cubanismo

No, the way this sort of BigPEmu scripts work is they let you intercept execution of the Jaguar game at specified addresses and run some code on the host system to modify some values in the emulated Jaguar memory, then continue on. Sort of like setting a breakpoint in the debugger, messing with some variables, then continuing. The native rendering stuff is quite a bit beyond that, but same basic idea at the core of bypassing a section of the code with some native code. That said, the script itself is a good pointer at where you'd need to start hacking on the ROM to make your own steering fix patch.

I don't know exactly. My overall conjecture is just a guess based on three things I read in separate articles. I had read that the Jaguar chipset was originally intended to launch at double the clocks it ended up launching at, due to bugs or unoptimized paths that probably could have been resolved with another spin of the chip. This sort of thing was more common back then, I believe because timing analysis tools were less sophisticated than they are now, and if course, the the Jaguar RISC chips were a completely new architecture, so it's not out of the question that there was one or two paths with questionable timing that could have been fixed up with a few more gates or something. I have minimal understanding of that stuff as a SW engineer, but I work at a hardware company and know that sort of thing does happen. Second, I read somewhere or heard in some interview that the Alpine dev solution was a last minute thing Atari/Flare whipped up after a contractor they had outsourced the development tools to failed to deliver. With that in mind, and having seen the process consoles and laptops go through early in the development process first hand, there was likely some earlier prototype-level development hardware Atari and early partners were using long before retail Jaguar cases existed. Usually these take the form of a bare PCB screwed to a plexiglass plate with standoffs these days, but the pictures I've seen of older hardware always seems to be in some huge PC-looking case or metal box for some reason. Again, I have no direct evidence something like this existed for the Jaguar, but there would have been *something* for people to bring up the hardware and earliest software on. Lastly, I know from another interview or article that at least ATD had very early revisions of the hardware. That may have been the same article that commented the clocks were supposed to be higher, I can't remember. I don't know if Rebellion also had hardware that early. If they didn't, the whole theory/hypothesis kind of falls apart. The idea was just something that popped in my head while playing the modded Checkered Flag, and I found it plausible and interesting enough to share. Maybe it went down that way, maybe not. Also, sorry I don't have links to the actual articles above. It'd be better if I did, but digging around my browser history and Google isn't my idea of a fun Christmas vacation 😁

I don't think so because JagDev kit is just a moded Jag the game just wasn't optimized. http://atarijaguar.freeservers.com/develop.htm The alpine was not the original Jaguar development kit. That was the "production" development hardware.

The Alpine toolchain still has features the modern tools don't. I break it out sometimes, but primarily just to research what it can do so I can add similar things to the Skunkboard tools.

For those who haven't heard yet, Rich Whitehouse just posted a patron-only build of BigPEmu that includes a script to add native-resolution uncapped framerate rendering and analog steering to Checkered Flag. The upresed Cybermorph rendering script that was there before was spiffy, but this literally changes Checkered Flag from mostly useless to a really fun game. The improved visuals are nice, but the game changer is the fixed controls. Racing around each track, putting in flawless lap after flawless lap, you can finally see what the developer must of been going for. Makes me wonder if (1) They really did develop it assuming the Jaguar clocks were going to be double what they shipped at as alluded to somewhere, and (2) if they had an analog controller they were testing with when developing it. It would explain so much. This game rocks now. I've been playing for an hour straight. Please support Rich and further BigPEmu enhancements like this one: https://www.patreon.com/richwhitehouse The new features will be public at some point, but this release alone is worth a few Patreon $$$.

Good news, everyone! I've finally gotten off my ass and cleaned up the version of the Nuon SDK I use to do my development, and set it up to support both Linux and Windows environments. If you're familiar with my Jaguar SDK, this is to the Nuon what that is to the Jaguar: A trivial-to-setup packaging of all the existing tools in a github repo you can just checkout and start using with no installers or mucking about in your system paths or anything. The repo, with basic getting started instructions, is available here: https://github.com/cubanismo/nuon-sdk Merry Christmas, Nuon Devs!

