Sega Saturn emulation a love and hate relationship

BigusSchmuck · 07/07/2013, 11:07 PM

Am I the only one who thinks it still sucks mad balls? I spent hours today trying to get ssf and Yabause to work on my beast of a PC. When I finally got it up and going, Yabause had sound issues and SSF had this horrible flicker and graphical glitches that I couldn't ignore. Now before you go bashing on why I am using a emulator to play my games let me tell you this: U.S Saturn games have gone up in price considerably at least the ones I want to play (Dragon Force, Guardian Heroes, Shining Force etc) and the fact I really don't want to mod my Saturn to play backup copies only complicates matters. I will say Saturn emulation has come a long way but in all reality as it stands right now I may have to just cough up the cash and get the original games in order to enjoy them properly. Any thoughts or do I need to just take a chill pill and figure out how to configure these damn emulators even more?

Arkhan Asylum · 07/07/2013, 11:19 PM

Saturn Emulation is kinda like a blowjob from a like 90 year old lady.

It works, kinda.

but why would you want to do it!?

Duo_R · 07/07/2013, 11:31 PM

I use backups on modded Saturn for reasons that Ark says...emulation works but why use it?

Tatsujin · 07/07/2013, 11:59 PM

Why do you use Saturn emulation?

TheClash603 · 07/08/2013, 01:10 AM

Why do you use a Saturn emulator?

CGQuarterly · 07/08/2013, 01:52 AM

I would also like to know why. Saturn emulation is good for exactly one thing; taking screen shots. Sack up and mod your Saturn so that you can play burned games. Get Saturn Region Patcher and you don't even need to dick around with a region mod or Action Replay cart.

TR0N · 07/08/2013, 03:23 AM

Saturn emulation is iffy at least from what ive heard.Still the best way to play it is on the original hardware.Yes i know there are games that have sky rocketed in price.Maybe you should consider 'putting in a mod-chip to play burns,so you can save money on the expensive titles.

SignOfZeta · 07/08/2013, 03:41 AM

You aren't making any sense. Just play a burn or an import or whatever. I'd never piss with that garbage.

Fuck.

BigusSchmuck · 07/08/2013, 09:37 AM

It was more to see if it is actually as good as people were saying. At this point I'll probably just bite the bullet and get my Saturn modded as I wasn't sure last night if it was something I wanted to do until I researched it some more. Saturn emulation sucks ass enough said, I doubt I even want to use it to take screenshots, let alone play games.

DragonmasterDan · 07/08/2013, 10:04 AM

Quote from: TheClash603 on 07/08/2013, 01:10 AMWhy do you use a Saturn emulator?

Some time ago I wanted to play the semi-translated version of Dragon Force II. This left me with three options for playing it.

Option #1, buy a Saturn mod chip, attempt to install it myself and play the game.

Option #2 (this one was attempted). Play the game on a Saturn emulator.

Option #3 (what I wound up going with) attempt a swap trick with a Saturn to play the game on actual hardware.

Anyway, if I didn't want to modify (in the case of the swap trick I still had to disassemble and tape the door close button down) my Saturn in any way. The only option would have been to use an emulator, and unfortunately Saturn emulation is well behind most other systems in terms of compatibility.

For things like patched games, Saturn emulation would be useful. If it were better.

Added in edit: Just on a side note. For those who haven't played it Dragon Force II is definitely a blast to play, even if the translated version isn't fully in English. Just having all the menus and a little help from online was enough to get me through one of the characters scenarios. I really never gave the game a fair shake having had the Japanese version for over a decade, but having had a chance to play it in English I can highly recommend it.

JoshTurboTrollX · 07/08/2013, 11:58 AM

If we were to jump into the Saturn Mod Chip market, who around these parts could do that mod?

BigusSchmuck · 07/08/2013, 03:54 PM

Quote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on 07/08/2013, 11:58 AMIf we were to jump into the Saturn Mod Chip market, who around these parts could do that mod?

Good question. I could take a whack at it but I doubt my soldering skills is as good as some of these other fine members. What the Saturn really needs is a solderless solution via the cartridge slot and maybe combine a modchip with a 4 meg cart to really get things going... Or at the very least, have something like a everdrive where you can run isos off the cartridge slot and be done with it. Then again, I'm not exactly sure if the above is even feasible...

SamIAm · 07/10/2013, 04:07 PM

If you have a Saturn with a 32 pin IC chip, then you don't have to solder to any tiny chip legs. You just have to solder two wires to the big fat power source, which is stupidly easy.

