BigPEmu website
Rich Whitehouse: [Twitter] [Patreon]
Before continuing, I wanna mention that the author of this new from-scratch Jag emulator is actively seeking support on Patreon as he deals with what sounds like very very serious cancer. My heart aches for him and I'm sure any financial support would be appreciated.
That said: Yes, new Atari Jaguar emulator! It's called BigPEmu--the "P" stands for Pussycat--and it looks like we finally have a reliable way to try out the entire Jaguar cartridge library outside of the increasingly expensive original hardware. (Jaguar emulation, to date, has... not been a solved problem.)
It's currently for Windows but is said to be highly portable, with Linux and Mac on the roadmap.
The BigPEmu website goes into detail on its impressive feature set, which includes 100% support of known Jaguar cartridges, deterministic emulation that allows for demo recording and playback, flexible input binding, Jag keypad image overlays, an original Nesticle-ass UI, and (bless) support for RetroArch-level shaders and borders:
Future plans include greater timing accuracy, Jaguar CD support (on hold until he can acquire the CD unit), Jaguar VR support (last year the same fellow resurrected the Mega Drive Sega VR prototypes!), and JagLink implementation (various Jag games support network play!).
Here's a video of BigPEmu in action:
When I saw his announcement I wondered, does this have some relation to the Jaguar emulation seen in Digital Eclipse's recent commercial product Atari 50? Sure does.
Q: Where's the source code?"
"A: Due to private contractual obligations, I can't release BigPEmu's source code at this time. It's only by the legal miracle working of the fine people at Digital Eclipse that I'm able to release this emulator publicly, and to continue working on it in my own time.
Hopefully the source will open up at some point. For now, though, I'm just glad to see that this work is so achievable and hell, now it's playable. What a lovely surprise (and I'm not even a fan of the Jag). I am just... worried for the human behind it. Here's one more link to his Patreon. Boosts (rechoosts? lmao) appreciated.
