Upcoming Jaguar Game Drive Cartridge

[+KylJoy]

Fantastic product.  I can get everything to load except for "Hover Strike - Unconquered Lands".  I've tried different SD cards, reformatting a dozen times, various flavors of the image, defragging, etc...  Can someone recommend a fix for this one game?

 

Thank in advance!

[captainblack]

On 2/8/2022 at 5:08 AM, KylJoy said:

Fantastic product.  I can get everything to load except for "Hover Strike - Unconquered Lands".  I've tried different SD cards, reformatting a dozen times, various flavors of the image, defragging, etc...  Can someone recommend a fix for this one game?

 

Thank in advance!

Thats a CD game. Check the gamedrive support subforum for info on CD game issues.

[MAYAman]

Can this still be ordered?

[SainT]

46 minutes ago, MAYAman said:

Can this still be ordered?

 

Check stockists here --
https://www.retrohq.co.uk/products/atari-jaguar-gd-flash-cartridge

 

I believe there are some still in stock, but I think just in the UK. 

 

Actually, there are also the last few at Retro Saga in Canada --

https://retrosaga.ca/products/jaguar-gamedrive?_pos=1&_sid=0df37fe75&_ss=r

 

[7800JAGFAN]

I just ordered one from Retro Saga, much better than the $300 plus Ebay sellers out there.  

[Robotvendingmachine]

On 3/11/2022 at 4:07 PM, 7800JAGFAN said:

I just ordered one from Retro Saga, much better than the $300 plus Ebay sellers out there.  

Thanks for this. I was able to get one from there and it works wonderfully.

[captainblack]

Im curious how many units have sold so far, to know exactly how niche our niche fandom actually is. 

[Rugar]

I received my GameDrive but unfortunately it arrived to me broken. It was very poorly packed with thin cardboard. I wrote to the distributor and he asked me if the electronics is not damaged he would send me a replacement plastic shield. Thanks God, the electronics survived and everything working properly. I informed seller that the electronics is ok and that he can only send me plastic shield on March 2 and I have not received an answer yet. I sent him a message again on March 14 but again I did not receive a reply.

@SainT What to do in cases like this? If the seller does not respond by at the end of the month can you try push it a little? It's nothing urgent, GameDrive works and I don't take it out of the console, but I wouldn't want to stay on a broken cartridge.

 

About GameDrive. He's great! In the beginning, I had problems reading CD games from the SD card, but a slightly fast card of at least 98 mb/s solved the problem. It seems that CD emulation doesn't accept slower cards, while cartridge games have worked on every card I've tried. I hope MemoryTrack feature will be added, it is impossible to play a Highlander without it ?

 

[SainT]

If the retailer doesn’t sort it out for you, I will do. I’m sure they will, though, all the people I sell through are good guys. They may just be very busy and have got sidetracked with an unusual problem.
 

I’m amazed the shell was damaged, though, its extremely strong!

 

Glad you’re enjoying the cart, the read speed for CD emulation is essential. ?

[Rugar]

Thank you SainT, i will wait seller answer, it's nothing urgent. Yes i see that plastic is very good quality, not some cheap 3d print, and the surfaces are very nice. The seller himself says it was the first break cart out of a few hundred he sold. It seems to me, in transport someone stepped on it with all their weight.

 

By the way, is there a way to get out of the game without turning off the console? I think I've read somewhere before there is no reset option, but better ask.

 

[42bs]

On 3/19/2022 at 11:01 PM, Rugar said:

reset option

You can connect it to a PC via USB and use a small tool. A hardware reset won't work.

[Rugar]

13 hours ago, 42bs said:

You can connect it to a PC via USB and use a small tool. A hardware reset won't work.

Sounds cool! Where i can get this tool?

 

@SainT Thank you again for PM and quick troubleshooting of shell replacement. Great support from your side, really  

[MikeA]

I know this has been asked before, but any updates on Jaguar CD passthrough support?  I'd really love to be able to use my Gamedrive and my physical Jaguar CD unit.  I don't really want to remove my Jaguar CD all the time, so what's happened is that I'm using the Gamedrive less than I would like.  Thank you in advance.

[Hastor]

1 hour ago, MikeA said:

I know this has been asked before, but any updates on Jaguar CD passthrough support?  I'd really love to be able to use my Gamedrive and my physical Jaguar CD unit.  I don't really want to remove my Jaguar CD all the time, so what's happened is that I'm using the Gamedrive less than I would like.  Thank you in advance.

Wasn't this an issue that couldn't really be overcome due to the cart needing to use one of the same pins that the CD would normally use or something like that?
In any case, and of course priority is up to SainT, I'd prefer it be on getting the current CD functionality improved a bit, since that's something that at least affects everyone (and annoying as it may be, you CAN remove your CD drive, so there is a workaround for that issue at least!).

[leech]

4 hours ago, MikeA said:

I know this has been asked before, but any updates on Jaguar CD passthrough support?  I'd really love to be able to use my Gamedrive and my physical Jaguar CD unit.  I don't really want to remove my Jaguar CD all the time, so what's happened is that I'm using the Gamedrive less than I would like.  Thank you in advance.

Yeah, this is the same reason my gamedrive pretty much sits on my shelf most of the time.

 

It is one thing to just temove the game drive and separate power brick.  But I also have bought a power brick that connects to both.  So I end up having to swap power plugs.

[+cubanismo]

16 hours ago, leech said:

But I also have bought a power brick that connects to both.  So I end up having to swap power plugs.

If it's a switching power supply, it should be fine to use it with just one lead plugged in. That's what I do.

