Starcat

Hi! I didn't refer to you directly. Sorry if it sounded like an attack to you. I was merely upset about the attitude of some people regarding jagware and other developers topics like this seem to demonstrate. I'm also sick of the the whole situation developers are put into and talking about it. Again, I wasn't refering to you. Sorry if you felt offended. This thread just reminded me of many aspects of the Jag scene that frustrated developers of the past enough to leave the scene. I just wished there was a way flame wars could be prevented in the future and it wouldn't happen again, that the jag scene looses more promising projects that way. That's all. Regards, Lars.

Hi Paolo! I really missed talking to you pal. Thanks you for your support and it's great to hear that you are still looking forward to Eerievale. I can tell you, you won't be dissapointed. By the way, check out the Eerievale Website. I recently put a new design online and more news will follow soon. To contribute to the discussion, my personal impression was the same. JagCF was from the beginning treated with the attitude you mentioned, at least that was my impression back then. Personally I felt like JagCF was a dream coming true for me. It is what I always hoped for on the Jag and while others may see it differently, I think it's sad that they can not be of a different opinion and show respect for the effort at the same time. I mean, if a new game is released and it's not your favorite genre, you would still say "good work", wouldn't you? Simply because it's a new addition to the Jag library other people might enjoy. I kind of missed that when JagCF was announced and it seems also the new french games that are in development didn't get as much attention as they deserved. In the end, I want to second Paolos statement, that it should be possible to state opinions in a more friendly manner. Regards, Lars.

Hi Gorf! You still satisfy the customer. It does not matter if they worked in YOUR drive. They need to work in the customer's drive. I for one wont buy from you based on this alone. Thank goodness no one found a bad Gorf Disc. IF they had it would have been replaced. Of course they have to run on the customers drives. But I can't make sure they are in working shape. At the same time it is simply not true that the discs themselves are faulty as well as the software. It just isn't. Claiming it was is a lie. However people act as if it was a fact and that just isn't true. Of course I want people to enjoy the games and people who know me, know very well that I am a person who does everything to help people. And it's a fact that I helped all people who contacted me about problems. I just hate to be blamed for selling discs that do not work, because it's not true. At the same time I hate to be blamed of not helping them, because I always did and always do, if they merely contact me about it. Is it too much to ask that people who have problems contact me about it instead of flaming about my work somewhere, where I might not even notice it and where I am not able to help? Regards, Lars.

First of all the CDs can NOT be faulty as I tested them all in all imaginable ways. They all ran fine on my drives. Second a lot of people never had any problems even if the original run. Third, it's a fact that JagCDs are picky, that's something Jag fans and developers have been worriying about for years. Sadly nobody opens their mouth in discussions like this. What do you think why Matthias had a problem with that for years until he finally released his Double Feature? It's also a problem I have seen with all CDs, even official games. But again nobody says a word. Have you ever played the game yourself? Did you experience problems? Why is it that only very few people ever reported problems to me? All of them got their problems fixed very fast and are happy the way it works now. Mostly it was due to their drives actually. You know, I am always doing my best to make people happy, but if they don't want a solution, and just want to flame me, there is nothing I can do. Think about it for a minute, if a disc was faulty, you couldn't even back it up to a PC, which most people did. If it was faulty the encryption would fail. But a replacement drive or different media always fixed the problems. And in fact I did send replacement discs for free to those who contacted me by e-mail couldn't get their problems fixed in a different way. I even gave them back the money difference between limited and standard edition. What more can I do? If people complain on a board I don't read, I can not react to that. They all know my site and how to contact me if they want a solution for their problems. I also offered to allow everybody who still has problems to download the cd image and burn a disc themselves if they wanted to try that. I can not make a difference, if people don't want it to be different. They seem to enjoy the flaming too much. I am sick of protecting myself. I am not the only developer who is sick of this, actually most developers are constantly attacked for their efforts. Why is this? So many people left the scene and so many great games never got finished. What is the point of that? You can not imagine how frustrating that is. I always did my best and people who know me, know that too. The point is, people who never had contact with me personally or didn't even play a game I made attack me for reasons they just heard in flame wars. They don't even care if it's true. One thing I will never understand is, why people can not state their opinion without attacking something. Your statement about JagCF is entirely badmouthing the whole achiement they made as well as their group. You could just as well say, that you don't see the use of it and that you think their choice of a name is not the best. Same statement, but friendly and you saved a lot of time and bandwidth. That's how to optimise. And now let's get back to topic and I hope the flaming in this thread stops. Regards, Lars.

