If John Carmack Wasn't Involved In The Saturn Port

[A Nobody]

21 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

I meant gameplay in a more specific sense, maybe "mechanics" is a better word. Saturn Doom's gameplay suffered because the controls were less responsive. Other elements of the experience like artwork and plot can sometimes "bandage" a flaw like that, but I would still say "it has a great story but cumbersome gameplay."

Story does not make up for abysmal gameplay.

 

The Saturn could have handled Doom greatly had they used the custom engine.

[Dark Pulse]

14 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

Well look what presentation got the Saturn version into.

I mean, the plans were way more grand originally. A port of the original game, uncut, resembling the PC version extremely closely, etc. No console port of the time had every level from the original game, and even if they had the level, they were based off the JagDoom scaled-down versions. (The SNES version being an exception since Randy converted those directly from the PC originals.)

 

But to Carmack, all that "as close to PC as possible" meant nothing if the floors and ceilings swum everywhere. Doom did not have its floor and ceiling textures swimming like that, so why should Saturn Doom?

 

Problem is, there was deadlines to be met. To meet that deadline, a quick-and-dirty portjob was the answer. Jim didn't have the time to fix the renderer to Carmack's satisfaction, so Carmack told him to do it like how the PC version did it. Problem solved; the FPS is just gonna be lower, and to Carmack, that was an acceptable tradeoff. (I mean... 3DO Doom is proof the dude cared more about it looking like Doom than playing rocket-fast.)

Edited January 9, 2021 by Dark Pulse

[Wadmodder Shalton]

The Japanese version of the Sega Saturn port is no different than the North American version, except for the multiplayer being added.

 

Even Digital Foundry debunked the rumor of the Japanese version of the Sega Saturn port of DOOM performing any better than the North America version, as scene in this video:

So there, there are no differences with the NTSC-U & NTSC-J versions of the Sega Saturn version of DOOM in performance, other than the fact that the Japanese version has multiplayer.

 

The PAL version of Sega Saturn seems to have an even lower framerate & performance than the NTSC-U & NTSC-J versions, but few people have uploaded videos of the PAL version of Sega Saturn DOOM on YouTube.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Wadmodder RiderPùdu

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, Wadmodder RiderPùdu said:

The PAL version of Sega Saturn seems to have an even lower framerate & performance than the NTSC-U & NTSC-J versions, but few people have uploaded videos of the PAL version of Sega Saturn DOOM on YouTube.

To be fair, in the mid-90s, TVs still ran on PAL in the UK and much of Europe, and so most systems were at a 50 Hz rate anyway. In a lot of games well into the 90s, the PAL versions were slower because the developer didn't bother to adjust the game logic and timing for the slower cycle speed.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Dark Pulse

[Redneckerz]

18 hours ago, magicsofa said:

I meant gameplay in a more specific sense, maybe "mechanics" is a better word. Saturn Doom's gameplay suffered because the controls were less responsive. Other elements of the experience like artwork and plot can sometimes "bandage" a flaw like that, but I would still say "it has a great story but cumbersome gameplay."

That's fair.

18 hours ago, magicsofa said:

Again, the engine is responsible for rendering the game world fast enough for the desired experience...

Are we talking about the Saturn Doom, or id Tech 5? Because else im not following you.

 

[magicsofa]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

Are we talking about the Saturn Doom, or id Tech 5? Because else im not following you.

Saturn of course... I wagered that Carmack wouldn't have been happy with the framerate issues etc, if he was standing right there in Rage's studio seeing how crap it was. You said, maybe not, because he's relying on other people to do the non-rendering parts of development. But that doesn't make sense because the renderer was the problem, and that's totally Carmack's department.

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, magicsofa said:

Saturn of course... I wagered that Carmack wouldn't have been happy with the framerate issues etc, if he was standing right there in Rage's studio seeing how crap it was. You said, maybe not, because he's relying on other people to do the non-rendering parts of development.

Yeah i was talking about Rage there. ^^

 

Nevertheless the porter was an outsourced company, doubtful if Carmack was able to visit them given Quake 2 was in the works at the time.