Atari essentially skipped an entire generation in the console wars by going from their 8-bit Atari 7800 console which came out (far too late, btw) in 1987 when the NES was already unsurpassingly dominant in the market, to the Atari Jaguar in 1993 which they officially call a "64-Bit" system but many consider that to be dubious. Regardless though, the Jag was definitely a 5th Gen system no matter what its true Bit number happened to be.But Atari never released a proper 4th Gen console to confront the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. They went from their (late) 3rd gen system to their (early) 5th gen Jaguar, but there was nothing from them during the 4th generation.The Panther would have been that system. It was planned to come out in 1991, and so if that had happened then it would have come out in the same year as the SNES did (in the west), so unlike with the 7800 they wouldn't have been late to the punch this time around. Or at least not any later than the SNES was, because the Genesis and Turbografix were definitely out already.To make up for that though, the Panther would have been a 32-bit console. Or at least, that's how Atari seems to have intended to market it anyway. As with the Jaguar being "64-bit", the claims that this would have been "32-bit" may be dubious, but its hard to say because information on what the true systems specs of this console would have been are scarce, because the plan got scrapped and skipped over in favor of the Jaguar.Obviously the decision to go with the Jaguar didn't pan out, because Atari went bankrupt. But would things have been different if they stuck with the Panther instead? Yes, it would have been less powerful hardware than the Jaguar, but frankly I don't think the Jaguar's theoretical power matters all that much since very few games ever fully utilized it anyway. 64-bit or not, whatever power the Jag had was essentially wasted.A simpler, cheaper console that came out 2 years earlier might have worked, though.
>>12716513No because at that time Japaneae Devs were vastly superior to American devs and in now way the Japanese were going to make games for atari over Nintendo and Sega
>>12716521>Japaneae Devs were vastly superior to American devsThis is purely subjective, and depends on who you ask. When it comes to JRPGs and things like that, sure Japan are the best. But American studios dominated the FPS genre back then (and still do today). I'm talking studios like id and the games they made like Wolfenstein, DOOM, and so on. If this is your preference then how could you say American devs are inferior to Japanese devs?Anyway, every system under the sun got a port of DOOM back then, including the Jaguar. I see no reason why the hypothetical Panther wouldn't, as well as all similar games of that era.Japan is a big deal when it comes to video games, but they're not the end all be all of it. And remember, before Nintendo and SEGA got into the console market, they themselves published games on the Atari 2600. So if you think Japanese devs making games for an American console wouldn't or couldn't happen then you're demonstrably wrong.
>>12716628Have you PLAYED Doom on a fourth gen console? It fucking sucked, it’s a gimmick at best, not a system seller.
>>12716636>Have you PLAYED Doom on a fourth gen console? It fucking sucked, it’s a gimmick at best, not a system seller.I don't know what the full specs of the Panther would have been, but from what I can see it was going to use the same Motorolla CPU that the Genesis had but double the clockspeed. I don't know if that would have been powerful enough to pull off that game well or not, but maybe.
>>12716513Atari (1993) would be saved with the same solution that would have saved the Saturn.Fire Bernie Stolar. Optionally from a cannon, towards the sun.Then don't threaten all devs and ask them to work months for free just before launch.
>>12716513Japan has iphones up the ass, I don't think they wouldn't make games for itThey would just open up a Japanese branch and make ports at least.You people have never been to Japan, on yahoo auctions right now they sell western shit that you'd be amazed at the fact that it even made it over there They're way more westernized than even Korea is nowMy sister in-law insisted on buying a terrible French car, they're mostly stupid normies at there core, drink coca cola and generally don't have social lives
>>12716513The Lynx was their 4th gen system.
