Doom: Slayer Edition for Atari Jaguar

[famicommander]

Note: this is not my project and I had nothing to do with any of the work involved with it. I'm just passing along information.

 

Anyway, some guys on Atari Age have been working on improving the already solid port of Doom on Atari Jaguar. Some of the progress so far:

-music in stages restored

-Spider Mastermind and E3M8 added back into the game

-Spectres added back into the game

-Support for the pro controller which means shoulder button strafing 

-Cheat menu added

 

And more.

The topic is here:

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/295643-doom-slayer-edition/

 

Still a work in progress.

[Dark Pulse]

Now the music I'm interested in. I'd heard that the Jaguar's DSP doesn't have enough power to both run music and do the 3D calculations in the game sim.

 

How'd that get managed?

[famicommander]

19 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

Now the music I'm interested in. I'd heard that the Jaguar's DSP doesn't have enough power to both run music and do the 3D calculations in the game sim.

 

How'd that get managed?

I don't know the how, but there are demonstration videos in the link above and further links to the development threads if you want to get into it. 

 

I think it's just a matter of them having much more time than was available to id when they did the original port.

[Dark Pulse]

57 minutes ago, famicommander said:

I don't know the how, but there are demonstration videos in the link above and further links to the development threads if you want to get into it. 

 

I think it's just a matter of them having much more time than was available to id when they did the original port.

It's possible that the luxury of infinite time means they discovered more efficient ways to do it compared to the id original, sure.

 

I'd still love a technical breakdown of just how they managed it though.

[famicommander]

They're pretty approachable guys and it's possible your questions have already been answered in the links and videos in the Atari Age thread.

[Danfun64]

Didn't see the video yet. Is d_e1m1 still a quackfest or were the samples replaced?

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, Danfun64 said:

Didn't see the video yet. Is d_e1m1 still a quackfest or were the samples replaced?

 

 

It is, however, impressive as to how they got it running in a technical sense. Essentially found a way to free up a secondary sound buffer, fed the music to one and the SFX to another.

 

Seeing stuff like this gives me a little hope that GEC can eventually re-add some content into PSX Doom and/or Doom 64, too. :) 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Dark Pulse

[famicommander]

My oh my, what have we here?

 

[/img]

[Alexo]

This is what I have been waiting for! Hype to see the final result. Wouldn't mind helping test it since I speedrun the Jaguar port.. 😅

Edited September 19, 2019 by Alexo

[Dark Pulse]

On 9/18/2019 at 1:35 PM, famicommander said:

My oh my, what have we here?

 

Considering how tough the RAM limits are on the PSX version, man, I'd hate to see how few monsters you can get with a Cyberdemon in the Jaguar one.

[famicommander]

No idea, but they did say that the game runs fine with both a Cyberdemon and a Spider Mastermind at the same time.

[Dark Pulse]

27 minutes ago, famicommander said:

No idea, but they did say that the game runs fine with both a Cyberdemon and a Spider Mastermind at the same time.

That would be some crazy hackery then, as not even the PSX version can handle that.

[famicommander]

1 hour ago, Dark Pulse said:

That would be some crazy hackery then, as not even the PSX version can handle that.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/295643-doom-slayer-edition/?do=findComment&comment=4353241

 

I don't know the how

[famicommander]

On 9/22/2019 at 3:16 PM, Dark Pulse said:

That would be some crazy hackery then, as not even the PSX version can handle that.

 

[Dexiaz]

Why it's called "Battle Royale"? It doesn't look like "Battle Royale" at all. Even in alpha-stage

[famicommander]

Who cares what the video is called, they got a Cyberdemon vs a Spider Mastermind running on a Jaguar!

[-TDRR-]

On 9/22/2019 at 4:46 PM, Dark Pulse said:

That would be some crazy hackery then, as not even the PSX version can handle that.

It's a different limit. The PSX's limit is because it has really low amounts of VRAM and having to load things from a CD, but the Atari Jaguar is probably able to read from the cartridge often since load times on a cartridge are much faster than on a CD so it's kinda like having the whole game loaded in RAM (Not THAT fast but still acceptably fast) so the impact of only having 2MB of RAM is far less noticeable.