First of all the CDs can NOT be faulty as I tested them all in all imaginable ways. They all ran fine on my drives. Second a lot of people never had any problems even if the original run. Third, it's a fact that JagCDs are picky, that's something Jag fans and developers have been worriying about for years. Sadly nobody opens their mouth in discussions like this. What do you think why Matthias had a problem with that for years until he finally released his Double Feature? It's also a problem I have seen with all CDs, even official games. But again nobody says a word. Have you ever played the game yourself? Did you experience problems? Why is it that only very few people ever reported problems to me? All of them got their problems fixed very fast and are happy the way it works now. Mostly it was due to their drives actually. You know, I am always doing my best to make people happy, but if they don't want a solution, and just want to flame me, there is nothing I can do. Think about it for a minute, if a disc was faulty, you couldn't even back it up to a PC, which most people did. If it was faulty the encryption would fail. But a replacement drive or different media always fixed the problems. And in fact I did send replacement discs for free to those who contacted me by e-mail couldn't get their problems fixed in a different way. I even gave them back the money difference between limited and standard edition. What more can I do? If people complain on a board I don't read, I can not react to that. They all know my site and how to contact me if they want a solution for their problems. I also offered to allow everybody who still has problems to download the cd image and burn a disc themselves if they wanted to try that. Afterall you don't go complain to sony about the ring of death on your xbox 360. I can not make a difference, if people don't want it to be different. They seem to enjoy the flaming too much. I am sick of protecting myself. I am not the only developer who is sick of this, actually most developers are constantly attacked for their efforts. Why is this? So many people left the scene and so many great games never got finished. What is the point of that? You can not imagine how frustrating that is. I always did my best and people who know me, know that too. The point is, people who never had contact with me personally or didn't even play a game I made attack me for reasons they just heard in flame wars. They don't even care if it's true. One thing I will never understand is, why people can not state their opinion without attacking something. Your statement about JagCF is entirely badmouthing the whole achiement they made as well as their group. You could just as well say, that you don't see the use of it and that you think their choice of a name is not the best. Same statement, but friendly and you saved a lot of time and bandwidth. That's how to optimise. And now let's get back to topic and I hope the flaming in this thread stops. Regards, Lars.

That's exactly what I think too. If somebody doesn't see a use for the features or doesn't want to use them, that's fine and other who want to use them can do it if they like. I don't know how much JagCF will cost, but I don't think it will be higher than JagCD units and it will surely be a lot more reliable. So JagCF would not drive costs up for owners of a regular Jaguar. It would actually even safe users money and trouble, if they buy JagCF and a CF game instead of the same game (if it was availabe) for CD. Just my opinion. Personally I can't wait to check out JagCF. Keep up the good work folks. Regards, Lars.

