Available a new update for BigPEmu , the Atari Jaguar console emulator and currently the only program able to guarantee compatibility with the entire library of retail cartridges, together with excellent performance and a wide variety of unique features.

 

The update introduces many interesting features, such as Jaguar CD emulation and some command line options.

 

Characteristics

• Full Compatibility .
  • BigPEmu can run all the games in the Jaguar console’s retail cartridge library.
• Fast .
  • The emulator runs the entire library of retail titles (with default settings) at full speed on almost any x64 compatible processor. Each Jaguar processor runs on a single native core (maintaining deterministic emulation) and does not rely on any dynamic recompiling (maintaining console compatibility), while maintaining extremely low system requirements.
• Accurate .
  • It is the most accurate Jaguar emulator to date, although there is still a lot of room for improvement. I work continuously to get accurate times for the cycle at the system level.
• Better than hardware .
  • While the emulator defaults to settings that cater for compatibility and accuracy, it is capable of much more. The settings are exposed to the overclock/underclock of each of the Jaguar cores as well as adjusting the speed and accuracy of other system components. BigPEmu lets you play many Jaguar games at 60 frames per second for the first time ever!
• Save states and movies .
  • Everything is completely deterministic, just like real life. That’s right, I went. This means that all “randomness” is also controlled by a preserved seed. BigPEmu can record footage from nothing more than controller input and play it back with perfect accuracy. You can even stop playing a movie and start playing on its own at any time.
• Excessive presentation details .
  • I did everything for this. There’s native support for the Jaguar Game Drive MRQ format in the cartridge browser (as well as box art sourced from PNG files), support for global and per-game backgrounds, and even support for controller overlays! Overlays are dialed on the fly in the Jaguar controller, displayed both on the input binding screen and on the controller’s helpful pop-up info display.
• Additional device support .
  • Featuring support for analog controllers (both via external bank switching and via ADC), drive controllers, rotary controllers, and Team Tap.
• Glorious shaders .
  • The emulator features a powerful post-processing system that is fully customizable. The system supports every type of effect imaginable, from applying smooth filters to simulating CRT displays.
• Native HDR support .
  • HDR displays are natively supported, complete with options to adjust output based on display characteristics and to force post-process effects to use HDR buffers throughout the post chain. This means that post-processing effects take full advantage of that increased color accuracy and push it all the way to your eyes. CRT shaders reap all the benefits. At 4K with HDR color output, they’re an amazing sight to behold.
• Game Profiles .
  • Mapping your Atari Jaguar controller to something other than a phone with wings can get a little tricky, so you might want to change the controller mapping for different games. You can do it! With per-game profiles, you can automatically load a new input pattern (or any other emulator setting) every time you load a game.
• Time manipulation .
  • Native fast forwarding capability, which can be assigned to any input.
• Plugins.
  • The stock plugins cover video, audio, input, and networking support over widely compatible APIs, with the ability to easily expand to any platform/interface. The OpenGL video plugin can fully scale from its default incarnation (with support for effects, distance field fonts, etc.) up to the fixed OpenGL 1.0 feature, meaning that the emulator can run on virtually any capable GPU. to run GLQuake (although the font would look pretty bad on some of them).
• The usual .
  • Enjoy all the emulator subtleties you have come to expect in modern times. Automatic EEPROM preservation, PAL support, custom boot ROM images, native support for multiple displays and different aspect ratios, custom display cropping, highly customizable input, custom language support, and so much more.
• Full of terrible secrets .
  • No, really, it is. You will never find them.

