Saturn

Don't know what the deal was but just re-burned and it's working perfect!

Thanks for the link.

EDIT:

It was the crappy media causing probs. Re-burned w/ both and same results.

My bad, sh3-rg. I must have misread here and here that it was abandoned and not available any more, respectively. Wasn't sure about the line that could be crossed in general, though.
I'm more interested in taking screenshots of the 12 maps for a file I've put together, using vj or another emu (vs the shaky, off angled pics I took of the tv screen with my phone) but certainly don't want to cause trouble.

If anyone knows where (or how) I can get those map pics please pm me

Just a quick note, I haven't been able to get Towers 2 to run properly. Is there a trick or any special settings for this one?

I've had very expensive (for CD, anyway, LOL) disks fail consistently, and crapo, unbranded no-name shit I wouldn't trust work 100%.

Very interesting twist to me. I was originally convinced that if it didn't cost a fortune or was near impossible to obtain, there was no chance of it working.

Glad I (finally) found out otherwise. It cost quite a few disks and the boiling point of frustration but luckily nothing valuable was broken

Just glad to have a solution to this nagging problem. Been on my list for over a decade!

I think it's less about how much you pay and more about the dye the discs use and the burner/software combination used to write them.

 

The most reliable brand I've used were the TDK spindle of 50 I had. http://www.dabs.com/products/tdk-cd-r-52x-...indle-34FZ.html But even with these, one of my Jag CDs really doesn't want to entertain the idea of running them.

Awesome! Thanks to this info I went to a couple of local places to see what was available. First, based on the info about Philips CD-R in this thread and not making a single coaster, I went on the hunt for these. I hit WalMart as they have tons of Philips brand.. everything.. in their Electronics Dept. Ironically, not a single pack of the CD-R's so as not to leave empty handed I grabbed a 10 pack of "ONN" brand blanks. Very similar to the ones in the link.

I went to another place and a guy had some Philips' in 3 packs so I snagged a few.

After all the Philips blanks failed, I switched over to the ONN as a last ditch effort using the previously created images.

The NTI & DiscJuggler images didn't work but the Alcohol one did. Flawlessly

I backed up the remaining 4 (most difficult) games easily on the first try using these settings in Alcohol:

HP Windows 7/64bit computer's SINGLE DVD drive:

Alcohol 120% 2.0.2 (Build 5629)

Imaging:

Used "Copy Wizard" in Alcohol (theory being a 1:1 copy w/ the least error correction possible)

Read Speed: 16X

Reading Options tab: tick "Skip reading errors"

Click Start

When the temporary image is created and it's time to insert burnable media, copy the image to safe location. The image will be default located in the Documents/Alcohol 120% folder.

OPTIONAL: Insert blank ONN CD-R and continue to create an 'on-the-fly' backup

Burning:

Used "ONN" brand 80min/700mb 52x Recordable CD-R (10 pack) from WalMart (IMPORTANT)

Used "Image Burning Wizard" in Alcohol (IMPORTANT)

Write Method: DAO / SAO (IMPORTANT)

Write Speed: 16X (IMPORTANT)

Enable Buffer Underrun Technology was ticked

This was the 'magic combination' with this particular setup. As stated already, expensive doesn't necessarily mean success. I may get the Taiyo's anyway just to continue testing methods but for now I've stocked up on the ONN that fit this system. I'm about to move to a different one where everything changes considerably-including computer brand, OS (32 bit) and a host of other specs, just to see if I can work through it without making another 26 coasters. Thanks for your help sh3-rg!

I'm definitely going to have to get some of those Taiyo's or TDK's before I proceed. It's got to be the media. I can burn and run a Soulstar Demo fine w/ Protector SE using the Memorex but using those to burn Iron Soldier 2 fails bad. Out of all the different softwares I used today, only two worked briefly on the first try before crashing. After that, they only displayed ? after (what seemed like) hundreds of re-attempts and booting from them.