>>12716513Fuck no. For an underdog company, a cartridge system with inferior graphics would never have a chance no matter how cheap it is. What could work is a cheaper system with cheap non-solid state storage, and ideally one that could make PS1 game porting easy to attract third party publishers who wanted to make a few easy bucks. Here's some rough schematic I drew for what I think the Jaguar should've been. A low cost console with an architecture similar to PS1, with hardware 3D engine and texture mapper and all, but outputs something like 256x200 graphics with 32 colors per-scanline. It would have graphics similar to SNES, but much faster and nearly as performant as PS1 in textured 3D graphics. And for the sound is a 32-voice PSG on GPU die, completely eliminating the sound subsystem found in other consoles of the era and saving costs massively. Indeed it basically works like an 8-bit console sound chip, however with 32 voices available, you could make really interesting combinations, and the external sound DAC eliminates noise, giving it much clearer audio than 8-bit generation systems.The storage is standard PC format 3.5 inch floppy disk. Way cheaper than CDs, although limited to something like 1.4-1.8 MB per disk. Maybe 5MB with very high density format. But thanks to the much simpler graphics and sound formats, and a complete lack of any video playback hardware, games wouldn't need a lot of storage anyway
From what I've seen of the specs the Panther would've been something like the Neogeo. A Genesis but twice as fast CPU, significantly more sprites and colors, and hardware scaling, and a kick ass ensoniq sound chip. It would have been hampered by the reportedly 6MB cart size limit and the fact that nobody wanted to do anything with Atari.But if they release that in 1991 they may still be able to get third party devs, at least western ones on board and do, I dunno, highest quality console ports of Mortal Kombat and such. And part of the reason nobody gave a shit about the Jaguar was that Atari had nothing on the market for years at the point (that plus it had hardware bugs making it impossible to code for).So a strong traditional sprite pusher in 1991 may have saved Atari.>>12716628SNES got a Doom port using the FX chip and it was insanely dumbed down. Even the Jaguar version was hand crafted by Carmack himself and had level geometry greatly simplified, and it BARELY ran. No way a Panther could have ran that with a 16MHz 68k and a sprite scaler chip only. They would've needed extra hardware on the cart.
>>12716628>This is purely subjectivenope
>>12716863>And part of the reason nobody gave a shit about the Jaguar was that Atari had nothing on the market for years at the point Another reason is that Jack Tramel era Atari was a completely different company than the Atari that made the 2600 in the 70’s.The Atari of the 70’s was split by their original holding company (Warner Communications) and the home gaming division was sold to Jack Tramel who gutted the company and restructured it into a completely different beast.Jack Tramel’s Atari had never made a successful home console. What they DID succeed at was making 16 bit computers, which they should have continued to focus on.
>>12716513Ataris main appeal: arcade ports at home was already done better by the Genesis. Not only did Sega already have more developer goodwill (Atari had a history of stiffing third parties) and retail connections, most importantly the Panther only had 32 KB of work RAM while the Genesis had 64 KB of main ram and 64 KB of VRAM (the SNES had 128 KB of main RAM and 64 KB of VRAM)This system would have chugged trying to play its own bread and butter, arcade ports.
>>12716920>most importantly the Panther only had 32 KB of work RAM while the Genesis had 64 KB of main ram and 64 KB of VRAM (the SNES had 128 KB of main RAM and 64 KB of VRAM)It had 32KB of 55ns PC cache grade SRAM memory. That access time is three times as short as Genesis and SNES DRAM, and without the additional time needed for RAM refresh. Unlike SNES and Genesis that loaded entire sprite sets into the RAM and later sending them into the VRAM as needed, Panther would straight up construct a frame by directly fetching 1 pixel height graphics data from a specific address in the cartridge ROM. It only needs enough memory to draw 320 pixel width 32-color line, times two because it's double buffered. That means only 5KB is needed for the graphics. And sound data is stored in a separate 8KB 16-bit PSRAM chip. The 68K could directly fetch data from the ROM and write it directly to the sound RAM without needing to go through the main RAM, unlike in the Genesis (and maybe SNES too). So you have 27KB of really fast memory free to be used for anything you want.TL;DR it handled memory a lot more like Atari 2600/7800/NES than SNES and Genesis. 32KB was absolutely enough.
