Home
  Message Board
  Atari Systems
      Atari 2600
      Atari 5200
      Atari 7800
      Atari Lynx
      Atari Jaguar
      Atari 8-Bit
      Atari-ST
      Arcade
  Game Scores
  Video Reviews
  Bonus Material
  Join TAT!
  Contact

Username:
Password:
 
 

Atari Jaguar 64-bit

 

The Atari Jaguar was the world's first 64-bit game system. It was designed by Martin Brennan and John Mathieson and their company called Flare. Atari released the Jaguar in limited quantities in 1993 with a much wider release in 1994.

The Jaguar includes such technical features as morphing, transparency, lighting and shading, unlimited sprites, 32-bit color, and the ability to render 850 million pixels per second. The Jaguar comes with one 17-button controller, TV hookups, power supply, and the game, Cybermorph.

In comparison to other game systems of the day, the Jaguar falls somewhere between the Super Nintendo and 3DO. However debate continues whether the Jaguar was more or less powerful than the 3DO. In addition, because the Jaguar wasn't designed to push polygons as the PlayStation was, many continue to believe it couldn't keep up, even though the specifications are similar. In fact, John Carmack (author of Doom) claims "If the Jaguar had dumped the 68k and offered a dynamic cache on the risc processors and had a tiny bit of buffering on the blitter, it could have put up a reasonable fight against Sony."

Some of the best Jaguar games include: Tempest 2000, BattleMorph(CD), Iron Soldier, Alien vs. Predator, Rayman, BattleSphere, NBA Jam TE, Doom, and Protector.

The Jaguar was Atari's last home video game system.

Here are some games that don't get much attention. Good, bad, or otherwise.

This was for you Dr. Clu.
Bubsy


VLM

Vid Grid

Double Dragon V

Brutal Sports Football

Cannon Fodder


The Atari Jaguar

Atari Jaguar Specs

Processors:
Tom: Graphics Processor (32-bit RISC @ 26 MHz), Object (64-bit RISC @ 26 Mhz), Blitter (64-bit RISC @ 26 Mhz)
Jerry: Digital Signal Processor (32-bit @ 26 MHz)
Motorola 68000 (16-bit @ 13 MHz)

Sound: 16-bit stereo

Resolution: Variable (Typical was 320x240, but it can go up to 800 pixels per scanline.)

Colors: 16 million

Memory: 2 megabytes (16 megabit), cartridges up to 6 megabytes

Original 1994 price: $249.95

Original 1995 Jaguar CD price: $149

Special Features: Hardware scrolling & rotation, texture mapping, transparency, Gourard shading, morphing, 10,000+ polys per second

Jaguar Reviews

Jaguar Features

Jaguar Previews

Jaguar Guides

Jaguar News

Jaguar Press Releases