Jaguar CD

Overview

The Atari Jaguar CD is a CD-ROM add-on for the Atari Jaguar and shares the jaguar system group so metadata scraping and themes remain consistent with cartridge titles. Only a handful of official Jaguar CD products exist, yet homebrew and unfinished projects continue to surface.

Quick reference

• ROM folder: /userdata/roms/jaguarcd
• Accepted ROM formats: .cue, .cdi, .bigpimg (BigPEmu only)
• Emulators: RetroArch (libretro: virtualjaguar for cartridges, though it does not support CD content), BigPEmu (standalone)
• System group: jaguar

BIOS

No Jaguar CD emulator in REG-Linux requires a separate BIOS file.

ROMs

Place Jaguar CD images in /userdata/roms/jaguarcd using one of the supported extensions. The BigPEmu .bigpimg format is preprocessed for that emulator and should sit next to its corresponding metadata.

Saves

Jaguar CD saves live under /userdata/saves/jaguarcd so each title can store its EEPROM/flash data separately.

Emulators

RetroArch

RetroArch provides libretro: virtualjaguar, but that core only handles cartridge images. It appears in the Jaguar CD documentation for completeness; use Virtual Jaguar for .j64/.jag content and switch to BigPEmu for CDs.

BigPEmu

BigPEmu emulates both Jaguar cartridges and Jaguar CD hardware and is the only option on REG-Linux that truly supports CD titles. It runs on x86_64 builds only.

Jaguar Game Drive emulation

Some CDs rely on the Jaguar Game Drive (JGD) hardware. Enable the emulated JGD inside BigPEmu by pressing [Esc], navigating to System → Settings → Force JGD Emulation and turning the option on.

Per-game profiles

BigPEmu uses .bigpcfg files to store per-game tweaks. Copy the template config from /userdata/saves/bigpemu-bottle/drive_c/users/root/AppData/Roaming/BigPEmu/BigPEmuConfig.bigpcfg and rename it to match your CD image (e.g., RiseOfTheRobot.bigpcfg), then place it next to the ROM so BigPEmu loads those values automatically.

Controls

Jaguar CD titles rely on the same Jaguar controller overlay as cartridge games. Use the REG-Linux Retropad layout or adjust mappings through the emulator menus.