The two were DiscJuggler & Alcohol. I probably have several 'working' images from various sources but who would know if the media is incompatible?

For the record, I was gathering info from these five threads:

2002

2005 (Jan)

2005 (Feb)

2006

2009

*NTI CD Maker produced an image but it didn't work at all, even once, in the cd unit which surprised me since so many swear by it-retaining image for burn to 'better' media later.

*Alcohol 120% produced an image that worked once, crashed and never worked again-retaining image for burn to 'better' media later

*1-DiscJuggler image was produced w/ "Ignore read errors" ticked in Advanced tab-worked once, crashed and never worked again-retaining image for burn to 'better' media at later time.

*2-DiscJuggler was used as 'on the fly' with a single burner so it produced a temporary image that couldn't be copied (during the blank disc replacement) as it was locked. Unlocker 2 freed it up but it immediately disappeared. An earlier 'on the fly' disc worked once, crashed and never worked again-retaining method for re-attempt using 'better' media later

3-DiscJuggler used to slowly burn image from DopeROMS. CD never worked once but retaining for re-attempt later.

*ImgBurn bin/cue never worked once

*Blindwrite 7: I burned a disc on the fly w/ the "Bad Sectors" profile enabled lol. Probably my own fault there if it would have been a good copy. Just seemed right to change things I know nothing about, at the time. Will try this one again when better/different media arrives:)

*CloneCD, which was recommended for this specific title, produced a nonworking disc altogether. By reading I've discovered that later versions of CloneCD have been 'dumbed down' or some such nonsense because of it's awesomeness. Trying an earlier version, 3.3.4.1, it wouldn't even recognize my drive.

Is this image supposed to boot automatically in the JagCD? I burned it @ 16X using DiscJuggler but get the ?

Please bear in mind I burned this to a Memorex cd-r so maybe that has something to do with it.

EDIT: Even w/ Protector SE the cd won't load/be recognized

Hi, I'm a noob w/ Jagtopia and have been trying to load the Soulstar Demo with it vs using Protector SE.

According to the info here after the title screen appears- swap discs, press B and it should load.

All I've gotten so far is this blank screen

Is that normal for this particular disc (Soulstar Demo)? I see on the instructions for use of Jagtopia it says 'Sit back & your disc will hopefully boot.' Maybe this is an isolated instance where it won't boot at all? I've tried several times. Either way I'm good but was hoping for an alternative to carrying around ProtSE just to play SS.

Seems the JagCD I was using to test my discs was having some problems. Not only would it crash on the Hover Strike UL backup it would also crash using the real disk. Right after the opening scene on the backup. Even faster on the real disc. I was using Verbatim cd-r's, the best I could get quickly and locally.

I switched to another JagCD and all discs worked flawlessly. I ran out of Verbatim's and had to switch to Memorex. These don't play good. I have Jagtopia burned to a Memorex and sometimes it won't load (or be recognized?) at all.

The whole point in doing the backups was that I'd read no two images ever came out the same. If that was true, I was hoping for my own 'set' of unique burnable cdi's to have tucked away. However, at this point I'd be happy just to have working images at all (from the net.) Hopefully, this thread can serve as a 'trial & error' resource with the results of tested brands to save someone else the coaster factory I do seem to be racking up quite a stack. My lack of experience in this had me convinced that even if the discs were subpar, there would be something showing up on screen besides the ?. Once I had a working process documented I wanted to switch to the expensive stuff for final backups. Didn't know there was such a difference in the quality of brands or that the CD unit was so finicky.

I'd heard years ago and is reinforced via your post that Taiyo Yuden cd-r's were top notch but the price on these wouldn't altogether suggest that. Is there a better 'grade' or something or is that pretty standard as there's not a massive demand anymore?

My 2003 backups are on Emtec High Performance cdr but those are not easily available in the U.S. Unless anyone cares to recommend the best that they've had experience with, I'll assume Verbatim is solid (enough) for this type of project.

