syn Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 My old Jag CD players Didn't like being moved. I was better off leaving the mem cart in the slot and lifting the whole unit off the Jag. That got annoying quick. In the past I believe SainT mentioned the cart should handle CD titles so I hope that works out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soob Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Curious. Are you the guy from New Jersey who was selling a ton of Jag games on ebay a week or two ago? Someone seemed to be selling off their entire collection and had nearly every game including a lot of rare/expensive ones. I actually bought 2-3 of them form him to ad to my collection. Negative. I'm in the UK. I just stuck it on as a lot at auction with the view it sells for what it sells for. I'm not one for inflated BiN's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jokinen Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Very excited for this, waiting with bated breath. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Yar Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 (edited) What do you mean on that? How is the NGCD not a proper CD system? The Jag CD has to be the most basic CD ROM system/add-on out there, it adds nothing other than the ability to load games into RAM from a CD. No extra memory, no extra processing, nothing. I too don't understand what is meant by "proper cd system". I thought all the Jag cd did was dump a couple of MB at a time to the cartridge slot. Edited July 26, 2017 by The Yar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hastor Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 (edited) As someone just taking a guess, and doesn't know much about the tech in these, is it that the NGCD copies the entire program to RAM then runs it like a cartridge with no need for the cd, while the Jag has to dump the memory and load new things into it from time to time? Edited July 26, 2017 by Hastor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 I too don't understand what is meant by "proper cd system". I thought all the Jag cd did was dump a couple of MB at a time to the cartridge slot. No, that's what the NeoGeo CD does as I remember. There is a limited amount of ram mapped to the normal cart space of the NG which is populated from the cd and run. I think all the loading to the cart space is handled by the bios from a set of files on the cd. I don't *think* titles used the cd system directly. Although I could be wrong. The jag has no additional ram when the cd system is present and titles load data from the cd as required into main ram. I'm not sure what limitations are imposed by the NGCD to be fair, so you may be able to do all this also, but I've always thought of the NGCD as effectively a ram cartridge with a cd drive attached for loading. A bit like the original Nintendo PlayStation etc... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Yar Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 No, that's what the NeoGeo CD does as I remember. There is a limited amount of ram mapped to the normal cart space of the NG which is populated from the cd and run. I think all the loading to the cart space is handled by the bios from a set of files on the cd. I don't *think* titles used the cd system directly. Although I could be wrong. The jag has no additional ram when the cd system is present and titles load data from the cd as required into main ram. I'm not sure what limitations are imposed by the NGCD to be fair, so you may be able to do all this also, but I've always thought of the NGCD as effectively a ram cartridge with a cd drive attached for loading. A bit like the original Nintendo PlayStation etc... I think I understand now. Kind of like the Jag is constantly streaming data to the cartridge slot while the ngcd just loads in batches? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 I think I understand now. Kind of like the Jag is constantly streaming data to the cartridge slot while the ngcd just loads in batches? Yeah, pretty much. To be fair the Jag would have benefitted from additional RAM in the CD system like the NGCD though, as lack of RAM was a big issue for CD games on the Jag. 2mb really isn't much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Quick update on the Jag, I've finally finished the first pass on the cart and programmer PCB's and they've been sent to the fab house. So in about 3-4 weeks I'll actually start doing some physical messing with the cart. The first step will be the worlds worst Jag flash cart as I get the 128K boot flash working, then I'll add the CPLD and RAM and get that running so we've got 16MB of RAM on there to play with, then get the micro working to actually get stuff from the SD. Sounds easy written like that, lol, but I'm sure there will be plenty of pain along the way. Late to this thread so I apologize for asking two dumb questions (the thread is 23 pages long so it's hard to read all of it): 1.) What's your estimated cost for those of us who would like to get one? 2.) Do you have a waitlist for those interested when they are ready? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagChris Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 No list. No wait list. Price up in the air 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 No list. No wait list. Price up in the air Gotcha. I'm hoping it's under two bills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aminor00 Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Gotcha. I'm hoping it's under two bills.I'd guess it will be around two score (1 score = £20 note) or maybe a couple of ponies (1 pony = £25). [emoji5] What is a "Bill" worth? Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaManFan Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 I'd guess it will be around two score (1 score = £20 note) or maybe a couple of ponies (1 pony = £25). [emoji5] What is a "Bill" worth? Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk Sorry, I'm an old fart. Two bills is slang for two hundred. That's what my only SD cart to date cost (SD2SNES). 40 Euro would be a huge bargain by comparison - that's about $46 US! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aminor00 Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Sorry, I'm an old fart. Two bills is slang for two hundred. That's what my only SD cart to date cost (SD2SNES). 