Some Jaguar games work and some don't...why?

[LaymanVideoGamer]

Good morning everyone!

 

I'm new to the Atari Jaguar world. I just bought my first unopened brand new Atari Jaguar system about 3-4 months ago. I have about 10 games (all were factory sealed or in mint condition), but only about 8 of them work (and they work perfectly). The other 2 give me the red screen of death or won't fully boot up. The 2 that WON'T boot up are Cannon Fodder (gets through the development logos then freezes before it gets to title screen almost every time) and Wolfenstein 3-D (sometimes gets to title screen before it simply shuts down). 

 

I have bought 3 different Cannon Fodder games -- all do the same thing.

I have bought 2 Wolfenstein games -- all do the same thing.

 

Are there known problems with these games? 

Are there any fixes?

Is it the system?

 

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by LaymanVideoGamer
Got one of the games to work with one of the tips I read on here

[Isgoed]

What "tip" did you already use to make the -now working game- work?

Which game is it that works after the tip?

As you have multiple copies, how many copies of the working game work?

 

Let's work this out

 

 

[joeatari1]

I have had this with any number of games.  Try cleaning the games contacts with some isopropyl on a cotton swab, that should get any of the junk off of them.  You may need to do it a few times and with a little force.  Other than that, try inserting the game several times, this will "wipe" the contacts clean.  I am not aware of any problems with those particular games.  Good luck.

[LaymanVideoGamer]

Just now, Isgoed said:

What "tip" did you already use to make the -now working game- work?

Which game is it that works after the tip?

As you have multiple copies, how many copies of the working game work?

 

Let's work this out

 

 

It was the Troy Aikman Football game which I edited out of the original question. So the tip was putting pressure on the back side of the cartridge at start up so the pins are all touching, etc. Someone even suggested stuffing a shirt behind it, but I didn't need to do that.

 

Cannon Fodder and Wolfenstein are definitely the problem games. ALL of the copies I have for those games (3 for CF and 2 for W3D) do the same thing at start up.

[LaymanVideoGamer]

15 minutes ago, joeatari1 said:

I have had this with any number of games.  Try cleaning the games contacts with some isopropyl on a cotton swab, that should get any of the junk off of them.  You may need to do it a few times and with a little force.  Other than that, try inserting the game several times, this will "wipe" the contacts clean.  I am not aware of any problems with those particular games.  Good luck.

Thank you joeatari1!  Yeah I generally do. I figured I could rule that out since the games were literally brand new and the console was brand new. I will definitely clean them though just to be safe.

[+cubanismo]

Along the lines of the T-shirt, sometimes I have to very gently jiggle the games a bit (With the system powered off) to get them to work, or lean them back or forward a bit, though never so much that I have to wedge something in there to keep them in place. You could also try cleaning the Jaguar's cartridge connector itself, per the instructions in the pinned thread here. New or not, it could have developed some corrosion after all those years sitting in a box.

 

For some reason, all my well-worn loose cart games from eBay seem to work great, but my NIB Telegames Zero5 cart is very temperamental and needs a lot of love to avoid red screening or crashing before even reaching the title. Cleaned it many times, tried in various Jaguars, etc. When I got my first Skunkboard in the mail after waiting months for shipping from Europe at the height of the pandemic, I thought it was DOA as well, until I scrubbed it hard with a cotton swab + isopropyl about five times. Even then, on that first day it was still a bit picky and I had to reseat it every time I turned the unit on, but I've never had a problem with it again. No idea why this happens (Lack of dust covers?), but in general the Jaguar cartridges remind me of the old NES days when you often had to mess with it a bit to get things working. Never had this problem with my SNES that I can recall.

[+LS650]

I occasionally get an RSOD (red screen of death) as well. 

It's almost always a cart I haven't played in some time, so I imagine it must be some minute dust or invisible oxidation on the contact pins, either of the cartridge slot or the cart itself.

 

If some games are working fine, then I would lean towards it being the carts.  Sometimes the carts look perfectly good, but they need a really good cleaning anyhow.

 

I use good old cotton Q-tips and cleaning alcohol.  Never use any kind of abrasive material such as sandpaper!

 

[LaymanVideoGamer]

3 minutes ago, ls650 said:

I occasionally get an RSOD (red screen of death) as well. 

