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CD Game Support


SainT

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Early CD game support is now available with the latest firmware. Any game ISO's (CCD/IMG, CDI and CUE/BIN) will need to first be converted into JCD files before they can be run on the GameDrive cartridge. To do this you will need to run your ISO's through this Windows command line tool:

 

https://www.retrohq.co.uk/product/jaggd/cd2jcd.zip

 

You may also need to install the latest Visual Studio runtime libraries from Microsoft if you don't have them already:

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads-2647da03-1eea-4433-9aff-95f26a218cc0

 

The JCD files need to be stored contiguously on the memory card for the CD support to be able to work. Basically this means you need to use a freshly formatted memory card to copy the images onto. The launcher will tell you if there are any issues with the JCD image when you try and run it, if the file is not contiguous it will not try and run it.

 

You will also need to make sure you have the latest firmware installed on your Jaguar GameDrive cartridge. To do this press OPTION when prompted as the cartridge is booting and visit the URL given to you on-screen.

 

If (and only if) you do not have the "Press OPTION for firmware update." prompt come up during boot and you bought the cartridge directly from me a long time ago, then grab the firmware update from the product page.

 

This is early support for CD games, there are issues, but it's at a point people can start playing with it and get something out of it. There is currently no memorytrak support either (yet), so you will not be able to save progress in this way on any CD games.

 

Also be aware I have had reports (and experience myself) of some memory cards not working with CD support. I believe this is due to the cards being too slow to respond to data requests and starving the data through to the Jaguar and causing games to fail.

Edited by SainT
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Great work @SainT.  At this stage... is it possible for us to store our existing cart roms on the same SD card as our JCD images?  i.e if we copied the JCD images to a new SD card (as advised), before copying our cart roms on to the same SD card afterwards.  Or must we always keep our cart roms on a totally separate SD card to our JCD images?

 

Also do you have a rough ETA as to when this new firmware is available to us early investors in your early JagSD cart...?

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5 hours ago, GoldenGraham said:

Great work @SainT.  At this stage... is it possible for us to store our existing cart roms on the same SD card as our JCD images?  i.e if we copied the JCD images to a new SD card (as advised), before copying our cart roms on to the same SD card afterwards.  Or must we always keep our cart roms on a totally separate SD card to our JCD images?

 

Also do you have a rough ETA as to when this new firmware is available to us early investors in your early JagSD cart...?

 

There's no problem everything being on one card, you can most likely just copy JCD's onto your existing card as well. It's only if it's fragmented you will get issues, however you will get an error in the launcher if this is the case.

 

I'm just sorting the update for the older carts, I had someone have an issue updating with an older cart, so I wanted to get to the bottom of that first. No point releasing something if it could cause problems for people.

 

Actually, for those feeling adventurous, try this update and let me know how you get on --
http://retrohq.co.uk/products/jaggd/firmware-210413.zip

 

** There are definitely still issues with the older carts, this has been removed for the moment **

 

To be clear, this is for the older carts with no "Press OPTION for firmware update" prompt on boot, it is of no use to later carts.

 

Edited by SainT
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1 hour ago, SainT said:

 

There's no problem everything being on one card, you can most likely just copy JCD's onto your existing card as well. It's only if it's fragmented you will get issues, however you will get an error in the launcher if this is the case.

 

I'm just sorting the update for the older carts, I had someone have an issue updating with an older cart, so I wanted to get to the bottom of that first. No point releasing something if it could cause problems for people.

 

Actually, for those feeling adventurous, try this update and let me know how you get on --
http://retrohq.co.uk/products/jaggd/firmware-210413.zip

 

To be clear, this is for the older carts with no "Press OPTION for firmware update" prompt on boot, it is of no use to later carts.

 

 

So I gave this a try and it updated, everything to the version you have listed in the readme, except for the menu which still says its v1.05. 

I converted some cd images from the redump using the toolset, and I formatted my SD card and recopied everything over.  When trying to launch any of the cd games nothing happens.  I tried launching a regular game and it has been at the loading rom screen with no progress for 10 minutes or so now.   

 

*Edit*

 

A reboot has it launching regular games again, but it still just shows the Menu at V1.05 and no luck with CD games. 

Edited by Johnpv
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1 hour ago, @ircular logic said:

Any chance of a Mac JCD creator? No windows machine over here.  Or is someone nice uploading a JCD archive somewhere? Thanks!

 

I would be up for a Mac version as well.  But then I might give this a whirl on a Mac I have with Wine support see how that goes.

 

This is a lot of fun though, see what I can do to test this and help make it better.