40 Euro would be a huge bargain by comparison - that's about $46 US!From one old fart to another I'm only guessing at the price and replying because I liked your reference to bills [emoji5] I imagine it won't cost as much as a ton (1 ton = £100) [emoji6] Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aminor00 Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 With all that functionality I suppose it could be closer to two ton. It'll never cost a monkey though. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted July 28, 2017 Author Share Posted July 28, 2017 (edited) Sorry, I'm an old fart. Two bills is slang for two hundred. That's what my only SD cart to date cost (SD2SNES). 40 Euro would be a huge bargain by comparison - that's about $46 US!We don't use euros in the UK! In fact we're currently fitting a large outboard motor to Great Britain to make our exit from Europe and head to somewhere more equatorial. It'll be around a ton (in UK pounds) is my estimate. Should have the first prototype PCB's with me in about a week I think. Edited July 28, 2017 by SainT 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayreon Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 I sure am glad a ton in the UK is only a £ 100. Here (DutchieLand), it would be € 100.000 which is probably the E-bay price 5 years after the release date 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo_rg Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 Have you nailed down a final spec for the SD cart, would game saves and such still work. I know it's still early days and quite a lot of the things you want it to have and do are changeable, one thing I'd like to know is would it still fit inside a standard or slightly modified jag cart case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted July 28, 2017 Author Share Posted July 28, 2017 Have you nailed down a final spec for the SD cart, would game saves and such still work. I know it's still early days and quite a lot of the things you want it to have and do are changeable, one thing I'd like to know is would it still fit inside a standard or slightly modified jag cart case. I intend to support everything regarding eeprom for standard cart saves and memory track for cd games etc. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't all work from a technical point of view, it's just down to actually implementing it all. The only things which are questionable are extras like ethernet support. I'm planning on a custom injection mounded cart case for this board, although it will be basically the same size as a standard cart. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metzger130 Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 Glad to see progress on this as it is one reason I do not have a Jaguar yet, as games are very hard to come by, let alone systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raticon Posted July 29, 2017 Share Posted July 29, 2017 I'll echo the poster above me, although i have a Jag and a small assortment of games the prices are outrageous where i'm at as the Jag sold so incredibly poorly here.I'd be very interested in a cart like this. I'll keep my eyes on your progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 Loading a 4MB game should take seconds rather than minutes. Could you provide a more precise estimate (based on your experience with other multicarts) ? More specifically, is it realistic to expect that at run-time, we'll be able to transfer 64 KB chunk from cart (e.g. from your 16 MB) to jag's main RAM (the 2 MB) within 1 frame time (e.g. 1/60 second) ? The reason I'm asking is that having fast access to 16 MB means it's now possible to develop engines / games that use 16 MB as fast-access cache / buffer for current level (streaming from 16 MB at runtime on demand), and only update the 16 MB (from the slower SD) for next level at loading time (e.g. the transfer speed between SD<->Jag RAM is irrelevant, but Cart <->RAM is very important). Obviously, this transfer speed largely dictates what is possible to achieve and how smooth the world streaming will be. it's not an issue for 2D/3D screen-based games, where the screen change provides ample amount of time to load the data (easy to hide behind the fade-in/out, but impossible to hide in 1st/3rd person engines). I guess in worst case, one could always go for the half-life 1 approach (e.g. halt the game for 2 seconds in the middle of the corridor while it streams next room's textures), but it doesn't hurt to start adjusting expectations at this point, as you're getting closer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted August 1, 2017 Author Share Posted August 1, 2017 (edited) The 16MB RAM on the cart is no faster than any other ROM access -- it will be able to be accessed as 32bit and most likely at the fastest setting (5 cycles) for external ROM. I'm not sure if I'm going to support DMA from the memory card to the cart RAM as yet. It may well act like the CD system, so reading from the memory card will go via I2S to one of the RISC's. I've got the PCB's through today, so I'll start building one up in the next couple of days. Fun is nearly here. Edited October 25, 2019 by SainT 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 The 16MB RAM on the cart is no faster than any other ROM access -- it will be able to be accessed as 32bit and most likely at the fastest setting (5 cycles) for external ROM. I'm not sure if I'm going to support DMA from the SD to the cart RAM as yet. It may well act like the CD system, so reading from the SD will go via I2S to one of the RISC's. So, if I interpret it correctly, in terms of data transfer speed, it's going to be the same as if jag had a 16 MB cartridge. While it makes sense (the cart interface is the gate/point of entry anyway), I was hoping this could be engineered as fast as possible. Which it probably is, as some jag game carts had 8-bit pin interface, if I recall correctly. Can you remember to post some data transfer benchmark, once you advance to that stage ? Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grimm Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 I'm planning on a custom injection mounded cart case for this board, although it will be basically the same size as a standard cart. Will it have the cute little handle too? That would be awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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