Why ? Haven't we already a lot of support ? Some developers have already the instruction set of the DSP, but to make simpler the communications, modifications, choise, optimisations of the instruction set, this is limited to a few people because it is not 100% complete and I make a lot of improvement each time I work on it, so too much versions of documentations are existing. see below (about the 32X) 8megs are not for the DSP only but it's mapped to the Jaguar Cartridge. 96MHz it's because it's a perfect solution to have the highest efficiency for the shared of the SDRAM between jaguar access, all JagCF DMAs and the JagCF DSP. All of this without slow down the Jaguar access to the SDRAM. To simplify me the development, everything into the JagCF work at this speed that's all. What's about the falcon CT60 ? For me and for many others, it's always a falcon because it use the falcon architecture. But for me the falcon with a video card onto a CTPCI is not a falcon. It's just a point of view, a limit between when it considered to an other system. The JagCF is exactly the same thing : more RAM, another CPU but require Jaguar chips to complete the sound processing, the video processing, the PAD control, etc.... The JagCF DSP can not be a master onto the Jaguar Bus because of the jaguar cartridge limitation. His main purpose is to give the possibility to have access to MP3, MPEG or/and other things to permit to developers to have access to the full power of the jaguar with a compensation of original design faults. Why is the interest to make that ? It's not because a processor run at 1GHz that you can not run 16MHz application on it. We have already our logo. Wich name ? Wich logo ? If you speak about Jag-Ware vs Jagware : 1) It's a mere chance that it's the "same" name, we search after a name "xxxware" from the idea of "software" and "hardware" and we choose "jagware" to have a reference to the Jaguar of Atari 2) It's not the same name : Jag-Ware vs Jagware 3) We have a logo that breathe-in from the Jaguar original logo : OK, and it's not the same that the Jag-Ware logo. All of this is to keep in mind the "Jaguar" and have a direct reference to the game system, like everyone make the same thing with it's favorite mark or favorite game like we can find : T2KFreeker (I presume from Tempest 2000), Atariman, GT turbo, and many many others. Why could we not make that also for our development team ? Hi folks! This discussion makes me sad. I haven't had much time to read the forums and not much interest either, because whenever I read a post, it's something like this. Please, can somebody explain to me, why on earth do I always have to see this anti developer attitude in the Jag scene? Why are so many people contanstly badmouthing, flaming and attacking developers who spend years of their valuable freetime, a lot of money and a lot of power into developing amazing new products for the Jaguar? You all should be so grateful that there are even people remaining that support the Jaguar. What do we developers get as thank? flame wars. I thank god that our fellow frech developers are there, and that they do what they consider to be best, no matter if others badmouth their work. It's so incredibly frustrating to see the same fights against developers all over again and again. I don't want to step on anybodys toes, but I just can't understand why this is happening in the scene for so many years and why nobody stops that madness and nobody ever seems to learn. Nobody forces anybody to buy a product they don't like, but please don't ruin it for the rest by attacking developers. It happened too often in the past. So many developers left the scene out of frustration over the years, so many great games never saw the light of day, because of stupid fights like this. The whole purpose of an addon is to make a system more powerful in a way. And JagCF is the most amazing thing I have ever seen on the Jaguar, it makes the Jaguar more the system should have been from the start. I as developer can't wait to get my hands on JagCF and see in it action myself. Why should any user be upset about more power, if it doesn't cost them more money? The more power the Jag has, the better new 3d games will look. So many jag fans wanted to get games like quake for years, now the Jag may finally be a step closer to it. Just to name one example. No reason to attack a developer or badmouth their efforts for that. If you as player want to play games that make use of the original chipset only, then just don't buy games that use the DSP if that's what makes you happy. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! There now is a solution to Starcat Developments CD problems some of you may have had in the past. All who ordered games from me can get a cd image and burn the game onto a disc their drive likes better than the original disc. Everybody who has a working drive can be sure he can play the games. So now people can order without having to worry about it. Starcat Developments SOLVED the CD problems of the past. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! Personally I think it's most interesting to the masses to get new demos / games. Of course if there isn't enough time, a good game, might just be a demo and development might continue if there is enough interest later on. I would definately make source release optional. If I have enough time I would like to contribute as well, but I would only do that if source code release is optional. And I can't tell yet how far I may get as life and other projects are very stressful currently, so I might end up with a demo. You may also want to put a website online with all details and promote that sites here on Atariage and the other forums, so even people outside of the common community hear about it. Regards, Lars.

It is required in order to use an Alpine The '94 was simply improved.. it is my understanding that the '93 version for example does not allow the use of Flash Cart. Thank you very much. No Problem. Hope i was helpful. Just one more question: how compatible is the stubulator to the original BIOS? Is it woth to keep the original, or all the games run with the stubulator? What about the future hardware for ex. JagCF? Some games don't work on stubulated jags.. or at least not on mine (i'm thinking of Protector here but i remember having difficulty on others too.. just not specifically which).. i would suggest therefore that it would be wise to have an unstubulated jag too... or to have a switchable bios in it. Really? I never tried protector on my stub jag, as I don't own it, but I always thought all games worked on it. Maybe I should test this on the next ejagfest if I don't forget it. :-) Regarding the oct 93 stub rom, the cd unit is also not supported yet. That was the main reason why I immediately got myself a nov 94 stub rom. :-) Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! You are welcome. I hope it will prove useful to you. Spread the word. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! I just dropped by to say, that the official Atari Jaguar Development Manual is available as exclusive download on my portfolio site again. Enjoy. May it be useful to new Jaguar developers. Long life the Jaguar! Lars Hannig Portfolio Site Regards, Lars.