 

But yeah, while I'd also take more reliable CD emulation support first, my laziness + the lack of CD passthrough support do mean my GD sits idle more than it should. If the CD emulation was flawless it'd obviously be a non-issue as I'd just play my CD games that way, but <Edit out false rants here> it's not and it was never claimed it would be.

Since I seem to have turned this into a complaint, how about an update on that source for the command line tool? Development is my primary usage, and I can't use it for that either because I develop in Linux. I'm about to reverse engineer the serial protocol at this point, but even some non-cleaned-up sources to start from would be a lot easier than that.

 

No hard feelings @SainT as I know real life has a way of making things take longer than planned. I (and I'm sure others) am just hoping this stuff is still on your radar.

Edited April 14, 2022 by cubanismo
Remove incorrect claims as noted below.

[SainT]

I repeatedly stated over and over again that CD support was not promised in any way shape or form. If it happened, it would be a bonus. Below is a post from 2018 about it, since I first mentioned CD support I have been stating the same thing every time the topic was raised.

 

 

If you bought the cart expecting flawless CD support, that is entirely speculation on your part and never a guarantee from me. And in fact CD support is not mentioned in any advertising material, even now. It’s also stated in all advertising material that the cart will not work when plugged through the CD unit. With regard to not working when plugged into the CD unit -- there are a couple of pins required which are not passed through to the cart from the CD unit. I can work around this on the CD unit for ROM based games only, not CD, and the load time will be increased due to not being able to use the interrupt driven GPU loader I use otherwise. This is also planned when I get back to the Jaguar again.

 

To be quite blunt, it does irk me when people try and put words in my mouth or implicate I've promised things I haven't. I was extremely explicit about CD support never ever being guaranteed in the first place for this exact reason. Yet regardless of what I say and have said, it doesn't seem to matter, people seem to just make up what they like.

 

There will be further updates, including improved CD support and memory trak, but I am currently having to deal with trying to produce anything at all due to the complete lack of any electronic components. There’s just the one of me having to deal with quite a lot, so while I will get to everything, it can take time.

 

I’ll try and get on to the source tidy up for the command line tools in the next week or so. Please do DM me and bug me about this next week, I have no problem being hassled for things like this. I have so much going on that it’s easy for things to get delayed when they are only of importance to a handful of people. I have some other bugs in the command line tools usage regarding specifying an EEPROM which also needs looking at, so it would be useful to look at both.

Edited April 14, 2022 by SainT

[SainT]

16 hours ago, MikeA said:

I know this has been asked before, but any updates on Jaguar CD passthrough support?  I'd really love to be able to use my Gamedrive and my physical Jaguar CD unit.  I don't really want to remove my Jaguar CD all the time, so what's happened is that I'm using the Gamedrive less than I would like.  Thank you in advance.

Just in-case this point is lost in the minor rant above, I will get to look at this at some point! Still no specific timeline currently.

 

Loading CD games from the GD will definitely never work with the CD unit attached due to it not passing the interrupt pin through to the cart slot on the unit, and the load time will be slower, but it will be possible.

[leech]

3 hours ago, SainT said:

Just in-case this point is lost in the minor rant above, I will get to look at this at some point! Still no specific timeline currently.

 

Loading CD games from the GD will definitely never work with the CD unit attached due to it not passing the interrupt pin through to the cart slot on the unit, and the load time will be slower, but it will be possible.

Is this one of those things that is possible to mod in?  Not that taking my CD drive apart again sounds particularly fun.

[leech]

11 hours ago, cubanismo said:

If it's a switching power supply, it should be fine to use it with just one lead plugged in. That's what I do.

I'll have to check.  I know the one I bought for my Sega Tower of Power said specifically to not plug it in unless you had the Genesis/Sega CD/32x all hooked up.  And I believe I got them from the same guy.

[SainT]

26 minutes ago, leech said:

Is this one of those things that is possible to mod in?  Not that taking my CD drive apart again sounds particularly fun.

 

It's used by the CD drive in the same way I use it -- for handling fast data transfer under interrupt. So just hooking up the connection between the two ports would not be a good idea, however if you had a two way switch which switched which device had control of the interrupt, that would most likely work.

 

Given the price and fragility of the CD drives, I'm not sure I'd want to mod it, particularly.

 

[+cubanismo]

7 hours ago, SainT said:

If you bought the cart expecting flawless CD support, that is entirely speculation on your part and never a guarantee from me. And in fact CD support is not mentioned in any advertising material, even now. It’s also stated in all advertising material that the cart will not work when plugged through the CD unit.

Sorry about this. I don't know if I missed the initial admonishments and just rode the wave of community excitement over potential CD support given I got here later than most, or if I read it and forgot, but either way it's my mistake and I apologize.

 

Thanks for the updates, and I appreciate the positive portion of the response despite my sulky tone.

[Hastor]

I also didn't mean to express any expectation. Just if given the choice between making it work with the CD drive, or working on better CD compatibility, my vote would go to better CD compatibility, since everyone can use that (even if it means removing your CD drive). I don't have any expectations though, it does what it said it would do.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Hastor

[SainT]

38 minutes ago, cubanismo said:

Sorry about this. I don't know if I missed the initial admonishments and just rode the wave of community excitement over potential CD support given I got here later than most, or if I read it and forgot, but either way it's my mistake and I apologize.

 

Thanks for the updates, and I appreciate the positive portion of the response despite my sulky tone.

 

That is appreciated, thanks, and no worries! It's very easy for details of announcements to get lost and wrong information spreads just as fast (seemingly faster) than the right.

 

And as I say, please do hassle me on the source, I do want to get it out there. And having someone actively moving it over to linux will help that, for sure, I'll help where I can with that. Although I don't know a lot of linux.

[captainblack]

I would also add that CD support is already really good, which I really appreciate and Im sure everyone else does too.