That's what I always worry about with these things. I've messaged several sellers on EBay selling fake "rare" stuff and they always swear up and down they're repeating what they were told when they bought it. Not that that justifies leaving bootleg or reproduction goods for sell once you've been notified, but I bet at least half of them are telling the truth. Either way, I like to message them so it's on record they've been notified in case there's a dispute later.

Yeah, this is worth about (current going jag price) + $15 without the Alpine. It's trivial to install the alpine cable and stubulator BIOS (Google 'jaguar stubulator bios 94' for a billion links to the BIOS image, then follow the BJL mod guides to flash & install it except use the stubulator ROM instead of the BJL ROM) on any retail Jaguar (I did this personally on one of mine, because I actually have an Alpine board, and it didn't cost me nearly this much). The Alpine board is the only actual rare part of an actual Jaguar Dev Kit. Do not buy.

I play Lynx a lot less than I do Jaguar and Nuon, but when I do, this is what I play, roughly in order of total playtime: Checkered Flag California Games Blue Lightning Klax Paperboy Alpine Games Desert Strike Rampage Warbirds Chip's Challenge Jimmy Conners Tennis Xybots Robotron 2084 Roadblasters A.P.B. (My favorite lately since the latest Lynx HandyCast Electrocop Ms. Pac-man Gates of Zendocon Zarlor Mercenaries (Awesome game, way too hard for me) I haven't played very many of the homebrew/post-Atari releases yet. Still trying to work through the original library.

Oh god, the cabling!

Yeah, my modern flat screen TV (I'm in the US) does 50hz and 60Hz just fine, including old 50Hz composite coming out of a modded Jaguar. I assume it's easier for them to just design one tuner/ADC/whatever that handles both these days, rather than make different HW for each market.

Just saw this: https://kotaku.com/valve-steam-deck-fumes-vent-smell-good-safe-exhaust-1851094071 Can't help but wonder: Which fumes make users more delusional? Steamdeck's, or Jaguar's? Both 64-bit I believe. Both now famous.

The 68k and Jerry can both be used to read joystick input. The registers themselves are on Jerry, so I guess in a way, Jerry is always the source of the data. I think most the older games use the 68k, and that works fine for most things, but using the DSP helps if you need high sample rates, like for mouse or rotary input, or if you're like me and just write overkill input handling code for a simple menu app.

Well I'm going to leave some Rygar thoughts anyway, just in case: This is a pretty fun game. I like the graphics, and the music is catchy, if a bit repetitive. I think I'm going to have it running through my head for days now. I found the game a bit slow to get going. It didn't really get challenging (for me) until the 4th or 5th level. The game has some nice touches though. The ropes you can climb, sway back and forth on, and still throw your shield are a cool gameplay variation, and very well done. Overall, I had some fun with this one for about an hour, but don't see myself coming back to it soon. There's just not enough substance to really pull me in and make me want to play "just one more time." My top score was 198,000 and change, at level 7.

Are you certain 8 works on the "good" port or other Jaguar you had?

Thanks for the heads up. This did seem right up my alley, but oof, $49 for physical copy + a lot of shipping to the states. Had to give it some thought. Ultimately, I made the purchase, but it was a tough call. 😁

For people who collect games, sealed or not, is it really a better investment than real estate, gold, stocks, etc.? I know you get eye-popping numbers on certain games or maybe Jaguar CD drives, but certain stocks or metals could claim the same. I'm wondering if anyone has done the math for the overall annualized return of something like a full Jaguar set. If course, if it makes you happy, have at it. I just question the opportunity cost of justifying it as an investment.

Well I was going to try to keep it civil, but since we're going there, what I wanted to ask was what the Aussies/Kiwis/French/apparently Germans are doing with their fingers up their behinds in the first place. 😁

Hehe, good to know. Never encountered that one.

