Tito’s Ultimate Atari Jaguar Upgrades

Tito from Macho Nacho Productions recently posted a video showing how he fully restored his Atari Jaguar. This is exactly what I’d do to a Jaguar as well and even if you don’t feel the need to upgrade yours, definitely check out the recommended maintenance and at least get a sense of what the best upgrades are. I’ve actually convered them all on RetroRGB over the years, so I’ll post links to each one if you’d like more information:

Atari Jaguar Console

If you don’t have one, what better time than now? That’s an eBay paid affiliate link. If I don’t annoyingly put this here, they’ll harass me.

JagAIOA Plus:

Unless you already have a high quality video cable perfectly integrated into your setup, I strongly recommend the JagAIOA – Its fully plug and play, breaks out all video signals, uses a common Genesis 2 multi-out for RGB, looks like a factory add-on and is even compatible with Zaxour’s bypass. And the “plus” version has a network adapter, which is mostly useless but friggin awesome.

ROM Cart:

RetroHQ’s Jaguar GameDrive lets you play all Jaguar games and even a bunch of Jaguar CD games too. Unless you own every game you want to play, definitely consider one.

Motherboard Upgrades

Zaxour released a bunch of upgrades for the motherboard that may be worth considering. There’s a power protection mod, as well as a full power circuit replacement, which can revive a Jaguar that’s been shorted out by using the wrong PSU. There’s also an RGB video bypass, that’s about the same upgrade as an SNES 2-chip bypass – If you use RGB SCART cables, it’s definitely something to consider. There’s also an audio circuit update as well, if you’re playing through anything other than basic TV speakers.
One note: The audio and video mods are fully compatible with the JagAIOA. It’s my personal preference to leave the RF box installed so no functionality is removed, then use the JagAIOA for output. Totally up to you though.

Cleaning:

Anything that’s 30 years old needs cleaning. Tito’s methods are exactly what I’d recommend if it’s very dirty. If nothing else, disassemble it, vacuum it out and reassemble it.

Capacitor Replacement Kit:

While Jaguar’s aren’t known for leaking capacitors, this is the one component that’s absolutely going to fail at some point. If you’re doing a restoration or upgrade, might as well change the caps too.

Analog + “HDMI” Output

There’s also an HDMI plug and play adapter that’s about the same “quality” as a Pound cable. So, pretty terrible. BUT, it includes the same high quality analog out circuit as the JagAIOA! So if you want to game on a CRT while streaming in 720p, it’s actually really cost effective and a great option. LOL, just don’t game with the HDMI output.

…and while I’d strongly recommend watching Tito’s video, I did a livestream a few years ago demoing a lot of this. I was joined by James from RetroHQ, who’s always a good time. Check that out if you’re interested:

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