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Now that it's easier than ever to play Jag/JagCD games (via GameDrive) what do you think?


phoenixdownita

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In specific the OG title lineup of Jag and JagCD games it is what it is.

 

We all likely tried and already acquired the usual suspects (or subset thereof) whether because recommended, must-have or not-too-bad, but thanks to the GameDrive we can now finally experience the whole nine yards, the full enchilada, the "no holds barred" exposure.

 

Did your opinion on the platform change or actually solidified even more? 

 

We are older (I for sure am), we can sink some time by choice playing the stinkers, playing "the expensive" (just because), playing the rare (more to see what the fuss is about really) and thanks to SainT outstanding GameDrive it's now easier than ever and for some people the only economically responsible way to do it (JagCD prime case in point).

The preliminary JagCD support seems to only have issues with 2 OG titles (VidGrid and WTR) and we can certainly wait for those to be fixed (if possible) to get a more rounder viewpoint on that particular subset of the library (2 out of 13 OG CD titles is like 15% of the whole JagCD shebang) .... but one can likely form an idea on the rest.

 

What do you think? Is the "dark-side of the force" aka the other half of the OG library what you expect it to be? Better? Worse?

I mean not only the JagCD unobtanium but also the OG cart titles not many really bring up, like Brutal Sport Football, Dino Dudes, Fever Pitch Soccer, Flip put, I-war, Sensible Soccer, Theme Park etc...etc... etc....

 

For me the JagCD part is as I expected obviously because I already had access to a JagCD unit and those 13 OG titles, but it appears the GameDrive is cutting the loading times quite a bit from what I remember making it feel better, at least it takes very little to get playing. In a twist of fate those 13 OG JagCD games start almost instantly on the GameDrive compared to cart based games (I saw something similar wrt NeoGeo CD support on the NeoSD pro ...) and in some ways that makes the JagCD experience actually better than on real JagCD HW .... which is a really good thing imho (or so is my experience, please share yours).

 

Wrt the OG cart library I already own about 20-25 games or just about 40-45% of the OG cart library (Bubsy and Katsumi included) and so I am now trying to play the other stuff, like Double Dragon V, Bruce Lee or even Club Drive etc..etc..

 

On the side experiencing CyranoJ's Checkered Flag steering patch for the first time has been awesome, thank you sir, no it does not fix the other flaws of the game but at least it lowers the driving frustration to a point that I actually want to give it another try somewhat akin to when I tried to use the Saturn 3D controller to play Sega Touring Car Championship for the first time, it didn't fix the other flaws of that game but it made me want to play it "one more time".

 

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I got a Jaguar CD around 1996 and have put extensive time into the games I had back then: Baldies, Blue Lightning, Myst, Primal Rage, Space Ace, and Vid Grid.  I picked up the rest of the library in the years since, but sadly I've barely played any of those additional titles other than Iron Soldier 2.   I hadn't even tried Brain Dead 13 or Hover Strike U.L. until I got the GameDrive. 

 

BD13 didn't give me a good first impression at all.  I only put time into Space Ace back in the day because I was a kid and I HAD time to burn.  Now I have far better games to play, and the pulseless gameplay of those laserdisc titles just doesn't do anything for me.

 

Hover Strike seemed awful at first.  I haven't played much of its cartridge-based brother, and the CD game seemed a little rough.  It probably didn't help that I started on the "night" mission and could barely see a thing.  But I came to like it after a few minutes and I can see myself putting more time into it. 

 

I'm looking forward to playing more of World Tour Racing once it works.  I've played it before and remember being somewhat impressed by how it performs for a Jag game.

 

How did you get the patched Checkered Flag to work?  I really like the retail version, believe it or not, and the steering patch was one of the biggest reasons I was looking forward to the GameDrive.  But I can't get it to run.

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8 hours ago, PFG 9000 said:

How did you get the patched Checkered Flag to work? 

 

You have to patch a universal encryption header onto it or regenerate the 'encryption' header, the latter of which is slightly complicated. The patch changes the cart's checksum, which is fine on VJ or a Skunkboard, since the former let's you bypass the BIOS and the latter forces the universal header, but trips up the GD since it runs through the full regular boot process AFAICT.

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44 minutes ago, cubanismo said:

 

You have to patch a universal encryption header onto it or regenerate the 'encryption' header, the latter of which is slightly complicated. The patch changes the cart's checksum, which is fine on VJ or a Skunkboard, since the former let's you bypass the BIOS and the latter forces the universal header, but trips up the GD since it runs through the full regular boot process AFAICT.