Future goals

• Jaguar CD support .
  • I need your help with this! Jaguar CD drives are too expensive, at least right now, and I don’t have one. Consider donating if you can spare the hardware or money for one . If you have a hardware unit that you’re willing to donate (no temporary loans please, I don’t want to be responsible for lost/damaged hardware), please contact me . While I can make some progress by blindly emulating features used in existing software, the only path to complete accuracy (and emulating features that may not be used in existing software) involves working with real hardware.
• Jaguar VR support .
  • I’m thinking of giving Jaguar VR the same treatment I gave Sega VR ! As with Sega VR, I was able to build a good implementation without having access to the hardware, but having the hardware would still help a lot and ensure a greater degree of authenticity. Same as above, if you have any hardware you would like to part with please contact me.
• JagLink support.
  • After all, what good is anything if you can’t play Deathmatch? Again, I might need some support on this, as I need to buy a JagLink (or modern replacement) and another Jaguar if I’m going to get beyond blind software implementation.
• Greater accuracy .
  • Timing is still far from perfect in BigPEmu. There are a few known quirks here and there, but the next big step towards even greater accuracy is full bus access and priority emulation. This is generally an expensive thing to do in software, so it will likely be bundled into the next goal…
• Make it even faster !
  • BigPEmu is already quite well optimized, but there are still some fruits to further improve the performance. This will allow BigPEmu to run on even older hardware, but perhaps more importantly, it will make room for the expensive options that bring us closer to loop accuracy.
• Developer builds.
  • Behind the scenes, BigPEmu already enjoys full integration with the Noesis debugger and has a wide variety of other debugging and development features. However, I still have to clean up some of these features and prepare separate builds that are specifically aimed at Jaguar developers.
• Flexible scripting.
  • Natively, BigPEmu has already implemented a complete interface for scriptable breakpoints and uses a special technique to make breakpoints free on RISC processors. My plan is to open this system up with script bindings, so you’ll be able to easily set breakpoints, poke RAM, and otherwise do anything you might want to do to the emulated system through easy to use script code. This will enable TAS, results and many other things.
• Porting.
  • BigPEmu is already extremely portable and runs on at least 6 different console/desktop platforms. The framework it uses for this standalone release is also designed around portability, so I’m planning on porting to Linux and macOS at a minimum. However, I don’t currently have any machines running macOS, so it’s a small block.
• Eliminate all bugs.
  • There are probably still a bunch of bugs that I don’t know about and you can help me find them .

Installation

BigPEmu doesn’t require an installation process, just download the latest version and unzip it somewhere (with the directory structure intact), then run the BigPEmu.exe.

The developer has also created a very useful online user manual where all the settings and operation of the BigPEmu emulator are explained in detail .

Changelog

• Jaguar CD support! This includes a lot of new features. Thanks to Mycah Mattox for donating the Jaguar CD hardware, this hardware has been essential to my research.
• Added -nodevicechangeand -fulldevrefreshas command-line options.
• Added -forceloadaddrand -forcerunaddras command-line options.
• Added -setcfgpropand -setcfgpropcatas command-line options.
• Added -audiocapindexas a command line option, can be used when booting *VirtualDisc_SystemAudio as a ROM image via the command line.
• Added -physdevindexas a command line option, can be used when booting *VirtualDisc_SystemPath as a ROM image via the command line.
• Added another DirectInput workaround that can help prevent stuck analog controls on some machines. Thanks to neurocrash for taking the time to run tests for me on a machine where this was a problem!
• Fixed an issue with deep writes in 32-bit mode, thanks to 42Bastian for providing a test case.
• Fixed an issue where word strobes were not programmed correctly until a write to SMODE/SCLK. (only relevant when running without boot ROM sets).
• Fixed a timing issue with EEPROM readings.
• Fixed scaling on monitors with a non-standard DPI.
• When adding a new individual input trigger in the connection menu, the request mode is now set to “specify wait and button” instead of just “specify button”. (in line with binding all inputs via “Set All”).
• Many additional base emulation fixes shipped with CD media.
• Implemented some intentional redundancy in OpenGL video plugin state handling, to protect against things like Discord’s video capture poking around in context without cleaning itself up.

Developer Notes

With CD support gone, I’m taking a short break! I need to recover, generate income and prepare for the next phase of my cancer treatment.

Please do not flood me with fix/feature requests via email/Discord/etc during this time. I ask you to use the least intrusive bug report form on the website instead. Thanks for your consideration!

Download: BigPEmu v1.05

Source: richwhitehouse.com