[spike] Emulator needs massive improvements

[Cee123]

Ok, so I tested out a bunch of Jaguar games and noticed a lot of them are broken or have issues. And decided to make a list of which ones have issues. This emulator seems to need a lot of work.

Air Cars
Half the title screen is cut off

Atari Karts
Weird bar down the side of the screen during the game

Battlesphere Gold
Only loads if Bios is enabled. But menus are glitched - black screen after menu, game doesn't work at all

Club Drive
Half the title screen is cut off and textures are missing.

Cybermorph
Missing/glitched textures

Doom
Weird bar down half of the screen during the game

Fight for Life
Flickering graphics, mainly in the menu

Flashback - Quest for Identity
Game displays on the left side of the screen

Hover Strike
Glitched and flickering graphics

Hyper Force
Black screen after title, doesn't work at all

I-War
Half the title screen is cut off, glitched and flickering graphics

Iron Soldier
Black screen after character selection, doesn't work at all

Iron Soldier 2
Title displays on the left side of the screen, black screen after title but music still plays, doesn't work at all

Kasumi Ninja
Severe Graphics issues, flickering at the title screen, missing textures, black screen freezes

Missile Command 3D
Some minor graphics glitches/flickering. Nothing too serious.

NBA Jam - Tournament Edition
Some minor occasional screen jumping, nothing too serious.

Pinball Fantasies
Some of the introduction screens are cut off

Powerdrive Rally
Some of the introduction screens are cut off, game crashes upon starting a new game

Raiden
Only works if the BIOS is enabled, otherwise black screen freezes

Ruiner Pinball
Black screen, doesn't work at all

Skyhammer
Works but freezes during game

Super Burnout
Some of the letters are cut off, black screen doesnt work at all when starting a new game

Supercross 3D
Displays on the left side of the screen, blurry textures

Syndicate
Works good, but there are pink patches in the writing

Tempest 2000
Works good, but there's some minor flickering occasionally

Towers II
Unplayable due to flickering/flashing

Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy
Half the screen is cut off during the loading screen

Val D'isere Skiing and Snowboarding
Game displays on the left side of the screen

White Men Can't Jump
Black screen, doesn't work at all

Wolfenstein 3D
Black screen, doesn't work at all

Zero 5
Game works good, but some mild flickering

Zoop
Game crashes and doesn't work

[Cee123]

Bounty posted to fix issues with this core - $250
https://www.bountysource.com/issues/76219168-list-of-games-with-issues

[Chlorophytus]

Speaking of, I was going to teach myself how to do Atari Jaguar code a few days ago. I will try to help with this, maybe I can get to a point.

[Cee123]

Nice. Hoping someone can pick this up again, seems a bit broken in its current state.

[Tasosgemah]

Most of these issues (if not all) apply to the standalone emulator which hasn't been updated since 2014 IIRC. So they are not exclusive libretro core issues.

Also, the latest standalone version is 2.1.3 while the RetroArch core seems to be based on the older 2.1.0 version from 2013. Though, i don't think there's a huge difference in compatibility or if any new fixes exist for the core exclusively since then.

Oh and btw, there is a "DOOM Res hack" switch in the core options that fixes DOOM's screen but the emulation of the game is very slow anyway.

[Cee123]

You are right. The standalone emulator hasn't been updated since 2014. It has the same issues also. The only properly working Jaguar emulator is Irata Jaguar for Android. That, and Real3DOplayer. But sadly, it's closed source and paid only. :(

I reached out to the dev to see if he'd make his emulators open source or at least port them to other OSes but he said he's too busy.

Yeah I was aware of the Doom hack, seems to fix the problem for that game. But that's only one game. And yeah unfortunately it runs too slow.

[Tasosgemah]

Irata Jaguar is based on the Russian Phoenix emulator for PC. It's the only good Jaguar emulator and yes, it's closed source. So no RetroArch fun with this one :(

[Chlorophytus]

I'll work on a Jaguar emulator called jagger but I will be doing it in a slow manner due to circumstances.
I will try to make it portable too. If I have to, I will use Arm NEON and x86 SSE (no AVX, Silvermont/Goldmont(+) SBCs will SIGILL the moment a >=256-bit vector operation is encountered), but I really just want use pure C.

I do have Gemini Lake hardware for those tight corner cases.

[Cee123]

That's awesome! You're a legend.

[Cee123]

A few of these issues don't seem to exist in the standalone virtual jaguar (but most of them unfortunately still do).

[Tasosgemah]

Well, the standalone is version 2.1.2 while the core is based on an older 2.1.0 version it seems.

[Cee123]

@Tasosgemah Really? Damn.

[Cee123]

Does this emulator use Interpreter or Dynamic Recompiler? Seems like it runs on Interpreter, hence the speed issues. Maybe I should've opened a bounty for a Dynamic Recompiler.