Atari Jaguar

[gentle bobcat]

But once we get space travel reasonable... we can just get a new planet.

[dreamy hinge]

to quote someone in that discussion. ">say you're alive. "I'm alive!" >oh my god!"

[mental briar]

https://fxtwitter.com/Redistrict/status/1311894084391493633

Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict)

I've seen enough

**💬 167 🔁 757 ❤️ 8.8K **

FxTwitter · Oct 2, 2020, 5:01 AM

[wicked thorn]

Yes, I have found the VLM on BigPEmu to accurately reflect the real-hardware experience, though it may perform a bit better than an actual JaguarCD.

[uncut atlas]

it's funny to me that this video is going to be the model for the ideal jaguar vlm behavior https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfSGSA9ZgYY

[gentle bobcat]

Thus say-ith the Shinto.

Kitrinx: You are actually going to fix some of the current core VLM oddities? If so, I do need to... like... buy you a movie ticket or something.

[uncut atlas]

@gentle bobcat #1055574003810578503 message

do you have a list of vlm bugs?

[gentle bobcat]

I'm looking forward to "Hail Mary Project" when it is released on the 20th.

The tens place in the seconds wasn't playing back correctly... also when the VLM control menu is off... and it has the playback timer going in the bottom right... it has the same behavior.

[uncut atlas]

yeah I fixed that

[gentle bobcat]

Cool.

It would occastionally just stop playing... but if you let it sit long enough, it would start back on the next song.

I didn't see any pattern to that.

[uncut atlas]

I dont think it does that anymore

by the way, for audio cd images that DO have subchannel cd+g data, what format are they usually in?

[gentle bobcat]

I don't have any CD+G media nor do I have a rip of any. I thought you had decided that that was a feature we need not care about... and I'm good with that. I thought the consensus of those who who had implemented it in other cores was that there wasn't a standard CD+G digital format?!? But I could have imaged that.

@Shinto - Do you have an CD+G media?

[wicked thorn]

I've been able to use both physical CDs as well as the virtual audio disc (streaming audio) feature in BigP under Linux. VLM can thus react to audio fed through a line-in port, or audio playing somewhere else on the computer (web browser or media player). I could walk you through it, if you want. Some minor PulseAudio trickery may be required; I'd have to refresh my memory.

What I haven't been able to get working is launching BigP directly into VLM virtual audio mode. Command-line parameters supposedly support doing just that.

[wicked thorn]

I do not, unfortunately.

[gentle bobcat]

It still did the 10s place thing in the posted core files... to the best of my knowledge... but I guess you have fixed it since.

[warm oasis]

If you Google no intro CD+G there are a load of dumps out there but I haven't had time to see what format they are in and try get them running on PCE or Mega CD cores

As an aside, does anyone know if Jag CD supported CD+EG?

[wintry lynx]

That would be great! I think PulseAudio was specifically what I had issues getting working under Linux. Been wanting to build a mini PC or Raspberry Pi 5 specifically just for running the VLM. The ideal would be something that I can just turn on, and have boot straight into it.

[gentle bobcat]

Just says CD+G so I would assume not. If it did, one would expect it to be in the fine JagCD user's manual. I will check.

Here's all it says:

[wintry lynx]

I think it is also worth noting on the VLM accepting external audio front: Minter did build the functionality in with hooks to be able to use an external audio source. So while it was never officially supported by the hardware itself and required some modification to make happen, I’d put it closer to the category of “let’s make a link cable for the Virtual Boy” or “let’s build a rotary controller for Tempest 2000” more than just being a straight up hack for the sake of it. Minter definitely intended for people to find a way to use the VLM in that way.

What side of how important that is to the preservation of Atari Jag stuff that falls on I suppose is up for interpretation. To me, it’s something at least as much worth exploring as anything else Jag related. But also: I can definitely understand this being super low priority compared to other things given the finite resources dedicated to the Jag core.

[gentle bobcat]

What I hear from a lot of (not specifically MiSTer) devs is, "we do accept pull requests" ...or patches.

[dreamy hinge]

oh, they're just lifting the i2s inputs from the cd and shoving their own i2s in there instead

[uncut atlas]

yes I just discovered that

you have to clear the i2s buffer or it just keeps making video

[humble bluff]

I have a version that does this with the ADC input, sounds like crap. I have no intention of submitting a PR or doing anything more with this.

[mental briar]

https://tenor.com/bxzXX.gif

[uncut atlas]

it's actually pretty easy, the hard part is just getting audio data to the core

there's not really any way currently

[humble bluff]

yeah the adc was easy

[uncut atlas]

the acd is easy but it's not meant for music quality audio

it's meant for tapes, it cuts half the waveform

[dreamy hinge]

best you can probably do is add options to sys to not mix the alsa audio, but to let the core grab it and do what it wants. then people can sort out how to use that for external input. like maybe stream the audio over ethernet or something

[uncut atlas]

sys doesn't give it to cores atm

you could build a cd style helper that fed the core

that's probably the best bet, just take it from one part of main and feed it to the helper

uart is likely too slow

you could make an i2s snac module

that would also work well

in fact I like that option best because it falls into "very simple logically, and not my problem" territory

make an i2s ADC for snac

sink the wires down to jaguar.v, feed it to the cd bios

you can even play the i2s via the jaguar

it would be very clean

like 4 wires and one menu option

fwiw mt32pi's already can play audio over i2s to mister

maybe you can get a little audio player on there somehow

[wintry lynx]

It looks like the MT32-pi already uses uses SNAC to pipe i2s, so that could work as a potential reference for maybe building an i2s ADC for SNAC.

lol. We found the same thing.

This definitely seems doable.

[humble bluff]

I may have a i2s ADC lying around, I might give it a try

[uncut atlas]

I did this early on as I was working with d0pe on the mister interface to the mt32pi

there's a premade board out there

you could borrow some pins on an mt32pi hat, or even re-use it with a regular pi too to use as an audio player

[humble bluff]

I had a premade board with different analog-style inputs

[uncut atlas]

just swap the sd card

and make things that use those pins

[wintry lynx]

So, if I’m following right: if I find a way to build this…it should just work now with the core as is?

[humble bluff]

No

[gentle bobcat]

Kitrinx - Oh, I remembered the remaining VLM bug... and it really isn't that big of a deal... and maybe the fix you already put in for the playback time also fixes it... but the playback counter immediately starts at 3 seconds rather than 1.

[uncut atlas]

I think that's also fixed, if you watch the video I linked to you earlier

I guess it actually starts at 2

it seems the real system starts at 1

technically 0

good odds that's a 0

yeah the next is 1

[gentle bobcat]

Kitrinx: Excellent (in Tempest 2000 voice). I do see that working in the video. Sorry for not looking closely enough at it earlier.

Remember how I said I took a MiSTer to work with me today? Well, I was bringing it home with me and realized on the second bus, I left it sitting in the seat on the first bus. I talked to the driver and he radioed the first bus and they said they'd look for it at their next full stop. I hope they find it but I won't know until tomorrow morning. Yes, I feel like an idiot.

[uncut atlas]

Aww

That's a sad story

[gentle bobcat]

Thanks Dr. House.

It isn't a sad story YET.

Don't worry. If it found a new unexpected home, I'll replace it. It's one of my ways of expanding the MiSTer FPGA userbase. ( wink ) [Riiiiiiiight]

[tall musk]

Like the cat distribution system for FPGA

[gentle bobcat]

?

Oh, is that how people get rid of kittens? Leaving them places?

'The "cat distribution system" refers to the informal and often spontaneous way in which cats find their homes, typically involving friendly strays that choose to live with humans. This concept highlights how cats often select their owners rather than the other way around, leading to many humorous and heartwarming stories online. '

[shut night]

I have a working Jag and CD unit, but won't be able to get near it until tomorrow. Is there anything I can check on it to help?

[uncut atlas]

@gentle bobcat @wicked thorn

see how the vlm treats you here

there's a bug with stop still showing patterns

[tropic rock]

I find myself wondering if ai could check my rework. It would be interesting to do it on the first complete checkin and see if it finds the errors I have already found and see if it finds any more.

[uncut atlas]

which things?

[tropic rock]

The rewrite I did of the whole core. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Jaguar_MiSTer/commit/858c24df207327f19eb70c2be9955ad6597fe996

The rewrite was supposed to be an identical functional replacement. Starting from there we found a few things wrong in the netlists but there have also been mistakes that were not identical replacements.

I guess my question is if we compared the jaguar directory with the Rework directory would all the differences be expected.

[uncut atlas]

you could probably just have it look at the original netlists

[tall musk]

That's it! I forget that not everyone spends hours scrolling through animal reels on Instagram, so that phrase isn't in the general vocabulary 😄

I like to start every morning crying over cat videos.

-# I don't actually "like" it

[uncut atlas]

Sus.

im sure curious what @sacred blade was looking for now

[gentle bobcat]

Thanks for the updated core to check out. I didn't see that until this morning and I'll have to try it when I get home from work this evening. Sorry I couldn't give you sooner feedback.

[wintry lynx]

I might give it a go after I get my toddler to school too.

@gentle bobcat that’s some bad luck about your Mister. Hope you get some good news from the transit company!

[gentle bobcat]

Luckily it wasn't my only MiSTer... but it did include my Reflex Adapt and one Jaguar controller. Luckily I do have a couple more Jag controllers. Just need to get another RA. I may be helping to test the RA2 so if that works out, its good timing.

[sacred blade]

How did you catch that 😜

[uncut atlas]

I see everything

[sacred blade]

What were they thinking, those middle aged men 😂

[slender valley]

"I hate atari!" "Fine, I'll work on the core then" "You're doing it wrong, now I have to fix it!"

[wicked thorn]

The VLM looks rock-solid to me now, Kitrinx. Everything behaves as I would expect.

[uncut atlas]

yeah that build doesnt load game discs though hehe

[gentle bobcat]

Really? Did you suspect it before you tested to verify... because you know why? Or do you have a new mystery?

[uncut atlas]

oh I know why it didnt load the game

I just thought it was funny nobody tried

there's a couple of annoying bugs

rapidly skipping tracks forward and back sometimes lands on track 0, time -0:01 but will correct itself if you seek forward again, and when you stop the VLM doesn't go dark

[gentle bobcat]

The not going dark may be normal... and how the original hardware worked. I think someone already mentioned it but will repeat... that some effects don't go completely black when nothing is playing. Some do. They usually calm down some if there isn't any audio.

