Atari Jaguar Core

Rocky2040 · Unread post by **Rocky2040** » Mon May 25, 2020 4:17 pm

So I have been messing around with the core at it stands, hopfully it get some more work but it really is off to a good start

ItalianGrandma · Mon May 25, 2020 4:58 pm

Nice to hear! I’m curious to try it when it’s in a more complete state as I’ve never played a Jaguar game. I remember seeing them in KB Toys on sale for $35 as a kid.

Newsdee · Unread post by **Newsdee** » Tue May 26, 2020 6:57 am

Does it run anything playable yet?

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Tue May 26, 2020 7:10 am

Newsdee wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 6:57 am Does it run anything playable yet?

Some 2D games seem to work, there is a video on youtube of Cannonfodder running without hitches. I tried some 3D games and he core was mostly crashing or the games were not working at all. Right now one of the main obstacles seems to be that the DDR3 RAM of the MiSTer is used for the main RAM and the SD RAM is only used for cart loading.

Cybermorph has sound issues, but otherwise works. Tempest 2000 works flawless for about a minute and then crashes, Defender 2000 has graphical corruption, but is otherwise fine.

MrSniffles · Unread post by **MrSniffles** » Tue May 26, 2020 11:11 am

Zool works quite well too. I was able to play that for some time.

Trifle · Unread post by **Trifle** » Tue May 26, 2020 12:00 pm

Yes, T2K is a bit of a tease isn't it! It is my favourite Jag game so would be good to see further progress with compatibility - whenever I hook up my Jag I usually only end up playing that. I never found the original controllers very confortable so its good to have alternatives - Not sure how the numpad support will end up working out tho. Always found that quite bizzare.

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Tue May 26, 2020 12:39 pm

Trifle wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 12:00 pm Yes, T2K is a bit of a tease isn't it! It is my favourite Jag game so would be good to see further progress with compatibility - whenever I hook up my Jag I usually only end up playing that. I never found the original controllers very confortable so its good to have alternatives - Not sure how the numpad support will end up working out tho. Always found that quite bizzare.

I really like the original controller, it was big and very comfortable and with the numpad it had tons of buttons. But I can see, why others found it clunky.
T2K is one of my favourites too and I hope to see it one day running on my MiSTer. Defender 2K is also very good and the very entertaining Defender Plus mode already works!

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Tue May 26, 2020 8:51 pm

Bits n Stuff wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 4:06 pm I'bve spent a bit of time playing one of the beta versions of AvP.

I never got any of the AvPs to work, I saw a video of it, but for me it was always blackscreen, no matter what I tried.

Moondandy · Unread post by **Moondandy** » Wed May 27, 2020 1:55 am

Are you talking about the Electron Ash core?
https://github.com/ElectronAsh/Jaguar_MiSTer_master

I am not sure he is working on it anymore, no updates since November sadly. Have downloaded it so will give it a go. Would love a working Jag core, the consoles are too pricey to really justify buying these days.

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Wed May 27, 2020 6:04 am

Moondandy wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 1:55 am Are you talking about the Electron Ash core?
https://github.com/ElectronAsh/Jaguar_MiSTer_master

I am not sure he is working on it anymore, no updates since November sadly. Have downloaded it so will give it a go. Would love a working Jag core, the consoles are too pricey to really justify buying these days.

The core was moved to a new repo:

https://github.com/ElectronAsh/Jaguar_MiSTer_new

Moondandy · Unread post by **Moondandy** » Wed May 27, 2020 3:43 pm

Ah, thanks! I don't see any Jaguar.rbf file in the new repo...

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Wed May 27, 2020 4:59 pm

Moondandy wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 3:43 pm Ah, thanks! I don't see any Jaguar.rbf file in the new repo...

Below this video the uploader has links to the rbf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCKsYtjAySU

Moondandy · Unread post by **Moondandy** » Wed May 27, 2020 9:45 pm

Thanks for the link! Has Ash said he is going to do more work on the core? Last I saw he was tinkering with 32x stuff.

This thread should probably be moved to consoles other subforum.

Moondandy · Unread post by **Moondandy** » Thu May 28, 2020 3:27 am

Hypothetical, but if this core does get worked on more is it likely it would be able to play Jag CD games? I know the Jaguar flash card will play CD games on an original Jag which makes me think that it would not be much to get Jag CD working as well.

Rocky2040 · Unread post by **Rocky2040** » Sat May 30, 2020 8:06 pm

I really hope this core gets some nice updates and we get Jag Cd support

ragnar · Unread post by **ragnar** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 4:55 pm

Hi there,

anyone ever tried the Jaguar Core (https://github.com/ElectronAsh/Jaguar_MiSTer_new and compiled binaries here https://mega.nz/folder/iHxGjKQJ#E-CSMwj66kbPGltVmLTbiw) ? I know, it is marked as beta but how stable is it so far?

greetings

Sigismond0 · Unread post by **Sigismond0** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 9:20 pm

Games run, and are playable to some extent. Lots of graphical issues, games crash at various points. The beta label is accurate.