>>12716913>What they DID succeed at was making 16 bit computers, which they should have continued to focus on.Which then would have killed them even quickly because those computers went out of style fast once PCs caught up with audio/video cards that put them on par first and then way way way ahead.
>>12716992>Panther would straight up construct a frame by directly fetching 1 pixel height graphics data from a specific address in the cartridge ROM.one, you know this how? is there a full hardware manual? the machine was never released so you can't exactly have homebrewers tinkering with it.two, cartridge rom cost a huge premium, every game stored compressed data on the carts to keep sizes down and decompressed to system RAM. so for a console, loading directly from ROM wouldn't work. it worked for the neogeo because it had the GPU directly linked to the cart bus, and it had multiple buses working in parallel, and it also had carts costing more than entire consoles.
>>12716830>a cartridge system with inferior graphics would never have a chanceIn the case of the Panther, we're talking about a console that would have launched the same year as the SNES and so it would have been a part of the 4th gen. I don't know how the specs would have compared with the Genesis or the SNES, but it apparently was going to use the same CPU as the Genesis, but at double the clock speed. So based on that I don't think it was going to be an inferior system. In fact, it probably would have been the most powerful at the very least when it comes to CPU power anyway.Being cartridge based in the 5th gen was a bad idea. Its a big reason why the Jaguar failed and also caused the N64 to end up nowhere near as successful as it might otherwise have been. But being cartridge based was the norm in the 4th gen. Maybe they'd have later come out with a CD add-on for the thing like that actually did do with the Jag, but who knows.
>>12716863>the reportedly 6MB cart size limitI think that's just the limit of technology back in 1991. SNES and Genesis cartridges had the same problem, especially in the early years. Cartridges did get bigger over time as technology progressed, however. By the end of the N64's lifespan they had gotten up to 64MB. Still not great, but a whole lot better than what carts were a decade before that. And nowadays the Switch uses cartridges which are on par with Blu-Ray discs in terms of capacity.
>>12716513Sure looks like mastur system 2 now and comes with TEH gaem build in Tempest again and doom cans finally count to 2
>>12716863>SNES got a Doom port using the FX chip and it was insanely dumbed down. Even the Jaguar version was hand crafted by Carmack himself and had level geometry greatly simplified, and it BARELY ran. No way a Panther could have ran that with a 16MHz 68k and a sprite scaler chip only. They would've needed extra hardware on the cart.The 32X also got a DOOM port. I never had a 32X so I never played it, but I heard it was rushed and had a lot of problem. It could have been done much better, though. And as proof of this, apparently fans have hacked the ROM and fixed a lot of the issues and it does run much better now. So a great or at least decent port of DOOM actually was possible on the 32X. Not sure about other platforms back then though.
>>12717071>one, you know this how? is there a full hardware manual?In fact we do. Maybe not 100% complete but sort of. https://ctrl-alt-rees.com/atari-panther-cancelled-prototype-console-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-knowhttps://valentinomiazzo.github.io/Atari-Panther-Part-2/>two, cartridge rom cost a huge premium, every game stored compressed data on the carts to keep sizes down and decompressed to system RAM. The GPU has built in hardware run length decoding. Takes zero CPU time unlike Genesis' Nemesis. Also constructing graphics from 1 pixel height lines makes reusing assets a lot easier than from tiles. >it worked for the neogeo because it had the GPU directly linked to the cart bus, and it had multiple buses working in parallel, and it also had carts costing more than entire consoles.Neo Geo had really high definition graphics. Not even Sega Saturn games had graphics that huge.