I remade the IPS file last week to also correct the header.  It's on the Reboot site.

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On 4/18/2021 at 9:26 AM, PFG 9000 said:

....

 

How did you get the patched Checkered Flag to work?  I really like the retail version, believe it or not, and the steering patch was one of the biggest reasons I was looking forward to the GameDrive.  But I can't get it to run.

The above is the manual method aka:

Using HxD as hex editor:
 
Open gamerom.j64
Open univ.bin (it will open in a different tab)
While in the tab for univ.bin – Edit > select all.  This should select the entire univ.bin code
While in the tab for univ.bin - Edit  > copy (this is for the selected text)
Go to gamerom.j64 tab. – go to beginning of file which is $0.  Then select all the way to $1FFF and CTRL-V to paste.  This will overwrite the $2000 univ.bin file to the beginning of gamerom.j64. Save this to a new name and it now has the univ.bin as header.

wrt univ.bin it appears there's a version Tursi is sharing here

https://github.com/tursilion/skunk_jcp

 

 

and just found out Tursi also made a complete header patcher (I have not tried it) available here 

https://github.com/tursilion/makefastboot

with a nice explanation here http://tursilion.blogspot.com/2016/09/atari-jaguar-programming-causes-brain.html that explains the Jag boot process in great detail and documents the differences between bare Jag boot and JagCD boot ... fascinating reading (GPU boot vs DSP boot)

 

 

PS: before anyone asks, in order to post a link to my own post from a topic I have been banned from I used incognito mode, I apologize if that breaks any rule, in case let me know and I'll gladly take this post down or parts of it as needed.

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On 4/18/2021 at 8:58 AM, phoenixdownita said:

In specific the OG title lineup of Jag and JagCD games it is what it is.

Could you please keep the Game Drive related discussions to the Game Driver thread?

It seems now that some of you frequently struggle to invent a new topics promoting the Game Drive.

You The Game Drive already has a pinned topic right at the top of the forum, for people who are interested in the topic.

Please let people choose which topics they want to get updates about?

Because I am getting spammed about the Game Drive right now...

 

If you would like to ask a question about people's opinion on Jaguar library (which has been asked many times before),

you could do that in a neutral way, or even better, use an already existing thread.

Thank you.

Edited by phoboz
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14 minutes ago, phoboz said:

Could you please keep the Game Drive related discussions to the Game Driver thread?

It seems now that some of you frequently struggle to invent a new topics promoting the Game Drive.

You already have a pinned topic right at the top of the forum, for people who are interested in the topic.

Please let people choose which topics they want to get updates about?

Because I am getting spammed about the Game Drive right now...

 

If you would like to ask a question about people's opinion on Jaguar library (which has been asked many times before),

you could do that in a neutral way, or even better, use an already existing thread.

Thank you.

I have no idea what you are talking about, I am not promoting anything or at least no more than any other flash cart for any other system.

I have no pinned topic of mine.

 

AND the fact that the OG game library is now much easier for more people to even try is what sparked this topic AND you can see it's not exactly a super popular topic either (aside one question about Checkered Flag linear patching how-to) so it'll die silently very soon, fret not.

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On 4/22/2021 at 4:14 PM, tripled79 said:

The hard part is getting a Game Drive...

Guess we'll revisit the question once more GDs are around.

 

I wonder how many are just "impulse play" just "because you can" and how long those would last.

There are good games in the Jag library no question about it, just curious if anyone's opinion is different now that he can play it all, with such a small library there aren't really hidden gems, but depending on how many OG one already has he may finally play something good he has had no access to before. As I said I already owned about half the cart library (not all good titles mind you but most of the usual suspects) and had access to the whole JagCD OG library as well for quite some time.

I "had" to play Atari Karts yesterday night to quickly test a 6 button repro ctrl (I bought a pair some time ago and forgot about them) and then test a reverted "hack-job" 6-button mod (on a 3 buttons ctrl) just left the shoulder buttons explicitly for Atari Karts .... just testing if it also still worked as expected. Of course the ctrls (both of them) worked like a charm but the game ... it is what it is ....
I am not sure I consider it worse than SNES Mario Kart as I don't like that either and the gfx on the SNES is worse but the music on Atari Karts is weird for sure and the hill mode so understated, not a very good showing of smashing superiority. 

