by Tim "Tooth Protector" Warner (timandsusan2002 at earthlink dot net)
This tutorial will get you up and running very quickly playing Atari Jaguar games on your Microsoft Windows-based computer by using the wonderful Project Tempest emulator. Project Tempest is a pretty straightforward emulator, so you should get the hang of it very quickly. However, be forewarned that Project Tempest has some pretty stiff system requirements: expect sub-par performance on any computer with a CPU that is slower than 1 GHz. You'll find that you can run games at full speed (60 frames per second) and with full sound only if your computer's CPU is running at over 2.0 GHz. That said, let's get started!
To play Atari Jaguar games on your PC by using Project Tempest you'll need the following files:
Visit the following Web site to download the latest version of Project Tempest:
To find Atari Jaguar game ROMs, I would recommend that you visit ROMNation.net. Also, I would recommend that you search Usenet, IRC, and the peer-to-peer file-sharing networks for game ROMs.
After you have downloaded all required files, your first step is to use WinZip or some other ZIP file-management utility to unpack all of your files. Begin by creating a folder named on your hard drive (in this tutorial we will use a folder named JAGUAR) and unpacking the Project Tempest emulator files into it. While you are at it, also create a folder named ROMs to store your game ROM files, and place your game ROMs in there. After the file extraction your JAGUAR and ROMs folders should look something like the following:
That's it for initial configuration. Now let's start Project Tempest and get it configured to play some games.
To begin, open your JAGUAR folder and double-click PT.EXE to start up Project Tempest.
Open the Settings menu and choose Settings to configure application-wide configuration options.
The General tab of the Settings dialog box allows you to specify the EEPROM path. This path is where your savegame files will be stored.
The Video tab of the Settings dialog box allows you to toggle display of your game speed (frames per second, or FPS) and tweak other video-related options, including using full-screen mode.
The Sound tab of the Settings dialog box allows you to tweak audio settings. If you find that game performance is subpar on your computer, try disabling audio by setting the Sound mode option to No Sound.
When you are finished configuration changes, click OK to continue.
Now let's configure controls. Click Settings => Controllers from the Project Tempest interface window.
The Controller Settings dialog box is pretty straightforward. To change a key binding, click to place your cursor in the appropriate joypad command, and then click Set. The Press a key or a button dialog box appears:
Simply press the desired key on your keyboard or gamepad and the new mapping will display in the Controller Settings dialog box. When you are finished configuring your keyboard or DirectInput-compatible gamepad, click OK to continue.
To play an Atari Jaguar game with Project Tempest, open Project Tempest and then click File => Open ROM.
In the Open ROM File dialog box, use the Places Bar and/or the Look in drop-down list to navigate to your Jaguar ROMs folder. Next, select the game to be played and click Open.
You can reset, start, or stop the emulation at any time by opening the Emulation menu in Project Tempest or by pressing F1, F2, or F3, respectively.
That's all there is to it. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Happy gaming!