 

EDIT: Just in case, i'm not 100% sure if the Atari Jaguar can really do that reliably but that's what i assume could work. If not, just traditional stuff like lowering monster variety is what helps the Jaguar here.

Edited October 20, 2019 by -TDRR-

[ZeroTheEro]

9 hours ago, Deⓧiaz said:

Why it's called "Battle Royale"? It doesn't look like "Battle Royale" at all. Even in alpha-stage

not the battle royale in the sense you're thinking of.

it's a battle royale of a Cybie vs. a Spidey

[famicommander]

[Dexiaz]

>SSG

>494 Ammo

 

oh shi~

[famicommander]

15 hours ago, Deⓧiaz said:

>SSG

>494 Ammo

 

oh shi~

They said it's just a cheat and a proof of concept.

 

They wanted to make sure they could import assets from other Doom engine games in case they want to try Doom II, Heretic, or something similar down the line.

 

But Slayer Edition will still very much be focused on a Doom 1 experience.

[Dark Pulse]

On 10/19/2019 at 11:02 PM, -TDRR- said:

It's a different limit. The PSX's limit is because it has really low amounts of VRAM and having to load things from a CD, but the Atari Jaguar is probably able to read from the cartridge often since load times on a cartridge are much faster than on a CD so it's kinda like having the whole game loaded in RAM (Not THAT fast but still acceptably fast) so the impact of only having 2MB of RAM is far less noticeable.

 

EDIT: Just in case, i'm not 100% sure if the Atari Jaguar can really do that reliably but that's what i assume could work. If not, just traditional stuff like lowering monster variety is what helps the Jaguar here.

You're right, that's probably very much in play here. ROM cartridges read very quickly, so it's pretty easy to page things as-needed.

[Jello]

Nobody else going to mention that the Spider Mastermind killed the Cyberdemon in a one on one fight in that video? That's never happened, in the history of ever. 

[Gez]

It actually happens sometimes, I've had it happen. It's rare, but not "one-shotting a healthy cybie with the BFG" rare.

[Jello]

You're right. I kind of recall seeing it once before in Gotcha, the Spidey did kill the Cyberdemon. But I just loaded up Doom 2 and went to Gotcha to prove you wrong. And the result of my first experiment? The Spider Mastermind killed the Cyberdemon. It got him stun-locked and he couldn't fire back. The Spider Mastermind was firing at me and I walked behind the Cyberdemon, and it triggered in-fighting. He was walking around on his platform almost helpless because the chaingun kept interrupting his firing. 

 

I tried it again 10 times, and the Cyberdemon won. So it happens, it's rare, but it does happen. It does seem kind of weird that Doom 2 just tried to make me look like a liar though.

 

Edit: Seems to be more dependent on if the Cyberdemon can hit the Spider Mastermind with three rockets to start the in-fighting. If that happens, then he'll win. If the Spider starts the infighting and locks the Cyberdemon, then it'll win. I just had the Spider win twice in a row, first time the Spider hit the Cyberdemon first, second time the Cyberdemon hit first, but it only landed one rocket before the Spider shot back.

 

However, after both of those fights, it only took one double barrel shot to kill the Spider Mastermind. Every time the Cyberdemon wins, it takes at least four double barrel shots to kill him.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Jello

[Lollie]

I love how slow they are in that video. The game seems to be running at the correct speed, but their AI seems to be running at 50% speed or something.

[Dark Pulse]

17 hours ago, Lollie said:

I love how slow they are in that video. The game seems to be running at the correct speed, but their AI seems to be running at 50% speed or something.

Probably to save precious processing time. I know that PSX Doom targets 30 Hz for rendering, but AI is only run at 15 Hz.

[taufan99]

Love this so much! Definitely can't wait for any updates soon.

[Dexiaz]

Kinda offtopic, but still related to the console engine possibilities:

 

[Gregory Stephens]

5 hours ago, Deⓧiaz said:

Kinda offtopic, but still related to the console engine possibilities:

 

Oh wow, nice! That guy disappeared for awhile, thought that stuff was gonna be done because of it but it's good to see he's back. Considering that we can have both the Spider Mastermind and Cyberdemon at the same time in Jaguar Doom I don't think it'd be entirely outside of the realm of possibilities here other than maybe cartridge space.