-Virtual Jaguar v1.0.6 GCC/SDL release README
+--------------------------------------------
+Virtual Jaguar v1.1.0 GCC/SDL release README
--------------------------------------------
+--------------
- DISCLAIMER -
+--------------
Or, "O liability, I do disclaim thee!"
-Ported by SDLEMU (Niels Wagenaar & Caz) and is based upon the original work
-from Potato Emulation. For requirements please consult the INSTALL file for
-more information about supported OS's and software requirements.
+Ported by SDLEMU (Niels Wagenaar & Carwin Jones) and is based upon the
+original work by David Raingeard of Potato Emulation. For requirements please
+consult the INSTALL file for more information about supported OS's and
+software requirements.
The use of this software is entirely at your own risk. We can't be held
-responsible for damage done to you hardware and/or software. This software
-requires the use of the Atari Jaguar (CD) boot ROM and/or Commercial ROM
-images. You may only use the ROM images if you own the cartridges itself.
-The use of Commercial ROM's without owning the original cartridge is
-illegal in most countries and could result in fines and/or legal actions.
-
-This software is released under the GPL license. For more information I
-should direct you to the GPL.TXT. You may hack/change the code anyway you
-like. You may not commercially sell this software.
-
-If you make changes, release the source code to the public and send us the
-changes you made to the original authors.
-
-The products and brands used in these documents and/or sourcecode are owned
-by the desired company in question.
-
-- What is Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL?
-
-Virtual Jaguar is software dedicated to emulate the Atari Jaguar hardware
-on a standard P.C. The software was originally developed by Potato Emulation
-(http://potato.emu-france.com) by Cal2 and was released under the GPL license
-on 25 June 2003.
-
-Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL is a port of the MS Visual C++/SDL sourcecode so that
-we can enjoy Atari Jaguar emulation on every platform which uses the GCC
-compiler and that can make use of the Simple Directmedia Layer library (SDL).
+responsible for damage done to you hardware and/or software. While it won't
+rape your dog, it might do other nasty things. You have been warned. This
+software requires the use of the Atari Jaguar (CD) boot ROM and/or Commercial
+ROM images. You may only use the ROM images if you own the cartridges itself.
+The use of Commercial ROMs without owning the original cartridge is illegal in
+most countries and could result in fines and/or legal actions.
+
+This software is released under the GPL v2 or later. For more information I
+direct you to the GPL.TXT. You may hack/change the code anyway you like. You
+may not commercially sell this software. If you make changes, release the
+source code to the public and send the changes you made to the original
+authors.
+
+The products and brands used in these documents and/or sourcecode are owned by
+their respective companies and/or successors in interest.
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------
+- IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT JAGUAR FILE FORMATS--READ THIS OR ELSE! -
+----------------------------------------------------------------
+
+There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the various file formats that
+Jaguar programs come in, and a lot of this confusion seem to come from
+Cowering's GoodJag renaming tool. Note that it simply gets some files wrong,
+and it also incorrectly renames cartridge images with an extension that
+belongs to an already established extension (.jag is a Jaguar Server
+executable--read on). To clarify, there are basically four major types of
+Jaguar binary images that are NOT cartridge images:
+
+ .abs
+ .jag
+ .rom
+ .bin
+
+The first type, the .abs file, is a DRI/Alcyon format absolute location
+executable. These come in two different flavors and contain load and run
+addresses in their headers. Note that some files which have an .abs extension
+are really incorrectly labelled .bin files with no header information
+whatsoever.
+
+The second type, the .jag file, is a Jaguar Server executable. These files
+contain header information that tells you where to load and run the file's
+executable code. Note that as of this writing (8/5/2005) that the GoodJag ROM
+renaming tool by Cowering incorrectly renames Jaguar cartridge ROM dumps to
+have a .jag extension (a better choice, and the one supported by Virtual
+Jaguar, is .j64)--if you're trying to run a ROM image with a .jag extension on
+VJ, it will misinterpret it as a Jaguar Server executable and likely fail to
+run.
+
+The third type, the .rom file, is an Alpine Board/ROM Image file. These files
+have no header, but are known to load and run at $802000 in the Jaguar memory
+space. Again, these are *different* from cartridge dumps since they load at a
+higher address than a Jaguar cartridge.
+
+The fourth type, the .bin file, is simply a Jaguar executable with no header.
+Since these files contain no information about where they load and execute,
+Virtual Jaguar does not support this file type. Go bug the author to release
+either a file with proper headers or a file in Alpine ROM format. Virtual
+Jaguar is not omniscient (yet)! ;)
+
+There is a fifth type of file that is supported by Virtual Jaguar, the .j64
+file, which is simply a 1, 2, or 4 Meg dump of a Jaguar cartridge ROM which
+loads at $800000 in the Jaguar memory space.
+
+-----------------------------------
+- What is Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL? -
+-----------------------------------
+
+Virtual Jaguar is software dedicated to emulating the Atari Jaguar hardware on
+a standard PC. The software was originally developed by David Raingeard of
+Potato Emulation [http://potato.emu-france.com] and was released under the GPL
+on 25 June 2003.
+
+Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL is not only a port of the MS Visual C++/SDL sourcecode
+but has also been extended and rewritten so that we can enjoy Atari Jaguar
+emulation on every platform which uses the GCC compiler and that can make use
+of the Simple Directmedia Layer library (SDL).
