Jaguar CD - It's Alive!
Update: This is running now too. https://richwhitehouse.com/pubdata/bigp_rage.mp4
I don't actually have the hardware yet (it should be arriving in a few days, thanks to the generosity of our friend Mycah Mattox), but by using the CD BIOS and VLM as a guide, I'm successfully emulating the Jaguar CD at the low level now. No cheating with BIOS hooks or anything of that nature, this is the real deal! Sub-channel data is all working correctly, and I think CD+G support might even be working, but I haven't tested it yet. I've still gotta implement appropriate events and delays, so everything is instant-ready at the moment, but VLM is happy enough with that. With this low level approach, I'm expecting that once I decide to try booting into some games, most things will Just Work™ and progress there will be pretty rapid. At least, I'm hoping.
Here's a video of BigPEmu running VLM with a Dir en grey CD!
Comments (17)
There are two working versions of WTR on archive.org in one of the collections. As far as I know, all of the JaguarCD games are now up there, so you should be able to find working images for any of your games. You might want to join the Discord server if you haven't already https://discord.gg/mahu8qUVQZ
I was able to fix 2 games with disc-juggler Battlemorph and Vid_grid I still can't find an image of World tour racing that is not corrupted.
I've had good results with DiscJuggler with the following settings: Scan gaps/indexes, RAW read, Verify image, DAE jitter correction redundant, Read/verify speed of 1x. https://archive.org/details/disc-juggler-pro-v-6.00.1400
I used "Imgburn" last night I made a image of the Tempest 2000 soundtrack to run with the VLM im having a "nostallgic moment" I riped it as IMG file mount it . IMGBURN is a free util and works great.
I have noticed ImgBurn failing to rip lead-in sectors, which is fine a lot of the time, but will break on quite a few Jaguar CD games (like Vid Grid) where meaningful data bleeds over into the lead-in. So something to keep in mind there. For pure audio discs, though, there'll generally be no problems.
This is amazing! Are you just putting a game disc in the PCs dvd drive?
The emulator only loads images at the moment. I'm not sure which free tools to recommend to make your own, I noticed ImgBurn stripping vital data out of the lead-in when trying to rip some of my own Jaguar discs. I may end up releasing my own tool to be sure unless someone knows a defacto free solution for lossless Jaguar disc ripping. Another thing to keep in mind is that Jaguar CD's are pure audio discs, so if you have bad sectors, there's a good chance you won't know it when you're playing or ripping the disc. That can cause a lot of problems, so you might consider finding a good known dump even if you have your own discs!
I have played Primal Rage a bit and like it. I can't say it's a great fighting game, but it's fun.
Great news! Looking forward to it.
Woah, great job! You should have at least waited until you've got the actual machine in your hands so that it looked less like you were using black magic. This already looks great! Sound is still all kinds of broken obviously... J/k ;p
Just awesome. Can't wait to try it!
Nice!
This is just tremendous, Rich. And Happy New Year!
Heck yeah!!!
That’s so insanely badass! I’ve been meaning to send you a message about the VR stuff but will soon! Thanks for working on this, has been a dream to be able to have modern day VLM emulation! You rock dude!
VLM is where its at! Incredible sir, incredible.
wow! some might say you're Pretty Good At This!