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Shamus

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Posts posted by Shamus

  1. Posted

    Yeah, I understand how RA works. The cores are all based on existing emulators. I was hoping there were some advancements made as well in the process of bringing the core into the RA umbrella.

    Nope. As far as I can see, they are a bunch of leeches who take and contribute nothing back (as they can't, since they aren't interested in improving other's work and are only interested in building up their little RA kingdom). And yes, I have had words with some of the lead developers; they are not nice people.

    • Like 2

  3. Posted · Edited by Shamus

    Retroarch basically takes Virtual Jaguar as-is from my repo, so there's nothing new there (N.B.: any VJ archives on Github are not mine, and not affiliated with me in any way--I do not do Github for projects I control). I would not expect any improvements to come those guys.

     

    And I find it so funny that this guy is slagging off VJ when that's what's at the heart of Retroarch. Cluelessness abounds. :D

    • Like 3

  6. Posted

     

     

    If that's his IP address you probably shouldn't post that publicly. I think that's illegal.

    Certainly not illegal. He edited entries on Wikipedia, and part of the price of admission is having your IP publicly logged as a result. If wanted that kept a secret, he should have stayed away.

    • Like 4

  14. Posted

    Shamus, thanks for chiming in. I think it will be a fun project & useful for others. Three questions for you:

     

    1. If looking for an older version for testing that didn't regress due to added features, what revision should I be hunting.

     

    I belive Cybermorph, Doom, Flip Out!, Wolf 3D were all working at some point in the past. Looks like maybe I'll lose joypad and full screen support going that far back.

     

     

    2. If I burn a Jaguar CD game using the proper encryption methods, should it work in VJ?

     

    3. Can you confirm a CD game that works?

     

    I'd be interested in both testing a burned & real copy.

     

    For 1), I couldn't tell you as I didn't really keep track of compatibility other than a handful of titles (that what the testers were supposed to be doing). However, there are builds of VJ going back to 2012 on http://outrage.the-crow.co.uk/builds/for someone motivated enough to figure out where the regressions happened. It would be nice to know, because then I can see exactly where in the code the change that broke something happened. ;) Newer builds can be found at http://virtualjaguar.kicks-ass.net/builds/ [text added to prevent editor from screwing up the link.]

     

    For 2), the answer is absolutely yes. If it works on a real Jaguar, it should work on VJ once the CD emulation is working as it should. Which brings me to 3): there are currently no CD games that work, as there are a few thorny problems that need to be sorted out first.

     

    And since you mentioned Tempest 2000, have you tried it with the 'fast' blitter option? That should speed things up considerably. :D N.B.: The 'fast' blitter is less accurate; YMMV.

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    I've been a programmer for a couple of decades, never developed anything for the Jaguar or games for that matter, but I think the big part of his effort is to actually make use of the GPU and DSP chips... (Tom & Jerry). I don't say this with any authority, Albert & CryanoJ... please correct me... but if I'm not mistaken, a LOT of Jaguar games (both homebrew and originals, make use of the Motorola 68000 chip to pretty much do everything. I think what Vlad wants to do, is not do everything with the 68000 chip like most of the Jaguar games do, and instead really try to take advantage of Tom to do most of the heavy graphics processing.

     

    Based on what I remember reading on here, is that most developers never really bothered to spend any time using those extra processors because it was too much effort. Instead, it was much easier to just port an existing game from the ST or whatever... onto the Jaguar. Now, when I look at a lot of the more in-depth games... like Rebooteroids, Tempest 2000, Missile Command 3D, and Downfall+, I have to assume they are using the 3D processor.

     

    The GPU and DSP are great little beasties that are hampered by a ridiculously small amount of local RAM (4K and 8K respectively). Now if you can make your GPU and DSP programs do their own thing in their local RAMs and not hit the memory bus, you are golden. But in real games, the likelihood of that happening is pretty close to zero (the FACTS demo is the only piece of Jaguar software that I know of that does this, at least with the DSP). The overall system is hampered by its memory bus and having no mechanism to have the various processors be able to access the main RAM at the same time.

     

    You cannot underestimate memory bus contention; it will kill the performance of your game. The thing is you have to remember that there aren't just three processors vying for the bus, there's actually the OP and the blitter too, making for five! Every time one of those makes an access to the main RAM, it holds the others up. Emulating this is very difficult--one of the biggest shortcomings of Virtual Jaguar (and there are many) is that it doesn't model bus contention at all.

     

    And just to be clear: there is no 3D processor in the Jaguar--not a one. :)

    • Like 8

  24. Posted

    I suppose since the rendering backend is OpenGL now, there's no reason for it not to scale to random window sizes—though it would still preserve the 4:3 aspect ratio. I'll probably still keep the x1/x2/x3 buttons as 'shortcuts' to get the screen to a 'standard' size though.

    • Like 1

  25. Posted

    Not sure what you mean by 'fit the screen', every game did its own thing with regards to screen size and borders and there is no standard. If you're talking about the black borders on the sides (that's most evident with wide monitors), those are there because otherwise, the aspect ratio would be wrong. I know some people like this kind of display (strange, strange people), but it's *wrong* and it doesn't look good. Televisions of the Jaguar era were 4:3 (at least NTSC televisions were, PAL was slightly more square), and that just looks bad stretched out to 16:9 (or wider).

    • Like 1
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