[uncut atlas]

this highlights the issues I have

[gentle bobcat]

Some don't show much even when there is a lot of audio... and I'm guessing those effects react to a certain range of frequencies that aren't present at the time.

[uncut atlas]

• Some music plays automatically, it shouldn't
• Sometimes it lands on track 0, time -0:01
• Stopping doesn't clear visualization
• Sometimes after stopping it needs a nudge to play again

the fast forward and rewind work now as it shows in there

[gentle bobcat]

Obviously jumping back and forth quickly isn't typical usage... so maybe the real thing acts the same way. Hopefully someone with the real hardware will mimic the behavior and be able to tell you if any of those 4 bullet points of yours are accurate or not.

[uncut atlas]

that's a @wicked thorn question I think

im also working on making a test rom to learn some things from a real cd drive via a gamedrive plugged into it

[gentle bobcat]

That concept sounds fascinating.

[brittle zinc]

Looks great in the process though 🐑

[wicked thorn]

• The VLM should never start playing automatically when a CD is inserted. It should always require the B button to play. I don't know if that describes what you're seeing or not, but I wasn't able to duplicate auto-playing behavior on MiSTer.
• I've been able to reproduce the track 0 issue on MiSTer once. I had to stop and then play again before it would actually start playing. If we could find a method to reliably reproduce this issue, I can try it on real hardware.
• While some effects do, indeed, continue to show something on the screen without music, you're right that the VLM on MiSTer continues to show stuff when it shouldn't. I had to compare against real hardware to be sure, but 1-1 through 1-5 and 2-1 through 2-4 should show absolutely nothing. That said, it is possible for one of these effects to show a little something when you switch to them, but they should soon appear blank.
• I have not seen the nudge to play again on MiSTer, except when coinciding with the track 0 issue.

[gentle bobcat]

Thanks for checking all that.

[uncut atlas]

@wicked thorn at 0:56 of the video I posted at 2:22 pm, it shows the 0 track issue, which I guess does not happen on real hardware

[urban mango]

I've not seen that on my hardware, though the seek time is sometimes longer as the mech moves so the display stays with no digits for longer - when that 0 appears in your video there seems to be no blank time, so is the seek just too quick?

@uncut atlas in my experience a gamedrive doesn't work when plugged into a CD unit - I think this is because of the GD's ability to emulate the CD?

[uncut atlas]

how can you run a rom when the cd drive is plugged in?

[urban mango]

I can't - the GD just sits on its boot logo

[uncut atlas]

😭

[urban mango]

The manual says "The JagGD is not compatible with JagLink network play
or with the Jaguar CD add-on."

[uncut atlas]

what about a skunkboard?

[urban mango]

I've never used one to know

[uncut atlas]

if I made a cd version of this could you burn it to a disc and use it?

that would probably mess up the results slightly but still be useful

[wicked thorn]

I've got a Skunkboard. Is there something specific you're looking for?

[uncut atlas]

I have a test rom i'd like run when the jagcd has a game disc in it

it tells me stuff about the DSA commands

[wicked thorn]

Sure, shoot it over and I'll load it up.

[uncut atlas]

im still finalizing the info

[urban mango]

There's a homebrew path to run a title from a burned disc isn't there? I've never got mine to read CDRW but it does do CDRs

[uncut atlas]

that rom has 2 pages of output after it finishes running

a clear photo of both pages would be useful for reference for real hardware DSA handling expectations

thanks so much @wicked thorn owning this hardware would be difficult for me

emotionally

[wicked thorn]

I've run the ROM on a Skunkboard through a JaguarCD with a game disc inside. The disc never spun up, but I don't know if that's normal or not. Here's the output of both pages.

[uncut atlas]

Hmmmm

it's not what I hoped for

I think bigpemu is the same, let me see how it's supposed to work and ill get back to you, thank you

on the bright side, it did highlight a difference from real hardware

@wicked thorn I think I found out why real hardware didn't like it, this works on bigpemu the way i'd expect now

sorry to be annoying

it was an addressing thing that mister was allowing but real hardware doesnt

so all we know about DSA stuff is a reference sheet we found, but atari kinda breaks the spec a little in butch

so we are mostly guessing based on usage what the right responses are

and if commands even exist sometimes

[wicked thorn]

To my untrained eye it looks just the same. I've double-checked that I loaded the newest ROM, which has an md5sum of d6008d56f739bf21c2e15ff800d05691.

[uncut atlas]

huh

yeah it's still timing out

this is gonna be hard

[fallow salmon]

thats weird if it doesn't even spin up the disc

[half cove]

Dumb question, is the Jaguar CD being powered by its own power supply?

[tropic rock]

This is the error if you do not plug in its power

[ashen spoke]

does it really display that lowres cropped image? lmao

[gentle bobcat]

GR showed that before... and I assume so.

When he showed it the first time I believe he wrote something like... just wanted to show you this error image because you can't get it on the Jaguar core... because there isn't a need to add a feature that replicates the JagCD not being plugged in.

Advanced Options -> JagCD Power: Off

[humble bluff]

I've got this working. I have Moode running on a Raspberry Pi, using the Jaguar Core as a Generic I2S output for testing. Currently have a menu option that switches USERIO from JagLink to I2S. As you said, someone just needs to swap their MT32-pi SD card.

[uncut atlas]

yeah

should be like 4 wires on the mister side

[gentle bobcat]

Hey, hey, hey. My box showed up. Someone put it on my desk at work. I have no idea who.

[ashen spoke]

What’s in your box

[gentle bobcat]

A Multisystem 2, power adapter, Jaguar controller, Logitech Gamepad F310, Reflex Adapt and related cabling.

I left it on a bus yesterday.

[ashen spoke]

Oh god I’m glad you got it back

[gentle bobcat]

I'm playing with the updated VLM... trying to give it longer playback tests.

( on a MiSTer Pi with dual RAM )

Am digging bug fixes for sure. Wished it could load CD games, and indeed it just sits there.

[tall musk]

Good to hear your bus belongings found their way home.

[gentle bobcat]

Ok, I've played back several hours of music with the VLM now... and it was a bit of a spiritual orgasam. 🙂 I thought I found a bug BUT then I realized that it was just that one of the .cdi files I had constructed was larger than an audio CD and not something the physical hardware could have played because it wouldn't have fit on an audio CD.. That's the TxK soundtrack is like 75+ minutes. It has 18 tracks. On track 17 it dies at 2:24... at which point the VLM freaks out and just starts jumping through all of the tracks in order not playing anything... 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 . If you try to play track 18, it won't play at all. .cdi files that don't exceed the physical limits play perfectly. No stops, no skips... just, assuming you like the music being played, pleasure.

While there are some good Jaguar CD games (Battlemorph, Iron Soldier 2, etc), I do think the vast majority of interest in JagCD functionality is for the VLM. The GameDrive sort of plays JagCD games but it takes a lot of trial and error and writing the microSD just so. I never got it working but I wasn't persistent enough. The GameDrive doesn't do the VLM at all. The MiSTer FPGA core really will be a better Jaguar than the real Jaguar with a GameDrive and no JagCD. BigPEmu is a great playtoy but it doesn't offer a cycle accurate mode (that I'm aware of).

So, there was a book entitled, "How to Change Your Mind" by Michael Pollan... and a NetFlix mini-series taken from it. It basically discusses the perceived benefits of psychedelic drugs when used in moderation and with training from medical professionals. I bring that up because they mention them being used for end-of-life care (releaving the fear of death), addiction treatment and depression... where traditional therapy and medicine fails... and harkens back to the namesake of the series, "How to Change Your Mind"... and that's what I was alluding to with "spiritual orgasam" above. 🙂 It doesn't hurt that recreational marijuana has been legal in my state (Montana) for a few years and I practiced my right during my testing. Hell yeah.

[ashen spoke]

what the hyeck

I saw the Atari Jaguar core first, you can’t have her

[gentle bobcat]

I think I'm going to have to take the later Girl Talk albums (which are freely distributable) and create some .cdi files and give those a try. I'm not really a Rap fan and those albums are littered with rap track rips mashed up with somewhere between 12-20 other pop, rock, and other genre music per track... quite the dance / rave party type stuff. I think that would be really fun.

I'm already planning to do some summer usage of a particular large auditorium at work that has thee giant screens hanging from the ceiling for VLM playback. That's the "Gianforte Room" named after our governor... who you may have heard of... because he had a "Election-eve assault on journalist" episode where he body slammed the guy and broke his glasses. He has a new building almost done with construction that will house the "Gianforte School of Computing" at which point they will become the "College of Computing". I think they are going to need a MiSTer FPGA exhibit in their new building.

Feel free to check out the Girl Talk ablums on YouTube. They are all there. Some will find them to be a trip and others, just an annoyance.

Regarding "The VLM Collection" I threw together in a weekend and posted to the archive... I should probably check all of those (~25) .cdi files to see if I accidentally exceeded the physical capasity of an audio CD that would cause playback problems beyond 70 something minutes.

Robby - What the (Selma) Hayek?

I've mainly used Girl Talk albums for long drives where I need help staying awake... blasting them will keep you awake.

When the Jaguar core gets marked as "stable", middle-aged men everywhere (and geezers too) will have a reason to rejoice.

@humble bluff - If you get a SNAC adapter for external autio input to the VLM working where you have an interface design that is somewhat easily replicatable... I will consume the heck out of that. Virtually endless playlists here-we-come.

( me goes to make some coffee )

Also looking forward to a finalized design of the JagLink SNAC adapter. I have yet to experience multi-player on the Jaguar and yes, it is very limited as only a few games support it... but JagFests were well kwow (I never attended one myself) for their Battlesphere multi-player sessions with real Jaguars hardware. Battlemorph is harder to get into as a single-player game... and supposedly significantly more enjoyable as a multi-player game.

[humble bluff]

I do have it working. 🙂

[gentle bobcat]

Yes, I saw that... great work. Now to get it out of the lab... and Pluribus it. 🙂

[humble bluff]

Lol, I can upload a test build, but won't do a PR until Kit is done.

[gentle bobcat]

Yep. But I would also need a SNAC adapter of some sort, right?

[ashen spoke]

ok this is all fine and dandy but what about the spiritual orgasms

[humble bluff]

Depends how you want to feed it but if you had a MT32pi you could just put Moode on a sd and use that to drive VLM. No additional hardware.