>>12716674Bernie was at Sony working as an EVP launching the PlayStation and was part of its success. He later joined Sega at a time when the PlayStation had already decisively beaten the Saturn and shepherded the company through the launch of the Dreamcast which at the time was the best selling console on video game history. The Saturn wind-down was done in agreement with leadership in Japan and was not something he unilaterally decided on his own. Had he not advocated to wind down the Saturn it is possible that Sega would not have had the capital to move forward with the Dreamcast. No amount of ports of dated shoot em ups and RAM cart games would've made a dent against the PlayStation. It was too far ahead. Look at what happened even when Sega has competitive hardware and solid 3rd party support, consumers still immediately abandoned the platform en masse or just straight up skipped the Dreamcast and waited for the PS2.The irrational Stolar hate online and especially on this stupid basket weaving forum flies in the face of reality and established facts, and indicates widespread mental illness.
>>12717146Tech wise, Panther was definitely *a lot* more powerful than SNES and Genesis. We're talking about indefinite number of sprites with hardware scaling and hardware collisions and zero CPU and GPU cost, and it's not just sprite zooming like in Neo Geo. But it would've been a lot less easy to develop for. Build graphics out of lines instead of boxes. Add too many draw commands in a single scanline and the graphics would artifact. You'd have to precisely count the draw commands not to exceed 64 nanoseconds. Not many devs would want to race the beam in the fucking 90s.It would have been a powerhouse for racing games and 2.5D games like Wolfenstein 3D though. Even a Doom port would technically have been possible (with floor, ceiling, and skybox rendering skipped/simplified).
>>12717198The same retard who: Tried to keep 2D games off the SaturnSandbagged Working Designs (top JRPG translators at the time) because of personal beef and kept JRPGs off the Saturn Tried to block JRPG’s from being published on the fucking PlayStation in the USBurned retail and consumer goodwill with “The Saturn is not our future”Headed the failed Atari Lynx project
>>12717223>2D gameswhich did not sell well in the US>JRPGswhich did not sell well in the USjust because YOU are an autistic geek does not mean every PlayStation owner was. the lion's share of console gamers in the US back then were little kids who wanted 3D platformers, of which the Saturn had precisely zero (0). it was doomed from the moment SoJ decided to make it the 'srcade port machine'.
>>12717223>Tried to keep 2D games off the SaturnGonna need a source for this. You might be confusing this with PlayStation but even there they made exceptions. They were positioning the PlayStation as a 3D console which was the right move from a marketing standpoint. Consumers had moved on. Only nerds like you were stuck in the past.Dodonpachi was not selling consoles>Sandbagged Working Designs (top JRPG translators at the time) because of personal beef and kept JRPGs off the SaturnVic Ireland is infamously an asshole and notoriously hard to deal with. Their software was niche and not moving hardware. He wasn't worth the hassle.>Tried to block JRPG’s from being published on the fucking PlayStation in the USIt's almost like there was no market for JRPGs until FF7 became a runaway success.>Burned retail and consumer goodwill with “The Saturn is not our future”Instead of being dishonest and pretending that everything was fine even when Sega has globally decided to wind down the Saturn? There's no winning with people like you, every decision is the wrong one.>Headed the failed Atari Lynx projectIs this supposed to be some kind of gotcha? The Lynx was a decent product made by an under resourced company that couldn't compete with Nintendo. Even the most successful non-Nintendo handheld was thoroughly defeated. I'm not sure what your point is here. Even Nintendo has flops.>mental Illness
>>12717152>I think that's just the limit of technology back in 1991.No, it's a hard limit based on how many pins the cartridge has. More pins means more expensive PCBs, so there's a limit.Megadrive had a hard limit of 4MB/32megabit, beyond that it needed bankswitching hardware, which can push the cart size higher but you now have logistical limitations because only parts of your game can be accessed on a single scene, depending on which bank you are using. And you need the bank switching hardware on top of more ROMs, so even more expensive.
>>12717164>The 32X also got a DOOM port.running on 32bit twin 23MHz RISC chips, coded by Carmack, using the simplified Jaguar maps, and having a ton of perf issues to the point of running windowed.Again you are not running Doom on a sprite scaler using a 16MHz 68000. Even the Amiga, with the hard core AGA video system, needs a 68060 (the one with a built in FPU) to run Doom at 30fps.>And as proof of this, apparently fans have hacked the ROM and fixed a lot of the issuesYeah, 25 years after it released, with that many years worth of additional knowhow behind the hardware and the Doom engine.