Also, I seem to remember that the consensus on the segaxtreme forums, whose membership included all the western Saturn emulator coders, was that a no cartridge-based method was possible to make the Saturn play CD-Rs. The modchip itself doesn't disable the security check; it rather intercepts the system's call to the CD drive to look at the security code, and then it feeds back the correct code that the system is expecting. That's why it has to be installed through the ribbon cable that connects the motherboard to the drive.

As for emulation, I'd say one thing I'm interested in trying is savestates to practice hard spots in a couple of shooters. If I could finally learn to properly chain stages 4D, 4E and 5A in Radiant Silvergun, I could finally 1CC the Saturn mode.

SignOfZeta · 07/10/2013, 08:01 PM

Quote from: BigusSchmuck on 07/08/2013, 03:54 PM
Quote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on 07/08/2013, 11:58 AMIf we were to jump into the Saturn Mod Chip market, who around these parts could do that mod?
Good question. I could take a whack at it but I doubt my soldering skills is as good as some of these other fine members. What the Saturn really needs is a solderless solution via the cartridge slot and maybe combine a modchip with a 4 meg cart to really get things going... Or at the very least, have something like a everdrive where you can run isos off the cartridge slot and be done with it. Then again, I'm not exactly sure if the above is even feasible...

I've never seen a Saturn mod chip that wasn't solderless. Even the power can be hooked up without solder, just screw down the ground and shove the positive wire into the part of the power supply where it connects to the PCB.

Additionally, the only thing you *really* need to play boots on a Saturn is a piece of tape. Tape the door switch down and you can do a swap trick that is time consuming but safe.

For *region* you need to install a switch. This is a two wire switch, no chip. You can use a cart too, but I find them to be a pain in the ass.

esadajr · 07/11/2013, 09:25 AM

To the OP. You just have to fiddle a little bit more with SSF. It should work fine even on Win7 x64. It is the best Saturn emulator around.
(With all due respect to the programmers efforts) The other emus are just not worth your time.

If you have a WinXP machine around, you could try Cassini.

One big advantage of using emulaton is not having to worry about the battery draining and losing your progress.

Duo_R · 07/11/2013, 06:27 PM

Link to the translation patch? Awesome#

Quote from: DragonmasterDan on 07/08/2013, 10:04 AM
Quote from: TheClash603 on 07/08/2013, 01:10 AMWhy do you use a Saturn emulator?
Some time ago I wanted to play the semi-translated version of Dragon Force II. This left me with three options for playing it.

Option #1, buy a Saturn mod chip, attempt to install it myself and play the game.

Option #2 (this one was attempted). Play the game on a Saturn emulator.

Option #3 (what I wound up going with) attempt a swap trick with a Saturn to play the game on actual hardware.

Anyway, if I didn't want to modify (in the case of the swap trick I still had to disassemble and tape the door close button down) my Saturn in any way. The only option would have been to use an emulator, and unfortunately Saturn emulation is well behind most other systems in terms of compatibility.

For things like patched games, Saturn emulation would be useful. If it were better.

Added in edit: Just on a side note. For those who haven't played it Dragon Force II is definitely a blast to play, even if the translated version isn't fully in English. Just having all the menus and a little help from online was enough to get me through one of the characters scenarios. I really never gave the game a fair shake having had the Japanese version for over a decade, but having had a chance to play it in English I can highly recommend it.

DragonmasterDan · 07/12/2013, 09:33 PM

Quote from: Duo_R on 07/11/2013, 06:27 PMLink to the translation patch? Awesome#

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1622/

Duo_R · 07/12/2013, 11:27 PM

Is that one still sketchy or is it working pretty good?

BigusSchmuck · 07/13/2013, 01:13 AM

Quote from: DragonmasterDan on 07/12/2013, 09:33 PM
Quote from: Duo_R on 07/11/2013, 06:27 PMLink to the translation patch? Awesome#
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1622/

I sure hope they keep working on this and don't decide to stop and go do a pokemon translation. Yeah, that is cool though.

DragonmasterDan · 07/13/2013, 07:34 AM

Quote from: Duo_R on 07/12/2013, 11:27 PMIs that one still sketchy or is it working pretty good?

The menus, battle commands and such are translated. The story portions are partly translated for some characters.

Chuplayer · 08/11/2013, 09:52 PM

Quote from: esadajr on 07/11/2013, 09:25 AMTo the OP. You just have to fiddle a little bit more with SSF. It should work fine even on Win7 x64. It is the best Saturn emulator around.

Yeah, pretty much this. But you also have to essentially max out the emulator, and even then I think there was one more option that I had to manually adjust to get it working up to my level of satisfaction. I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm not saying every game works, but it was good for me.

I built my PC in November 2009.
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