Looks like Moode would even support the MT32 buttons and OLED

You can even Bluetooth or AirPlay stream to it.

[gentle bobcat]

I do not have an MT32pi. The dude behind the Raspberry Pi release has stepped away from it and I think it has become unmaintained. I should get one just so I can try out MIDI stuff with the various cores that support it. I would prefer an adapter that just provides an audio-in jack on it. I wonder if anyone is shipping an MT32 unit for the MiSTer that includes an RPi Zero in place?

[humble bluff]

There are places that sell them still.

[gentle bobcat]

MiSTer Addons has a kit, you supply the Pi.

[ashen spoke]

I never had issues with it even if it is no longer updated

[uncut atlas]

it's a shame he never added the sc55 stuff

[gentle bobcat]

If only Newark.com sold Pi Zeros... as they typically have the regular Pis in stock by the hundreds.

Newark also sells the Pico but no Zero. I guess I need to find another retailer.

Dang. They have 9,745 8GB Pi 5s in stock.

Nevermind. They do also sell the Zero, they just aren't featured, for whatever reason, on their Raspberry Pi info pages... but if you search for the Zero, they have them.

I do have the original Zero still in the see-thru packaging that was included on the cover of MagPi magazine in a display at work.

Well, they have the Zero W in stock but the 2s won't ship until April.

DUH, I do have a Pi 5 with 4GB of RAM in an official RPi case with power adapter but for whatever reason the last time I tried it, I couldn't get it to boot from the official OS via sdcard.

[humble bluff]

Looks like Moode requires a 3b/Zero2 or newer.

[gentle bobcat]

First time I've ever had a problem with a Pi working properly.

Oh look, Tru Fun Games as a new video out showing that the Kredits section in the game is there now and populated with all of the Patreon folks. A few people here are in there including me.

[gentle bobcat]

Tiny Tutorial on how to make an audio .cdi file for use with the VLM:

1. Get source media
2. Feed that to any program that can turn your source media into bin/cue files (I use Brasero on Linux). Do not exceed 70ish minutes
3. If needed, edit cue file to remove any path info
4. Run bincue2cdi (C source file here: https://www.montanalinux.org/files/metalgamesolid/bincueaudio2cdi.c)
5. Rename the resulting .bin.cdi file to just .cdi

C program by GreyRogue

[wintry lynx]

https://misteraddons.com/products/mt32-pi?srsltid=AfmBOoqxyEk7MsuKeVnGoNlQVtbe33UIbKir7xbyRMeIyDSzHgJ7j20z

So I need to buy this, and I think I have a 3b laying around…

[gentle bobcat]

Hmm... just noticed some trouble in paradise. I had mostly been play instrumental techo music (T2K, TxK, D2K, etc) but after converting some music with vocals... I've noticed the playback is noticably sped up and off key... like The Chipmunks but not so bad. Not sure if it is the VLM playback at fault or some part of my conversion process. Will have to investigate.

[urban mango]

I converted a CD directly in DiskJuggler and it did the same. I mentioned it to @uncut atlas the other day and I think it was said to be known about

I also found that longer tracks started to glitch

[gentle bobcat]

Ok. Thanks.

Was wanting to play it in BigPEmu to verify. Can anyone give me the settings / tips on how to get the VLM to work in BigPEmu (Linux)? I had it working on another computer so I know it works, but I have a fairly fresh install on my current laptop.

[uncut atlas]

ill check it, I need to get a better cd to test with

i've been using game music and it's not that great

[gentle bobcat]

Yeah, "The VLM Collection" is just all of the audio / music from all of the Jaguar games... and there are a bunch of tiny clips in there... and not really a good listening experience.

[uncut atlas]

see if anything is better there

that's more up to date

[gentle bobcat]

On it.

CD Games work again! VLM audio is still chipmunked.

[tropic rock]

I am listening to some Beach Boys. Sounds fine to me.

[gentle bobcat]

It isn't super faster but some.

[urban mango]

Yeah still sounds pitched up to me

[gentle bobcat]

@urban mango - Do you use Linux?

[urban mango]

No, windows or macOS other than steam deck

[gentle bobcat]

@Shinto - Can you tell me what the settings are in Linux BigPEmu for VLM to work? It is alluding me.

[uncut atlas]

@tropic rock pitch would be the i2s calculation with the fractional right?

[urban mango]

The pitch difference is subtle enough that you might have to listen to the same track on another device.

[gentle bobcat]

Hmm, I think I had the settings right and then BigPEmu just crashed. 🙁

[urban mango]

I can get it to show the track 0 -0:01 display by repeatedly using buttons 3 and 1 to swap between playing those two tracks. Sometimes when I press 1 it then goes to 0 but this is not 100% reproducible.
When it does glitch to track 0, it will eventually play track 1 after about 10 seconds of waiting

[uncut atlas]

oh

I dont have those buttons

ill add a way

[tropic rock]

Ok. Yeah. It is running a little too fast. I would say about 5%. You can just time the timer. It will be running the same amount too quickly.

[tropic rock]

Yeah. Something wrong there would be my first guess

[uncut atlas]

what frequency is the i2s divider trying to achieve

cd audio?

[urban mango]

I just mapped sholders to 1 and 3

[tropic rock]

It is in the comments.

35280 bytes/sec is 2x. so 17640 bytes/sec is 1x. 4 bytes/sample is 44100 samples/sec

[uncut atlas]

I see how it is, gonna make me look in the comments huh

fine fine

[tropic rock]

Need to clean out the typo comments though. Things based on 35820 are wrong

[gentle bobcat]

Wow, VLM isn't mentioned anywhere in the BigPEmu Users Guide.

"Thank you to Mycah Mattox for donating the Jaguar CD hardware, this hardware was essential for my research."

[tropic rock]

I am wondering if the if statements are broken.

    if (~old_clk && clk) begin
        if (wsout != old_wsout) begin
            fractional[17:0] <= fractional[16:0] + (cd2x ? 18'h16BC7 : 18'h0D7CF); // default cd speed = 1x
        end
    end

It might be that wsout and old_wsout are always equal when clk rises.

This might work better

begin
    old_tld <= tld;
    if (~old_tld && tld) begin
        fractional[17:0] <= fractional[16:0] + (cd2x ? 18'h16BC7 : 18'h0D7CF); // default cd speed = 1x
    end
end

[uncut atlas]

ill try that next build

[tropic rock]

Seems to match a bit better

Not sure if I have everything in your build. This can be deleted after your build

[tropic rock]

I see a mistake in there. There is a transposed number 2532 should be 2352 (the comment is correct 588*4). 2532 will chop off the last 8% of the audio.

[urban mango]

Pitch seems correct on this one, cheers!

[gentle bobcat]

I agree. I am seeing it stopping early on songs and jumping to the next song.

[hidden siren]

isn't making a sine wave, at a fixed hz .wav file & turning it into a cdi, then sampling the output a sure-fire way to confirm the pitch is correct?

[tropic rock]

I see that too. I might be missing changes from Kitrinx. Also note the item above about the wrong number in the c code. It will mess up the end of CDIs.

[gentle bobcat]

Ah.

[uncut atlas]

where is this?

[tropic rock]

In the c code that converts cue/bin images to cdi. See the link in the post

[uncut atlas]

oh

[gentle bobcat]

GreyRogue: You have an updated bincue2cdi c source?

I guess if it is just a transposed number, I can fix that and repost.

Link updated

[uncut atlas]

is that why your cdi audio file seems

truncated?

I thought it might have been a bug

[gentle bobcat]

That would be why. I don't know if I have all of the originals of those game media files. Looking. Will recreate everything if I can.

I definitely have all of the OST files.

[uncut atlas]

bunch of changes and my solution to having a numpad under input options

with grey's fix

[gentle bobcat]

On it.

WITH freshly minted .cdi files.

[tropic rock]

Yep. That should fix it

[gentle bobcat]

Looks and sounds promising... and Game CDs still work.

Only thing I can think of remaining... is for STOP to stop showing lots of visuals. Everything else is working heartwarmingly well for me.

[uncut atlas]

I have no idea on that one

I need to make more tweaks to the numstick

[gentle bobcat]

I'm using an original controller so I didn't look there. Will do now.

Does it keep showing stuff because it thinks the i2c is feeding it data?

From the visuals, I don't think so because they are quite lifeless by comparison.

What is it supposed to do when turned on?

[uncut atlas]

use the analog stick

[gentle bobcat]

Hmm, I couldn't get the VLM control screen to respond to any buttons on my F310 controller after mapping them.

[uncut atlas]

still needs a little work

doesnt use mappings

[gentle bobcat]

Thanks to ya'll on this fine Saturday.

We do have one less hour this weekend... unless you live somewhere where they don't do DST.

[tropic rock]

Maybe on stop it continues to feed 0s instead of the actual data while the disc spins down.

The last beach boy track works better with the fixed number but it is still cutting off a little early. Not sure why.

Any chance the cache gets confused at the end of the disc?

Could still be a mistake in the conversion

[gentle bobcat]

I will investigate

I couldn't duplicate in my first attempt.

I will be playing a few more full albums all the way through... and then try some jump track salad.

I should have a Reflex Adapt 2 for testing coming in a week or so... and if that works well enough, I'd be happy to send a Jaguar controller with my original RA to Kitrinx if she is willing.

You can sand the two Atari logos off of it if you want.

[dreamy hinge]

I heard atari hardware can't cross the threshold into her house

[gentle bobcat]

The Reflex Adapt does have the de-Atari code in the firmware.

Switched into mellow mode with Pablo Cruise Lifeline and next Dan Fogelberg Twin Sons of Different Mothers

Here's something... rewind does play rewinding audio while you have the button down but when you let go, it continues exactly where it was.

[uncut atlas]

I ordered a paddle controller once and it burst into flames when the delivery driver brought it inside the building

[gentle bobcat]

No rewind doesn't do that. Looks like it has chunk sizes where if you don't rewind enough it will start back where you were... but if you go back further... fine.

I think it might be Atari stuff doesn't like her.

[uncut atlas]

I dunno what you mean about rewrind

[gentle bobcat]

It was mostly my imagination... so nevermind.

I assume it is ok to make a video of the most recent build and post that video publicly?

[gentle bobcat]

( me uploads updated VLM sample .cdi files to the archive )

My upload bandwidth on Spectrum sucks.