Hi, just wanted to offer my assistance in any way I could be of help. I'd like to see this game released too and since I literally do nothing all day at work but play Starfighter on 3DO, I thought I'd throw my name in the hat in case there was something I could do.

Kudos for the effort on Soulstar!

Thanks sh3-rg. Going to check this out when I get to a Jaguar!

Thanks a million for the info sh3-rg! The tutorial has already illustrated points I wasn't aware of in settings.

More than likely the media I'm using is subpar as well. I didn't want to spend a fortune on the good stuff while learning though.

I was using that trial version of DJ but didn't know about making it even slower to burn. I've used Alcohol 120% for all my burning so far on DAO/SAO @ 16x speed.

I will try DJ tonight.

Again, thanks for the info and since this is such a touchy subject please delete if I inadvertently caused any problem(s)

I got a question aswell too are there any new updates for VJ because my Brett Hull Hockey rom doesn't work on it !

Wow! B)

Updates on VJ have been slow, mainly because of, uh, shall we say, real life challenges. All that's holding up a real release now is finishing up the controller configuration, and I can do it the way I want now by switching to SDL2 (hotplug support--w00t!)--which will require a slight rewrite, but nothing too hairy. Just need to get time/motivation to do it.

That's great news I hope you're able to find the time but thanks for all you've done and the info

Hi, is there a version that's encrypted?

The one I have requires a bypass cart to load in JagCD. Thanks

The latest version I have is in the link in my initial post. It's from July 20 this year but not an official release.

Hi, I was reading the topics at AtariAge and FreeJag but I'm having the same issue with Battlemorph. (and only Battlemorph at the moment, I still have 3 others after BM to take on)

I'm trying to build a personal repository of images to store in my dropbox. I have burned and successfully tested these titles:

Baldies

Blue Lightning

Braindead 13

Dragon's Lair

Highlander

Hover Strike: Unconquered Lands (this was difficult and produced more coasters than the rest)

Myst

Primal Rage

Space Ace

I'm working on Battlemorph but although every attempt looks promising during the process, I always get the CD w/ ? mark on the Jaguar.

Can anyone help w/ the DiscJuggler settings or tell me what I'm doing wrong?

*********************************************************************************************

I've attempted ripping them with Alcohol, ImgBurn and DiskClone but they never work. I have Nero but haven't tried it yet.

I know this can be done (copied on the fly, at least) as I sent my entire CD collection to a friend in the U.K. in 2003 to be backed up. I have all those backups but I want to learn this process and have a set of burnable files, if possible. Any assistance is greatly appreciated

Later, I'll be taking on these titles:

Iron Soldier II

Vid Grid

World Tour Racing

Thanks for the info. Clicked the Bitcoin address link and got this message:

The address wasn't understood

Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because one of the following protocols (bitcoin) isn't associated with any program or is not allowed in this context.

You might need to install other software to open this address.

I've put researching Bitcoin on my to-do list but just from a quick search it looks a little complicated & risky :0

Going to see what I can find out

Hi, does anyone know if the VJ will ever include a 'Donate' button? I see that in other systems' emus and think it's great as sending over some $ on occasion to help support the support is always worth the investment imo. Plus, if it helps further the progress of this incredible endeavor, I'm all for it.

This emu is the bomb. It's saving (me, anyway) a lot of time and trouble being able to load up and play at work on my laptop.

Been checking the latest builds here but they're few and far between. Not that I'm complaining at all, quite the opposite. Trying to promote

Hi, I don't know the circumstances of JSII closing. Just know it happened the day after I signed back on after a fairly long absence.

It would irreplaceable in my opinion but I'm just glad so many forums are around that surround the Jaguar. And I'm glad to be here

That's great news! I'm going to try to get in on this run. I wasn't around for the initial one and I'm glad all hope's not lost

Will be checking in often for sure.