BigPEmu can run every game in the Jaguar's retail library.
The emulator runs the entire retail library (with default settings) at full speed on almost any x64-capable processor. Every Jaguar processor runs on a single native core (maintaining deterministic emulation) and doesn't rely on any dynamic recompilation (maintaining console compatibility), all the while maintaining extremely low system requirements.
It's the most accurate Jaguar emulator to-date, although there is still lots of room for improvement. I'm continually working toward achieving system-wide cycle-accurate timing.
Although the emulator defaults to settings which are catered toward compatibility and accuracy, it's capable of far more. Settings are exposed to overclock/underclock each of the Jaguar cores, as well as to adjust the speed and accuracy of other system components. BigPEmu enables you to play lots of Jaguar games at a full 60 frames per second for the first time ever!
Everything is completely deterministic, just like real life. That's right, I went there. This means that all "randomness" is also controlled by a preserved seed. BigPEmu can record movies from nothing but controller inputs, and play them back with perfect accuracy. You can even interrupt a movie's playback and start playing yourself at any point.
In addition to supporting the entire retail disc library (along with Memory Track), complete hardware emulation means that VLM is fully functional. Also featured is a virtual disc system with an audio loopback option, allowing VLM to be used as a native audio/music visualizer. Thank you to Mycah Mattox for donating the Jaguar CD hardware, this hardware was essential for my research.
I've gone all-out on this one. There's native support for the Jaguar Game Drive's MRQ format in the software browser (as well as box art sourced from PNG files), support for global and per-game backgrounds, and even support for controller overlays! Overlays are composited into the Jaguar controller on-the-fly, displayed on both the input binding screen and the helpful pop-up controller info display.
Featuring support for analog controllers (both via external bank switching and the ADC), driving controllers, rotary controllers, and Team Tap.
The emulator comes equipped with a powerful, fully customizable postprocessing system. The system supports any type of effect you can imagine, from applying smoothing filters to simulating CRT displays.
HDR displays are natively supported, complete with options to tune the output to the characteristics of your display and to force postprocessing effects to employ HDR buffers all the way through the post chain. This means postprocessing effects take full advantage of that increased color precision and push it all the way through to your eyeballs. CRT shaders reap all the benefits. At 4K with HDR color output, they are an amazing sight to behold.
Mapping the Atari Jaguar controller to anything other than a telephone with wings can get a little complicated, so you might want to switch your controller mapping up for different games. You can do that! With per-game profiles, you can automatically load up a new input scheme (or any other emulator setting) each time you load a game.
Native fast forwarding capability, which can be assigned to any input.
BigPEmu features a powerful scripting system, which allows you to easily set breakpoints, read/write memory, and more or less do anything you could want to do to the emulated machine through easy-to-use script code. This system enables TAS, achievements, stereoscopic rendering, native-resolution rendering, and many other features.
BigPEmu can run JagLink games over a network, and it can run in state synchronization mode to facilitate networked multiplayer for 2-8 player Jaguar games. There's also a brand new network interface exposed to the scripting system. The emulator includes a script which implements multiplayer in Alien vs Predator by running on top of the unmodified retail image!
Jaguar VR has been given the same treatment that I gave to Sega VR! Not only has the Jaguar VR head tracker been emulated, stereoscopic rendering is also supported and has been implemented in Missile Command 3D.
Stock plugins cover support for video, audio, input, and networking across broadly compatible API's, with the potential to easily expand to any platform/interface. The OpenGL video plugin can scale all the way from its default incarnation (with support for effects, distance field fonts, etc.) down to fixed function OpenGL 1.0, meaning that the emulator can run on just about any GPU that can run GLQuake. (although the font would look pretty bad on some of them)
BigPEmu enjoys full integration with the Noesis debugger. The debugger implementation features dozens of helpful development tools, including scriptable breakpoints.
Enjoy all of the emulator niceties you've come to expect in modern times. Automatic preservation of EEPROM, PAL support, custom boot ROM images, native support for multiple displays and different aspect ratios, custom display cropping, extremely customizable input, custom language support, and a whole lot more.
No, really, it is. You'll never find them.
Timing is still far from perfect in BigPEmu. There are some known quirks here and there, but the next big step toward even greater accuracy is full emulation of bus access and priorities. This is generally an expensive thing to do in software, so it will likely be paired with the next goal...
BigPEmu is already pretty well optimized, but there's still some low-hanging fruit to improve performance even more. This will enable BigPEmu to run on even older hardware, but perhaps more importantly, it will make room for the expensive options which move us closer to being cycle-accurate.
BigPEmu is already extremely portable, and runs on at least 6 different console/desktop platforms. The framework it employs for this standalone release is also designed around portability, so I'm planning ports to Linux and macOS at a minimum. However, I don't actually have any machines running macOS at the moment, so that's a small blocker.
There are probably still a bunch of bugs that I don't know about, and you can help me find them.