>>12717689nta, but in Carmack own words:>The amiga is not powerfull enough to run DOOM. It takes the full>speed of a 68040 to play the game properly even if you have a chunky>pixel mode in hardware. Having to convert to bit planes would kill>it even on the fastest amiga hardware, not to mention the effect it>would have on the majority of the amiga base.The bitplane video modes were a significant obstacle for running Doom on the amiga, so it's not a simple matter of comparing CPU speeds.
>>12717706>>12717710I said 68060 not 68040.
>>12717689Nowadays we have Doom running on X68000 16MHz, Neo Geo, and even fucking 8088 (although extremely slowly)https://youtu.be/-WfhL69nBL4?si=9p-_yq-iEO2cFST0If X68000 could run it that good, then Atari Panther could've run it much better. It has the same CPU with the same speed, but doesn't need even use the CPU to do the rendering. The object processor will do the job, it has really fast hardware sprite scaling.Carmack isn't god. There are way better programmer than he ever was. His 32X and Jaguar ports were rushed hack jobs.
>>12717360Sorry you stupid fucking bitch, but JRPG’s are on the PSX top sales list in the US, like it or not, and being a disingenuous malding faggot won’t redeem Sir Bernie who rightfully got sacked from Sony for sandbagging their company.>>12717646Don’t double reply to my comments retard. Say it the first time if you want a response.Bernie Stollar got fired from THREE gaming companies because he fucking sucks. I’m almost convinced he was a plant from Nintendo sent to sabotage their rivals.
I can’t even imagine jerking off to the specs of a console that only ever existed on paper. At least the Konix Multisystem got far enough in development to be publicly announced and for a few prototype games to resurface.
>>12718046A console that would have failed either way because of Tramiel ran Atari
>>127166364th gen doom ports are absolute gimmicks, but there's a Wolfenstein port for the Sega Genesis that is basically 1to1 with the PC version and runs smooth of butter. Honestly, it's absolutely benchmark-level has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed lightning fast by the standards 16bit FPS.
>>12718046Multisystem was ass. The blitter is powerful but the CPU is weak, and the memory bus contention was proven to be horrifying. Panther would've been a ton better.
>>12718086Listened to an interview, they were considering the 68000 but went with the 8086 to save money. To goal was to make graphics as good as the Amiga but with far less chips since the Amiga blitter is pretty slow. The mutant Camels demo for the prototype looks impressive for the time.>>1271683091 competing with 2 of the most well designed and efficient systems the Snes and Genesis. Wait to 95 then competing with one of the most ahead of the curve systems. It might have been the 2 worst times to release a new system.>>12716513I think the issue is that people held onto 8 bit systems for a long time. Sega had to support the system until big hits like Strider, I don't think Atari was capable of that so they were at risk of getting the system dumb if it had a bad Christmas.>>1271788632X was rushed but Jag he spent ages on.
>>12718169>The mutant Camels demo for the prototype looks impressive for the time.It was fine for 2D games, but for 3D games David Braben complained about the lack of CPU grunt and fast memory.
>>12718169He only spent a few months on Jaguar Doom despite the hardware needing a lot of research to understand. He also ignored hardware features like hardware goraud shading and object processor (which is a lot like Atari Panther's GPU, albeit not as powerful). Rendering the gun, enemies, items, and HUD with the object processor would've been a ton faster than doing it with the blitter, since there's no need to write to RAM, but he didn't do any of that. Also modern devs have done what Carmack thought was impossible, which is getting Doom running on weak 16-bit CPUs like M68K. Jaguar Doom could've been a ton better.
Did Atari have many developers on board who wanted to develop for their shity hardware?
>>12717164Right, but I doubt that developers back then would have had the chance to spend as much time on it as the home-brew enthusiasts. It would have never been able to reach the level of polish the "Fusion project" has.
