Why the Jaguar version of Doom doesn't have music.

[astrodomekid]

My brother-in-law received an Atari Jaguar for Christmas along with Cybermorph and Zool 2, and he picked up four additional games at a local game shop earlier today, including Doom. I tried the games out while he watched, and we were both sharing our thoughts and having a few laughs. When I got to trying Doom, I couldn’t help but think back to when AVGN reviewed the system way back when, and how he was also baffled by the lack of music in this version. We both pondered how this happened, and while I made my rounds through the first few levels he went to Google to find out.

According to this page on the Doom Fandom Wiki, the reason why this version doesn’t have music outside of the menus is the limitations of the system’s DSP processor. Not only does this chip handle playing music, but it also handles all the 3D data (i.e. collision detection), and doesn’t have enough free resources to fully process both at the same time, at least not in a game as complex as Doom.

And Atari had the balls to tout this console as the more “advanced” system!

[VideoGameCritic]

Wow that is enlightening. I've had my suspicions about this console for decades. Fans have claimed that if only the developers would have tapped into its power it would have rocked. I haven't seen much evidence of that outside of Tempest 4K and Alien vs Predator.

[ASalvaro]

Wow that is enlightening. I've had my suspicions about this console for decades. Fans have claimed that if only the developers would have tapped into its power it would have rocked. I haven't seen much evidence of that outside of Tempest 4K and Alien vs Predator.

lol Atari did absolutely nothing right after the Atari 2600 was released and i say that as a huge fan of the Atari 800 and the 5200

[Verm3]

A better Doom wiki:
https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Atari_Jaguar

The one the Doom community update and use.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

It was a time issue.

Atari and Sega both rushed Id, and paid the price of their short sighted greed. You'd think the industry would learn, but the success of Violet and Indigo prove that sometimes it pays off to flush your reputation down the toilet. (It helps to still have a reputation to flush down the toilet in the first place.)

[DocHix]

One interesting thing about the Jaguar "Doom" port is that it was coded by John Carmack himself. There's also a "glitch" on level 10 that you can use to access a coded but unused area...

https://tcrf.net/Doom_(Jaguar)

[Atariboy]

I've not followed it closely, but I believe modders have made lots of improvements to Jaguar Doom in recent years (just like 32X Doom), including the addition of music. Worth looking into for anyone that owns the newish flashcart for the Jaguar or have downloaded the recently released Jaguar emulator that was coded for Atari 50.

Fans have claimed that if only the developers would have tapped into its power it would have rocked. I haven't seen much evidence of that outside of Tempest 4K and Alien vs Predator.

One thing that I think it could've excelled at was 2D sprite scaling. But besides the visually stunning Super Burnout, I'm not sure we saw anything else that took advantage of the system's capabilities in that area.

Thanks to the rise of 3D polygonal graphics at the time, everyone was turning their back on pseudo 3D graphics utilizing 2D sprite scaling. A real shame since Super Burnout has graphically aged very gracefully and is still nice to look at in 2022, unlike virtually all of the 3D polygonal content.

We had Wolfenstein 3D and Doom of course, but I believe the way that they faked 3D for their environments is technically something different (Although I assume enemies and such rely on sprite scaling).

[jon]

Super Burnout is a fun game. If astrodomekid has played Zool 2 I'd like to see what his impressions are. I think it's one of the finest 2d platformers of all time. I still think the Jag shouldn't be judged harshly considering there wasn't even a 2nd generation of games. The CD especially could've done some special things if given another couple years. The CD basically had launch titles and Atari was forced to called it a day.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

One thing that I think it could've excelled at was 2D sprite scaling. But besides the visually stunning Super Burnout, I'm not sure we saw anything else that took advantage of the system's capabilities in that area.

Blue Lightning. White Men Can't Jump.

Both games were so shallow - and so dark and blurry - that they ultimately damaged the system's reputation more than they helped it.

[jon]

One thing that I think it could've excelled at was 2D sprite scaling. But besides the visually stunning Super Burnout, I'm not sure we saw anything else that took advantage of the system's capabilities in that area.

Blue Lightning. White Men Can't Jump.

Both games were so shallow - and so dark and blurry - that they ultimately damaged the system's reputation more than they helped it.

Those are 3d games though. I've played Super Burnout quite a bit and it rocks, and it's 2d. The problem was that the Jag should've focused on 2d much more and left the 3d to the CD. The Jag was more than capable at 2d, but there was the whole identity crisis of 1994 as far as what to be. Back then it was a race to be good at 3d and they got caught up into it by marketing it as 3d. In retrospect it should've been that 2d powerhouse I always wished there was during this timeframe. Around the years 1992-1994 there should've been a new 2d system that pushed things to the limit or at least one that had a huge focus on advancing 2d as well as 3d. Although I have to be honest, Trevor McFur didn't have music. So it might be possible that some purely 2d games wouldn't have had music, although I think every 2d game besides Trevor McFur has music. It was a launch title I think. Still it's better than the PS1 imo and has been gaining a lot of nostalgic value over the last several years.