Hi! You probably mean tempest 2000? The Jaguar doesn't have tempest 3000 About what you said regarding Missile Command 3D, I can just not understand it. I like the Virtual mode best of the game and graphics wise the game is amazing for a Jaguar game. It also has some of the best 3d models including texturemapping the Jaguar has seen to date. I really can't understand your statement. Is it possible that you haven't seen much of the Jaguar's 3D games yet? Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! After I added a JagWorm download to my portfolio site a bit over a week ago, here is the next download of many to follow. This time it's my Euro JagFest 2000 demo. Enjoy and keep an eye on the site for additional downloads in the future. Lars Hannig Portfolio Site Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! It took a while but I finally found some time for another site update. Now the videos are displayed when you click on the thumbnails in the portfolio section. You can also see larger versions of all graphics when clicking on the thumbnails. That's not everything yet, though. I added the first of many downloads to follow to the new download section. It's JagWorm WIP for our beloved Jaguar. You need a BJL or some other dev kit to run it. Run and start address is: $4000 Lars Hannig's Portfolio Site Enjoy! Btw, be sure to come back to the site regularly to check out new downloads as they come along. Regards, Lars.

Hi! Exactly what I think. It's up to the developer if he wants to use the DSP. I think it's just a matter of what the goal for your project is. If you want a proof of concept for tech demo to prove what the original Jaguar can do or if you do a game that runs fine on the Jag, then you don't need to use the additional DSP. Those who create a game based on ideas that the Jaguar itself can not handle, will be glad to use the DSP. It's really just a question of design/code philosophy. If you want to push a system to its limits with your code then you can do that with both the DSP and the standard Jaguar. Which one you choose is up to you. If you want to make a game that pushes the system to its limits because your goal is the best possible game experience you will be glad about the additional features of JagCF. Personally I totally hate ruining a good game idea by cutting away content I consider important as designer, due to technical limitations. (due to memory for example) I know at least one developer working on a 3D game who might be glad to use the DSP, as it might allow amazing game detail the Jaguar itself would never be capable of and thus creating a much greater game experience than possible on a stock Jaguar. And as the Jaguar is a game console, I am sure most fans care about games most and will therefore be glad about better game experiences. That's what the Jaguar CF cart can do. It provides everything I personally ever dreamed of on the Jaguar. At least judging from what was said on Jagware so far. Of course I still have to get my hands on the cart to try it myself But I am more than confident that our french friends know what they are doing. Regards, Lars.

Hi! If you like classic graphic adventure games (like the Sierra or Lucas Arts games) you will love Eerievale. Myst may be called adventure game, but personally I wouldn't really compare it with real graphic adventure games, simply because Myst is lacking in about every important aspect of graphic adventure games. And no, I don't like Myst either That will be an impossibility sadly. I don't create cart based games, due to the high prices for parts and equipment and due to the limited capacity. But even if I did and if I had the equipment, Eerievale would never ever fit onto a cartridge, unless you reach capacities similar to compact flash in a way. An early PC Version of last year took over 400 MB, where you could walk a lot of ingame environments already. Uncompressed data though. Compressed it might be less. But I am sure the final game will be too large for a cartridge no matter how much I cut out of the game or how well I compress it. Exactly. The focus for the Jag version is Compact Flash, due to the obvious reasons such as high capacity, low loading times, additional memory, streaming of data and of course much better compatibiity than CD. The PS/2 ports of the compact flash cart are a very big plus as well, as they allow proper mouse support, which is very important for adventure games. Regards, Lars.

Hi! If you like classic graphic adventure games (like the Sierra or Lucas Arts games) you will love Eerievale.