Yes, I think you meant "pull the trigger," which is an idiomatic way of saying make the purchase, complete the deal, sign the contract, etc. If an American child of the 80's/90's tells you to pull their finger, don't do it, and maybe go to a different room if possible just to be safe.

Finally finished the APB show. I have this game on my multi-cart but I never thought to try it. How was I supposed to know what APB stood for? I figured it was just some test ROM. After listening to the podcast, I gave it a try, as I have with so many games I ignored before, and it's awesome. This is going in my regular rotation. After a little practice, I got used to gripping my Lynx such that I could lay my thumb out horizontally across both the B and A buttons and get that siren blaring while maintaining full speed. On my 4th try, I even managed to capture the first "grungy gangster," and earned a total of $11,400! The game is pretty hard, but seems fair. I could see going on some epic runs once I got a bit better at driving and memorized more donut/gas station locations. I see I'm already past the deadline for Rygar feedback, and it's about bedtime, so I'm going to avoid throwing that one on at the moment. Regardless, very much looking forward to the next episode!

I don't see any scoring. Will the final version keep track of your score? If so, will the non-patreon version include scoring, or do I have to find three other guys who want it first and pay extra? 😁

I don't know, but odds are someone else could do it much faster than me. I'm not spending a lot of time on Jag coding lately. I encourage people to, e.g., take existing bits of 68k code samples, build them for the GPU, and see if they work. You'll have to use a bit of ASM to set up your object processor GPU interrupt handler instead of using a bit of ASM to set up your vblank interrupt handler on the 68k, but otherwise the code should be similar. Yes, basically, anything with even a miniscule instruction cache would have greatly reduced the bus contention, and having a 32-bit bus (which IIRC, would have given JERRY a 32-bit bus as well), would reduce it again. However, that's not the Jaguar we know and love. Atari gave us the 68k Jag @$250 (great price at the time for a truly nextgen system), and the machine overall is still entirely capable of awesome stuff.

No, no, this is Jaguar. When bad things happen, we should endlessly overanalyze it. When good things happen, we need to endlessly overanalyze those too. For consistency.

I should note that joking aside, I didn't actually work on this because I thought someone would immediately pick it up and start writing awesome GPU code and nextgen games with it. I just think it's cool, and wanted to make it both easier for me to play with, and more accessible to others. One interesting find while debugging the scripts to set up the gcc search paths properly: gcc263 passes an undocumented option to MADMAC: -cgcc. I was curious what that did. My hunch and hope was that it would cause MADMAC to consume gcc-generated "stabs" debug info tags in the assembly output from gcc. One of my goals is to get C source-level debugging of GPU code working on my gdbjag debugger stuff, so you could write and debug C code on the GPU nearly as easily as you can on the m68k. Again, not going to instantly lead to Tomb Raider at 30fps, but... it'd be so cool 😎 Fortunately, my hunch was correct. I built the dhrystone example GPU code with the -g gcc option, and had gcc output the assembly. It included debug info stabs directives. If you pass this into madmac with the documented options (E.g., mac -fb -cgpu -o agpudhry.o agpudhry.s), it just fills the screen with errors. If you use -cgcc (mac -fb -cgcc -o agpudhry.o agpudhry.s), it compiles error free. If you then examine the symbols in agpudhry.o (E.g., size -s -v0 agphdhry.o), you can see it contains a full compliment of line number, scoping, variable name+type, etc. info. Everything gdb needs to step line-by-line through C code. I loaded it up in gdbjag, but it doesn't quite work yet. I haven't taught gdb to evaluate the special GPU/DSP line number symbol types apparently, and it's getting the wrong address for the GPU functions for some reason, preventing me from running "gadvance Proc1" to run until it gets to the Proc1 C function. I'll have to dig out my Alpine soon and try it there, since wdb does supposedly support source-level debugging of GPU code, fix up gdbjag, and ideally add support for the -cgcc switch to rmac when I get some more time. So close...