Currently Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL compiles on WIN32 using mingw, and several
UN*X based systems (BeOS, Linux and FreeBSD). It may run on other systems
as well but we can not guarantee that.
The port was done by the SDLEMU crew (http://sdlemu.ngemu.com) and especially
-by Niels Wagenaar and Caz. You may contact us by e-mail (sdlemu@ngemu.com) or
-leave a message on the SDLEMU Official Forum (see the website).
+by Niels Wagenaar and Carwin Jones. A major portion of the rewrite was done by
+James L. Hammons. You may contact us by e-mail (sdlemu@ngemu.com) or leave a
+message on the SDLEMU Official Forum (see the website). Patches and bugfixes
+are particularly welcome! :)
More information about SDL can be found at http://www.libsdl.org.
-- Using Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL
+--------------------------------
+- Using Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL -
+--------------------------------
After compiling the binary (see INSTALL) you can now run original Atari Jaguar
-games. These games are distributed on cartridges and can there for cannot be
-used on a P.C. To use these games on Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL you need to get ROM
-images. Besides the ROM images from commercial games you must also obtain the
-Atari Jaguar (CD) boot ROM which you must copy to the BIOS directory. For legal
-issues concerning ROM images please consult the DISCLAIMER at the beginning of
-this file.
+games. These games are distributed on cartridges and can therefore cannot be
+used on a PC (we're still waiting for that Jaguar-on-a-PCI-card that you plug
+into your late model PC, complete with cartridge slot ;-). To use these games
+on Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL you need to get ROM images. Besides the ROM images
+from commercial games you must also obtain the Atari Jaguar (CD) boot ROM
+which you must copy to the BIOS directory. For legal issues concerning ROM
+images please consult the DISCLAIMER at the beginning of this file.
After obtaining the Atari Jaguar (CD) boot ROM and several ROMs you can now
use Virtual Jaguar using the following command:
The context of ROMFILE is the filename of the an Atari Jaguar ROM dump (can be
either compressed or uncompressed). You can also use switches. By just typing
-./vj -? you get an overview of the options you can use. WIN32 users should look
-into the stdout.txt for that information. If you have a directory full of ROM
-files, then you can type
+./vj -? (or ./vj -help) you get an overview of the options you can use. WIN32
+users should look into the stdout.txt in the directory they ran Virtual Jaguar
+for that information.
-./vj [directory with ROM files] [-switches]
-
-and Virtual Jaguar will pull up a simple file selector to allow you to choose
-which ROM file you want to use.
+If you prefer a nice GUI instead of typing in command lines, you can either
+type ./vj or double click on the Virtual Jaguar executable. If you have a
+directory full of ROM files, you can tell Virtual Jaguar where they are by
+editing the appropriate line in the vj.cfg file (it assumes a ROMs directory
+under the directory where VJ lives) so that they show up when you pick the
+"Load" option from the "File" menu.
This emulator also emulates the Atari Jaguar gamepads. By using the following
keyboard or joystick settings you can (possibly) play a given game:
Atari # : Keypad /
Atari * : Keypad *
-With ESC you can easily stop Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL which will get you back
-to you command prompt. If you want to change the key layout, simply edit the
-vj.cfg file and change the keys :)
-
-- Finally
-
-If you find bugs, enhance the code or simply have questions. Drop us an e-mail
-at sdlemu AT ngemu DOT com or drop a message on the SDLEMU Official Forum.
-
-More information about this projects (releases/WIP) can be found at the SDLEMU
-website : http://sdlemu.ngemu.com.
-
-I hope you enjoy the emulator and will use it wisely!
-
-Special thanks go to guys over at ngemu.com and #ngemu (EFNET). Also the author
-who originally developed this emulator is thanked for releasing the sources to
-the public.
+With ESC you can easily stop Virtual Jaguar GCC/SDL which will get you back to
+the GUI (pressing ESC again will take you back to the game). To exit VJ, you
+can either select File|Quit or press the "Q" key on your keyboard. If you want
+to change the key layout, simply edit the vj.cfg file and change the keys. :)
+NOTE: There are quite a few keys mapped to debugging functions at present. You
+have been warned!
+
+-------------------
+- A note on sound -
+-------------------
+
+By default, the Virtual Jaguar's DSP is turned off, since it doesn't work very
+well at present (it requires a lot of horsepower to sound decent at this
+point!). In order to hear any sound at all, you have to either edit the vj.cfg
+file and change the appropriate line or set the DSP on in the GUI (found under
+Settings|Misc). One word of caution: Use the old DSP core instead of the new
+pipelined version for now--the new pipelined DSP core has not yet been
+optimized and runs quite slow at present! Once the DSP issues have been ironed
+out, it will be turned on by default and you won't have to deal with it
+anymore. ;)
+
+-----------
+- Finally -
+-----------
+
+If you find bugs, enhance the code or simply have questions, drop us an e-mail
+at sdlemu AT ngemu DOT com or drop a message on the SDLEMU Official Forum.
+
+More information about this project (releases/WIP) can be found at the official
+Virtual Jaguar website [http://www.icculus.org/virtualjaguar] and on the SDLEMU
+website [http://sdlemu.ngemu.com].
+
+We hope you enjoy the emulator and will use it wisely!
+
+Special thanks go to guys over at ngemu.com and #ngemu (EFNET). Thanks also to
+David Raingeard of Potato Emulation who originally developed this emulator and
+released the sources to the public. We couldn't have done it without you!
SDLEMU
projects / virtualjaguar / blobdiff