[urban mango]

Yeah I’m still hearing glitches/skips in some tracks

Numstick is fun!

[gentle bobcat]

I'm on track 6 of the second straight-through album and I haven't done any button mashing yet. Will do that when done with with this album.

Trifle - what does that do exactly? I must not have done it right. Will try that last.

[urban mango]

So I’m on a ps4 controller - with the numstick option on, moving the right stick shows a 3*3 1-9 number display where the stick movement highlights one of the numbers and selects it after a delay I think behaviour is? Left has # 0 *

[gentle bobcat]

Cool. I've not seen such a thing before on the MiSTer. Once I'm done with my planned stuff... I'll yank out the Jaguar controller and try it with my dual stick F310.

If I already had the right stick mapped as stuff... should I redo the inputs where I don't use it for anything... and then turn the stick setting on?

[urban mango]

I didn't have my right stick mapped

[gentle bobcat]

GreyRogue: I make the same offer to you... and forgive me for not doing it sooner... if you'd be interested in a RA with Jaguar controller?

Search terms jagcd vlm dated today.

Trifle - On the occasional skipping thing... are you using network-based files? Or local microSD files? Or something else?

[gentle bobcat]

I couldn't really duplicate the skipping or stopping short issues. Everything worked for me.

Then I moved on to testing some of the Atari ST port stuff and the sampling that I tried worked fine. Now to try some homebrew stuff.

[gentle bobcat]

Tried the right-stick input feature. Pretty cool thus far.

[urban mango]

My Jag files are on a USB thumb drive

[stoic jewel]

Is this a dual ram build?

[gentle bobcat]

Yes, it is a dual-RAM build.

[ashen spoke]

I pinned it

If there’s a new singleton build let me know

Plz

[stoic jewel]

jcd isn’t working for me on the latest build. Whenever I try to load a CD game using .jcd, it just takes me directly to the CD menu.

[uncut atlas]

yeah it doesnt work on any build\

it never worked

[gentle bobcat]

Here's a not-high-production video I made that contrasts the build from July 2025 and the one from yesterday. Hopefully I didn't word anything wrong. It could have been shortened but I show everything in real-time, no cuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQPjNxG7Aw

[gentle bobcat]

Even on the platform .jcd was created for, the GameDrive, it doesn't work very well.

[ashen spoke]

Is the CD info pin still necessary?

#1055574003810578503 message

Is there any info from there I can roll into the Important Info pin?

[gentle bobcat]

Good question. The BIOS info is probably useful. The loading of and switching between carts, game and audio CDs just works... so references manual settings changes would just confuse folks.

[gentle bobcat]

@Robby - I think you can get rid of the sections for loading CD Games and Audio CDs.

"Cartridge files and CD images in .cdi format go under games/Jaguar/. You can use sub-directories for organization if desired.'

[humble bluff]

Here is a build with support for external I2S input for VLM. There is an Input option to switch from JagLink to I2S. You can load MoOde on an SD and run it on a MT32-pi. Here are the settings for running on the MT32-pi. Buttons and OLED work as well. For OLED: https://github.com/kconger/mpd_oled/blob/master/doc/install_moode8_source.md

[wintry lynx]

Thank you so much. Can’t wait to try this out soon! I’ll order an MT32pi this week.

[uncut atlas]

I think CDI is honestly a much better format than jcd

I sort of wanted to add jcd just for convenience but it's become a headache

[ashen spoke]

Yeah but it’s so confusing that I need to load CDi games for a Jaguar core!!

[tropic rock]

Thanks, but I would not get enough use of it to make it worthwhile.

[gentle bobcat]

At some point I hope to go through the homebrew and Atari ST ports to see what works and what doesn't... and to document that somewhere.

[tropic rock]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sQCMOA5qBsIpLPPkCMn3Z0FSxr4p4RhZB1TMZLeMF8Q/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0

[humble bluff]

I think all of them worked when I tested

At least all the ones I had.

[slender valley]

I think a different person was working on the SC55. IIRC I think it was some arguments between those two people that caused the MT-32Pi person to step down. Shame, evne before he stepped down it had some bugs with newer revisions of the Pi3. I could not get mine to boot at all until I found out that I needed different boot files that were not in that repo.

[warm oasis]

Did the new cheats GR converted make their way to the game hacking site?

[uncut atlas]

I think I got the track seeking and stopping good

[uncut atlas]

fixed loading of robinson's requiem

that one needs some real testing with other games to make sure they load ok

[tropic rock]

Unlikely. I had forgotten how those are stored. I was thinking those zips could just replace the smaller ones but I guess they need to actually imported. I was also hoping it would inspire others to start translating the cheats from other games in that repo to MiSTer compatible.

I also should probably look at some of those level cheats and see if they should be changed to conditional if existing value is 0. They can stop the game from progressing to the next level in some cases.

[uncut atlas]

todo:

• Eeprom saving
• Memtrak saving
• General code cleanup
  AFAIK all jcd games work properly now with no bugs and the vlm works correctly all around now, let me know if that's not the case

oh also

• Fix to vblank window (maybe evaluate aspect ratio)

[ashen spoke]

shooting dualies?

[urban mango]

@uncut atlas FYI I’m not hearing music in Primal Rage in this build

[uncut atlas]

in the game?

does it play cd music?

thanks that's a new issue

[urban mango]

Yeah in game - think it is CD music yes

VLM seems quite solid

[uncut atlas]

I likely broke cd audio while in game mode somehow, maybe as a leftover thing I did

ill find it

[urban mango]

There is a music test in the menu so you don't have to play it 🙂

World Tour Racing also seemed to hang on the Licensed By image but worked in an older core. Similar with Ants (unlicensed) but in the older core that did sometimes boot following a reset.

That older core is one from 25/02 according to its file time (it had no internal version)

[urban mango]

Music worked in Blue Lightning btw

[small sail]

The latest core is Dual RAM only right?

Thanks in advance

[uncut atlas]

don't make weird sketchy video about WIP features 😛

[slender valley]

"Mister now has a 100% perfect transistor-level accurate Jaguar CD core!"

[mental briar]

don’t forget about the 100% cojag support

[tall musk]

I need that CoJag support.

[uncut atlas]

I don't like arcades

[mental briar]

Don't be so hasty. Cojag might just change your mind!

[uncut atlas]

it will not

[warm oasis]

You probably know this, but for anyone who doesn't, the way our cheats work on MiSTer is they are added to the site gamehacking.org; this is the Jaguar section for example:

https://gamehacking.org/system/jag

The guy who runs it kindly has an automated process that creates packs that are updated when new cheats are added that wind up on this page:

https://gamehacking.org/mister/

And from there they are grabbed by the update script, and when new cheats are added this get downloaded to everyone's MiSTer.

Is a really nice, streamlined process.

[tropic rock]

I think I knew this at one point and forgot.

[warm oasis]

The guy who runs the site is on here but I can't remember his username, but if people have cheats that could be added pinging him and sharing them might be easier than whatever the site submission process is

[uncut atlas]

it's not as good as a real numpad, but it works well for 99% of the times when you need number buttons

[mental briar]

https://tenor.com/jIuzyD2apla.gif

[dreamy hinge]

stealing this for general menu use, but extending it to allow a virtual keyboard via T9

[uncut atlas]

well, it uses the analog stick, and you select by holding it in one of the highlighted positions for 500ms

so it doesn't feel horrible

left stick is the numbers, right stick is the two symbols and 0

[uncut atlas]

after waffling around over how to deal with the cd saves, im just going to treat the memory track as a memory card, so you mount it

the cd also has a tiny eeprom, which is largely unimportant, but for vlm enthusiasts it matters

that will also be a mountable file, but you dont need it

[dreamy hinge]

I can do main things if we want/need per-cd auto-mounted saves

[uncut atlas]

doing something like psx has would be nice, so people dont have to get a blank memory card

eeprom can be totally invisible as well

but right now im wiring them to two streaming mounts, with persistance, so they only have to be selected once

later on I guess we can make main support them more gracefully

at the moment, a single memorytrack save will cover the entire library

the eeprom only stores things like volume control and vlm selections

and randomizes the effect on the boot screen of the cd

[urban mango]

I mean that’s how it was used in the console - only one mt cart for all cd games

[uncut atlas]

yes

it's 128kb where the average atari cart has 128 bytes of save ram

[urban mango]

I don’t think I ever used mine!

[uncut atlas]

some homebrew uses 2kb of save ram

if we automate fetching blanks of the memtrack and eeprom files, people just have to mount them once and never think about it again

and all their saves will be in a very portable format

[urban mango]

Makes sense

[uncut atlas]

I gave them unique extensions for now to avoid confusions. JMC and JCE

im torn if I should default the numstick to on or off

I think there's a case to be made for both

[urban mango]

It works regardless of whether the stick is mapped to a core action doesn’t it? I don’t know how many people map dpad to stick as secondary but if they did it might confuse?

If it was on by default

[slender valley]

Does this mean that we can't use the analog stick in place of the d-pad?

[uncut atlas]

you can just turn it off

does it ever work that way?

[slender valley]

I don't recall if it's core-specific, but I thnk for most cores if you have an analog stick configured and the console does not normally have an analog stick in it's controller it lets you use it as if it was a dpad?

Still though, considering how tricky it would be to map all the buttons of a standard jaguar controller ro most modern controllers this is a great feature

Would use it over using my analog stick as a dpad

[uncut atlas]

well, the system has an ADC for an analog joystick

not much uses it though

[warm oasis]

Oh, did you figure out how that works in the end?

[slender valley]

Wouldn't you need to set that as the plugged in controller in the settings first though? Though I admit I am not sure what you mean by ADC

[warm oasis]

I remember a year or so ago we were looking for info on how that actually worked and how to enable it

[dreamy hinge]

if I remember right, if you let mister auto map your controller (via the baked in guesses, or the controller db) left analog will also act as dpad. if you do an in-core map that no longer applies

(unless you purposefully map dpad directions to analog directions)

[slender valley]

I have mapped my controller manually before but it still uses analog for d-pad as long as I don't map the analog stick manually to anything

Wonder if I can just get one of those usb numberpads if that would work in conjunction with a controller, or if you can only use a controller or keyboard, not both at once for the same player XD

[dreamy hinge]

it has to identify as a keyboard

[slender valley]

I never used one, but I assume they do since they are meant to be used with laptops and/or desktops for quick number entry

Without having to install any software

[dreamy hinge]

and yes, I just tested. 'default map' -> analog works as dpad. any purposeful map of dpad to something else -> no analog as dpad anymore

it is possible some cores are doing that internally tho

[slender valley]

Wait, so manually mapping d-pad to your, well, d-pad would prevent the analog stick from also working as a d-pad even if you don't manually map the analog stick to anything?