It's almost always a cart I haven't played in some time, so I imagine it must be some minute dust or invisible oxidation on the contact pins, either of the cartridge slot or the cart itself.

 

If some games are working fine, then I would lean towards it being the carts.  Sometimes the carts look perfectly good, but they need a really good cleaning anyhow.

 

I use good old cotton Q-tips and cleaning alcohol.  Never use any kind of abrasive material such as sandpaper!

 

Thanks for the info Is650! Yeah I'm just going to clean them over and over until I get them to work or my hands give out. Ha! 

[LaymanVideoGamer]

10 minutes ago, cubanismo said:

Along the lines of the T-shirt, sometimes I have to very gently jiggle the games a bit (With the system powered off) to get them to work, or lean them back or forward a bit, though never so much that I have to wedge something in there to keep them in place. You could also try cleaning the Jaguar's cartridge connector itself, per the instructions in the pinned thread here. New or not, it could have developed some corrosion after all those years sitting in a box.

 

For some reason, all my well-worn loose cart games from eBay seem to work great, but my NIB Telegames Zero5 cart is very temperamental and needs a lot of love to avoid red screening or crashing before even reaching the title. Cleaned it many times, tried in various Jaguars, etc. When I got my first Skunkboard in the mail after waiting months for shipping from Europe at the height of the pandemic, I thought it was DOA as well, until I scrubbed it hard with a cotton swab + isopropyl about five times. Even then, on that first day it was still a bit picky and I had to reseat it every time I turned the unit on, but I've never had a problem with it again. No idea why this happens (Lack of dust covers?), but in general the Jaguar cartridges remind me of the old NES days when you often had to mess with it a bit to get things working. Never had this problem with my SNES that I can recall.

Really appreciate the info cubanismo! I think that's my only resort at this point is to really scrub it down with isopropyl and see where that gets me. I just found it odd that all 3 copies of Wolfenstein stopped at the very same spot. What are the odds, right? 

[joeatari1]

If you want to get really crazy you can buy a bottle of DeOxit and apply that with a cotton swab.  That may help things out too, plus it would protect the contacts from future oxidation.

[LaymanVideoGamer]

8 minutes ago, joeatari1 said:

If you want to get really crazy you can buy a bottle of DeOxit and apply that with a cotton swab.  That may help things out too, plus it would protect the contacts from future oxidation.

I may do just that! Thank you. I'm open to try whatever it takes to get these games working.

[+cubanismo]

2 hours ago, LaymanVideoGamer said:

Really appreciate the info cubanismo! I think that's my only resort at this point is to really scrub it down with isopropyl and see where that gets me. I just found it odd that all 3 copies of Wolfenstein stopped at the very same spot. What are the odds, right? 

This is odd, and what it says to me is that there are specific address or, less likely, data lines on the Jaguar cartridge connector itself, rather than the game-side connectors, that are marginal, hopefully just due to some dirt or corrosion or something you can remove via cleaning. Alternate theories are scarier, like bad pages in RAM or something like that. While it's odd games would make it through the encryption/hash check and then fail here, a marginal "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" problem would line up with that and your prior red screen of death reports. The reason it would happen on specific games is that different games likely use different locations in the ROM and RAM to load the code/data/etc. needed to reach their title screens. These two games presumably would trip over the bad lines/pages/whatever before they get to the title screen, while others might never hit them, or only hit them later during gameplay  when loading other assets or using more RAM.

[+Sauron]

One quick question - have you noticed if the way the problematic carts fit into the Jag's cart slot is different than the games without any problems? I had a Power Drive Rally cart that was problematic in the same way for me. No matter how much I scrubbed the cart contacts clean, the only way I could get the damn thing to work was to stuff a manual folded in half behind the cart. The fit of the cart was noticeably different from all of my other games, none of which had the same problem.

[+CyranoJ]

15 minutes ago, Sauron said:

One quick question - have you noticed if the way the problematic carts fit into the Jag's cart slot is different than the games without any problems? I had a Power Drive Rally cart that was problematic in the same way for me. No matter how much I scrubbed the cart contacts clean, the only way I could get the damn thing to work was to stuff a manual folded in half behind the cart. The fit of the cart was noticeably different from all of my other games, none of which had the same problem.

I have that cart now.  And yes, thats the only way I can get it to work as well.

[Zerosquare]

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to happen to copies of Supercross 3D.

