Jaguar Emulator

[Atari2008]

Is there a good Jaguar emulator out there? Feeling nostalgic, and I'd like to play some games.

[+Gemintronic]

Nothing as mature or stable as SNES9x. Virtual Jaguar may do something for ya.

[+remowilliams]

Yep VJ is the finest the Jag has seen in emulation to date, give it a try.

[Atari2008]

Thanks guys! I think I'm going to try that when I get home tonight...sounds like a good way to kick up the weekend by reliving my Jag days.

 

I'll let you know what I think of the games.

[Atari2008]

I downloaded Virtual Jaguar - seems pretty cool! However, I've encountered some issues. I can't get any sound just some weird clicking noise sort of. I've enabled audio playback and the dsp, but no actual game sounds or music come out. Also, the frame rate seems to be off as the games move super slow. Please help a newbie out.

[walter_J64bit]

Yup, you'er using it right but if you want something faster with sound try out Project Tempest but it doesn't run the same games that VJ can run.

Edited October 13, 2012 by walter_J64bit

[Atari2008]

Ah, thanks for letting me know. Virtual Jaguar did seem pretty user friendly but I wanted to make sure.

 

Project Tempest seems cool, do you know which games it can play?

[sh3-rg]

What spec is your machine? You don't really need anything too modern to get VJ to perform well these days.

[Shamus]

Also, it helps to use the latest builds which have the DSP running in its own thread (found here). Also, anything that makes heavy use of the blitter (like Tempest 2000) will *not* run very fast, as the blitter's current incarnation in VJ, while fairly accurate, is unoptimized and slow.

[Atari2008]

My laptop is an HP from 2006 running Windows Vista. Could that be the reason I'm having issues? Maybe my laptop is too slow?

 

I thought I had downloaded the latest build of Virtual Jaguar but I will double check. I was trying to play Zool 2 but it was super slow with no sound.

[+Sauron]

My laptop is an HP from 2006 running Windows Vista. Could that be the reason I'm having issues? Maybe my laptop is too slow?

 

I thought I had downloaded the latest build of Virtual Jaguar but I will double check. I was trying to play Zool 2 but it was super slow with no sound.

 

You're using the release version found on the website, which runs slow even on my quad core proc. You'll have much better luck with the latest bleeding edge versions that Shamus linked to.

[Atari2008]

Thanks Shamus! I downloaded the latest build from July 2012 - I noticed an improvement! I can hear the music and sound effects although they're still slow as the games in general. Could it be my comp? Any way around it? Here are the specs

 

Processor: Intel CPU T2080 @ 1.73 GHz, 1733 MHz

RAM 2.0 GB

Windows Vista

 

Let me know if anything else would be useful, and thanks for your help! I feel like I'm getting closer.

[sh3-rg]

The latest windows builds are here - there have been two in the last week. Your processor can handle 2 threads so should play nicer with newer builds that offload the DSP to its own thread, but your machine might not be up to running much at full speed. Recent VJ builds use around 5%-10% of a current PC's resources.

 

Thanks Shamus! I downloaded the latest build from July 2012 - I noticed an improvement! I can hear the music and sound effects although they're still slow as the games in general. Could it be my comp? Any way around it? Here are the specs

 

Processor: Intel CPU T2080 @ 1.73 GHz, 1733 MHz

RAM 2.0 GB

Windows Vista

 

Let me know if anything else would be useful, and thanks for your help! I feel like I'm getting closer.

[Shamus]

In addition to what sh3-rg said, a good, fast OpenGL compliant video card is also a must for getting decent frame rates.

 

At the moment, my development machine has a Core Duo running at 2.2 GHz and an Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M. So with that setup, I get around 30-40% utilization on both cores when playing Rayman. Tempest 2000 always saturates one core (no surprise there, it leans heavily on the blitter).

 

YMMV

[JagChris]

NBA Jam works better on the latest build except for the sound still cuts out. The 3D demos still do nothing.

[Atari2008]

I tried everything and couldn't get Virtual Jaguar to work but I tired Project Tempest and it works! Totally easy instal too. Wow, thanks guys! Now I'm going to play Zool 2. It was one of my favorites and just seeing the welcome screen brought back some fond memories.