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[Redneckerz]

Introduction:

Mekton was a unusual piece of software: It was part of SGI's line of prototype games to test out the rendering capabilities of the various SGI rendering systems.

SGI produced graphics units that outranked anything else even remotely avalable, sans perhaps Sega Model 3.

Back to Mekton. Unlike most demo's, this actually was more of a game. You pilot a Mech not too far removed from SHOGO: Mobile Armor Division (A 1998 game) through huge open 3D spaces. Being a multiplayer title, Mekton was played after hours by the SGI Team.

Visually, Mekton was creme of the crop, boasting an OpenGL 1.0 rendered game world years before PC catched up.

Details:

• Fully 3D rendered world boasting visuals years ahead in 3D rendering. Think Quake 3 without colored lighting effects. Besides a Indigo 2 can run Quake 3 too.
• Requires a Indigo 2 with HIGH IMPACT graphics at minimum (These were IMPACT cards with hugely expensive TRAM texture modules. The top end was a Maximum IMPACT, this had a whopping 4 MB texture ram.

Additional details:

So how did this came to be? Well, Mekton was produced by Coryphaeus Software, founded in 1989 by ex-NASA space engineers. They produced a range of software for IRIX, including Activation. Activation was perhaps the first fully 3D rendering environment oriented at gamers, born out of their visual simulator software. It included the Activation Engine, a real time modeler, and also a real time player, meaning you could edit the game world in real time and play it, a WYSIWYG environment years ahead. It looked not too dissimilar to the Unreal Editor.

How to play this?

Well, its on various IRIX CD's, but its not emulated at all. You will need an Indigo 2 with HIGH IMPACT Graphics for texturing.

Video:



Screenshots:
Mekton:

Activation:

By comparison, here is Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, a 1998 game:

Links:

• The archived Coryphaeus Software site
• Activation main page
• The Mekton MAN page

 

[Notabueno]

This is interesting? Is there a way to emulate that?

 

[jaysius]

Shogo was such a great game, I can't believe they didn't continue that franchise.

 

[Redneckerz]

This is interesting? Is there a way to emulate that?

Sadly, no :/ Not the textured version atleast. MAME can emulate up to a SGI Indy, so maybe it can run the game in textureless mode, but that just looks not great.

With textures though, it looks awfully similar to the aforementioned Shogo, except done in 1995.

Activation is really the killer thing driving it though - Full 3D editor, based on their aeroscape simulation software, and playable in real time. That's some design paradigms you wouldn't see for years on end.

Being so SGI-exclusive is also why there is practically no footage available - But out of all SGI demo's, this is definitely on of the most game like things, and it fascinates me that back in 1995, some folks with really big pockets were playing the kind of games we wouldn't play for years down the line.

 

[Trimesh]

I remember it ran pretty well on an Octane2 with the VPro graphics

Edit:

If anyone has a compatible machine and wants to try it out, it's on this disk:

https://jrra.zone/sgi/cds/Silicon%20Graphics%20General%20and%20Platform%20Demos%206.5.12%20%281%20of%202%29.iso

 

[Cattlyst]

Very interesting stuff. Always been intrigued by the Indigo systems, didn't even know they had games. Paging VGEsoterica who may also be interested in this. Thanks OP

 

[Futaleufu]

This looks like one of those fake videogames you'd see on movies or tv shows.

The designers must have been huge fans of Votoms and Layzner.

 

[Drew1440]

I wonder if this has any relation to the Ultra64 (N64) that was in development at the time?
SGI had such interesting workstations, always wanted to use IRIX.