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On 4/18/2021 at 2:58 AM, phoenixdownita said:

In specific the OG title lineup of Jag and JagCD games it is what it is.

 

We all likely tried and already acquired the usual suspects (or subset thereof) whether because recommended, must-have or not-too-bad, but thanks to the GameDrive we can now finally experience the whole nine yards, the full enchilada, the "no holds barred" exposure.

 

Did your opinion on the platform change or actually solidified even more? 

 

We are older (I for sure am), we can sink some time by choice playing the stinkers, playing "the expensive" (just because), playing the rare (more to see what the fuss is about really) and thanks to SainT outstanding GameDrive it's now easier than ever and for some people the only economically responsible way to do it (JagCD prime case in point).

The preliminary JagCD support seems to only have issues with 2 OG titles (VidGrid and WTR) and we can certainly wait for those to be fixed (if possible) to get a more rounder viewpoint on that particular subset of the library (2 out of 13 OG CD titles is like 15% of the whole JagCD shebang) .... but one can likely form an idea on the rest.

 

What do you think? Is the "dark-side of the force" aka the other half of the OG library what you expect it to be? Better? Worse?

I mean not only the JagCD unobtanium but also the OG cart titles not many really bring up, like Brutal Sport Football, Dino Dudes, Fever Pitch Soccer, Flip put, I-war, Sensible Soccer, Theme Park etc...etc... etc....

 

For me the JagCD part is as I expected obviously because I already had access to a JagCD unit and those 13 OG titles, but it appears the GameDrive is cutting the loading times quite a bit from what I remember making it feel better, at least it takes very little to get playing. In a twist of fate those 13 OG JagCD games start almost instantly on the GameDrive compared to cart based games (I saw something similar wrt NeoGeo CD support on the NeoSD pro ...) and in some ways that makes the JagCD experience actually better than on real JagCD HW .... which is a really good thing imho (or so is my experience, please share yours).

 

Wrt the OG cart library I already own about 20-25 games or just about 40-45% of the OG cart library (Bubsy and Katsumi included) and so I am now trying to play the other stuff, like Double Dragon V, Bruce Lee or even Club Drive etc..etc..

 

On the side experiencing CyranoJ's Checkered Flag steering patch for the first time has been awesome, thank you sir, no it does not fix the other flaws of the game but at least it lowers the driving frustration to a point that I actually want to give it another try somewhat akin to when I tried to use the Saturn 3D controller to play Sega Touring Car Championship for the first time, it didn't fix the other flaws of that game but it made me want to play it "one more time".

 

Does WTR work to some extent or does it just not boot? I think one of the emulators is able to play it a little bit before it crashes.

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On 4/23/2021 at 6:18 PM, phoenixdownita said:

Guess we'll revisit the question once more GDs are around.

 

I wonder how many are just "impulse play" just "because you can" and how long those would last.

There are good games in the Jag library no question about it, just curious if anyone's opinion is different now that he can play it all, with such a small library there aren't really hidden gems, but depending on how many OG one already has he may finally play something good he has had no access to before. As I said I already owned about half the cart library (not all good titles mind you but most of the usual suspects) and had access to the whole JagCD OG library as well for quite some time.

I "had" to play Atari Karts yesterday night to quickly test a 6 button repro ctrl (I bought a pair some time ago and forgot about them) and then test a reverted "hack-job" 6-button mod (on a 3 buttons ctrl) just left the shoulder buttons explicitly for Atari Karts .... just testing if it also still worked as expected. Of course the ctrls (both of them) worked like a charm but the game ... it is what it is ....
I am not sure I consider it worse than SNES Mario Kart as I don't like that either and the gfx on the SNES is worse but the music on Atari Karts is weird for sure and the hill mode so understated, not a very good showing of smashing superiority. 

Atari Karts, has to be the title that dissapointed me the most as a title that was hard to get and I finally added it to my collection a year ago.

 

Grafix were better than the SNES counterpart, music too was good.

 

The problem is the total package was good, great even but not a ton better  than a SNES game.

 

Game play, their was no defensive strategy, the thing that made mario kart fun was 2 things,playing as legacy nintendo characters and throwing turtles at your competitors.

 

It is hard to compare cause I dont have SNES mario kart around and may be mixing up my experience with some of the newer versions.

 

But, Atari Karts came off as a underwhelming game....better than most racing games on Jag, but Super Burnout is still better, and it was a Super Hang on RIP off that did the game better.

