than I imagined, but yes it's fairly comfortable.
Greatness is often built on the shoulders of failure.
I still have my Jag+CD and quite a few games. Just wanted to say that I never had that problem with the power switching off. I guess it was designed to protect the console in case a cart wasn't inserted properly - we all know of machines that got killed by people plugging/unplugging carts and peripherals while they were powered on, and most system's cart interfaces were directly connected to the main data/address/control buses, hence much damage could be done there. Anyway, great video, subscribed.
Great video
Very knowledgeable on this!
I'm gonna get me a Atari Jaguar for my collection!
Love the look and style on it!
I'm a retro gamer so I very much appreciate it........
It's very sad it's the last American console made!
That needs to change!
Love hearing about consoles I don't have. Would love to own one but never see it anywhere. Plus never knew that there was a jaguar cd. Great video like always. Love how detailed your videos are.
I worked for KB Toys from 97 to 99 and I remember during the 1997 holiday season that we had a stack of Jaguars, at $39.99 a unit. I thought about buying one, but it either came with one unappealing game or no game at all - and there were no other games for sale. I remember feeling sorry for the poor kid who unwrapped one on Christmas morning. I also remember seeing a boxed copy of Earthbound for sale, as well. I thought it was odd that it came with a strategy guide - I also declined to make purchase.... :(
so the jag's structure is kinda similar to the sega Saturn; the Saturn also had 2 processors, one for the background and one for the foreground.
the Saturn also suffered from being hard to program and it not being used at its full potential and b
Only that the OP in the Jaguar is much simpler. It is basically a video DAC with a buffer to match memory speed to video out speed. Saturn VDP2 was a second chip and needed its own SRAM. Expensive!
Sorry if I sound like an excited kid right now (I mean, I am 16), but my friend's dad used to live in the legendary Sunnyvale California, and he worked at Atari. Oh it gets better - he just told me his dad tested games and hardware from the 2600 days all the way through the Jaguar, and he said he has a prototype Jaguar, and he's going to ask him about it today. I'm pretty hyped about this, stuff like this never happens to me, I hope I'll get to see a bit of videogame history if he still has it.
"Yes, there's a Highlander game and it sucks."
I just had this picture in my head of that quote on the back of the case.
Am I the only one who gives a like to all of Adams videos before they even start?
The Atari Jaguar: "It's not that bad."
Man i love these generation recap videos man, very informative and entertaining. It feels great to know about this kinda stuff.
Thanks for taking the time to watch.
Thanks for taking the time and money to do this stuff.
I really enjoy your channel; you're like someone I'd have gone to high school with. Thanks
Your story on the Jaguar, of it coming to market, reminded me of the NEC one you mention in your Fourth Generation one. As you probably already know by know that Atari had another console in mind, the 32-bit Panther that got axed for the Jaguar. But what both have in common, that links back to your PC-Engine history, was in both cases you had a firm that wanted to release a system that was technically superior to what was out in the market. That they were originally targeting the console generation of that time and hoping to cement a lead into the next one. As you hinted had NEC only released the PC-Engine a few years earlier, end of story. One has to wonder, had Atari stuck with the Panther and released it in 1991, could it have knocked out one of the 4th Gen competitors?
+AdamKoralik keep up the good work! Great videos.