[dreamy hinge]

yes

(you could then map it in alternative buttons if you want both)

but the core itself could be taking analog values and converting them to digital if it wanted

[slender valley]

Huh, could have sworn it still worked for me,but maybe I also mapped the stick in alternate buttons and forgot

[dreamy hinge]

it's just the explicit map disables the emulation of that in main

also regarding saves: I think every core that does saves does per-game save files. some of the cd cores (and maybe a few others?) allow you to configure if you want auto-mounting/mount explicit.

[slender valley]

Also in terms of using a USB numberpad, I forgot that a PC's numberpad is not a perfect 1-1 lineup, they have a large 0 on the bottom taking the place of two keys instead of the equivalent of a period and asterisk

[dreamy hinge]

while the 'real world' was one save for all games, it would be pretty different in the mister world to operate that way

[slender valley]

And some have a weird 00 button, which I assume just presses 0 twice

Considering that without the numberpad, the Jaguar controller only had a d-pad and 5 buttons, counting start and select, could there be a confirm button when using the analog stick to choose a number instead of just hovering on the number for 500ms? If one is using a controller with dual-analog they are likely going to have plenty of unused buttons left over if they don't need them mapped to number keys. (Did any jaguar games need you to press the numberpad buttons quickly? Or more than one at once? Or hold down them down?)

[wise ether]

Playing with the VLM with the last rework core and the 9th set of effects aren't working as expected. 9-1 to 9-4 has a few white dots receding into the screen, 9-5 and 9-6 are a black screen and 9-7 to 9-9 only show some of the pattern, not all. Going off this image...
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/58846/122686598-c82f1700-d209-11eb-89b5-7f965b1cbec6.jpg

Tried a few of the ost's that @gentle bobcat posted on archive, all gave the same result.

[urban mango]

Some of them have an interactive element where you have to press a button to trigger the vfx - might be these?

[wise ether]

Ok, lemmie try that....

[urban mango]

Press and hold IIRC

[wise ether]

B + Direction, very cool!

[warm oasis]

Was having a glance at the issues on the github repo. Whoever has the rights should just close this one:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Jaguar_MiSTer/issues/19

[gentle bobcat]

Yes, bank 9 are all interactive effects and are there for the user to use the controller to manually make most of the effects. I recommend you check out the Jaguar Game by Game Podcast's latest episode where Shinto tries to describe all of the effects. Also, if you check out the JagCD manual (PDF available), they mention bank 9 if I remember correctly. Let me see if I can paste a screen grab.

I believe the "9-9" in the right column is a typo in the manual.

I think there are a few "9-9" in various places that are supposed to be something else.

[gentle bobcat]

[C] is "Strobe" in all banks/effects.

[gentle bobcat]

Kitrinx - if you are looking for anything to add to the right stick, you could add a combo button that does both * and # together, which in most games will restart the cart.

[dim sundial]

That seems like a world of rage if you accidentally activate that by nudging or pressing a stick, and if you're playing the jaguar you're probably already very angry at yourself for something

[gentle bobcat]

Same story with a real controller. Do it once or twice by accident and you learn to be more careful.

But it does come in handy if you are trying to accomplish something and you fail and want to start over without having to lose all of your lives.

But of course there is the OSD core reset.

[uncut atlas]

thats probably not an ideal thing to hit by accident

I can add some other things to it

[uncut atlas]

it seems like jaguar really wants to draw 640x230

[mental briar]

640 is 10 times 64

[tall musk]

@gentle bobcat - you got a nice shout-out on Lu's Retro this morning. Kit got her moment to shine as THE #1 fan of Atari too!

[gentle bobcat]

PCN has a Jag video that just dropped.

[fallow salmon]

you might be thinking of psx core which does this automatically

[uncut atlas]

how many different vlm effects does the cd boot logo screen cycle through about?

on a real system

it's cycling through about 9

[wicked thorn]

Nine is correct.

[uncut atlas]

okay good. I think eeprom handling works completely now. It saves the volume and vlm effect and cycles through all the boot screens.

I dont think anything else uses it

[wicked thorn]

I couldn't find anything else that uses CD EEPROM, either.

[tall musk]

Finally. My Peter Cetera Greatest Hits CD gets the light show it deserves.

[gentle bobcat]

It is hard for me to say I'm sorry

[tall musk]

It is for him too. Every Cetera song is him apologizing for being a total jerk.

[shadow topaz]

Jag CD games work fine for me with the GameDrive cart, I've updated to the latest fw and converted my games to .jcd format.

[gentle bobcat]

GuruEmulation - Glad to hear it. Maybe I'll make another attempt.

I know the tips are to try a faster microSD card (10u?) and to write out the files after a fresh format so that they will be contiguous.

[uncut atlas]

what's the index of the default vlm visualization?

I would have expected 1-1 but that doesnt seem true

[shadow topaz]

My card is a Sandisk Extreme XC1 64Gb
I will do some tests during the weekend.

[gentle bobcat]

Since most real hardware users have a functioning CD EEPROM that saves the last used, can they answer that?

My guess would be that it starts in bank 1 and just randomizes a effect.

[tropic rock]

I think 4 is 1-4

[uncut atlas]

thanks

odd choice

maybe that was just jeff's favorite

[tropic rock]

Maybe that was Jeff's favorite

hah

[uncut atlas]

jinx

[urban mango]

1-4 is what my hardware seemed to default to

[slender valley]

https://tenor.com/view/pokemon-ugly-jynx-nicki-minaj-gif-4172657

[shadow topaz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgQvG5k_YIk

Awesome to finally play this port on the Mister, many thanks @uncut atlas

[gentle bobcat]

GuruEmulation - When I run MKv1.1beta, it puts a green bar at the top. I assume it does that for you too?

Well, you posted that video 26 minutes ago and yours doesn't have a green bar at the time... so I guess not.

[shadow topaz]

That's strange.
On the Mister Pi?

I just tried a build of Kitrinx, didn't change any options.

[gentle bobcat]

https://youtu.be/YlQPjNxG7Aw?si=7mwFBPS8W8ws90rA&t=752

[shadow topaz]

Weird, I didn't have that issue, I'll reach out to you in private if it's ok for you.
Would like to compare our settings.

[mental briar]

I don't have the MK rom, otherwise I'd check

[shadow topaz]

It runs exactly the same as on hardware for me.

[gentle bobcat]

Sure... dm me.

Although I'm not at home so I can't compare.

[gentle bobcat]

Since I have a dual-ram MiSTer it doesn't affect me as much, but some folks are asking if ya'll plan/hope to have a single-RAM build once you are happy with the state of development?

[uncut atlas]

yes, though I work on it in dual ram since it's more accurate

it gives me more room to debug and things

[compact lynx]

Jag Wire

[gentle bobcat]

People tell me that Jaguar doesn't have a W in it.

But I also pronounce it as if it does... like the U.S. commercials Atari ran.... Jag-waur, Jag-waur, Jag-waur.

waur rhymes with far

[wintry lynx]

“JAGWAR JAGWAR JAGWAR!!!!!”

I always think of that commercial with the teacher saying it lol

[uncut atlas]

Jaguar was made by americans so there's only one way to pronounce it

and it has a w in it

[dreamy hinge]

I thought it was just pronounced 'jag'

[gentle bobcat]

I have this in my media collection:

[plush salmon]

I liked the Australian pronunciation of it, I can't really remember how but I liked it when I heard it. It might be similar to the british way where they change how many syllables the word has.

[marble holly]

are you 80?

[gentle bobcat]

No, but I did graduate high school in the 80s. This is retro gaming.

[gentle bobcat]

It's the room full-of-middle-age-men++ that Kitrinx likes so much.

[marble holly]

no beef, just that even when jag was in its hayday CBS and it's shows were what felt like exclusively made for very old people

[gentle bobcat]

A note on the update_all update:

I'm a completest with a very, very large media collection.

A "digital hoarder"

[mental briar]

I have not updated the jaguar core in there yet because Kit is actively working on it. once the builds slow down, or Kit is happy with a build, I will add it

[marble holly]

her continued contribution to all things Atari truly shows her love for the company.

[sage rune]

Isn't that something like "Jag-you-ah-uh" ?

[plush salmon]

yeah something like that, maybe jag-you-are. I remember joking it sounded like jaggywire to me

[warm oasis]

Jag-u-arr is how you say it in Scotland

[sage rune]

I thought you said Aussie. They always seemed allergic to the letter "r"

[plush salmon]

you may be right, like they replace r with h

[uncut atlas]

hey

does anyone have a real atari jaguar with a flash cart that can see video all the way to the edge of the blanks (ie see all the overscan area)?

@wicked thorn or @urban mango maybe?

[urban mango]

@uncut atlas I think mine might if its connected to the Tink or if I adjust the TV. What would you like to check?

[uncut atlas]

I'm doing some fixes for video so I need to see some 240p test suite screens

this screen

and this screen, which are "grid" and "convergence" under the first option

what im interested in is where the bottom line gets cut off, and where the top line starts

[mental briar]

a 240p test suite for the jag? finally, something to play

[wicked thorn]

This is the best I can do. It is real hardware plugged into an old, dumb 4:3 LCD with S-Video.

[uncut atlas]

it kinda needs to not be a crt, that's why I mentioned the overscan

dont worry about it if you dont have a capture card or upscaler

[wicked thorn]

Capture card, yes. Upscaler, no. Did you need this run through a capture card, as opposed to a photo of the LCD TV screen?

[uncut atlas]

I just really need to see the top and bottom lines with nothing at all cut off

it's not super important, at the end of the day missing a line at the top or bottom probably won't even be noticed

[gentle bobcat]

I tried it on my Raspberry Pi monitor and the images look exactly like the ones you (Kitrinx) posted. I guess I don't have any visible overscan.

[uncut atlas]

the one I posted are the full screen

[wicked thorn]

These were run through my capture card (S-Video).