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I had a Jag back in the day when they were selling them off for buttons. I bought one with one of every game they had in the shop. My opinion of it then was that there was a handful of good games that were well worth playing but mostly the catalogue was, well, a bit shit. I sold the Jag a few years later and it wasn't until I fancied playing Tempest 2K again that I got another, thankfully for sensible money considering that's all I wanted to play. I think I got the bare cart, Jag and a nice RGB lead for about £60 all up, which to me was well worth it for the one game I wanted to play.

 

Now what the GD allowed me to do was re-visit the library and time hasn't been kind to it. AvP was ground breaking in it's day, but it's clunky to play now (same goes for Golden Eye and Perfect Dark on the N64 to pick two other excellent games at random where the way we play them has evolved and going back is a bit painful). Iron Soldier is still fun, but overly simple. The list goes on. As with other consoles more arcadey titles fare best and indeed T2K stands up and still justifies the console's existance as far as I'm concerned. That and maybe Super Burnout. Which brings me down to the other thing that makes me keep the Jag, homebrew. The thing is there, I buy 'em, so having a handful of carts isn't exactly a problem.

 

Which is why I sold my GDROM drive (I didn't take the piss and sold it for what I paid for it. All up I think I lost about a tenner on the deal). It's a brilliant thing, but justifying keeping it was a bit of a struggle given that the only reason I put it in was to play Cyrano's Centipede thing or Super Burnout. If I want to play Rebooteroids (the other reason to own a Jaguar) or Impulse X, I have to stick the cart in regardless so the GDROM isn't bringing me any benefits there. For me, there was little reason to keep it when all I need to do is get a cart with Super Burnout on and I'm good (likely I'll have to wait for that now that prices have gone stupid, or I'll just do without). I've got Last Strike on the way, that will hopefully keep me distracted ;)

 

Just to re-emphasise, this is all just my opinion... The GD ROM is a great flash cart and I highly recommend it for people who get more out of the Jag library than I do.

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16 hours ago, juansolo said:

....

Which is why I sold my GameDrive (I didn't take the piss and sold it for what I paid for it. All up I think I lost about a tenner on the deal).

....

Uh? It doesn't really ask to be pet or something .... did you get yours on the first batch? 
'cause this thing is a little of unobtanium right now I heard.

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On 4/26/2021 at 6:07 AM, juansolo said:

I had a Jag back in the day when they were selling them off for buttons. I bought one with one of every game they had in the shop. My opinion of it then was that there was a handful of good games that were well worth playing but mostly the catalogue was, well, a bit shit.

I loved this response, so just commenting/springboarding off what is being said here.

 

Yeh speaking of the Jag CD, there really are just a few CD games that I really want to play all the time. 

But I am inspired by Onion and how he had a compilation of his games on one CD.   That could come in really handy.

 

Thanks to the Game Drive I am seeing the CD more and more as a larger partition.   If I wanted to make a game with more than mod music, or movie files, the CD image is good for that.   And I do envision making a collection that can be loaded from a CD image with a selection menu, much like Orion's disc.

 

On 4/26/2021 at 6:07 AM, juansolo said:

Now what the GD allowed me to do was re-visit the library ... brings me down to the other thing that makes me keep the Jag, homebrew. The thing is there, I buy 'em, so having a handful of carts isn't exactly a problem.

 

There are some homebrews I eventually buy.   I like to try homebrews as they come out, even playtest.

But I agree, homebrews and ports are where it is at on the Jaguar.

  

On 4/26/2021 at 6:07 AM, juansolo said:

Which is why I sold my GDROM drive ... t's a brilliant thing, but justifying keeping it was a bit of a struggle given that the only reason I put it in was to play Cyrano's Centipede thing or Super Burnout.

 

This cracked me up.   Yeh, I mostly play Gorf and Bubsy on a daily basis.   My wife asked "Don't you have two other copies of Bubsy"

I think it is just load Bubsy from the menu with the MRQ files in place is just cool.

 

Like 200 games at my fingertips and I still select my usual go to.  :P

  

On 4/26/2021 at 6:07 AM, juansolo said:

Just to re-emphasise, this is all just my opinion... The GD ROM is a great flash cart and I highly recommend it for people who get more out of the Jag library than I do.

 

Later you would mention the Game Drive and GD-Rom were two different things, so was the GD-Rom the earlier version?

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