Newsdee · Unread post by **Newsdee** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:06 am

I'd say it's more alpha than beta, though

Vic20-Ian · Unread post by **Vic20-Ian** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:39 am

Simpler games like Cannon Fodder work fine. Cybermorph was very playable too.

Tempest 2000 plays briefly - seems to crash on power up collection I think

retrorepair · Unread post by **retrorepair** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:46 am

Vic20-Ian wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 8:39 am Simpler games like Cannon Fodder work fine. Cybermorph was very playable too.

Tempest 2000 plays briefly - seems to crash on power up collection I think

I don't think anything in particular triggers the crash, I think it's just a timing issue.

Moondandy · Unread post by **Moondandy** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:19 am

Please correct me if I am wrong but my basic understanding of the Jaguar is it has powerful chips in it that haven't had cores made, and game developers found them hard to develop for. It also had a less powerful Motorola chip found elsewhere that was easier for Devs to code to, but isn't as beefy. The core contains this more basic chip that a lot of Devs used to make the games, that didn't harness the systems full potential.

retrorepair · Unread post by **retrorepair** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:57 am

Moondandy wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:19 am Please correct me if I am wrong but my basic understanding of the Jaguar is it has powerful chips in it that haven't had cores made, and game developers found them hard to develop for. It also had a less powerful Motorola chip found elsewhere that was easier for Devs to code to, but isn't as beefy. The core contains this more basic chip that a lot of Devs used to make the games, that didn't harness the systems full potential.

Actually, the system wasn't that difficult to code for, developers were lazy so used the 68000 CPU as they were already familiar with it. This is why a lot of current console/computer games were ported to it rather than a lot of new games as it was quick and easy. I suppose it was safer to do this than invest a lot of time and effort in a new platform and Atari were not big contenders in the market at that time.

Back to the core though, I believe a lot of the system is actually there including Tom and Jerry, but the 68000 portion is almost certainly more complete as this already very well supported in other cores.

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 12:57 pm

It was not that developers were too lazy, the hardware had several bugs that made the use of certain components impossible until work arounds were found. This took a while and it meant that many Jaguar games couldn't use the full potential of the console.

The core includes all chips of the Jaguar (not the CD Rom Add On), but is not finished. The main obstacle seems to be that the RAM of the console is currently located in the DDR Ram and SD Ram is only used for cartridge loading. There is another thread on this console (in the wrong location Other Computer cores), maybe it is possible to merge the 2 threads.

retrorepair · Unread post by **retrorepair** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:50 pm

My understanding is the original dev kit they had subcontracted out had bugs, not the hardware and was rectified by Atari over a weekend! There are interviews with various developers that indicate it wasn't all that difficult to develop for but spending the development time on a system with an uncertain future wasn't worth it.

I agree that thread should be merged with this one.

Moondandy · Unread post by **Moondandy** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:03 pm

That is interesting to know, and promising about the core! Is anyone actively working on it though? I thought Ash was off tinkering with other things now.

Are there much extra chips in the Jag CD, or is it more the core needing to read CD images?

retrorepair · Unread post by **retrorepair** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:36 pm

Ash will probably get back to it at some point, failing that it's open source so nothing stopping someone else having a go.

AFAIK the CD add on was nothing more than a drive and a BIOS read by the cart slot but I haven't looked into it so could be completely wrong.

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 4:09 pm

retrorepair wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:50 pm My understanding is the original dev kit they had subcontracted out had bugs, not the hardware and was rectified by Atari over a weekend! There are interviews with various developers that indicate it wasn't all that difficult to develop for but spending the development time on a system with an uncertain future wasn't worth it.

I agree that thread should be merged with this one.

There was nothing like a devkit at all, when the Atari Jaguar was launched. The bugs where in fact hardware bugs, if you want to know more details look at this documentation (starting at page 133):

https://www.hillsoftware.com/files/atar ... jag_v8.pdf

retrorepair · Unread post by **retrorepair** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:22 pm

Guess we are both right:

https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/mirro ... jaguar.htm

Chris23235 · Unread post by **Chris23235** » Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:14 pm

That's an interesting read, thanks for the link.

seastalker · Unread post by **seastalker** » Mon Jun 08, 2020 7:02 pm

retrorepair wrote: ↑Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:36 pm AFAIK the CD add on was nothing more than a drive and a BIOS read by the cart slot but I haven't looked into it so could be completely wrong.

If you are correct, then I greatly hope this will be a case similar to the PC Engine CD 'core' (added function to existing PCE core). I've never seen a Jaguar CD or even a Jag in the wild. There may be only a handful of Jag Cd games, but just like the CD-i, the emulators last I checked were still spotty. I'd be most interested in trying the panned game Highlander (love the film) and the version of Blue Lightning since I loved it on the lynx.

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