[uncut atlas]

ok

im pretty sure that grid is supposed to be truncated

that's a relief

[gentle bobcat]

DUH. I wasn't using my real Jaguar.

[slender valley]

Apparently the Jaguar can natively output rgb without any modifications, though I have no idea how to wire up a cable for that

Probably would be the best way to capture the entire image without overscan cutting it off

[quasi hill]

Are the new test cores onlu dual ram?

[plush salmon]

real jag on a pvm with the underscan button hit may tell you if the bottom red line is there or not, so I'm not sure if it has to not be a crt for the test

[ashen spoke]

Yes

Single ram cores will be made but generally during development it’s easier to work with more ram.

[quasi hill]

gotcha. TY

[uncut atlas]

wow I managed to trigger a very weird error, what does this mean?

[mental briar]

cd is unplugged I think?

like it doesn’t have power?

I swear I saw a wiki page with all the boot image errors

https://youtu.be/o3QoSD8Is-w?si=4i6Jcgdb8IlRfm6p

[wicked thorn]

That screen will appear when the CD player is plugged into the Jaguar, but does not have its own power source plugged in. Both the Jaguar console and the CD attachment require their own independent (and interchangeable) power supplies. There should be a flashing arrow, too, pointing to a spot on the back of the combined system.

[uncut atlas]

yes indeed

but I wonder how exactly an fpga implementation reports no power

lol

[mental briar]

too accurate

[uncut atlas]

between cheats, lightgun, and all the netlist logic the timing is very very bad and lots of random erratic timing failures happen like that

the extra features makes the timings like 3x worse

putting combinational loops on a 106mhz bus was a poor choice

[gentle bobcat]

Obviously we need another menu entry: Advanced Options -> JagCD Power: Off (j/k)

[plush salmon]

Are you sure you plugged it in? it's probably whatever signal the main jag uses to detect if the cdjag is there and running

[uncut atlas]

the problem is signal metastability, it's reading some register wrong

cheats has to go, sorry

it's very very broken

maybe ill rewrite it, but you can't just have a massive combinational loop at 100+ mhz with a 64 bit bus

[earnest glacier]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Downloaded the last single ram core and tried loading up games in j64 and Rom format but I just get a black screen. I have all 3 bios files. Any ideas?

[mental briar]

Not to worry. There are two available https://www.ebay.com/itm/165339522428

[mental briar]

when you boot the core, do you get the jaguar logo?

[earnest glacier]

Nope

[tropic rock]

The power error happens when it tries to read butch registers and does not get expected responses.

[gentle bobcat]

My book arrived a copule of days ago. Need to scan that in.

[mental briar]

Are you sure you’re using the single ram core? What is the date on it?

[tropic rock]

https://github.com/mwenge/vlm/blob/63a2d3748a98077027dbca57bd79a3b3bb4d07d1/src/cdboot1.s#L564

[lyric pelican]

bne	powup		;br if not proper function (power out)

[earnest glacier]

downloaded this one #1055574003810578503 message

in the menu, it doesn't show a date

[gentle bobcat]

That's a dual-RAM core.

[earnest glacier]

oh, if thats the case, the pinned link for single takes you to dual ram core

[mental briar]

Lemme find the latest single ram

[uncut atlas]

after rebuilding it's fine

removed cheats and lightgun and it went from -25s slacks to -12

[mental briar]

#1055574003810578503 message

[earnest glacier]

Thanks. This works

[nova portal]

is that normal that when booting the core the intro animation is playing in a loop until a cart is selected ? 🤔

[gentle bobcat]

That's what it does, yes.

[mental briar]

yes, with that build

I dunno if kit has changed that with updated builds

but that's the last single core build

[nova portal]

ahh ok so no more static red logo 😄

[mental briar]

Yep!

[warm oasis]

Has this not been scanned and added to archive?

[gentle bobcat]

Not that I'm aware of. I would like to learn otherwise.

[warm oasis]

Maybe something @obsidian python over at Gaming Alexandria might be interested in acquiring and adding to the scan pile in that case

[obsidian python]

What needs scanned? Saw the bat signal 😉

[gentle bobcat]

Atari Jaguar: Official Gamer's Guide

[warm oasis]

This thing here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/165339522428

[ashen spoke]

Sorry about that, just fixed it.

Also updated pins in general and consolidated more info in the Important Info pin - #1055574003810578503 message

[frigid dock]

I can't believe you made the most basic blunder, you forgot to create an FPGA power source module.

[uncut atlas]

I mean, it's on me "Is it plugged in?" is the first thing they always ask

[frigid dock]

yep

[shadow topaz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huK1dldm56k

6:16 Jaguar

[mental briar]

wake up fam, new vid grid just dropped

(it's probably the same videos)

[gentle bobcat]

No metadata search results were found for this query.

[obsidian python]

I can add it to my piles or get it to someone else if somebody doesn't mind buying it.

[gentle bobcat]

@Hubz - I bought it.

[gentle bobcat]

I'm sure no one here needs this, but here's a Tempest 2000 How To Play video from this here intermediate T2K player: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HFqAb-QJHc

I primarily made that for Pixel Cherry Ninja as he doesn't get T2K yet. 🙂

[mental briar]

finally.

[gentle bobcat]

That's as good of a combination as Onion and Garlic Jello.

( me tries the alt Vid Grid )

I don't think I've ever gotten past the first video collection.

[mental briar]

wait

there is more than one video collection?

I just figured it was the 8 videos or whatever

[gentle bobcat]

I mean the first set of videos.

[mental briar]

yeah, that's what I meant

lol, I never played no more tears - that's probably why I haven't seen it

[gentle bobcat]

If you get through all of the on the first level... there are additional videos... I believe. I think I got to it once and all of the videos have twice as many tiles... and some other pisses-you-off change I've forgotten.

Or maybe they are the same set of videos, just scrambled more complexly. I wonder if there are some cheats we can use to find out?!?

"VID GRID: LEVEL 1"

Unscramble puzzle

Press 4 + 7 + 8 + B during game play.

( Good luck to anyone without a numpad )

[mental briar]

separating the true fans from the pretenders

[gentle bobcat]

Oh, hell yeah... that works.

For testing purposes only. WINK

Well, that answers that. It's the same videos/songs on LEVEL 2.

Hey, at least with the cheat, if you do it immediately, you get to see the whole video in a watchable state.

Underneath the LEVEL line at the top, it tells you what the puzzle elements are. For example, LEVEL 3 has "3-4, Perfection, Flipped"

Flipped is where some pieces are backwards and have to be flipped.

Let's see what the manual says.

[mental briar]

You'll be happy to know that there is apparently another unreleased revision of vid grid coming to redump soon.

[gentle bobcat]

So they know it is a different revision because it has a different number on the inside of the spindle, but other than that, no idea what if anything is different, eh?

[mental briar]

I have no idea how the redump sausage is made

[gentle bobcat]

If only we had the "Barry Manilow" edition. 🙂

[glad otter]

Getting my first mister this week. What do you guys use to connect a Jaguar controller?

[mental briar]

I use a reflex adapt from misteraddons. They should be back in stock soon. I believe there is also a daemonbite adapter?

[glad otter]

Thanks! Also just saw bliss-box has a thing.

[mental briar]

oh nice! I didn’t realize. Only thing we don’t have is snac, but that’s a pin issue

[near aurora]

bliss is a bit archaic

[uncut atlas]

i'd use reflex instead

or just not a jaguar controller

they arent good controllers

[dreamy hinge]

hand pain is an authentic experience

[mental briar]

SNES NTT controller is a much better controller and you lose no functionality. I think they are still pretty reasonable on ebay. I bought a couple for 20 bucks each

they have an authentic japanese cigarette smell

you can even have a dedicated menu button

[uncut atlas]

im pretty fine with just that new numpad stick thing

they aren't used much

[mental briar]

The Atari one?

Oh no

Your code

Yeah, that will probably work just as well. The tradeoff being you can use a good controller

Is that in the builds yet? I haven’t checked

[uncut atlas]

not yet

I started refactoring butch

it had some bugs and it was hard to work on

[warm oasis]

If you are a big Jaguar fan, and aren't needing to connect to an analogue TV, then you may want to consider going dual ram.

[gentle bobcat]

The Jaguar controller is the best controller ever made. Don't listen to those folks!

Shinto has a Bliss and I believe he likes it. Would like to get a more detailed review.

[uncut atlas]

unless it's changed a lot in the past few years, I wouldn't get a bliss thing

reflex is just a lot more modern

[wicked thorn]

I have the Gamer Pro Advanced which is, I believe, a newer Bliss-Box product. I've tested basic functionality with the Jaguar core, and it seems to be OK so far. I haven't spent a lot of time with it, though.

[gentle bobcat]

https://bliss-box.com/products/gamer-pro-advanced

[mental briar]

was it bliss that needed the LLAPI cores?

[sage rune]

Sounds familiar

[lunar latch]

That was also my understanding

I have one, but actually have never used it

I actually bought that as more of a way to get more retro controllers capable of being connected to PC, and purchased the Blister for my MiSTer. I actually frankensteined my MiSTer so that I could have bother the standard USB IO board AND the Blister connected up at the same time.

Full stack MiSTer with the Blister board on the bottom

[gentle bobcat]

I don't think the newer product (Bliss Gamer-Pro Advanced) needs any special cores.

I am having the hardest time getting to the RetroHQ Jaguar GameDrive firmware updates. The screen I get when I hit options upon boot has a QR code and a serial number listed, but not URL. The QR code only resolves to the serial number and no URL.

I tried the https://retrohq.co.uk/fw/$serialnumber mentioned in the manual, but that just gives me a 404.

[wicked thorn]

The URL would look something like https://www.retrohq.co.uk/fw/0pyw6txpmpywt but with your serial number instead of mine.

[gentle bobcat]

( when I replace the last part with my cart's serial number )

I currently have fw v 1.15

[frosty oracle]

I popped my jaguar in storage the other day, that thing is a dust magnet

I also forgot how chunky the Power plug was

[lunar latch]

You know what, you are correct, the BlissBox (really meant for the MiSTer) has the ability to connect via the LLAPI cores OR with standard controllers, where the GamerPro Advanced is more like a standard XInput/HID retro controller converter/interface.

[wicked thorn]

1.15 is what I'm running, too.

Go ahead and boot your GameDrive back up into the firmware update screen. The Option button will actually *toggle * between the full serial number and the URL, which uses a shorter number. I did not know this until just now.