 

Mp3 support was mentioned at one time, or to play that through VLM, with a 16-32 gb card I'm looking forward to that too!   (when that happens).

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1 hour ago, Johnpv said:

 

So I gave this a try and it updated, everything to the version you have listed in the readme, except for the menu which still says its v1.05. 

I converted some cd images from the redump using the toolset, and I formatted my SD card and recopied everything over.  When trying to launch any of the cd games nothing happens.  I tried launching a regular game and it has been at the loading rom screen with no progress for 10 minutes or so now.   

 

*Edit*

 

A reboot has it launching regular games again, but it still just shows the Menu at V1.05 and no luck with CD games. 

 

This was the issue that was coming up before, it wont run unless the menu is updated -- it has no idea what JCD's are.

 

Ok, will have to dig into this properly. One thing to try is put the upd on a freshly formatted memory card and rename it firmware.ovr, see if that does it.

 

There's something really odd going on where the firmware and asic are updating ok, but not the menu.

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57 minutes ago, doctorclu said:

Mp3 support was mentioned at one time, or to play that through VLM, with a 16-32 gb card I'm looking forward to that too!   (when that happens).

 

MP3 wont happen, however I will at some point add support for JCD's converted from audio CD's for VLM.

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2 hours ago, mario64 said:

Atrac17's pack is missing two retail games. I have the discs but have never ripped Jag CD. Can I just use IMGBURN then convert using cd2jcd?

No idea how to rip CD's, not my area. But I support a variety of formats. Ripping to CUE/BIN as AUDIO seems to do the job going by Atrac17's dumps.

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1 hour ago, Johnpv said:

When converting the files, do you just convert the cue file, or does each individual bin need to be converted as well? 

The CUE file references all of the bin's. Just pass in the name of the CDI, CCD or CUE file to the cd2jcd.exe and it'll spit out a JCD.

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2 hours ago, @ircular logic said:

Any chance of a Mac JCD creator? No windows machine over here.  Or is someone nice uploading a JCD archive somewhere? Thanks!

 

I will get around to putting the source up somewhere so people can do other versions. It should be pretty portable, there's nothing other than standard C libraries used.

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1 minute ago, SainT said:

 

I will get around to putting the source up somewhere so people can do other versions. It should be pretty portable, there's nothing other than standard C libraries used.

 

Was able to get it to compile an image from a .cdi using wine on the Mac.

Was not able to get the image to load however (hitting B button on image in Game Drive menu was unresponsive).  Game Drive said I had the latest firmware from the link it gave me.

 

But all this to say I did get the cd2jcd program to generate... something!  :P

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The compatibility is excellent for a first public version, congratulations!
I can't transform the ccd files into jcd (nothing happens, it marks "opening .. the file filename" and it closes).
There are random behaviors. I managed to launch the prototype of Black ICE \ White Noise once and since then not possible.

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Everything runs ok except vid grid that stays stuck on loading, haven't tried the 2 missing games from the list though.

 

edit: had some issues at first with Blue lightning, Battle Morph and brain dead 13 not loading the first time I tried launching them, and some icons missing on the select stage screen for blue lightning on the first attempt.

 

haven't spent much time playing I will try more dedicated stuff later today.

Edited by Mastamuzz
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10 minutes ago, pkerga said:

The compatibility is excellent for a first public version, congratulations!
I can't transform the ccd files into jcd (nothing happens, it marks "opening .. the file filename" and it closes).
There are random behaviors. I managed to launch the prototype of Black ICE \ White Noise once and since then not possible.

you have spaces on your file names so cmd thinks is a new command.

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23 minutes ago, doctorclu said:

 

Was able to get it to compile an image from a .cdi using wine on the Mac.

Was not able to get the image to load however (hitting B button on image in Game Drive menu was unresponsive).  Game Drive said I had the latest firmware from the link it gave me.

 

But all this to say I did get the cd2jcd program to generate... something!  :P

Up updated the firmware.  Now it selects .jcd files.

 

First one was not contiguous.  The second file made from the Jagtopia.cdi file (as that is the only other .cdi I could readily find) came up as I believe it would.

So cool.   Now to find more .cdi files to convert.

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28 minutes ago, Mastamuzz said:

edit: had some issues at first with Blue lightning, Battle Morph and brain dead 13 not loading the first time I tried launching them, and some icons missing on the select stage screen for blue lightning on the first attempt.

Yep, I see this a lot too. Once they boot, they seem fine, but they don't always boot first time. Not sure what's going on there yet, but I'll get to the bottom of it.

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