[doctorclu]

I can usually get Jaguar carts to run in under three tries, no more than five.  If I've played the game in the last year. 

 

Plugging in Trevor McFur which I never play...

 

I find plugging and unplugging the cart cartridge removes the corrosion. 

Also plugging in the cart left corner slightly first, gently rocking cart from left to right as you insert the cartridge.

Sometimes lifting up slightly on the right corner of the cartridge helps.

 

Of course Trevor McFur was stubborn.   After the tenth try I do the ole Nintendo blow on the pins trick... starts right up. 

 

 

[eightbit]

I have had carts over the years do this, and as ls650 said, it happens with carts that haven't been played in a while mostly. It is oxidation of the contacts. Even brand new games are susceptible as they oxidize in the package (they are not air tight!)

 

In ever single case in which I had a cart do this, scrubbing the heck out of it with a Q-tip and 99% alcohol always resolves the problem. Sometimes you have to scrub it with multiple Q-tips. Even if it "looks" clean. I had one particular Ultra Vortek cart some time ago that I purchased as "untested". It red screened every time. I scrubbed and scrubbed, red screen. I almost gave up on the cart as actually being bad as it was afterall sold as "untested".

 

But, after a dozen scrub sessions bingo, it worked. And it remained working each and every time.

 

My guess is that the connector in the Jaguar is particularly sensitive to any minuscule dust or oxidation...even so small as you cannot see it with the naked eye. There are a lot of pins to make contact on this console. It's not like a Sega Genesis slot or an Atari VCS slot. 

 

Makes me think back to that AVGN episode in which no matter what he got the red screen of death with a CD-ROM unit. I can bet anything it needed a vigorous cleaning.

[Gummy Bear]

Some absolute legend made a handy guide for cleaning contacts! (don't blow on them...) 

 

 

[doctorclu]

2 hours ago, Gummy Bear said:

Some absolute legend made a handy guide for cleaning contacts! (don't blow on them...) 

 

 

Some awesome advice, thanks!

 

[str0m]

On my Saturn the cartridge slot (for ram cart etc) only works if I push a cart all the way in then carefully lift it back up about a millimeter or 2, worth giving that a try on your Jag

[LaymanVideoGamer]

On 1/14/2021 at 3:09 PM, cubanismo said:

This is odd, and what it says to me is that there are specific address or, less likely, data lines on the Jaguar cartridge connector itself, rather than the game-side connectors, that are marginal, hopefully just due to some dirt or corrosion or something you can remove via cleaning. Alternate theories are scarier, like bad pages in RAM or something like that. While it's odd games would make it through the encryption/hash check and then fail here, a marginal "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" problem would line up with that and your prior red screen of death reports. The reason it would happen on specific games is that different games likely use different locations in the ROM and RAM to load the code/data/etc. needed to reach their title screens. These two games presumably would trip over the bad lines/pages/whatever before they get to the title screen, while others might never hit them, or only hit them later during gameplay  when loading other assets or using more RAM.

After multiple unsuccessful cleanings with 99.9% Isopropyl on both the cartridges AND the system itself, I am almost 100% certain it is an internal problem much like the one you described above cubanismo. Like I said, I have multiple copies of Cannon Fodder for example, and they ALL stop at the EXACT SAME PLACE when booting up. And they still do. It feels like the system is trying to get code/data it simply can't get or read (or something thereof). I'm guessing there is no fix for that.  

[+cubanismo]

33 minutes ago, LaymanVideoGamer said:

I'm guessing there is no fix for that.  

That's unfortunate ☹️ There's probably a fix, but it's beyond my abilities to diagnose. Hopefully someone else here can point you in the right direction.

[LaymanVideoGamer]

3 minutes ago, cubanismo said:

That's unfortunate ☹️ There's probably a fix, but it's beyond my abilities to diagnose. Hopefully someone else here can point you in the right direction.

I appreciate your assistance though. You were very helpful. Much appreciated.

[LaymanVideoGamer]

Just to give an update...

 

I sent my Atari Jaguar off to be fixed at estarland.com and they couldn't figure it out either (they were able to fix my Sega CD Model 1).

 

So... it's still a mystery.

 

It seems play every single game but those two I listed. Crazy.

Edited March 14, 2021 by LaymanVideoGamer
more context

[JagChris]

Where did you find a Jaguar new in box?