[gentle bobcat]

Ok, I'm all good now with the GameDrive and CD games. I got a bigger and faster microSD card, formatted it with FAT (rather than vfat or FAT32) and it works now. All of the cd games play except for Battlemorph (just a black screen) and I don't seem to have a copy of Blue Lightning on the card yet to try. I tried about 5 post-retail CD games and they all worked too.

Kinda weird not seeing the CDBIOS.

[gentle bobcat]

Here's my Jaguar physical cart collection. I have two Alien vs. Predator if anyone needs one. My Tempest cart is a bit beat up but it does work.

[frosty oracle]

I think I have Doom, AvP and that flying one

[mental briar]

dowdle, I may be interested in AVP. I have a jaguar, but I think I only own cybermorph

[stone vault]

Nice collection man

[frosty oracle]

That’s the name yes Cybermorph

[stone vault]

I only have a few Jag games. A sealed copy of Syndicate, and complete in box copies of Doom, AVP, and Bubsy

[uncut atlas]

I saw your typo

[slender valley]

I am assuming you would use a SNES to USB adapter for that? Do those adapters actually recognize all the buttons on the controller?

[mental briar]

using the reflex adapt. both it and the retrofi work fine

[slender valley]

retrofi?

[mental briar]

We dragged @pure oracle out of retirment for one final mission https://shop.brunofreitas.com

[slender valley]

So it's like a wireless USB adapter for various retro controllers?

[mental briar]

ya

[pure oracle]

Wireless wire

It reminds me I need to get a NTT pad

[simple fjord]

for me i use a usb adapter and it recognises all the buttons of the ntt pad

though did have to look through the github pull requests to find a fix to make the disconnect button work

[gentle bobcat]

Regarding my issue with the Jaguar GameDrive, RetroHQ said I had hit the Option button (immediately after powering on) too many times. There are actually two screens... and if you are seeing the one without the URL, hit Option again and it'll switch back to the one with the URL.

[gentle bobcat]

@Shinto - Maybe you've already answered this before, but do you have any CD+G media? How does that work in the JagCD? I assume it is just part of the CDBIOS firmware... or the VLM's code?

[tropic rock]

CDG handling is part of the cdbios. https://github.com/mwenge/vlm/blob/63a2d3748a98077027dbca57bd79a3b3bb4d07d1/src/cdfront/pack.s

[gentle bobcat]

Thanks GR.

[tropic rock]

You can select cdg from the vlm and it will replace the patterns with the cdg data from the cd subchannel if it exists.

[uncut atlas]

the better question about cd+g is how do you actually get it in an image file

the rips that contain it seem to be few and far between and im really not sure who has any media like this or what they do with it

given the way we use cd's currently, it would likely have to be provided as a seperate buffer and carefully coordinated with the important data

[dreamy hinge]

there's a NOINTRO set of CD+G stuff, but I think it's just a collection of known music cds with it

so not 5,000 karaoke discs

I don't remember if CDI can have that data embedded in it or not

[uncut atlas]

I don't think it can, and if it could the way we consume them probably wouldn't because I think it would mess up the alignment

we could jump around reads a lot and coordinate two different caches I guess

[gentle bobcat]

I don't even know if there is a CD player on Linux that can play CD+G?

(other than just the audio portion)

[dreamy hinge]

the internet is hinting at me that cdi CAN contain subchannel data

it may just be stored as another blob? not sure

yeah, it sounds like it can. the sector data has an extra 96 bytes appended to it

apparently there is also a cue file track type 'CDG' which is supposed to indicate 2448 byte sectors

[gentle bobcat]

Kinda reminds me when some vinyl records had laser etching on them... just trying to add a bit more over the standard everyone else was doing. I remember a Split Enz album I had that was laser etched. It definitely was cool looking. Here's an example of the display from a CD+G disc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELlrphzrsvI

[uncut atlas]

chatgpt agrees with you zakk

[gentle bobcat]

And some CDs had holographic covers. I remember one fella in particular:

[dreamy hinge]

finally

I assume CDI has a flag to tell you what the sector size is

also the no-intro audio cdg cue files don't bother with CDG, so maybe it's not that widespread

I bet it's from some karaoke software

[uncut atlas]

im gonna have chatgpt compile a reference doc for me

[uncut atlas]

no intro cd+g collection seems to be only about 20 discs, most of them bad

[dreamy hinge]

I mean you just summarized the CD+G audio cd experience

I did listen to a lot of Information Society when I was doing the megacd stuff

but that was before I knew this set existed

(I'd probably still listen to that one)

[uncut atlas]

fleetwood mac would probably be my goto

why do people even want this

[dreamy hinge]

you're getting sucked into a moondandy vortex

[uncut atlas]

yeah I guess

but if I don't at least add stubs for it, someone else will and I trust myself to add it in a sane ux compatible way a lot more than other people

[dreamy hinge]

the only reason I did it was most of the code was there in megacd already it was just broken

[uncut atlas]

for jagcd the question is:

• How to get it into the core
• Just plug it in in butch

[dreamy hinge]

I should go back and check it against no-intro. the state of cd+g dumps a few years ago was much more dire

[uncut atlas]

the biggest problem is the actual reading of a disc with a valid format

[dreamy hinge]

megacd and pce just have a way for main to push the data up to the core and it deals with all the stupid is it in a sub? is it cooked or not? is it in a ccd? etc logic

[uncut atlas]

jagcd is somehow managing everything in HDL

it's frankly a little bit of a flex

[dreamy hinge]

yeah. could you just mount the subchannel data as another file?

it's shitty UX but there's no way for the core to just automount some extra extension. we'd have to get main involved to do that

or

[uncut atlas]

I'll evaluate

[dreamy hinge]

is there a sane converter TO cdi that actually preserves that data?

you could just go 'cdi only!'

[uncut atlas]

right now im focusing on getting the vlm and all the games working the way they are supposed to

which indicates that all the important parts of the drive are working

cd+g can get snapped on later

this PR is already going to be stupid

it fixes like 30 bugs

[dreamy hinge]

oh no.gif. in those no-intro dumps the .cdg and .sub are the same size but have different checksums

I bet one is interleaved or something

[uncut atlas]

imn going to figure out how to make a monsterous cdi

I dont care if it's even to spec, ill rename it mister cd format if I have to

chatgpt is unhappy with me

[tropic rock]

Yes. This is what cdrdao did when I ran it on my karaoke disc. Every sector has an extra 96 bytes with the subchannel data in it. If you try to play it as a standard bin cue it sounds awful.

[mental briar]

Redump2cdi already can do that for you with the soul star prototype

[tropic rock]

I actually ripped it both ways. The only difference in the bin is the periodic insertion of 96 bytes of data.

My original thought was to cache the subchannel data in ddr and just stream it separately into butch so it would work with other formats like an mp3+cdg could be converted to cd audio and the cdg file would be in the ddr.

The maximum size of the cdg data is about 33MB for a cd.

[uncut atlas]

The extension .sub is ambiguous across toolchains. For conversion work, do not assume all .sub files mean the same thing.

Two common meanings are:

1. CloneCD-style .sub
   • typically 96 bytes per sector,
   • representing the per-sector subchannel in a raw/interleaved form compatible with raw 2448-byte sector concepts,
   • paired with .ccd metadata and an .img main-channel file.
2. packed/de-interleaved subchannel dumps used by some other tools
   • may store only selected channels,
   • may group bits/bytes by subchannel rather than by raw symbol order,
   • may require re-interleaving before use in CDI read_mode = 4.

[dreamy hinge]

yeah, there's no way to tell. .sub files are the wild west. maybe .cdg is more sane

just declare whatever no-intro does as the supported way. you can't possibly deal with every edge case from the last 30 years

[uncut atlas]

so there's no extra boiling away of oceans you can have this

I think a core doing anything with an mp3 file is gross

it's bloat

that's what audio players are for on computers

hardware accuracy is semi defensible, but mp3's no

[dreamy hinge]

yes, mp3+cue mp3+anything needs to floated out into the ocean and sunk

I bet you can still find saturn rips like that :/

[uncut atlas]

the cdi format actually seems pretty good

[dreamy hinge]

shame about the whole proprietary thing. although I think padus is dead

[uncut atlas]

I think it's been in the community's hands for a while

I think mister is big enough that if we really wanted to make our own format it's not unreasonable. And before someone posts that dumb xkcd about standards, it's not trying to replace other standards, it's the fact that none of the other standards really do what we need them to do reasonably.

I think CDI as it is though actually does

[slender valley]

Vinyls did all sorts of crazy things. Apparently there was a Vinyl which had two entirely different sets of groves on it, so that each time you put the needle on the record you would hear either one album or another depending on exactly where you initially placed the needle down. There was also one where if you shined a light on it displayed a wirefrade 3d like effect while it was spinning.

[uncut atlas]

may as well talk about wax cylinders

that's archaic physical stuff

punch cards were wild, you could draw pictures on them and they'd still work!

[mental briar]

yeah sure

whatever you say

[slender valley]

Wait till you hear about stone tablets XD

[dreamy hinge]

damnit. gdi isn't single file

[slender valley]

Yeah. GDI is like a convoluted bin/cue

[uncut atlas]

this source code is still under copyright in american law

[tall musk]

I came into a wild part of this conversation. Can something like a "MiSTer format" based around CDI support the good parts of CHD like the compression?

Not all of us want to keep an uncompressed Library of Congress around like @mental briar

[tropic rock]

To be clear, I meant the mp3 could be converted to cd audio external to the core.

[slender valley]

CloneCD's format was meant to preserved all sorts of subchannel data, but it's a proprietary format, and turns each image into four files

I am guessing this data is also an entirely different beast than the SBI cubchannel data the PSX core uses

[uncut atlas]

cdi's seem to be made to do the same just chunked in one file

[mental briar]

are we .cdi people now?

[tall musk]

I'm being swayed.

[uncut atlas]

for jaguar we are

[slender valley]

Can't believe DiskJuggler might be the format to use

[dreamy hinge]

all a 'mister format' does is make people convert entire libraries just to use them

[uncut atlas]

bin/cue is a dumpster fire fwiw

[ashen spoke]

but it's the Jaguar core, not the Phillips CD-i core

why am I loading in CDi games

[uncut atlas]

we mostly already do this to chd or cdi or whatever

[dreamy hinge]

no, not really

[uncut atlas]

how many people aren't just getting a pointed-to archive of these

[dreamy hinge]

there are chd archives of everything

[slender valley]

Yeah, I agree that it should not be a propitery format made for mister. Shame that bin/cue works for everything else except jaguar.