Hi! It's good to see that not all have forgotten about Eerievale While jaguar_fan is right that my new study started a few months ago, he is wrong about his estimation on the Eerievale progress. He claimed I was further away from finishing it than ever. Of course this is not the case. I am working hard on it whenever I can. You need to know, that a few years ago I really put ever free minute into my games. These days I have to study and work at some point, just like anybody else, which means I can not put as much time as I used to into the games, but I put as much time into Eerievale as I can. I am still as enthusiastic as ever about it and the game is still progressing well. (Which means it certainly gets more complete and not that it is futher from being finished than ever.) Actually my study even drives the development further, as it helps me to learn important elements to improve the game as it was before. Anyway, I'm glad you are still looking forward to the game and I can say it will be worth the waiting for every fan of adventure games. I'm still working hard on it and you can be sure that it will get finished. It's just a matter of time. Afterall those who know me better, know that Eerievale is a game I always dreamed to create. It's something I do for myself, that's why I'm so certain that it will get finished. Just a matter of time. But as you know, good things come to those who wait. Regards, Lars.

Hi! The novel is not finished yet, it's just the work in progress version, for those who want to see some sign of life of the project. A translation will be done depending on how much interest there is. But of course I hope there is enough interest. MegaData: The pictures in the portfolio are now clickable and are displayed in fullsize. Enjoy. Regards, Lars.

Hi! Yes, I'm working on that already Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! I know I haven't posted much on the forums lately, but I have been very busy with study and life in the last months. Just wanted to let you know that my sites have undergone a mayor site update. In fact I have created a few new page designs. First of all there still is Starcat's Place of Silence. It's an athmospheric site dedicated to my writings mainly (which are mostly still on German). To mention one improvement: You can now select the language at the top right corner of the site, though. Second is an entirely new site: Lars Hannig Portfolio. It's my personal portfolio, dedicated to all my creative work. One focus is gamedesign and graphics. In the future I will probably also offer downloads of executables. Have fun exploring the site. Third is an entirely new Starcat Development site: Starcat Developments. I'm sure you will be pleased to hear that all my Jaguar games are still available to order and everything has even been reduced in price. Last but not least, there still is the Eerievale website. Eerievale Website. I have been thinking about a new site design for some time, but still don't have a new one. The old one is still up and running in its old glory. One thing you might not have noticed, in the novel section there is a work in progress picture of the novel so far. In case you are interested to see progress in one form or another. The game itself is still progressing, even though study takes most of my time these days. But I'm still enthusiastic about it and working hard on it. Regards, Lars.

Hi folks! Just wanted to show some sign of life :-) Yes, I am still there. I have been very busy with life and study in the last months, but I have been working on Eerievale all the time, even if it had to be at a slower pace for some months. I hope to get a lot further in the development stage this year. And hopefully my sites will be updated again soon, too. Anyway, I think 2007 will be an amazing year for the Jaguar. Long life to our favorite 64-bit kitten. Regards, Lars.

Hi! I still have a demoversion of Arkanna lying around... not much too see as far as I remember. True. It's not much more than a slideshow. I wouldn't call it adventure, as the whole "engine" behind it was nothing but the Atari Jagpeg example cut and pasted with some joypad read code. It could display a single object in 320x240 size(the jagpeg graphic) and read the joypad to display a different picture. So adventure wise, it never got further than the idea that it should be an adventure game one day, but never got past this slideshow style demo. Graphic wise it wasn't spectecular either, he used the duke nukem 3d editor to create the levels and made screenshots of it for the environments. (which is not allowed according to 3d relams, the developers of duke nukem 3d) Just in case anybody cares Regards, Lars.

Hi JagChris! The problem with the limited release of Lost Treasures was due to a bug, which happens on some jaguar units. It's unclear why this happens, as it doesn't seem to be related to region or model. On some it works, on some it hangs. This was fortunately fixed in the standard release. Regarding Ocean Depths, it never had problems like that. The only problem of the past, was based on CDR media itself. And that problem is true for all CDR games. You simply need a well working drive that likes CDR and you're happy. :-) Regards, Lars.