libretro/virtualjaguar-libretro

[Bounty] Graphic enhance question and suggestion

WhiteMagicRaven opened this issue · 4 comments

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/308074-does-jaguar-have-3d-geometry-3d-graphic-gpu/

From what i looked on youtube

a video called "All Jaguar Games" by Virtual Gaming Library

i spot many 3d games , which has visually various approaches to 3d graphic.

as Atari Karts it feels like there is 3d gpu or something like that activated for 3d games?

i think Doom and Wolfenstein 3D is done entirely in software mode.

and the games like

Battlesphere, Checkered Flag , Club Drive, Cybermorph, Fight for Life, Hover Strike, Iron Soldier (2), i-war , kasumi ninja (selection hall), SkyHammer, Supercross 3D, Tempest 2000, Towers II, White Man cant jump, Zero 5

So as for dream or not XD, if there is 3D so it possible in future (whenever ) emulation gain upscaling of 3d space like Phoenix emulation Project done it for 3DO games, or bsnes of upscaline mode 7, and Playstation 1 ePSXe with Pete OpenGL plugin, or YabaSanshiro for Sega Saturn, or MGBA for GameBoy Advance.

I think you catch my mind , and what i am thinking of?

Placed 50$ to this issue at bountysource

Just FYI, I doubt this is possible with any reasonable sanity.
Anything is possible in software, given infinite time, money and knowledge, but realistically I don't see this happening.

The Jaguar did not have what you would consider a modern GPU. I don't think it's possible to map any Jaguar 3D calls to something like GL with any reproducible consistency.

As far as I know, all 3D code on the Jaguar would be bespoke using the DSPs and CPUs, so a native solution would probably need to be done on a per ROM level. In other words, not a sane task to take on.

--update
After reading the linked forum thread, with people very knowledgeable on the programming of Jaguar and hardware, also agree this is a fool's errand. Sorry.

I think this sums it up
"Yes, the hardware supports Z buffering and Gouraud shading... as long as you painfully feed it one scanline at a time. Because it can't even draw a single triangle by itself. You don't get any geometry support, either. And HLL is not an option because there is no standard 3D API"

No HLL means a no go.

FYI, a better ask would be for the DSPs Tom and Jerry to be converted to something more parallel, like Vector/SIMD programming APIs. Specifically in the blitter too.

closing since this seems impractical after further research.