Well, and dreamcast IIRC

[uncut atlas]

bin/cue could work for jaguar

[dreamy hinge]

the people converting are the weird people here with their intolerable brainworms that make them think they have to convert their chds to 'optimal format'

[uncut atlas]

it just has to get converted the same way all the other things do to fill in all the gaps

[dreamy hinge]

and then never use any feature that requires it

[mental briar]

the truly chosen start with bin cue

[tall musk]

Chosen? Is that what you named your brain worms?

[uncut atlas]

it seems like most jagcd games aren't even in bin cue though

[dreamy hinge]

yeah, for jag it's probably cdi

[uncut atlas]

cdi seems to be the jagcd format of choice

[dreamy hinge]

or whatever that jcd thing is

[mental briar]

unless you're redump

[uncut atlas]

jcd is just a worse version of cdi basically

[dreamy hinge]

but yeah, redump

[uncut atlas]

it has no advantages

im not actually sure why he made it

[dreamy hinge]

the advantage of redump is you can just tell people 'go get redump images' and have reasonable confidence they aren't going to be using some shit rip from 2002

[uncut atlas]

for jaguar cd, the truth is there's 11 games, and about 20 more mediocre prototypes and homebrews

[slender valley]

I had to go out of my way to find them in cdi, IIRC the redumps are bin/cue

[mental briar]

the archive with the CDI images is poorly named

[uncut atlas]

I think virtual boy library beats it

someone should make a mister one then

[mental briar]

for Jaguar?

[uncut atlas]

yeah

[mental briar]

yeah, the existing one just needs to be renamed so it's easier to find

[dreamy hinge]

(and then it goes away when one of ya'll gets all dramapilled)

[mental briar]

i think it would take quite a lot for the person who uploaded it to go away

[dreamy hinge]

honestly since cdi is a footer-based format it is probably fakable in main

probably the only real annoyance is sorting out pregap/pause data

[tall musk]

I do enjoy the idea of a MiSTer format. Imagine the drama.

[mental briar]

My dream is to go the smokemonster route. Create the definitive 1g1r set for mister, crash out very publically, and then purchase 35mm prints of the shitty star wars prequels

living the dream

[uncut atlas]

it's basicaclly running a converter

[dreamy hinge]

also go dig in the dirt in south america

[tall musk]

Don't forget to blame Bsky for not following you enough.

[mental briar]

Oh I do that anyway

[dreamy hinge]

oh I missed that one, lol

[ashen spoke]

who's Bsky

[mental briar]

european street artist

[dreamy hinge]

speaking of, you see Reuters ran a story where they are pretty confident they figured out who it is?

[tropic rock]

It is easier to read (for the jgd). All the required data is in defined positions. There are multiple versions of cdi that can change how long each track description section is. There are also text sections of variable length which also require code to handle different sizes. With a smaller fpga, using up logic with complicated reading is inefficient to the point it can prevent it from compiling.

At least, that is my guess as to why he created it.

[uncut atlas]

maybe so, but it seems like more of a compromise than advantages if you dont have that limitation

[slender valley]

The way I see it, CDI is already a proprietary format anyway, an ancient one from a program that died in the Windows 98 era and is never going to get updated again and the only modern tool to do anything with it is a closed source app someone made three years ago that has only had two updates since, the first two being early betas. Might as well switch to an open custom format at that point.

I mean, they made the GDI format for the Dreamcast, and that definietly didn't result in a mess of releases being in sets of GDI, CDI, BIN/CUE, and CHD which each one being compatible with different things....

[uncut atlas]

modern tools are not better

we just make our own now

[tall musk]

Is now the time for the XKCD cartoon?

[uncut atlas]

https://www.xkcd.com/1172/

xkcd: Workflow

There are probably children out there holding down spacebar to stay warm in the winter! YOUR UPDATE MURDERS CHILDREN.

spacebar heating is basically how I survive the harsh NYC winters

[dreamy hinge]

this year I just gave in and encased myself in ice for a month

[uncut atlas]

okay, cd+g cdi's are a real thing

[mental briar]

It's what?!

[uncut atlas]

you may be asking yourself "but Jamie, how do we make these?" and my answering: you probably shouldn't. Touch grass.

[dreamy hinge]

I'm going to ask claude anyways

[uncut atlas]

this is truely awful tech

I have nothing but contempt

[mental briar]

Well, it is the jaguar

[uncut atlas]

it transitions in these little squares

lovely

[tall musk]

I love how devoted you are to Atari, Kit. It's really awesome.

[uncut atlas]

rm -r Jaguar_MiSTer

oops wrong window

[tall musk]

You'd never. Too much of a fan.

[ashen spoke]

grep sudo Jaguar -tinkle

I had typed -Pringles but I’ll take tinkle

[tall musk]

Yeah you will.

[gentle bobcat]

Who is Lance Charlson and why is it named the Clarkson Edition? Inquiring minds want to know. ( just got to my in-laws' house 180 miles away... tis "Spring Break" )

So, is there a CD+G player for Linux?

[uncut atlas]

no idea

I had codex make me one for testing

[gentle bobcat]

I'm happy to report, if I open up a CD+G .cue file with mpv, it plays it properly.

Although, oddly, without sound.

[sage rune]

You never saw CD+G before ?

[gentle bobcat]

Nope. I was a late adaptor of Audio CDs and I think by the time I got into them, CD+G were mostly over other than buying back issues.

I only got a cell phone (of any kind) in 2022. Would like to get rid of it really.

I do like electricity and running water. I think I'll keep'em.

[uncut atlas]

no.. you have? there's like 10 cd's with it

and nothing that uses it

[sage rune]

I saw it "the first time around" in 1990

Not so impressive back then either, but at least it was period-accurate

[gentle bobcat]

There seem to be around 31-50-ish of them.

[sage rune]

http://www.cdplusg.com/cdplusg/Main.html

[gentle bobcat]

At least it is more than the Nuon-enhanced DVDs that were released.

[sage rune]

And rather than try to source all those, you can watch and skip here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx5TQ1l7w1N0_UQqumk5lNw/videos

It's also used for a lot of Japanese Karaoke discs, even today

[gentle bobcat]

I ran across that playlist earlier, but thanks. Hey, they look different (wink) with audio accompaniment.

I might actually have that Prince Arms of Orion single CD at home.

The Devo one says, "It is not clear that the CD+G version of this was actually released."

[uncut atlas]

what do any of you know about the Jaguar CD prototype Soul Star?

[mild karma]

https://tenor.com/view/lookaway-looking-omg-dontlook-ohdamn-gif-5530702

[mild karma]

All I know is that if I try to convert the bin to cdi, it generates a 29GB file

[uncut atlas]

the bin/cue of it seems extremely janky

does it work in anything?

[mild karma]

no clue

[gentle bobcat]

I had Soul Star on my GameDrive microSD card... in .jcd format. I don't have it on my MiSTer.

Info: https://jagcube.atari.org/soulstar.html

[mild karma]

couldn’t “buy my own copy” in cdi format

[gentle bobcat]

I used bincue2cdi and it took the .cue file and single .bin file and the .cdi filesize is normal. Haven't tried it yet. Don't have my MiSTer setup at my in-laws just yet. 🙂

[mental briar]

it must be the one we have

because the one I have makes a 30gb cdi file

[mild karma]

same

I thiink there may be multiple prototype versions

[mental briar]

The disc image contains possible sector errors as there is corruption in some of the video data. A restoration effort has been made to make the game more functional.
The game will stop working after playing the first three levels.```

[slender valley]

Isn't that intended to convert Dreamcast images though? Which expects the disc to be multi-session?

[mental briar]

if you have played a jaguar cd game, chances are the one you played was converted with redump2cdi

[gentle bobcat]

Hmm, the converted to .cdi file Soulstar comes up in the VLM.

It thinks it has 43 music tracks with 68:44 of music. Maybe bincue2cdi doesn't do game CDs?

@slender valley - That's what JagCDs are... the Jaguar core uses .cdi files for CDs

[slender valley]

Oh

[gentle bobcat]

The htgdb-gamepack has a .jcd of Soulstar that does work for me on the GameDrive. I wonder how to convert a .jcd to a .cdi?

@tropic rock - Say, on that typo what was in bincue2cdi... that has since been corrected... what was the fault the typo was making? Was 8 seconds missing from every audio track or just the last track?

long endlba = seekpos / (2352); // 588*4
( I think the typo had 2532 or something like that )

[warm oasis]

Does that mean game drive had to implement some sort of decryption for the disc?

[gentle bobcat]

Atari released the encryption stuff... to the best of my knowledge.

[mental briar]

we don't have a way to convert JCD to something sane, yeah?

googling for this shit is a nightmare

[tropic rock]

8% of the total disc if I remember correctly

[uncut atlas]

I mean I can

do we have jcd's that need converting?

@mental briar

[gentle bobcat]

@tropic rock - Thanks for the clarification. That practical effect of that would be that the last track might not actually be the last track from the original... and whatever the last track was, it would likely stop before it was done.

[tropic rock]

I would classify it as unexpected behavior

[gentle bobcat]

@uncut atlas - Can you empower me to convert a .jcd to a .cdi?

Or TheJesusFish can do it also?

Oh, nevermind... TJF said it was a nightmare.

[uncut atlas]

you will need this

the game can work with that

beautiful

[mental briar]

another bios for the db?

[uncut atlas]

it's the jaguar developer cd bios except it works on a normal jaguar

kinda valuable, tbh

probably a lot of people would like to have it in their retail jaguar

it was born tonight

[gentle bobcat]

Will have to give it a try right after I'm done with my current T2K game-in-progress. 🙂

[gentle bobcat]

Ok, wow. That was my best game ever. 523K. Adrenaline. I know, I must be "basic".

Hmm, I loaded that developer BIOS for the CD bios, or at least I think I did. I had to rename the .jcd files to .cdi to make them show up as something I could load... but loading them didn't do anything. I"m guessing I misunderstood the power of the developer CDBIOS.

It does seem to show the spinny jaguar qube bios before the CD bios whenever I load a CD game so that is different.

Maybe a need a newer build of the core than I am using.